Western Civilization - History Of European Society

498 Chapter 25

the leadership of Piedmont. Cavour became premier in
1852 and kept that post for the rest of the decade, cul-
minating in his leadership of Piedmont during a war of
unification in 1859 (see map 25.3).
Cavour prepared for the war of 1859 by courting
Britain and France. After sending the Piedmontese con-
tingent to the Crimea in 1855, he raised the Italian
question at the Paris Peace Conference of 1856. Cavour
next sought an alliance with Napoleon III. He sent his
teenaged cousin (and lover), the Countess Virginie di
Castiglione, to become Napoleon’s mistress and an Ital-
ian secret agent. He even profited from the attempt of a
disgruntled nationalist, Felice Orsini, to kill Napoleon.
The emperor seemed chastened by Orsini’s conspiracy,
as if embarrassed that he had slighted the Italian cause;
he allowed Orsini to make a series of patriotic pro-
nouncements (“So long as Italy is enslaved, death is a
blessing.”) before sending him to the guillotine. Cavour
won his French alliance in 1858. He and Napoleon III

met covertly at the mineral springs resort of Plombières

(eastern France) and reached a secret agreement.

Napoleon pledged a French army of 200,000 men

(larger than the entire Piedmontese army) “to drive the

Austrians out of Italy once and for all and to leave them

without an inch of territory south of the Alps.” Cavour

promised to return to France the province of Savoy

(lost in 1815) and the coastal region of Nice, although

his own mother was a Savoyard and Garibaldi had been

born in Nice. In addition, Piedmont-Sardinia pledged

10 percent of its annual budget to pay the French war

costs.

The Italian War of 1859 needed little provocation.

Cavour mobilized the Piedmontese army, and the Aus-

trians demanded that he demobilize it. When Cavour

refused, the Austrians invaded Piedmont (April 1859)

to teach him a lesson. This gave Napoleon III an excuse

to send the French army to protect Piedmont. Bloodless

revolutions soon drove pro-Austrian rulers from the

R.

Mediterranean Sea

Adriatic Sea

Po

MA

RC

HES

UM

BR

IA

Corsica

Sardinia

Sicily

SWITZERLAND

FRANCE

AUSTRIAN

EMPIRE

OTTOMAN

EMPIRE

KINGDOM

OF THE

TWO SICILIES

PAPAL

TUSCANY

MODENA

PIEDMONT

SAVOY

LOMBARDY

VENETIA

PARMA ROMAGNA

STATES

Rome

Palermo Messina

Florence

Naples

Genoa

Geneva

Magenta

Milan Venice

Villafranca

Solferino

Nice

Turin

KINGDOM OF

PIEDMONT

0 100 200 Miles

0 100 200 300 Kilometers

Kingdom of Piedmont,

before 1859

To Kingdom of Piedmont,

1859

To Kingdom of Piedmont,

1860

To Kingdom of Italy,

1866; 1870

MAP 25.3

 The Unification of Italy, 1859–70