Unification of Italy: Count Cavour's Brilliance

 

Three names are linked with Italian unification, but the efforts of  Count Camillo Cavour are most responsible for the creation of a modern Italian state. Unlike Giuseppe Mazzini, a radical revolutionary and Giuseppe Garibaldi, Cavour was a realist who, like the Prussian Otto von Bismarck, employed Realpolitik to advance the goals of Risorgimento. Cavour’s skillful manipulation of diplomacy and military use culminated in a unified Italy, ruled by Victor Immanuel II.

 

Early Stages of Unification

 

As the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, Cavour strengthened the kingdom. A monarchist and a nationalist, Cavour reformed taxation, stabilized the currency, and dramatically improved the railway system. In 1853, he supported the French and British in the Crimean War with troops, hoping to enhance the prestige of Piedmont-Sardinia. Although the peace settlements did not yield substantive results, Cavour impressed Napoleon III, who would assist Cavour in expelling Austria from Italy.

 

The French alliance occurred in 1858 and was followed by the mobilization of Italian troops. Austria sent Piedmont-Sardinia a demand to demobilize, and subsequently declared war. This was exactly what Cavour had hoped for. The Austrians were defeated in two crucial battles at Magenta and Solferino with the help if the French. The resulting peace treaty ceded Lombardy to Piedmont-Sardinia.

 

In the wake of victory, Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and Romanga united with Piedmont-Sardinia. Only Venetia and Trieste remained a part of Austria. A plebiscite was used by Cavour to formalize the incorporation of these Italian principalities. The incorporation of the Papal States and Naples represented the next phase of unification.

 

Final Italian Unification

 

In 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi and his army of “Red shirts” landed in Sicily. Taking Polermo, Garibaldi continued to Naples, on the Italian mainland, and “liberated” the kingdom. Cavour rushed to confront Garibaldi who ultimately acquiesced and yielded to Piedmont-Sardinia. Cavour completed Italian unification with the incorporation of the Papal States.

 

By 1870, King Victor Emmanuel II ruled as the first king of a united Italy from Rome. The pope, protected until 1870 by French troops, was forced to accept the loss of church lands and confined himself to the Vatican. This small enclave would become an independent state in 1929 as a result of the Lateran Accord.

 

France, for its assistance, received Nice and Savoy. In 1866, Venetia became part of Italy following Italian support of Prussia in the Seven Weeks’ War against Austria. Although Cavour died shortly after the final establishment of an Italian state, his efforts resulted in the formation of an Italian nation that had not been unified since the fall of Rome. The absence of strong leadership doomed unification to weak government.

 

Unification did not represent conformity or state power, however, as in the case of German unification. Italy represented vastly different social and cultural experiences. The North was relatively progressive, industrialized, and wealthy. Southern Italy was poor, agricultural, and provincial. Despite the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, Italian politics became identified with corruption and scandal. The absence of strong leadership, either in the monarchy or civil government, stifled true economic and political progress.

 

Sources:

 

Martin Collier, Italian Unification 1820-1871 (Heinemann Educational Publishers, 2003).

Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (Simon and Schuster, 1994).

Denis Mack Smith, Cavour and Garibaldi 1860: a Study in Political Conflict (Cambridge, 1985).

 

Desensitizing the German Population to Nazi Atrocities  

Isolating Jews in Nazi German Society 1933-1939

By the time the NASDP obtained power and its leader, Adolf Hitler, achieved dictatorship powers through the “Enabling Act” of early 1933, systematic steps were put into place designed to isolate German Jews from a society that had accepted them since German unification of 1871. The Nazis Party had always held virulent anti-Semitic views. Indeed, Hitler’s blueprint to eradicate “world Jewry,” Mein Kampf, had been available since its first publication in 1925 and 1926. The 1933 political victory in Germany allowed the new Nazi regime to pursue a series of policies that ultimately culminated with the infamous Wannsee Conference of January 1942.

 

1933 – 1939

 

Historian Marion A. Kaplan states that, “from the outset, the Nazi government used legislation, administrative decrees, and propaganda to defame and ostracize Jews and to lower their social, economic, and legal standing.” Some German Jews were involved in the Labor Movement or were members and activists in the Communist Party. It became second nature for the regime to equate these Jews with Communism and arrest, torture, and imprison them as enemies of the state. It was not too long before the terms “Bolshevik” and “Communist” became synonymous with “Jew.”

 

By September 1935, the Nuremberg Laws formally restricted the rights of German Jews and impacted their ability to function economically. Boycotts of Jewish businesses had been encouraged as early as 1933. By the end of 1935, precise racial definitions attempted to set apart Jews from pure blooded Germans. Jewish doctors were forbidden to treat non-Jews, Jewish teachers lost their jobs, and other professionals were forbidden to work in  German communities.

 

The constant stream of propaganda, coupled with a strengthened police state relying on citizen informers in assisting the Gestapo, made it dangerous to be a Jew in Germany. German children were forbidden to play with Jewish children. The burning of books by Jewish authors had begun as early as May 1933 in Berlin. By the middle of the decade, music by Jewish composers was banned and certain genres like Jazz were deemed degenerate and were prohibited. A special exhibit of “degenerate” art opened in Munich in 1937 and was designed to educate Germans on the dangers posed by Jewish artists.

 

On November 9-10, 1938, Germans took to the streets, destroying Jewish business, burning synagogues, and murdering Jews in what was called Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). Some of the worst atrocities occurred in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna. Historian Evan Bukey writes, “it was a medieval pogrom in ‘modern dress’…gangs of Nazis roamed the streets…desecrating synagogues, cleaning out department stores, and raiding apartments.” Austria had joined with Germany in March 1938 resulting from the Anschluss plebiscite.

 

Jews attempting to leave Germany faced many obstacles. In a humiliating series of steps, the bureaucracy stripped exiting Jews of all assets. Jews were forced to sell businesses at below “fire sale” prices. In May 1939, more than nine hundred Jews were given exit visas to travel to Cuba aboard the St. Louis. A propaganda ploy, Cuban authorities refused to honor entrance visas and no other country, including the United States, would grant these unfortunates a safe haven.

 

Desensitization

 

The process of turning ordinary citizens into a despised group took only a decade, although some would argue that anti-Semitism had always been present in Germany society since the early Middle Ages. Yet, by 1900, German Jews had mainstreamed into society better than in other European societies. France had experienced far greater eruptions of anti-Semitism in the latter part of the 19^th century than had Germany. The process of desensitizing a population and marginalizing one part of that society was accomplished over a relatively short period of time. This is the principal lesson of the 1930s.

 

Noted Sources

 

Evan Burr Bukey, Hitler’s Austria: Popular Sentiment in the Nazi Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000)

 

Marion A Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)

 

 The Temptations of Christ

The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness by Satan is recounted briefly in Mark 1:12ff and elaborated upon in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13. It occurred after the baptism of Jesus during which God declared him to be his “beloved son.”

 

The Wilderness Temptations Compared

 

All accounts in every version of the New Testament state that Jesus’ sojourn in the wilderness began immediately after the baptism in the Jordan. The immediacy is intricately connected with the baptism events. Mark’s account, coming from Peter according to some scholars, was written a generation after the event. It is also worth asking how the story was passed down over those years.

 

Did Jesus relate the story of the temptation to Peter or any of the other Apostles? Certainly there were no witnesses. If Jesus had recounted the story of the temptation, why is Mark’s account far shorter than that of Matthew and Luke, both gospels written twenty years after Mark’s? In those latter gospels, the order of temptations two and three are reversed.

 

Mark describes Jesus in the wilderness, tempted by Satan. He was “with wild beasts” and angels ministered to him. The other accounts provide far more detail and chronology. Did these details comprise an oral tradition?

 

Chrysostom, an early 4^th Century Church Father, spiritualizes the story by comparing Christ in the wilderness with Eve’s Genesis encounter with Satan; both were alone and tempted, yet Eve succumbed.

 

While this might serve as a misogynist analogy on the part of Chrysostom, the narrative parallels promote more questions than answers. Might such analogies suggest the development of thought based on existing culture?

 

Substance of the Temptations

 

Elaine Pagels, in The Origin of Satan, incorporates the event into a larger framework of good versus evil: “All of the New Testament gospels…depict Jesus’ execution as the culmination of the struggle between good and evil – between God and Satan – that began at his baptism.” (12)

 

Both Matthew and Luke record three separate temptations. In every case, Jesus responded to the temptation with scripture. From Luke 4:1-13 it is clear that Satan also knew scripture, using it to tempt Jesus into proving who he was, a fact Satan already knew from the second temptation.

 

The second temptation is quite remarkable for a number of reasons. In verse 5, the writer states that Satan “led him up” to show him all kingdoms in a “moment of time.” Most modern versions include the phrase “took him up” or “led him up;” the King James Version, however, states that Satan took him up to a “high mountain.”

 

Williams translates the “moment of time” as “a second of time.” Presumably, this included “all kingdoms” within the chronology of mankind, clearly indicating a beginning and an end. Both Satan and Jesus went beyond human time, the living moment, to see all of creation in an instant.

 

In offering this to Jesus, Satan relates that, “It has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever.” From this Christendom has deduced that the role of Satan and the earth, including its institutions, involves a very direct relationship. For many Christians, it helps to explain evil in the world and why bad things happen to good people.

 

It is also obvious that Satan knew the mission and message of Jesus. This was nothing short of an act of redemption, not only for mankind, i.e. reconciling sinful man with God, but destroying forever a cosmological evil that had upset the celestial equilibrium.

 

Sources:

 

Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, “Mark,” Thomas C. Oden, General Editor (Intervarsity Press, 1988)

Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan Random House, 1995)

Charles B. Williams, The New Testament in the Language of the People (Moody Press, 1963)

New American Standard Bible, Reference Edition (Moody Press, 1973)

The New American Bible for Catholics (World Bible Publishers, 1991)

 

Militant Christian Hymns and Anthems

Onward, Christian Soldiers represents one of the most popular hymns that uses military imagery, but there are many others, taking their inspiration from Bible passages like Ephesians 6.13 where St Paul advises Christians to take up, “…the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.” Various Christian hymns capitalize on themes in Ephesians 6, stressing both the defensive and offensive aspects of the “full armor.” Ironically, Martin Luther, who introduced bold congregational singing, uses medieval war imagery in A Mighty Fortress is Our God, but never asks Christians to act as soldiers.

 

Symbolism in Militant Hymnology

 

Christian hymns that use military terms employ a number of symbols. Sabine Baring-Gould’s Onward Christian Soldiers compares Christians to a “mighty army” that is “marching as to war.” The hymn was sung at the 1912 Progressive Party national political convention that nominated Teddy Roosevelt as a third party presidential candidate. Baring-Gould was an Anglican priest who wrote numerous books on Church history and English folklore. His hymn has frequently been identified with the Salvation Army.

 

Soldiers of Christ Arise advises Christians to put on the full armor; Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus reminds Christians to obey the “trumpet call.” Hymns like Hold the Fort and As a Volunteer raise military images from the titles of the hymns. As a Volunteer argues for, “a call for loyal soldiers…soldiers for the conflict, will you heed the call!” In the hymn, “Jesus is the Captain.”

 

Are such symbols supported by biblical references or injunctions? Does Ephesians 6 call for an army? Putting on the full armor of God is a direct consequence of being “strong in the Lord,” as found in the preceding verse and as part of the paragraph. (verses 10-21)

 

The Army of God and the Full Armor

 

Christians as part of God’s army is a recurring theme in several hymns. Who Is on the Lord’s Side? by Frances R. Havergal states, “Enter we the army, raise the warrior psalm.” Isaac Watts writes, “Sure I must fight, if I would reign; Increase my courage, Lord; I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain…” (Am I a Soldier of the Cross?) In The Banner of the Cross the cross is “an ensign fair.” Military symbols of armies and war resonated with Christians that could identify with the many wars of the 18th and 19^th Centuries. But war symbolism may defeat the Gospel message. Jesus told Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world. He could have summoned legions of angels, but he didn’t. In the Middle Ages, Francis of Assisi traded his armor for a brown robe.

 

Military symbols, like Paul’s “full armor,” were spiritual. In Sound the Battle Cry, William F. Sherwin tells Christians to “gird your armor on…marching as we go…” Baring-Gould, author of Onward Christian Soldiers, wrote a book of medieval legends, one of which included the story of St George, an army hero who was executed for his faith during the Diocletian persecution. During his torture, an angel appeared, gave him a military salute, and healed him of his wounds. Perhaps Baring-Gould thought of this when he wrote, “Brothers we are treading, where the saints have trod…” In the 21^st Century, armies no longer march.

 

Christian hymn writers would have also been familiar with John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. In the allegory, Christian, on the “King’s highway,” wears his suit of armor that includes the Belt of Truth, the Shield of Faith, and the Sword of the Spirit. The belt and the shield are taken from Ephesians 6.14-17a; they are defensive weapons. The sword, “which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6.17b), is an offensive weapon. The offensive nature of the Spirit, however, is manifested in prayer.

 

God Protects His People from the Devil

 

Martin Luther lived amidst a time of constant European warfare. But in his greatest hymn, A Mighty Fortress, he never tells Christians to act as warriors or fight as soldiers. Rather, Christians are protected by the “mighty fortress” which is God. God does the fighting.

 

God is the “bulwark never failing.” The imagery referred to the many medieval citadels or “burgs” that dotted the German countryside. Each one was a refuge for the surrounding populace when an enemy appeared. The hymn begins with the symbol of a castle – perhaps like the Wartburg where Luther hid after his defense before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms. The hymn ends, however, with “God’s truth.”

 

Hymns Reflect Contemporary Values and Symbols

 

The image of Christians “marching to Zion” may not reflect Christian views in a post modern society. The Church is militant in that its people are enjoined to lead lives reflective of Gospel truths, but this militancy should not be tied to symbols of war, weapons, or armies. The full armor of God, though defensive, was more correctly defined by Luther: God provides the refuge but does the fighting.

 

During the Civil War, both the North and the South read the same Bible and prayed to the same God. Abraham Lincoln noted this in his Second Inaugural Address. But both sides also sang the same hymns. Many of the prominent soldiers were fervent Christians; Leonidas Polk – a West Pointer, was an Episcopal bishop. “Stonewall” Jackson distributed Bibles and Lew Wallace – a failure as a general, authored Ben Hur.

 

The Psalmist tells readers to “make a joyful noise” and to “enter his courts with praise…” (Psalm 100.4) Praise is also translated as thanksgiving. Although contemporary Christians may not take military symbols in hymns literally, the imagery can produce undesirable conclusions. Armies fight other armies. As Luther demonstrated in A Mighty Fortress, however, the enemy is personified by the devil: God desires everyone to live within his protected refuge.

 

Sources:

 

Sabine Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, New York: Oxford University Press, 1978

Favorite Hymns of Praise, Chicago: Tabernacle Publishing Company, 1967

New American Standard Bible, Chicago: Moody Press, 1973

Service Book and Hymnal Of The Lutheran Church of America, Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1958

[copyright owned by Michael Streich;reprints require written permission]

 

 Earthquakes in the Ancient Civilization

Seventeen years before the Roman city of Pompeii was buried in volcanic ash, the plateau beneath Mount Vesuvius experienced severe earthquakes. Throughout the ancient Mediterranean, earthquakes displaced civilizations or, as in the case of Knossos, blotted them out entirely. Earthquakes were associated with divine retribution as well as assistance such as the crumbling of Jericho’s walls. Natural events foretold life and death. In the Gospel of Matthew, for example, the sky darkened amidst an earthquake at the moment of Jesus’ crucifixion in Jerusalem. (27:54)

 

The Destruction of the Minoan Civilization

 

Santorini is today a favorite tourist destination for visitors cruising the Greek islands in the Eastern Mediterranean. In ca 1500 B.C.E. it was known as Thera, begun as a Minoan city utterly destroyed by an earthquake and a volcanic eruption surpassing the power and damage of the 1883 Krakatoa eruption. According to researchers like Arturo Gonzalez, huge tidal waves overwhelmed many of the islands and, “…started floods as far away as Egypt…”

 

C. W. Ceram relates how Sir Arthur Evans solved the mystery of Knossos’ destruction following a massive earthquake (Gods, Graves and Scholars). This vibrant mercantile civilization was obliterated by earthquakes and possibly as a result of tidal waves related to the Thera explosion. Earthquakes frequently devastated coastal communities. In Southern Turkey, ruins of Roman communities such as Cnidus have been submerged.

 

Ancient World Earthquakes Associated with Divine Assistance and Punishment

 

Astronomer and Bible scholar Alfred Joy writes that, “In the Scriptures earthquakes are mentioned as tokens of God’s power…” Oberlin College professor George Frederick Wright, commenting on Jericho, compares the falling of the city’s walls (Joshua 2-6) with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Jericho was built on ground vulnerable to earthquakes since the first settlements during the Prepottery Neolithic period.

 

In some cases, earthquakes were harbingers of the future, associated, for example, with Armageddon (Matthew 24:3-7; Revelation 11:13.19) Earthquakes in Jerusalem were particularly significant as in the death of Christ whose final words coincided with an earthquake.

 

Earthquakes Destroy Atlantic and Pompeii

 

Two celebrated stories from the ancient Mediterranean involve the power of earthquakes. Pompeii was discovered in the 19^th Century but Atlantis remains a mystery. The agonizing destruction of Pompeii is well told from the ruins themselves as well as eye-witness testimony by Pliny the Younger in a detailed letter to Tacitus.

 

Atlantis, however, is still a mystery, prompted by Plato’s reference in Timaeus. According to Plato, Atlantis sank into the earth after experiencing “violent earthquakes and floods…” Writer Robert Arndt briefly chronicles contemporary research suggesting Atlantis was the sunken Minoan city on Thera where 36,000 people died following the spectacular earth upheavals.

 

Historians speculate as to the ramifications of an eruption and earthquake in 1500 B.C.E. Did this coincide with the decline of Peloponnesian culture and curb further Hittite expansion? Were these events related to the ultimate destruction of Knossos?

 

Ancient Mediterranean Earthquakes Impact Civilizations

 

Earthquake fault lines run through part of Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. Some researchers like Joy believe that earthquakes were more frequent in the ancient world and because coastal port communities were important, their inundation through quakes and tidal waves drove ancient legends.

 

Additionally, as in the case of Pompeii, past eruptions left fertile lands, prompting the reestablishment of previously successful communities. Earthquakes, however, played a significant role in the rise and fall of civilizations.

 

Sources:

 

Robert Arndt, “Santorini,” Saudi Aramco World (July/August 1973)

Alfred H. Joy, “Earthquake,” The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Volume II (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1939)  

Arthuro F. Gonzalez, “Atlantis: Legend Lives on,” Saudi Aramco World, Volume 23, Number 3, (May/June 1972)

Salvatore Nappo, Pompeii (Barnes & Noble, 1998)

New American Standard Bible (Moody Press, 1973)

George Frederick Wright, “Jericho,” The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Volume III (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1939)