The Italian Unification (1848-1871)

• 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

• During the invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte, the people of the Italian

peninsula got a taste of French Revolution ideals, like liberty and
nationalism, and realized that they were tired of being ruled over by far-
away monarchs and their Ancien Régime.
• Secret nationalistic societies popped up around the Italian city-states that
banded together like-minded individuals who wanted to fight for a
unified Italian state. It took almost half a century, but by the early
1860s, they were successful. The battle for a unified Italy was hard-
won, and it took the collaboration of many individuals, groups, and
countries.
Europe After the Congress of

Vienna
 Unifying or divisive Nationalism

Romanticism
 The Revolutions of 1820

Revolution in Italy, 1830

• Congress, Austria & Pope obstacles to Italian unification.

• Secret societies to support unification began Carbonari rise up in 1831
to be put down by Austrian troops
• Rise of Mazzini, visionary of a unified republican
Italy. Forms Young Italy
• Failed attempt at a Roman republic but ideas are planted only to grow
later.
Italian Unification (Risorgimento)
 King Charles Albert of Piedmont
First Italian War of Independence (1848–1849)

• 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.

Emperor Napoleon III

The Crimean War , 1854-56

• The Crimean War was a military conflict in which Russia lost to an

alliance made up of the Ottoman Empire, the United Kingdom,
Piedmont-Sardinia and France.
• The immediate cause of the war involved the rights of Christian minorities in
the Holy Land, which was a part of the Ottoman Empire.
• The French promoted the rights of Roman Catholics, while Russia promoted
those of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The Pact of Plombieres (1858)

• The Plombieres Agreement of 21 July 1858 was a secret verbal agreement

concluded at Plombières between the Prime Minister of Piedmont-
Sardinia, Count Cavour and the French Emperor, Napoleon III.
• This pact was an agreement concerning a future war in which
France and Piedmont would ally themselves against Austria in
order to remove and exclude Austrian authority and influence
from the Italian peninsula.
The price of Plombieres

“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

• Garibaldi, supported by his legion of Red Shirts, mostly young Italian

democrats who used the 1848 revolutions as a opportunity for democratic,
failed in the face of the
resurgence of conservative power in Europe. • However, it was the
aristocratic politician named Camilo di Cavour who finally, using the tools of
realpolitik, united Italy under the crown of Piedmont Sardinia.

Giuseppe Garibaldi with his 1,000 “Redshirts” landing at Marsala, Sicily, on May 11,
1860

Expedition of the Thousand

• The Italian Spedizione dei Mille was a campaign undertaken in 1860 by

Giuseppe Garibaldi that overthrew the Bourbon Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies (Naples) and permitted the union of southern Italy and
Sicily with the north.
• The expedition was one of the most dramatic events of the Risorgimento
(movement for Italian unification) and was the archetype modern
 insurrection and popular war.

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.

Piedmont intercepted Garibaldi

• It was Piedmont which blocked Garibaldi's plan for a march on Rome,

at the time, the Pope was protected by a French army, and the
Piedmontese feared French
intervention in Italy if Garibaldi attacked Rome.
• Plus it was unclear how Catholics around the world would react if
Garibaldi and his forces attacked the Pope.

Garibaldi and Cavour

The Victory of Piedmont-Sardinia • In the meantime Piedmont-

Sardinia invaded the Papal States conquering Central Italy and entered the
Kingdom of Two Sicilies joining Giuseppe Garibaldi.
• Garibaldi was not able to conclusively defeat the Neapolitan Army. Only the
arrival of the Sardinian army obliged the last organized Bourbon force
to entrench in Gaeta.
• A few days later a plebiscite confirmed the annexation of the Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies to the Kingdom of Sardinia by an
overwhelming majority.
Victory agaisnt Austria (1866)

• 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:

• Which was more important in bringing about Italian unification,

Piedmont’s desire for more territory and power or the activities of
Italian nationalists like Garibaldi?

• 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.