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Ten Minute History - The Unification of Italy (Short Documentary)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tenminhistory Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4973164 This episode of Ten Minute History (like a documentary, only shorter) covers Italy in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars and the tumultuous decades which followed it. The focus is on liberal revolutionaries, like Mazzini and Garibaldi, and their conservative opponents like Victor Emmanuel II and Cavour. The episode covers the many revolutions (emphasis on 1848) in Italy across the 19th century and the wars with the Austrian Empire with Napoleon III of France and Prussia. All of this led to a sudden explosion of Piedmont-Sardinian territory in the years 1859-1861 which ended with the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. Finally, Venice and Rome would be added to the kingdom, making Italy (almost) what it is today. Recommended books: A Concise History of Italy by Christopher Duggan - Part of a great series of survey books. This one is great for Italy post-Napoleon I. It's pretty lacking with respect to the rest of Italian history (its coverage of the Renaissance/ Early Modern Italy isn't great, frankly.

History Matters

5 years ago
1815. Napoleon has been defeated. During his time as the French emperor, he had redrawn the borders of the states in Italy to look like this after the Vienna Settlement they were changed to this mostly to what they had been before except that the Austrian Empire was given to control to The Austrians were basically The most notable of these ideas being that the Italians should see themselves as a single people and dismiss any foreign intervention. Naturally, this upset the many earning them the t
itle "reactionaries." The years following the Vienna settlement were troubled with unrest with many liberal thinkers forming secret society, such as the Carbonari in the South. In 1820 and 1821, a series of revolts and coups were launched across the Italian state in order to force through liberal reforms. In the Kingdom of the two Sicilies, there were two. With those in Naples calling for the introduction of a new constitution and those on Sicily demanding independence for the island. Basically,
no one in these revolutionary movements could agree on anything. And the Austrian army, soon after, come down and crush them.

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