While Italian unification was a liberal
movement, German unification had a more
conservative tone.
Giuseppe Mazzini
 Giuseppe Garibaldi
 Carbonari
 Camillio Cavour
 Victor Emmanuel II
 Zollverein
 Otto von Bismarck
 Helmuth von Moltke
 Danish War
 Austro-Prussia War
 Franco-Prussian War
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Both were engineered by single, strong, modernized and
industrialized states (Sardinia-Piedmont and Prussia) under
exceptional leadership
Both unifying states had exceptional leadership of royal
appointees (Cavour and Bismarck)
Both Sardinian-Piedmont and Prussia went to war with Austria
(1859 and 1866).
Both used France to achieve unification
• Cavour’s alliance with France in 1859 with Rome joining the new
country when the French withdrew their troops in 1870
• Franco-Prussian War of 1870
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Both states had to contend with Catholic reluctance to join the
new nation-states but were able to generate sufficient
nationalistic sentiments to overcome that resistance
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Sardinia-Piedmont was a constitutional monarchy, but Prussia
was an autocratic state where the Reichstag had limited
power.
Republican ideas and republicans, represented by Garibaldi,
played an important role in bringing Naples, Sicily, and Rome
into a unified Italy; no role was played by republicans in
Germany.
Germany unified as an empire in which individual states kept
their princely rulers; Italy unified as a state under a single
monarch.
The German empire was declared at Versailles, accentuating
the importance of military victory; the Italian capitals were
first Florence and then Rome, each of whom had been briefly
republics and both had cultural significance.
Italy had limited suffrage, Germany universal manhood
suffrage.
Cavour died before final unification was achieved; Bismarck
was chancellor of the unified Germany for another two
decades.