Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

182
Paul Martin Howell
partnership in the eoncession that the Cassa del 'Commercio had secured in Bellinzona, but they were unsuccessful. In an attempt to deal with the purely financial dimensìons of the problem, Rothschild and Talabot pro-posed to have the Cassa del Commercio share the burden of the merger of the three Swiss companies in exchange for help with the Ticino eoncession. In typical fashion, those in the Réunion who were most reluctant to go along with Rothschild and Talabot expressed conditional interest in the idea but pushed for a succession of more complicated variations whieh necessitated time-consuming negotiations and produced, in effect, a stalemate that dragged on iinto 1857. The failure of the Réunion Finandère to reach agreement on the Ticino eoncession reflected in particular the opposition to the Lukmanier route of interests in centrali Switzerland which favoured giving precedence to a railroad through the St. Gothard pass. Those interests were strong enough to defeat the Lukmanier proposai in the Swiss Federai Councii at the beginning of 1857, and so in the end nothing carne of the Cassa del Commercio's foray into Ticino and Rothschild's attempts to involve the -Italian bank in Swiss rails.56)
The legislative defeat of the Ticino eoncession carne on the heels of the untimely death of Luigi Bolmida at the age of 51P? With the disappear-ance of Bolmdda the Rothschild alliance was destined to slowly but inexorably decay. There was talk in the first half of 1857 of pursuing the Ligurian coastal eoncession and combining it with a buy-out of the state system in the Kingdom of Sardinia, but ali of the circumstances were against such a project by 1857.58) The lead time on a venture of that scale was considerable and the boom was ai-ready nearing its climax; even Rothschild's colossal resources were stretched to their limits, as each success against the Pereires had meant a mammoth new commitment; and there was no one at the helm of the Cassa del Commercio who inspired any confidence in Rothschild. In fact, the death of Bolmida touched off a struggle to control the Turin investment bank which dragged on for more than two years, leading eventually to near-bankruptcy and reorganization. The Cassa del Commercio was guilty of a vast overextension of its resources which could be traced in part to the heady optimism of the period and the novelty of the institutiona]. type, factors magnified by the huge potential of the Rothschild alliance, and in part to the confiicting pulì of rivai interests gathered around the bank.59) The trajectory of overextension fueled by europhic optimism, followed by retrenchment in the face of -grim reality,
56) Gille, Procès-verbaux , pp. 62-67, 77-79, 82-85, 89, and Rothschild, pp. 308-310, 323-327, 370; Cameron, Prance, pp. 229, 233, 238-243, 303ff; and MAIC, b. 155, f. 107, si 2, CCI company report from shareholder meeting of 14, 16, 17, and 18 Feb. 1857.
57) MAIC, b. 155, f. 107, sf. 12, Bolla to Ministry of Finance, 29 Dee. 1856; Cavour to De La Rue, 7 Jan. 1857, in Cavour, Nouvelles lettres, p. 515; and Sarti, p. 140.
58) Gille, Les Utvestissemenls, pp. 165-166.
59) Howell, pp. 131-148.