Camillo Cavour & Otto von Bismarck

Have you ever tried to summarize the political situation of Italy and Germany during the 19th century in a presentation of 15 minutes?

No? Good for you. I have and I thought I could have died of it. Just imagine: at year 1, there is something like a mess, hundreds of States (for Italy just around ten) that have nothing in common. But somehow the people living in these States start to think that it would be fun to live together and unite. The biggest problem is that the different rulers of the different States don't want it because they will loose all their privileges.

At year 70, all these States are united. There are one king, one language, one economy and one State. A kingdom for Italy and an empire for Germany.

How did this happen?

People did what they always did when they don't agree with their governments: they revolted, again and again, thousands of time between year 1 and 70. But at last, the king of one of those States decided that he had enough, reformed his army, provoked a war (Against Austria for Italy, against France for Germany. For just a second, I want to say that Napoleon the 3rd was just the worst ruler that France ever had, at least in foreign policy.), and conquered all the other States to create one Nation. However the two kings, king of Piedmont for Italy, king of Prussia for Germany, were suggested to do so by their Prime minister that were maybe the most intelligent men of the 19th century (at least in politics). I deeply admire and thank Camillo Cavour (Italy-Piedmont) and Otto von Bismarck (Germany-Prussia) for making my work lighter.

In fact, they should have been born even earlier. Maybe they could have prevented the 2 italian wars of independence, the many Italian and German insurgences of March 1848, and me of doing my long and complicated presentation in front of 19 students that were totally hungry and bored (perhaps bored first and then hungry). Fortunately, the History teacher was listening and paying attention all the time. Because of her, I didn't get the impression of losing my time.

Artwork by Human-Graphik & Made-by-eyes again.