(a)OR(b)

Evaluate the role of Giuseppe Mazzini in the unification of the Italian Republic.

(i) Italy was divided into seven states. Only Sardinia and Piedmont were ruled by an Italian princely house. The north was under the Austrian-Habsburgs, the centre was ruled by the Pope and the south by the Spanish Bourbons.

(ii) During the 1830s, Giuseppe Mazzini had sought to put together a coherent programme for a unitary Italian Republic.

(iii) He also formed a secret society called Young Italy for the dissemination of his goals.

(iv) The failure of the revolutionary uprisings both in $\displaystyle 1831$ and $\displaystyle 1848$ meant that the mantle now fell on Sardinia- Piedmont under its ruler Victor Emmanuel II.

(v) In the eyes of the ruling elites of this region, a unified Italy offered them the possibility of economic development and political dominance.

(b) Evaluate the role of Otto von Bismarck in the unification of Germany.

(i) After $\displaystyle 1848$, nationalism in Europe moved away from its association with democracy and revolution.

(ii) Otto von Bismarck was the architect of the process of unifying Germany which he carried out with the support of the King, Kaiser William I, Prussian army and the landed aristocracy or the Junkers.

(iii) Prussia took on the leadership of the movement for national unification.

(iv) Three wars over seven years with Austria, Denmark and France ended in Prussian victory and completed the process of unification.

(v) On $\displaystyle 18$ January $\displaystyle 1871$, an assembly comprising the princes of the German states, representatives of the army, important Prussian minsters including the chief minister, Otto von Bismarck gathered in the unheated Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles to proclaim the Prussian king, William I the Emperor of Germany.

(vi) The new state placed a strong emphasis on modernizing the currency, banking, legal and judicial systems in Germany.

(vii) Prussian measures and practices often became the model for the rest of Germany.