How Did Mazzini Contribute To The Unification Of Italy

Nationalism and the Unification of Italy

During the period of French invasion and occupation by Napoleon, many new revolutionary concepts were introduced that destroyed feudalism and made the ideals of freedom and equality very influential. The introduction of these ideas also lead to the spread of nationalism throughout the Italian peninsula. After the downfall of Napoleon in 1814, the Congress of Vienna redistributed the territory, but the nationalistic ideas still lingered. This nationalism played the leading role in the unification of Italy in 1861.

The nationalism of the Italian peninsula helped unite the people. Giuseppe Mazzini was a very powerful leader of the nationalists who wanted to unite Italy and be free of Austria, emphasizing the culture, ethnicity, and linguistics that we believed to be inherited from the Romans. Mazzini created Young Italy, a revolutionary patriotic society, that he used to try to gain the support of workers. In his speech towards them, he says, "O my brothers, love your Country!” (Mazzini). This love for their country brought the working class

Cavour was a very skilled diplomat who helped Italy gain the extremely crucial alliance with France. In a letter to Napoleon III, Cavour asks for the military assistance of France in the case of a war with Austria, offering the territory of Savoy in return. In the Franco-Austrian War of 1859 in which the French and Piedmontese defeated the Austrians, was the agent that began the physical process of Italian unification. WIthout the assistance of the French, the Italians would have not been triumphant against Austria. They would not have had the strength in numbers that they acquired and would not have been free from Austria. Cavour played a crucial role in the alliance with France, and the nationalistic movement played a large role in his