Italy had once been the center of the Roman Empire. It had also been the place where Renaissance culture developed. After the Great Explorations and Discoveries, the famous Italian cities of Venice, Naples, Florence, Rome, and Genoa lost their importance because of the decline in Mediterranean trade. This decline came about as a result of the shift of trade routes from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic shores.
Following Napoleon's defeat, representatives from the victorious nations and France met at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The Congress reshaped the map of Europe to something like it was before the Napoleonic Wars. The Kingdom of Sardinia, which also included Piedmont, was recognized as an independent Italian state. Venetia and Lombardy became Austrian provinces. Parma, Modena, Lucca, and Tuscany were restored to local princes. The states of the Catholic Church were restored to the Papacy (Papal States) and ruled directly by the Pope. Naples and Sicily, often known as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, were restored under local rulers dominated by Austria.
Napoleon had provided an impetus for the Italian and German unifications. He created two republics in Italy (Cisalpine and Ligurian). He also consolidated the German principalities into the Confederation of the Rhine. But the Congress of Vienna disintegrated them and, by doing so, delayed the unification of Italy and Germany as nation-states. The presence of foreign powers like France and Austria aroused national feelings but hindered unification for the time being. The negative position and role of the Papacy worked against unification, too. Church leaders believed a united Italy would end the Pope's rule over the Papal States.
Unification and independence movements in Italy were started by educated Italians before 1848. Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) organized the Young Italy movement, a movement aimed at creating a democratic republic in Italy. Mazzini inspired young Italians through his poems, by reviving memories of the glories of Ancient Rome and the great contributions of the Renaissance to world culture, and called for a rebirth ("Risorgimento"). Mazzini visualized an Italian republic with a stable government and a strong army like Prussia.
In 1848, there were widespread revolutionary movements in many parts of Europe. The revolutionary movements in the Italian states during 1848 revived Italian nationalism. Moreover, Piedmont-Sardinia got its Constitution in 1848. This later became the Constitution of the Italian Kingdom.
How Was Italian Unification Realized?
The unification of Italy went through several stages. Before unification, there had been eight separate petty states in Italy. Piedmont-Sardinia took the lead in the movement to unify Italy. The skillful diplomacy of Count Camillo Benso di Cavour (1810–1861), the Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, greatly contributed to the unification of Italy.
Cavour allied with France and Britain in the Crimean War (1853–1856) against Russia. In 1859, in a short conflict with Austria, France came to the side of Cavour and helped him regain Lombardy and unite it with Piedmont. Popular uprisings of the Young Italy movement in the northern states of Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and Papal Romagna resulted in the unification of these states with Piedmont-Sardinia in 1859.
Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882) led a military campaign against Francis II (1859–1861), the ruler of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in 1860. Garibaldi's force was known as the "Red Shirts" or the "Thousands." His successful campaigns crushed every resistance to unification in the south. Naples and Sicily were joined with Piedmont-Sardinia, and the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in Turin in 1861.
In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Italy allied with Prussia and got Venetia from Austria through the peace agreement after the war. Only one foreign power, France, remained with its troops still stationed in Rome.
Bismarck's success in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 ended the reign of Napoleon III and his Second Empire (1852–1870) in France. This success of Prussia completed the unification of Germany on the one hand and forced French troops to withdraw from Rome on the other. This final event completed Italian unification. The capital city of united Italy was transferred from Turin to Rome.
Unification of Germany
In the first half of the 19th century, the Germans were as divided as the Italians. They lived under several different states. There had been several factors that preceded the unification of Germany. These included:
The wars of Napoleon Bonaparte aroused German national feeling. The Congress of Vienna tried to restore stability and redrew the political map of Europe. German lands were given back to feudal German princes. The Congress kept the German Confederation of the Rhine as a loose confederation under Austrian auspices.
The ideas of liberalism and nationalism developed in due course and favored German unification.
The Revolution of 1848 helped Prussia, the future nucleus for German unification, gain a constitution, although the monarchy and the landowning Junker nobility still remained dominant.
Austria dominated the German Confederation. There was religious dissension between the Protestant northeast and the Catholic south. There were also political differences between the autocratic north and the more liberal south. Economic disagreements between an agrarian east, dominated by the Junkers (landlords), and the more industrialized west were also a problem for German unification.
Austria, which was an important member of the German Confederation, had great influence over and dominated the northern German states. She used her dominant position to abolish patriotic German societies. She tried to check the growth of liberalism and nationalism in Germany through strict control and supervision over the German states. France was against the creation of a united and strong German nation-state that could become a rival to French power in Europe. France had influence over the Catholic German states in the south.