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What is happening in Italy in 1871CE
After a period of comparative peace in Italy, a wave of revolutions broke out throughout the Peninsula in 1848. All were crushed the following year, mostly by Austrian forces.
The failure of these revolutions brought the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, Cavour, to centre stage: he was to perform a similar role in Italy as Bismark was to fulfil in Germany. By skillful diplomacy, he brought France into a war against Austria alongside Piedmont-Sardinia (1858-9), which ended up with Piedmont-Sardinia in control of most of northern and central Italy.
The next year (1860) a rag-tag army under the inspirational Garibaldi landed in Sicily and swept all before it as it occupied that island and then marched on Naples. The king of Piedmont-Sardinia, Victor-Emmanuel, then marched south with his army and joined forces with Garibaldi near Naples. The kingdom of Italy was then officially proclaimed (1861), with Victor-Emmanuel as king.
In 1866 Italy was rewarded for being an ally of Prussia in the Austro-Prussian war of that year, by being given Venetia; and in 1870, the Italian army annexed Rome and the Papal States. These additions have given Italy roughly its modern boundaries, and the city of Rome has been made the Italian capital.
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