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Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) / German Unification

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Short Summary:
Since the fall of Rome the Italian Peninsula was divided among a lot of independent states. Besides the rough geographic position there is some debate as to whether they really shared a similar culture nevertheless there are no real calls for unification, until Napoleon came along.

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German Unification Day

October 3

Unity Day celebrates the reunification of East and West Germany that took place on October 3, 1990. In setting the date of the official reunification, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl wanted to honor the historic events of November 1989, in which the government of East Germany resigned and thousands of citizens scaled the Berlin Wall and began to demolish it. He did not want to overshadow other important November observances, however, such as All Souls' Day on November 2 and Kristallnacht on November 9-10. He instead chose October 3, because the German Meteorological Association informed him that, on average, the best weather in Germany occurs on that day.
German Unity Day is observed with speeches, marches, and public events, including the government's official Unity Day celebration street festival, which draws about 300,000 people annually. Each year the location changes so that the celebration rotates among all of the German states.

CONTACTS:
German Embassy
4645 Reservoir Rd. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20007
202-298-4000; fax: 202-298-4249
www.germany-info.org

Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary, Fourth Edition. © 2010 by Omnigraphics, Inc.

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References in periodicals archive?

"When it comes to religious tolerance, Bahrain is second to none in the Middle East," the diplomat said as the embassy celebrated the German Unification Day.

The protesters carried signs describing German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama as "enemies of the Palestinians" and "Israel's allies." Mansour said that unless Germany changes its opposition to the Palestinian UN application and supports it, the Palestinian people should boycott the upcoming German reception planned in Ramallah on October 3 to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall and German unification day. "As Germany celebrates the fall of the Berlin Wall, it decides to support Israel, which is building a wall much worse than the Berlin Wall," he said.

It is a bright fall afternoon and it is German Unification Day, 2 October 2009.

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Looking for German Unification Day? Find out information about German Unification Day. October 3 Unity Day celebrates the reunification of East and West Germany that took place on October 3, 1990. In setting the date of the official... Explanation of German Unification Day

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Struggle for Mexican Independence - War, Causes & Effects

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Mexico was first populated more than 13,000 years ago before the Spanish conquered and colonized the country in the 16th century. In 1810, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, launched the Mexican War of Independence when he issued his Grito de Dolores, or "Cry of Delores."

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Italian Unification (Italian: il Risorgimento, or "The Resurgence") was the political and social movement that unified different states of the Italian peninsula into the single nation of Italy. The Southern, republican drive for unification was led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, while the Northern, royalist drive was led by Camillo B, royalist enso, conte di Cavour. Piedomont king, Victor Emmanuel II became first King of the unified kingdom of Italy, which lasted until 1946 when, following World War II Italy became a republic. Unification saw the demise of the Papal States. Rome became the capita. There is a lack of consensus on the exact dates for the beginning and the end of Italian reunification, but many scholars agree that the process began with the end of Napoleonic rule and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and more or less ended with the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, though the last città irredente, Trento and Triest, did not join Italy until after World War I. Napoleon also launched the process by which German states achieved unification at the same point in history.

Ideas of the new kingdom as the modern-day successor of the Roman Empire soon led to the birth of colonial ambition. Reviving the notion of the Mediterranean Sea as mare nostrum (our sea, that is, a domestic pond), Italy looked across to Africa and gained its first foothold in Eritrea in 1885. Between 1936 and 1943, Fascist Italy was officially called the Italian Empire. That collapsed after World War II, when fascist dictator Benito Mussolini sided with Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Mussolini saw himself as the great leader of a great Empire, a self-image that would have been unthinkable without unification. Post-world war, however, Italy has channeled its unification impetus into working for European unity. Alcide De Gasperi, architect of Italy's post-war reconstruction, is a "father" of the European Union. Just as unification ended war between Italian states, so European unity has ended war between members of the EU.

Background

The establishment of the Italian Republic and later of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, ruled by Napoleon, began to encourage nationalism in those who lived in the regions. As Napoleon's reign began to fail, other national monarchs he had installed tried to keep their thrones by feeding those nationalistic sentiments, setting the stage for the revolutions to come. Among these monarchs were the viceroy of Italy, Eugène de Beauharnais, who tried to get Austrian approval for his succession to the Kingdom of Italy, and Joachim Murat, who called for Italian patriots' help for the unification of Italy under his rule. Following the defeat of Napoleonic France, the Congress of Vienna (1815) was convened to redraw the European continent. In Italy, the Congress restored the pre-Napoleonic patchwork of independent governments, either directly ruled or strongly influenced by the prevailing European powers, particularly Austria.

But groups in several Italian states began to push the idea of a unified Italian state again, feeding the fires of nationalism that had already been ignited in the populace. At the time, the struggle for Italian unification was perceived to be waged primarily against the Austrian Empire and the Habsburgs, since they directly controlled the predominantly Italian-speaking northeastern part of present-day Italy and were the single most powerful force against unification. The Austrian Empire vigorously repressed nationalist sentiment growing on the Italian peninsula, as well as in the other parts of Habsburg domains. Austrian Chancellor Franz Metternich an influential diplomat at the Congress of Vienna, stated that the word Italy was nothing more than "a geographic expression."

Artistic and literary sentiment also turned towards nationalism, and perhaps the most famous of proto-nationalist works was Alessandro Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed). Some read this novel as a thinly veiled allegorical critique of Austrian rule. The novel was published in 1827 and extensively revised in the following years. The 1840 version of I Promessi Sposi used a standardized version of the Tuscan dialect, a conscious effort by the author to provide a language commonly used by most Italians.

Those in favor of unification also faced opposition from the Holy See, particularly after failed attempts to broker a confederation with the Papal States, which would have left the Papacy with some measure of autonomy over the region. The pope at the time, Pius IX, feared that giving up power in the region could mean the persecution of Italian Catholics.

Even among those who wanted to see the peninsula unified into one country, different groups could not agree on what form a unified state would take. Vincenzo Gioberti, a Piedmontese priest, had suggested a confederation of Italian states under rulership of the Pope. His book, Of the Moral and Civil Primacy of the Italians, was published in 1843 and created a link between the Papacy and the Risorgimento. Many leading revolutionaries wanted a republic, but eventually it was a king and his chief minister who had the power to unite the Italian states as a monarchy.

One of the most influential revolutionary groups was the Carbonari (coal-burners), a secret organization formed in southern Italy early in the 19th century. Inspired by the principles of the French Revolution, its members were mainly drawn from the middle class and intellectuals. After the Congress of Vienna divided the Italian peninsula among the European powers, the Carbonari movement spread into the Papal States, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Modena and the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. The revolutionaries were so feared that the reigning authorities passed an ordinance condemning to death anyone who attended a Carbonari meeting. The society, however, continued to exist and was at the root of many of the political disturbances in Italy from 1820 until after unification. The Carbonari condemned Napoleon III to death for failing to unite Italy, and the group almost succeeded in assassinating him in 1858. Many leaders of the unification movement were at one time members of this organization.

Two prominent radical figures in the unification movement were Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi. The more conservative constitutional monarchic figures included Count Cavour and Victor Emmanuel II, who would later become the first king of a united Italy.

Mazzini's activity in revolutionary movements caused him to be imprisoned soon after he joined. While in prison, he concluded that Italy could - and therefore should - be unified and formulated his program for establishing a free, independent, and republican nation with Rome as its capital. After Mazzini's release in 1831, he went to Marseille, where he organized a new political society called La Giovine Italia (Young Italy). The new society, whose motto was "God and the People," sought the unification of Italy.

Garibaldi, a native of Nice (then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), participated in an uprising in Piedmont in 1834, was sentenced to death, and escaped to South America. He spent fourteen years there, taking part in several wars, and returned to Italy in 1848.

Early revolutionary activity (1820-1830)

Carbonari insurrections (1820-1821)

In 1814 the Carbonari began organizing revolutionary activities.

Two Sicilies insurrection

In 1820, Spaniards successfully revolted over disputes about the constitution, which influenced the development of a similar movement in Italy. Inspired by the Spaniards, (who, in 1812, had created their constitution) a regiment in the army of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, commanded by Guglielmo Pepe, a Carbonari, mutinied, conquering the peninsular part of Two Sicilies. The king, Ferdinand I, agreed to enact a new constitution. The revolutionaries, though, failed to court popular support and fell to Austrian troops of the Holy Alliance. Ferdinand abolished the constitution and began systematically persecuting known revolutionaries. Many supporters of revolution in Sicily, including the scholar Michele Amari, were forced into exile during the decades that followed.

Piedmont insurrection

The leader of the 1821 revolutionary movement in Piedmont was Santorre di Santarosa, who wanted to remove the Austrians and unify Italy under the House of Savoy. The Piedmont revolt started in Alessandria, where troops adopted the green, white and red tricolore of the Cisalpine Republic. The king's regent, prince Charles Albert, acting while the king Charles Felix was away, approved a new constitution to appease the revolutionaries, but when the king returned he disavowed the constitution and requested assistance from the Holy Alliance. Di Santarosa's troops were defeated, and the would-be Piedmontese revolutionary fled to Paris.

1830 insurrections

By 1830, revolutionary sentiment in favor of a unified Italy began to experience a resurgence, and a series of insurrections laid the groundwork for the creation of one nation along the Italian peninsula.

The Duke of Modena, Francis IV, was an ambitious noble, and he hoped to become king of Northern Italy by increasing his territory. In 1826, Francis made it clear that he would not act against those who subverted opposition toward the unification of Italy. Encouraged by the declaration, revolutionaries in the region began to organize.

During the July Revolution of 1830 in France, revolutionaries forced the king to abdicate and created the July Monarchy with encouragement from the new French king, Louis-Philippe. Louis-Philippe had promised revolutionaries such as Ciro Menotti that he would intervene if Austria tried to interfere in Italy with troops. Fearing he would lose his throne, though, Louis-Philippe did not intervene in Menotti's planned uprising. The Duke of Modena abandoned his Carbonari supporters, arrested Menotti and other conspirators in 1831, and once again conquered his duchy with help from the Austrian troops. Menotti was executed, and the idea of a revolution centered in Modena faded.

At the same time, other insurrections arose in the Papal Legations of Bologna, Forlì, Ravenna, Imola, Ferrara, Pesaro and Urbino. These successful revolutions, which adopted the tricolore in favor of the Papal flag, quickly spread to cover all the Papal Legations, and their newly installed local governments proclaimed the creation of a united Italian nation.

The revolts in Modena and the Papal Legations inspired similar activity in the Duchy of Parma, where the tricolore flag was adopted. The Parmese duchess Marie Louise left the city during the political upheaval.

Insurrected provinces planned to unite as the Province Italiane unite (united Italian Provinces), which prompted Pope Gregory XVI to ask for Austrian help against the rebels. Metternich warned Louis-Philippe that Austria had no intention to let Italian matters be, and that French intervention would not be tolerated. Louis-Philippe withheld any military help and even arrested Italian patriots living in France.

In the spring of 1831, the Austrian army began its march across the Italian peninsula, slowly crushing resistance in each province that had revolted. This military action suppressed much of the fledging revolutionary movement, and resulted in the arrest of many radical leaders, including Menotti.

Revolutions of 1848-1849

In January 1848, the revolutionary disturbances began on January 5 with a civil disobedience strike in Lombardy, as citizens stopped smoking and playing the lottery, which denied Austria the associated tax revenue. Shortly after this, revolts began on the island of Sicily against King Ferdinand, who conceded as he had in 1821 and granted Sicily a constitution, as well as releasing political prisoners. Disquiet spread to Naples, where the Neapolitan liberals demanded that they should also be granted a constitution. Ferdinand granted Naples a constitution on 29 January, a document that was identical to its Sicilian counterpart.

In February 1848 there were revolts in Tuscany that were relatively nonviolent, after which Ferdinand granted the Tuscans a constitution. A breakaway republican provisional government formed in Tuscany during February shortly after this concession. On February 21, Pope Pius IX granted a constitution to the Papal States, which was both unexpected and surprising considering the historical recalcitrance of the Papacy. On February 23, King Louis Philippe of France was forced to flee Paris, and a republic was proclaimed. By the time the revolution in Paris occurred, three states of Italy had constitutions-four if one considers Sicily to be a separate state.

Meanwhile in Lombardy tensions increased until the Milanese and Venetians rose up in revolt on 18 March 1848. The insurrection in Milan succeeded in expelling the Austrian garrison after five days of street fights ("Cinque giornate di Milano"). An Austrian army under Radetzky besieged Milan, but due to defection and the popularity of the Milanese, they were forced to retreat. Soon, Charles Albert, the King of Sardinia (whose kingdom was actually centered around Piedmont and Savoy), urged by the Venetians and Milanese to aid their cause, decided that this was the moment to unify Italy and declared war on Austria. After initial successes at Goito and Peschiera, he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Custoza on July 24, by the Austrian Marshal Josef Radetzky. An armistice was quickly agreed to, and Radetzky was able to regain control of all of Lombardy-Venetia save Venice itself, where a republic was proclaimed under Daniele Manin.

While Radetzky consolidated control of Lombardy-Venetia and Charles Albert licked his wounds, matters began to take a more serious turn in other parts of Italy. The monarchs who had so reluctantly agreed to constitutions in March began to come into conflict with their constitutional ministers, often leading to outright conflict. At first, the republics had the upper hand, forcing the monarchs to flee their capitals, including Pope Pius IX.

Pius IX had been initially seen as something of a reformer, but conflicts with the revolutionaries led him to sour on the idea of constitutional government. In November 1848, following the assassination of his Minister Pellegrino Rossi, Pius IX fled Rome. Subsequently, Garibaldi and other patriots arrived in Rome. In early 1849, elections were held for a Constituent Assembly, which proclaimed a Roman Republic on February 9. On February 2 1849, at a political rally held in the Apollo Theater, a young Roman priest, the Abbé Arduini, had made a speech in which he had declared that the temporal power of the popes was a "historical lie, a political imposture, and a religious immorality.". In early March 1849, Mazzini arrived in Rome and was appointed Chief Minister. In the Constitution of the Roman Republic religious freedom was guaranteed by article 7, the independence of the pope as head of the Catholic Church was guaranteed by article 8 of the Principi fondamentali, while the death penalty was abolished by article 5, and free public education was provided by article 8 of the Titolo I.

Before the powers had a chance to respond to the founding of the Roman Republic, Charles Albert, whose army had been trained in the meanwhile by the exiled Polish general Albert Chrzanowski, determined to renew the war with Austria. He was quickly defeated by Radetzky at Novara on March 23, 1849. This time the defeat was final. Charles Albert himself abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel II, and all Piedmontese ambitions to unite Italy or conquer Lombardy were, for the moment at least, brought to an end. The war was formally ended by a treaty signed on August 9. A popular revolt broke out in Brescia in the very day of the Novara defeat, but was fiercely suppressed by the Austrians ten days later.

There remained the Roman and Venetian Republics. In April a French force under Nicolas Oudinot was sent to Rome. Apparently, the French wished to mediate between the Pope and his subjects, but soon the French were forced to take sides, and determined to restore the Pope. After a two month siege, Rome capitulated on June 29, 1849, and the Pope was restored. Garibaldi and Mazzini once again fled into exile - in 1850 Garibaldi became a resident of New York City. Meanwhile, the Austrians besieged Venice, which was forced to surrender on August 24. The Austrians also moved to restore order in central Italy, restoring the princes who had been expelled and establishing their control over the Papal Legations. The revolutions were thus completely crushed.

Creation of the Italian State

The War of 1859 and its aftermath

Although Charles Albert had been crushingly defeated in his bid to drive the Austrians from Italy, the Piedmontese did not abandon all hope of aggrandizement. Camillo di Cavour, who became president of the Council of Ministers in 1852, also had expansionist ambitions. Cavour, however, saw that Piedmont would not be able to singlehandedly add to its territory. Instead, he hoped to secure aid from Britain and France in expelling the Austrians from the Italian peninsula. An attempt to gain British and French favor by supporting them in the Crimean War, which Piedmont entered in 1855, was unsuccessful, as Italian matters were ignored at the Congress of Paris. Nevertheless, the war achieved a useful objective-it left Austria, which had uncomfortably tried to balance between the two sides during the war, dangerously isolated.

On January 14, 1858, an Italian nationalist Felice Orsini attempted to assassinate Napoleon III, the French Emperor. Writing from his prison cell, Orsini did not plea for his life, accepting death for his role in the failed assassination attempt, but rather appealed to Napoleon III to fulfill his destiny by aiding the forces of Italian nationalism. Napoleon, who had belonged to the Carbonari in his youth, and who saw himself as an advanced thinker, in tune with the ideas of the day, became convinced that it was his destiny to do something for Italy. In the summer of 1858, Cavour met with Napoleon III at Plombières and the two signed a secret agreement, which was known as the Patto di Plombières ("Pact of Plombières"). Cavour and Napoleon III agreed to a joint war against Austria. Piedmont would gain the Austrian territories in Italy (Lombardy and Venetia), as well as the Duchies of Parma and Modena, while France would be rewarded with Piedmont's transalpine territories of Savoy and Nice. Central and Southern Italy would remain largely as it was, although there was some talk that the Emperor's cousin Prince Napoleon would replace the Habsburgs in Tuscany. In order to allow the French to intervene without appearing as the aggressors, Cavour was to provoke the Austrians into aggression by encouraging revolutionary activity in Lombardy.

At first, things did not work out as planned. The Austrians, ignorant of the secret agreement signed at Plombières, were surprisingly patient in dealing with the Piedmontese-inspired insurrections. The Piedmontese mobilization in March 1859 was then something of an admission of defeat, as it appeared that the strategy of provoking the Austrians into aggression had failed. Without Austrian aggression, the French could not intervene, and without French support, Cavour was unwilling to risk war. At this time however, the Austrians conveniently made their opponents' task easier by sending an ultimatum to the Piedmontese demanding demobilization. This the Piedmontese could conveniently reject and, by making Austria seem the aggressor, allowed the French to intervene.

The war itself was quite short. The Austrian advance into Piedmont was incompetent, and they were unable to secure the Alpine passes before the arrival of the French army, led personally by Napoleon. At the Battle of Magenta on June 4, the French and Sardinians were victorious over the Austrian army of Count Gyulai, leading to Austrian withdrawal from most of Lombardy and a triumphal entry by Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel into Milan. On June 24, a second battle was fought between the two armies at Solferino. This bloody engagement, at which the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph had also taken personal command of his troops, saw little skill demonstrated by the leaders on either side, but the French were again victorious. The Austrians withdrew behind the Quadrilateral of fortresses on the borders of Venetia.

There were many reasons Napoleon III sought peace at this point. Fear that a long and bloody campaign would be necessary to conquer Venetia, fear for his position at home, worry at the intervention of German states, and fear of a too-powerful Piedmont-Sardinia led him to look for a way out. On July 11, he met privately with Franz Joseph at Villafranca, without the knowledge of his Piedmontese allies. Together, the two agreed on the outlines of a settlement to the conflict. The Austrians would retain Venetia, but would cede Lombardy to the French, who would then immediately cede it to Piedmont (the Austrians were unwilling to themselves cede the area to Piedmont). Otherwise, the Italian borders would remain unchanged. In Central Italy, where the authorities had universally been expelled following the outbreak of war, the rulers of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma, who had fled to Austria, would be restored, while Papal control of the Legations would be resumed. Because Napoleon had not fulfilled the terms of his agreement with Piedmont, he would not gain Savoy and Nice.

The Sardinians were outraged at this betrayal by their ally. Cavour demanded that the war be carried on regardless, and resigned when the more realistic Victor Emmanuel determined that acquiescence was the only realistic option. But the Villafranca agreement would prove a dead letter long before it was formalized into the Treaty of Zurich in November. Piedmontese troops occupied the smaller Italian states and the Legations, and the French proved unwilling to pressure them to withdraw and allow the restoration of the old order, while the Austrians no longer had the power to compel it. In December, Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the Legations were unified into the United Provinces of Central Italy, and, encouraged by the British, were seeking annexation by the Kingdom of Sardinia.

Cavour, who triumphantly returned to power in January 1860, wished to annex the territories, but realized that French acquiescence was necessary. Napoleon III agreed to recognize the Piedmontese annexation in exchange for Savoy and Nice. On March 20, 1860, the annexations occurred. Now the Kingdom of Sardinia encompassed most of Northern and Central Italy.

Thus, by the spring of 1860, only four states remained in Italy - the Austrians in Venetia, the Papal States (now minus the Legations), the new expanded Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. There is no special reason to think that Cavour now envisaged the unification of the rest of Italy under Piedmontese rule, but events proved to have a life of their own.

Francis II of the Two Sicilies, the son and successor of Ferdinand II (the infamous "King Bomba"), had a well-organized army of 150,000 men. But his father's tyranny had inspired many secret societies, and the kingdom's Swiss Mercenaries were unexpectedly recalled home according to a new Swiss law, leaving Francis only his mostly unreliable native troops. It was a critical opportunity for the unification movement. In April 1860, separate insurrections began in Messina and Palermo in Sicily, both of which demonstrated a history of opposing Neapolitan rule. These rebellions were easily suppressed by loyal troops.

In the meantime, Garibaldi, a native of Nice, was deeply resentful of the French annexation of his home city. He hoped to use his supporters to regain the territory. Cavour, terrified of Garibaldi provoking a war with France, convinced Garibaldi to instead concentrate his forces on the Sicilian rebellions. On May 6, 1860, Garibaldi and his cadre of about a thousand Italian volunteers (called I Mille), steamed from Quarto near Genoa, and after a stop in Talamone on May 11 landed near Marsala on the west coast of Sicily.

Near Salemi, Garibaldi's army attracted scattered bands of rebels, and the combined forces defeated the opposing army at Calatafimi on May 13. Within three days, the invading force had swelled to 4000 men. On May 14, Garibaldi proclaimed himself dictator of Sicily, in the name of Victor Emmanuel. After waging various successful but hard-fought battles, Garibaldi advanced upon the Sicilian capital of Palermo, announcing his arrival by beacon-fires kindled at night. On May 27, the force laid siege to the Porta Termini of Palermo, while a mass uprising of street and barricade fighting broke out within the city.

With Palermo deemed insurgent, Neapolitan general Ferdinando Lanza, arriving in Sicily with some 25,000 troops, furiously bombarded Palermo nearly to ruins. With the intervention of a British admiral, an armistice was declared, leading to the Neapolitan troops' departure and surrender of the town to Garibaldi and his much smaller army.

This resounding success demonstrated the weakness of the Neapolitan government. Garibaldi's fame spread and many Italians began to consider him a national hero. Doubt, confusion and dismay overtook the Neapolitan court - the king hastily summoned his ministry and offered to restore an earlier constitution, but these efforts failed to rebuild the peoples' trust in Bourbon governance.

Six weeks after the surrender of Palermo, Garibaldi attacked Messina. Within a week its citadel surrendered. Having conquered Sicily, Garibaldi proceeded to the mainland, crossing the Straits of Messina with the Neapolitan fleet at hand. The garrison at Reggio Calabria promptly surrendered. Progressing northward, the populace everywhere hailed him and military resistance faded. At the end of August Garibaldi was at Cosenza, and on September 5 at Eboli, near Salerno. Meanwhile, Naples had been declared in a state of siege, and on September 6 the king gathered the 4,000 troops still faithful to him and retreated over the Volturno river. The next day Garibaldi, with a few followers, entered Naples, whose people openly welcomed him.

Defeat of Naples

Though Garibaldi had easily taken the capital, the Neapolitan army had not joined the rebellion en masse, holding firm along the Volturno River. Garibaldi's irregular bands of about 25,000 men could not drive away the king or take the fortresses of Capua and Gaeta without the help of the Sardinian army.

The Sardinian army, however, could only arrive by traversing the Papal States, which extended across the entire center of the peninsula. Ignoring the political will of the Holy See, Garibaldi announced his intent to proclaim a "Kingdom of Italy" from Rome, the capital city of Pope Pius IX. Seeing this as a threat to the domain of the Catholic Church, Pius threatened excommunication for those who supported such an effort. Afraid that Garibaldi would attack Rome, Catholics worldwide sent money and volunteers for the Papal Army, which was commanded by General Louis Lamoricière, a French exile.

The settling of the peninsular standoff now rested with Louis Napoleon. If the French emperor had let Garibaldi have his way the latter would likely have ended the temporal sovereignty of the pope and made Rome the capital of Italy. Napoleon, however, may have arranged with Cavour to leave the king of Sardinia free to take possession of Naples, Umbria and the other provinces, provided that Rome and the "patrimony of St. Peter" were left intact.

It was in this situation that a Sardinian force of two army corps, under Fanti and Cialdini, marched to the frontier of the Papal States, its objective being not Rome but Naples. The Papal troops under Lamoricière advanced against Cialdini, but were quickly defeated and besieged in the fortress of Ancona, finally surrendering on September 29. On October 9, Victor Emmanuel II arrived and took command. There was no longer a papal army to oppose him, and the march southward proceeded unopposed.

Garibaldi distrusted the pragmatic Cavour, particularly due to Cavour's role in the French annexation of Nice, Garibaldi's birthplace. Nevertheless, he accepted the command of Victor Emmanuel. When the king entered Sessa Aurunca at the head of his army, Garibaldi willingly handed over his dictatorial power. After greeting Victor Emmanuel in Teano with the title of King of Italy, Garibaldi entered Naples riding beside the king. Garibaldi then retired to the island of Caprera, while the remaining work of unifying the peninsula was left to Victor Emmanuel.

The progress of the Sardinian army compelled Francis II to give up his line along the river, and he eventually took refuge with his best troops in the fortress of Gaeta. His courage boosted by his resolute young wife, Duchess Marie Sophie of Bavaria, Francis mounted a stubborn defense that lasted three months. But European allies refused him aid, food and munitions became scarce, and disease set in, so the garrison was forced to surrender. Nonetheless, ragtag groups of Neapolitans loyal to Francis would fight on against the Italian government for years to come.

The fall of Gaeta brought the unification movement to the brink of fruition - only Rome and Venetia remained to be added. On February 18, 1861, Victor Emmanuel assembled the deputies of the first Italian Parliament in Turin. On March 17 1861, the Parliament proclaimed Victor Emmanuel II King of Italy, and on March 27 1861 Rome was declared Capital of Italy. Three months later Cavour, having seen his life's work nearly complete, died. When he was given the last rites, Cavour purportedly said: "Italy is made. All is safe."

Roman Question

Mazzini was discontented with the perpetuation of monarchical government, and continued to agitate for a republic. With the motto "Free from the Alps to the Adriatic," the unification movement set its gaze on Rome and Venice. There were obstacles, though. A challenge against the Pope's temporal domain was viewed with great distrust by Catholics around the world, and French troops were stationed in Rome. Victor Emmanuel was wary of the international repercussions of attacking the Papal States, and discouraged his subjects from participating in revolutionary ventures with such intentions.

Nonetheless, Garibaldi believed that the government would support him if he attacked Rome. Frustrated at inaction by the king, and bristling over perceived snubs, he organized a new venture. In June 1862, he sailed from Genoa and landed again at Palermo, where he gathered volunteers for the campaign, under the slogan Roma o Morte (Rome or Death). The garrison of Messina, loyal to the king's instructions, barred their passage to the mainland. Garibaldi's force, now numbering two thousand, turned south and set sail from Catania. Garibaldi declared that he would enter Rome as a victor or perish beneath its walls. He landed at Melito on August 14, and marched at once into the Calabrian mountains.

Far from supporting this endeavor, the Italian government was quite disapproving. General Cialdini dispatched a division of the regular army, under Colonel Pallavicino, against the volunteer bands. On August 28 the two forces met in the Aspromonte. One of the regulars fired a chance shot, and several volleys followed, but Garibaldi forbade his men to return fire on fellow subjects of the Kingdom of Italy. The volunteers suffered several casualties, and Garibaldi himself was wounded; many were taken prisoner. Garibaldi was taken by steamer to Varignano, where he was honorably imprisoned for a time, but finally released.

Meanwhile, Victor Emmanuel sought a safer means to the acquisition of the Papal States. He negotiated the removal of the French troops from Rome through a treaty, the September Convention, with Napoleon III in September 1864, by which the emperor agreed to withdraw his troops within two years. The pope was to expand his own army during that time so as to be self-sufficient. In December 1866, the last of the French troops departed from Rome, in spite of the efforts of the pope to retain them. By their withdrawal Italy was freed from the presence of foreign soldiers for the first time probably in a thousand years.

The seat of government was moved in 1865 from Turin, the old Sardinian capital, to Florence, where the first Italian parliament was summoned. This arrangement created such disturbances in Turin that the king was forced to leave that city hastily for his new capital.

Third Independence War (1866)

In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Austria contested with Prussia the position of leadership among the German states. The Kingdom of Italy seized the opportunity to capture Venetia from Austrian rule and allied itself with Prussia. Austria tried to convince the Italian government to accept Venetia in exchange for non-intervention. However, on April 8, Italy and Prussia signed an agreement that supported Italy's acquisition of Venetia, and on June 20, Italy declared war on Austria. Within the context of Italian unification, the Austro-Prussian war is called Third Independence War, after the First (1848) and the Second (1859).

Victor Emmanuel hastened to lead an army across the Mincio to the invasion of Venetia, while Garibaldi was to invade the Tyrol with his Hunters of the Alps. The enterprise ended in disaster. The Italian army encountered the Austrians at Custoza on June 24 and suffered a defeat. On July 20 the Regia Marina was defeated in the battle of Lissa. Italy's fortunes were not all so dismal, though. The following day, Garibaldi's volunteers defeated an Austrian force in the battle of Bezzecca, and moved toward Trento.

Meanwhile, Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck saw that his own ends in the war had been achieved, and signed an armistice with Austria on July 26. Italy officially laid down its arms on August 12. Garibaldi was called back from his successful march and resigned with a brief telegram reading only " Obbedisco" ("I obey").

In spite of Italy's poor showing, Prussia's success on the northern front obliged Austria to cede Venetia. Under the terms of a peace treaty signed in Vienna on October 12, Emperor Franz Joseph had already agreed to cede Venetia to Napoleon III in exchange for non-intervention in the Austro-Prussian War and thus Napoleon III ceded Venetia to Italy on October 19 in exchange for the earlier Italian acquiescence to the French annexation of Savoy.

In the peace treaty of Vienna, it was written that the annexation of Venetia would have become effective only after a referendum-taken on October 21 and October 22-to let the Venetian people express their will about being annexed or not to the Kingdom of Italy. Some historians suggest that the referendum in Venetia was held under military pressure, as a mere 0.01 percent of voters (69 out of more than 642,000 ballots) voted against the annexation. Many Venetian independence movements refer to this deceit to claim for independence of Veneto.

Austrian forces put up some opposition to the invading Italians, to little effect. Victor Emmanuel entered Venice in triumph, and performed an act of homage in the Piazza San Marco.

Mentana and Villa Glori

The national party, with Garibaldi at its head, still aimed at the possession of Rome, as the historic capital of the peninsula. In 1867 Garibaldi made a second attempt to capture Rome, but the papal army, strengthened with a new French auxiliary force, defeated his badly armed volunteers at Mentana. Subsequently, a French garrison remained in Civitavecchia until August 1870, when it was recalled following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.

Before the defeat at Mentana, Enrico Cairoli, his brother Giovanni and 70 companions had made a daring attempt to take Rome. The group had embarked in Terni and floated down the Tiber. Their arrival in Rome was to coincide with an uprising inside the city. On October 22, 1867, the revolutionaries inside Rome seized control of the Capitoline Hill and of Piazza Colonna. Unfortunately, when the Cairoli and their companions arrived at Villa Glori, on the northern outskirts of Rome, the uprising had already been suppressed. During the night of October 22, 1867, the group was surrounded by papal Zouaves, and Giovanni was severely wounded. Enrico was mortally wounded and bled to death in Giovanni's arms.

At the summit of Villa Glori, near the spot where Enrico died, there is a plain white column dedicated to the Cairoli brothers and their 70 companions. About 100 meters to the left from the top of the Spanish Steps, there is a bronze monument of Giovanni holding the dying Enrico in his arm. A plaque lists the names of their companions. Giovanni never recovered from his wounds and from the tragic events of 1867. According to an eyewitness, when Giovanni died on 11 September 1869:

Negli ultimi momenti gli parve vedere Garibaldi e fece vista di accoglierlo con trasporto. Udii (così narra un amico presente) che disse tre volte: "L'unione dei francesi ai papalini fu il fatto terribile!" pensava a Mentana. Chiamò più volte Enrico, suo fratello, "perché lo aiutasse!" poi disse: "ma vinceremo di certo; andremo a Roma!"

In the last moments, he had a vision of Garibaldi and seemed to greet him with enthusiasm. I heard (so says a friend who was present) him say three times: "The union of the French to the papal political supporters was the terrible fact!" he was thinking about Mentana. Many times he called Enrico, that he might help him! then he said: "but we will certainly win; we will go to Rome!"

Capture of Rome

In July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War began. In early August, the French Emperor Napoleon III recalled his garrison from Rome, thus no longer providing protection to the Papal State. Widespread public demonstrations illustrate the demand that the Italian government take Rome. The Italian government took no direct action until the collapse of the Second French Empire at the Battle of Sedan. King Victor Emmanuel II sent Count Ponza di San Martino to Pius IX with a personal letter offering a face-saving proposal that would have allowed the peaceful entry of the Italian Army into Rome, under the guise of offering protection to the pope. The Papacy, however, exhibited something less than enthusiasm for the plan:

The Pope's reception of San Martino (10 September 1870) was unfriendly. Pius IX allowed violent outbursts to escape him. Throwing the King's letter upon the table he exclaimed, "Fine loyalty! You are all a set of vipers, of whited sepulchres, and wanting in faith." He was perhaps alluding to other letters received from the King. After, growing calmer, he exclaimed: "I am no prophet, nor son of a prophet, but I tell you, you will never enter Rome!" San Martino was so mortified that he left the next day.

The Italian Army, commanded by General Raffaele Cadorna, crossed the papal frontier on 11 September and advanced slowly toward Rome, hoping that a peaceful entry could be negotiated. The Italian Army reached the Aurelian Walls on 19 September and placed Rome under a state of siege. Although now convinced of his unavoidable defeat, Pius IX remained intransigent to the bitter end and forced his troops to put up a token resistance. On September 20, after a cannonade of three hours had breached the Aurelian Walls at Porta Pia, the Bersaglieri entered Rome and marched down Via Pia, which was subsequently renamed Via XX Settembre. 49 Italian soldiers and four officers, and 19 papal troops died. Rome and Latium were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy after a plebiscite held on October 9.

Initially the Italian government had offered to let the pope keep Leonine City, but the Pope rejected the offer because acceptance would have been an implied endorsement of the legitimacy of the Italian kingdom's rule over his former domain. Pius IX declared himself a prisoner in the Vatican, although he was not actually restrained from coming and going. Rather, being deposed and stripped of much of his former power also removed a measure of personal protection-if he had walked the streets of Rome he might have been in danger from political opponents who had formerly kept their views private. Officially, the capital was not moved from Florence to Rome until July 1871.

Historian Raffaele de Cesare made the following observations about Italian unification:

The Roman question was the stone tied to Napoleon's feet-that dragged him into the abyss. He never forgot, even in August 1870, a month before Sedan, that he was a sovereign of a Catholic country, that he had been made Emperor, and was supported by the votes of the Conservatives and the influence of the clergy; and that it was his supreme duty not to abandon the Pontiff.

For twenty years Napoleon III had been the true sovereign of Rome, where he had many friends and relations.... Without him the temporal power would never have been reconstituted, nor, being reconstituted, would have endured.

Risorgimento in the Modern era

The process of unification of the Italian people in a national State was not completed in the nineteenth century. Many Italians remained outside the borders of the Kingdom of Italy and this situation created the Italian irredentism.

Italia irredenta (Unredeemed Italy) was an Italian nationalist opinion movement that emerged after Italian unification. It advocated irredentism among the Italian people as well as other nationalities who were willing to become Italian and as a movement; it is also known as "Italian irredentism." Not a formal organization, it was just an opinion movement that claimed that Italy had to reach its "natural borders." Similar patriotic and nationalistic ideas were common in Europe in the 19th century.

Irredentism and the two World Wars

Italian irredentism succeeded in World War I with the annexation of Trieste and Trento, with the respective territories of Venezia Giulia and Trentino. During the post-unification era, some Italians were unsatisfied with the current state of the Italian Kingdom since they wanted the kingdom to include Trieste, Istria and other areas around as well. This discontent was finally resolved with the annexation of the region.

The Kingdom of Italy had declared neutrality at the beginning of the war, officially because the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary was a defensive one, requiring its members to come under attack first. Many Italians were still hostile to Austrian historical and continuing occupations of ethnically Italian areas, and Italy chose not to enter. Austria-Hungary requested Italian neutrality, while the Triple Entente (which included Great Britain, France and Russia) its intervention. With the London Pact, signed in April 1915, Italy accepted to declare war against the Central Powers, in exchange for the irredent territories of Friuli, Trentino and Dalmatia.

Italian irredentism obtained an important result after World War I, when Italy gained Trieste, Gorizia, Istria and the city of Zara. During WWII, after the Axis aggression against Yugoslavia, Italy created the "Governatorato di Dalmazia" (from 1941 to September 1943), so the Kingdom of Italy annexed temporarily even Spalato (Split), Cattaro (Kotor) and most of coastal Dalmatia. From 1942 to 1943 even Corsica (Corse) and Nizza (Nice) were temporarily annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, nearly totally fulfilling in those years the requests of the Italian irredentism.

The movement had for its avowed purpose the emancipation of all Italian lands still subject to foreign rule after Italian unification. The Irredentists took language as the test of the alleged Italian nationality of the countries they proposed to emancipate, which were Trentino, Trieste, Dalmatia, Istria, Gorizia, Ticino, Nice (Nizza), Corsica and Malta. Austria-Hungary promoted Croatian interests in Dalmatia and Istria to weaken Italian claims in the western Balkans before WWI.

After World War II

After WWII the irredentism movement faded away in Italian politics. Only a few thousand Italians remain in Istria and Dalmatia as a consequence of the Italian defeat in WWII and of the slaughter of approximately 2,000 Italians (mostly soldiers) and the subsequent choice of Italian citizenship by an additional 200,000 - 250,000 people in what became known as the Istrian exodus.

Secession movements

The Italian unification process was generally popular with contemporary people living in the Italian peninsula, especially with regard to the end to Austrian rule. Nevertheless, dissenters were present in the 19th century (in particular, the rulers of the annexed states), and regionalist sympathies continue to the present day. There are two chief secession movements, (that in the past reached less than 5% of the national electoral votes and currently in the last 2008 national election reached about 10% nationwide and 20% in the north) represented by active political parties: one in the North (Lega Nord), and one in the South (Due Sicilie). This southern secession movement was mainly the result of peasants revolting against the new government. The former has elected several representatives to the national parliament.

The Italian region of Alto Adige/South Tyrol had a strong secession movement, headed by the Austro-Germanic majority in the region, for unification with Austria. The movement was strongest after the Second World War. Secessionist parties still exist, but the secessionist movement has been mostly pacified by the granting of substantial autonomy by the Italian government.

Legacy of Unification: Italy in the European Union=

The rise of Italian fascism may have had it roots in the establishment of a larger Italian entity. Idea of imperial grandeur, of joining, even belatedly, the European scramble for colonies, the concept of the strong leader of a proud and great people, all stand behind Mussolini's version of fascism.

Following World War II, the dynamics of unification of Italy merged with the process of European unification, and Italy was one of the founding members of the European Economic Community. Ideas similar to those that promoted the Risorgimento among the Italian people are in part responsible for the wide acceptance in Italy of the political ideas related to the formation of the Union. Imperial ambition to dominate other people, also a product of unification but never enthusiastically espoused by the majority of Italians, more or less died with the collapse of Italian fascism. Economics can be said to have replaced imperialism. Italy, with the seventh largest economy in the world, is a member of the G8.

Maps of Italian unification

1. Napoleon abolished the smaller German states in 1803 and wanted to unify the larger ones. After his defeat, the German Confederation was formed in 1815 with 39 states. In 1866 this was dissolved and the North German Confederation founded. In 1871, Germany became a unified state under Prussia.

2. Gioacchino Napeoleon, 1815. Italiani (Proclamation of Rimini). Regione Piemonte. Gioacchino Napoleon Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, was made King of Naples in 1808 and reigned until 1818. Retrieved August 23, 2008.

3. Tommaso Astarita. 2005. Between salt water and holy water: a history of Southern Italy. (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393058642), 264.

4. E.E.Y. Hales. 1954. Pio Nono: A Study in European Politics and Religion in the Nineteenth Century. (New York, NY: P.J. Kenedy.)

5. Jasper Ridley. 2001. Garibaldi. (London, UK: Phoenix. ISBN 9781842121528), 268

6. Brian J. Hayes, 2008. Italian Unification. Cavour, Garibaldi and the Making of Italy. Age of the Sage. Retrieved August 23, 2008.

7. Edgar Holt. 1971. The Making of Italy 1815-1870. (New York, NY: Atheneum), 258.

8. G. Thaon di Revel, 2002. La cessione del Veneto - ricordi di un commissario piemontese incaricato alle trattative (translation: "The cession of Veneto - memories of the piedmontese commissary for the negotiations"). (Academic Press.)

9. Ettore Beggiato, 1999. 1866: la grande truffa. (translation: "1866: the great deceit"). (Venezia, IT: Editoria universitaria.)

10. Rosi, Michele. 1929. I Cairoli, Bologna, IT: L. Capelli Ed. pages 223-224.

11. Raffaele De Cesare, Helen Zimmern, and George Macaulay Trevelyan. 1909. The last days of papal Rome, 1850-1870. (London, UK: A. Constable and Co.), 444. Online at The Internet Archive. Retrieved August 23, 2008.

12. Belief that people of the same ethnicity should belong to the same political entity.

References

Astarita, Tommaso. 2005. Between salt water and holy water: a history of Southern Italy. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393058642.

Beggiato, Ettore. 1999. 1866: la grande truffa. (translation: "1866: the great deceit"). Venezia, IT: Editoria universitaria.

Collier, Martin. 2003. Italian unification, 1820-71. (Heinemann advanced history.) Oxford, UK: Heinemann. ISBN 9780435327545.

Davis, John A. 2000. Italy in the Nineteenth Century. London, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198731283.

De Cesare, Raffaele, Helen Zimmern, and George Macaulay Trevelyan. 1909. The last days of papal Rome, 1850-1870. London, UK: A. Constable and Co. Online at The Internet Archive. Retrieved August 23, 2008.

di Revel, G. Thaon. 2002. La cessione del Veneto - ricordi di un commissario piemontese incaricato alle trattative (translation: "The cession of Veneto - memories of the piedmontese commissary for the negotiations"). Academic Press.

Hales, E.E.Y.. 1954. Pio Nono: A Study in European Politics and Religion in the Nineteenth Century. New York, NY: P.J. Kenedy.

Hales, E.E.Y. 1958. The Catholic Church in the Modern World. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Hibbert, Christopher. 2008. Garibaldi: hero of Italian unification. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230606067.

Holt, Edgar. 1971. The Making of Italy 1815-1870. New York, NY: Atheneum.

Lloyd, Richard Leslie Harris. 1975. Cavour and Italian unification, 1854-1860. (The archive series.) London, UK: Edward Arnold. ISBN 9780713118629.

Mouritsen, Henrik. 1998. Italian unification: a study in ancient and modern historiography. London, UK: Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. ISBN 9780900587818.

Ridley, Jasper. 2001. Garibaldi. London, UK: Phoenix. ISBN 9781842121528.

Rosi, Michele. 1929. I Cairoli. Bologna, IT: L. Capelli Ed.

External links

All links retrieved March 9, 2018.

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Italian Unification (Italian: il Risorgimento, or "The Resurgence") was the political and social movement that unified different states of the Italian peninsula into the single nation of Italy. The Southern, republican drive for unification was led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, while the Northern, royalist drive was led by Camillo B, royalist enso, conte di Cavour.

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Short Summary- Mexico was firmly under Spanish control, but its society was formed around race. In 1808 Napoleon forced the two rulers of Spain King Charles the 4th and Ferdinand the seventh to abdicate and he installed his brother on the throne in the absence of a legitimate king. The people of Spain created locally formed governments that would serve in place of the Spanish Colonial government.

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Short Summary- Mexico was firmly under Spanish control, but its society was formed around race. In 1808 Napoleon forced the two rulers of Spain King Charles the 4th and Ferdinand the seventh to abdicate and he installed his brother on the throne in the absence of a legitimate king. The people of Spain created locally formed governments that would serve in place of the Spanish Colonial government.

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The year 1848 opened with many problems, popular agitation was increasing in Naples and Sicily for reforms. The democratic parties in the Papal States, Tuscany and Piedmont were demanding a new constitution which transferred real power into the hands of the people. In the case of Lombardy and Venetia, the Austrian yoke was becoming intolerable. The movements of 1848-49 were democratic and nationalist.

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ADVERTISEMENTS: History of the The Unification of Italy! Mazzini believed that the young men of Italy could bring about the unification of Italy if they had faith in their mission. To quote him “Place youth at the head of the insurgent multitude; you know not the secret of the power hidden in those…

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Short Summary- Mexico was firmly under Spanish control, but its society was formed around race. In 1808 Napoleon forced the two rulers of Spain King Charles the 4th and Ferdinand the seventh to abdicate and he installed his brother on the throne in the absence of a legitimate king. The people of Spain created locally formed governments that would serve in place of the Spanish Colonial government.

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Italian Unification (Italian: il Risorgimento, or "The Resurgence") was the political and social movement that unified different states of the Italian peninsula into the single nation of Italy. The Southern, republican drive for unification was led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, while the Northern, royalist drive was led by Camillo B, royalist enso, conte di Cavour. Piedomont king, Victor Emmanuel II became first King of the unified kingdom of Italy, which lasted until 1946 when, following World War II Italy became a republic. Unification saw the demise of the Papal States. Rome became the capita. There is a lack of consensus on the exact dates for the beginning and the end of Italian reunification, but many scholars agree that the process began with the end of Napoleonic rule and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and more or less ended with the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, though the last città irredente, Trento and Triest, did not join Italy until after World War I. Napoleon also launched the process by which German states achieved unification at the same point in history.

Ideas of the new kingdom as the modern-day successor of the Roman Empire soon led to the birth of colonial ambition. Reviving the notion of the Mediterranean Sea as mare nostrum (our sea, that is, a domestic pond), Italy looked across to Africa and gained its first foothold in Eritrea in 1885. Between 1936 and 1943, Fascist Italy was officially called the Italian Empire. That collapsed after World War II, when fascist dictator Benito Mussolini sided with Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Mussolini saw himself as the great leader of a great Empire, a self-image that would have been unthinkable without unification. Post-world war, however, Italy has channeled its unification impetus into working for European unity. Alcide De Gasperi, architect of Italy's post-war reconstruction, is a "father" of the European Union. Just as unification ended war between Italian states, so European unity has ended war between members of the EU.

Background

The establishment of the Italian Republic and later of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, ruled by Napoleon, began to encourage nationalism in those who lived in the regions. As Napoleon's reign began to fail, other national monarchs he had installed tried to keep their thrones by feeding those nationalistic sentiments, setting the stage for the revolutions to come. Among these monarchs were the viceroy of Italy, Eugène de Beauharnais, who tried to get Austrian approval for his succession to the Kingdom of Italy, and Joachim Murat, who called for Italian patriots' help for the unification of Italy under his rule. Following the defeat of Napoleonic France, the Congress of Vienna (1815) was convened to redraw the European continent. In Italy, the Congress restored the pre-Napoleonic patchwork of independent governments, either directly ruled or strongly influenced by the prevailing European powers, particularly Austria.

But groups in several Italian states began to push the idea of a unified Italian state again, feeding the fires of nationalism that had already been ignited in the populace. At the time, the struggle for Italian unification was perceived to be waged primarily against the Austrian Empire and the Habsburgs, since they directly controlled the predominantly Italian-speaking northeastern part of present-day Italy and were the single most powerful force against unification. The Austrian Empire vigorously repressed nationalist sentiment growing on the Italian peninsula, as well as in the other parts of Habsburg domains. Austrian Chancellor Franz Metternich an influential diplomat at the Congress of Vienna, stated that the word Italy was nothing more than "a geographic expression."

Artistic and literary sentiment also turned towards nationalism, and perhaps the most famous of proto-nationalist works was Alessandro Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed). Some read this novel as a thinly veiled allegorical critique of Austrian rule. The novel was published in 1827 and extensively revised in the following years. The 1840 version of I Promessi Sposi used a standardized version of the Tuscan dialect, a conscious effort by the author to provide a language commonly used by most Italians.

Those in favor of unification also faced opposition from the Holy See, particularly after failed attempts to broker a confederation with the Papal States, which would have left the Papacy with some measure of autonomy over the region. The pope at the time, Pius IX, feared that giving up power in the region could mean the persecution of Italian Catholics.

Even among those who wanted to see the peninsula unified into one country, different groups could not agree on what form a unified state would take. Vincenzo Gioberti, a Piedmontese priest, had suggested a confederation of Italian states under rulership of the Pope. His book, Of the Moral and Civil Primacy of the Italians, was published in 1843 and created a link between the Papacy and the Risorgimento. Many leading revolutionaries wanted a republic, but eventually it was a king and his chief minister who had the power to unite the Italian states as a monarchy.

One of the most influential revolutionary groups was the Carbonari (coal-burners), a secret organization formed in southern Italy early in the 19th century. Inspired by the principles of the French Revolution, its members were mainly drawn from the middle class and intellectuals. After the Congress of Vienna divided the Italian peninsula among the European powers, the Carbonari movement spread into the Papal States, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Modena and the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. The revolutionaries were so feared that the reigning authorities passed an ordinance condemning to death anyone who attended a Carbonari meeting. The society, however, continued to exist and was at the root of many of the political disturbances in Italy from 1820 until after unification. The Carbonari condemned Napoleon III to death for failing to unite Italy, and the group almost succeeded in assassinating him in 1858. Many leaders of the unification movement were at one time members of this organization.

Two prominent radical figures in the unification movement were Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi. The more conservative constitutional monarchic figures included Count Cavour and Victor Emmanuel II, who would later become the first king of a united Italy.

Mazzini's activity in revolutionary movements caused him to be imprisoned soon after he joined. While in prison, he concluded that Italy could - and therefore should - be unified and formulated his program for establishing a free, independent, and republican nation with Rome as its capital. After Mazzini's release in 1831, he went to Marseille, where he organized a new political society called La Giovine Italia (Young Italy). The new society, whose motto was "God and the People," sought the unification of Italy.

Garibaldi, a native of Nice (then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), participated in an uprising in Piedmont in 1834, was sentenced to death, and escaped to South America. He spent fourteen years there, taking part in several wars, and returned to Italy in 1848.

Early revolutionary activity (1820-1830)

Carbonari insurrections (1820-1821)

In 1814 the Carbonari began organizing revolutionary activities.

Two Sicilies insurrection

In 1820, Spaniards successfully revolted over disputes about the constitution, which influenced the development of a similar movement in Italy. Inspired by the Spaniards, (who, in 1812, had created their constitution) a regiment in the army of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, commanded by Guglielmo Pepe, a Carbonari, mutinied, conquering the peninsular part of Two Sicilies. The king, Ferdinand I, agreed to enact a new constitution. The revolutionaries, though, failed to court popular support and fell to Austrian troops of the Holy Alliance. Ferdinand abolished the constitution and began systematically persecuting known revolutionaries. Many supporters of revolution in Sicily, including the scholar Michele Amari, were forced into exile during the decades that followed.

Piedmont insurrection

The leader of the 1821 revolutionary movement in Piedmont was Santorre di Santarosa, who wanted to remove the Austrians and unify Italy under the House of Savoy. The Piedmont revolt started in Alessandria, where troops adopted the green, white and red tricolore of the Cisalpine Republic. The king's regent, prince Charles Albert, acting while the king Charles Felix was away, approved a new constitution to appease the revolutionaries, but when the king returned he disavowed the constitution and requested assistance from the Holy Alliance. Di Santarosa's troops were defeated, and the would-be Piedmontese revolutionary fled to Paris.

1830 insurrections

By 1830, revolutionary sentiment in favor of a unified Italy began to experience a resurgence, and a series of insurrections laid the groundwork for the creation of one nation along the Italian peninsula.

The Duke of Modena, Francis IV, was an ambitious noble, and he hoped to become king of Northern Italy by increasing his territory. In 1826, Francis made it clear that he would not act against those who subverted opposition toward the unification of Italy. Encouraged by the declaration, revolutionaries in the region began to organize.

During the July Revolution of 1830 in France, revolutionaries forced the king to abdicate and created the July Monarchy with encouragement from the new French king, Louis-Philippe. Louis-Philippe had promised revolutionaries such as Ciro Menotti that he would intervene if Austria tried to interfere in Italy with troops. Fearing he would lose his throne, though, Louis-Philippe did not intervene in Menotti's planned uprising. The Duke of Modena abandoned his Carbonari supporters, arrested Menotti and other conspirators in 1831, and once again conquered his duchy with help from the Austrian troops. Menotti was executed, and the idea of a revolution centered in Modena faded.

At the same time, other insurrections arose in the Papal Legations of Bologna, Forlì, Ravenna, Imola, Ferrara, Pesaro and Urbino. These successful revolutions, which adopted the tricolore in favor of the Papal flag, quickly spread to cover all the Papal Legations, and their newly installed local governments proclaimed the creation of a united Italian nation.

The revolts in Modena and the Papal Legations inspired similar activity in the Duchy of Parma, where the tricolore flag was adopted. The Parmese duchess Marie Louise left the city during the political upheaval.

Insurrected provinces planned to unite as the Province Italiane unite (united Italian Provinces), which prompted Pope Gregory XVI to ask for Austrian help against the rebels. Metternich warned Louis-Philippe that Austria had no intention to let Italian matters be, and that French intervention would not be tolerated. Louis-Philippe withheld any military help and even arrested Italian patriots living in France.

In the spring of 1831, the Austrian army began its march across the Italian peninsula, slowly crushing resistance in each province that had revolted. This military action suppressed much of the fledging revolutionary movement, and resulted in the arrest of many radical leaders, including Menotti.

Revolutions of 1848-1849

In January 1848, the revolutionary disturbances began on January 5 with a civil disobedience strike in Lombardy, as citizens stopped smoking and playing the lottery, which denied Austria the associated tax revenue. Shortly after this, revolts began on the island of Sicily against King Ferdinand, who conceded as he had in 1821 and granted Sicily a constitution, as well as releasing political prisoners. Disquiet spread to Naples, where the Neapolitan liberals demanded that they should also be granted a constitution. Ferdinand granted Naples a constitution on 29 January, a document that was identical to its Sicilian counterpart.

In February 1848 there were revolts in Tuscany that were relatively nonviolent, after which Ferdinand granted the Tuscans a constitution. A breakaway republican provisional government formed in Tuscany during February shortly after this concession. On February 21, Pope Pius IX granted a constitution to the Papal States, which was both unexpected and surprising considering the historical recalcitrance of the Papacy. On February 23, King Louis Philippe of France was forced to flee Paris, and a republic was proclaimed. By the time the revolution in Paris occurred, three states of Italy had constitutions-four if one considers Sicily to be a separate state.

Meanwhile in Lombardy tensions increased until the Milanese and Venetians rose up in revolt on 18 March 1848. The insurrection in Milan succeeded in expelling the Austrian garrison after five days of street fights ("Cinque giornate di Milano"). An Austrian army under Radetzky besieged Milan, but due to defection and the popularity of the Milanese, they were forced to retreat. Soon, Charles Albert, the King of Sardinia (whose kingdom was actually centered around Piedmont and Savoy), urged by the Venetians and Milanese to aid their cause, decided that this was the moment to unify Italy and declared war on Austria. After initial successes at Goito and Peschiera, he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Custoza on July 24, by the Austrian Marshal Josef Radetzky. An armistice was quickly agreed to, and Radetzky was able to regain control of all of Lombardy-Venetia save Venice itself, where a republic was proclaimed under Daniele Manin.

While Radetzky consolidated control of Lombardy-Venetia and Charles Albert licked his wounds, matters began to take a more serious turn in other parts of Italy. The monarchs who had so reluctantly agreed to constitutions in March began to come into conflict with their constitutional ministers, often leading to outright conflict. At first, the republics had the upper hand, forcing the monarchs to flee their capitals, including Pope Pius IX.

Pius IX had been initially seen as something of a reformer, but conflicts with the revolutionaries led him to sour on the idea of constitutional government. In November 1848, following the assassination of his Minister Pellegrino Rossi, Pius IX fled Rome. Subsequently, Garibaldi and other patriots arrived in Rome. In early 1849, elections were held for a Constituent Assembly, which proclaimed a Roman Republic on February 9. On February 2 1849, at a political rally held in the Apollo Theater, a young Roman priest, the Abbé Arduini, had made a speech in which he had declared that the temporal power of the popes was a "historical lie, a political imposture, and a religious immorality.". In early March 1849, Mazzini arrived in Rome and was appointed Chief Minister. In the Constitution of the Roman Republic religious freedom was guaranteed by article 7, the independence of the pope as head of the Catholic Church was guaranteed by article 8 of the Principi fondamentali, while the death penalty was abolished by article 5, and free public education was provided by article 8 of the Titolo I.

Before the powers had a chance to respond to the founding of the Roman Republic, Charles Albert, whose army had been trained in the meanwhile by the exiled Polish general Albert Chrzanowski, determined to renew the war with Austria. He was quickly defeated by Radetzky at Novara on March 23, 1849. This time the defeat was final. Charles Albert himself abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel II, and all Piedmontese ambitions to unite Italy or conquer Lombardy were, for the moment at least, brought to an end. The war was formally ended by a treaty signed on August 9. A popular revolt broke out in Brescia in the very day of the Novara defeat, but was fiercely suppressed by the Austrians ten days later.

There remained the Roman and Venetian Republics. In April a French force under Nicolas Oudinot was sent to Rome. Apparently, the French wished to mediate between the Pope and his subjects, but soon the French were forced to take sides, and determined to restore the Pope. After a two month siege, Rome capitulated on June 29, 1849, and the Pope was restored. Garibaldi and Mazzini once again fled into exile - in 1850 Garibaldi became a resident of New York City. Meanwhile, the Austrians besieged Venice, which was forced to surrender on August 24. The Austrians also moved to restore order in central Italy, restoring the princes who had been expelled and establishing their control over the Papal Legations. The revolutions were thus completely crushed.

Creation of the Italian State

The War of 1859 and its aftermath

Although Charles Albert had been crushingly defeated in his bid to drive the Austrians from Italy, the Piedmontese did not abandon all hope of aggrandizement. Camillo di Cavour, who became president of the Council of Ministers in 1852, also had expansionist ambitions. Cavour, however, saw that Piedmont would not be able to singlehandedly add to its territory. Instead, he hoped to secure aid from Britain and France in expelling the Austrians from the Italian peninsula. An attempt to gain British and French favor by supporting them in the Crimean War, which Piedmont entered in 1855, was unsuccessful, as Italian matters were ignored at the Congress of Paris. Nevertheless, the war achieved a useful objective-it left Austria, which had uncomfortably tried to balance between the two sides during the war, dangerously isolated.

On January 14, 1858, an Italian nationalist Felice Orsini attempted to assassinate Napoleon III, the French Emperor. Writing from his prison cell, Orsini did not plea for his life, accepting death for his role in the failed assassination attempt, but rather appealed to Napoleon III to fulfill his destiny by aiding the forces of Italian nationalism. Napoleon, who had belonged to the Carbonari in his youth, and who saw himself as an advanced thinker, in tune with the ideas of the day, became convinced that it was his destiny to do something for Italy. In the summer of 1858, Cavour met with Napoleon III at Plombières and the two signed a secret agreement, which was known as the Patto di Plombières ("Pact of Plombières"). Cavour and Napoleon III agreed to a joint war against Austria. Piedmont would gain the Austrian territories in Italy (Lombardy and Venetia), as well as the Duchies of Parma and Modena, while France would be rewarded with Piedmont's transalpine territories of Savoy and Nice. Central and Southern Italy would remain largely as it was, although there was some talk that the Emperor's cousin Prince Napoleon would replace the Habsburgs in Tuscany. In order to allow the French to intervene without appearing as the aggressors, Cavour was to provoke the Austrians into aggression by encouraging revolutionary activity in Lombardy.

At first, things did not work out as planned. The Austrians, ignorant of the secret agreement signed at Plombières, were surprisingly patient in dealing with the Piedmontese-inspired insurrections. The Piedmontese mobilization in March 1859 was then something of an admission of defeat, as it appeared that the strategy of provoking the Austrians into aggression had failed. Without Austrian aggression, the French could not intervene, and without French support, Cavour was unwilling to risk war. At this time however, the Austrians conveniently made their opponents' task easier by sending an ultimatum to the Piedmontese demanding demobilization. This the Piedmontese could conveniently reject and, by making Austria seem the aggressor, allowed the French to intervene.

The war itself was quite short. The Austrian advance into Piedmont was incompetent, and they were unable to secure the Alpine passes before the arrival of the French army, led personally by Napoleon. At the Battle of Magenta on June 4, the French and Sardinians were victorious over the Austrian army of Count Gyulai, leading to Austrian withdrawal from most of Lombardy and a triumphal entry by Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel into Milan. On June 24, a second battle was fought between the two armies at Solferino. This bloody engagement, at which the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph had also taken personal command of his troops, saw little skill demonstrated by the leaders on either side, but the French were again victorious. The Austrians withdrew behind the Quadrilateral of fortresses on the borders of Venetia.

There were many reasons Napoleon III sought peace at this point. Fear that a long and bloody campaign would be necessary to conquer Venetia, fear for his position at home, worry at the intervention of German states, and fear of a too-powerful Piedmont-Sardinia led him to look for a way out. On July 11, he met privately with Franz Joseph at Villafranca, without the knowledge of his Piedmontese allies. Together, the two agreed on the outlines of a settlement to the conflict. The Austrians would retain Venetia, but would cede Lombardy to the French, who would then immediately cede it to Piedmont (the Austrians were unwilling to themselves cede the area to Piedmont). Otherwise, the Italian borders would remain unchanged. In Central Italy, where the authorities had universally been expelled following the outbreak of war, the rulers of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma, who had fled to Austria, would be restored, while Papal control of the Legations would be resumed. Because Napoleon had not fulfilled the terms of his agreement with Piedmont, he would not gain Savoy and Nice.

The Sardinians were outraged at this betrayal by their ally. Cavour demanded that the war be carried on regardless, and resigned when the more realistic Victor Emmanuel determined that acquiescence was the only realistic option. But the Villafranca agreement would prove a dead letter long before it was formalized into the Treaty of Zurich in November. Piedmontese troops occupied the smaller Italian states and the Legations, and the French proved unwilling to pressure them to withdraw and allow the restoration of the old order, while the Austrians no longer had the power to compel it. In December, Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the Legations were unified into the United Provinces of Central Italy, and, encouraged by the British, were seeking annexation by the Kingdom of Sardinia.

Cavour, who triumphantly returned to power in January 1860, wished to annex the territories, but realized that French acquiescence was necessary. Napoleon III agreed to recognize the Piedmontese annexation in exchange for Savoy and Nice. On March 20, 1860, the annexations occurred. Now the Kingdom of Sardinia encompassed most of Northern and Central Italy.

Thus, by the spring of 1860, only four states remained in Italy - the Austrians in Venetia, the Papal States (now minus the Legations), the new expanded Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. There is no special reason to think that Cavour now envisaged the unification of the rest of Italy under Piedmontese rule, but events proved to have a life of their own.

Francis II of the Two Sicilies, the son and successor of Ferdinand II (the infamous "King Bomba"), had a well-organized army of 150,000 men. But his father's tyranny had inspired many secret societies, and the kingdom's Swiss Mercenaries were unexpectedly recalled home according to a new Swiss law, leaving Francis only his mostly unreliable native troops. It was a critical opportunity for the unification movement. In April 1860, separate insurrections began in Messina and Palermo in Sicily, both of which demonstrated a history of opposing Neapolitan rule. These rebellions were easily suppressed by loyal troops.

In the meantime, Garibaldi, a native of Nice, was deeply resentful of the French annexation of his home city. He hoped to use his supporters to regain the territory. Cavour, terrified of Garibaldi provoking a war with France, convinced Garibaldi to instead concentrate his forces on the Sicilian rebellions. On May 6, 1860, Garibaldi and his cadre of about a thousand Italian volunteers (called I Mille), steamed from Quarto near Genoa, and after a stop in Talamone on May 11 landed near Marsala on the west coast of Sicily.

Near Salemi, Garibaldi's army attracted scattered bands of rebels, and the combined forces defeated the opposing army at Calatafimi on May 13. Within three days, the invading force had swelled to 4000 men. On May 14, Garibaldi proclaimed himself dictator of Sicily, in the name of Victor Emmanuel. After waging various successful but hard-fought battles, Garibaldi advanced upon the Sicilian capital of Palermo, announcing his arrival by beacon-fires kindled at night. On May 27, the force laid siege to the Porta Termini of Palermo, while a mass uprising of street and barricade fighting broke out within the city.

With Palermo deemed insurgent, Neapolitan general Ferdinando Lanza, arriving in Sicily with some 25,000 troops, furiously bombarded Palermo nearly to ruins. With the intervention of a British admiral, an armistice was declared, leading to the Neapolitan troops' departure and surrender of the town to Garibaldi and his much smaller army.

This resounding success demonstrated the weakness of the Neapolitan government. Garibaldi's fame spread and many Italians began to consider him a national hero. Doubt, confusion and dismay overtook the Neapolitan court - the king hastily summoned his ministry and offered to restore an earlier constitution, but these efforts failed to rebuild the peoples' trust in Bourbon governance.

Six weeks after the surrender of Palermo, Garibaldi attacked Messina. Within a week its citadel surrendered. Having conquered Sicily, Garibaldi proceeded to the mainland, crossing the Straits of Messina with the Neapolitan fleet at hand. The garrison at Reggio Calabria promptly surrendered. Progressing northward, the populace everywhere hailed him and military resistance faded. At the end of August Garibaldi was at Cosenza, and on September 5 at Eboli, near Salerno. Meanwhile, Naples had been declared in a state of siege, and on September 6 the king gathered the 4,000 troops still faithful to him and retreated over the Volturno river. The next day Garibaldi, with a few followers, entered Naples, whose people openly welcomed him.

Defeat of Naples

Though Garibaldi had easily taken the capital, the Neapolitan army had not joined the rebellion en masse, holding firm along the Volturno River. Garibaldi's irregular bands of about 25,000 men could not drive away the king or take the fortresses of Capua and Gaeta without the help of the Sardinian army.

The Sardinian army, however, could only arrive by traversing the Papal States, which extended across the entire center of the peninsula. Ignoring the political will of the Holy See, Garibaldi announced his intent to proclaim a "Kingdom of Italy" from Rome, the capital city of Pope Pius IX. Seeing this as a threat to the domain of the Catholic Church, Pius threatened excommunication for those who supported such an effort. Afraid that Garibaldi would attack Rome, Catholics worldwide sent money and volunteers for the Papal Army, which was commanded by General Louis Lamoricière, a French exile.

The settling of the peninsular standoff now rested with Louis Napoleon. If the French emperor had let Garibaldi have his way the latter would likely have ended the temporal sovereignty of the pope and made Rome the capital of Italy. Napoleon, however, may have arranged with Cavour to leave the king of Sardinia free to take possession of Naples, Umbria and the other provinces, provided that Rome and the "patrimony of St. Peter" were left intact.

It was in this situation that a Sardinian force of two army corps, under Fanti and Cialdini, marched to the frontier of the Papal States, its objective being not Rome but Naples. The Papal troops under Lamoricière advanced against Cialdini, but were quickly defeated and besieged in the fortress of Ancona, finally surrendering on September 29. On October 9, Victor Emmanuel II arrived and took command. There was no longer a papal army to oppose him, and the march southward proceeded unopposed.

Garibaldi distrusted the pragmatic Cavour, particularly due to Cavour's role in the French annexation of Nice, Garibaldi's birthplace. Nevertheless, he accepted the command of Victor Emmanuel. When the king entered Sessa Aurunca at the head of his army, Garibaldi willingly handed over his dictatorial power. After greeting Victor Emmanuel in Teano with the title of King of Italy, Garibaldi entered Naples riding beside the king. Garibaldi then retired to the island of Caprera, while the remaining work of unifying the peninsula was left to Victor Emmanuel.

The progress of the Sardinian army compelled Francis II to give up his line along the river, and he eventually took refuge with his best troops in the fortress of Gaeta. His courage boosted by his resolute young wife, Duchess Marie Sophie of Bavaria, Francis mounted a stubborn defense that lasted three months. But European allies refused him aid, food and munitions became scarce, and disease set in, so the garrison was forced to surrender. Nonetheless, ragtag groups of Neapolitans loyal to Francis would fight on against the Italian government for years to come.

The fall of Gaeta brought the unification movement to the brink of fruition - only Rome and Venetia remained to be added. On February 18, 1861, Victor Emmanuel assembled the deputies of the first Italian Parliament in Turin. On March 17 1861, the Parliament proclaimed Victor Emmanuel II King of Italy, and on March 27 1861 Rome was declared Capital of Italy. Three months later Cavour, having seen his life's work nearly complete, died. When he was given the last rites, Cavour purportedly said: "Italy is made. All is safe."

Roman Question

Mazzini was discontented with the perpetuation of monarchical government, and continued to agitate for a republic. With the motto "Free from the Alps to the Adriatic," the unification movement set its gaze on Rome and Venice. There were obstacles, though. A challenge against the Pope's temporal domain was viewed with great distrust by Catholics around the world, and French troops were stationed in Rome. Victor Emmanuel was wary of the international repercussions of attacking the Papal States, and discouraged his subjects from participating in revolutionary ventures with such intentions.

Nonetheless, Garibaldi believed that the government would support him if he attacked Rome. Frustrated at inaction by the king, and bristling over perceived snubs, he organized a new venture. In June 1862, he sailed from Genoa and landed again at Palermo, where he gathered volunteers for the campaign, under the slogan Roma o Morte (Rome or Death). The garrison of Messina, loyal to the king's instructions, barred their passage to the mainland. Garibaldi's force, now numbering two thousand, turned south and set sail from Catania. Garibaldi declared that he would enter Rome as a victor or perish beneath its walls. He landed at Melito on August 14, and marched at once into the Calabrian mountains.

Far from supporting this endeavor, the Italian government was quite disapproving. General Cialdini dispatched a division of the regular army, under Colonel Pallavicino, against the volunteer bands. On August 28 the two forces met in the Aspromonte. One of the regulars fired a chance shot, and several volleys followed, but Garibaldi forbade his men to return fire on fellow subjects of the Kingdom of Italy. The volunteers suffered several casualties, and Garibaldi himself was wounded; many were taken prisoner. Garibaldi was taken by steamer to Varignano, where he was honorably imprisoned for a time, but finally released.

Meanwhile, Victor Emmanuel sought a safer means to the acquisition of the Papal States. He negotiated the removal of the French troops from Rome through a treaty, the September Convention, with Napoleon III in September 1864, by which the emperor agreed to withdraw his troops within two years. The pope was to expand his own army during that time so as to be self-sufficient. In December 1866, the last of the French troops departed from Rome, in spite of the efforts of the pope to retain them. By their withdrawal Italy was freed from the presence of foreign soldiers for the first time probably in a thousand years.

The seat of government was moved in 1865 from Turin, the old Sardinian capital, to Florence, where the first Italian parliament was summoned. This arrangement created such disturbances in Turin that the king was forced to leave that city hastily for his new capital.

Third Independence War (1866)

In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Austria contested with Prussia the position of leadership among the German states. The Kingdom of Italy seized the opportunity to capture Venetia from Austrian rule and allied itself with Prussia. Austria tried to convince the Italian government to accept Venetia in exchange for non-intervention. However, on April 8, Italy and Prussia signed an agreement that supported Italy's acquisition of Venetia, and on June 20, Italy declared war on Austria. Within the context of Italian unification, the Austro-Prussian war is called Third Independence War, after the First (1848) and the Second (1859).

Victor Emmanuel hastened to lead an army across the Mincio to the invasion of Venetia, while Garibaldi was to invade the Tyrol with his Hunters of the Alps. The enterprise ended in disaster. The Italian army encountered the Austrians at Custoza on June 24 and suffered a defeat. On July 20 the Regia Marina was defeated in the battle of Lissa. Italy's fortunes were not all so dismal, though. The following day, Garibaldi's volunteers defeated an Austrian force in the battle of Bezzecca, and moved toward Trento.

Meanwhile, Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck saw that his own ends in the war had been achieved, and signed an armistice with Austria on July 26. Italy officially laid down its arms on August 12. Garibaldi was called back from his successful march and resigned with a brief telegram reading only " Obbedisco" ("I obey").

In spite of Italy's poor showing, Prussia's success on the northern front obliged Austria to cede Venetia. Under the terms of a peace treaty signed in Vienna on October 12, Emperor Franz Joseph had already agreed to cede Venetia to Napoleon III in exchange for non-intervention in the Austro-Prussian War and thus Napoleon III ceded Venetia to Italy on October 19 in exchange for the earlier Italian acquiescence to the French annexation of Savoy.

In the peace treaty of Vienna, it was written that the annexation of Venetia would have become effective only after a referendum-taken on October 21 and October 22-to let the Venetian people express their will about being annexed or not to the Kingdom of Italy. Some historians suggest that the referendum in Venetia was held under military pressure, as a mere 0.01 percent of voters (69 out of more than 642,000 ballots) voted against the annexation. Many Venetian independence movements refer to this deceit to claim for independence of Veneto.

Austrian forces put up some opposition to the invading Italians, to little effect. Victor Emmanuel entered Venice in triumph, and performed an act of homage in the Piazza San Marco.

Mentana and Villa Glori

The national party, with Garibaldi at its head, still aimed at the possession of Rome, as the historic capital of the peninsula. In 1867 Garibaldi made a second attempt to capture Rome, but the papal army, strengthened with a new French auxiliary force, defeated his badly armed volunteers at Mentana. Subsequently, a French garrison remained in Civitavecchia until August 1870, when it was recalled following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.

Before the defeat at Mentana, Enrico Cairoli, his brother Giovanni and 70 companions had made a daring attempt to take Rome. The group had embarked in Terni and floated down the Tiber. Their arrival in Rome was to coincide with an uprising inside the city. On October 22, 1867, the revolutionaries inside Rome seized control of the Capitoline Hill and of Piazza Colonna. Unfortunately, when the Cairoli and their companions arrived at Villa Glori, on the northern outskirts of Rome, the uprising had already been suppressed. During the night of October 22, 1867, the group was surrounded by papal Zouaves, and Giovanni was severely wounded. Enrico was mortally wounded and bled to death in Giovanni's arms.

At the summit of Villa Glori, near the spot where Enrico died, there is a plain white column dedicated to the Cairoli brothers and their 70 companions. About 100 meters to the left from the top of the Spanish Steps, there is a bronze monument of Giovanni holding the dying Enrico in his arm. A plaque lists the names of their companions. Giovanni never recovered from his wounds and from the tragic events of 1867. According to an eyewitness, when Giovanni died on 11 September 1869:

Negli ultimi momenti gli parve vedere Garibaldi e fece vista di accoglierlo con trasporto. Udii (così narra un amico presente) che disse tre volte: "L'unione dei francesi ai papalini fu il fatto terribile!" pensava a Mentana. Chiamò più volte Enrico, suo fratello, "perché lo aiutasse!" poi disse: "ma vinceremo di certo; andremo a Roma!"

In the last moments, he had a vision of Garibaldi and seemed to greet him with enthusiasm. I heard (so says a friend who was present) him say three times: "The union of the French to the papal political supporters was the terrible fact!" he was thinking about Mentana. Many times he called Enrico, that he might help him! then he said: "but we will certainly win; we will go to Rome!"

Capture of Rome

In July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War began. In early August, the French Emperor Napoleon III recalled his garrison from Rome, thus no longer providing protection to the Papal State. Widespread public demonstrations illustrate the demand that the Italian government take Rome. The Italian government took no direct action until the collapse of the Second French Empire at the Battle of Sedan. King Victor Emmanuel II sent Count Ponza di San Martino to Pius IX with a personal letter offering a face-saving proposal that would have allowed the peaceful entry of the Italian Army into Rome, under the guise of offering protection to the pope. The Papacy, however, exhibited something less than enthusiasm for the plan:

The Pope's reception of San Martino (10 September 1870) was unfriendly. Pius IX allowed violent outbursts to escape him. Throwing the King's letter upon the table he exclaimed, "Fine loyalty! You are all a set of vipers, of whited sepulchres, and wanting in faith." He was perhaps alluding to other letters received from the King. After, growing calmer, he exclaimed: "I am no prophet, nor son of a prophet, but I tell you, you will never enter Rome!" San Martino was so mortified that he left the next day.

The Italian Army, commanded by General Raffaele Cadorna, crossed the papal frontier on 11 September and advanced slowly toward Rome, hoping that a peaceful entry could be negotiated. The Italian Army reached the Aurelian Walls on 19 September and placed Rome under a state of siege. Although now convinced of his unavoidable defeat, Pius IX remained intransigent to the bitter end and forced his troops to put up a token resistance. On September 20, after a cannonade of three hours had breached the Aurelian Walls at Porta Pia, the Bersaglieri entered Rome and marched down Via Pia, which was subsequently renamed Via XX Settembre. 49 Italian soldiers and four officers, and 19 papal troops died. Rome and Latium were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy after a plebiscite held on October 9.

Initially the Italian government had offered to let the pope keep Leonine City, but the Pope rejected the offer because acceptance would have been an implied endorsement of the legitimacy of the Italian kingdom's rule over his former domain. Pius IX declared himself a prisoner in the Vatican, although he was not actually restrained from coming and going. Rather, being deposed and stripped of much of his former power also removed a measure of personal protection-if he had walked the streets of Rome he might have been in danger from political opponents who had formerly kept their views private. Officially, the capital was not moved from Florence to Rome until July 1871.

Historian Raffaele de Cesare made the following observations about Italian unification:

The Roman question was the stone tied to Napoleon's feet-that dragged him into the abyss. He never forgot, even in August 1870, a month before Sedan, that he was a sovereign of a Catholic country, that he had been made Emperor, and was supported by the votes of the Conservatives and the influence of the clergy; and that it was his supreme duty not to abandon the Pontiff.

For twenty years Napoleon III had been the true sovereign of Rome, where he had many friends and relations.... Without him the temporal power would never have been reconstituted, nor, being reconstituted, would have endured.

Risorgimento in the Modern era

The process of unification of the Italian people in a national State was not completed in the nineteenth century. Many Italians remained outside the borders of the Kingdom of Italy and this situation created the Italian irredentism.

Italia irredenta (Unredeemed Italy) was an Italian nationalist opinion movement that emerged after Italian unification. It advocated irredentism among the Italian people as well as other nationalities who were willing to become Italian and as a movement; it is also known as "Italian irredentism." Not a formal organization, it was just an opinion movement that claimed that Italy had to reach its "natural borders." Similar patriotic and nationalistic ideas were common in Europe in the 19th century.

Irredentism and the two World Wars

Italian irredentism succeeded in World War I with the annexation of Trieste and Trento, with the respective territories of Venezia Giulia and Trentino. During the post-unification era, some Italians were unsatisfied with the current state of the Italian Kingdom since they wanted the kingdom to include Trieste, Istria and other areas around as well. This discontent was finally resolved with the annexation of the region.

The Kingdom of Italy had declared neutrality at the beginning of the war, officially because the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary was a defensive one, requiring its members to come under attack first. Many Italians were still hostile to Austrian historical and continuing occupations of ethnically Italian areas, and Italy chose not to enter. Austria-Hungary requested Italian neutrality, while the Triple Entente (which included Great Britain, France and Russia) its intervention. With the London Pact, signed in April 1915, Italy accepted to declare war against the Central Powers, in exchange for the irredent territories of Friuli, Trentino and Dalmatia.

Italian irredentism obtained an important result after World War I, when Italy gained Trieste, Gorizia, Istria and the city of Zara. During WWII, after the Axis aggression against Yugoslavia, Italy created the "Governatorato di Dalmazia" (from 1941 to September 1943), so the Kingdom of Italy annexed temporarily even Spalato (Split), Cattaro (Kotor) and most of coastal Dalmatia. From 1942 to 1943 even Corsica (Corse) and Nizza (Nice) were temporarily annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, nearly totally fulfilling in those years the requests of the Italian irredentism.

The movement had for its avowed purpose the emancipation of all Italian lands still subject to foreign rule after Italian unification. The Irredentists took language as the test of the alleged Italian nationality of the countries they proposed to emancipate, which were Trentino, Trieste, Dalmatia, Istria, Gorizia, Ticino, Nice (Nizza), Corsica and Malta. Austria-Hungary promoted Croatian interests in Dalmatia and Istria to weaken Italian claims in the western Balkans before WWI.

After World War II

After WWII the irredentism movement faded away in Italian politics. Only a few thousand Italians remain in Istria and Dalmatia as a consequence of the Italian defeat in WWII and of the slaughter of approximately 2,000 Italians (mostly soldiers) and the subsequent choice of Italian citizenship by an additional 200,000 - 250,000 people in what became known as the Istrian exodus.

Secession movements

The Italian unification process was generally popular with contemporary people living in the Italian peninsula, especially with regard to the end to Austrian rule. Nevertheless, dissenters were present in the 19th century (in particular, the rulers of the annexed states), and regionalist sympathies continue to the present day. There are two chief secession movements, (that in the past reached less than 5% of the national electoral votes and currently in the last 2008 national election reached about 10% nationwide and 20% in the north) represented by active political parties: one in the North (Lega Nord), and one in the South (Due Sicilie). This southern secession movement was mainly the result of peasants revolting against the new government. The former has elected several representatives to the national parliament.

The Italian region of Alto Adige/South Tyrol had a strong secession movement, headed by the Austro-Germanic majority in the region, for unification with Austria. The movement was strongest after the Second World War. Secessionist parties still exist, but the secessionist movement has been mostly pacified by the granting of substantial autonomy by the Italian government.

Legacy of Unification: Italy in the European Union=

The rise of Italian fascism may have had it roots in the establishment of a larger Italian entity. Idea of imperial grandeur, of joining, even belatedly, the European scramble for colonies, the concept of the strong leader of a proud and great people, all stand behind Mussolini's version of fascism.

Following World War II, the dynamics of unification of Italy merged with the process of European unification, and Italy was one of the founding members of the European Economic Community. Ideas similar to those that promoted the Risorgimento among the Italian people are in part responsible for the wide acceptance in Italy of the political ideas related to the formation of the Union. Imperial ambition to dominate other people, also a product of unification but never enthusiastically espoused by the majority of Italians, more or less died with the collapse of Italian fascism. Economics can be said to have replaced imperialism. Italy, with the seventh largest economy in the world, is a member of the G8.

Maps of Italian unification

1. Napoleon abolished the smaller German states in 1803 and wanted to unify the larger ones. After his defeat, the German Confederation was formed in 1815 with 39 states. In 1866 this was dissolved and the North German Confederation founded. In 1871, Germany became a unified state under Prussia.

2. Gioacchino Napeoleon, 1815. Italiani (Proclamation of Rimini). Regione Piemonte. Gioacchino Napoleon Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, was made King of Naples in 1808 and reigned until 1818. Retrieved August 23, 2008.

3. Tommaso Astarita. 2005. Between salt water and holy water: a history of Southern Italy. (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393058642), 264.

4. E.E.Y. Hales. 1954. Pio Nono: A Study in European Politics and Religion in the Nineteenth Century. (New York, NY: P.J. Kenedy.)

5. Jasper Ridley. 2001. Garibaldi. (London, UK: Phoenix. ISBN 9781842121528), 268

6. Brian J. Hayes, 2008. Italian Unification. Cavour, Garibaldi and the Making of Italy. Age of the Sage. Retrieved August 23, 2008.

7. Edgar Holt. 1971. The Making of Italy 1815-1870. (New York, NY: Atheneum), 258.

8. G. Thaon di Revel, 2002. La cessione del Veneto - ricordi di un commissario piemontese incaricato alle trattative (translation: "The cession of Veneto - memories of the piedmontese commissary for the negotiations"). (Academic Press.)

9. Ettore Beggiato, 1999. 1866: la grande truffa. (translation: "1866: the great deceit"). (Venezia, IT: Editoria universitaria.)

10. Rosi, Michele. 1929. I Cairoli, Bologna, IT: L. Capelli Ed. pages 223-224.

11. Raffaele De Cesare, Helen Zimmern, and George Macaulay Trevelyan. 1909. The last days of papal Rome, 1850-1870. (London, UK: A. Constable and Co.), 444. Online at The Internet Archive. Retrieved August 23, 2008.

12. Belief that people of the same ethnicity should belong to the same political entity.

References

Astarita, Tommaso. 2005. Between salt water and holy water: a history of Southern Italy. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393058642.

Beggiato, Ettore. 1999. 1866: la grande truffa. (translation: "1866: the great deceit"). Venezia, IT: Editoria universitaria.

Collier, Martin. 2003. Italian unification, 1820-71. (Heinemann advanced history.) Oxford, UK: Heinemann. ISBN 9780435327545.

Davis, John A. 2000. Italy in the Nineteenth Century. London, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198731283.

De Cesare, Raffaele, Helen Zimmern, and George Macaulay Trevelyan. 1909. The last days of papal Rome, 1850-1870. London, UK: A. Constable and Co. Online at The Internet Archive. Retrieved August 23, 2008.

di Revel, G. Thaon. 2002. La cessione del Veneto - ricordi di un commissario piemontese incaricato alle trattative (translation: "The cession of Veneto - memories of the piedmontese commissary for the negotiations"). Academic Press.

Hales, E.E.Y.. 1954. Pio Nono: A Study in European Politics and Religion in the Nineteenth Century. New York, NY: P.J. Kenedy.

Hales, E.E.Y. 1958. The Catholic Church in the Modern World. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Hibbert, Christopher. 2008. Garibaldi: hero of Italian unification. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230606067.

Holt, Edgar. 1971. The Making of Italy 1815-1870. New York, NY: Atheneum.

Lloyd, Richard Leslie Harris. 1975. Cavour and Italian unification, 1854-1860. (The archive series.) London, UK: Edward Arnold. ISBN 9780713118629.

Mouritsen, Henrik. 1998. Italian unification: a study in ancient and modern historiography. London, UK: Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. ISBN 9780900587818.

Ridley, Jasper. 2001. Garibaldi. London, UK: Phoenix. ISBN 9781842121528.

Rosi, Michele. 1929. I Cairoli. Bologna, IT: L. Capelli Ed.

External links

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Italian Unification (Italian: il Risorgimento, or "The Resurgence") was the political and social movement that unified different states of the Italian peninsula into the single nation of Italy. The Southern, republican drive for unification was led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, while the Northern, royalist drive was led by Camillo B, royalist enso, conte di Cavour.

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Short Summary- Mexico was firmly under Spanish control, but its society was formed around race. In 1808 Napoleon forced the two rulers of Spain King Charles the 4th and Ferdinand the seventh to abdicate and he installed his brother on the throne in the absence of a legitimate king. The people of Spain created locally formed governments that would serve in place of the Spanish Colonial government.

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History Discussion - Discuss Anything About History

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The ruler of every state was sovereign within his territory and no wonder the sense of self-preservation forced him to oppose the unification of the country and all those liberal movements which were liable to help the cause of German unification.

The Vienna Settlement with regard to Germany was hopelessly disappointing from the point of view of German Liberals and patriots.

They had been hoping for a unified Germany but instead they got a German Confederation of 39 States. Provision was made for a Federal Diet which was to be presided over by Austria.

The ruler of every state was sovereign within his territory and no wonder the sense of self-preservation forced him to oppose the unification of the country and all those liberal movements which were liable to help the cause of German unification.

In addition to Austria, there were other non-German elements in the Federal Diet. Hanover, which was under England, was included in the German Confederation and given representation. The Duchy of Holstein which was under the King of Denmark was also included in the German Confederation and likewise given representation. These foreign elements could not be expected to throw in their weight in the cause of German unity. The Federal Diet was practically given no power over the various States constituting the German Confederation. Austria was the arbiter of the fate of Germany.

It was provided in the Federal Act of 1815 that a representative constitution should be framed in every State, but the promise was not fulfilled. Complete reaction set in Germany after 1815. Frederick William III (1797-1840), King of Prussia, could have been expected to lead the patriotic and liberal forces in Germany, but even he fell under the influence of Metternich and consequently joined hands with him to suppress all signs of nationalism and liberalism in the country.

When such was the state of affairs in Germany, the initiative was taken by the universities in that country. Jena became the centre of German liberalism and the university students started a movement which went on growing year after year. The highest ideals of sobriety, chastity and German unity were put before the people.

According to Sybel, "The young heroes returning from the war filled the universities with their patriotic indignation, and by the founding of societies of students (Burschenschaften), representing all the universities, they sought to fill all the educated youth of Germany with their enthusiasm for unity, justice and freedom. These societies, for the most part, cherished ambitions which were thoroughly ideal.

They did not look to the overthrow of present conditions, but relied upon the training to rising generation. By moral elevation and patriotic inspirations, they hoped to lead the state of the future, to the great goal of national unity.

To be sure, their notions of this future state were generally indefinite and were mere unpractical fancies; indeed this enthusiasm rose in some groups to the pitch of wild fanaticism, so that they were even ready to seize sword and dagger for Tyrannicide. Yet such enthusiasts never succeeded in securing in the societies at large any great following for their projects."

The students' associations began to spread from Jena and within two years, 16 universities came under their control. In 1817, the students decided to celebrate tercentenary of the Protestant Reformation and the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig. At Wartburg, in addition to the common programmes followed by the students at other places, many kinds of things were burnt and some of them were the emblems of militarism, a copy of the Code of Napoleon, a book by Kotzebue, and many other documents. Metternich attached the greatest importance to the celebration.

According to him the proceedings were merely a symbol of the revolutionary unrest prevailing among the people in Germany. When the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle met in 1818, he tried to impress upon the rulers the dangers that lay ahead. Events that took place after 1817 strengthened the hands of Metternich. Off and on, there were revolts in various parts of Germany.

In March, 1813, Kotzebue who was considered to be a Russian spy was murdered by Karl Sand. Metternich decided to take full advantage of the circumstances. With the approval of the King of Prussia, he called a meeting of the ministers of the important States of Germany at Carlsbad in August 1819. Certain resolutions were passed and those were submitted to the Federal Diet which gave its approval.

According to the Carlsbad decrees, a special representative of the ruler of the State was to be appointed for each university. He was to reside in the place where the university was situated and he was to exercise a large number of powers under the instructions of the ruler. The agent was to see to the strictest enforcement of the existing laws and disciplinary regulations.

He was to observe carefully the spirit which was shown by the teachers in the universities in their lectures and report to the government if there were any signs of disloyalty or rebellion. It was the duty of the ruler to remove from the universities or other educational institutions all those teachers who were considered to be abusing their legitimate influence over the students or who spread among the students harmful doctrines hostile to public order or subversive of the existing governmental institutions. Such a teacher was not to be employed in any other university or educational institution.

The laws against secret and unauthorized societies in the universities were to be strictly enforced. Those laws applied especially to the University Students' Union (Allgemeine Burschenschaft). Those persons who were considered to be members of the secret or unauthorized societies were not to be admitted to any public office.

The students who were expelled from one university were not to be admitted into another. No publication which appeared in the form of daily issue or as a serial not exceeding 20 sheets of printed matter was to go to the press without the previous knowledge and approval of the State officials.

The Federal Diet was to have the right to suppress by its own authority such writings as were inimical to the honour of the union, the safety of the individual State or the maintenance of peace and quiet in Germany There was to be no appeal from such decisions and the governments involved were bound to see that they were enforced.

When a newspaper or periodical was suppressed by a decision of the Diet, the editor was not to be allowed to edit another similar publication for five years. Provision was made for a central commission of investigation consisting of seven members.

Its function was to have a thorough investigation of the facts relating to the origin and manifold ramification of the revolutionary plots and demagogical associations directed against the existing constitution and the internal peace of the union and the individual States. It was also to investigate into the existence of the plots. The Central Investigation Commission was to furnish the Diet from time to time with a report of the results of its investigations.

By the Carlsbad Decrees, the Emperor of Austria became "the head of an all-powerful German police system." Metternich might have gone still further, but his enthusiasm was cooled by the opposition from certain German States. The ruler of Wurtemburg took up the challenge and gave further reforms to his people and put himself at the head of "a purely Germanic league" to resist Austria and Prussia The result was that the Final Act of Vienna represented a compromise. The independence of the small States was guaranteed. In 1824, the Carlsbad Decrees were made permanent.

When such was the state of affairs in Germany, certain forces helped indirectly the unification of the country. A reference may be made in this connection to the Zollverein or the Customs' Union. Before 1818, each district in Prussia had its own customs and there were as many as 67 tariff areas in Prussia alone.

These areas stood in the way of trade and unity and consequently Prussia could not compete with Great Britain. On account of the long line of customs houses, there was a lot of smuggling. In 1818, the Tariff Reforms Law was passed. By that Act, all raw materials were to be imported free.

A duty of 10 per cent was to be levied on manufactured goods and 20 per cent on "colonial" goods. All internal custom duties were abolished. Heavy transit duties on tariff goods passing through Prussia were imposed with a view to compel other States to join Prussia. The result of the reform of 1818 was that Prussia became a free trade area. Internal trade increased and the revenue of the State also showed a rise.

The law of 1818 applied to Prussia alone, but in course of time many other German States joined Prussia. In 1819, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen joined the Union. In 1822, Weimar Gotha, Merchlenburg-Schwerin, Schaumburg-Lippe, Rudolstadt and Hamburg also joined.

However there was opposition to the Customs' Union from some German States. In 1828, a Customs' Union was set up in the South under the leadership of Bavaria and Wurtemburg. In the same year, another Customs' Union of the middle States was formed. It consisted of Saxony, Hesse-Cassel, Hanover, Brunswick and the free cities of Hamburg, Bremen and Frankfurt.

However in 1831, Hesse-Cassel joined the Zollverein and the union of the middle States was broken up. In l834, Bavaria joined the Zollverein for 8 years. The terms of the Union were that the meetings were to be held at Berlin and other places. Bavarian goods were to be given special treatment. In the same year, Saxony also joined.

By 1837, most of the States had joined the Zollverein. Whenever the treaties expired they were renewed. Only Hanover, Oldenburg, Mecklenburg and the Hanse towns remained outside the Zollverein. The main terms of entry into the Zollverein were complete free trade between State and State, uniform tariff on all frontiers and net proceeds to be divided in proportion to population of the States concerned.

To begin with, Austria was completely indifferent to the Zollverein. Metternich did not attach any importance to commerce and consequently ignored the activities of the Zollverein. However, after the overthrow of Metternich in 1848, Austria made a determined effort to join the Zollverein. Prussia resisted the same and was successful. In 1853, a treaty was entered into between the Zollverein and Austria by which certain concessions were given mutually.

The importance of the Zollverein cannot be minimised. According to Marriot and Robertson, "For the first time, Germany became a fiscal and commercial unit. The Zollverein united the German States in bonds of mutual economic interest; it united them under the leadership of Prussia; and it accustomed them to the exclusion of Austria from the Germanic body."

According to Fyffe, "The semblance of political union was carefully avoided, but the germs of political union were nevertheless present in the growing community of material interests." Again, "Patient, sagacious and even liberal in its negotiations with its weaker neighbours, Prussia silently connected with itself through the ties of financial union States which had hitherto looked to Austria as their natural head." The reputation of the Prussian Government no less than the welfare of the Prussian people was advanced by each successive step in the extension of the Zollverein.

According to Dr. Bowring, "The Zollverein has brought the sentiment of the German nationality out of the regions of hope and fancy into those of positive and material interests. The general feeling in Germany towards the Zollverein is that it is the first step towards what is called the Germanization. It has broken down some of the strongest holds of alienation and hostility. By a community of interests on commercial and trading questions, it has prepared the way for a political nationality."

The July Revolution of 1830 in France had also its effects on Germany. There were demands for the grant of liberal constitutions and the same were conceded by the rulers of Nassau, Brunswick, Hanover, Saxony and Hesse-Cassel. The rulers of Bavaria, Wurtemburg, etc., confirmed the liberal constitutions which they had given after 1815. The net result was that while Prussia remained unchanged, the smaller States got liberal constitutions.

However, Metternich was able once again to establish his hold over Germany and the Carlsbad Decrees were reconfirmed. The conference was held at Vienna and it was decided to take action against the liberal tendencies of the press and the universities. Provision was made for the establishment of a court to settle the disputes between the rulers and the people of the German States.

During the long reign of Frederick William III (1797-1840), much could not be expected from Prussia. However, he was succeeded by Frederick William IV in 1840. The new King possessed a strong will and intellect. However, his judgment was not as good as his intellectual capacity. To begin with, he released a large number of political prisoners. Mr. Amdt was reappointed as Professor at Bonn and Dahlmann was also given a chair in the same university.

The provincial estates were allowed to meet regularly and discuss their affairs freely. The freedom of the press was restored but he refused to grant a parliamentary constitution. Frederick William IV called a meeting of all the provincial estates in Berlin and it came to be known as the united Provincial Diet or States-General. However, the United Diet was dismissed after some time although it attracted a lot of attention.

From 1830 to 1848, there was going on persistent agitation in the smallest States of Germany. The object of the agitation was two-fold, viz., the unification of Germany and the establishment of constitutional and liberal governments in the States. In 1847, a meeting was held and a liberal programme was adopted. Agitation was to be carried on for the cancellation of the Carlsbad Decrees. Religious toleration, freedom of the press and trial by jury were to be guaranteed. Representative Assemblies were to be set up in every State.

Social privileges were to be abolished. A representative assembly was to be provided for the whole of Germany. The standing army was to be substituted by the militia of the people. The army was to take the oath of allegiance to the Constitution and not to the ruler. In the same year, another conference was held. There was a demand for a parliament for the whole of the country.

When the news of the February Revolution reached Germany, the ruler of Baden gave a new constitution to the people and his example was followed by Wurtemburg, Nassau, Brunswick, Weimar, Darmstadt and Hesse-Cassel. The ruler of Bavaria was forced to abdicate and Hanover and Saxony also got liberal constitutions.

So far as Prussia was concerned, there was some trouble in Berlin in March and the King gave a liberal constitution. There was a dash between the people and the troops and ultimately the King of Prussia had to remove the troops from the capital. He also promised to become the leader "of a free and new-born German nation." It was also decided to call a national parliament to frame a constitution.

Heinrich Von Gagern proposed the setting up of a provisional government for the whole of Germany. On 5 March 1848, 50 leaders met at Heidelberg and invitations were issued to the members of the various State legislatures in Germany. On 31 March 1848, about 600 persons attended the meeting at Frankfurt. It was decided at that meeting to set up a legislature of two houses and one executive head of the Federal Government of Germany.

The details were to be filled up by a Constituent Assembly of Germany to which representatives were to come from all over the country on the basis of one member for 50,000 of the population. This was done and the popular assembly met at Frankfurt.

The Frankfurt Parliament consisted of about 300 members at the beginning but later on, its membership rose to about 550. Heinrich Von Gagern was elected its president. It was dominated by professors and journalists and no wonder a lot of time was wasted on the discussion of abstract principles. The only work done by the Frankfurt Parliament within the first six months was the appointment of a central executive.

Archduke John was selected the Imperial Vicar of the provisional government. By the Christmas of 1848, the fundamental rights of the people of Germany were agreed upon. Some of those rights were civil and religious equality, freedom of the press, trial by jury, abolition of special privileges, etc.

There were two schools of thought with regard to the inclusion or exclusion of Austria from Germany The "little Germans" insisted on excluding Austria but the "great German" were in favour of the inclusion of Austria. Ultimately, the former won and Austria was excluded. Provision was made for a hereditary king and a German Confederation. The throne of Germany was offered by the Frankfurt Parliament to Frederick William IV of Prussia on 28 March 1849 but the same was rejected on 3 April 1849 Many factors were responsible for his decision.

He was temperamentally conservative and was not in sympathy with the aspirations of the Frankfurt Parliament. He was not prepared to be "a serf of the revolution". He believed in the Divine Right of Kings and was not prepared to accept the constitution framed by the Frankfurt Parliament. He might have accepted the throne if the same had been offered to him by the princes, but he refused to accept the same from the people.

He was not prepared to accept "the crown of shame" out of the "gutter". Probably, the real reason was that the King of Prussia was not prepared to fight against Austria. By this time, Austria had recovered herself and if the King of Prussia had accepted the throne offered to him by the Frankfurt Parliament, he would certainly have come into conflict with Austria. That would have meant war and the King of Prussia felt that he was not equal to the task.

It was under these circumstances that the throne was refused and with that the work of the Frankfurt Parliament ended. The people of Germany had tried to frame a constitution, but their efforts failed. They wasted the valuable time in the beginning in academic discussions.

If they had acted with speed at the beginning, there were greater chances of their success. The failure of the Frankfurt Parliament convinced the Germans that some other method had to be followed to bring about unification of the country.

According to Hazen, "The Parliament of Frankfurt, on which such hopes had been centred, failed in the end to some extent because of the mistakes of its member, but chiefly because of the resolute opposition of the princes of Germany, and, in particular, of Prussia and Austria, the two leading German States, neither of which was willing to make any sacrifices for the common good and each of which was jealous and suspicious of the other.

It, however, succeeded in drafting a constitution of many high merits, a constitution nobly planned which guaranteed civil liberty to every German, equality before the law, responsible parliamentary control for the central government and for the government of the separate States."

Although the King of Prussia refused the throne offered by the Frankfurt Parliament, he tried to unite the German States under his leadership in another way. His minister, Radowitz prepared the draft of a constitution which was to be the basis of the union. Prussia was to be the president of a college of princes and Austria was to be excluded from it.

In March 1850, a German Parliament met at Erfurt However, Schwarzenberg, and the new Chancellor of Austria, was determined to establish the Austrian hold over Germany and consequently was not prepared to allow the activities of the King of Prussia to continue. The King of Prussia was forced to surrender by the convention of Olmutz. He agreed to dissolve the "union" and the German Confederation of 1815 was restored.

Austria was triumphant and reaction set in Germany It is rightly observed that the humiliation of Olmutz marked the lowest point of Prussia's timidity and surrender. Prussia appeared to be brought as low in the dust as after Jena and even worse. When Prussia was defeated by Napoleon, she was at least true to the idea of German unity.

Now, she had begun by promising to champion that cause, but had betrayed those who supported it and acquiesced in the haughty demands of Austria. Germany seemed as feeble and disunited as never before. Prussia had the chance of being the first power in Germany and her king that of wearing an imperial crown but the humiliation of Olmutz seemed to put the union of Germany at a more distant date than ever and permanently disqualify Prussia as its champion.

Although the movement of 1848-49 was a failure, it taught certain lessons to the people of Germany. There could be no unification of Germany so long as Austria was strong enough to oppose the same. That unity could not be achieved by constitutional means. The liberals were not practical men and they talked more of theories and less of the actual problems facing the country. Austria could be turned out from Germany only if Germany had a stronger force than that of Austria and that force could come only from Prussia. The necessity of having a very strong army was realized by all.

Frederick William IV became insane in 1857 and his brother, William I, became the Regent. On the death of Frederick William IV in 1861, he became the King of Prussia. About Frederick William IV, A.J.R Taylor says that his determination was contradictory. He wanted a united Germany with himself as its head but at the same time he wanted it without the agreement of Austria. His impossible dream was that Austria should abdicate voluntarily.

One of his reasons for breaking with his liberal ministers in November 1848 was their proposal to support Sardinian claims against Austria in the Conference at Brussels, although in essence Prussia and Sardinia had similar aims. In April 1849, he refused the German crown when it was offered to him by the Frankfurt Parliament but immediately afterwards he tried to obtain it by the free agreement of the German princes and no wonder he failed.

William I was a man of parts. He believed in the destiny and mission of Prussia. He was a Prussian to the core. He believed in autocracy He possessed all the qualities of a soldier. He was a judge of men and could make a choice of servants on whom he could rely.

The humiliation of Prussia at the hands of Austria had convinced William I that if Germany was to be liberated, that could be done only if Prussia came to have a very big army. In 1849, he had observed thus "Whoever wishes to rule Germany must conquer it and that cannot be done by phrases." It was with that conviction in his mind that he appointed Moltke as the Chief of the General Staff and Roon as the Minister of War.

It is these two persons who started reorganising the Prussian Army and they put forward their proposals for its further development. The Prussian Landtag or Legislature voted the supplies in 1861 for one year, but in 1862, rejected the same. While William I insisted on the army reforms, the Liberals who had a majority in the Prussian Landtag stood for constitutional reforms. Under the circumstances, a deadlock was inevitable.

It is rightly pointed out that there were three alternatives before the King of Prussia. He could give up the reform of the army He could abdicate. He could suspend the constitution and send the members of the Landtag home. He was in a fix and did not know what to do. Ultimately, it was decided to invite Bismarck from Paris to handle the situation.

It was in these circumstances that Bismarck was appointed the Minister-President of Prussia in 1862. He gave the following assurance to William I "I will rather perish with the king than forsake Your Majesty in the contest with parliamentary government."

Bismarck was a "bully and an absolutist." He had no faith in parliamentary institutions. He believed in autocracy and military force. To quote him, "Not by speeches and resolutions of the majorities are the great questions of the day to be decided, but by blood and iron." He agreed with William I that the re-organisation of the Prussian army was absolutely essential for the unification of the country. He was prepared to oust the Prussian Landtag if the latter refused to vote the supplies for the re-organisation of the army.

He did not care for constitutional methods if those stood in his way for the realisation of his aim. No wonder, he had to rule the country in an autocratic manner for 4 years and got the money from the people without the authority of the Landtag. The money having been got, the programme of the army reform was carried out.

In 1868, Austria summoned a Congress of the German princes to consider proposals "for the reform of the German Confederation" Prussia was also invited. If the move of Austria had been successful, the Austrian influence in Germany would have continued. Bismarck prevailed upon the King of Prussia not to attend the conference and the latter ended in failure.

Reference may be made to the Schleswig-Holstein question which Bismarck exploited to serve his ends Schleswig and Holstein were two Duchies under the King of Denmark. There was a personal union of these Duchies with the King of Denmark. Hie Duchy of Holstein was essentially German in blood and was a member of the German Confederation of 1815. Schleswig was populated both by the Germans and the Danes.

The people of Denmark wanted to incorporate these Duchies in their country. The people of Germany wanted to include them in the German Confederation. An attempt was made in 1848 to amalgamate the political institutions of the Duchies into those of Denmark. However, the attempt had to be given up on account of the opposition of the Germans, Prussia and the Duke of Augustenburg who had very strong claims on the Duchies.

The situation was serious and there was a possibility of war. However, the Powers intervened and a compromise was arrived at by the Treaty of London (1852). Denmark was forbidden to incorporate the Duchies. The Dulke of Augustenburg sold his claims to the King of Denmark.

In 1863, a new king came on the throne of Denmark and he published a new constitution which organically incorporated Schleswig with Denmark and bound Holstein with closer ties. This was clearly a violation of the terms of the Treaty of London. The Schleswig-Holstein question was re-opened once again. The Duke of Augustenburg revived his claims. Bismarck decided to make the best of the opportunity in the cause of German unification. He did not want the Duchies to go to Denmark or to the Duke.

He wanted to include them in Prussia. He also wanted to try the newly-organised armies of Prussia and a war with Denmark could have given such an opportunity. He entered into an agreement with Austria to take joint action against Denmark so that ultimately there may be possibility of a quarrel with Austria on the question of the division of spoils of war.

With these objects in view an ultimatum was given to the King of Denmark demanding from him the cancellation of the constitution promulgated by him. As he refused to do so, both Austria and Prussia declared war against Denmark. The Danes were no match for the combined armies and by the Treaty of Vienna (1864), the King of Denmark surrendered the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein of Austria and Prussia.

Having got the Duchies, there arose the question of their division. The suggestion of Austria was that both of them should be handed over to the Duke of Augustenburg but Prussia refused to do so. Ultimately, it was agreed by the Convention of Gastein (1865) that pending a final settlement, Austria was to occupy and administer Holstein and Prussia was to occupy and administer Schleswig.

The question of the Duchies was not to be brought before the German Diet. It was pointed out that the Convention of Gastein was a great diplomatic victory for Bismarck. He was able to oust the Duke of Augustenburg altogether and he was also able to create a situation in which there was every possibility of trouble with Austria.

According to Taylor, "The treaty of Gastein, like the treaty of Schonbrunn before it (and the Gablenz proposals of May 1866 after it), has been a subject of endless controversy. Some have seen in it simply a calculated step by Bismarck on the path towards an inevitable war; others have found in it the proof of his desire to re-establish the conservative German partnership of Metternich's days.

May be it was neither. Bismark was a diplomatic genius, inexperienced in war and disliking its risks. He may well have hoped to manoeuvre Austria out of the Duchies perhaps even out of the headship of Germany, by diplomatic strokes; marvels of this sort were not beyond him in later life.

His diplomacy in this period seems rather calculated to frighten Austria than to prepare for war. The only bait he held out to France was that, if Prussia got the Duchies, she would apply 'the national principle' by restoring northern Schleswig to Denmark; all he asked in return was benevolent neutrality."

The Convention of Gastein was not favourable to Austria. She was given control over a territory which was hedged in by Prussian territory on both sides. It is rightly pointed out that the Convention merely "papered over the cracks". It was not a solution of the problem. Austria felt that her position in Holstein was not secure and she began to encourage the claim of the Duke of Augustenburg. She also decided to refer the matter to the Diet of the German Confederation.

Evidently, that was a violation of the Convention of Gastein. Bismarck asked Austria to stop propaganda in Holstein in favour of the Duke of Augustenburg. Austria refused and the Prussian troops entered Holstein and turned out the Austrians. Bismarck also proposed the reform of the German Confederation on the basis of universal suffrage, but Austria opposed the same. Austria prevailed upon the Diet of the German Confederation to take action against Prussia. Prussia left the German Confederation and declared war against Austria in 1866.

However, before declaring the war, Bismarck had not only made military preparations but also left no stone unturned to isolate Austria diplomatically. The result was that when the war actually started, Austria had absolutely no ally. Reference may be made in this connection to the relations of Bismarck with Russia, France and Italy.

Bismarck did all that he could to win over Russia and thereby ensure that in the event of a war with Austria, Russia would not join hands with Austria as she had done in 1849 when Nicholas I came to the help of Austria against Hungary. Bismarck was the Prussian ambassador at Petersburg from 1859 to 1862. It was at that time that he tried to win over Russia to the side of Prussia.

The Crimean War had broken the Austro-Russian alliance and thereby paved the way for an agreement between Russia and Prussia. Bismarck cultivated personal friendship with Czar. Alexander II and thereby brought the two countries together. This deliberate pro-Russian policy was pursued by Bismarck when he was appointed Minister-President in 1862.

In 1863, the Poles revolted against the Czar. Napoleon III was friendly towards the Polish cause and the Liberals of Prussia were also enthusiastic for their cause. However, Bismarck informed the Czar that "Prussia would stand shoulder to shoulder with him against the common enemy." Bismarck could not tolerate the creation of a united Poland which was bound to be an enemy and a rival of Prussia.

That is why he opposed the Polish revolt. However, there were stronger reasons for his anti-Polish attitude. Bismarck knew that he had to depend upon the support of Russia in a war with Austria in the future. He decided to make the best of the opportunity offered by the Polish revolt.

He entered into an agreement with Alexander II by which he agreed to take strong action against those Poles who took refuge in Prussia or tried to have recruits in Prussia or in any way used Prussia as a base for their Operations.

Although Bismarck was condemned for his action, he cared only for the friendship of Russia and nothing else. It was in this way that Bismarck was able to win over Russia to his own side and he knew that she would not side with Austria in the event of a war between Prussia and Austria.

France, Bismarck also tried to win over Napoleon III to his own side. While Bismarck was the Prussian ambassador in Paris in 1862, he had tried to cultivate good relations with Napoleon III. The latter came to form a very high opinion of Bismarck. In October 1865, Bismarck had an interview with Napoleon III at Biarritz.

The interview was confidential and no account of it was maintained. However as a result of the interview, Napoleon III promised the neutrality of France in the event of a war between Prussia and Austria.

He agreed to the annexation of the Elbe Duchies by Prussia in the case of victory. In the case of an alliance between Italy and Prussia, he also approved of the giving of Venetia to Italy.

Napoleon did not protest against the reform of the German Confederation and the creation of a new State of Northern Germany under Prussian leadership. The question of compensation to France for her neutrality was raised and Bismarck accepted the possibility of petty rectification of frontiers so long as the same was not at the expense of Prussia or Germany. Bismarck seems to have offered what did not belong to him.

He seems to have suggested that France could take Southeastern Belgium. The aim of Bismarck was clear. He wanted to secure the neutrality of France but at the same time he did not want to commit himself in such a way that he may have to face any difficulty with regard to compensation to France.

It is pointed out that Napoleon III had sympathy with Bismarck so far as the question of unification of Germany was concerned. He was also in favour of helping Italy to take Venetia. He also thought that if a strong State in North Germany was created, there was every possibility of Austria depending upon France.

Napoleon III also thought that there was every possibility of Prussia being defeated and in such a case France would be in a position to establish her hold over the smaller States of Germany. Anyhow, Bismarck had secured the neutrality of France and when the war started with Austria, the latter could expect no help from France.

The view of A J.P. Taylor is that the meeting between Napoleon III and Bismarck at Biarritz in October 1865 was not a repetition of Cavour's visit to Plombieres in 1858. Cavour at that time was resolved on war with Austria and Napoleon III intended to fight it with him. Each was concerned to tie the other down. Cavour wanted a binding promise of support and Napoleon III wanted to secure Savoy and Nice.

However, at Biarritz, both Bismarck and Napoleon III were anxious to avoid commitments with a view to keep the future open. Bismarck wanted to prevent a French alliance with Austria but not to get one for himself Napoleon disliked any agreement between Prussia and Austria and Bismarck told him that there was no Prussian guarantee of Venetia. In exchange, Napoleon stated that a French alliance with Austria was impossible.

Though Bismarck and Napoleon discussed "advantages which might offer themselves unsought" such as Northern Germany for Prussia and Belgium or Luxemburg for France, those were vague speculations of the usual Napoleonic kind. The essential bargain at Biarritz was that both kept dear of commitment to Austria, Bismarck for the sake of Germany and Napoleon III for the sake of Venetia.

It was Venetia which determined the shape of future diplomatic events Napoleon was obsessed with it. He was determined to achieve the unfinished programme of 1859 He believed that if he died with Venetia still in Austrian hands, "his son would have a volcano as a throne ".

The prospect of acquiring territory towards the Rhine was of secondary importance to him. Those demands were made by him merely to satisfy the public opinion in France in order to keep himself popular. So long as Venetia was in Austrian hands, Napoleon could not be won over for a pro-Austrian or even a pacific policy.

It was Venetia which in the last resort gave Prussia the hegemony of Germany. In the autumn of 1865, a conservative Italian nobleman, Malaguzzi, tried to persuade the Austrian Government to sell Venetia to Italy. Although negotiations continued up to February 1866, nothing came out of them. On 23 February 1866, Nicholas Cuza, the Prince of Rumania was compelled to abdicate. It occurred to Nigra, the Italian representative at Pans that Austria might acquire Rumania in exchange for Venetia and Napoleon approved of the idea.

However, Napoleon III also believed that the Austrians would never give up Venetia unless driven to it by fear and hence he advised the Italians to prod Austria into surrender by simultaneously negotiating with Prussia for a war alliance.

The advice was given at the most opportune time. On 28 February 1866, a Prussian crown council had decided to challenge Austria even at the risk for war and as a first step to conciliate Napoleon III by seeking an alliance with Italy. Bismarck approached La Marmora, the Prime Minister of Italy, just when La Marmora had decided to approach Bismarck. An Italian general was to Berlin, outwardly to negotiate but really to alarm the Austrians.

Austria was alarmed and rejected the suggestion to get Rumania instead of Venetia as it was considered to be a device to bring down on Austria the hostility of Russia. Under these circumstances, the Italians and Napoleons III were left with no other alternative except to carry on negotiations with Prussia. The result was that what they had begun as a bluff, they had to pursue in earnest.

Though Bismarck agreed that in the event of a war, the Italians should get Venetia, he was not prepared to commit himself to go to war for the sake of Venetia. He demanded that the Italians should bind themselves for three months to go to war against Austria in case Prussia did so, but he kept his hands free. But even this was a gain for the Italians. Although it did not guarantee them a war, it guaranteed them Venetia in the event of a war.

Napoleon III advised the Italians, "as a friend without assuming any responsibility", to accept the offer of Bismarck and even promised them to protect them from an Austrian attack in case Prussia left them in the lurch.

The treaty between Prussia and Italy was signed on 8 April 1866. For three months. Napoleon III could not offer Italian neutrality to the Austrians even if they were willing to surrender Venetia. Likewise, he could not threaten Prussia even if the Austrians offered him the Rhineland and Bismarck did not. It is often said that Bismarck started the Austro-Prussian war without making any concrete promise to Napoleon.

The view of A.J.R Taylor is that this is not correct. Bismarck won the diplomatic campaign by being the first to pay the only price for which Napoleon cared and that price was Venetia. There was no serious chance of Napoleon asking Bismarck not to go to war if he otherwise was determined to do so.

Italy:

Bismarck also tried to win over Italy which was the natural enemy of Austria as there were still Italian-speaking areas under the control of Austria. Italy wanted to get Venetia which she could do only with foreign help.

A commercial treaty was arranged between Italy and Prussia but Bismarck wanted to have an offensive alliance. Bismarck realised the importance of attacking Austria on two fronts, one from Italy and the other from Prussia.

The difficulty in the way of an alliance was that both countries were full of distrust. Each country thought that the other was going to use the alliance as a lever to get concessions out of Austria. In spite of this, a treaty was signed between Italy and Prussia in April 1866 by which Italy was to attack Austria if Prussia started the war within three months. It is rightly pointed out that it was a treaty of mutual insurance and suspicion." Anyhow, the active support of Italy was ensured against Austria.

The King of Prussia wrote to Napoleon III in March 1866 and Napoleon III replied with a promise of benevolent neutrality. However, he put forward his claim for compensation. French politicians like Thiers were opposed to the policy of neutrality in the event of a war between Austria and Prussia. A proposal for a congress was made but Austria turned down the same. Bismarck was happily at the prospects of war.

The war between Austria and Prussia was a very short one and that is why it is called the Seven Weeks' War. To begin with, it appeared that Austria would be successful as she had the support of Bavaria, Saxony and the other small States of Germany. However, the Prussian military organisation was so efficient that Austria could not stand it.

Moreover, Austria had to fight on two fronts. She had not only to fight against the Prussian attack but also against the Italians who declared war against Austria at the same time as Prussia did. It is true that the Italians were defeated in the Battle of Custozza and also in a naval action off Lissa, but the Italian defeats did not affect the outcome of the war. Austria was defeated by Prussia in the battle of Sadowa or Konniggratz in Bohemia.

After the victory at Sadowa, the Prussian troops clamoured for a march on Vienna and they were supported by the King. Bismarck was opposed to such a move and ultimately he had his way. He offered very lenient terms to Austria and the same were accepted by the Treaty of Prague (1866). By that Treaty, Austria acknowledged the dissolution of "the Germanic Confederation as hitherto constituted."

She also consented "to a new organisation of Germany without the participation of the Imperial Austrian State." Venetia was given to Italy. The indemnity imposed was a nominal one. Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, the free city of Frankfurt-on-the-Maine and the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were annexed to Prussia.

The population of the northern districts of Schleswig was to be re-united to Denmark if the people expressed such a wish by a free vote. All the States north of the Maine were to join the North German Confederation under the leadership of Prussia. The Southern States of Germany were allowed to remain independent.

Effects of the War:

The Austro-Prussian war had far-reaching effects. Austria was excluded from Germany and Prussia emerged as the leader of Germany. The military efficiency of Prussia was also recognised in Europe. She also came to be regarded as a great military power. The success of Bismarck discredited the Liberals of Prussia and consequently the cause of liberalism in Germany was lost.

The acquisition of Venetia by Italy took her a step further in the process of the unification of the country. Only Rome was left outside united Italy. The war also had its effects on the Austrian Empire The loss of Venetia in Italy and her exclusion from Germany forced Austria to come to terms with the Magyars of Hungary.

The result was the Ausgleich of 1867 between Austria and Hungary. A dual monarchy was set up. Both Austria and Hungary were to be independent in their affairs except in matters of war and diplomacy. Both of them were to have the same ruler who was to be called the Emperor in Austria and King in Hungary. Provision was made for joint delegations of the two countries. The new settlement continued up to 1918.

The unification of Germany was not complete even after defeat of Austria in 1866. The Southern States of Germany had still to be united and it was not possible to do so with the help force. If Bismarck had tried to do so, there was every possibility of their being helped by France and that was not proper.

Consequently, Bismarck handled the situation cautiously. Between 1867 and 1870, Bismarck followed a policy of winning over the Southern States by a policy of conciliation and help. He gave them money. He gave them military officers to tram their armies, but otherwise did not interfere in their affairs. Efforts were made to impress upon them that Prussia was their friend and they had nothing to fear from her.

Bismarck was convinced that "a war with France lay in the logic of history," and he prepared his country for that eventuality. Military preparations were pushed forward and everything was made perfect. Both Moltke and Roon waited for the day when the war would start with France.

Bismarck also was successful in isolating France diplomatically. Italy was already annoyed with Napoleon III of France as he had betrayed her in 1859. Prussia had helped her in 1866 to get Venetia and no wonder Italy was grateful to Prussia. Moreover, French troops were occupying Rome since 1849 and the unification could be completed only if the French troops withdrew from Rome. That was possible only if France was involved in a war where the military pressure forced her to withdraw them. Consequently, Italy could not he expected to fight on the side of France.

Bismarck was also able to secure the neutrality of Russia. Russia had not forgotten the Crimean War in which France had defeated her. Moreover, Bismarck told the Czar he could repudiate the Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris when he attacked France.

Bismarck had won over Austria in 1866 by giving her very favourable terms. Although the Prussians were victorious he did not allow them to enter the city of Vienna as desired by them. Austria was not forced to pay a huge war-indemnity. Bismarck could count upon the neutrality of Austria in the event of a war with France.

If Bismarck wanted a war to complete the unification of Germany, Napoleon III also wanted a war with Prussia. It was felt in France that it was not Austria which was defeated in the Battle of Sadowa, but that it was the diplomatic defeat of France. No wonder, France wanted to have revenge for that humiliation.

Moreover, opposition to Napoleon III was increasing in France and he fell that the only way to win over the support of all the sections of the people of France was by declaring a war against Prussia. It was under these circumstances that the trap was laid by Bismarck and Napoleon III entered the same.

The throne of Spain had been offered twice to Prince Leopold, but the same had been rejected by him. On the persuasion of Bismarck, the offer was renewed once again. There was a lot of agitation in the French press over the offer. It was pointed out that France would be sandwiched between Prussia and Spain and thus her very existence would be endangered.

Although Leopold withdrew his acceptance of the throne, the agitation continued. Napoleon demanded as assurance from the King of Prussia that he would never in future allow the renewal of the candidature of Leopold. Benedetti, the French ambassador, tried to impose himself on the King of Prussia who was at the watering place of Ems.

The Prussian King sent a telegram containing an account of his interview with the French ambassador Bismarck abridged the telegram in such a way that it appeared to the French that their ambassador was insulted and it appeared to the Prussians that their king was insulted. When the news reached France, there was a demand for war against Prussia, and the same was declared.

The most important battle of the war was that of Sedan in which Napoleon III was defeated and he surrendered. Although a republic was set up in France, Bismarck insisted on entering Paris. As that was not acceptable to the people of France, a siege of Paris started. There was a stiff resistance but ultimately Paris had to surrender.

The war was ended by the Treaty of Frankfurt of 1871 by which France ceded Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. She was also to pay a huge war indemnity. A ceremony was held in the famous Hall of Mirrors at Versailles in 1871 where the King of Prussia was declared the Emperor of Germany. The Southern States of Germany also joined the German Confederation. It was in this way that the unification of Germany was completed.

According to Hazen, "The Treaty of Frankfurt remained the open sore of Europe after 1871. France could never forget or forgive the deep humiliation of it. The enormous fine could, with the lapse of time, have been overlooked, but never the seizure of the two provinces by mere force and against the unanimous and passionate protest of the people of Alsace and Lorraine. Moreover, the eastern frontier of France was thus seriously weakened."

However, the Franco-Prussian War had other consequences also. It led to the final completion of the unification of Italy. That was due to the fact that when the war started between France and Prussia, French troops were withdrawn from Rome and the Italian troops entered the same. Russia took advantage of the war and repudiated the Back Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris. The Empire of Napoleon was overthrown in French and a Republic was set up in that country.

About the Franco-Prussian War, Prof Taylor points out that "though victory over France in 1870 certainly united Germany, the war lacked the deliberation or the war against Austria. Between 1862 and 1866 Bismarck steadily screwed up the pressure, despite occasional and perhaps genuine couples; unless the Austrians accepted his terms, the repeated crises were boded to end in war. There was no such steady march to war between 1861 and 1870; indeed no alarm disturbed Franco-Prussian relations between the Luxembourg affair in 1867 and the outbreak of war more than three years later. Nor did Bismarck suffer in these years from the nightmare of coalitions which dominated him later He dismissed the rumours of French alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy as 'conjectural rubbish,' which indeed they turned out to be. He was not perturbed by good relations between France and Russia; since these must be based on the abandonment by France of her Polish sympathies, Prussia could always make a third in the partnership. His own policy was more passive than at any time before or afterwards.

Though he kept the solid basis of friendship with Russia, this was confined to a common hostility towards Poland; and he never allowed the Russians to draw him into supporting them in the Near East. Ultimately, he hoped for a conservative alliance with Russia and Austria-Hungary; like all alliances based on principle, this had the advantage of providing security without having to pay a price for it. But he knew that he would have to wait until Habsburg resentment at the defeat of 1866 had died away."

There is a considerable controversy over the question whether the master-mind of Bismarck had already conceived a plan of action for the unification of Germany when he came to power in 1862 and carried out the same according to a precise time-table. The hero-worshippers of Bismarck and his liberal critics hold the view that he carried out a programme which he had already decided upon.

There is one remarkable piece of evidence in support of this view. Disraeli met Bismarck at a dinner in London in 1862 and a little before Bismarck came to power. Disraeli tells us that Bismarck told him about his whole scheme in the course of half an hour's conversation.

Later in the evening Disraeli remarked to Saburov of the Russian Embassy in London, "What an extraordinary man Bismarck is! He meets me for the first time and he tells me all he is going to do. He will attack Denmark in order to get possession of Schleswig-Holstein! He will put Austria out of the German Confederation and then he will attack France-an extraordinary man!" If the story is true and both Saburov and the official biographers of Disraeli have confirmed it, there can be no doubt that at least the broad design was already in the mind of Bismarck when he took office.

However, David Thomson says that it is rare in, history for even the greatest of statesmen to plan successfully 10 years ahead and then to impose their plans on the world. The recent biographers are very sceptic about the truth of what Disraeli is said to have reported. It is contended that Bismarck was not like Metternich or Alexander I, a system-maker.

He was a brilliant opportunist whose course of action always remained undecided and flexible until the last moment, and his policy looks more clear-cut and coherent in retrospect than it was at that time. He was first and always a Prussian nationalist who believed that Prussian interests demanded that she should dominate the whole of Germany and exclude Austria from German affairs.

Austria and France was guided by the interests of Prussia and unification of Germany was incidental and a by-product of his never-ending pursuit of Prussian interests. His original plan for unification was only up to the Main It was extended to the Inn as it was found to be necessary for the successful promotion of war against France. To quote A.J.P Taylor, "Far from using the war to promote unification, he sought unification in order to continue the war."

Bismarck was not favourably inclined towards the southern states of Germany because they were Catholic states and were likely to weaken rather than strengthen the predominance of Protestant Prussia and Germany. He brought the southern states of Bavaria, Baden and Wurtenberg in when it became a military and diplomatic necessity to shorten the war against France and preclude intervention by other powers.

The southern states could make a separate peace so long as they remained independent, but once they were included in the Empire they were bound to stay in the war. Likewise, Bismarck at first had no desire to annex Alsace and Lorraine because the province includes so many Frenchmen and they could be a source of trouble for Germany. He agreed to annex them only under pressure from the Generals who demanded the territories on strategic grounds.

Similar views are expressed regarding the achievements of Cavour in Italy. It is contented that Cavour was also a brilliant and ingenious opportunist rather than the framer of long-term plans for a distant future. Neither he, nor Bismarck, believed in future. Both of them were always engrossed with the present. They were supreme practitioners of realpolitik and their success is to be explained more by the profound and imaginative grasp of the immediate realities of international politics than by any alleged control over the long-term course of events. They were masterly statesmen and not masterful supermen.

David Thomson maintains that the two views of Bismarck and Cavour that they were opportunists and planners are not entirely irreconcilable. Both of them cherished certain aims. Both of them had a minimum programme to which they devoted all their energies to achieve. A united kingdom of northern Italy and a Prussian-controlled North German Federation, seemed practical programmes of policy during the 1850's.

Both of them were within the grasp of practical politics if Austria could be driven pack, behind Alaps and Main, and if the great powers did not intervene on the side of Austria. Once the sequence of diplomatic movements and military events had started, the events themselves began to take control. The statesmen of Italy and Germany adjusted their policies to take account of each new situation and exploited them to achieve their own ends.

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History of The Unification of Germany! The ruler of every state was sovereign within his territory and no wonder the sense of self-preservation forced him to oppose the unification of the country and all those liberal movements which were liable to help the cause of German unification. 1.