Unification of Italy and Germany in the 19th Century — Nationalism & State Building

Unification of Italy and Germany

(Pag 40)

After the revolutions of 1848, these unification processes were started. They were supported by the bourgeoisie and ideologically by liberalism and nationalism.

Italian Unification

The Italian peninsula was divided in seven different states. Besides, since 1815 Austria controlled the policy in Italy. However, Piedmont (the Kingdom of Sardinia), a northern kingdom with a liberal system, wanted to unify the whole of Italy into one state.

In 1859, Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont, and Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy (the king) started the war against Austria. Piedmont was allied with France (Napoleon III). Austria was defeated and Lombardy passed to Piedmont.

In 1860, Garibaldi, a revolutionary leader, took Naples and Sicily, dethroning its absolutist king. He also conquered the central states of Italy. As a consequence Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed as the new King of Italy in 1861.

In 1866 Venice was added to Italy; in 1870 the Papal States were annexed, and Rome was proclaimed as the new capital city.

German Unification

The German Confederation was divided into 39 states, including Prussia and Austria. In 1834 an economic union, among many of the states, called the Zollverein, was created.

In 1848 the Parliament of the Confederation offered the crown to the King of Prussia; however, he did not accept.

So, Otto von Bismarck, the Prime Minister of Prussia, chose war as the way to achieve unification. The process lasted for five years and involved two major wars:

• 1866: Prussia defeated Austria at the Battle of Sadowa (Königgrätz), and the Northern Confederation, also called "Little Germany," was created.
• 1870–71: France declared war on Prussia. The war lasted only for three weeks. French troops were strongly defeated at the Battle of Sedan, and William I, the King of Prussia, was crowned as the new Kaiser (Emperor), establishing the Second Reich in Germany.

Europe in the End of the 19th Century

On one hand, Austria lost its Italian territories and its leadership in Central Europe; it also suffered national uprisings in Hungary and other territories.

The Ottoman Empire also suffered national uprisings, most of them in the Balkans; Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia gained their independence.

On the other hand, France lost territories in the war against Germany, and Italy considered its unification incomplete. This increased the tension between countries.

In Western Europe, liberalism was definitively adopted, but it was a conservative version of liberalism; therefore citizens demanded an equal system, universal suffrage, and social laws.