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Period: to
Italy
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Venice, Italy
There were small revolutions in the kingdoms. Venice, Rome and Tuscany declare themselves Republics. -
Young Italy
Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini founds Young Italy, an organization to promote insurrection -
Giuseppe Mazzini "polictial martyr of a purer or nobler type"
Mazzini was born June 22, 1805. Even at a young age, he believed in independence for Italy.
At age 22, he joined forces with others who shared his views and dreams. This special forces group went on a mission to Tuscany, only to be arrested once there. When released, he helped create the Society of Young Italy. The illegal activities that this group committed eventually led to a banishment from France and execution for many of the group's leaders in later years. -
Austria
By this time Italian revolutions had failed, but valuable lessons had been learned. They had realized that unification would never be achieved under the leadership of the Pope. Nationalists also realized they could never throw off Austrian domination without the help of outside forces. Austria had almost full control of Italy at this time. -
Count Camillo di Cavour
Count Camillo di Cavour became prime minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia In 1852 . It was his leadership and accommodating policies that led to the unification of Italy in little more than a decade.
Cavour was able to persuade Napoleon to a secretly planned war against Austria. -
Austria joins the Kingodom of Sardinia
Following elections during 1859 and 1860, all northern states (of the Italian peninsula), except Venetia, which was still part of Austria, joined the Kingdom of Sardinia. Napoleon's growing concern with respect to the sudden (large) size of his neighbor was resolved in part by the cessation of the Sardinian provinces of Savoy, near the Alps, and Nice, on the Mediterranean coast to France in 1860 . -
Italy is formed
Garibaldi then conquered Naples, which he then delivered to Victor Emmanuel in 1861 and returned to his home on Caprera. With the annexation of Umbria and Marches from the papal government, a united Italy was finally established in 1861 with Victor Emmanuel as its king. The Italian kingdom was missing Rome, which was still a papal possession, and Venice, which was controlled by the Austrians. -
Victor Emmanuel II
On March 17, 1861 Victor Emmanuel II, who was previously King of Sardinia, became King of Italy. He was the first king of united Italy and became known as Padre della Patria (Father of the Homeland.) -
Rome
Venice was added to Italy in 1866 after Prussia defeated Austria in the Seven Weeks' War, in which Italy sided with Prussia; Venice was its reward. Then, in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon III withdrew his troops from Rome. With the city of Rome and the remaining Papal States left unprotected, Italian troops moved into Rome without opposition. Rome voted for union with Italy in October 1870 and, in July 1871, Rome became the capital of a united Italy. -
Death of Mazzini
After a later expulsion from Switzerland, Mazzini made his home in London. However, he returned to italy in 1848 when a revolution broke out against the French. The French surrounded Rome and this led to the end of the Roman Republic in 1849.
Mazzini spent his final days in London where he died on March 10, 1872. -
Immigration
Many Italians came to the U.S. to find jobs during this time. -
Benito Mussolini
Mussolini was born July 29, 1883.
He went to Switzerland in 1902, but then got expelled in 1903 for talking about a general strike. In 1909, he was expelled from Trentino for attacking the Catholic Church and encouraging trade unions.In 1915 he was expelled from the Socialist Party as his colleagues did not see him as one. Mussolini told the Socialists, "You cannot get rid of me because I am and always will be a socialist. You hate me because you still love me." -
Italy defeats the Ottoman empire
Italy declared war on the Empire on September 29, 1911, demanding the turnover of Tripoli and Cyrenaica. The empire's response was weak so Italian forces took those areas on November 5 of that year (this act was confirmed by an act of the Italian Parliament on February 25, 1912). -
World War I
World War I begins. Italy forms allies with Britain, France and Russia on April 26th, 1915.
