🇪🇺AP European History
1. Evaluate the extent to which competing visions of the state shaped political change in Italy and Germany from 1831 to 1881.
Respond to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis or claim that establishes a line of reasoning.
Describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt.
Support an argument using at least four of the provided documents.
Use at least one additional piece of specific historical evidence beyond the documents.
For at least two documents, explain how or why the document's point of view, purpose, historical situation, or audience is relevant.
Demonstrate a complex understanding through sophisticated argumentation and/or effective use of evidence.
Document 1
Source: Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, politician from Piedmont-Sardinia, journal article, 1846.
The settlement imposed on Italy by the Congress of Vienna was as arbitrary as it was defective. It was based on no principle, not even that of legitimacy. Certainly it was not based on national interests or popular will. A democratic revolution has no chance of success in Italy. Active power resides almost exclusively in the middle class and part of the upper class, both of which have ultraconservative interests to defend. All true friends of the country must recognize that they cannot truly help their fatherland except by gathering in support of legitimate monarchs who have their roots deep in the national soil.
Document 2
Source: Pope Pius IX, published statement, 1848.
We cannot refrain from repudiating, before the face of all nations, the treacherous advice of those who would have the pope be the head and preside over the formation of some sort of novel republic of the whole Italian people. Moved by the love I bear them, I do urgently warn and exhort the Italian people to abstain with all diligence from such counsels, deceitful and ruinous to Italy. The Italian people should abide in close attachment to their respective sovereigns, of whose goodwill they have already had experience, so as never to let themselves be torn away from the obedience they owe them.
Document 3
Source: Otto von Bismarck, Prussian Prime Minister, conversation concerning possible territorial settlements, 1870.
As you see, we are keeping Metz, but I confess I do not like that part of the arrangement. Strasbourg is German in speech, and will be so in heart ten years hence. Metz, however, is French, and will be a hotbed of disaffection for a long time to come.
Document 4
Source: Kaiser Wilhelm I's speech opening the Reichstag, Berlin, November 1881
We, Wilhelm, German Emperor by the Grace of God, King of Prussia announce that in February of this year, We let Our conviction be known that curing social defects will be pursued not only through the repression of Social Democratic excesses but also through the promotion of workers' welfare. We deem it Our Imperial Duty to urge the Reichstag to take this task to heart once again. We would look back with all the more satisfaction on the many successes with which God has blessed Our government [and] We could be content having left the fatherland lasting guarantees of internal peace and having given the needy greater security and the assistance to which they are entitled. We trust that we have the support of the Reichstag, despite party differences. The draft bill submitted during the last session on insuring workers against industrial accidents will be revised. Another bill will be added; the additional bill will give consistent organization to the commercial health insurance system. [It should not be forgotten], however, that all those persons who have become unfit for gainful employment through age or disability also have a legitimate claim to a greater degree of state welfare than they have received thus far. Finding the proper ways and means to ensure this level of welfare is difficult, but it is also one of the highest tasks of any community that rests upon the moral foundation of a Christian national life.
Document 5
Source: Jessie White Mario, English journalist, letter to the editor, The New York Times, 1858
Every inch of ground won by Italians for Italy in 1848 and 1849 was won by republicans, and at the close of that year Italy would have been free from foreigners, would have been free, independent and united, had not monarchy stepped in and substituted the petty longings of dynastic ambition for the great national aim.
Document 6
Source: Giuseppe Mazzini, attorney from Genoa, exiled from Piedmont in 1831, manifesto, 1831.
Young Italy is the brotherhood of Italians who believe in a law of Progress and Duty, are convinced that Italy is called to be a nation, and that Italy can make itself one through its own strength. The secret of Italy's strength lies in constancy and unified effort. Young Italy stands for the republic and unity. Italy should be a republic because it really has no basis for existing as a monarchy. Unity, because without unity there can be no true nation, and without unity there is no strength.
Document 7
Source: Ferdinand Lassalle, German political activist, "The Workers' Program," public speech delivered in Berlin, 1862.
It is the state whose function is to carry on . . . the development of the human race until its freedom is attained. The state is this unity of individuals into a moral whole, a unity which increases a million-fold the strength of all individuals . . . and makes them capable of acquiring an amount of education, power, and freedom which would have been wholly unattainable by them as individuals. . . . A state ruled by the ideas of the working class . . . would make this moral nature of the state its mission.
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