How important was Garibaldi’s contribution to unifying Italy?

Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi:

• Was an Italian patriot and soldier of the Risorgimento.
• Led many of the military campaigns that brought about the formation of a unified Italy.
• He was a master of guerrilla warfare and was responsible for most of the military victories of the Risorgimento.

Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi's contribution to unifying Italy:

• He led a volunteer army of guerrilla soldiers to capture Lombardy for Piedmont
• He conquered  Sicily and Naples
• He gave  Southern Italy to King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, who established the Kingdom of Italy.

Cavour and Garibaldi  were involved in Italian unification

• They differed in their aims and tactics
• Whilst both Cavour and Garibaldi were born in Piedmont and both played leading roles in the unification of Italy, they were contrasting figures.
• Cavour was a nobleman, politician and diplomat seeing that links with at least one other country (France) would be needed.
• Garibaldi was a soldier and leader of men seeing that it was necessary to undertake a military expedition to Sicily

Note:

The Young Italy Movement:

• ‘It was a political movement.
• Its creator was Mazzini.
• Its goal was to create a united Italian republic.
• It promoted insurrection in the Italian reactionary states.
• It wanted an uprising in the Italian states occupied by the Austrian Empire.
• Mazzini believed that a popular rising would create a unified Italy.
• The main members of the organisation spent most of their time in exile.
• Young Italy’s programme only called for minor reforms in the interests of the lower classes.
• ‘Young Italy did not win over the peasantry, the majority of Italian people.
• The majority of its membership came from the middle classes and liberal nobility.
• It laid the foundation for the Risorgimento.