Esposito, G./Rava, G. (Illustr.) Esposito, G./Rava, G. (Illustr.): Armies of the Italian Wars of Unification 1848-70. Part 1: Piedmont and the Two Sicilies

In the 1840s, post-Napoleonic Italy was 'a geographical expression'--not a country, but a patchwork of states. The north (Savoy/Piedmont, and Venice ) was ruled by Austria-Hungary, and most of the minor central states were more or less clients of Austria. From Naples, a Spanish-descended Bourbon monarchy ruled the south--'the Two Sicilies.' The European 'Year of Revolutions', 1848, saw popular uprisings against the regimes all over the peninsula. These were eventually crushed (First War of Independence, 1848-49); but they left King Victor Emmanuel of Savoy/Piedmont--and his able minister Cavour--determined to liberate and unify the country, while royal authority in the Two Sicilies was left deeply unpopular. Savoy/Piedmont endeavored to strengthen the relationship with France and Britain, by sending troops to fight alongside them in the Crimean War, 1854-56 and, as a result, it was actively supported by a French army in the Second War of Independence (1859), when the battles of Magenta and Solferino freed most of the north from Austrian rule. In the south, Garibaldi's 'Redshirts' led a successful rising against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1860). Eventually the south voted to join the north in a unified kingdom (February 1861); nevertheless, northern troops had to enforce this by a ruthless occupation during the 1860s--a little-known campaign.

Post-Napoleonic Italy in the 1840s was not a single state, but a patchwork of various individual states and dominions. Northern Italy was largely ruled by the Habsburg monarchy, while the Spanish line of the Bourbons, whose core territory was Naples, ruled the south. Two decades later, Italy was united under a single king and a single government. This was achieved largely through the efforts of the King of Sardinia and Piedmont and the revolutionary leader Giuseppe Garibaldi.