epoch-marking events of which we can say, 'Things cannot be
   again what until just now they were.' … The late risings in
   the Duchies and Legations had brought no comfort to the
   conspirators, but had taught them, on the contrary, how
   ineffectual, how hopeless was the method of the secret
   societies. After more than fifteen years they had not gained
   an inch; they had only learned that their rulers would concede
   nothing, and that Austria, their great adversary, had staked
   her existence on maintaining thraldom in Italy. Innumerable
   small outbursts and three revolutions had ended in the death
   of hundreds and in the imprisonment or proscription of
   thousands of victims. … Just when conspiracy, through
   repeated failures, was thus discredited, there arose a leader
   so strong and unselfish, so magnetic and patient and zealous,
   that by him, if by anyone, conspiracy might be guided to
   victory. This leader, the Great Conspirator, was Joseph
   Mazzini, one of the half dozen supreme influences in European
   politics during the nineteenth century, whose career will
   interest posterity as long as it is concerned at all in our
   epoch of transition. For just as Metternich was the High
   Priest of the Old Regime, so Mazzini was the Prophet of a
   Social Order, more just, more free, more spiritual than any
   the world has known. He was an Idealist who would hold no
   parley with temporizers, an enthusiast whom half-concessions
   could not beguile: and so he came to be decried as a fanatic
   or a visionary. … Mazzini joined the Carbonari, not without
   suspecting that, under their complex symbolism and
   hierarchical mysteries they concealed a fatal lack of harmony,
   decision, and faith. … As he became better acquainted with
   Carbonarism, his conviction grew stronger that no permanent
   good could be achieved by it. … The open propaganda of his
   Republican and Unitarian doctrines was of course impossible;
   it must be carried on by a secret organization. But he was
   disgusted with the existing secret societies: they lacked
   harmony, they lacked faith, they had no distinct purpose;
   their Masonic mummeries were childish and farcical. …
   Therefore, Mazzini would have none of them; he would organize
   a new secret society, and call it 'Young Italy,' whose
   principles should be plainly understood by every one of its
   members. It was to be composed of men under forty, in order to
   secure the most energetic and disinterested members, and to
   avoid the influence of older men, who, trained by the past
   generation, were not in touch with the aspirations and needs
   of the new. It was to awaken the People, the bone and sinew of
   the nation; whereas the earlier sects had relied too much on
   the upper and middle classes, whose traditions and interests
   were either too aristocratic or too commercial. Roman
   Catholicism had ceased to be spiritual; it no longer purified
   and uplifted the hearts of the Italians. … Young Italy
   aimed, therefore, to substitute for the mediæval dogmas and
   patent idolatries of Rome a religion based on Reason, and so
   simple as to be within the comprehension of the humblest
   peasant. … The doctrines of the new sect spread, but since
   secret societies give the census-taker no account of their
   membership, we cannot cite figures to illustrate the growth of
   Young Italy. Contrary to Mazzini's expectations, it was
   recruited, not so much from the People, as from the Middle
   Class, the professional men, and the tradesmen." In 1831
   Mazzini was forced into exile, at Marseilles, from which city
   he planned an invasion of Savoy. The project was discovered,
   and the Sardinian government revenged itself cruelly upon the
   patriots within its reach. "In a few weeks, eleven alleged
   conspirators had been executed, many more had been sentenced
   to the galleys, and others, who had escaped; were condemned in
   contumacy. Among the men who fled into exile at this time were
   … Vincent Gioberti and Joseph Garibaldi. … To an
   enthusiast less determined than Mazzini, this calamity would
   have been a check; to him, however, it was a spur. Instead of
   abandoning the expedition against Savoy, he worked with might
   and main to hurry it on. … One column, in which were fifty
   Italians and twice as many Poles, … was to enter Savoy by
   way of Annemasse. A second column had orders to push on from
   Nyon; a third, starting from Lyons, was to march towards
   Chambéry. Mazzini, with a musket on his shoulder, accompanied
   the first party. To his surprise, the peasants showed no
   enthusiasm when the tricolor flag was unfurled and the
   invaders shouted 'God and People! Liberty and the Republic!'
   before them. At length some carabineers and a platoon of
   troops appeared. A few shots were fired. Mazzini fainted; his
   comrades dispersed across the Swiss border, taking him with
   them. … His enemies attributed his fainting to cowardice; he
   himself explained it as the result of many nights of
   sleeplessness, of great fatigue, fever and cold. … To all
   but the few concerned in it, this first venture of Young Italy
   seemed a farce, the disproportion between its aim and its
   achievement was so enormous, and Mazzini's personal collapse
   was so ignominious. Nevertheless, Italian conspiracy had now
   and henceforth that head for lack of which it had so long
   floundered amid vague and contradictory purposes. The young
   Idealist had been beaten in his first encounter with obdurate
   Reality, but he was not discouraged. … Now began in earnest
   that 'apostolate' of his, which he laid down only at his
   death.
{1861}
   Young Italy was established beyond the chance of being
   destroyed by an abortive expedition; Young Poland, Young
   Hungary, Young Europe itself, sprang up after the Mazzinian
   pattern; the Liberals and revolutionists of the Continent felt
   that their cause was international, and in their affliction
   they fraternized. No one could draw so fair and reasonable a
   Utopia for them as Mazzini drew; no one could so fire them
   with a sense of duty, with hope, with energy. He became the
   mainspring of the whole machine—truly an infernal machine to
   the autocrats—of European conspiracy. The redemption of Italy
   was always his nearest aim, but his generous principle reached
   out over other nations, for in the world that he prophesied
   every people must be free. Proscribed in Piedmont, expelled
   from Switzerland, denied lodging in France, he took refuge in
   London, there to direct, amid poverty and heartache, the whole
   vast scheme of plots. His bread he earned by writing critical
   and literary essays for the English reviews,—he quickly
   mastered the English language so as to use it with remarkable
   vigor,—and all his leisure he devoted to the preparation of
   political tracts, and to correspondence with numberless
   confederates. … He was the consulting physician for all the
   revolutionary practitioners of Europe. Those who were not his
   partisans disparaged his influence, asserting that he was only
   a man of words; but the best proof of his power lies in the
   anxiety he caused monarchs and cabinets, and in the
   precautions they took to guard against him. … Mazzini and
   Metternich! For nearly twenty years they were the antipodes of
   European politics. One in his London garret, poor, despised,
   yet indomitable and sleepless, sending his influence like an
   electric current through all barriers to revivify the heart of
   Italy and of Liberal Europe; the other in his Vienna palace,
   haughty, famous, equally alert and cunning, … shedding over
   Italy and over Europe his upas-doctrines of torpor and decay!"

      W. R. Thayer,
      The Dawn of Italian Independence,
      book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).
      ALSO IN:
      W. L. Garrison,
      Joseph Mazzini,
      chapters 2-5.
      J. Mazzini,
      Collected Works,
      volume 1.
ITALY: A. D. 1848.
   Expulsion of Jesuits.

      See JESUITS: A. D. 1769-1871.

ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
   Insurrection and revolution throughout the peninsula.
   French occupation of Rome.
   Triumph of King "Bomba" in Naples and Sicily.
   Disastrous war of Sardinia with Austria.
   Lombardy and Venice enslaved anew.

   "The revolution of 1831, which affected the States of the
   Church, Modena, and Parma, had been suppressed, like the still
   earlier rebellions in Naples and Piedmont, by Austrian
   intervention. … Hence, all the hatred of the Italians was
   directed against foreign rule, as the only obstacle to the
   freedom and unity of the peninsula. … The secret societies,
   and the exiles in communication with them—especially Joseph
   Mazzini, who issued his commands from London—took care that
   the national spirit should not be buried beneath material
   interests, but should remain ever wakeful. Singularly, the
   first encouragement came from" Rome. "Pope Gregory XVI., …
   had died June 1st, 1846, and been succeeded by the
   fifty-four-year-old Cardinal Count Mastai Ferretti, who took
   the name of Pius IX. If the pious world which visited him was
   charmed by the amiability and clemency of its new head, the
   cardinals were dismayed at the reforms which this new head
   would fain introduce in the States of the Church and in all
   Italy. He published an amnesty for all political offences;
   permitted the exiles to return with impunity; allowed the
   Press freer scope; threw open the highest civil offices to
   laymen; summoned from the notables of the provinces a council
   of state, which was to propose reforms; bestowed a liberal
   municipal constitution on the city of Rome; and endeavored to
   bring about an Italian confederation. … After the French
   revolution of 1848 he granted a constitution. There was a
   first chamber, to be named by the Pope, and a second chamber,
   to be elected by the people, while the irresponsible college
   of cardinals formed a sort of privy council. A new era
   appeared to be dawning. The old-world capital, Rome, once the
   mistress of the nations, still the mistress of all Roman
   Catholic hearts, was to become the central point of Italy. …
   But when the flames of war broke out in the north [see below],
   and the fate of Italy was about to be decided between Sardinia
   and Austria on the old battle fields of Lombardy, the Romans
   demanded from the Pope a declaration of war against Austria,
   and the despatch of Roman troops to join Charles Albert's
   army. Pius rejected their demands as unsuited to his papal
   office, and so broke with the men of the extreme party. … In
   this time of agitation Pius thought that in Count Pellegrino
   Rossi, of Carrara, … he had found the right man to carry out
   a policy of moderate liberalism, and on the 17th of September,
   1848, he set him at the head of a new ministry. The anarchists
   … could not forgive Rossi for grasping the reins with a firm
   hand." On the 15th of November, as he alighted from his
   carriage at the door of the Chambers, he was stabbed in the
   neck by an assassin, and died on the spot. He was about, when
   murdered, to open the Chambers with a speech, in which he
   intended "to promise abolition of the rule of the cardinals
   and introduction of a lay government, and to insist upon
   Italy's independence and unity. … The next day an armed
   crowd appeared before the Quirinal and attacked the guard,
   which consisted of Swiss mercenaries, some of the bullets
   flying into the Pope's antechamber. He had to accept a radical
   ministry and dismiss the Swiss troops. … Pius fled in
   disguise from Rome to Gaeta, November 24th, and sought shelter
   with the King of Naples. Mazzini and his party had free scope.
   A constitutional convention was summoned, which declared the
   temporal power of the Pope abolished (February 5th, 1849), and
   Rome a republic. To them attached itself Tuscany. Grand-duke
   Leopold II. had granted a constitution, February 17th, 1848,
   but nevertheless the republican-minded ministry of Guerrazzi
   compelled him to join the Pope at Gaeta, February 21st, 1849.
   The republic was then proclaimed in Tuscany and union with
   Rome resolved upon." But Louis Napoleon, President of the
   French republic, intervened. "Marshal Oudinot was despatched
   with 8,000 men. He landed in Civita Vecchia, April 26th, 1849,
   and appeared before the walls of Rome on the 30th, expecting
   to take the city without any trouble. But … after a fight of
   several hours, he had to retreat to Civita Vecchia with a loss
   of 700 men.
{1862}
   A few days later the Neapolitan army, which was to attack the
   rebels from the south, was defeated at Velletri; and the
   Spanish troops, the third in the league against the red
   republic, prudently avoided a battle. But Oudinot received
   considerable re-enforcements, and on June 3d he advanced
   against Rome for the second time, with 35,000 men, while the
   force in the city consisted of about 19,000, mostly volunteers
   and national guards. In spite of the bravery of Garibaldi and
   the volunteers, into whom he breathed his spirit, Rome had to
   capitulate, after a long and bloody struggle, owing to the
   superiority of the French artillery. On the 4th of July
   Oudinot entered the silent capital. Garibaldi, Mazzini, and
   their followers fled. … Pius, for whose nerves the Roman
   atmosphere was still too strong, did not return until the 4th
   of April, 1850. His ardor for reform was cooled. … In the
   Legations they had to protect themselves by Austrian bayonets,
   and in Rome and Civita Vecchia by French. This lasted in the
   Legations until 1859, and in Rome and Civita Vecchia until
   1866 and 1870. Simultaneously with Rome the south of Italy had
   entered into the movement so characteristic of the year 1848.
   The scenes of 1820 and 1821 were repeated." The Sicilians
   again demanded independence; expelled the Neapolitan garrison
   from Palermo; refused to accept a constitution proffered by
   King Ferdinand II., which created a united parliament for
   Naples and Sicily; voted in a Sicilian parliament the
   perpetual exclusion of the Bourbon dynasty from the throne,
   and offered the crown of Sicily to a son of the king of
   Sardinia, who declined the gift. In Naples, Ferdinand yielded
   at first to the storm, and sent, under compulsion, a force of
   13,000 Neapolitan troops, commanded by the old revolutionist,
   General Pepé, to join the Sardinians against Austria. This was
   in April, 1848. A month later he crushed the revolution with
   his Swiss mercenaries, recalled his army from northern Italy,
   and was master, again, in his capital and his peninsular
   kingdom. The following summer he landed 8,000 troops in
   Sicily; his army bombarded and stormed Messina in September;
   defeated the insurgents at the foot of Mount Etna; took
   Catania by storm in April, 1849, and entered Palermo, after a
   short bombardment, on the 17th of May, having gained for its
   master the nickname of "King Bomba." "He ordered a general
   disarmament, and established an oppressive military rule over
   the whole island; and there was no more talk of parliament and
   constitution. All these struggles in central and southern
   Italy stood in close connection with the events of 1848 and
   1849 in upper Italy. … In the north the struggle was to
   shake off the Austrian yoke. … During the month of January,
   1848, there was constant friction between the citizens and the
   military in Milan and the university cities of Pavia and
   Padua. … March 18th, Milan rose. All classes took part in
   the fight; and the eighty-two-year-old field-marshal Count
   Joseph Radetzky … was obliged, after a street fight of two
   days, to draw his troops out of the city, call up as quickly
   as possible the garrisons of the neighboring cities, and take
   up his position in the famous Quadrilateral, between
   Peschiera, Verona, Legnano, and Mantua. March 22d, Venice,
   where Count Zichy commanded, was lost for the Austrians," who
   yielded without resistance, releasing their political
   prisoners, one of whom, the celebrated Daniel Manin, a
   Venetian lawyer, took his place at the head of a provisional
   government. "Other cities followed the lead of Venice. The
   little duchies of Modena and Parma could hold out no longer;
   Dukes Francis and Charles fled to Austria, and provisional
   governments sprung up behind them. Like Naples, the duchies
   and Tuscany also sent their troops across the Po to help the
   Sardinians in the decisive struggle. The hopes of all Italy
   were centred on Sardinia and its king. … Charles Albert,
   called to the aid of Lombardy, entered Milan to win for
   himself the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom and the hegemony of
   Italy. He presented himself as the liberator of the peninsula,
   but it was not a part for which he was qualified by his
   antecedents. … He was a brave soldier, but a poor captain.
   … His opponent, Radetzky, was old, but his spirit was still
   young and fresh. … Radetzky received re-enforcements from
   Austria, and on the 6th of May repelled the attack of the
   Sardinian king south-west of Verona [at Santa Lucia]. May
   29th, he carried the intrenchments at Cartatone; but as the
   Sardinians were victorious at Goito and took Peschiera, while
   Garibaldi with his Alpine rangers threatened the Austrian
   rear, he had to desist from further advances, and limit his
   operations to the recapture of Vicenza and the other cities of
   the Venetian main-land. In the mean time the Austrian court,
   chiefly at the instigation of the British embassy, had opened
   negotiations with the Lombards, and offered them their
   independence on condition of their assuming a considerable
   share of the public debt, and concluding a favorable
   commercial treaty with Austria. But, as the Lombards felt sure
   of acquiring their freedom more cheaply, they did not accept
   the proposition. Radetzky was now in a position to assume an
   active offensive. He won a brilliant victory at Custozza, July
   25th. The Sardinians attempted to make a stand at Goito and
   again at Volta, but were driven back, and Radetzky advanced on
   Milan. Charles Albert had to evacuate the city," and on the
   9th of August he concluded an armistice, withdrawing his
   troops from Lombardy and the duchies. But in the following
   March (1849) he was persuaded to renew the war, and he placed
   his army under the command of the Polish general Chrzanowski.
   It was the intention of the Sardinians to advance again into
   Lombardy, but they had no opportunity. "Radetzky crossed the
   Ticino, and in a four days' campaign on Sardinian soil
   defeated the foe so completely—March 21st at Mortara, and
   March 23d at Novara—that there could be no more thought of a
   renewal of the struggle. … Charles Albert, who had vainly
   sought death upon the battle-field, was weary of his throne
   and his life. In the night of March 23d, at Novara, he laid
   down the crown and declared his eldest son king of Sardinia,
   under the title of Victor Emmanuel II. He hoped that the
   latter would obtain a more favorable peace from the Austrians.
   … Then, saying farewell to his wife by letter, attended by
   but two servants, he travelled through France and Spain to
   Portugal. He died at Oporto, July 26th, 1849, of repeated
   strokes of apoplexy." After long negotiations, the new king
   concluded a treaty of peace with Austria on the 6th of August.
   "Sardinia retained its boundaries intact, and paid 75,000,000
   lire as indemnity. The false report of a Sardinian victory at
   Novara had caused the population of Brescia to fall upon the
   Austrian garrison and drive them into the citadel.
{1863}
   General Haynau hastened thither with 4,000 men well provided
   with artillery. The city was bombarded, and on the 1st of
   April it was reoccupied, after a fearful street fight, in
   which even women took part; but Haynau stained his name by
   inhuman cruelties, especially toward the gentler sex. Venice
   was not able to hold out much longer. It had at first attached
   itself to Sardinia, but after the defeat of the Sardinians the
   republic was proclaimed. Without the city, in Haynau's camp,
   swamp fever raged; within, hunger and cholera. On the news of
   the capitulation of Hungary, August 22d, it surrendered, and
   the heads of the revolution, Manin and Pepe, went into exile.
   All Italy was again brought under its old masters."

      W. Müller,
      Political History of Recent Times,
      section 16.
   The siege of Venice, "reckoning from April 2, when the
   Assembly voted to resist at any cost, lasted 146 days; but the
   blockade by land began on June 18, 1848, when the Austrians
   first occupied Mestre. During the twenty-one weeks of actual
   siege, 900 Venetian troops were killed, and probably 7,000 or
   8,000 were at different times on the sick-list. Of the
   Austrians, 1,200 were killed in engagements, 8,000 succumbed
   to fevers and cholera, and as many more were in the hospitals:
   80,000 projectiles were fired from the Venetian batteries;
   from the Austrian, more than 120,000. During the seventeen
   months of her independence, Venice raised sixty million
   francs, exclusive of patriotic donations in plate and
   chattels. When Gorzkowsky came to examine the accounts of the
   defunct government he exclaimed, 'I did not believe that such
   Republican dogs were such honest men.' With the fate of Venice
   was quenched the last of the fires of liberty which the
   Revolution had kindled throughout Europe in 1848. Her people,
   whom the world had come to look down upon as degenerate,—mere
   trinket-makers and gondoliers,—had proved themselves second
   to none in heroism, superior to all in stability. At Venice,
   from first to last, we have had to record no excesses, no
   fickle changes, no slipping down of power from level to level
   till it sank in the mire of anarchy. She had her demagogues
   and her passions, but she would be the slave of neither; and
   in nothing did she show her character more worthily than in
   recognizing Manin and making him her leader. He repaid her
   trust by absolute fidelity. I can discover no public act of
   his to which you can impute any other motive than solicitude
   for her welfare. The common people loved him as a father,
   revered him as a patron saint; the upper classes, the
   soldiers, the politicians, whatever may have been the
   preferences of individuals or the ambition of cliques, felt
   that he was indispensable, and gave him wider and wider
   authority as danger increased. … The little lawyer, with the
   large, careworn face and blue eyes, had redeemed Venice from
   her long shame of decadence and servitude. But Europe would
   not suffer his work to stand; Europe preferred that Austria
   rather than freedom should rule at Venice. At daybreak on
   August 28 a mournful throng of the common people collected
   before Manin's house in Piazza San Paterniano. 'Here is our
   good father, poor dear fellow,' they were heard to say. 'He
   has endured so much for us. May God bless him!' They escorted
   him and his family to the shore, whence he embarked on the
   French ship Pluton, for he was among the forty prominent
   Venetians whom the Austrians condemned to banishment. At six
   o'clock the Pluton weighed anchor and passed through the
   winding channel of the lagune, out into the Adriatic. Long
   before the Austrian banners were hoisted that morning on the
   flagstaffs of St. Mark's, Venice, with her fair towers and
   glittering domes, had vanished forever from her Great
   Defender's sight. Outwardly, the Revolutionary Movement had
   failed; in France it had resulted in a spurious Republic, soon
   to become a tinsel Empire; elsewhere, there was not even a
   make-believe success to hide, if but for a while, the failure.
   In Italy, except in Piedmont, Reaction had full play. Bomba
   filled his Neapolitan and Sicilian prisons with political
   victims, and demonstrated again that the Bourbon government
   was a negation of God. Pius IX., having loitered at Naples
   with his Paragon of Virtue until April, 1850, returned to
   Rome, to be henceforth now the puppet and now the accomplice
   of Cardinal Antonelli in every scheme for oppressing his
   subjects, and for resisting Liberal tendencies. He held his
   temporal sovereignty through the kindness of the Bonapartist
   charlatan in France; it was fated that he should lose it
   forever when that charlatan lost his Empire. In Tuscany,
   Leopold thanked Austria for permitting him to rule over a
   people the intelligent part of which despised him. In Modena,
   the Duke was but an Austrian deputy sheriff. Lombardy and
   Venetia were again the prey of the double-beaked eagle of
   Hapsburg. Only in Piedmont did Constitutionalism and liberty
   survive to become, under an honest king and a wise minister,
   the ark of Italy's redemption."

      W. R. Thayer,
      The Dawn of Italian Independence,
      book 5, chapter 6 (volume 2).
      ALSO IN:
      W. E. Gladstone,
      Gleanings of Past Years,
      volume 4, chapters 1-4.
      L. C. Farini,
      The Roman State from 1815 to 1850,
      books 2-7 (volumes 1-4).
      H. Martin,
      Daniel Manin and Venice in 1848-49.
      G. Garibaldi,
      Autobiography,
      period 2 (volumes 1-2).
      L. Mariotti,
      Italy in 1848.

      E. A. V.,
      Joseph Mazzini,
      chapters 4-5.
      The Chevalier O'Clery,
      History of the Italian Revolution,
      chapters 6-7.
ITALY: A. D. 1855.
   Sardinia in the alliance of the Crimean War against Russia.

      See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854-1856.

ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859.
   Austro-Italy before Europe in the Congress of Paris.
   Alliance of France with Sardinia.
   War with Austria.
   Emancipation of Lombardy.
   Peace of Villa-franca.

   "The year 1856 brought an armistice between the contending
   powers [in the Crimea—see RUSSIA: A. D. 1853-1854 to
   1854-1856], followed by the Congress of Paris, which settled
   the terms of peace. At that Congress Count Cavour and the
   Marquis Villamarina represented their country side by side
   with the envoys of the great European States. The Prime
   Minister of Piedmont, while taking his part in the
   re-establishment of the general peace with a skill and tact
   which won him the favour of his brother plenipotentiaries,
   never lost sight of the further object he had in view, namely,
   that of laying before the Congress the condition of Italy. …
   His efforts were rewarded with success.
{1864}
   On the 30th March, 1856, the treaty of peace was signed, and
   on the 8th April Count Walewski called the attention of the
   members of the Congress to the state of Italy. … Count Buol,
   the Austrian plenipotentiary, would not admit that the
   Congress had any right to deal with the Italian question at
   all; he declined courteously, but firmly, to discuss the
   matter. … But although Austria refused to entertain the
   question, the fact remained that the condition of Italy now
   stood condemned, not by revolutionary chiefs, nor by the
   rulers of Piedmont alone, but by the envoys of some of the
   leading powers of Europe speaking officially in the name of
   their respective sovereigns. It was in truth a great
   diplomatic victory for Italy. … No one in Europe was more
   thoroughly convinced than Napoleon III. that the discontent of
   Italy and the plots of a section of Italians had their origin
   in the despotism which annihilated all national life in the
   Peninsula with the single exception of Piedmont. He felt
   keenly, also, how false, was his own position at Rome. …
   France upheld the Pope as a temporal sovereign, but,
   nevertheless, the latter ruled in a manner which pleased
   Austria and which displeased France. … Count Cavour went
   privately to meet the French Emperor at Plombières in July,
   1858. During that interview it was arranged that France should
   ally herself actively with Piedmont against Austria. … The
   first public indication of the attitude taken up by France
   with regard to Austria and Italy was given on the 1st January,
   1859, when Napoleon III. received the diplomatic corps at the
   Tuileries. Addressing Baron Hubner, the Austrian Ambassador,
   the French Emperor said: 'I regret that the relations between
   us are bad; tell your sovereign, however, that my sentiments
   towards him are not changed.' … The ties which united France
   to Piedmont were strengthened by the marriage, in the end of
   January, 1859, of the Princess Clotilde, the eldest daughter
   of Victor Emmanuel, with Prince Napoleon, the first cousin of
   the French Emperor. … An agreement was made by which the
   Emperor Napoleon promised to give armed assistance to Piedmont
   if she were attacked by Austria. The result, in case the
   allies were successful, was to be the formation of a northern
   kingdom of Italy. … Both Austria and Piedmont increased
   their armaments and raised loans in preparation for war. Men
   of all ranks and conditions of life flocked to Turin from the
   other States of Italy to join the Piedmontese army, or enrol
   themselves among the volunteers of Garibaldi, who had hastened
   to offer his services to the king against Austria. …
   Meanwhile, diplomacy made continual efforts to avert war. …
   The idea of a European Congress was started. … Then came the
   proposition of a general disarmament by way of staying the
   warlike preparations, which were taking ever enlarged
   proportions. On the 18th April, 1859, the Cabinet of Turin
   agreed to the principle of disarmament at the special request
   of England and France, on the condition that Piedmont took her
   seat at the Congress. The Cabinet of Vienna had made no reply
   to this proposition. Then suddenly it addressed, on the 23rd
   April, an ultimatum to the Cabinet of Turin demanding the
   instant disarmament of Piedmont, to which a categorical reply
   was asked for within three days. At the expiration of the
   three days Count Cavour, who was delighted at this hasty step
   of his opponent, remitted to Baron Kellerberg, the Austrian
   envoy, a refusal to comply with the request made. War was now
   inevitable. Victor Emmanuel addressed a stirring proclamation
   to his army on the 27th April, and two days afterwards another
   to the people of his own kingdom and to the people of Italy.
   … On the 30th April some French troops arrived at Turin. On
   the 13th May Napoleon III. disembarked at Genoa. … Although
   the Austrian armies proceeded to cross the Ticino and invade
   the Piedmontese territory, they failed to make a decisive
   march on Turin. Had Count Giúlay, the Austrian commander, done
   so without hesitation, he might well have reached the capital
   of Piedmont before the French had arrived in sufficient force
   to enable the little Piedmontese army to arrest the invasion.
   As it was, the opportunity was lost never to occur again. In
   the first engagements at Montebello and Palestro [May 20, 30
   and 31] the advantage rested decidedly with the allies. … On
   the 4th June the French fought the battle of Magenta, which
   ended, though not without a hard struggle, in the defeat of
   the Austrians. On the 8th the Emperor Napoleon and King Victor
   Emmanuel entered Milan, where they were received with a
   welcome as sincere as it was enthusiastic. The rich Lombard
   capital hastened to recognise the king as its sovereign. While
   there he met in person, Garibaldi, who was in command of the
   volunteer corps, whose members had flocked from all parts of
   Italy to carry on under his command the war in the mountainous
   districts of the north against Austria. … The allied troops
   pursued their march onwards towards the River Mincio, upon
   whose banks two of the fortresses of the famous Quadrilateral
   are situated. On the 24th June they encountered the Austrian
   army at Solferino and San Martino. French, Piedmontese, and
   Austrians, fought with courage and determination. Nor was it
   until after ten or eleven hours of hard fighting that the
   allies forced their enemy to retreat and took possession of
   the positions he had occupied in the morning. While victory
   thus crowned the efforts of France and Piedmont in battle,
   events of no little importance were taking place in Italy.
   Ferdinand II. of Naples died on the 22nd May, just after he
   had received the news of the successes of the allies at
   Montebello and Palestro. He was succeeded by his son, Francis
   II. … Count Salmour was at once despatched by the
   Piedmontese Government … with the offer of a full and fair
   alliance between Turin and Naples. The offer was rejected.
   Francis determined to follow his father's example of
   absolutism at home while giving all his influence to Austria.
   Thus it was that the young Neapolitan king sowed, and as he
   sowed so he reaped. Leopold, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, had in
   April refused the proffered alliance of Piedmont. … Finally
   he left Florence and took refuge in the Austrian camp. A
   provisional Government was formed, which placed the Tuscan
   forces at the disposal of Victor Emmanuel. This change was
   effected in a few hours without bloodshed or violence. The
   Duchess of Parma went away to Switzerland with her young son,
   Duke Robert. Francis Duke of Modena betook himself, with what
   treasures he had time to lay his hands on, to the more
   congenial atmosphere of the head-quarters of the Austrian
   army. … 'The deputations which hastened from Tuscany, Parma,
   and Modena, to offer their allegiance to Victor Emmanuel, were
   received without difficulty. It was agreed that their complete
   annexation should be deferred until after the conclusion of
   peace.
{1865}
   In the meanwhile the Piedmontese Government was to assume the
   responsibility of maintaining order and providing for military
   action. … The French and Piedmontese armies had won the
   battle of Solferino, and driven the enemy across the Mincio;
   their fleets were off the lagoons of Venice, and were even
   visible from the lofty Campanile of St. Mark. Italy was
   throbbing with a movement of national life daily gathering
   volume and force. Europe was impatiently expecting the next
   move. It took the unexpected form of an armistice, which the
   Emperor of the French proposed, on his sole responsibility, to
   the Emperor Francis Joseph on the 8th July. On the 12th the
   preliminaries of peace were signed at Villafranca. Victor
   Emmanuel was opposed to this act of his ally, but was unable
   to prevent it. The Italians were bitterly disappointed, and
   their anger was only too faithfully represented by Cavour
   himself. He hastened to the headquarters of the king,
   denounced in vehement language the whole proceeding, advised
   his majesty not to sign the armistice, not to accept Lombardy
   [see below], and to withdraw his troops from the Mincio to the
   Ticino. But Victor Emmanuel, though sympathising with the
   feelings of Italy and of his Minister, took a wiser and more
   judicious course than the one thus recommended. He accepted
   Cavour's resignation and signed the armistice, appending to
   his signature these words:—'J'accepte pour ce qui me
   concerne.' He reserved his liberty of action for the future
   and refused to pledge himself to anything more than a
   cessation of hostilities."

      J. W. Probyn,
      Italy from 1815 to 1890,
      chapters 9-10.
      ALSO IN:
      C. Bossoli,
      The War in Italy.
      C. de Mazade,
      Life of Count Cavour,
      chapters 2-5.
      C. Arrivabene,
      Italy under Victor Emmanuel,
      chapters 1-13 (volume 1).
      C. Adams,
      Great Campaigns, 1796-1870,
      pages 271-340.
      L. Kossuth,
      Memories of My Exile.
      Countess E. M. Cesaresco,
      Italian Characters in the Epoch of Unification.