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The First Italian War of Independence (Italian: Prima guerra d'indipendenza italiana), part of the Italian Unification (Risorgimento), was fought by the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) and Italian volunteers against the Austrian Empire and other conservative states from 23 March 1848 to 22 August 1849 in the Italian Peninsula.
The First Italian War, or Charles VIII's Italian War, [2] was the opening phase of the Italian Wars.The war pitted Charles VIII of France, who had initial Milanese aid, against the Holy Roman Empire, Spain and an alliance of Italian powers led by Pope Alexander VI, known as the League of Venice.
The Risorgimento movement emerged to unite Italy in the 19th century. Piedmont-Sardinia took the lead in a series of wars to liberate Italy from foreign control. Following three Wars of Italian Independence against the Habsburg Austrians in the north, the Expedition of the Thousand against the Bourbons of the Two Sicilies in the south, and the Capture of Rome, the unification of the country ...
King Charles Albert, who ruled Piedmont-Sardinia from 1831 to 1849, aspired to unite Italy with the endorsement of Pope Pius IX, head of the Papal States, which comprised a large territory in the center of the Italian peninsula. He declared war on Austria in March 1848 and launched a full-out attack on the Quadrilateral.
The War of Italian Independence, or Italian Wars of Independence, include: First Italian War of Independence (1848–1849) Second Italian War of Independence (1859) Third Italian War of Independence (1866) Fourth Italian War of Independence(1870): alternative name for the annexation of the Papal States and Rome.
While landsknechts and Swiss mercenaries continued to dominate during the early part of the wars, the Italian War of 1521 demonstrated the power of massed firearms in pike and shot formations. A 1503 skirmish between French and Spanish forces first demonstrated the utility of arquebuses in battle.
The lull in Italy was broken by developments on the Rhine, where the Austrians under Archduke Charles had beaten the French forces back to the west bank of the Rhine. The French failure on the Rhine front had drastic consequences for Napoleon, as it signaled the focus of the Austrians away from the German theater and onto the war in Italy. [48]
Political map of Italy in the year 1789. During the war of the Spanish succession (1700-1714), Savoy acquired Sicily, while the remaining Spanish dominions in Italy (Naples, Sardinia, and Milan) were taken over by the Austrian Habsburgs. In 1720, Savoy exchanged Sicily for Sardinia.