654 Ch. 17 • The Era of National Unification

Pope Pius XI on the special train given to him by Napoleon III, who pro­

tected papal temporal independence.

Peace of Paris, which had in 1856 deprived Russia of the right to have a

fleet in the Black Sea. In turn, Russia would look the other way if events in

Italy altered the settlements enacted by the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

Austria provided an excuse for war, announcing that it would draft men

from Venetia and Lombardy into the imperial army. Piedmont-Sardinia, in

turn, made it known that it would accept deserters from Austrian conscrip­

tion, and it mobilized troops in March. But the British government lobbied

so effectively for a peaceful solution that Cavour denounced a “conspiracy of

peace” and threatened to resign. Napoleon III hesitated, asking Piedmont­

Sardinia to demobilize its troops. Austria saved the situation for Cavour by

issuing an ultimatum to Piedmont-Sardinia on April 23, 1859, hoping that

other German states would support it. With Austria now appearing as the

aggressor, Prussia and the other German states felt no obligation to come to

its aid. After Piedmont-Sardinia rejected the ultimatum, Austrian troops

invaded Piedmont, which brought France into the war. Napoleon III himself

led 100,000 troops into northern Italy; many of the troops went by train, the

first time that a railway played a major part in warfare.

The French and Piedmontese defeated the Habsburg army at Magenta

and then at Solferino in June 1859, driving the Austrians out of Lombardy

(see Map 17.1). But the French feared that a crushing defeat of Austria might

yet bring Prussia and other German states into the war against France, with

the bulk of the French armies still in northern Italy. Furthermore, Cavour