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revolt in Calabria; traditional patterns of labour migration were exploited as a means of spreading disaffection on the mainland; and everything possible was done to facilitate the operations of the numerous smugglers active around the southern coasts of Italy. When Murat got wind of Metternich’s plan to depose him, it was therefore the last straw. Mobilizing his army, he proclaimed a war of Italian liberation, and marched north to attack the Austrians. The latter, however, were ready for him: any man who fled to the Austrian camp having been promised grants of land, large numbers of Neapolitan soldiers deserted, and on 1-2 May Murat was beaten at Tolentino. As Bentinck had already discovered, Italian nationalism was in its infancy and it was a weapon Murat simply could not use to any effect. Among those members of the elite who had served the Napoleonic administration, the new British ambassador to Tuscany, Lord Burghersh, conceded there was much support for a unified Italy: ‘In Tuscany to belong to an army which may amount to 30,000 or4,000 men cannot flatter the pride of any man; in a civil line, the service required by the government is necessarily on so small a scale, and . . . the rewards so limited that neither the ambition of the rich man nor the wants of the poor man with talents will find their reward in devoting themselves to the service of their country.’ But the populace as a whole was a different matter. Wherever the Austrians had appeared, Burghersh admitted, ‘the manner in which their officers, as well as men, have behaved themselves, as also the heavy contributions which have been raised by the generals, have given universal dissatisfaction, and, I fear, have totally alienated from them the minds of the Italian people’. But that did not equate to nationalism. As he continued:

The glory of the ancient Italian name would excite some ardour in certain sections of the lower orders. It would, however, be confined to those who are exasperated against the German troops. For I am persuaded that, with the people of Italy, no measure could be so hurtful or unpopular as the forming of the country into one kingdom. The different states into which it has so long been divided have separated the feelings and interests of the people. The inhabitants of no separate country hate each other more thoroughly than those of the neighbouring states of Italy . . . The people are, besides, attached to their different capitals. They glory in the privileges they enjoy, and the inhabitants of Naples, Rome and Florence would be most unwilling to see their cities reduced to the state of provincial towns. With feelings such as I have described, the project of an Italian kingdom . . . might for a moment be established, but I doubt its being popular with the mass of the people: its after-details would encounter the greatest difficulties.47

To prove the point, it is only necessary to conclude the story of Joachim Murat. An adventurer to the last, having escaped Tolentino and gone into exile in France, in October 1815 he landed in Calabria with a handful of followers and in the marketplace of Pizzo again proclaimed a crusade for a united Italy. Initially, the response was stupefaction - the people really did not seem to have any conception of what he meant - but then an old woman recognized him for who he was. Screaming that he had had four of her sons shot, she fell upon him with fists flailing, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he escaped being lynched on the spot.

Within hours Murat had been court-martialled and executed. No sooner had the fighting begun in Belgium than the emperor’s dreams were revealed to be just as empty. Despite a series of extraordinary mistakes on the part of Wellington, on 16 June Napoleon failed decisively to defeat either of the two armies facing him in the twin battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras. In the first instance this was the result of faulty staff work and the stupidity of the commander of the French left wing, Marshal Ney. Yet Napoleon himself cannot be exonerated: not only could