The Second Independence War
The second independence war, also known as Austro-Sardinian War, was declared by the Kingdom of Sardinia, in 1859, with the alliance of France.
In 1859 Emperor Napoleon III and Camillo Cavour, the prime minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia, signed a treaty of alliance against Austria: France would help Sardinia to fight against Austria and Sardinia, in return, would give Nice and Savoy to France. In the same year Austria started a war with Sardinia. French and Sardinian armies defeated the Austrians in the battles of Palestro (30 May), Montebello, Magenta (4 June) and Solferino (21 June) and took Milan. The German states, however, forced Napoleon to stop the war, and he signed an armistice with Austria at Villafranca. The Kingdom of Lombardy (Milan was its capital) was transferred to France, which gave it to Sardinia.
After the truce of Villafranca rebellions started in northern Italian states. Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany and duke Francis V of Modena escaped from their countries. People of Tuscany, Modena and Parma invited king Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia to rule over them. Napoleon III was afraid of being regarded as a supporter of a revolution, so he forced Victor Emmanuel to relinquish the power over those states; however, in 1860 Cavour convinced the emperor to change his mind. Tuscany, Modena, Bologna and Parma decided in a plebiscite to join Sardinia.
In 1860 the Kingdom of Two Sicilies was invaded by a volunteer army, known as I Mille, led by Giuseppe Garibaldi and financed by Piedmont and the United Kingdom. In the subsequent campaign he defeated the army of the Sicilian king, Ferdinand II, in the battles of Calatafimi and Volturno. In 1861 a plebiscite in Naples and Sicily voted for annexation to Sardinia. As a result, Victor Emmanuel II was crowned king of Italy. Finally, the fortress of Gaeta was taken and Ferdinand II escaped to Rome, the only remaining land in Italy (together with Veneto) not part of the new kingdom.
Read more about this topic: Wars Of Italian Independence
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