Europe 1859: Franco-Sardinian Alliance
24 January 1859
24 Jan 1859
Italian Unification
-27–68 The Julio-Claudian Dynasty
68–96 The Flavian Dynasty
96–192 The Nerva–Antonine Dynasty
192–235 The Severan Dynasty
235–285 The Crisis of the Third Century
285–1815 NO MAPS FOR THIS PERIOD YET
1815–1848 Congress Europe
1848–1850 The Springtime of Peoples
1850–1859 The Crimean War
1859–1862 Italian Unification
1862–1871 German Unification
1871–1914 Imperial Europe
1914–1918 The Great War
1918–1922 Armistice Europe
1922–1939 The Rise of Fascism
1939–1942 World War II: Blitzkrieg
1942–1945 World War II: Fall of the Third Reich
1945–1990 The Cold War
1990–2010 Post-Cold War Europe
2010–pres The Crisis of Europe
Franco-Sardinian Alliance
By the late 1850s, the cause of Italian unification was drawing widespread support from intellectuals and radicals across Europe. After narrowly surviving an assassination attempt by one such group, Napoleon III of France decided he would secretly back the Kingdom of Sardinia in an attempt to unite northern Italy (in return for territorial concessions, of course).
