Crimean War ( )  Started out as a dispute over religious issues between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.  Real issue was control of waterways– the Bosporus Strait and the Dardanelles.  Russia wanted control of these extremely valuable passages that belonged to the Ottoman Empire.  Britain and France joined the Turks against the Russians who had support from Austria.  Russia was defeated, but weaknesses in the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires were exposed.

Italian Unification  After the Congress of Vienna, the Italian states were governed by Austria, the Roman Catholic Church, or France.  Italian nationalist sentiment had grown during Napoleonic occupation.  The Crimean War weakened Austria politically and militarily, and set the stage for Italian resistance.  A desire to promote Italian culture and unite under a sovereign Italian govt. began to grow, and secret societies promoting Italian independence sprang up.  Italian unification took 11 years because of the domination by several different foreign powers at one time.

Italy before and during unification ( )

Giuseppe Mazzini ( )  Italian patriot who founded the ‘Young Italy’ nationalist organization that favored violent revolution as a means of gaining independence. Took inspiration from the ideas of the French Revolution.  Wrote his ideas and plans in a book called On the Duties of Man; idea of liberty, fraternity equality.  Spent most of his life in exile in France, and had to smuggle his literature across borders.  While he did not initially succeed, Mazzini stirred up Italian nationalism to an all-time high.

Camillo di Cavour ( )  King Emmanuel of Piedmont-Sardinia appointed Cavour as Prime Minister.  Rather than promote revolution, he used diplomacy and ‘deal-making’ to help further the cause of Italian unification.  Commonly referred to as the ‘brains of Italian unification’, Cavour’s political maneuvers and alliance building were ultimately responsible for bringing the Italian states together. (In particular, his enlisting of French help from Louis Napoleon III to expel Austria.)  Together with the military leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian states were unified and plebiscites revealed the people’s overwhelming desire to unite.

Giuseppe Garibaldi ( )  Italian nationalist who led the movement for unification in the south--- the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.  Founded an army known as the ‘Red Shirts’ to overthrow the monarch and the pope.  Cavour convinced Garibaldi to join with him in attempting to unite all of Italy. Garibaldi became known as the ‘sword of Italian unification.’ --- he became the leader of the military side of the movement.  The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 forced France to pull its army out of Rome where it was protecting the Pope, and Garibaldi’s men were able to move in and complete the Unification of Italy by adding Rome.

German Unification  During his reign, Napoleon brought to together 300 smaller German states into 39 administrative areas.  Congress of Vienna maintained the 39 states that included Prussia and Austria.  German nationalism prompted several attempts to unify, but various disagreements between the states prevented it.  A rivalry developed between Prussia and Austria for domination of the German states.

Prussia  Schleswig-Holstein area under control of Denmark was regained by Prussia and Austria in a war with Denmark in  The two powers competed for control of the region, and eventually this led to the Austro- Prussian War of  Emperor Otto von Bismarck secured French neutrality and support from Italy. (Italy would receive the Austrian controlled region of Venetia in return.)  The powerful and well equipped Prussians routed the Austrians and consolidated their power in the region.

 In 1868, a revolution in Spain forced Queen Isabella to flee leaving a provisional govt. in control.  This govt. offered to crown a, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, King of Spain. Leopold also happened to be a cousin of King Wilhelm of Prussia.  France was against this, and forced the Prince of the small German state to decline this offer. France sent a telegram to King Wilhelm to inform him of their actions.  Wilhelm wrote a conciliatory telegram to the French, but Bismarck ‘edited’ the telegram to make it appear threatening.  France declared war on Prussia in But it had no allies in the Franco-Prussian War.  The southern German states joined Prussia and the easily defeated the French and removing Louis Napoleon from power.  The German states were unified under King Wilhelm of Prussia who became King (Kaiser) of the new German Empire in 1871.