Italy as a country did not exist until 1861. From
the fall of Rome until the unification of Italy, the Italians were ruled mostly by foreigners
who cared little for Italy. Before unification they were ruled by Germans, Austrians,
Franks, the French, the Spanish, the popes, and even the Vikings. The Italians used to
rule the Mediterranean… But before unification, they couldn’t even rule themselves. And iIn this
video you will learn how Italy. Will. Be. United. It started as soon as the Roman Empire
collapsed when all of Italy was taken over by the Ostrogothic Kingdom. But in 535
the Byzantine Empire tried to retake Italy… But they failed and Italy was then split in
2. And for an entire millennium, 1000 years, Italy remained divided. They were ruled over by
the Franks and the Holy Roman Empire until Italy became a collection of city-states during
the renaissance. And these city-states were often at war with each other. In order to win
those wars they would find allies outside of Italy to support them. And so Italy was fought
over by Austria, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and France for centuries. This is the
state we find Italy in before unification. [CHAPTER 1: Republicans] The year is 1796. Italy was ruled by 11
countries. Let’s go over them one by one to get an understanding of Italy at the time.
Many of these countries will change their name over time… To not confuse anyone, we will use the
name they had right before they became part of modern day Italy. For example, the first country
is the kingdom of Naples which later became the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, ruling the island of
Sicily as well as the southern part of Italy. They were the strongest country in Italy at the
time with a large agriculture to provide food, the largest population, and a powerful
army. Its kings were members of both the French royal family as well as the
Austrian royal family. Just for context, Austria and France were 2 of the most
powerful empires at the time. As a result, it was friendly with both countries and
was relatively independent. Afterall, if the French invaded they could ask Austria
for help and if Austria invaded they could ask the French for help. If an outsider invaded,
they could ask both Austria and France for help. The second country is the Papacy, ruled by the
pope. They were not an impressive country in terms of military or economy, but the pope was
the ruler of Christendom and could call upon the Christian nations of Europe to support his cause.
Then there were the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Duchy of Parma, and the Duchy of Modena were officially
all separate countries, however, they were ruled by members of the Austrian royal family. Meaning
that they were essentially Austrian puppet states. Then there was the Republic of Venice. It was by
far one of the weakest countries in Italy. They had spent a century losing wars and by 1796 they
were essentially an Austrian puppet state as well. And there was Austria itself. By the late
18th century it seemed like Italy was about to be colonized by Austria. In the north
we can already see a few territories taken over and it was expected that Austria would
just keep going until even the independent countries would bow down to Austrian rule.
There were the republics of Genoa and Lucca. There is not much to say about them.
By the late 18th century both countries were very weak. Genoa was essentially a French
puppet state and Lucca Austrian puppet state. San Marino was independent
and remains so until today. And then there is the last country to talk
about: The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. They were largely independent although leaning
heavily towards France. They weren’t the most powerful country at the time and focussed
largely on industry. You might have seen images of modern day Italy where the north is rich
and industrialized while the south is poor. Some of that started with Piedmont-Sardinia
that slowly created a powerful economy. And these are all the major players in Italy
in 1796. And in that year Italy took its first steps towards unification with Napoleon.
Napoleon was a general at the time and was sent to Italy to fight against Austria and
their allies. To the surprise of everyone Napoleon kicked Austrian ass. And for the next
20 years Napoleon would become emperor of France and fight with Austria for control over Italy.
France under the rule of Napoleon was a republic, meaning they didn’t have a king or a
queen who were rulers because their parent was the king or queen also. Instead,
leaders would need to have a good reason to rule the country. When France went to war in
Italy they abolished this system of kings and queens and installed new republican governments.
In the north-west they created puppet states with republican governments, in the north-east they
created the Kingdom of Italy… with Napoleon as its king. In the south they created the Kingdom
of Naples ruled by the brother of Napoleon. And almost everywhere the old feudal systems of
lords and kings was replaced with a republican system. And the republican system was based on
the French system, which was one of the most efficient forms of government at the time…
For example , before the French Revolution the nobility was largely above the
law. But with the new French system it became illegal to break the law.
A second example. The governments had a more centralized government where all the
resources of the nation could be efficiently allocated to various projects. So if, for
example, the government wanted to create a system of roads to improve trade then that
government had the resources and workers available to do so instead of a bunch of lords
each making their own roads on their own land without thinking about the nation as a whole.
And a lot of people liked this efficiency. Many people in Italy wanted a republic and they
began calling themselves Republicans. And just to address the red elephant in the room: I am not
talking about the US Republican Party. when I say “republican” I just mean people who want their
country to be a republic, not whatever weird thing is happening in the US Republican Party. And these
Italian republicans really liked the fact they no longer had a king or a queen and that their
government had to listen to the people for once. But anyone who has listened to Abba knows that
Napoleon lost at Waterloo. France became a monarchy once again. And the Italian republics
lost their biggest supporter. Without France protecting them they were too weak to stand
up to other powerful countries like Austria. And so Austria invaded Italy. By the end
of 1814 France was kicked out of Italy, the Italian republics were destroyed, and the
old system from before the war was reinstated. The map went from looking from this in 1796, to
this in 1810, to this in 1814. The only major changes to the map are that the Republic of Genoa
is part of Piedmont-Sardinia and Trent is now part of Austria. As though Napoleon never happened and
republicanism never existed like it did in Italy. So Imagine you’re an Italian republican and
the Austrian government has just installed a monarchy in your area. You are probably very
angry about this. And what do angry political groups do when they don’t get what they want?
They become more outspoken in their beliefs, they radicalize, and they form secret societies.
And Italians are no different. Almost every city in Italy formed a secret society of republicans
whose goal was to overthrow the government to create new republics. And the republicans
believed that the reason Austria could walk into Italy and tell them how to govern
themselves was because Italy was weak and divided. And they concluded that if Italy
wanted to become independent it had to become strong and stable. And to be strong and
stable they would have to join together in a single nation. They were convinced
that to be free, Italy. Should. Be. United. [CHAPTER 2: CULTURE] But after centuries of foreigners ruling Italy,
there didn’t really exist any Italian culture anymore that could unite Italy. Instead the
Italians adopted the culture of their foreign rulers. In the Austria regions the people adopted
more Austrian traditions, while on the border with France they started wearing French fashion.
They didn't even have a single language anymore, instead every region had their own dialect
influenced by whoever had conquered them. Italy had no culture and no language of
its own. But if Italy was to become united, this needed to change. If Italy was to be
a single nation, it had to have a single culture and a language all Italian could speak.
And this new culture was created through art. Instead of French literature, Austrian opera,
or regional music, the Italian artists started creating Italian literature, Italian opera,
and Italian music. This actually made those artists quite a lot of money because instead
of selling their work in their own region, they could now sell their works all over Italy.
And the Italian nationalists and republicans would gladly pay money for art which represented
their political views. Such as the opera Ernani, written by Giseppe Verdi. It’s
about 3 men who get into a relationship with 1 woman at different times of her
life, drawing a similarity with Italy, which had 3 empires ruling over it at
some point: Spain, France, and Austria. If you want to sell a book to Italians, they
need to be able to understand that book. But as I said earlier, Italy didn’t have a single
language anymore. It was hard to write a book in your regional language in the north in Milan
and then sell it to someone all the way down south in Sicily, when they speak completely
different dialects. You probably know of some English-speaking countries whose version of
English you find hard to understand. Hey, I’ve lived in Scotland! Once me and my friends
had to ask a bus driver 5 times for directions and in the end none of us understood a single word he
was saying because he spoke some obscure Scottish dialect. Now imagine trying to form a single
country with people you can barely speak to. The artists realized that they couldn’t sell
tickets to the theater if nobody understood the performers. So they went about creating
a single unified Italian language that anyone could understand. They would take the common
words and rules of all the dialects and mix them together to form a new Italian dialect.
A dialect almost anyone from Italy could understand. And if every author or playwright or
musician used this language then they could sell their products across Italy while also spreading
the ideals of unification. The Italian language was created by artists to spread the idea
of an Italian nation through their art. And this art took inspiration from religion. Italy
was a very Christian region. In fact, some people literally had the pope as their ruler. So artists
took inspiration from the bible to create Italian art. Such as taking inspiration from the story of
Moses, who according to Christian mythology saved the Jews from slavery and led them to the promised
land. And they represented Italy as a people who were slaves to foreign powers and that a united
Italy was a mythical promised land. That it was the destiny of all Italians to rise up against
their foreign rulers, kick them back to their own country, and create a homeland for themselves.
And it took inspiration from the story of Jesus, who according to the bible was dead for 3
days, resurrected back to life, and ascended into heaven. Italians saw the Roman Empire of
the past as the glory days and Italy died when the empire fell. Now it was time for Italy to
be resurrected by uniting the people. In fact, the Italian word for Italian unification
is Risorgimento, which translates roughly to ‘to rise again’ or ‘to stand up again’.
Meaning the revival of Italy as a country that is able to stand up for itself. Basically,
Italians wanted to ‘Make Italy Great Again’. And the idea of a new Italian state spread
across Italy in the 19th century. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing some sign for
unification. And because religion and unification became so interlinked, it was impossible for
governments to do a lot about it. Afterall, if you have a story about resurrection in
Italy, you could just as easily claim that it’s about Jesus and not about Italy.
And so Italy started forming a new culture based on a united hatred for
outsiders telling them what to do. Some of the art leaned so heavily on the idea
of Italian unity that it was essentially Italian propaganda. A good example is an Opera called
Nabucco, which you’re listening to right now. It was composed by Verdi and talks about the Jewish
people who were invaded, conquered, and exiled from their homeland by the Babylonians. It draws
a connection between the ancient Jews and the 19th century Italians, who after being invaded and
conquered needed to create a country of their own. [CHAPTER 3: The First Attempt] Slowly over time the cultures of Italy
became more in favour of unification. The people in favour of unification
were called ‘Italian nationalists’, because they wanted an Italian nation. And
they organized protests, resistance groups, and revolutions. But the governments of Italy
always crushed them and arrested their leaders… But beating up protestors doesn’t actually solve
any of the issues they are protesting about. And the biggest of those revolutions came in 1848.
In this year revolutions spread across Europe. You might remember the Arab Spring in 2011 with mass
protests erupting in North Africa and the Middle East. Well, Europe had similar protests in 1848.
And in Italy, people had A LOT to protest about. It started on January 5th as a strike in
Lombardy, one of the regions controlled by Austria. The people stopped buying cigars
and lottery tickets because both businesses were owned by the Austrian government. Living
a healthier life to stick it to the Austrians. By March the city of Milan was in full revolt.
All the way south on the Island of Sicily a revolt was so successful they declared
independence until their defeat a year later. In February Tuscany revolted.
Seeing all these revolts the king of Sardinia decided that this was the perfect
moment to join the revolutions to create an Italian Republic… But Austria and France
weren’t going to give up Italy so easily, sent armies, and took back control. The first
attempt at Italian unification failed… But the revolutionaries learned a lot of valuable lessons.
Firstly, Italian Unification was very popular all across Italy. In fact, they were so popular that
the current Italian anthem was written right before these protests started. The anthem is seen
as a manifestation of the Italian desire to rule themselves. And this desire to rule themselves
was successful until the Austrian army crushed them. For example, the pope had to flee Rome. The
revolutionaries created a new country called The Roman Republic. Austria at the time was busy with
a revolt in Hungary and couldn’t help the pope. So France sent their own forces, conquered
Rome, and re-installed the pope. And to make sure nobody ever threatened the pope ever again
they kept a French army in Rome just in case. Or take the example of Tuscany, where
the king was first forced to accept a new constitution and was eventually driven
from his country. Only with the help of the Austrian army did they get their land back.
The revolutionaires learned valuable lessons that they would use in the 2nd attempt
to create a united Italy: Firstly, it was possible to kick out the rulers… But
it was not possible to keep them out for long… unless Italy had allies of their own.
And secondly, if Italy becomes republican then the monarchies of Europe
will crush them, like with Rome. These lessons would be used by the revolutionaries
to make sure that Italy. Will. Be. United! [CHAPTER 4: The Second Attempt] The map of Italy looks the same as before. It’s
as though the 1848 revolution never took place. And we will now focus on one of these countries
called the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. This country had focussed the last couple of decades
on improving its economy: it had an advanced agriculture, expanded the rail network, and
opened trade with other countries. With this money they invested in an efficient government
with a powerful army. By the 1850s the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was a small but powerful country
for its size. And with this power the kingdom had something to offer other nations in exchange
for an alliance. And an opportunity for such an alliance came in 1855. Russia went to war with
the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain, and France. And Piedmont-Sardiniai joined the war as an ally
of France. The army the Kingdom sent was small, only 21k compared to the 300k the French sent,
but their soldiers were very effective and this impressed the new French Emperor. And from
that moment forward, France was the ally of Piedmont-Sardinia… In just 1 war they had gained
the 1 thing they needed to succeed: an ally that could stand up to Austria. The leadership
of Piedmont-Sardinia decided that Italy. Will. Be. United. And that they were the
ones who were going to MAKE it happen. But they would need the approval of France.
Afterall, if France won’t support them then another country will just crush the Italians
again. The French emperor loved the idea of kicking Austria out of Italy. As we saw earlier
on the map, Austria still held most territory in Italy. Austria and France had been fighting over
Italy for decades so if this alliance would help to kick out Austria then it would secure France’s
southern borders from an Austrian invasion. But they couldn’t just attack Austria without
a good reason. So they came up with a plan: Piedmont-Sardinia would attack Modena. Modena was
an Austrian puppet state. So Austria would have to join the war to protect Modena. Then France would
support Piedmont-Sardinia. This plan worked and they crushed the Austrian army. And in exchange
Piedmont-Sardinia would allow France to take over Savoy and Nice. Today they are part of France, but
150 years ago they were part of Piedmont-Sardinia and Italy. And it’s at this time that they became
French in exchange to allow italy to unify. And lastly, the French Emperor was
introduced to a woman named Virginia Oldoini. She was an Italian celebrity considered
very beautiful for her time and she entered into a romantic relationship with the emperor
for about a year. Her job was to convince the emperor to support Italian unification…
using whichever orifice would get the job done. And this plan worked almost perfectly. The
French and Piedmont armies were commanded by generals who had proven themselves in
combat. The Austrian army was commanded by people who had a prominent position
within the Austrian royal family. And even though Austria had a larger army, competence
beats inbreeding and Austria lost the war. Let’s look at the map again. Lombardy was directly
taken over by Piedmont-Sardinia. Tuscany, Modena, and Emilia were occupied. In essence
going from Austrian puppet states to Piedmont-Sardinian puppet states. North-West
Italy was secured and Austria lost nearly all their influence in Italy. France and
Piedmont-Sardinia wanted to kick the Austrians out of Italy completely, but
both sides were running out of supplies. Everybody knew there would be another
war to decide who would rule Italy… [CHAPTER 5: The South] There were just 5 countries left in Italy:
Piedmont-Sardinia and their puppet states in the northwest, the Austrians in the northeast,
the Papal States in the middle, San Marino, and the Kingdom of Two Sicilies in the south.
And as the title of this chapter suggests, we’re going south to take a look
at the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. Because they were the next target. It was the
most powerful country in Italy at the time: it had the largest army, the largest economy,
and the largest population. But this large population was rebellious. And in order to
prevent any rebellions the government had created a police state. As you may recall, in
1848 there were revolutions all over Europe, including in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies.
Right here, on the island also called Sicily, there was a rebellion. The rebels declared Sicily
independent, turning the Kingdom of Two Sicilies into the Kingdom without Sicily. The king ordered
his troops to ‘break up’ protestors, dissolved parliament, and ordered his navy to bombard
protestors. In one of these bombings the navy spent 8 HOURS shooting at the city of Messina,
giving the king the nickname ‘King Bomb’. While King Bomb took back all the territory, his tyranny
just gave those people even more reasons to rebel. King Bomb died in 1859, handing over the throne
to his son. But being the son of a tyrant doesn’t make you popular. In fact, he was so unpopular
that he couldn’t trust his own army to stay loyal. So he relied on Swiss mercenaries, soldiers from
Switzerland who would fight for money… But in the same year as when he became king, Switzerland made
it illegal for any citizen to fight in foreign armies… except for the Pope’s Swiss guard.
All of a sudden the most loyal soldiers of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies returned home.
Leaving the king with an army he couldn’t trust and a population ready to rebel again.
This was the perfect opportunity to invade. But the Kingdom of Two Sicilies was too
powerful to invade alone. So they needed to look for powerful allies and once again
turned to France and Great Britain. France had helped them in the past to kick Austria out
of Italy. But Austria had been defeated. So France gave their blessing but didn’t want to help.
So they looked for help from Great Britain. And the Brittish were very interested because
they were building the Suez Canal in Egypt, a colony of Britain at the time. The Suez Canal
made transport between Europe and Asia faster, cheaper, and easier because you no longer needed
to sail around Africa. It would make transport so easy that other countries might try to take
the canal for themselves. And if someone came to take the canal, then Great Britain would need
troops close to the Suez Canal to prevent others from taking it from the British. And Italy
was located close enough to Egypt. And so the British made a deal: British ships will be
allowed to dock in Italian ports in case we ever need to defend the Suez Canal. And in exchange the
British would give financial support for the war. This wasn’t the help they hoped for, but it
was the help they needed. It was time for the invasion to begin… Just one small problem:
Piedmont-Sardinia didn’t have any soldiers for such an invasion. They were all busy keeping
the newly-conquered territories under control. And so Piedmont-Sardiniai sent a man named
Giuseppe Garibaldi to conquer Southern Italy. Garibaldi was considered to be one of the best
generals of his time and his life alone deserves its own TV show. He joined a failed coup and was
exiled from Italy in 1833. He fled to Brazil where he fought in a civil war and learned guerilla
warfare, he hired Italian volunteers and taught them how to fight a guerilla war, and he won
numerous battles using these tactics. In 1848, during all the European revolutions, he fought for
Rome where he defeated a professional French army, showing that his guerilla tactics worked
very well in Europe, where generals tended to fight more straightforward battles. After the
revolutions were lost, he joined Piedmont-Sardinia in their war against Austria. He was promoted
to general but given no troops to actually fight the Austrians with. So he used his status as a
famous commander and recruited volunteers and began fighting Austria in the mountains. He was
so successful that he won victory after victory, even when he was outnumbered 2:1. He was perfect
for the job of conquering Southern Italy. As always he recruited volunteers, about 1000 this
time, and together they would conquer Southern Italy… or at least, that’s the official story. In
reality the British would send spies to the local commanders and offer them money if they just
wouldn’t fight. These commanders had a choice: they could either fight the famous general
Guiseppe Garibaldi… or they could take the money, surrender immediately, and watch as
Garibaldi got rid of the unpopular king. As you can imagine, almost every
commander took the money. Who wouldn’t want to get paid to do nothing!?
And so Garibaldi would pick a fight, the commander surrender, and the people would thought
he won an amazing victory. Then he’d go to another army and do the same thing again. And with every
“victory” he became more popular and with more popularity there were more people joining his
army. In just 3 weeks he conquered Sicily for Piedmont-Sardinia… He conquered the island faster
than it takes me to make a History Scope video. But while the island was easy to take
over, the mainland was a lot harder. The king resided on the mainland and he had
kept his strongest troops close to him. Look at this map. This is a map of Sicily on
the left and the mainland on the right. And right here is the narrow strip of water
that Garibaldi would have to use to move his army onto the mainland. He lacked a navy
to transport his troops to another part of Italy, making this the only landing spot.
This meant they would have to send an army from the north. But if we look there, we see that
this army would have to march through the pope’s territory… And the pope was having none of that.
His own people were already protesting. Letting a foreign army march through a rebellious
territory might mean those people will join Piedmont-Sardinia against the Pope instead. Plus,
if they won the war, the pope would be surrounded on all sides by Piedmont-Sardinia. The pope is a
predator, he had no interest in becoming the prey. And so Piedmont-Sardinia once again
asked for help. As you might recall, in the 1848 revolutions the pope was kicked
out of Rome and the city created The Roman Republic. When the revolutions were done, France
left their army in Rome to defend the pope. So Piedmont-Sardinia asked France to help negotiate
with the pope to let them march their army south. And eventually they came to an agreement. Rome
would hand over the rebellious territories to Piedmont-Sardinia and in exchange all property
owned by the church would remain unharmed. This was a great deal for both sides: The pope lost
rebellious territories, secured their profitable properties, and Piedmont-Sardinia gained a bunch
of people who liked their new king a lot more than the pope. And Italy promised to never touch
Rome. The city of Rome would not become part of a united Italy. Rome was the property of
the pope and Italy would never change that. Piedmont Sardinia invaded from the north
and within a couple of months they occupied the entire country. The king fled to
Rome and later moved between Bavaria, Austria-Hungary, and France to petition
their leaders to send an army to Italy to restore him to the throne. But nobody
did and he died in exile. In December of 2020 the pope proclaimed him a Servant
of God… Just in case you’re wondering whether the Vatican is still bitter about
losing their territory. The answer is: yes [CHAPTER 6: Creating Italy] So now we’re just left with the
Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, the papacy, San Marino, and Austria. With all this new territory the king of
piedmont-Sardinia made a very important decision. That Italy. Will. Be. Created.
And so he called together the parliament, with representatives elected from every region,
including the puppet states that were technically separate countries. Together with the senate
they proclaimed that King Victor Emanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia would now be King Victor
Emanuel II of Italy in 1861… the puppet states were officially disbanded and became regions
within the Kingdom of Italy. But… despite being the king of Italy, he did not rule over all
of Italy. In the northwest Austria still had a large part of Italy under their control. And in
this video we’ve spoken a lot about how Austria tried to control and colonize Italy before
unification happened. But the Austrians were doing something similar in modern-day Germany.
The rulers of the Austrian Empire spoke German and had a German culture. And at the time Germany
itself was comprised of dozens of small states. Austria was the largest German-speaking state
and as a result came to rule the other German states for centuries. But this changed in the 19th
century when the country of Prussia became just as powerful as Austria, while also being a German
nation. And in 1866 the two sides went to war. And this is where Italy came in. Prussia
and Italy were both rivals with Austria. So why not form an alliance? Prussia would get
Germany and Italy would get the rest of Italy. And this is where things get a little
bit complicated. Because Austria was afraid that more countries would join the war
against them. So they made a deal with France: the city of Venice, located right here,
would be handed over to France and in exchange the French would stay out of the war.
France had no interest in Venice. But they accepted the deal. France then went to Italy and
said ‘We are willing to give you Venice and in exchange you keep promising to let us keep
Nice and Savoy’. France has received these lands from Italy earlier in this video,
but now that Italy was a large country, France wanted to make sure that Italy wouldn’t
break their promise and take back this territory. And so the war began on June 20th
1866. 2 months later, on August 12, Austria surrendered. Almost all the Austrian
territories in the region of Italy were handed over to the kingdom of Italy.
Italy. Had. Almost. Been united. [CHAPTER 7: Italy. Will. Be. United!] So now we’re just left with the
Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, a little bit of Austria,
San Marino, and the Papacy. The pope had ruled Rome for over 1000 years.
According to Christian mythology the pope is the personal representative of the Christian
god here on Earth. The pope at the time was Pope Pius IX and a fun fact about him is that
he is the first pope to ever be photographed, as you can see on screen right now. The
pope was not just the leader of a country, he was the leader of a religion. In Rome,
religion was government and the government was a religion. There was no separation
of church and state. People didn’t really have any rights. But those people did have
eyes and they saw democracies, civil rights, and freedom right outside their border.
To them the Kingdom of Italy represented something better… and people began to protest.
So what did the pope do to end the protests? I kid you not, he had all the cardinals come
together and had them declare that the pope was infallible, which means he was incapable of
making mistakes, that he could do nothing wrong. You might have heard this before that the pope
is infallible. Well, this literally came about because people were protesting against him. And he
was SO out of touch with reality that he told the protesters: you are wrong to protest me, because
I can’t make mistakes. Therefore, you have nothing to protest about. As you can imagine, this did
not help the situation at all. In fact, protests just kept getting worse… But the Kingdom of Italy
was afraid to invade Rome directly. Because the pope is the leader of Roman-Catholics, you could
expect a catholic country to come to the defense of the pope… But then the year 1870 happened.
In that year everybody was too busy to help. This is a very special year in European history.
It’s the year the Germans went to war with France. And in this war the Germans occupied PAris, the
capital of France. In fact, France lost SO much that they had to recall the soldiers they put
in Rome… You know, those soldiers from earlier in the video France put there to make sure nobody
could invade the city. This was terrible news for the French… but it was great news for Italy.
Because it meant that Germany and France were too busy with each other to defend Rome..
At the same time Austria’s defeats at the hands of the Italians, as well as some
other wars, almost caused the collapse of the Austrian Empire. They were now reforming
into the Austro-Hungarian Empire and were in no shape to fight another war with Italy.
Spain had lost most of their empire and didn’t have the resources to help
the Pope. Russia and Great Britain had abandoned Catholicism centuries ago.
And everybody else was too weak to fight Italy. There was nobody to call
for help. The pope was alone. This was the perfect time to invade Rome. At first
Italy tried peaceful ways to getting the city and the surrounding lands. When the French army
left, Italy offered their own army to “protect” Rome. But the pope wasn’t stupid and refused.
Then Italy declared Rome as their capital city and just marched their army towards the city.
They moved slowly, hoping that the pope would simply surrender once he heard of the thousands
of troops marching on his city. Instead, the pope called on Catholics everywhere to come defend the
city of Rome. People from all over the Europe came to defend the pope. In total Rome had an army of
13k soldiers and volunteers, here is a picture of them (getting blessed by the pope)… although only
200 were from Rome itself… Most people were still protesting the pope. Italy sent an army of 50k
professional soldiers. The battle began at 6 ub the morning, the Italian blew a hole in the city
walls (the picture you see on screen now is from 1870, the hole in the wall is here), and
by the afternoon the pope had surrendered. The Italians allowed him to live in
Vatican City located inside Rome itself, people were allowed to come and go to the Vatican
as they pleased, and the pope would get to keep being the pope. A great deal for someone
who lost an entire country… but the pope instead pretended he was a prisoner and refused to
accept Italian rule over Rome. This matter was not resolved until 1929 when the current relationship
between Italy and the Vatican was established. Rome was now the capital of Italy and
the government moved into their new city. And this pope was also beatified, the first
step to becoming a saint. I am not sure, but it seems like the popes are still
bitter about losing their territory to Italy, so they will make people who
opposed Italy into religious icons. [CHAPTER 8: The Last Pieces] Italy was now ruled by the Kingdom of Italy,
Vatican City, a little bit of Austria in the north, and San Marino. And let’s talk about
San Marino and why it wasn’t conquered by Italy like the rest of… uhhh… Italy.
Why does San Marino still exist? Well, during the struggle for unification San
Marino offered asylum to revolutionaries, among them Giuseppe Garibaldi. After
Italy had. Been. united. San Marino and Italy signed a series of treaties that
kept San Marino independent. By providing protection to the revolutionaries, those same
revolutionaries provided protection to San Marino. Italy still had a long way to go to becoming
a single unified country. Italy built statues to commemorate the Italians who fought
for unity, created cultural exhibitions to showcare a single Italian culture, and
created schools to teach a single unified Italian language.The layouts of entire cities were
changed so that people would naturally walk along streets and squares named after unification
heroes. If you’ve ever been to Italy and found yourself walking along A LOT of statues,
walking towards important Italian monuments, or noticed a lot of revolutionary art… that’s
not just because you’re a tourist. It was created to remind Italians that they are Italian. Not
Milanese, or Sicilian, or Venetian. But Italian. Now there is just this one piece left, all the way
in the north, still controlled by Austria-Hungary, the successor state of Austria. Italy would
have to wait until World War 1 to get it back. Italy joined that war on the side
of the allies. But by the end of the war the Austro-Hungarian Empire was breaking apart.
All over the empire regions were declaring their independence. With their empire breaking
apart Italy moved in to secure this last piece of Italy. And by 1918 Italy was finally
ruled by Italians. Italy. Had. Been. United.
