1861       


The story of Russian schemes upon the waning Ottoman Empire is a constant factor during most of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. A European war would be the result of that in the 1853, the Crimean war. The Russians, with their long tradition of trying to break out of its virtually landlocked origins, had long had their eyes on the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, the two narrow sea straits ruled over by the Ottoman Empire. These would gain Russia access to the Mediterranean. Other powers, notably Britain, feared a Russian breakout into the Mediterranean and traditionally defended the Ottoman Empire against these Russian ambitions.

Britain, traditional defender of Turkish sovereignty, found itself at odds with the Russians. It had however gained an important new ally. The second French Republic had fallen into the hands of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. He was President from 1848 to 1852 and a nephew of the great Napoleon. He was a son of King Louis of Holland. In 1852 Louis-Napoleon created himself Emperor Napoleon III of the French. He was eager to join Britain in war against Russia. The Prussians joined as did the liberal Kingdom of Sardinia & Piedmont. In 1856 the Russians were defeated. With Russian ambitions towards the Ottoman Empire thwarted, that country was now open to increasing western influences and exploitation.

The Kingdom of Sardinia & Piedmont had its own reasons for joining the Crimean war. Its liberal Prime-Minister Count Cavour tried to gain momentum for the cause of Italian unity by joining. Napoleon III who had been an activist for Italian unity in 1830 had offered his sympathy and help. After the Russian defeat in the Crimea war, France, with the help of the eager Sardinians, declared war on Austria. The idea was to conquer Austrian held Northern Italy and erect an Italian confederation under the Presidium of the Pope. The French conquered Lombardy and in Central Italy popular uprisings forced the pro Austrian rulers of Tuscany, Parma and Modena (ruled by Habsburg and Bourbon collateral branches) into exile, while large parts of the Papal state also rose. Fear of Prussian intervention forced Napoleon III to sign the Zurich peace treaty in which Lombardy fell to France and Venice remained Austrian. With the Central-Italian rulers removed and the Papal state in disarray, the Confederation plan came to nothing. Parma, Modena, Tuscany and large parts of the Papal state voted in plebiscites to join the Kingdom of Sardinia & Piedmont. In the Treaty of Turin, Lombardy was ceded to Sardinia by France in exchange for the territories of Nizza (Nice) and Savoy.  A revolution in the southern Kingdom of Two Sicilies, led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, finished the job and in 1861 the Sardinian King, Victor-Emanuel II, was proclaimed King of Italy. Rome however remained with the Pope while Venice remained Austrian.

After the failure of the 1848 revolution, the cause of unification and liberalism was dealt a severe blow in Germany. In Prussia a conservative Prime-Minister, Count von Bismarck came to power. He was no proponent of nationalism or parliamentarism. He was an East-Elbian nobleman, who wanted to preserve the society, in which he was brought up. His loyalty was with the Crown of Prussia, and he protected its rights fiercely, against parliament and against nationalism. Paradoxically, in the years to come, this would lead to a united Germany (minus Austria) and a German parliament chosen by universal male suffrage.