CHAPTER IV 



The Revival of the Plebiscite in Italy 



The annexations of the French Republic on the basis of 

 the plebiscite as the expression of the sovereign will of the 

 people to be thus annexed were, with the exception of a few 

 of the earlier acquisitions of old French enclaves, not of a 

 lasting nature. Most of them were undone by the Peace of 

 Vienna of 1815. In the first place, Europe outside of 

 France was still very far from accepting the principle of 

 popular sovereignty, established by revolutionary France, 

 as the fundamental basis of government. In the second 

 place, the states of Europe could not be expected to sanc- 

 tion the doctrine of national self-determination as a means 

 of aggrandizement of another state at their own expense. 

 Hence the plebiscite as the instrument of the doctrine of 

 national self-determination could not be and was not con- 

 sidered as a means of settlement of the territorial reappor- 

 tionment of Europe by the Congress of Vienna.^ There 

 was all the less reason why either the doctrine of national 

 self-determination, or the plebiscite, as its proposed method 

 of procedure, should find favor outside of France, because 

 Imperial France herself had discontinued the practice of 



1 The secret gathering of signatures in a part of Savoy in 181S 

 can hardly be considered as a quahfication to this statement. After 

 Napoleon's abdication Savoy was occupied by the allies, and by the 

 Treaty of May 30, 1814, was divided between France and Sardinia 

 (Piedmont), having belonged to the latter before annexation to 

 France. In the territory allotted to France, comprising 244 com- 

 munes with a population of from 168,000 to 190,000, signatures were 

 secretly gathered among the heads of households known to be fa- 

 vorable to a return to Sardinia. Of 31,676 heads of families con- 

 sidered entitled to a signature, 26,439 signed for reunion with Sar- 

 dinia. The result" was transmitted by the Sardinian diplomats to 

 Louis XVIII, the new king of France, who at once renounced his 

 allotted share of Savoy in favor of Sardinia in a new treaty of 

 Nov. 20, 1815. For a detailed account see, A. David, Les plebiscites 

 et les cession de territoires, Paris, 1918, pp. 36-40. 



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