Describe how Cavour, Garibaldi, Mazzini and Victor Emmanuel II helped to bring about the unification of Italy.

Authors Avatar
2) Describe how Cavour, Garibaldi, Mazzini and Victor Emmanuel II helped to bring about the unification of Italy.

In the Italian Unification, Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi and King Emmanuel II played an important role. Cavour, a clever prime minister, was regarded as the 'brain of modern Italy'. Mazzini, the 'soul of the Risorgimento, was the propagandist of the Italian unity. Garibaldi, the 'sword' of the Italian Unification, was a guerrilla leader who provided Italy with the necessary military force. King Victor Emmanuel II completed the unification of Italy. Each of them contributed greatly to the course of unification.

Cavour is the individual credited the ingenuity which resulted in the unification of Italy. In 1847, He founded 'Risorgimento', a newspaper which became the official voice for the Italian national movement. He became a member of parliament briefly from 1848-1849. He learnt from the failure of the 1848 revolutions. He realized that internal strength and external aid were necessary for the success of Italian unification. His policy was to modernize Piedmont to make her strong enough to lead the national movement against Austria. He also intended to ally with a powerful foreign power for expelling Austria domination. Subsequently, he became the prime minister in 1852. As prime minister, his plan of action developed programs which helped the Kingdom for Sardinia become the leading Italian state. He introduced progressive internal reforms, reorganized the administration, the financial system, the legal system, industry and the army. His programs won for Sardinia the prestige and a position among the powers of Europe.

Cavour was a skilful diplomat too. Since Cavour had realized that Piedmont-Sardinia was too weak to fight alone, he tried to use every opportunity to gain foreign support. The chance came when the Crimean War broke out in 1885. He brought Piedmont- Sardinia into the war. During the war, Piedmont-Sardinia sided with Britain and France against Russia. Though this alliance, Cavour established friendly relations with the French emperor, Napoleon III. Finally, Russia was defeated and the war ended in 1856.
Join now!


As one of the victors, Piedmont-Sardinia was able to attend the Paris Peace Conference. He succeeded in gaining the sympathy of Britain and France in this war and the Conference.

The help from France had been decided by a pact between Napoleon III and Cavour at Plombieres in 1858. Under the terms of the pact, France would ally itself with Sardinia if the Austrians attack Sardinia. In return, if plans were successful, Italy would consist of a federation of weak states, nominally under the presidency of the Pope. The strongest country would be that of Northern Italy ...

This is a preview of the whole essay