Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/790

712 the rest of Italy, Sardinia would declare war against her. Of course the Austrian government refused to accede to the demand, and almost immediately war followed. The French emperor, actuated probably less by gratitude for the aid of the Sardinian contingent in the Crimean struggle (see p. 726) than by jealousy of Austria and the promise of Savoy and Nice in case of a successful issue of the war, supported the Sardinians with the armies of France. The two great victories of Magenta and Solferino seemed to promise to the allies a triumphant march to the Adriatic. But just now the threatening attitude of Prussia and other German states, in connection with other considerations, led Napoleon to enter upon negotiations of peace with the Austrian emperor at Villafranca.

The outcome was that Austria retained Venice, but gave up to Sardinia the larger part of Lombardy. The Sardinians were bitterly disappointed that they did not get Venetia, and loudly accused the French emperor of having betrayed their cause, since at the outset he had promised them that he would free Italy from the mountains to the sea. But Sardinia found compensation for Venice in the accession of Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna, the peoples of which states, having discarded their old rulers, besought Victor Emmanuel to permit them to unite themselves to his kingdom. Thus, as the result of the war, the king of Sardinia had added to his subjects a population of 9,000,000. One long step was taken in the way of Italian unity and freedom.

Sicily and Naples added to Victor Emmanuel's Kingdom (1860).—The romantic and adventurous daring of the hero Garibaldi now added Sicily and Naples to the possessions of Victor Emmanuel, and changed the kingdom of Sardinia into the kingdom of Italy.

The king of Naples and Sicily, Francis II., was a typical despot. In 1860 his subjects rose in revolt. Victor Emmanuel and his minister Cavour were in sympathy with the movement, yet dared not send the insurgents aid through fear of arousing the jealousy of Austria and of France. But Garibaldi, untrammelled by any such considerations, having gathered a band of a thousand or more