France's Role in Italian Unification

• France played a role in the unification of Italy and Germany between 1850 and 1871.

France and the Construction of the Italian State

• In the mid-19th century, the Italian peninsula was composed of eight states, including the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and the Duchy of Parma.
• The Duchy of Modena, the Duchy of Tuscany, the Papal States, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, with Lombardy and Venetia under Austrian control.
• Common language, beliefs, history, and customs justified Italian unification.
• Papal betrayals and rising nationalism fueled the desire for a united nation within natural borders.
• Italian nationalist patriots aimed for the Risorgimento, or the rebirth of Italy.
• Many nationalists were prepared to unite behind Piedmont-Sardinia to unify the nation.
• The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was a constitutional monarchy that was wealthy, modern, and militarily strong near Austria and France.
• Cavour, the Prime Minister under King Victor-Emmanuel II, sought an alliance with France to expel the Austrians from the north.
• With French assistance, the Piedmontese defeated the Austrians in 1859 at Magenta and Solferino, annexing Lombardy.
• Pro-Italian unity advocates in central Italy revolted and voted to join Piedmont-Sardinia.
• France obtained Savoy and Nice in 1858, ratified by a referendum in 1860 with 99% approval, ceded by Victor-Emmanuel II.
• Residents of territories annexed to France could keep their nationality but not both.
• They retained the right to their French assets, live in Italy, and decide on their preferred home within a year.
• Cavour supported Garibaldi and his "red shirts" in assaulting the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in Palermo to the south.
• Sicily and Naples were conquered in 1860 and voted to join Piedmont, Victor-Emmanuel II was proclaimed King of Italy in 1861 and Turin became the capital, then Florence in 1865.
• Italy acquired Venetia in 1866, taking advantage of an Austrian defeat by Prussia.
• The Papal States surrounding Rome remained a barrier, as their total unification may weaken the papacy.
• Napoleon III sent French troops to protect Rome when Catholic public opinion was against unification, these forces were known as the pontifical oives.
• However, the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 forced the emperor to recall his soldiers, which allowed the Italian army to occupy Rome and establish it as the kingdom's capital in 1871.
• The Pope surrendered and retreated to the Vatican, thus completing Italian unification.
• According to Mazzini, Rome's prosperity, imperial past, and religious significance rendered it the natural choice as Italy's capital.
• Choosing Rome demonstrated that unification was a national aspiration rather than Piedmont-Sardinia annexing the rest of Italy with Turin as its capital.

France and the Construction of the German Empire

• Germany was more fragmented than Italy in 1850, with 39 German states led by Austria and Prussia.
• Some Catholic Southern German states resisted uniting with Protestant Prussia.
• Prussia aimed to unify Germany with its "Little Germany" plan, which opposed the Austrian-led "Greater Germany" plan to unite all Austrian territories, including non-German populations.
• Prussia caught up despite Austria's prominence in the German Confederation.
• Only Germans lived in Prussia, unlike Austria, a multinational state weakened by the upheavals of 1848.
• Prussia leveraged its economic and industrial expansion to implement the Zollverein (customs union), incorporating practically all German states save Austria.

Unification Behind Prussia

• In 1862, King William I of Prussia appointed Otto Von Bismarck as Chancellor charged with unifying Germany through diplomacy or war.
• Bismarck focused on eliminating Austria, succeeding at the Battle of Sadowa and establishing the North German Confederation under Prussian rule, replacing the old Austrian-dominated German Confederation.
• Prussia sought to ally the Catholic states of southern Germany and thus sought to pit them against a common enemy, France.
• William I and Bismarck gained the backing of the Southern states by appealing to German national sentiment after Prussia leaked word of the war declaration by France in July 1870 as a result of Austrian throne succession disputes.
• France was defeated and German unity was accomplished.
• On January 18, 1871, the German Empire was officially proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.
• The peace settlement that followed completed Germany's humiliation of France by imposing high reparations and ceding Alsace-Moselle leading to Germany becoming a major economic, political, and military power.