Unification of Italy and Germany

1
Unification of Italy and Germany

• Nationalism
• and
• Realpolitik

2
Nationalism The Tie that Binds

• Shared ethnic ancestry
• Common language
• Shared culture
• Common past, shared experience
• Religion shared by most of the people
• Land that belongs to the group

3
Nation State

• Defends the interests of its people
• Embodies the people and their ideals
• Represents the nation

4
Nationalism

• Can be a force for Unity
• Historical examples
• Italy
• Germany
• Contemporary examples
• Germany
• Can be a force for Disintegration
• Historical examples
• Russia
• Austria-Hungary
• Ottoman Empire
• Contemporary examples
• U.S.S.R.

5
Italy is merely a geographical expression
Klemens von Metternich

• Collection of territories after 1815
• Austria controls Lombardy and Venetia
• Hapsburgs control Tuscany
• Bourbons control southern Italy
• House of Savoy controls Sardinia
• Papal States right in the middle of it all

6
BUT

• Italians descendants of those responsible for the
  Roman Empire
• Italians celebrate their cultural Renaissance of
  the 15th and 16th centuries
• Italians experience some unity under Napoleon
• Italian nationalists committed to making Italy
  something more than a geographic expression

7
Giuseppi Mazzini (1805-1872)

• Founder of Young Italy, 1832
• President of Roman Republic, 1848
• Nationalist who believed that Italy should be
  united as a republic

8
Camillo di Cavour (1810-1861)

• Prime Minister of Sardinia
• Serves the constitutional monarch, Victor
  Emmanuel
• Encourages economic growth
• A realist who believes Italy should be united
  under a king
• Practitioner of Realpolitik (politics of reality
  careful calculation)

9
A Progressive Domestic Agenda

• Tax reform
• Currency stabilized
• Railway system improved and expanded
• Transatlantic Steamship system
• Roads, bridges and canals built and financed

10
The Process of Unification

• Makes the case for unification at the Paris Peace
  Conference
• Gains the assistance of France to accomplish this
  (Treaty of Plombieres, 1858)
• Gains Northern Italy through war with Austria,
  1859
• Plebiscites in Parma, Modena, Romagna join other
  northern territories under Sardinian leadership
• Problem How to gain control of the South
  without sending troops through the Papal States?

11
Giuseppi Garibaldi (1807-1882)

• Romantic nationalist leader of the Red Shirts who
  wanted Italy unified as a Republic
• Fought in Sicily and southern Italy supported
  financially by Cavour
• Eventually supported Victor Emmanuel

12
Map of Italian Unification
13
Unification of Germany (finally)

• Peace of Westphalia (1648) had confirmed the
  independence of 300 German states
• Congress of Vienna had created a German
  Confederation of 39
• Of these Austria and Prussia the most dominant
• Prussia develops the military and this will be
  key in who dominates the united German state

14
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898)

• Master practitioner of Realpolitik
• Prussian Junker
• Brains behind the formation of the German Empire
• Great questions of the day determined by blood
  and iron

15
The Process of Unification

• Rules (and collects taxes) without Parliaments
  consent
• Strengthens Prussian military
• Forms alliances of convenience
• Danish War (1864)
• Seven Weeks War (1866)
• Franco-Prussian War (1870)

16
Map of German Unification
17
Formation of German Empire
Coronation of Kaiser Wilhelm I Hall of Mirrors,
Versailles January 18, 1871
18
Bismarck An Evaluation

• Unifies Germans into a powerful nation state
  against all odds
• Fights wars of opportunity and wins every one
• Maintains Prussia and the Junker class as
  dominant throughout
• Even wins liberal approval because he delivers on
  unification

• German Empire created with the trappings of
  liberal state but really autocratic in nature
• Universal male suffrage elects members of
  Reichstag but no ministerial responsibility
• Dependence on the military free reign
• Humiliation of France violates principles of
  Realpolitik and leads directly to World War I