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Many slaves had tensions with the higher powers. So they had to choose over how to govern their country. Some black men were free and some weren't. Slaves made a secret group and revolted getting there own freedoms.

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Beginning the unification, Sardinia and Piedmont unified together to call themselves the Kingdom of Sardinia. Garibaldi and Emmanuel decide to team up and take over Italy. Sicily join them when they boat down there. Then, Italy becomes one and had Emmanuel be the first king of Italy.

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The first revolution was when the navy had a war with the military. Having the German up front they won many wars. An agreement was made so there were less unorganized strikes. National councils were formed and met to make a national government. Germany became a republic and freedom was granted.

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The Kiel mutiny was the first people to start the uprising, they wanted the end to the war and the end to monarchy.  Because of this the King fled the country. Other government officials fled and back in Germany they made their own government.

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The German Revolution forced the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, ending the Hohenzollern monarchy and plunging Germany into weeks of political struggle and uncertainty. The revolution began with the Kiel mutiny of late October, which within a week had spread to numerous towns and military bases across Germany. Revolutionary councils, in a similar mould to Russian soviets, formed across the nation and began demanding political reform. Most of these demands were socialist or social-democratic: an end to the war, the abolition of the monarchy, greater democratic representation and economic equality. On November 7th the revolution claimed its first royal scalp when Bavarian king Ludwig III fled across the border to Austria. On the same day in Berlin, radical revolutionaries demanded the abdication and trial of the Kaiser.

Faced with dwindling support in his entourage and from his military advisors, Wilhelm equivocated about whether or not to abdicate. Even if he was forced to give up the imperial throne, the deluded kaiser believed he could remain as king of Prussia. The decision was made for him on November 9th, when chancellor Max von Baden announced the Kaiser's abdication, without his endorsement. Wilhelm sought advice from defence minister Wilhelm Groener and military chief Paul von Hindenburg, who told the isolated kaiser that the military could no longer support him. The following day, November 10th, he boarded a train and fled to the Netherlands, where he would remain until his death in 1941. Allied demands for his extradition and trial were ignored by the Dutch monarch.

Back in Germany, the abdication of the Kaiser was swiftly followed by chancellor's resignation. During von Baden's month in office he had been unable to broker a peace deal, so he departed, handing the reins of power to Friedrich Ebert. This was a move of questionable legality; the kaiser's departure meant there was no head of state to appoint a new chancellor, while von Baden did not seek advice from his cabinet or endorsement from the Reichstag. Still, Ebert was probably the logical successor. He was the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Germany's largest political party, and had been a member of von Baden's cabinet. Ebert's appointment was probably designed to appease the left-wing groups that had taken control of German cities, and thus take the sails out of the revolution.

As the ink was drying on Ebert's signature, his SPD colleague Philipp Scheidemann made a proclamation - without Ebert's permission or knowledge - declaring the beginning of the new German republic:

These enemies of the people are finished forever. The Kaiser has abdicated. He and his friends have disappeared; the people have won over all of them, in every field. Prince Max von Baden has handed over the office of Reich chancellor to representative Ebert. Our friend will form a new government consisting of workers of all socialist parties. This new government may not be interrupted in their work, to preserve peace and to care for work and bread. Workers and soldiers, be aware of the historic importance of this day: exorbitant things have happened. Great and incalculable tasks are waiting for us. Everything for the people. Everything by the people. Nothing may happen to the dishonour of the Labour Movement. Be united, faithful and conscientious. The old and rotten, the monarchy has collapsed. The new may live. Long live the German Republic!

But Ebert and Scheidemann were not the only contenders for power. Two hours after Scheidemann's declaration, Karl Liebknecht - a far more radical socialist - issued his own proclamation, announcing the birth of the Free Socialist Republic of Germany. Liebknecht belonged to the Spartakusbund (or 'Spartacus League', often simply referred to as 'Spartacists'). The Spartacists began as the radical left-wing of the SPD, before splitting from the party in 1915 over its support for World War I. They were led by Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, socialist activists and writers of Jewish descent who drew their inspiration from the 1917 Russian Revolution. They had no regard for Ebert and the moderate wing of the SPD, damning them as instruments of the bourgeoisie: pro-war, conservative and counter-revolutionary. The Spartacist program instead favoured an armed revolution to seize power and begin the formation of a German Soviet state. In the last weeks of 1918, as Ebert's government was finalising the armistice and organising elections for a national assembly, the Spartacists were preparing for an armed uprising.

The revolution reignited on Christmas Eve 1918 when unpaid sailors occupied a government building, where they were joined by Spartacist members and armed guards. The Reichswehr was sent to arrest the protestors but withdrew after a brief standoff. On December 30th, the Spartacists held a congress in Berlin where they re-formed as the KPD (Communist Party of Germany). There, Rosa Luxemburg told those assembled:

The 9th of November was a weak, half-hearted, half-conscious and chaotic attempt to overthrow the existing public power and to put an end to class rule. What now must be done is that all the forces of the proletariat should be concentrated in an attack on the very foundations of capitalist society. There, at the base, where the individual employer confronts his wage slaves... there, step by step, we must seize the means of power from the rulers and take them into our own hands... And we must not forget that the revolution is able to do its work with extraordinary speed.

On January 5th 1919, the Spartacists attempted an armed takeover of Berlin. Hundreds of industrial workers and unionists were given arms and ordered to seize critical points around the capital. Telegraph offices, police stations, government buildings and the SPD headquarters were all occupied; the revolutionaries also barricaded or manned checkpoints on key roads and intersections. Liebknecht and Luxemburg also called for a general strike, hoping to trigger a workers' revolution against the Ebert government. The Spartacist uprising was initially successful, chiefly because it had caught unprepared Berlin police and government units by surprise. In the first few days of the revolution, the Spartacists won most of their street fights and managed to paralyse significant areas of Berlin. But while Liebknecht had orchestrated the capture of Berlin and drummed up support from a half-million Berliners, he had no clear plan for seizing power. With the uprising at its peak, the Spartacist leader and his 53-person revolutionary committee dithered; rather than demanding the overthrow of the government, Liebknecht withdrew to an office to write newspaper articles.

Meanwhile, the SPD government was coddling together political and military support to resist the revolution. Ebert recalled defence minister Gustav Noske and sent him to Berlin. Noske began organising the mobilisation of around 3,000 Freikorps, or volunteer militias comprised of former soldiers. The men of the Freikorps were, for the most part, fiercely nationalist and anti-communist. More importantly, they were trained, battle-hardened troops who were still equipped with weapons of war: rifles and machine guns, artillery, even flamethrowers. By January 10th, these Freikorps were massing and preparing in the suburbs of western Berlin. They advanced into the city the following morning and engaged in a series of bloody street battles with the rebels, who for the most part were hopelessly outgunned.

"During the first months of 1919, we lived under siege in Berlin and under the terror of martial law. Any political activity was prohibited for us communists. We had no journal and no legal means to confront the lies and defamations of the government and the press. Any expression of public discontent, anything that did not suit the authorities, was blamed on the Spartacists... We had to organise illegally and under the most dangerous conditions. But the death of our party leaders could not keep us from following their vision. The KPD had to be consolidated."
Karl Retzlaw, Spartacist

It took less than three days for the Freikorps to crush the Spartacist uprising and capture Berlin. Its leaders, Liebknecht and Luxemburg, were chased through the suburbs for another two days, before being betrayed and captured. Luxemburg was beaten to death with rifle butts, her body hurled into Berlin's largest canal. Liebknecht was shot in the head and dumped at a local morgue. These summary executions invited criticism from Ebert and his ministers, who promised that those responsible would be held accountable. But evidence obtained later suggests that Noske and probably Ebert authorised their murder. Two Freikorps members were tried but given light sentences. Around 100 other Spartacists and 17 Freikorps were killed during the battle for Berlin.

Though the Spartacists had been defeated, the German Revolution had not yet breathed its last. In April 1919 communists attempted another revolution, this time in southern Germany. Taking advantage of local disorder, they seized control of the local government in Bavaria and declared an independent Soviet republic. They named Munich as their capital, appointed ministers and established contact with Bolshevik rulers in Russia. But the Bavarian communists were only marginally more successful than their Spartacist cousins. In May, after just four weeks in power, the Bavarian Soviet was attacked by 9,000 Reichswehr soldiers and 30,000 members of the Freikorps. After days of bitter fighting, control of Bavaria was returned to the Weimar government. More than 1,700 communists were killed in the battle for Munich or subsequently executed by the Freikorps.

1. The Kiel mutiny inspired revolutionary councils to appear in German cities, leading to the abdication of the Kaiser.
2. In November 1918 both Scheidemann (SPD) and Liebknecht (Spartacists) proclaimed a new national government.
3. The Spartacists formed a communist party then launched an attempt to take over Berlin and the Weimar government.
4. The revolution was defeated after the SPD mobilised several units of Freikorps, who crushed the revolution in days.
5. In May 1919 another socialist revolutionary government, this time in Bavaria, was also suppressed by the Freikorps.

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This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation:
J. Llewellyn et al, "The German Revolution", Alpha History, 2018, accessed [today's date], http://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/german-revolution/.

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The German Revolution was an attempt by communists to seize control of the new republic.

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Toussaint-Louverture a former slave took control over a rebellion and freed many slaves. He ceased fire though in a war with Napoleon. After Napoleon wanted slavery to return to Haiti, but another revolt accord and freedom was granted.

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Two months after his defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte's colonial forces, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaims the independence of Saint-Domingue, renaming it Haiti after its original Arawak name.

In 1791, a revolt erupted on the French colony, and Toussaint Louverture, a formerly enslaved man, took control of the rebels. Gifted with natural military genius, Toussaint organized an effective guerrilla war against the island's colonial population. He found able generals in two other formerly enslaved men, Dessalines and Henri Christophe, and in 1795 he made peace with revolutionary France following its abolishment of slavery. Toussaint became governor-general of the colony and in 1801 conquered the Spanish portion of island, freeing the enslaved peoples there.

In January 1802, an invasion force ordered by Napoleon landed on Saint-Domingue, and after several months of furious fighting, Toussaint agreed to a cease-fire. He retired to his plantation but in 1803 was arrested and taken to a dungeon in the French Alps, where he was tortured and died in April.

Soon after Toussaint's arrest, Napoleon announced his intention to reintroduce slavery on Haiti, and Dessalines led a new revolt against French rule. With the aid of the British, the rebels scored a major victory against the French force there, and on November 9, 1803, colonial authorities surrendered. In 1804, General Dessalines assumed dictatorial power, and Haiti became the second independent nation in the Americas. Later that year, Dessalines proclaimed himself Emperor Jacques I. He was killed putting down a revolt two years later.

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Haitian independence proclaimed | January 1, 1804 | HISTORY

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Two months after his defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte's colonial forces, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaims the independence of Saint-Domingue, renaming it Haiti after its original Arawak name. In 1791, a revolt erupted on the French colony, and Toussaint Louverture, a formerly enslaved man, took control of the rebels.

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The unification was led by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and Count Camillo di Cavour. The Northern Italians had a vote and they joined the Piedmont-Sardinia. Another general called Giuseppi Garibaldi gathered an army and over threw the government in Sicily. A national parliament was made and Italy was finally one.

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Summary

For many centuries, the Italian peninsula was a politically fragmented conglomeration of states. This was the case when the United States announced its independence from Great Britain in 1776. When war broke out between Austria and the Revolutionary French Government in 1792, the French invaded the Italian peninsula, consolidated many of the Italian states, and established them as republics. In 1799 the Austrian and Russian armies pushed the French out of the Italian peninsula, which led to the demise of the fledgling republics.

After Napoleon's rise to power, the Italian peninsula was once again conquered by the French. Under Napoleon, the peninsula was divided into three entities: the northern parts which were annexed to the French Empire (Piedmont, Liguria, Parma, Piacenza, Tuscany, and Rome), the newly created Kingdom of Italy (Lombardy, Venice, Reggio, Modena, Romagna, and the Marshes) ruled by Napoleon himself, and the Kingdom of Naples, which was first ruled by Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte, but then passed to Napoleon's brother-in-law Joachim Murat.

The period of French invasion and occupation was important in many ways. It introduced revolutionary ideas about government and society, resulting in an overthrow of the old established ruling orders and the destruction of the last vestiges of feudalism. The ideals of freedom and equality were very influential. Also of consequence, the concept of nationalism was introduced, thus sowing the seeds of Italian nationalism throughout most parts of the northern and central Italian peninsula.

With the downfall of Napoleon in 1814 and the redistribution of territory by the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), most of the Italian states were reconstituted: the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (often referred to as Sardinia), the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Parma, the Papal States, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (fused together from the old Kingdom of Naples and Kingdom of Sicily). These were largely conservative regimes, presided over by the old social orders.

Although the Italian peninsula remained fragmented through the mid-1800s, the concept of a united Italy began to take root. Secret societies formed to oppose the conservative regimes. Several of these societies also promoted Italian nationalism and the idea of a unified Italian political state. One such society was the group Young Italy, founded in 1831 by Guiseppe Mazzini. Mazzini was an ardent advocate of the necessity for Italian unification through the desires and actions of the Italian people. Thus, the movement of Italian unification, a process referred to as the Risorgimento (resurgence) proliferated by mid-century.

The revolutions of 1848 ignited nationalist sentiment throughout the Italian peninsula. There were widespread uprisings in several Italian cities that year, mostly by the professional classes (such as doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers) as well as students. Lombardy-Venetia and Milan tried to rise up against Austrian rule. Although the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia sent troops to aid the revolt, it was crushed by the Austrians at Custoza in July 1848. The Italian uprisings were unsuccessful and by 1849 the old regimes were once again in place.

Yet, the idea of the Risorgimento continued to gain adherents after 1848. The final push for Italian unification came in 1859, led by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (then the wealthiest and most liberal of the Italian states), and orchestrated by Piedmont-Sardinia's Prime Minister, Count Camillo di Cavour. A skilled diplomat, Cavour secured an alliance with France. The Franco-Austrian War of 1859 was the agent that began the physical process of Italian unification. The Austrians were defeated by the French and Piedmontese at Magenta and Solferino, and thus relinquished Lombardy. By the end of the year Lombardy was added to the holdings of Piedmont-Sardinia.

The northern Italian states held elections in 1859 and 1860 and voted to join the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, a major step towards unification, while Piedmont-Sardinia ceded Savoy and Nice to France. Giuseppi Garibaldi, a native of Piedmont-Sardinia, was instrumental in bringing the southern Italian states into the unification process. In 1860, Garibaldi cobbled together an army (referred to as the "Thousand") to march into the southern part of the peninsula. Landing first in Sicily and then moving onwards into Naples, Garibaldi and his men overthrew the Bourbon monarchy and turned over the southern territories to Victor Emmanuel II, King of Piedmont-Sardinia. In early 1861 a national parliament convened and proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy, with Victor Emmanuel II as its king. At this point, there were only two major territories outside of the parameters of the new Kingdom of Italy: Rome and Venetia.

In 1866 Italy joined Prussia in a campaign against Austria (the 1866 Austro-Prussian War) and thus won Venetia. In 1870, taking advantage of the fact that France (the country responsible at the time for guarding the Papal States) was distracted by involvement in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), the Italian army entered Rome. That year, Rome and the Papal States were incorporated into Italy and the Risorgimento completed. During the summer of 1871, the Italian capital moved to Rome from Florence (it was moved from Turin to Florence in 1865).

Major Events

Overall Impact upon U.S. Foreign Policy

The history of recognitions (and the establishment of relations, where applicable) between the United States and the Italian states impacted several different areas of U.S. policy, including:

Trade and Commerce. The industrialization process that swept through the northern United States in the early nineteenth century spread through the northern and central Italian states in the mid-nineteenth century. As a result, the Italian states (and after 1861, the Kingdom of Italy) and the United States both sought to cultivate trade and commercial ties for mutual benefit.

Immigration and Citizenship. By the 1870s Italian immigration to the New World (both to the United States as well as to Argentina, amongst other South American countries) began to increase. Indeed, some of the "fathers" of modern Italy spent time in the United States. Garibaldi spent enough time in the U.S. to gain a U.S. passport, and was offered a commission in the U.S. Army during the Civil War.

U.S. Civil War. The unification of the Italian states impacted the foreign policy of the United States in numerous ways. Perhaps the issue that had the most immediate impact upon U.S. foreign policy in the early 1860s was over the question of recognition of the U.S. Confederacy. The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed just as the U.S. Civil War began. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln wanted to ensure that the new Italian state did not recognize the U.S. Confederacy. Washington also worried that, with Italy's long coastline, Confederate ships might seek shelter in Italian waters. With this in mind, the Italian government gave "strong assurances that no Confederate ship would be admitted to Italian ports unless it was a question of adverse weather conditions or other vis major."

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Unification of Italian States - Countries - Office of the Historian