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camillio di cavour led a army for the unification of Italy

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revolutionary assemblies in the central Italian provinces of Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and Romagna voted in favor of unification with Sardinia in 1859. Victor Immanuel II took over Rome when French troops left. The entire boot of Italy was united under one crown.

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Summary

The movement to unite Italy into one cultural and political entity was known as the Risorgimento (literally, "resurgence"). Giuseppe Mazzini and his leading pupil, Giuseppe Garibaldi, failed in their attempt to create an Italy united by democracy. Garibaldi, supported by his legion of Red Shirts-- mostly young Italian democrats who used the 1848 revolutions as a opportunity for democratic uprising--failed in the face of the resurgence of conservative power in Europe. However, it was the aristocratic politician named Camillo di Cavour who finally, using the tools of realpolitik, united Italy under the crown of Sardinia.

"Realpolitik" is the notion that politics must be conducted in terms of the realistic assessment of power and the self-interest of individual nation-states (and the pursuit of those interests by any means, often ruthless and violent ones) and Cavour used it superbly. In 1855, as prime minister of Sardinia, he involved the kingdom on the British and French side of the Crimean War, using the peace conference to give international publicity to the cause of Italian unification. In 1858, he formed an alliance with France, one that included a pledge of military support if necessary, against Austria, Italy's major obstacle to unification. After a planned provocation of Vienna, Austria declared war against Sardinia in 1859 and was easily defeated by the French army. The peace, signed in November 1959 in Zurich, Switzerland, joined Lombardy, a formerly Austrian province, with Sardinia. In return, France received Savoy and Nice from Italy--a small price to pay for paving the way to unification.

Inspired by Cavour's success against Austria, revolutionary assemblies in the central Italian provinces of Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and Romagna voted in favor of unification with Sardinia in the summer of 1859. In the spring of 1860, Garibaldi came out of his self-imposed exile to lead a latter day Red Shirt army, known as the Thousand, in southern Italy. By the end of the year, Garibaldi had liberated Sicily and Naples, which together made up the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Cavour, however, worried that Garibaldi, a democrat, was replacing Sardinia, a constitutional monarchy, as the unifier of Italy. To put an end to Garibaldi's offensive, Cavour ordered Sardinian troops into the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples. After securing important victories in these regions, Cavour organized plebiscites, or popular votes, to annex Naples to Sardinia. Garibaldi, outmaneuvered by the experienced realist Cavour, yielded his territories to Cavour in the name of Italian unification. In 1861, Italy was declared a united nation-state under the Sardinian king Victor Immanuel II.

Reapolitik continued to work for the new Italian nation. When Prussia defeated Austria in a war in 1866, Italy struck a deal with Berlin, forcing Vienna to turn over Venetia. In addition, when France lost a war to Prussia in 1870, Victor Immanuel II took over Rome when French troops left. The entire boot of Italy was united under one crown.

Why did Cavour succeed and Garibaldi fail? Was it really only a matter of speed? If Garibaldi had started his crusade earlier and had time to conquer the Papal State before Cavour sent his troops to do so, would Cavour have been forced to give up his territory in the name of a united Italy? Doubtful. But is speed really the only issue? That, too, is doubtful. It seems that of the two, Cavour alone understood the relationship between national and international events, and was thus able to manipulate foreign policy for his own ends. Garibaldi, a democrat, a warrior, and an anti-Catholic, was without question on the road to conflict with the monarchies of Europe. Cavour, with the added credibility of representing a monarch, blended perfectly with the political situation in Europe at the time.

Cavour was a realist who practice realistic politics. He allied with France when necessary and with France's key enemy, Prussia, was necessary. By keeping the goal in mind, Cavour used international power to achieve his domestic goals. Garibaldi was forced to use his own grassroots strength, empowered by young Italian democrats interested in an idealistic future for their nation. In that manner, it is quite doubtful that Garibaldi would have ever been able to gain the upper hand in Italy, relative to Cavour.

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Europe (1848-1871) quizzes about important details and events in every section of the book.

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otto von Bismarck was the prime minister and chancellor at one point and had helped unify Germany

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Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) / German Unification

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Bismarck reorganized the Prussian army and improved training in preparation for war. Bismarck reorganized the  France declared war on Prussia. Within a matter of weeks of fighting in Alsace-Lorraine, France lost this Franco-Prussian War. Alsace-Lorraine was transferred to Germany in the peace settlement, allowing Prussia to declare the German Empire, or Second Reich, on January 21, 1871.

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Summary

Whereas Camillo di Cavour directed Italian unification, a Junker (the Prussian name for an aristocratic landowner from old Prussia in the east) named Otto von Bismarck pushed German unification through "blood and iron" and skillful understanding of realpolitik. As the map of central Europe stood in 1850, Prussia competed with Austria for dominance over a series of small principalities fiercely keen on maintaining their independence and distinctive characteristics. Prussia proper stretched from modern-day Lithuania to central Germany. Prussia also controlled the German lands around the Rhine River in the west. In between, from Denmark to Switzerland, lay small provinces that Bismarck needed to incorporate under the Prussian crown to create a viable German Empire.

In 1862, Bismarck reorganized the Prussian army and improved training in preparation for war. In 1864, he constructed an alliance with Austria to fight Denmark over Denmark's southern provinces of Schleiswig and Holstein. Prussia received Schleiswig while Austria administered Holstein. That situation, however, could not stand for long, as Austrian Holstein was now surrounded by Prussian lands. Bismarck provoked a conflict with Austria over an unrelated border dispute and in the subsequent Seven Weeks' War--named for its brevity--Prussia crushed the collapsing Austrian army. The peace settlement transferred Holstein to Prussia and forced Austria to officially remove itself from all German affairs.

With Austria out of Bismarck's way, his next obstacle was the skepticism of the southern provinces. Overwhelmingly Catholic and anti-militaristic, the southern provinces doubted Prussia's commitment to a united Germany of all provinces. Prussia's Protestantism and historic militarism made the gulf between north and south quite serious. Therefore, Bismarck turned to realpolitik to unite the Germanic provinces by constructing a war against a common enemy. In 1870, Bismarck forged a note from the French ambassador, implying that the ambassador had insulted the Prussian king. After he leaked this letter to both populations, the people of France and Prussia, roused by nationalist sentiment, rose up in favor of war. As Bismarck hoped, the southern provinces rallied to Prussia's side without any hesitation. In July 1870, France declared war on Prussia. Within a matter of weeks of fighting in Alsace-Lorraine, France lost this Franco-Prussian War. Alsace-Lorraine was transferred to Germany in the peace settlement, allowing Prussia to declare the German Empire, or Second Reich, on January 21, 1871.

Like Italy, Germany had quite a few serious issues to resolve once unification took place. Regional differences, developing since the first settlement of the Germanic tribes during the Roman Empire, were distinct, and local princes refused to give up substantial power to the central government. The Berlin assembly, therefore, was kept weak. Germany, like the United States under the Articles of the Confederation, seemed merely a loose of confederation of autonomous states. In Germany's case, one state, Prussia, was absolutely dominant due to its size, power, and military strength. This, combined with Bismarck's skillful conduct in international and national affairs as chancellor, kept the empire together until 1914.

However, the creation of a unified Germany in central Europe marked one of the greatest revolutions in the history of international relations. Since the establishment of nation-states in Europe, France, under the Valois-Bourbon royal line, dedicated its foreign policy to the weakening of Habsburg (Austrian and Spanish royal families) and the continued disunity of the Germanic provinces. Now that central Europe was united into two major powers--Germany and Italy--Europe was quite a different place. What would now become of the traditional balance of power in place since the defeat of Napoleon? The whole point had been that no one nation should gain excessive power and strength on the Continent. With the unification of Germany in central Europe--an essential economic and strategic region--was the balance of power doomed?

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Europe (1848-1871) quizzes about important details and events in every section of the book.

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Napoleon did good things for France but because of his greed for power he and france eventually fell

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History vs. Napoleon Bonaparte - Alex Gendler

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Many battles were fought and France was the most powerful at the time therefore winning most battles until they were defeated multiple times they lost power and land

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Nature of the wars

While warfare is generally undertaken for political reasons, the French Revolutionary wars were exceptional for the degree to which they were concerned with political considerations. They are associated above all with the appearance in France, and with the imposition by France on neighbouring states, of fundamental changes in the structure of the state and society. No other European wars have shown such intimacy with, or novelty in, political motives. The Napoleonic Wars, which grew out of those undertaken by the first French Republic, were characterized by the extent to which they retained and extended the political and social innovations of Revolutionary France. It will be seen that the political situation in Revolutionary France impelled the new government to make war on neighbouring states and that French Revolutionary doctrines as well as French expansionist policies encouraged these states to oppose France in the field. The course of the French military and foreign policy, furthermore, was greatly influenced by the continuation of an internal political and social revolution during hostilities, and in this too the continual interaction of political and military affairs presents a marked contrast with the Napoleonic Wars.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to lose sight of more conventional considerations in the motives and conduct of the belligerent powers. The leaders of the French Revolution took over and expanded traditional objectives of French foreign policy. Conversely, although the restoration of the ancien régime in France and its preservation in the rest of Europe was among the motives of the attack by France's enemies, so often and so greatly did they allow this objective to be obscured by the demands of their traditional interests that it must be considered as subsidiary to their fundamental objectives in making war. The British especially, being geographically insulated and having a more liberal constitution than their Continental allies, were concerned far less with combating Revolutionary ideology than with preventing French attempts to create a Continental hegemony. In contracting a series of alliances with the powers of the First Coalition in 1793, Great Britain indeed insisted that they abandon their demands for a royalist restoration (virtually, unconditional surrender), so that ultimate war aims were left uncertain. The British sought to uphold a balance of power in Europe that would enable them to affirm their control of the seas, to extend their colonial conquests, and to achieve predominance as a trading and manufacturing nation both beyond Europe and on the Continent.

The wars of the Revolution and of the First Empire were the culmination of an intermittent Franco-British conflict that had begun with the War of the Grand Alliance and the War of the Spanish Succession. At its close Great Britain had succeeded in preventing France's predominance in Europe and asserted British supremacy overseas. Great Britain, with a population not much more than one-third that of France in 1789, depended for its strength on preponderance in commerce and manufactures. Thus it remained preoccupied with the sources and maintenance of wealth, which required that military efforts should be concentrated on naval and colonial affairs. This diminished still further Great Britain's ability to mount substantial operations in Europe; for this the Continental allies, immediately threatened by invasion and not lacking in military manpower, had to serve. Great Britain, however, saw that if the French could impose peace on their own terms on Europe, they would be free to mobilize their resources against the British at sea and in the colonies and to close the European markets essential to British commerce. Therefore Great Britain, alone of all the coalition powers ranged against France, remained at war for virtually the entire duration of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, pursuing a strategy dominated by maritime, colonial, and economic motives. The divergences in interests and objectives between the British and their European allies explain some of the dissensions which arose in the allied camp and also the hostility that Great Britain was to encounter among the neutral powers. By blockading French-held ports and issuing licences to control trade with the enemy bloc, the British advanced their own interests to the detriment or at least the expense of the neutrals. Thus, broadly speaking, throughout the wars from 1792 to 1815, Great Britain devoted the profits from an increasingly advantageous position in world trade to furthering the struggle with France, while the French, since they could not match British maritime power, were obliged to master Europe if they were to turn the tables on Great Britain strategically and economically.

During the period 1793-99, however, it was by no means certain that France would have to wait until Europe had been pacified before defeating Great Britain. For the first few years of the war the existing strength of the French fleet, if it could gain enough support from other states' navies, seriously threatened to overcome the British naval supremacy. For some time Great Britain's preoccupation with colonial warfare proved costly, comparatively unsuccessful, and, eventually, detrimental to the outcome of the war in Europe, where British land forces might have tipped the balance. Only twice in the Revolutionary wars did small British expeditionary forces fight in Europe, and then only in Holland, in 1794 and 1799. By 1796 some 60,000 British troops had fallen in largely indecisive fighting in the West Indies. Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington, would suffer fewer losses during his campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula (1808-14), which not only reconquered Spain and Portugal but also tied down a far larger number of French troops.

The British government was unique in its ability to undertake an enormous debt in order to finance its own war effort and to subsidize that of its allies. The great expansion of the British national income, however, was at that time due more to unusually favourable terms of trade in conventional goods produced by largely traditional means than to the initiation of the Industrial Revolution-the distinguishing characteristics of which belong to the years after 1815. The wars put obstacles in the way of industrial development and financial organization on the Continent, however, and Britain's lead in these fields seems to have been lengthened still further by the time peace came. Two factors contributed considerably to the outbreak and to the course of the early years of the French Revolutionary wars: (1) the weakness of France caused by the Revolution itself, which from the meeting of the Estates-General in May 1789 continued with mounting intensity and throughout the first three campaigns (1792, 1793, and 1794); and (2) the second and third Partitions of Poland (1793 and 1795), which served to distract the Continental powers from their invasion of France.

The unprecedented successes of the French in the Revolutionary wars were due to their advantages in numbers; to the fact that France, even before the Revolution, was in many respects the most developed nation on the Continent; and finally to the often contradictory effects of Revolutionary ideals and methods. The first French Republic could afford to be prodigiously wasteful of its resources in making war. It could utilize the energies and wealth of the entire population to a degree far beyond the limits of action available to the neighbouring Continental governments of the ancien régime. These novel developments, however, lay several years ahead, when the Continental powers undertook to make war on Revolutionary France. Indeed, in very large part the most striking characteristics of French Revolutionary warfare, together with the men and the domestic policies of the Jacobin Committee of Public Safety with whom it is associated, owed their appearance to the first successes of the invaders. This threat to the new regime inspired the Terror, its radical political reforms, and the massive mobilization of national resources.

For Great Britain the many complexities of the European scene during the first three years of the French Revolution were problems of secondary importance, since the influence of the chief rival state on the Continent had been largely neutralized by internal dissension. Inevitably, Great Britain was less concerned by developments in eastern and central Europe, and less than a year before the outbreak of war with France (February 1793) prime minister William Pitt, the Younger reduced the strength of the home army from 17,000 to 13,000. When war came, Pitt, with most of his countrymen, anticipated that it would soon be over.

Throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the British avoided recourse to a system of direct conscription for the army, and the pressing of men for the navy fell, or was intended to fall, on merchant seamen. The expedients adopted in recruiting land forces during the first years of the war were not particularly efficient. In order to free regular regiments, which were recruited wholly from volunteers, for service overseas, 30,000 militiamen were called up in 1794 for home defense. As it was permissible to pay a substitute to perform militia service, the recruitment of regular formations suffered in consequence.

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French Revolutionary wars | Causes, Combatants, & Battles

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French Revolutionary wars, title given to the hostilities between France and one or more European powers between 1792 and 1799. It thus comprises the first seven years of the period of warfare that was continued through the Napoleonic Wars until Napoleon's abdication in 1814, with a year of interruption under the peace of Amiens (1802-03).