Because the pact was purely defensive, Cavour, the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia and the last great figure of Italian unification, decided to provoke the Austrians into fighting. He accomplished this by stationing troops close to the border, prompting the Habsburg government to issue an ultimatum that was rejected.
The war had begun but not long after, France entered into secret negotiations with Austria fearing the possibility of Prussian involvement. An armistice was signed which granted Sardinia-Piedmont the state of Lombardy but Austria would retain control over the central states of Italy. This decision enraged the Italians and the preeminent general during the conflict namely Giuseppe Garibaldi, who had returned to Italy in When Cavour ceded Nice, which was the birthplace of Garibaldi, it led to frictions between the two.
Garibaldi would continue to protest and promote the Italian irredentism, a movement in which members seek to occupy territory which they consider 'lost' based on legends or history. He promptly launched an expedition against Sicily, managing to conquer it in his name. Cavour was worried that Garibaldi, a democrat, was replacing Sardinia, a constitutional monarchy, as the unifier of Italy. He organised a plebiscite, a group of people voting to change a law or settle a constitutional matter, to annex Naples to Sardinia.
Cavour understood the relationships between national and international events. Garibaldi was on the road to an inevitable conflict with the monarchies of Europe while he, representing a monarch, blended perfectly with the political situation in Europe at the time. Austro-Prussian War Although most states of the Italian Peninsula were united and the Kingdom of Italy was created, Venice and the much-reduced Papal States were still far from their control.
Garibaldi took up arms again in , this time with the full support of the Italian government. The increasing discord between Austria and Prussia over the German Question turned into open war in , granting an opportunity for Italy to try and capture Venice. Italy would now vow to support Prussia in the case of war against Austria. Austria soon realised the brewing threat and offered the transfer of Venice back to Italy as an olive branch.
Faced with a difficult choice, La Marmora tried to stall and decided not to support a war against either Prussia or Austria. Prussia, on the other hand, would not wait and on June 12th, cut all ties with Austria and invaded some of its territories four days later.
The Austrian Empire had no chance against these combined forces and after suffering numerous defeats, mostly to Prussia, a peace treaty ensued. The cessation of hostilities was agreed to at the Armistice of Cormons signed on 12 August, followed by the Treaty of Vienna on 3 October Venice was won by Italy after a plebiscite but Trentino, Rome, Friuli and Trieste remained to be captured. France, which had some troops in Rome, had to pull them back to fight the Prussians.
Italy saw its chance and successfully conquered Rome, making the Pope a prisoner in his own home. This turned the Pope against the Italian state for several decades. Officially, the capital was not moved from Florence to Rome until July Publications Pages Publications Pages. Recently viewed 0 Save Search. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Subscriber sign in You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Username Please enter your Username.
Password Please enter your Password. Forgot password? Don't have an account? A skilled diplomat, Cavour secured an alliance with France. The Franco-Austrian War of was the agent that began the physical process of Italian unification. By the end of the year Lombardy was added to the holdings of Piedmont-Sardinia.
The northern Italian states held elections in and and voted to join the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, a major step towards unification, while Piedmont-Sardinia ceded Savoy and Nice to France. Giuseppi Garibaldi, a native of Piedmont-Sardinia, was instrumental in bringing the southern Italian states into the unification process.
Landing first in Sicily and then moving onwards into Naples, Garibaldi and his men overthrew the Bourbon monarchy and turned over the southern territories to Victor Emmanuel II, King of Piedmont-Sardinia.
In early a national parliament convened and proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy, with Victor Emmanuel II as its king. At this point, there were only two major territories outside of the parameters of the new Kingdom of Italy: Rome and Venetia. In , taking advantage of the fact that France the country responsible at the time for guarding the Papal States was distracted by involvement in the Franco-Prussian War , the Italian army entered Rome. During the summer of , the Italian capital moved to Rome from Florence it was moved from Turin to Florence in The Austrians suffered military defeats at Magenta and Solferino, and a ceasefire was agreed to at Villafranca.
In the peace negotiations, Austria ceded Lombardy to France, which then ceded it to Piedmont-Sardinia. The aftermath of the Franco-Austrian War brought about a series of plebiscites in the northern Italian states.
By going to the ballot box, the states voted to join Piedmont-Sardinia, with the ultimate goal of unifying the entire peninsula. It should be noted that Piedmont-Sardinia was one of the more powerful states in the peninsula, as well as having one of the most liberal political systems. French troops were the main barrier to Italian occupation of the Papal States after ; however, when France declared war upon Prussia in the summer of , the Italians took advantage of the situation.
Legation followed. The movement to unite Italy into one cultural and political entity was known as the Risorgimento literally, "resurgence". Giuseppe Mazzini and his leading pupil, Giuseppe Garibaldi, failed in their attempt to create an Italy united by democracy. Garibaldi, supported by his legion of Red Shirts-- mostly young Italian democrats who used the revolutions as a opportunity for democratic uprising--failed in the face of the resurgence of conservative power in Europe.
However, it was the aristocratic politician named Camillo di Cavour who finally, using the tools of realpolitik, united Italy under the crown of Sardinia. In , as prime minister of Sardinia, he involved the kingdom on the British and French side of the Crimean War, using the peace conference to give international publicity to the cause of Italian unification.
In , he formed an alliance with France, one that included a pledge of military support if necessary, against Austria, Italy's major obstacle to unification.
After a planned provocation of Vienna, Austria declared war against Sardinia in and was easily defeated by the French army. The peace, signed in November in Zurich, Switzerland, joined Lombardy, a formerly Austrian province, with Sardinia. In return, France received Savoy and Nice from Italy--a small price to pay for paving the way to unification.
0コメント