The Third War of Italian Independence and the influence of the Prussian military model on the Italian Army’s organization and professional culture

An essential trait of the Italian independence process (‘Risorgimento’) was its international dimension. Since the mid-1850s, the Kingdom of Sardinia actively lobbied to make the Italian national problem a European issue. The Plombières agreement (July 21, 1858) led to establishing the Franco-Sardinian alliance (January 26, 1859) that successfully fought the Second war of [Italian] independence. Eight years later, after the failure of that alliance and with a third conflict with Austria in view, the young Kingdom of Italy entered a new military agreement, this time with Otto von Bismarck’s Kingdom of Prussia, then an emerging power in the central European theatre. The treaty was signed on April 8, 1866, a little more than two months before the outbreak of the hostilities on both the Austrian (Bohemia, Moravia, Saxony) and Italian (Venetia) fronts (June 14-20). Hastily arranged, upon Prussian request, the alliance had very peculiar traits, viz an openly aggressive character, a short length, and no explicit provision of mutual support between the parties. The territorial gains were at the very heart of the agreement, which forbade Berlin and Florence to accept peace unless the Austrian authorities agreed to cede the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia to Italy and comparable territories – in terms of population – to Prussia. From a military perspective, the Seven weeks’ war asserted Prussian superiority over both the Italian ‘friend’ and the Austrian ‘foe’. From a diplomatic perspective, its results devoid the Italo-Prussian alliance of its raison d’être. However, it actively contributed to sowing the seeds of the Prussian cultural influence in the Italian military circles. The defeat of the Second French Empire (1870), the birth of the Second German Reich (1871), and the signing of the Triple Alliance (1882) strengthened this influence. Still, the adoption of the Prussian model in the Italian army always resented the persisting financial constraints and the fluctuations of the country’s parliamentary life.