Italian independence wars (1821-70), also known as il Risorgimento (It., resurgence). Following a period of semi-independence from the Habsburgs, the Bourbons, and the pope at the point of French bayonets, in 1815 the Italian peninsula reverted to the pre-war tripartite division with the newly revitalized Austrian empire holding Venetia and Lombardy in the north, the backward Papal States in the middle, and the retrograde kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the south, with assorted semi-autonomous principalities scattered around. Additionally there was the north-western kingdom of Sardinia, or Savoy, or Piedmont (we will use the last designation), which was possessed of the sense of nationalism that was the great legacy of the French Revolutionary wars.
Among the riots and revolutions that convulsed the continent in 1848 were two quite serious popular uprisings in Lombardy and Venetia. King Carlo Alberto of Piedmont believed that Austria would be too distracted to oppose him and invaded in support of those he declared were fellow Italians. He was decisively defeated at the first battle of Custoza by a numerically inferior Austrian force under Radetzky, fell back to his own lands, and was to be forced to abdicate in favour of his son, who became ‘il re galantuomo’ Vittorio Emanuele II. The noisy patriot Giuseppe Mazzini and the less noisy but equally patriotic soldier of fortune Garibaldi seized Rome in February 1849 and announced the formation of the Roman republic, which was promptly suppressed by troops from France, Austria, and Naples.
In 1858, Count Camillo Cavour, the Piedmontese foreign minister, negotiated a treaty with Napoleon III which promised French assistance in freeing northern Italy from Austrian rule, and the following year he encouraged revolts in Venetia and Lombardy to precipitate a war with Austria. At the battle of Solferino (24 June 1859), a combined Franco-Piedmontese force defeated the Austrians and in the peace that followed, Austria was forced to cede most of Lombardy (except for the important fortresses of Peschiera and Mantua) to Piedmont. In addition the duchies of Parma, Tuscany, Modena, and Romagna, anxious not to be part of a confederation under papal rule as desired by the French, agreed to union with Piedmont. As agreed, in return for her assistance France annexed Nice and Savoy.
In April 1860, King Francis II of the Two Sicilies bloodily suppressed revolts in Naples and Sicily and in response Garibaldi led his ‘Thousand Redshirts’ (with the covert support of Piedmont) in an invasion of Sicily in May 1860. Gathering supporters as he went, he chivvied the Neapolitan army out of Sicily and crossed the Straits of Messina on 22 August with the help of the Royal Navy. Naples fell on 7 September and Garibaldi marched north, defeating the last Neapolitan army at the battle of Volturno (26 October). It was perfectly clear that he intended to march on Rome, and it was equally clear that if he did Napoleon III, self-appointed guardian of the papacy, would intervene. So the Piedmontese army marched south, defeating a papal army at Castelfidardo on 18 September but carefully skirting Rome, and interposed itself between Garibaldi and his objective. On 17 March 1861 a united Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, its capital in Florence and Vittorio Emanuele its first constitutional monarch.
Garibaldi was unreconcilable and in August 1862 gathered another army of patriots and marched on Rome. The same reasons that led him to the Volturno in 1860 caused Vittorio Emanuele to block him, and this time there was a battle at Aspromonte where the great patriot was wounded and after which he had to flee the country. He tried again in 1867 and was again defeated, this time by the French.
In April 1866, Italy signed a treaty with Bismarck's Prussia against Austria and attacked across Lombardy towards Venetia at the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian war. Things did not go well. The Italian army was defeated at the second battle of Custoza and its technically superior navy was trounced at Lissa. Nonetheless, the Prussian victory at Königgrätz was sufficiently overwhelming to dictate terms that included giving Venetia and the Lombard fortresses to Italy.
There remained the matter of the vestigial Papal State around Rome, guarded by Napoleon III with a devotion worthy of a better cause. The Franco-Prussian war caused France to withdraw her garrison and Italian troops entered the city on 20 September 1870. It was not to be until the Lateran Treaty of 1929 signed by Mussolini that matters of territoriality and compensation were finally to be agreed between the papacy and the first united Italy since the time of the Roman empire.
— Robert Foley/Hugh Bicheno
