Second Italian War of Independence

Second Italian War of Independence
Part of the wars of Italian unification and the French-Habsburg rivalry
Napoleon III at the Battle of Solferino, by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, oil on canvas, 1863
Date 26 April – 12 July 1859 (2 months, 2 weeks and 2 days) Location Lombardy–Venetia, Piedmont and the Austrian Littoral Result Franco-Sardinian victory Armistice of Villafranca Territorial changes Sardinia annexes Lombardy from Austria, occupies and later annexes Habsburg-ruled Tuscany, Modena and Emilia. France gains Savoy and Nice from Sardinia.
Belligerents
France Sardinia	Austria
Commanders and leaders
Napoleon III P. de MacMahon Victor Emmanuel II Giuseppe Garibaldi Alfonso La Marmora	Franz Josef I Ferenc Gyulay Ferdinand Maximilian Ludwig von Benedek Karl von Urban
Strength
: 128,000 312 guns Sardinia: 56,000 90 guns[1]	: 198,000 824 guns
Casualties and losses
: c. 11,000 killed or died of wounds 1,128 missing 17,054 wounded 2,040 disease related deaths Total: 25,720 casualties : 1,533 killed 3,572 wounded 1,268 missing[2] Total: unknown	: c. 23,000 killed or died of wounds[2] Total: unknown

The Second Italian War of Independence, also called the Sardinian War, the Austro-Sardinian War, the Franco-Austrian War, or the Italian War of 1859 (Italian: Seconda guerra d'indipendenza italiana; German: Sardinischer Krieg; French: Campagne d'Italie),^[3] was fought by the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia against the Austrian Empire in 1859 and played a crucial part in the process of Italian Unification.

A year prior to the war, in the Plombières Agreement, France agreed to support Sardinia's efforts to expel Austria from Italy in return for territorial compensation in the form of the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice. The two states signed a military alliance in January 1859. Sardinia mobilised its army on 9 March 1859, and Austria mobilized on 9 April. On 23 April, Austria delivered an ultimatum to Sardinia demanding its demobilization. Upon Sardinia's refusal, the war began on 26 April. Austria invaded Sardinia three days later, and France declared war on Austria on 3 May.

The Austrian invasion was stopped by the arrival of French troops in Piedmont that had begun in late April. The Austrians were defeated at the Battle of Magenta on 4 June and pushed back to Lombardy, where the Franco-Sardinian victory at the Battle of Solferino on 24 June resulted in the end of the war and the signing of the Armistice of Villafranca on 12 July.

Austria ceded Lombardy to France, which, in turn, gave it to Sardinia. Exploiting the collapse of Austrian power in Italy, Sardinia annexed the United Provinces of Central Italy, consisting of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Parma, the Duchy of Modena and Reggio and the Papal Legations, on 22 March 1860. Two days later, Sardinia ceded Savoy and Nice to France at the Treaty of Turin as compensation for its assistance.