Unification of Italy & Germany (1815-1871) — Nationalism Builds Two Great States

1. Europe in 1815 — Italy and Germany on the Map

The Congress of Vienna (June 1815) re-drew Europe on the principles of legitimacy and balance of power — and in doing so it deliberately denied a political existence to two of the most ancient nations of Europe. "Italy" and "Germany" were geographical and cultural ideas, not states.

1.1 Italy in 1815 — "A Geographical Expression"

• Metternich's famous dismissal: "Italy is a geographical expression."
• Eight states across the peninsula:
  • Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont-Sardinia) — capital Turin; House of Savoy; gained Genoa at Vienna; only fully independent Italian state.
  • Lombardy-Venetia — under direct Austrian rule; capital Milan; most prosperous part of Italy.
  • Duchy of Parma — Marie Louise (Napoleon's widow); Habsburg.
  • Duchy of Modena — Habsburg-Este.
  • Grand Duchy of Tuscany — Habsburg-Lorraine; capital Florence; relatively enlightened.
  • Papal States — Pope's temporal kingdom across central Italy; capital Rome.
  • Kingdom of the Two Sicilies — Bourbon; capital Naples; largest in population but most backward.
  • Plus tiny Republic of San Marino.
• Austria was the dominant power — directly in Lombardy-Venetia, by family in Parma/Modena/Tuscany, by treaty obligation everywhere else.

1.2 Germany in 1815 — German Confederation

• The German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) — created by the Vienna Final Act 8 June 1815.
• 39 states — down from 350+ before 1789 (Napoleon's consolidation preserved); included one empire (Austria), five kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Württemberg), grand duchies (Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, etc.), free cities (Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Frankfurt-am-Main).
• Diet at Frankfurt — assembly of ambassadors, presided over by Austria; required unanimity for major decisions; designed by Metternich to be a forum for managing Germany, not a sovereign body.
• Austria and Prussia were the two German Great Powers; each held lands outside the Confederation (Austria — Hungary, Galicia, Lombardy-Venetia; Prussia — Poznań, East Prussia).
• No common army, currency, customs, citizenship, law, foreign policy, or weights and measures.

2. Italy — The Risorgimento Idea

2.1 What was the Risorgimento?

• Risorgimento = "Resurgence" or "Rising again" — the Italian national movement aimed at the political unification of Italy and the expulsion of foreign rule.
• Combined three strands:
  • Cultural — Italian literary revival (Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi 1827, Leopardi's poetry, Verdi's operas — coded calls for nationhood).
  • Liberal — demands for constitutions, civil rights, parliamentary government.
  • Nationalist — demands for political unity of all Italian-speaking lands.

2.2 Obstacles

• Foreign rule (Austria) and dependent dynasties.
• The Pope's temporal kingdom blocked any unification through central Italy.
• Massive economic and cultural gap between industrialising north and feudal south (the "Southern Question" — Questione meridionale — survives to this day).
• Most Italians did not even speak Italian — only about 2.5% spoke standard Italian (Tuscan dialect) in 1861; the rest spoke regional dialects (Sicilian, Neapolitan, Venetian, Piedmontese, Lombard) often mutually unintelligible.
• Massimo d'Azeglio after 1861: "We have made Italy, now we must make Italians."

2.3 Four Visions of Unification

3. Carbonari & Early Revolts (1820-1831)

3.1 The Carbonari

• Carbonari = "Charcoal-burners" — secret society active from c. 1810, modelled on Freemasonry; cells (vendite) across Italy and southern France.
• Vague liberal-nationalist programme — constitution, parliamentary government, independence from foreign rule.
• Hundreds of thousands of members by 1820, drawn from army officers, professionals, lower nobility, students.

3.2 Revolt of 1820-21 — Naples and Piedmont

• July 1820 — Carbonari-led mutiny by officers in Nola (Kingdom of Two Sicilies); Ferdinand I forced to grant the Spanish Constitution of 1812.
• Congress of Laibach (Jan-May 1821) — authorised Austrian intervention; Austrian army crushed the revolt; Ferdinand restored to absolute rule March 1821.
• March 1821 — Carbonari revolt in Piedmont led by Santorre di Santarosa; demanded constitution; King Victor Emmanuel I abdicated in favour of Charles Felix; revolt crushed by Austrians at Novara 8 April 1821.

3.3 Revolt of 1831

• Following July Revolution in Paris (1830), revolts broke out across central Italy — Modena, Parma, Papal Legations of Romagna.
• Crushed by Austrian intervention within months.
• Pattern was now clear — isolated regional revolts could always be crushed by Austria; unification needed external diplomatic patron.

4. Mazzini & Young Italy (1831)

4.1 Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872)

• Born in Genoa, son of a doctor; trained as lawyer; joined Carbonari 1827; arrested and exiled 1831.
• The prophet of Italian nationalism — believed nation was a sacred moral entity through which the individual served God and humanity.
• Spent most of his life in exile in Marseille, Bern, London (Hatton Garden).

4.2 Young Italy (Giovine Italia) — founded July 1831, Marseille

• Aims: united, independent, republican Italy through popular insurrection from below; "by the people, for the people".
• Members had to be under 40 — youth as engine of national regeneration.
• Motto: "God and the People" (Dio e Popolo).
• Newspaper La Giovine Italia.
• Spawned imitators: Young Europe (1834), Young Germany, Young Switzerland, Young Poland, Young Ireland.

4.3 Failures and Significance

• Multiple insurrections planned by Mazzini failed: Genoa mutiny 1833 (12 conspirators shot, Garibaldi sentenced to death in absentia); Savoy invasion 1834; Bandiera brothers landed in Calabria 1844 (executed); Roman Republic 1849 (crushed).
• Mazzini's republican-insurrectionist method never produced unification — but his propaganda created the moral and intellectual foundation without which Cavour's diplomacy would have had nothing to mobilise.
• By 1850 Mazzini was widely revered as the conscience of Italy even as his political method was set aside.

5. Revolutions of 1848 in Italy

The "Springtime of Peoples" reached Italy in January 1848 — the most concerted attempt yet at unification, and its complete failure clarified for the next decade what would and would not work.

5.1 The Sequence (1848-49)

• 12 January 1848 — Sicilian revolt at Palermo against Bourbon Naples (actually preceded Paris by a month).
• Constitutions granted by Ferdinand II (Naples, 11 Feb), Leopold II (Tuscany, 17 Feb), Charles Albert (Piedmont — the Statuto Albertino, 4 Mar 1848 — survived as Italian constitution until 1948), Pius IX (Papal States, 14 Mar).
• Five Days of Milan (18-22 March 1848) — popular insurrection drove Austrian Field Marshal Radetzky out of Milan; Venice declared the Republic of San Marco under Daniele Manin 22 March 1848.
• First War of Italian Independence (23 March - August 1848) — Charles Albert of Piedmont declared war on Austria. Initial victories (Pastrengo, Goito) followed by crushing defeat at Custoza (24-25 July 1848); armistice 9 August.
• Pope's Allocution of 29 April 1848 — Pius IX refused to fight Catholic Austria — destroyed the "Neo-Guelph" idea of papal-led unification permanently.
• Roman Republic (9 February - 4 July 1849) — Pius IX fled to Gaeta November 1848; republic proclaimed; ruled by triumvirate (Mazzini, Armellini, Saffi); defended by Garibaldi against French expeditionary force sent by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte; fell to French 4 July 1849.
• Defeat of Novara (23 March 1849) — Radetzky crushed renewed Piedmontese attack; Charles Albert abdicated in favour of Victor Emmanuel II.
• Venice held out against Austrian siege until cholera and starvation forced surrender 22 August 1849.

5.2 Lessons of 1848

• Piedmont alone, however valiant, could not defeat Austria — external alliance was essential.
• The Pope would never lead unification — papal-federalist option was dead.
• Republican-insurrectionist method had failed in Rome and Venice.
• The Statuto Albertino survived — Piedmont alone retained a constitution — and became the magnet for liberal exiles from across Italy.
• Italian unification would have to be led by Piedmont through diplomacy plus war with a great-power ally.

6. Cavour & Piedmont-Sardinia

6.1 Count Camillo Benso di Cavour (1810-1861)

• Born in Turin to old Piedmontese aristocratic family; trained as army engineer; resigned 1831; managed family estates with great success (introduced scientific agriculture, chemical fertilisers, railways).
• Visited Britain and France 1834-35; absorbed liberal economics, free trade, constitutional government.
• Founded newspaper Il Risorgimento (December 1847) — gave the movement its name.
• Elected to Piedmontese parliament 1848; Minister of Agriculture 1850; Finance Minister 1851; Prime Minister October 1852.
• Personality: cool, calculating, pragmatic, anti-clerical; an opportunist rather than an ideologue; "Italy is being made by men whose grandfathers spoke French, by businessmen who keep their books in dialect, by railway engineers and journalists who write in French" — his own milieu.

6.2 Cavour's Programme (1852-59) — Modernisation of Piedmont

• Economic liberalisation — commercial treaties with Britain, France, Belgium 1851-52; abolition of internal customs; railway construction (Piedmont had 800 km of rail by 1859, more than all the rest of Italy combined).
• Banking and infrastructure — Bank of Sardinia (1849), Mont Cenis tunnel project, Cavour Canal (Po valley irrigation).
• Anti-clerical reforms — Siccardi Laws (April 1850, before Cavour as PM but he supported) abolished separate Church courts and asylum; Law on Monasteries (1855) suppressed contemplative orders, expropriated property.
• Military reform — Lamarmora reorganised the army; ~150,000 men by 1859.
• Constitutional government — Statuto Albertino preserved; Cavour mastered parliamentary politics with the connubio ("marriage") — a centre-left/centre-right coalition (1852) that gave him a stable majority.

6.3 The Crimean Gambit (1855-56)

• Piedmont joined the Crimean War on the Anglo-French side, January 1855 — 15,000 troops sent to Crimea; fought at the Chernaya 16 August 1855.
• Direct military significance — negligible. Diplomatic gain — Cavour got a seat at the Congress of Paris (Feb-Apr 1856); raised the "Italian Question" formally before Europe (8 April 1856 sitting); embarrassed Austria, presented Piedmont as a serious European power.

6.4 Plombières (21 July 1858)

• Secret meeting between Cavour and Napoleon III of France at the spa town of Plombières in the Vosges.
• Triggered by the Orsini bomb-attempt (14 Jan 1858) on Napoleon III — Felice Orsini wrote from his cell urging Napoleon to free Italy; Napoleon convinced.
• Secret bargain:
  • France would join Piedmont in war against Austria provided Austria could be provoked into appearing the aggressor.
  • Reorganisation of Italy into four states under the moral presidency of the Pope (Kingdom of Upper Italy under Savoy; Kingdom of Central Italy; Papal States reduced to Rome; Kingdom of Naples) — never realised in this form.
  • France's reward: Nice and Savoy.
  • Marriage of Cavour's cousin Princess Clotilde to Napoleon's cousin Prince Jérôme (Plon-Plon) — celebrated 30 January 1859.
• Formal Franco-Piedmontese treaty signed at Turin 24 January 1859.

7. War of 1859 — Magenta, Solferino, Villafranca

7.1 Provoking Austria

• Cavour ordered Piedmontese military mobilisation March 1859; volunteers from across Italy enrolled in Garibaldi's "Hunters of the Alps" (Cacciatori delle Alpi).
• British-mediated proposals for disarmament; Cavour publicly accepted on 19 April — appeared moderate.
• Austria, panicked, delivered an ultimatum on 23 April demanding Piedmontese demobilisation within three days.
• Cavour rejected it (26 April); Austria declared war 29 April — the trap had closed exactly as Cavour wanted.

7.2 The Campaign (May-July 1859)

• French Army of the Alps under Napoleon III — first major use of railways in war for troop transport (200,000 French troops moved to Italy in three weeks).
• Battle of Magenta (4 June 1859) — Franco-Piedmontese victory; MacMahon's corps decisive; opened road to Milan; Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II entered Milan 8 June.
• Battle of Solferino (24 June 1859) — about 300,000 troops, the largest European battle since Leipzig 1813; ~40,000 killed/wounded; bloody Franco-Piedmontese victory.
• Witnessed by Swiss businessman Henry Dunant, whose pamphlet A Memory of Solferino (1862) led to the founding of the International Red Cross (1863) and the First Geneva Convention (22 August 1864).

7.3 Armistice of Villafranca (11 July 1859) — Napoleon's Betrayal

• Napoleon III, alarmed by Prussian mobilisation on the Rhine, by Catholic French opinion (revolts in central Italy were unseating papal vassals), and by the casualty rate, made a separate armistice with Austria without consulting Cavour.
• Terms: Austria ceded Lombardy (to France, to be transferred to Piedmont), kept Venetia; deposed rulers of Tuscany, Modena, Parma to be restored; Pope to head Italian confederation.
• Cavour resigned in fury 12 July 1859.
• Formalised in Treaty of Zurich (10 November 1859).

7.4 Central Italian Plebiscites (March 1860)

• Provisional governments in Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and Papal Legations of Romagna refused to accept restoration; held organised plebiscites on annexation to Piedmont.
• Vast majorities for annexation (Tuscany 366,571 to 14,925; Emilia 426,006 to 756).
• Cavour returned to power 21 January 1860; negotiated Treaty of Turin (24 March 1860) — France accepted central Italian annexations; in return Piedmont ceded Nice and Savoy to France (plebiscites April 1860 — overwhelming yes, but conducted under French military presence).
• By spring 1860 Piedmont had absorbed all of northern Italy except Venetia and the small remnant of Papal States around Rome.

8. Garibaldi & the Thousand (1860)

8.1 Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882)

• Born Nice (then Piedmontese, ceded to France 1860 — irony).
• Sailor and ship's captain; joined Young Italy 1833; involved in failed Genoa mutiny 1834; fled to South America.
• South America (1836-48): fought for republican Rio Grande do Sul against Brazil; for Uruguay against Argentine dictator Rosas; developed guerrilla tactics; founded "Italian Legion" — wore the red shirts (originally meat-packers' work-shirts surplus to slaughterhouses in Montevideo) that became the uniform of the Garibaldini.
• Returned to Italy 1848; commanded volunteers in Roman Republic 1849; epic retreat across central Italy with wife Anita (who died in marshes near Comacchio).
• Hunters of the Alps in 1859 war.
• Personality: republican by conviction, but accepted monarchical leadership for unity's sake; charismatic, simple-living, internationalist (declined offer to command Union forces in American Civil War 1861).

8.2 Expedition of the Thousand (May-October 1860)

• 4 April 1860 — popular revolt against Bourbon Francis II of Naples broke out in Palermo.
• Garibaldi assembled a volunteer expedition at Quarto (near Genoa) — 1,089 men ("I Mille" — the Thousand), mostly northern Italian middle-class volunteers, lawyers, doctors, students.
• Cavour publicly disowned the expedition but covertly allowed it to sail — he could not risk a popular republican unification but could not stop Garibaldi without seeming anti-national.
• Sailed from Quarto in two paddle-steamers Piemonte and Lombardo on the night of 5-6 May 1860.
• Landed at Marsala, Sicily, 11 May 1860; British warships in the harbour happened to be present, deterring Bourbon interference.
• Proclaimed himself dictator of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel.
• Battle of Calatafimi (15 May 1860) — defeated 3,000 Bourbon troops with 1,000 volunteers; "Here we either make Italy or die" — Garibaldi.
• Entered Palermo 27 May after street-fighting; took Milazzo 20 July; Bourbon Sicily collapsed.
• Crossed Strait of Messina 19 August 1860; marched up Italian peninsula; Francis II fled Naples; Garibaldi entered Naples 7 September 1860 almost alone, by train, ahead of his army.
• Battle of Volturno (1-2 October 1860) — Garibaldini defeated Bourbon counter-attack; effective end of Two Sicilies.

8.3 Cavour's Counter-move & Teano

• Cavour, alarmed that Garibaldi might march on Rome and provoke French intervention, sent the Piedmontese army south through the Papal States (with Napoleon III's tacit consent).
• Piedmontese defeated papal army at Castelfidardo (18 September 1860); took Marche and Umbria.
• Plebiscites in southern Italy, Marche, Umbria — overwhelming yes for annexation (October 1860).
• Meeting at Teano (26 October 1860) — Garibaldi met Victor Emmanuel II on the road and saluted him: "Hail to the King of Italy". Handed over his conquests and retired to his small farm on the island of Caprera. One of the great selfless acts in modern political history.

9. Kingdom of Italy Proclaimed — 17 March 1861

9.1 First Italian Parliament

• Elections January-February 1861 across all annexed territories (excluding Venetia and Rome).
• Italian Parliament met in Turin 18 February 1861.
• Law of 17 March 1861 — proclaimed Victor Emmanuel II "King of Italy by the Grace of God and the Will of the Nation".
• The "Statuto Albertino" of 1848 became the constitution of all Italy; Piedmontese administrative law, currency, and tax system extended to the whole peninsula — administrative Piedmontisation rather than synthesis.
• Cavour as Prime Minister of united Italy — died suddenly 6 June 1861, aged 50.

9.2 What was still missing

• Venetia still under Austria.
• Rome and the immediate surrounding area still under Pope (protected by a French garrison since 1849).
• Trentino, Trieste, Istria — "Italia irredenta" (unredeemed Italy) — remained Austrian; would not be acquired until WWI (1919).

9.3 Problems of the New Kingdom

• Brigantaggio — a massive guerrilla insurgency erupted in the south (1861-65) fuelled by ex-Bourbon soldiers, dispossessed peasants, and Church support; suppressed by Piedmontese army (~120,000 troops) with mass executions and martial law — bloodier than all the wars of unification combined.
• Capital moved from Turin to Florence (1865) — temporary, pending Rome.
• Papal opposition — Pope Pius IX issued the Syllabus of Errors (8 December 1864) condemning liberalism; refused to recognise the Italian state; "Roman Question" festered until the Lateran Treaty of 1929.
• Economic gap between north and south — the "Southern Question" deepened.

10. Venetia (1866) & Rome (1870) — Completion

10.1 Acquisition of Venetia — Third War of Italian Independence (June-August 1866)

• Italy allied with Prussia by treaty of 8 April 1866 — secret alliance with Bismarck against Austria.
• When Austro-Prussian War broke out, Italy declared war on Austria 20 June 1866.
• Italian defeats — Battle of Custoza (24 June 1866) and naval Battle of Lissa (20 July 1866) — Italians lost both. (Garibaldi's volunteers in the Trentino were the only Italian success.)
• But Prussia crushed Austria at Königgrätz (3 July 1866); Austria was forced to cede Venetia — formally to France, who then transferred it to Italy (to save Austrian face).
• Treaty of Vienna (3 October 1866) confirmed transfer; Venice voted overwhelmingly for union with Italy 21-22 October 1866.
• Lesson: Italy acquired Venetia not by its own arms but by piggy-backing on Prussia — a humiliation that fed Italian irredentism.

10.2 Acquisition of Rome — September 1870

• Garibaldi twice attempted to take Rome — Aspromonte 1862 (wounded and captured by Piedmontese army) and Mentana 1867 (defeated by French troops armed with the new Chassepot rifle).
• September Convention (1864) — France agreed to withdraw garrison from Rome in return for Italy moving capital from Turin to Florence and pledging not to attack Papal States — Florence became capital 1865.
• Franco-Prussian War (July 1870) — Napoleon III withdrew French garrison from Rome 4 August 1870 to defend France; defeated at Sedan 2 September 1870.
• With French protection gone, Italian troops under General Cadorna marched on Rome.
• After token resistance, Italians breached Aurelian Wall at Porta Pia on 20 September 1870.
• Plebiscite in Rome and Lazio (2 October 1870) — 133,681 for annexation, 1,507 against.
• Capital moved from Florence to Rome July 1871.
• Law of Guarantees (13 May 1871) — Italy unilaterally granted the Pope sovereignty over Vatican and Lateran palaces and Castel Gandolfo, plus an annuity; Pius IX rejected, declared himself "prisoner of the Vatican"; forbade Catholics to participate in Italian politics (non expedit 1874-1919).
• Roman Question only resolved by Lateran Treaty 11 February 1929 between Mussolini and Pius XI — created Vatican City State.

11. Germany in 1815 — Confederation

11.1 The German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) — 1815-1866

• Created by the Vienna Final Act of 8 June 1815 at the insistence of Metternich and Hardenberg.
• Loose league of 39 sovereign states (later 38 — Hesse-Homburg added 1817; absorbed 1866).
• Members: 1 empire (Austria — only its old German lands), 5 kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Württemberg), grand duchies (Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Saxe-Weimar, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg, Luxembourg), duchies (Brunswick, Nassau, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, etc.), principalities, landgraviates, free cities (Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Frankfurt-am-Main).
• King of Denmark was member as Duke of Holstein; King of Netherlands as Grand Duke of Luxembourg; King of Hanover was also King of Britain until 1837.
• Diet at Frankfurt (Bundestag) — assembly of ambassadors; presided over by Austria; required unanimity for major changes; designed by Metternich to be a brake on liberal-nationalist agitation.
• No common army, currency, citizenship, law, foreign policy, customs.

11.2 Forces for German Unity

• Common language and high culture — Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Hegel, the Romantic movement; Brothers Grimm published their dictionary 1838-onwards.
• Liberal nationalism in universities — Burschenschaften (student fraternities) from 1815; Wartburg Festival October 1817 (300th anniversary of Reformation, 4th of Leipzig).
• Memory of Napoleonic occupation — Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation (1808 — delivered in French-occupied Berlin); "war of liberation" 1813.
• Economic developments — see Zollverein next section.

11.3 Forces Against

• Austria — preferred to keep Germany weak and divided so Habsburgs could lead through patronage; a unified Germany excluding Austria meant Habsburg decline.
• Particularism — Bavarian, Saxon, Hanoverian, Württemberg dynasties valued their sovereignty.
• Catholic-Protestant divide (south Catholic vs north Protestant).
• Metternich's Carlsbad Decrees (1819) imposed censorship, dissolved Burschenschaften, dismissed liberal professors — suppressed nationalist agitation for thirty years.

12. Zollverein & Economic Unification (1834)

12.1 The Customs Union

• Friedrich List (1789-1846) — economist; The National System of Political Economy (1841); advocated infant-industry protection and economic unification of Germany as a path to political unity.
• Prussia abolished internal customs within its territory 1818 (Maassen tariff) — created an internal Prussian free-trade zone of 18 separate, scattered Prussian territories.
• 1818-33: Prussia signed bilateral customs agreements with smaller neighbours, gradually extending its tariff zone.
• 1 January 1834 — formal Zollverein (customs union) inaugurated; 18 states with 23 million people; common external tariff, free internal trade, shared revenue distributed by population.
• Hanover and Hamburg joined 1854 (after their own short-lived Steuerverein collapsed).
• By 1866 — included all of north and central Germany; Austria deliberately excluded by Prussia.

12.2 Economic and Political Effects

• Created an integrated German market larger than any single state's; stimulated industrial growth (Ruhr coal-and-iron complex, Saxon textiles, Berlin engineering).
• Railways — first German railway Nuremberg-Fürth 7 December 1835; network reached 3,000 km by 1850, 18,000 km by 1870; the railway map drew Germany economically together regardless of political borders.
• Prussia became the de facto leader of "small Germany" (kleindeutsch).
• Austria, with its protectionist tariffs, agrarian economy, and Hungarian/Italian/Slavic provinces, could not join without dismantling its empire — economically cementing the eventual kleindeutsch solution.

13. 1848 in Germany — Frankfurt Parliament

13.1 March Revolutions

• Triggered by Paris February Revolution; risings in Vienna (13 Mar — Metternich fled), Berlin (18 Mar — barricades, 230 dead, Frederick William IV forced to grant concessions), and in most German capitals March 1848.
• Frederick William IV rode through Berlin draped in black-red-gold (the colours of the 1813 volunteers, now of German nationalism); declared "Prussia merges into Germany".
• Liberal "March Ministries" formed in most German states; demand: a national parliament.

13.2 Frankfurt Pre-Parliament & Election

• Pre-Parliament (Vorparlament) met at Frankfurt 31 March - 4 April 1848; organised elections to a National Assembly on universal male suffrage.
• Frankfurt National Assembly met in St Paul's Church (Paulskirche) 18 May 1848; 586 deputies (mostly professors, lawyers, civil servants, doctors — nicknamed the "Parliament of Professors").
• Heinrich von Gagern elected President; appointed Archduke John of Austria as Reichsverweser (Imperial Regent).

13.3 Großdeutsch vs Kleindeutsch

• Großdeutsch ("Greater German") — Germany including the German lands of Austria, with Habsburg leadership.
• Kleindeutsch ("Lesser German") — Germany excluding Austria, under Prussian leadership.
• Resolved towards kleindeutsch only when Austria's prime minister Schwarzenberg insisted (March 1849) that all Habsburg lands (including Hungarian and Italian) must be admitted as a unit — impossible.

13.4 The Crown Refused

• Frankfurt Constitution adopted 27-28 March 1849 — hereditary German empire with kleindeutsch boundaries; bicameral parliament; bill of rights; ministerial responsibility.
• Crown offered to King Frederick William IV of Prussia by deputation led by Eduard Simson, 3 April 1849.
• Frederick William refused 28 April 1849 — called it "a crown from the gutter, marked with the stigma of revolution", "a dog collar with which they want to chain me to the revolution".
• Frankfurt Parliament withered; rump moved to Stuttgart; dispersed by Württemberg troops 18 June 1849.

13.5 Aftermath — Olmütz (1850)

• Frederick William IV briefly tried his own Erfurt Union scheme (March 1850) — Prussian-led union of smaller states.
• Austria, now recovered, mobilised; Russia backed Austria; Prussia backed down at the Punctation of Olmütz (29 November 1850) — "humiliation of Olmütz" — Prussia abandoned the Erfurt Union; old Confederation restored.
• Lesson: liberal-nationalist unification from below had failed. Whoever unified Germany would do it from above, with armies, and after first defeating Austria.

14. Bismarck — Background and Rise (1862)

14.1 Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898)

• Born 1 April 1815 at Schönhausen, in Brandenburg, to old Junker (Prussian landed aristocracy) family.
• Educated at Göttingen and Berlin; brief and undistinguished civil service career.
• Returned to manage family estates; emerged in 1847 in the United Prussian Diet as a fiery ultra-conservative monarchist.
• Prussian envoy to Frankfurt Diet 1851-59 — there he formed his lifelong conviction that Prussia must wrest the leadership of Germany from Austria, by war if necessary.
• Ambassador to St Petersburg 1859-62 (cultivated Russian goodwill — paid off in 1866 and 1870), Paris briefly 1862.
• Personality: monumental will, vast appetites, hypochondriac, ferocious temper, calculating opportunist, devout Lutheran, intensely loyal to Hohenzollern dynasty rather than to "Germany" as such.

14.2 Prussian Constitutional Crisis (1860-66)

• King William I (succeeded 1861, regent since 1858) and War Minister Albrecht von Roon proposed a major army reform: doubling line regiments, three years' service, weakening the bourgeois Landwehr militia, much higher military spending.
• Prussian liberal-dominated Lower House (Landtag) refused to vote the budget without concessions on the Landwehr; constitutional deadlock 1860-62.
• William I considered abdicating in September 1862.
• Roon persuaded the king to summon Bismarck — Bismarck appointed Minister-President of Prussia 22 September 1862.

14.3 "Blood and Iron" Speech — 30 September 1862

• Bismarck addressed the Budget Committee of the Landtag — eight days after appointment.
• Famous words: "Germany does not look to Prussia's liberalism but to its power... the great questions of the day will not be settled by speeches and majority decisions — that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood (Eisen und Blut)."
• Often misquoted as "blood and iron" (Blut und Eisen).
• Bismarck then proceeded to govern without an approved budget for four years (1862-66) — collected taxes by royal decree (the "Lückentheorie" or "gap theory" — when constitution is silent, king decides).
• Brutally clear constitutional violation; the liberals could do nothing.
• Vindicated by victory at Königgrätz 1866; the post-1866 Landtag passed an Indemnity Bill retroactively legitimising the 1862-66 budgets — most liberals (the new "National Liberals") accepted unification as compensation for constitutional defeat.

15. Schleswig-Holstein & Danish War (1864)

15.1 The Schleswig-Holstein Question

• Two duchies on the Jutland peninsula, ruled in personal union by the King of Denmark.
• Holstein — entirely German-speaking; member of German Confederation.
• Schleswig — mixed Danish-German population; NOT a member of the German Confederation; closer to Denmark.
• Joined by ancient Treaty of Ribe 1460 — "Up ewig ungedeelt" (forever undivided).
• British statesman Lord Palmerston: "Only three people have ever understood the Schleswig-Holstein business — the Prince Consort, who is dead; a German professor, who has gone mad; and I, who have forgotten all about it."

15.2 The Crisis

• King Frederick VII of Denmark died 15 November 1863 without male heir.
• His successor Christian IX promulgated the November Constitution (18 Nov 1863) incorporating Schleswig into Denmark — violation of the 1852 London Protocol on duchy succession.
• German nationalist outrage; Confederation backed rival claimant Frederick of Augustenburg; Confederation troops (Saxon, Hanoverian) occupied Holstein December 1863.
• Bismarck out-manoeuvred the Confederation: persuaded Austria to join Prussia in a separate intervention to enforce the 1852 settlement (not to crown Augustenburg).

15.3 The War (February-October 1864)

• Prussian and Austrian armies invaded Schleswig 1 February 1864.
• Decisive engagement: storming of the Düppel earthworks (Düppeler Schanzen) 18 April 1864 by Prussian Guards — first major test of Helmuth von Moltke's general staff system; Prussians used the new Dreyse needle-gun (breech-loading rifle, much faster firing than Danish muzzle-loaders).
• Britain (Palmerston) bluffed but did not intervene; Russia/France stood aside (Bismarck had secured Russian benevolence over Polish revolt 1863 by the Alvensleben Convention).
• Treaty of Vienna (30 October 1864) — Denmark surrendered both duchies to joint Austro-Prussian administration.
• Convention of Gastein (14 August 1865) — Prussia administered Schleswig, Austria administered Holstein. Cumbersome arrangement engineered by Bismarck to create future friction with Austria.

16. Austro-Prussian War (1866) — The Seven Weeks' War

16.1 Diplomatic Preparation

• October 1865 — Bismarck met Napoleon III at Biarritz; vague hints of "compensation" for France in the Rhineland if France stayed neutral; Napoleon let the moment slip.
• 8 April 1866 — secret treaty of alliance with Italy — Italy to declare war on Austria within three months of Prussia; in return Italy to get Venetia.
• Bismarck proposed a reform of the German Confederation that would expel Austria (June 1866) — calculated to provoke.
• Austria appealed to the Frankfurt Diet for federal action against Prussia 14 June 1866 — passed; Bismarck declared the Confederation dissolved by Austria's appeal and ordered Prussian troops into Holstein.

16.2 The Campaign

• Austria allied with most south German states (Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, Frankfurt).
• Prussian advantages: railways (Moltke deployed three armies in three weeks), Dreyse needle-gun (Austrian Lorenz muzzle-loader fired one round to every five Prussian), unified command under Moltke, Wilhelm I as nominal C-in-C.
• Battle of Königgrätz / Sadowa — 3 July 1866 — in Bohemia. Prussian First Army (Frederick Charles) pinned the Austrians; Second Army (Crown Prince Frederick William) arrived on the flank by railway; about 220,000 Austrians and Saxons vs 220,000 Prussians; Austrian casualties ~44,000 (Prussian ~9,000). Decisive Prussian victory; one of the most consequential battles of the 19th century.
• Italian fronts — Italians defeated at Custoza (24 June) and naval Battle of Lissa (20 July); Venetia transferred to France/Italy anyway by Prussian arrangement.

16.3 Peace of Prague (23 August 1866)

• Bismarck imposed astonishing moderation on a furious Wilhelm I and the generals — refused to take any Austrian territory; refused triumphal entry into Vienna.
• Terms:
  • Dissolution of German Confederation.
  • Austria excluded from German affairs forever.
  • Prussia annexed Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, Frankfurt-am-Main — added 4 million subjects.
  • North German Confederation formed under Prussian leadership (constitution 1867).
  • South German states (Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt) remained outside but signed secret military alliances with Prussia.
  • Italy got Venetia.
  • Austria paid token indemnity; no territorial loss to Prussia.
• The moderation was strategic — left Austria available as a potential future friend (eventually realised in the Dual Alliance of 1879).

16.4 Effects on Austria — Ausgleich 1867

• Defeat forced the Habsburgs to settle with their Hungarian magnates — Ausgleich (Compromise) of 1867 — created the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary; Franz Joseph as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary; two parliaments, two governments, common army, foreign affairs, finance.

17. Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) & Sedan

17.1 The Hohenzollern Candidature

• Spanish throne vacant after Queen Isabella II overthrown September 1868.
• Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (a relative of Wilhelm I) offered the throne — accepted June 1870; published 3 July 1870.
• French outrage — feared encirclement by Hohenzollerns east and south; Foreign Minister Gramont demanded withdrawal.
• Wilhelm I (privately reluctant) persuaded the candidacy be withdrawn 12 July 1870 — crisis appeared defused.

17.2 Ems Telegram (13 July 1870)

• French ambassador Benedetti met Wilhelm I at the spa of Ems 13 July 1870; demanded a written guarantee that Hohenzollern candidature would never be revived. Wilhelm politely declined.
• Wilhelm's secretary Abeken telegraphed the day's events to Bismarck in Berlin.
• Bismarck, dining with Roon and Moltke, edited the telegram to make Wilhelm's polite refusal sound peremptory and Benedetti's request appear humiliating — released his version to press 13 July evening.
• French opinion exploded; press called for war.
• France declared war on Prussia 19 July 1870 — exactly the outcome Bismarck wanted, with France appearing the aggressor.
• South German states honoured their secret military alliances and joined Prussia (the Austrian and Italian neutrality Bismarck had secured held).

17.3 The Campaign — Moltke's Triumph

• Prussian-led German armies (~1,000,000 mobilised) vs French (~500,000) — Moltke's railway-based mobilisation was twice as fast as the French.
• French armies divided — Bazaine besieged in Metz; Marshal MacMahon and Napoleon III with the smaller Army of Châlons.
• Battle of Sedan — 1-2 September 1870 — German encirclement; MacMahon wounded; Napoleon III surrendered with 104,000 men 2 September 1870. "Mon cher frère," wrote Napoleon to Wilhelm, "n'ayant pu mourir au milieu de mes troupes, il ne me reste qu'à remettre mon épée entre les mains de Votre Majesté."
• News in Paris triggered the Revolution of 4 September 1870 — Third Republic proclaimed; Government of National Defence under Trochu, Gambetta, Jules Favre.
• Bazaine surrendered Metz 27 October 1870 with 173,000 men.
• Siege of Paris (19 September 1870 - 28 January 1871) — Parisians ate horses, dogs, cats, rats, the zoo animals (the two famous Jardin elephants Castor and Pollux); balloon mail; Gambetta escaped by balloon 7 October 1870 to raise provincial armies that were also defeated.
• Paris surrendered 28 January 1871; armistice; National Assembly elected; Adolphe Thiers as head of executive 17 February 1871.

17.4 Treaty of Frankfurt (10 May 1871)

• France ceded Alsace and most of Lorraine (including Metz) — 1.5 million people, 14,000 km², heavily German-speaking but with a strong French identification.
• France paid 5 billion gold francs indemnity within three years (paid early thanks to French government bonds — German occupation troops out by September 1873).
• German occupation of northeastern France until indemnity paid.
• Paris Commune (18 March - 28 May 1871) — radical insurrection in Paris against Versailles government; brutally crushed in the "semaine sanglante" (bloody week) — 20,000+ Communards killed, 38,000 arrested; left a deep scar on French politics.

18. German Empire Proclaimed — 18 January 1871

18.1 The Versailles Ceremony

• Negotiations between Bismarck and south German states (Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt) — November 1870.
• King Ludwig II of Bavaria (mad, in love with Wagner, broke) was persuaded — for a large secret subsidy — to write the famous "Kaiserbrief" (Imperial Letter) inviting Wilhelm I to assume the imperial title.
• 18 January 1871 — the 170th anniversary of the first Prussian king's coronation. In the Hall of Mirrors (Galerie des Glaces) at the Palace of Versailles — Louis XIV's monument to French glory — Wilhelm I was proclaimed "Deutscher Kaiser" (German Emperor) by the assembled German princes and military commanders.
• Famous painting by Anton von Werner (three versions, 1877-85).
• Wilhelm wanted "Emperor of Germany" (Kaiser von Deutschland); Bismarck insisted on "German Emperor" (Deutscher Kaiser) to placate the other princes — Wilhelm was sulky about it.

18.2 The Imperial Constitution (16 April 1871)

• Federal empire of 25 states (4 kingdoms — Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Württemberg; 6 grand duchies; 5 duchies; 7 principalities; 3 free cities; and the imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine).
• Kaiser (always the King of Prussia) — head of state, commander-in-chief, appointed Chancellor, dissolved Reichstag.
• Bundesrat — federal council; 58 votes, of which Prussia held 17; could block any constitutional amendment.
• Reichstag — elected by universal male suffrage (a remarkably democratic franchise for its time) — limited powers; voted on budgets but the military budget was fixed for 7 years (later 5) — the so-called "Septennat".
• Chancellor — appointed by and responsible only to the Kaiser, not to the Reichstag — Bismarck filled the post 1871-90.
• Prussia dominated: ~65% of population, 60% of area, the Hohenzollern crown, the Prussian Junker officer corps, and the Bundesrat veto.

18.3 The Second Reich

• "Second Reich" — taking the medieval Holy Roman Empire (962-1806) as the "First". (The Nazi regime later coined "Third Reich".)
• Bismarck's "saturated power" doctrine — Germany now wanted no more territory; would defend the status quo by alliances.
• Bismarckian alliance system 1871-90: Three Emperors' League (1873, renewed 1881), Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary (1879), Triple Alliance with Austria and Italy (1882), Reinsurance Treaty with Russia (1887).
• Designed to keep France isolated and prevent a Franco-Russian alliance.
• Dismantled by Wilhelm II after 1890 (dropped Reinsurance Treaty, lapsed Russian alliance) — produced the Franco-Russian Alliance 1894 and ultimately the encirclement Bismarck had spent twenty years preventing.

19. Comparison: Italy vs Germany

20. Significance & Indian Connections

20.1 Global Significance

• Two new Great Powers — Italy and (especially) Germany — joined the European concert; the Vienna order of 1815 was dead.
• Germany became the largest industrial economy of continental Europe by 1900 — chemicals (BASF, Bayer, Hoechst), electrical (Siemens, AEG), steel (Krupp), banking (Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank).
• The eclipse of France as continental hegemon and the rise of Germany set the strategic frame for both world wars.
• The Bismarckian "great power" model — strong executive, mass army by conscription, industrial-military complex, social insurance to buy off the working class (Sickness Insurance 1883, Accident Insurance 1884, Old Age Pensions 1889 — Bismarck's "state socialism") — was widely admired and imitated.
• The success of these national unifications encouraged similar movements: Polish (failed 1863), Czech (Habsburg autonomy), Yugoslav (achieved 1918), Irish (1922) — and indirectly Asian and African.

20.2 Indian Connections

• Mazzini as inspiration to Indian nationalists:
  • V.D. Savarkar founded Abhinav Bharat Society (1904) — "New India" — explicitly modelled on Young Italy; translated a Mazzini biography into Marathi (1907, banned by British).
  • Bal Gangadhar Tilak regularly invoked Mazzini in Kesari and Mahratta — "Mazzini taught us the duty owed to the motherland".
  • Aurobindo Ghose in Bande Mataram cited Mazzini's Duties of Man as the moral basis of nationalism.
  • Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal, Surendranath Banerjea — all spoke of Mazzini.
  • Bhagat Singh read Mazzini in jail; cited him in court.
• Garibaldi as model of revolutionary action:
  • Subhas Chandra Bose drew on Garibaldi's example of the Thousand for his planning of the Indian National Army (1942-45); the INA was conceived as a "Garibaldian" expeditionary force.
  • Italian-style red shirts and volunteer corps were imitated in Indian revolutionary symbolism.
• Bismarck as model of statecraft:
  • Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was widely called the "Bismarck of India" for his 1947-49 integration of the 565 princely states — a project of unification from above analogous to Bismarck's of the German states.
• Comparative reflection:
  • Indian nationalists studied Italian and German unifications closely as the most successful 19th-century cases of nation-building under colonial-style dominance.
  • The Italian-Mazzini model (popular insurrection, moral regeneration) appealed to revolutionaries; the Cavour-Bismarck model (institution-building, diplomacy, gradual consolidation) influenced the constitutional moderates and later Patel.

20.3 Final Assessment

Italy and Germany completed in 1871 the transformation begun by the French Revolution: the European map was rewritten along national lines (with major exceptions — the Habsburg, Romanov, and Ottoman empires would survive until 1918). The principle of nationalism, irresistible in Europe between 1815 and 1871, became in the next century the engine of decolonisation across Asia and Africa. The same principle, however, also armed the rival European nations against one another — the unifications of Italy and Germany are the immediate prologue to the imperial scramble of 1870-1914 and the two world wars that followed.