Republic of San Marco
산마르코 공화국
The revolutionary state that freed Venice from Austrian rule in March 1848, with Daniele Manin as president. Based on the Venetian lagoon and extending over most of the Veneto mainland, it lasted seventeen months and surrendered to Austria in August 1849 after a long siege.
In depth
On 22 March Manin and his followers seized the naval Arsenal with the cry "Viva San Marco!", and on the 26th the Austrians withdrew. The cities of the Veneto except Verona joined. The name revived the old Republic of Venice, which had surrendered to Napoleon in 1797, but the revolutionaries mobilised few mainland peasants. On 4 July the assembly voted 127 to 6 for union with Sardinia, but when the Salasco armistice in August took the Sardinian commissioners and fleet away, Manin took back the government.
After Novara the assembly still voted to resist. Haynau's Austrians besieged the fort of Marghera and took it on 26 May, and in July launched bomb-carrying balloons and shelled the city. With famine and cholera (2,788 dead), surrender terms were agreed on 22 August, and Radetzky entered on the 27th. Manin went into exile in Paris.