Italy is a country with a long history of monarchy, the famous Roman Empire was born in Italy and developed throughout the Mediterranean. After the Division of the Roman Empire into the Western And eastern Roman Empire, Italy was ruled by the Western Roman Empire, and when the Western Roman Empire fell, Italy was no longer able to form a unified state, and fell into a situation of division for more than a thousand years, with many large and small kingdoms in the territory.
According to the thinking of Chinese history, a monarch who can end division and complete unification is a great monarch. In the entire history of the Italian monarchy, only one monarch achieved the only unification in Italian history in the mid-19th century, and this monarch is undoubtedly the greatest monarch in Italian history, his name is Victor II.
Victor II, founding king of the Savoy dynasty of Italy
Victor II, whose full name is Victor Emmanuel Savoy, is a member of the Savoy family that originated in Italy, born in 1820 AD, when Italy was divided, there were papal states, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Kingdom of Sardinia and other states. In 1849, at the age of 29, Victor II succeeded his father Charles I as king of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
Victor II, who received a traditional military and political education at a young age, learned from his grandparents and fathers that when his first ancestor, Amedeo, the founding king of the Savoy dynasty, entered the Kingdom of Sardinia, he set the dream of unifying Italy, and he was determined to realize the dream that many generations of ancestors had not been able to achieve.
Italy is fragmented
The situation in Italy at that time was more complicated than in any European country. The first is the Papal State, a country in which the Pope was a secular ruler, established because of the famous "Pepin Sacrifice of the Earth" incident in history, and France has always served as the protector of the Papal State, sending heavy troops to garrison it. Then there was the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a powerful independent state. In addition, there are republics such as the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa.
Since the kingdom of Sardinia was not very strong, it would be difficult to unify Italy. In the face of the current difficulties, Victor II made the right choice in the question of employing people, and he reused Mazzini, Gafur, and Garibal, all three of whom were sages with real talents and practical learning, and these three people and Victor II had the same goal - to unify Italy.
With the assistance of Mazzini, Gafur, and Garibal, Victor II worked hard to strengthen the Kingdom of Sardinia. In 1858, the Kingdom of Sardinia sent its first army, allied itself with France, defeated the Austrian Empire with the help of France, and included the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa controlled by the Austrian Empire into the territory of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
Victor II unified Italy
In 1860, Victor II ordered Garibaldi to lead an army to attack the kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the south, and after fierce fighting, the Kingdom of Sardinia successfully destroyed the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, so that the Kingdom of Sardinia occupied the north and south, leaving only the Central Papal States, basically completing the unification of Italy.
In 1861, Victor II announced in the Italian city of Florence that the name of the country had been changed to the Kingdom of Sardinia into the Kingdom of Italy, and the Italian state was officially born. Subsequently, Victor II intended to take the Papal States into his pocket, but unfortunately the Papal States were protected by France and were not so easy to annex, but the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 gave him a chance.
In the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 AD, the Kingdom of Prussia defeated the Second French Empire, so that the Papal State lost its protection, the Kingdom of Italy occupied the Papal State, expelled the Pope from Rome, the Pope was forced to retreat to the Vatican, so that the Papal State perished, forming today's Vatican, Victor II finally completed the unification of Italy, and the next year moved the capital from Florence to Rome.
Victor II inherited the legacy of many generations of ancestors, from 1849 AD to the throne of Sardinia, to 1861 AD to establish the Kingdom of Italy, it took 12 years, finally ended the division of Italy for more than a thousand years, to achieve the only unification in Italian history, deservedly the greatest monarch in Italian history.
In 1878, Victor II died of illness at the age of 58 and was succeeded to the throne by his son Umberto I. In recognition of Victor II's great contribution to Italian history, the Italians honored him as the "Father of the Nation", with a majestic statue of him in today's Italian capital, Rome.
Statue of Victor II in Rome, the capital of Italy