Transcript Ital & Germ Unification

Crimean War (1853-1856)
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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
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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
(1859-1870)
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872)
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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 (1810-1861)
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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 ( 1807-1882)
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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
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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
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Schleswig-Holstein area under control of
Denmark was regained by Prussia and
Austria in a war with Denmark in 1864.
The two powers competed for control of the
region, and eventually this led to the AustroPrussian War of 1866.
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.
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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 1870. 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.