Question

3. Through a focus on any two countries, explain how nations developed over the nineteenth century.​

Answer 1

Explanation:

Count Camillo de Cavour was the leading figure in the movement towards unification of Italy. He was the Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia. He was neither a revolutionary nor a democrat. He was like many other wealthy and educated members of the Italian elite. He too was more fluent in French than in Italian. He made a tactful diplomatic alliance with France and thus succeeded in defeating the Austrian forces in 1859. Apart from regular troops, many armed volunteers under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the fray. In 1860, they marched into South Italy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. They succeeded in winning the support of the local peasants and drove out the Spanish rulers. Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of united Italy in 1861. Cavour became the first Prime Minister of the unified Italy.

Answer 2

Answer:

The development of the German and Italian nation-states in the nineteenth century.

Political fragmentation: Till the middle of the nineteenth century, the present-day nations of Germany and Italy were fragmented into separate regions and kingdoms ruled by different princely houses.

Revolutionary uprisings: Nineteenth-century Europe was characterised by both popular uprisings of the masses and revolutions led by the educated, liberal middle classes. The middle classes belonging to the different German regions came together to form an all-German National Assembly in 1848. However, on facing opposition from the aristocracy and military, and on losing its mass support base, it was forced to disband. From then on Prussia took on the leadership of the movement for national unification.

In the Italian region, during the 1830s, revolutionaries like Giuseppe Mazzini sought to establish the unitary Italian Republic. However, the revolutionary uprisings of 1831 and 1848 failed to unite Italy.

Unification with the help of the army: After the failure of the revolutions, the process of German and Italian unification was continued by the aristocracy and the army. Germany was united by the Prussian chief minister Otto von Bismarck with the help of the Prussian army and bureaucracy. The German Empire was proclaimed in 1871.

The Italian state of Sardinia-Piedmont played a role similar to that played by Prussia. Count Camillo de Cavour (the Chief Minister) led the movement to unite the separate states of nineteenth-century Italy with the help of the army and an alliance with France. The regions annexed by Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Red Shirts joined with the northern regions to form a united Italy. The Italian nation was proclaimed in 1861 and Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of united Italy. The papal states joined in 1870.