Cavour vs. Garibaldi

893 Words4 Pages
Cavour Vs. Garibaldi The idea of nationalism dominated Western civilization during the period 1850 to 1871. Liberal ideas spread viciously from France and Britain throughout Europe. French reforms gave Italy an enormous motivation to reach liberalism. Eager to be freed from foreign domination, Italy underwent a series of political events which established the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 (1). The Italian Unification, also known as Risorgimento, was mainly lead by two important figureheads: Count Camillo di Cavour and Giuseppe Garibaldi. These two people made massive reforms in Italy, which created the Italy as we know today. However, these figureheads have different ways of thinking and unique styles of decision making, leading them to use completely different strategies while unifying Italy. The modern country of Italy was formed from numerous individual Italian States geographically linked, through a process called Risorgimento. It began when Napoleon’s reign started to end and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and ended with the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1871 (2). After the collapse of the revolutions of 1848 lead by Mazzini, most of the Italian leaders favored a unified nation (3). Unification movements in Italy shifted to Sardinia-Piedmont under King Victor Emmanuel the second and his prime minister: Count Camillo di Cavour. Cavour contributed heavily in the Italian unification. He built Sardinia into a liberal and economical sound state. He molded the French system which followed civil liberties in order to encourage citizens to support him to unify Italy. Cavour was able to improve the infrastructure by constructing railroads, highways and canals in Sardinia and stabilize its economy. He improved trade treaties for better commerce and limited the power of the Church by the “Law on Convents” (4). He was a very moderate leader and believed in laws rather than

More about Cavour vs. Garibaldi

Open Document