Italian nationalism converted even its opponents through mass organization

Evidence

Neither Italy, Germany, or France (and for that matter Austria) had yet achieved territorial configurations that conformed to the ambitions of their ruling and military elites, nor the natural (ethnic and linguistic) affections of their nationalistic citizenry. Cavour, the Prime Minister of the Sardinian kingdom, had gradually been converted from a repressive antinationalist to an extremely skilled unificationist by the persistent development and growth of nationalist sympathy and organization both on the Italian peninsula and among the exiles his government had been so instrumental in relocating. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 318