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The Italian Unification
The Italian Unification
• The movement to unite Italy into one cultural and political entity
was known as the Risorgimento ("resurgence").
• Giuseppe Mazzini and his leading pupil, Giuseppe Garibaldi,
failed in their attempt to create an Italy united by democracy.
The Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy
Vienna
Unifying or divisive Nationalism
Romanticism
The Revolutions of 1820
• King Charles Albert of Piedmont Sardinia led his forces against the Imperial
Austrian army in the First Italian War of Independence (1848–1849),
but was abandoned by Pope Pius IX and Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies
and was defeated in 1849 at the Battle of Novara, after which he
abdicated in favour of his son, Victor Emmanuel II. Charles Albert died in
exile a few months later in the Portuguese city of Porto.
“The Emperor asked me what France would get in return for her
military backing, and whether Your Majesty would hand over Savoy and
Nice to France. I replied that Your Majesty supported the principle of
nationalism, which included recognition that Savoy, by virtue of being
French-speaking, should be united with France .... even though it would
cause your majesty untold unhappiness to renounce a territory that was
the cradle of his own family.” Count Camilo Di Cavour
The War of 1859 with Austria • This war began in
1859 when the Sardinian Prime Minister Cavour found an ally in
Napoleon III.
• Napoleon III signed a secret alliance and Cavour provoked Austria with
military maneuvers and eventually created the war in April 1859.
• Cavour called for volunteers to enlist in the Italian liberation. The Austrians
planned to use their army to beat the Sardinians before the French could
come to their aid. Austria had an army of 140,000 men, while the Sardinians
The War of 1859 with Austria
• Austria had an army of 140,000 men, while the Sardinians had 70,000
men.
• However the Austrians' numerical strength was outweighed by an ineffectual
leadership. Their army was slow to enter the capital of Sardinia.The French
reinforced the Sardinians, so the Austrians retreated. The Austrians were
defeated at the Battle of Magenta and pushed back to Lombardy. At the Battle
of Solferino France and Sardinia defeated Austria and forced negotiations;
Nice and Savoy to France
• On March 24, 1860, Savoy, the cradle of the reigning dynasty, and Nice,
Garibaldi’s native Province, were ceded to France.
• Garibaldi, deeply wounded in his feelings, violently accused Cavour in
Parliament, but the Chamber, although it respected the hero’s emotion,
ratified the treaty which was at this crisis a necessary concession.
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi with his 1,000 “Redshirts” landing at Marsala, Sicily, on May 11,
1860
Victory of Garibaldi
• King Francis II was thus forced to abandon Naples and entrench himself in
the formidable fortress of Gaeta, while a last stand was set up on the
Volturno river, north of Naples.
• On 7 September Garibaldi took possession of Naples with little harm,
hailed as a liberator by the population.
• But still Rome was not part of Italy. • In 1866, during the Austro-
Prussian War, Italy allied with Prussia against Austria in the hope of
taking Venetia from Austria. • Garibaldi gathered volunteers and
defeated the Austrians. Despite Garibaldi's victory, the other Italian
forces did not fare well. In the end, the armistice that ended the war did
allow Italy to seize Venetia, but this was mostly due to Prussia's success
versus Austria.
The end of the Unification (1871) • When the Franco-Prussian War
broke out in 1870, Italy again supported the Prussians, this time
against the French.
• The war lead to the recall of the French garrison in Rome, and so the
Italian Army was able to capture Rome and the Papal States without
Garibaldi's assistance. Rome finally became part of Italy.
• By 1871, Italy had been technically put back together again. Unification
had taken decades and required the efforts of Garibaldi, Cavour,
Mazzini, King Victor Emmanuel as well as the French and Prussians. It
was a long and complicated affair.
Exam questions:
• Two different stories can be told about Italian unification: the growing
power and territorial expansion of Piedmont, with Piedmont coercing
Italians into a single state, which accidentally led to unification; or the
activities of nationalist revolutionary Garibaldi and his volunteers who
were fighting for unification from the beginning.
• Under the leadership of Cavour and King Victor Emmanuel II,
Piedmont emerged as the strongest state in Italy.
• In 1859, after allying with the French against Austria, Piedmont gained
Lombardy, and in 1860 the Central Duchies followed.
• Meanwhile, in the south, Garibaldi and his volunteer army,
with their fervent desire to unify Italy, had defeated the
Kingdom of Naples in Sicily and on the mainland, and were next
heading for the Papal States.
• Cavour, worried that Garibaldi was a dangerous revolutionary who
was beyond Piedmont’s control, quickly sent an army to meet
Garibaldi before he reached Rome.
• In October 1860 Garibaldi handed over control of the south of Italy to
King Victor Emmanuel II and in November they entered Naples
together. In 1861 Victor Emmanuel was declared King of Italy.