Hello everyone, I’m supposed to write this essay regarding to the Italian Unification for my A-Level. The essay should be around a minimum of 4 pages and currently I’m experiencing difficulties on what to write about. Although I do have some ideas about the contents I am finding it hard to expand beyond the basic ideas. Bear in mind that I’ve only just started this course and the question did come up quite prematurely, before I could fully grasp the knowledge of the period properly.

“How far do you agree that the greatest obstacle to the growth of nationalism in Italy before 1849 was the lack of outside support?”

Now we’ve just recently studied the uprising of the Carbonari in 1820-21, the revolutions of Modena and Parma in 1831 and the revolutions of 48 in several different Italian states. So the question could be rephrased as to “How far do you think that a lack of outside support contributed to the failures of the uprisings in Italy before 1849?”
Now the natural idea is that Italian unification could not be achieved without external support i.e. France in 1860, so the basic answer could be that a lack of outside support played a major part… blah, blah. However, there were of course other obstacles, such as a lack of unity and little popular support from the masses. Also there’s that one big implication whether Italy actually wanted any outside help; the view of Mazzini is that Italy wouldn’t need/want any other major powers to intervene since in helping Italy they’ll probably want something in return, so the idea of outside support would’ve probably be rejected by the all of the revolutionaries anyway.

I’m also uncertain about what the conclusion should be like. In hindsight it’s obvious that Italy could never unite herself, the power of Piedmont was simply too weak to do it on her own, so France was needed. But we’re talking pre-1849 here, plus the wording of the question is “obstacle to the growth of nationalism”, personally I don’t think a lack of foreign support hindered the growth of Italian Nationalism much, since the ideas of Risorgimento still spread through Mazzini’s propaganda and all. Somehow I kind of feel a bit confused by the wording of the question, so any help on the issue would be greatly appreciated. I must confess that my knowledge on the Risorgimento is very meagre and although the local libraries did provide a reasonable amount of help, I still don’t feel confident enough to produce a quality essay. Any idea, suggestion or educated guesses are welcome.

Thanks in advance for your help.