In Milan, Silvio Pellico and Pietro Maroncelli organized several attempts to weaken the hold of the Austrian despotism by indirect educational means. In October 1820, Pellico and Maroncelli were arrested on the charge of carbonarism and imprisoned.


After 1830, revolutionary sentiment in favor of a unified Italy began to experience a resurgence, and a series of insurrections laid the groundwork for the creation of one nation along the Italian peninsula.


The Duke of Modena, Francis IV, was an ambitious noble, and he hoped to become king of Northern Italy by increasing his territory. In 1826, Francis made it clear that he would not act against those who subverted opposition toward the unification of Italy. Encouraged by the declaration, revolutionaries in the region began to organize.


During the July Revolution of 1830 in France, revolutionaries forced the king to abdicate and created the July Monarchy with encouragement from the new French king, Louis-Philippe. Louis-Philippe had promised revolutionaries such as Ciro Menotti that he would intervene if Austria tried to interfere in Italy with troops. Fearing he would lose his throne, Louis-Philippe did not, however, intervene in Menotti's planned uprising. The Duke of Modena abandoned his Carbonari supporters, arrested Menotti and other conspirators in 1831, and once again conquered his duchy with help from the Austrian troops. Menotti was executed, and the idea of a revolution centered in Modena faded.


At the same time, other insurrections arose in the Papal Legations of Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Forlì, Ancona and Perugia. These successful revolutions, which adopted the "tricolore" in place of the Papal flag, quickly spread to cover all the Papal Legations, and their newly installed local governments proclaimed the creation of a united Italian nation. The revolts in Modena and the Papal Legations inspired similar activity in the Duchy of Parma, where the "tricolore" flag was adopted. The Parmese duchess Marie Louise left the city during the political upheaval.


Insurrected provinces planned to unite as the "Province Italiane unite" (United Italian Provinces), which prompted Pope Gregory XVI to ask for Austrian help against the rebels. Austrian Chancellor Metternich warned Louis-Philippe that Austria had no intention of letting Italian matters be, and that French intervention would not be tolerated. Louis-Philippe withheld any military help and even arrested Italian patriots living in France.


In early 1831, the Austrian army began its march across the Italian peninsula, slowly crushing resistance in each province that had revolted. This military action suppressed much of the fledgling revolutionary movement, and resulted in the arrest of many radical leaders.


Revolutions of 1848–1849 and First Italian War of Independence.


On 5 January 1848, the revolutionary disturbances began with a civil disobedience strike in Lombardy, as citizens stopped smoking cigars and playing the lottery, which denied Austria the associated tax revenue. Shortly after this, revolts began on the island of Sicily and in Naples. In Sicily the revolt resulted in the proclamation of the Kingdom of Sicily with Ruggero Settimo as Chairman of the independent state until 1849, when the Bourbon army took back full control of the island on 15 May 1849 by force.


In February 1848, there were revolts in Tuscany that were relatively nonviolent, after which Grand Duke Leopold II granted the Tuscans a constitution. A breakaway republican provisional government formed in Tuscany during February shortly after this concession. On 21 February, Pope Pius IX granted a constitution to the Papal States, which was both unexpected and surprising considering the historical recalcitrance of the Papacy. On 23 February 1848, King Louis Philippe of France was forced to flee Paris, and a republic was proclaimed. By the time the revolution in Paris occurred, three states of Italy had constitutions—four if one considers Sicily to be a separate state.


Meanwhile, in Lombardy, tensions increased until the Milanese and Venetians rose in revolt on 18 March 1848. The insurrection in Milan succeeded in expelling the Austrian garrison after five days of street fights – 18–22 March (Cinque giornate di Milano). An Austrian army under Marshal Josef Radetzky besieged Milan, but due to defection of many of his troops and the support of the Milanese for the revolt, they were forced to retreat.


Soon, Charles Albert, the King of Sardinia (who ruled Piedmont and Savoy), urged by the Venetians and Milanese to aid their cause, decided this was the moment to unify Italy and declared war on Austria (First Italian Independence War). After initial successes at Goito and Peschiera, he was decisively defeated by Radetzky at the Battle of Custoza on 24 July. An armistice was agreed to, and Radetzky regained control of all of Lombardy-Venetia save Venice itself, where the Republic of San Marco was proclaimed under Daniele Manin.


While Radetzky consolidated control of Lombardy-Venetia and Charles Albert licked his wounds, matters took a more serious turn in other parts of Italy. The monarchs who had reluctantly agreed to constitutions in March came into conflict with their constitutional ministers. At first, the republics had the upper hand, forcing the monarchs to flee their capitals, including Pope Pius IX.


Before the powers could respond to the founding of the Roman Republic, Charles Albert, whose army had been trained by the exiled Polish general Albert Chrzanowski, renewed the war with Austria. He was quickly defeated by Radetzky at Novara on 23 March 1849. Charles Albert abdicated in favour of his son, Victor Emmanuel II, and Piedmontese ambitions to unite Italy or conquer Lombardy were, for the moment, brought to an end. The war ended with a treaty signed on 9 August. A popular revolt broke out in Brescia on the same day as the defeat at Novara, but was suppressed by the Austrians ten days later.


In 1857, Carlo Pisacane, an aristocrat from Naples who had embraced Mazzini's ideas, decided to provoke a rising in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. His small force landed on the island of Ponza. It overpowered guards and liberated hundreds of prisoners. In sharp contrast to his hypothetical expectations, there was no local uprising and the invaders were quickly overpowered. Pisacane was killed by angry locals who suspected he was leading a gypsy band trying to steal their food.


The Second Italian Independence War of 1859 and its aftermath.


The Austrians were defeated at the Battle of Magenta on 4 June and pushed back to Lombardy. Napoleon III's plans worked and at the Battle of Solferino, France and Sardinia defeated Austria and forced negotiations; at the same time, in the northern part of Lombardy, the Italian volunteers known as the Hunters of the Alps, led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, defeated the Austrians at Varese and Como. On 12 July, the Armistice of Villafranca was signed. The settlement, by which Lombardy was annexed to Sardinia, left Austria in control of Venice.


Sardinia eventually won the Second War of Italian Unification through statesmanship rather than armies or popular election. The final arrangement was ironed out by "back-room" deals instead of in the battlefield. This was because neither France, Austria, nor Sardinia wanted to risk another battle and could not handle further fighting. All of the sides were eventually unhappy with the final outcome of the 2nd War of Italian Unification and expected another conflict in the future.


Sardinia annexed Lombardy from Austria; it later occupied and 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. Sardinia handed Savoy and Nice over to France at the Treaty of Turin, decision that was the consequence of the Plombières Agreement, on 24 March 1860, an event that caused the Niçard exodus, that was the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy.


Thus, by early 1860, only five states remained in Italy—the Austrians in Venetia, the Papal States (now minus the Legations), the new expanded Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and San Marino.


Francis II of the Two Sicilies, the son and successor of Ferdinand II (the infamous "King Bomba"), had a well-organized army of 150,000 men. But his father's tyranny had inspired many secret societies, and the kingdom's Swiss mercenaries were unexpectedly recalled home under the terms of a new Swiss law that forbade Swiss citizens to serve as mercenaries. This left Francis with only his mostly unreliable native troops. It was a critical opportunity for the unification movement. In April 1860, separate insurrections began in Messina and Palermo in Sicily, both of which had demonstrated a history of opposing Neapolitan rule. These rebellions were easily suppressed by loyal troops.


In the meantime, Giuseppe Garibaldi, a native of Nice, was deeply resentful of the French annexation of his home city. He hoped to use his supporters to regain the territory. Cavour, terrified of Garibaldi provoking a war with France, persuaded Garibaldi to instead use his forces in the Sicilian rebellions. On 6 May 1860, Garibaldi and his cadre of about a thousand Italian volunteers (called "I Mille"), steamed from Quarto near Genoa, and, after a stop in Talamone on 11 May, landed near Marsala on the west coast of Sicily.


Near Salemi, Garibaldi's army attracted scattered bands of rebels, and the combined forces defeated the opposing army at Calatafimi on 13 May. Within three days, the invading force had swelled to 4,000 men. On 14 May Garibaldi proclaimed himself dictator of Sicily, in the name of Victor Emmanuel. After waging various successful but hard-fought battles, Garibaldi advanced upon the Sicilian capital of Palermo, announcing his arrival by beacon-fires kindled at night. On 27 May the force laid siege to the Porta Termini of Palermo, while a mass uprising of street and barricade fighting broke out within the city.


With Palermo deemed insurgent, Neapolitan general Ferdinando Lanza, arriving in Sicily with some 25,000 troops, furiously bombarded Palermo nearly to ruins. With the intervention of a British admiral, an armistice was declared, leading to the Neapolitan troops' departure and surrender of the town to Garibaldi and his much smaller army. In Palermo was created the Dictatorship of Garibaldi.


This resounding success demonstrated the weakness of the Neapolitan government. Garibaldi's fame spread and many Italians began to consider him a national hero. Doubt, confusion, and dismay overtook the Neapolitan court—the king hastily summoned his ministry and offered to restore an earlier constitution, but these efforts failed to rebuild the peoples' trust in Bourbon governance.


The settling of the peninsular standoff now rested with Napoleon III. If he let Garibaldi have his way, Garibaldi would likely end the temporal sovereignty of the Pope and make Rome the capital of Italy. Napoleon, however, may have arranged with Cavour to let the king of Sardinia free to take possession of Naples, Umbria and the other provinces, provided that Rome and the "Patrimony of St. Peter" were left intact.


It was in this situation that a Sardinian force of two army corps, under Fanti and Cialdini, marched to the frontier of the Papal States, its objective being not Rome but Naples. The Papal troops under Lamoricière advanced against Cialdini, but were quickly defeated and besieged in the fortress of Ancona, finally surrendering on 29 September. On 9 October, Victor Emmanuel arrived and took command. There was no longer a papal army to oppose him, and the march southward proceeded unopposed.


Garibaldi distrusted the pragmatic Cavour since Cavour was the man ultimately responsible for orchestrating the French annexation of the city of Nice, which was his birthplace. Nevertheless, he accepted the command of Victor Emmanuel. When the king entered Sessa Aurunca at the head of his army, Garibaldi willingly handed over his dictatorial power. After greeting Victor Emmanuel in Teano with the title of King of Italy, Garibaldi entered Naples riding beside the king. Garibaldi then retired to the island of Caprera, while the remaining work of unifying the peninsula was left to Victor Emmanuel.


The progress of the Sardinian army compelled Francis II to give up his line along the river, and he eventually took refuge with his best troops in the fortress of Gaeta. His courage boosted by his resolute young wife, Queen Marie Sophie, Francis mounted a stubborn defence that lasted three months. But European allies refused to provide him with aid, and food and munitions became scarce, and disease set in, so the garrison was forced to surrender. Nonetheless, ragtag groups of Neapolitans loyal to Francis fought on against the Italian government for years to come.


The fall of Gaeta brought the unification movement to the brink of fruition—only Rome and Venetia remained to be added. On 18 February 1861, Victor Emmanuel assembled the deputies of the first Italian Parliament in Turin. On 17 March 1861, the Parliament proclaimed Victor Emmanuel King of Italy, and on 27 March 1861 Rome was declared Capital of Italy, even though it was not yet in the new Kingdom.


Three months later Cavour died, having seen his life's work nearly completed. When he was given the last rites, Cavour purportedly said: "Italy is made. All is safe."


Mazzini was discontented with the perpetuation of monarchical government and continued to agitate for a republic. With the motto "Free from the Alps to the Adriatic", the unification movement set its gaze on Rome and Venice. There were obstacles, however. A challenge against the Pope's temporal dominion was viewed with profound distrust by Catholics around the world, and there were French troops stationed in Rome. Victor Emmanuel was wary of the international repercussions of attacking the Papal States, and discouraged his subjects from participating in revolutionary ventures with such intentions.


Nonetheless, Garibaldi believed that the government would support him if he attacked Rome. Frustrated at inaction by the king, and bristling over perceived snubs, he came out of retirement to organize a new venture. In June 1862, he sailed from Genoa and landed again at Palermo, where he gathered volunteers for the campaign, under the slogan "o Roma o Morte" ("either Rome or Death"). The garrison of Messina, loyal to the king's instructions, barred their passage to the mainland. Garibaldi's force, now numbering two thousand, turned south and set sail from Catania. Garibaldi declared that he would enter Rome as a victor or perish beneath its walls. He landed at Melito on 14 August and marched at once into the Calabrian mountains.


Far from supporting this endeavour, the Italian government was quite disapproving. General Cialdini dispatched a division of the regular army, under Colonel Pallavicino, against the volunteer bands. On 28 August the two forces met in the Aspromonte. One of the regulars fired a chance shot, and several volleys followed, but Garibaldi forbade his men to return fire on fellow subjects of the Kingdom of Italy. The volunteers suffered several casualties, and Garibaldi himself was wounded; many were taken prisoner. Garibaldi was taken by steamer to Varignano, where he was honorably imprisoned for a time, but finally released.


Meanwhile, Victor Emmanuel sought a safer means to the acquisition of the remaining Papal territory. He negotiated with the Emperor Napoleon for the removal of the French troops from Rome through a treaty. They agreed to the September Convention in September 1864, by which Napoleon agreed to withdraw the troops within two years. The Pope was to expand his own army during that time so as to be self-sufficient. In December 1866, the last of the French troops departed from Rome, in spite of the efforts of the pope to retain them. By their withdrawal, Italy (excluding Venetia and Savoy) was freed from the presence of foreign soldiers.


The seat of government was moved in 1865 from Turin, the old Sardinian capital, to Florence, where the first Italian parliament was summoned. This arrangement created such disturbances in Turin that the king was forced to leave that city hastily for his new capital.


In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Austria contested with Prussia the position of leadership among the German states. The Kingdom of Italy seized the opportunity to capture Venetia from Austrian rule and allied itself with Prussia. Austria tried to persuade the Italian government to accept Venetia in exchange for non-intervention. However, on 8 April, Italy and Prussia signed an agreement that supported Italy's acquisition of Venetia, and on 20 June Italy issued a declaration of war on Austria. Within the context of Italian unification, the Austro-Prussian war is called the "Third Independence War", after the "First" (1848) and the "Second" (1859).


Victor Emmanuel hastened to lead an army across the Mincio to the invasion of Venetia, while Garibaldi was to invade the Tyrol with his Hunters of the Alps. The Italian army encountered the Austrians at Custoza on 24 June and suffered a defeat. On 20 July the Regia Marina was defeated in the battle of Lissa. The following day, Garibaldi's volunteers defeated an Austrian force in the Battle of Bezzecca, and moved toward Trento.


Meanwhile, Prussian Minister President Otto von Bismarck saw that his own ends in the war had been achieved, and signed an armistice with Austria on 27 July. Italy officially laid down its arms on 12 August. Garibaldi was recalled from his successful march and resigned with a brief telegram reading only "Obbedisco" ("I obey").


Prussia's success on the northern front obliged Austria to cede Venetia (present-day Veneto and parts of Friuli) and the city of Mantua (the last remnant of the "Quadrilatero"). Under the terms of a peace treaty signed in Vienna on 12 October, Emperor Franz Joseph had already agreed to cede Venetia to Napoleon III in exchange for non-intervention in the Austro-Prussian War, and thus Napoleon ceded Venetia to Italy on 19 October, in exchange for the earlier Italian acquiescence to the French annexation of Savoy and Nice.


In the peace treaty of Vienna, it was written that the annexation of Venetia would have become effective only after a referendum—taken on 21 and 22 October—to let the Venetian people express their will about being annexed or not to the Kingdom of Italy. Historians suggest that the referendum in Venetia was held under military pressure, as a mere 0.01% of voters (69 out of more than 642,000 ballots) voted against the annexation. However it should be admitted that the re-establishment of a Republic of Venice orphan of Istria and Dalmatia had little chances to develop.


Austrian forces put up some opposition to the invading Italians, to little effect. Victor Emmanuel entered Venice and Venetian land, and performed an act of homage in the Piazza San Marco.


The national party, with Garibaldi at its head, still aimed at the possession of Rome, as the historic capital of the peninsula. In 1867 Garibaldi made a second attempt to capture Rome, but the papal army, strengthened with a new French auxiliary force, defeated his poorly armed volunteers at Mentana. Subsequently, a French garrison remained in Civitavecchia until August 1870, when it was recalled following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.


Before the defeat at Mentana on 3 November 1867, Enrico Cairoli, his brother Giovanni, and 70 companions had made a daring attempt to take Rome. The group had embarked in Terni and floated down the Tiber. Their arrival in Rome was to coincide with an uprising inside the city. On 22 October 1867, the revolutionaries inside Rome seized control of the Capitoline Hill and of Piazza Colonna. Unfortunately for the Cairolis and their companions, by the time they arrived at Villa Glori, on the northern outskirts of Rome, the uprising had already been suppressed. During the night of 22 October 1867, the group was surrounded by Papal Zouaves, and Giovanni was severely wounded. Enrico was mortally wounded and bled to death in Giovanni's arms.


With Cairoli dead, command was assumed by Giovanni Tabacchi who had retreated with the remaining volunteers into the villa, where they continued to fire at the papal soldiers. These also retreated in the evening to Rome. The survivors retreated to the positions of those led by Garibaldi on the Italian border.


At the summit of Villa Glori, near the spot where Enrico died, there is a plain white column dedicated to the Cairoli brothers and their 70 companions. About 200 meters to the right from the Terrazza del Pincio, there is a bronze monument of Giovanni holding the dying Enrico in his arm. A plaque lists the names of their companions. Giovanni never recovered from his wounds and from the tragic events of 1867. According to an eyewitness, when Giovanni died on 11 September 1869:


In July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War began. In early August, the French Emperor Napoleon III recalled his garrison from Rome, thus no longer providing protection to the Papal State. Widespread public demonstrations illustrated the demand that the Italian government take Rome. The Italian government took no direct action until the collapse of the Second French Empire at the Battle of Sedan. King Victor Emmanuel II sent Count Gustavo Ponza di San Martino to Pius IX with a personal letter offering a face-saving proposal that would have allowed the peaceful entry of the Italian Army into Rome, under the guise of offering protection to the pope. The Papacy, however, exhibited something less than enthusiasm for the plan:


Initially the Italian government had offered to let the pope keep the Leonine City, but the Pope rejected the offer because acceptance would have been an implied endorsement of the legitimacy of the Italian kingdom's rule over his former domain. Pius IX declared himself a prisoner in the Vatican, although he was not actually restrained from coming and going. Rather, being deposed and stripped of much of his former power also removed a measure of personal protection—if he had walked the streets of Rome he might have been in danger from political opponents who had formerly kept their views private. Officially, the capital was not moved from Florence to Rome until July 1871.


Historian Raffaele de Cesare made the following observations about Italian unification:


Unification was achieved entirely in terms of Piedmont's interests. Martin Clark says, "It was Piedmontization all around." Cavour died unexpectedly in June 1861, at 50, and most of the many promises that he made to regional authorities to induce them to join the newly unified Italian kingdom were ignored. The new Kingdom of Italy was structured by renaming the old Kingdom of Sardinia and annexing all the new provinces into its structures. The first king was Victor Emmanuel II, who kept his old title.


National and regional officials were all appointed by Piedmont. A few regional leaders succeeded to high positions in the new national government, but the top bureaucratic and military officials were mostly Piedmontese. The national capital was briefly moved to Florence and finally to Rome, one of the cases of Piedmont losing out.


However, Piedmontese tax rates and regulations, diplomats and officials were imposed on all of Italy. The new constitution was Piedmont's old constitution. The document was generally liberal and was welcomed by liberal elements. However, its anticlerical provisions were resented in the pro-clerical regions in places such as around Venice, Rome, and Naples – as well as the island of Sicily. Cavour had promised there would be regional and municipal, local governments, but all the promises were broken in 1861.


The first decade of the kingdom saw savage civil wars in Sicily and in the Naples region. Hearder claimed that failed efforts to protest unification involved "a mixture of spontaneous peasant movement and a Bourbon-clerical reaction directed by the old authorities".


The pope lost Rome in 1870 and ordered the Catholic Church not to co-operate with the new government, a decision fully reversed only in 1929. Most people for Risorgimento had wanted strong provinces, but they got a strong central state instead. The inevitable long-run results were a severe weakness of national unity and a politicized system based on mutually hostile regional violence. Such factors remain in the 21st century.


From the spring of 1860 to the summer of 1861, a major challenge that the Piedmontese parliament faced on national unification was how they should govern and control the southern regions of the country that were frequently represented and described by northern Italian correspondents as "corrupt", "barbaric", and "uncivilized". In response to the depictions of southern Italy, the Piedmontese parliament had to decide whether it should investigate the southern regions to better understand the social and political situations there or it should establish jurisdiction and order by using mostly force.


The dominance of letters sent from the Northern Italian correspondents that deemed Southern Italy to be "so far from the ideas of progress and civilization" ultimately induced the Piedmontese parliament to choose the latter course of action, which effectively illustrated the intimate connection between representation and rule. In essence, the Northern Italians' "representation of the south as a land of barbarism (variously qualified as indecent, lacking in 'public conscience', ignorant, superstitious, etc.)" provided the Piedmontese with the justification to rule the southern regions on the pretext of implementing a superior, more civilized, "Piedmontese morality".


Italian unification is still a topic of debate. According to Massimo d'Azeglio, centuries of foreign domination created remarkable differences in Italian society, and the role of the newly formed government was to face these differences and to create a unified Italian society. Still today the most famous quote of Massimo d'Azeglio is, "L'Italia è fatta. Restano da fare gli italiani" ("Italy has been made. Now it remains to make Italians").


The economist and politician Francesco Saverio Nitti criticized the newly created state for not considering the substantial economic differences between Northern Italy, a free-market economy, and Southern Italy, a state protectionist economy, when integrating the two. When the Kingdom of Italy extended the free-market economy to the rest of the country, the South's economy collapsed under the weight of the North's. Nitti contended that this change should have been much more gradual in order to allow the birth of an adequate entrepreneurial class able to make strong investments and initiatives in the south. These mistakes, he felt, were the cause of the economic and social problems which came to be known as the Southern Question ("Questione Meridionale").


The politician, historian, and writer Gaetano Salvemini commented that even though Italian unification had been a strong opportunity for both a moral and economic rebirth of Italy's Mezzogiorno (Southern Italy), because of a lack of understanding and action on the part of politicians, corruption and organized crime flourished in the South. The Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci criticized Italian unification for the limited presence of the masses in politics, as well as the lack of modern land reform in Italy.


Revisionism of Risorgimento produced a clear radicalization of Italy in the mid-20th century, following the fall of the Savoy monarchy and fascism during World War II. Reviews of the historical facts concerning Italian unification's successes and failures continue to be undertaken by domestic and foreign academic authors, including Denis Mack Smith, Christopher Duggan, and Lucy Riall. Recent work emphasizes the central importance of nationalism.


It can be said that Italian unification was never truly completed in the 19th century. Many Italians remained outside the borders of the Kingdom of Italy and this situation created the Italian irredentism.


"Italia irredenta" (unredeemed Italy) was an Italian nationalist opinion movement that emerged after Italian unification. It advocated irredentism among the Italian people as well as other nationalities who were willing to become Italian and as a movement; it is also known as "Italian irredentism". Not a formal organization, it was just an opinion movement that claimed that Italy had to reach its "natural borders," meaning that the country would need to incorporate all areas predominantly consisting of ethnic Italians within the near vicinity outside its borders. Similar patriotic and nationalistic ideas were common in Europe in the 19th century.


Italy entered into the First World War in 1915 with the aim of completing national unity: for this reason, the Italian intervention in the First World War is also considered the Fourth Italian War of Independence, in a historiographical perspective that identifies in the latter the conclusion of the unification of Italy, whose military actions began during the revolutions of 1848 with the First Italian War of Independence.


During the post-unification era, some Italians were dissatisfied with the current state of the Italian Kingdom since they wanted the kingdom to include Trieste, Istria, and other adjacent territories as well. This Italian irredentism succeeded in World War I with the annexation of Trieste and Trento, with the respective territories of Venezia Giulia and Trentino.


The Kingdom of Italy had declared neutrality at the beginning of the war, officially because the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary was a defensive one, requiring its members to come under attack first. Many Italians were still hostile to Austria's continuing occupation of ethnically Italian areas, and Italy chose not to enter. Austria-Hungary requested Italian neutrality, while the Triple Entente (which included Great Britain, France and Russia) requested its intervention. With the London Pact, signed in April 1915, Italy agreed to declare war against the Central Powers in exchange for the "irredent" territories of Friuli, Trentino, and Dalmatia (see "Italia irredenta").


Italian irredentism obtained an important result after the First World War, when Italy gained Trieste, Gorizia, Istria, and the city of Zara. During the Second World War, after the Axis attack on Yugoslavia, Italy created the "Governatorato di Dalmazia" (from 1941 to September 1943), so the Kingdom of Italy annexed temporarily even Split (Italian "Spalato"), Kotor ("Cattaro"), and most of coastal Dalmatia. From 1942 to 1943, even Corsica and Nice (Italian "Nizza") were temporarily annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, nearly fulfilling in those years the ambitions of Italian irredentism.


For its avowed purpose, the movement had the "emancipation" of all Italian lands still subject to foreign rule after "Italian unification". The Irredentists took language as the test of the alleged Italian nationality of the countries they proposed to emancipate, which were Trentino, Trieste, Dalmatia, Istria, Gorizia, Ticino, Nice (Nizza), Corsica, and Malta. Austria-Hungary promoted Croatian interests in Dalmatia and Istria to weaken Italian claims in the western Balkans before the First World War.


After World War II, the irredentism movement faded away in Italian politics. Under the Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947, Istria, Kvarner, most of the Julian March as well as the Dalmatian city of Zara was annexed by Yugoslavia causing the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus, which led to the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 of local ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians), the others being ethnic Slovenians, ethnic Croatians, and ethnic Istro-Romanians, choosing to maintain Italian citizenship.


Italy celebrates the Anniversary of Risorgimento every fifty years, on 17 March (date of proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy).


The anniversary occurred in 1911 (50th), 1961 (100th), 2011 (150th) and 2021 (160th) with several celebrations throughout the country.


In art, this period was characterised by the Neoclassicism that draws inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome. The main Italian sculptor was Antonio Canova who became famous for his marble sculptures that delicately rendered nude flesh. The mourning Italia turrita on the tomb to Vittorio Alfieri is one of the main works of Risorgimento by Canova.


Francesco Hayez was another remarkable artist of this period whose works often contain allegories about Italian unification. His most known painting "The Kiss" aims to portray the spirit of the Risorgimento: the man wears red, white and green, representing the Italian patriots fighting for independence from the Austro-Hungarian empire while the girl's pale blue dress signifies France, which in 1859 (the year of the painting's creation) made an alliance with the Kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia enabling the latter to unify the many states of the Italian peninsula into the new kingdom of Italy. Hayez's three paintings on the "Sicilian Vespers" are an implicit protest against the foreign domination of Italy.


Andrea Appiani, Domenico Induno, and Gerolamo Induno are also known for their patriotic canvases. Risorgimento was also represented by works not necessarily linked to Neoclassicism—as in the case of Giovanni Fattori who was one of the leaders of the group known as the Macchiaioli and who soon became a leading Italian plein-airist, painting landscapes, rural scenes, and military life during the Italian unification.


The most well known writer of Risorgimento is Alessandro Manzoni, whose works are a symbol of the Italian unification, both for its patriotic message and because of his efforts in the development of the modern, unified Italian language. He is famous for the novel "The Betrothed" (orig. Italian: "I Promessi Sposi") (1827), generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature.


Vittorio Alfieri, was the founder of a new school in the Italian drama, expressed in several occasions his suffering about the foreign domination's tyranny.


Ugo Foscolo describes in his works the passion and love for the fatherland and the glorious history of the Italian people; these two concepts are respectively well expressed in two masterpieces, "The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis" and "Dei Sepolcri".


Vincenzo Monti, known for the Italian translation of the "Iliad", described in his works both enthusiasms and disappointments of Risorgimento until his death.


Giovanni Berchet wrote a poetry characterized by a high moral, popular and social content; he also contributed to "Il Conciliatore", a progressive bi-weekly scientific and literary journal, influential in the early Risorgimento that was published in Milan from September 1818 until October 1819 when it was closed by the Austrian censors; its writers included also Ludovico di Breme, Giuseppe Nicolini, and Silvio Pellico.


Giacomo Leopardi was one of the most important poets of Risorgimento thanks to works such as "Canzone all'Italia" and "Risorgimento".


Niccolò Tommaseo, the editor of the "Italian Language Dictionary" in eight volumes, was a precursor of the Italian irredentism and his works are a rare examples of a metropolitan culture above nationalism; he supported the liberal revolution headed by Daniele Manin against the Austrian Empire and he will always support the unification of Italy.


Francesco de Sanctis was one of the most important scholars of Italian language and literature in the 19th century; he supported the Revolution of 1848 in Naples and for this reason he was imprisoned for three years; his reputation as a lecturer on Dante in Turin brought him the appointment of professor at ETH Zürich in 1856; he returned to Naples as Minister of Public Education after the unification of Italy.


The writer and patriot Luigi Settembrini published anonymously the "Protest of the People of the Two Sicilies", a scathing indictment of the Bourbon government and was imprisoned and exiled several times by the Bourbons because of his support to Risorgimento; after the formation of the Kingdom of Italy, he was appointed professor of Italian literature at the University of Naples.


Ippolito Nievo is another main representative of Risorgimento with his novel "Confessioni d'un italiano"; he fought with Giuseppe Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand.


Risorgimento was also depicted in famous novels:


"The Leopard" written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, "Heart" by Edmondo De Amicis, and "Piccolo mondo antico" by Antonio Fogazzaro.


Risorgimento won the support of many leading Italian opera composers. Their librettos often saw a delicate balance between European romantic narratives and dramatic themes evoking nationalistic sentiments. Ideas expressed in operas stimulated the political mobilisation in Italy and among the cultured classes of Europe who appreciated Italian opera. Furthermore, Mazzini and many other nationalists found inspiration in musical discourses.


In his "L'italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers)", Gioachino Rossini expressed his support to the unification of Italy; the patriotic line "Pensa alla patria, e intrepido il tuo dover adempi: vedi per tutta Italia rinascere gli esempi d’ardir e di valor" ("Think about the fatherland and intrepid do your duty: see for all Italy the birth of the examples of courage and value") was censored in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies.


Vincenzo Bellini was a secret member of the Carbonari and in his masterpiece "I puritani (The Puritans)", the last part of Act 2 is an allegory to Italian unification. Another Bellini opera, "Norma", was at the center of an unexpected standing ovation during its performance in Milan in 1859: while the chorus was performing "Guerra, guerra! Le galliche selve (War, war! The Gallic forests)" in Act 2, the Italians began to greet the chorus with loud applause and to yell the word "War!" several times towards the Austrian officers at the opera house.


The relationship between Gaetano Donizetti and the Risorgimento is still controversial. Even though Giuseppe Mazzini tried to use some of Donizetti's works for promoting the Italian cause, Donizetti had always preferred not to get involved in politics.


Franco Della Peruta argues in favour of close links between the operas and the Risorgimento, emphasizing Verdi's patriotic intent and links to the values of the Risorgimento. Verdi started as a republican, became a strong supporter of Cavour and entered the Italian parliament on Cavour's suggestion. His politics caused him to be frequently in trouble with the Austrian censors. Verdi's main works of 1842–49 were especially relevant to the struggle for independence, including "Nabucco" (1842), "I Lombardi alla prima crociata" (1843), "Ernani" (1844), "Attila" (1846), "Macbeth" (1847), and "La battaglia di Legnano" (1848). However, starting in the 1850s, his operas showed few patriotic themes because of the heavy censorship of the absolutist regimes in power.


Giuseppe Verdi's "Nabucco" and the Risorgimento are the subject of a 2011 opera, "Risorgimento!" by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero, written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Italian unification.


"The Leopard" is a film from 1963, based on the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and directed by Luchino Visconti. It features Burt Lancaster as the eponymous character, the Prince of Salina. The film depicts his reaction to the Risorgimento, and his vain attempts to retain his social standing.


There are other movies set in this period:


The Piedmontese Easter (Italian: "Pasque piemontesi", French: "Pâques piémontaises" or "Pâques vaudoises") was a series of massacres on Waldensians (also known as Waldenses or Vaudois) by Savoyard troops in the Duchy of Savoy in 1655.


Alexis Muston, a 19th-century French Protestant pastor based in Bordeaux, claimed in "L'Israel des Alpes" (Paris 1852) that neither Duke Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy nor the Waldensians themselves had sought to wage war, and both parties were content with maintaining the peace. It was due to the constant pressure exerted by New Council of Propagation of the Faith and the Extermination of Heresy ("Concilium Novum de Propaganda Fide et Extirpandis Haereticis"), an institution of the Roman Catholic Church established in Turin in 1650, that regularly convened in the palace of the Archbishop of Turin.


Although the Waldensian population (numbering around 15,000 in 1685) in certain areas of Piedmont had held privileges of tolerance and freedom of belief and conscience for centuries that were written down in several documents, these long-established rights for Protestant Italians were being violated by new decrees passed by Andrea Gastaldo, member of the Council. Two decrees in particular threatened the continued existence of Waldensian communities in Piedmont: the Edict of 15 May 1650, abrogating the old Waldensian privileges, and the Edict of 25 January 1655, which was in fact a religious expulsion order:


The Waldensian refusal to obey the Edict of 25 January 1655 led the government to send troops to plunder and burn Waldensian houses, and to station over 15,000 soldiers in their valleys. The Savoyard army consisted of local soldiers, as well as French and Irish troops, under the command of the Marquis of Pianezza.


On 24 April 1655, the Piedmontese Easter Massacre commenced: a massacre of thousands of Waldensian civilians (4,000 to 6,000 according to one estimate) was committed by ducal troops.


This caused a mass exodus of Waldensian refugees to the Valley of Perosa (Pérouse), and led to the formation of rebel groups under the leadership of Joshua Janavel, Jean Léger and Bartolomeo Jahier, whilst several states including England, France, Germany and the Protestant cantons of Switzerland attempted to intervene diplomatically. On 18 August, the Pinerolo Declaration of Mercy was issued, which constituted a peace treaty between Charles Emmanuel II and the Waldensians.


Estimates of how many Waldensians were killed during the Piedmontese Easter vary widely, including "more than a thousand", "4,000 to 6,000", and "6,000".


Reports from the massacres spread quickly throughout Protestant Europe, sparking outrage, especially in Britain. Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell threatened the Duchy of Savoy with intervention, somewhat shaping the military decisions made by the Duke. English poet John Milton was inspired to write the sonnet "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont".


Chablais was a province of the Duchy of Savoy. Its capital was Thonon-les-Bains.


Chablais was elevated to a duchy in 1311 by Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor.


This region is currently divided into three territories, the "Chablais savoyard", the "Chablais valaisan", and the "Chablais vaudois", and is now split across two countries: France (department of Haute-Savoie) and Switzerland (cantons of Valais and Vaud). The Chablais Alps is a mountain range situated between the two countries.


Italian irredentism in Savoy was the political movement among Savoyards promoting annexation to the Savoy dynasty's Kingdom of Italy. It was active from 1860 to World War II.


Italian irredentists were citizens of Savoy who considered themselves to have ties with the House of Savoy dynasty. Savoy was the original territory of the duke of Savoy that later became King of Italy. Since the Renaissance the area had ruled over Piedmont and had for regional capital the town of Chambéry. The official language of Savoy was French since the 15th century, and was divided administratively in Savoie Propre (Chambéry), Chablais (Thonon), Faucigny (Bonneville), Genevois (Annecy), Maurienne (Saint Jean de Maurienne) and Tarentaise (Moûtiers).


Vaugelas, a native of the duchy became one of the most renowned French linguists.


In spring 1860 the area was annexed to France after a referendum and the administrative boundaries changed, but a segment of the Savoyard population demonstrated against the annexation. Indeed, the final vote count on the referendum announced by the Court of Appeals was 130,839 in favour of annexation to France, 235 opposed and 71 void, showing a questionable complete support for French nationalism (that motivated criticisms about rigged results).


At the beginning of 1860, more than 3000 people demonstrated in Chambéry against the annexation to France rumours. On 16 March 1860, the provinces of Northern Savoy (Chablais, Faucigny and Genevois) sent to Victor Emmanuel II, to Napoleon III, and to the Swiss Federal Council a declaration - sent under the presentation of a manifesto together with petitions - where they were saying that they did not wish to become French and shown their preference to remain united to the Kingdom of Sardinia (or be annexed to Switzerland in the case a separation with Sardinia was unavoidable).


Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about the referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (between the Italian Savoyards) took refuge in Italy in the following years. With a 99.8% vote in favour of joining France, there were allegations of vote-rigging


In 1861, the "Associazione Oriundi Savoiardi e Nizzardi Italiani" was founded in Italy


, an association of the Italian Savoyards that lasted one century until 1966.


During the fascist period in the early 1940s, organizations were created that promoted the unification of Savoy to the Kingdom of Italy. The fascist members were nearly one hundred in 1942, concentrated mainly in Grenoble and Chambéry.


When Italy occupied Savoy in November 1942 these fascist groups claimed that nearly 10,000 Savoyards demanded the unification to Italy, but nothing was done mainly because the King of Italy opposed it.


After World War II all the organizations of the Irredentist Savoyards were outlawed by the French authorities of Charles de Gaulle.


Most of the remaining Irredentist Savoyards supported in the 1950s and 1960s the development of autonomistic political organizations of Savoy, like the Mouvement Région Savoie (Savoy Regional Movement).


Only in 1940 did the Italian Savoyards fulfilled their irredentism, and some small areas bordering the Alps were annexed by Italy. The initial zone was 832 km² and contained 28,500 inhabitants.


In November 1942, in conjunction with "Case Anton", the German occupation of most of Vichy France, the Royal Italian Army ("Regio Esercito") expanded its occupation zone. Italian forces took control of Grenoble, Nice, the Rhône River delta, and nearly all of Savoy.


A process of Italianization of the schools in Savoy was started, but was never fully implemented. Only a few Italian Savoyards were voluntarily enrolled in the Italian Army through fascist organizations like the Camicie Nere, most of them rejoined the resistance and fought against the invaders.


Most of the Irredentist Savoyards actively helped the Jews in the occupied zone in Savoy, a region that acted as a refugee zone for Jews fleeing persecution in Vichy France during World War II.


The projects to incorporate Savoy to the Kingdom of Italy were supported by the fascist Savoyards of Grenoble, but nothing was done even because in September 1943 Nazi Germany substituted Italy in the occupation of Savoy.


Savoyards historically have spoken a dialect related to the Arpitan language: the Savoyard dialect. Arpitan is spoken in France, in Switzerland and in Italy. However, French is the predominant language today.


During the fascist occupation in 1942-1943, Italian authorities promoted a process of Italianization of all the people of Savoy, mainly related to the use of Italian in substitution of the Savoyard dialect.


Marc-Claude de Buttet (1530, Chambéry, then in the Duchy of Savoy - 1586, Geneva) was a Renaissance poet, courtier and humanist. He formed part of the La Pléiade circle. He was lord of the feudal rent of Grésy in the province of Genevois (now Grésy-sur-Aix).


He came from an old Savoyard noble family originating in Ugine and since the late 14th century his ancestors had gained distinction as secretaries to the counts and dukes of Savoy at Chambéry and to the counts and dukes of Genvois (the future Genevois-Nemours branch of the house of Savoy) at Annecy.


His father was Claude de Buttet, once master-auditor at the court of accounts at Annecy and later syndic of Chambéry. Claude's father, Mermet de Buttet, had inherited the lordship of Bourget-du-Lac and was secretary to Louis I, Duke of Savoy. Marc-Claude's mother Jeanne-Françoise de La Mar was originally from Geneva - Jeanne-Françoise's mother had been syndic of that city.


In 1549 de Buttet happily followed the precepts on poetry which came to be published by Joachim du Bellay as "Défense et illustration de la langue française". He became friends with Pierre de Ronsard and for the rest of their lives they exchanged epigrams praising each other.


de Buttet edited his first elegy "Le Trépas de la Reine de Navarre" - this work added to that done by all his fellow members of la Pléiade.


In 1554 he returned to Savoy and renewed his acquaintances with Savoyard friends who had stayed behind there, including Emmanuel-Philibert de Pingon and Louis Milliet. Chambéry was still under French occupation and a French parliament. A new code of laws was published with a preface by Barthélémy Aneau, in which inhabitants of Savoy were called savages and barbarians. Aged 27, de Buttet published a fierce riposte in prose, using the publisher Angelin Benoist in Lyon. It was entitled "Apologia for Savoy against the insults of Barthélémy Aneau".


De Buttet died surrounded by his nephews in 1586 - he never married and had no issue.


William I of Geneva ( – 25 July 1195) was Count of Geneva from 1178 to 1195, in succession to his father, Count Amadeus I of Geneva. William's mother was Amadeus' wife, Matilda de Cuiseaux.


He died at the Château de Novel in Annecy, France.


Peter (died 1392) was the fourth of five sons of Count Amadeus III of Geneva and succeeded his brother John I as Count of Geneva in 1370. When he died without a son to succeed him in 1392, the county passed to the fifth of the brothers, then Antipope Clement VII.


Peter led a contingent of Genevans in an invasion of the Kingdom of Naples in 1382. The invasion was led by his lord, Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, and by Louis I, Duke of Anjou, the adopted son and heir of the imprisoned Queen Joan I of Naples, all supporters of his brother's claim to the papal throne. He was present at the deathbed of Amadeus at Castropignano on 1 March 1383. The Savoyard treasurer Pierre Voisin, in his final account, described Amadeus' death as occurring "on [the] first day of the month of March ... at about midnight, in the presence of Louis, duke of Calabria and Anjou, Lord Pierre, count of Geneva. . ."


Around 1377 Peter was employing a Jewish physician, Isaac de Portis.


Amadeus IV (died 1369) was the Count of Geneva from 1367 until his death. He was the second son of Amadeus III and Mahaut d'Auvergne. He succeeded his childless brother Aymon III in August 1367. He reversed the policy of his father and brother respecting the House of Savoy, and supported the bishops of Lausanne and Geneva against his cousin Amadeus VI of Savoy.


Amadeus seems to have come to terms with his Savoyard cousin by 13 May 1368, the date on which he performed the act of homage to him for the county of Geneva. He then travelled with the count of Savoy into Italy for the campaign to bring Philip II of Piedmont to submission, and was present at Philip's trial by a stacked Savoyard court at Rivoli in September–October 1368. It is possible that the real reason for his accompanying Amadeus into Italy was to have an opportunity to speak with the Emperor, who was also in the region at that time. In February 1369 the Emperor repeated his revocation of Amadeus VI's vicariate. Amadeus IV died later that year.


Rudolf or Rudolph (French: "Raoul" or "Rodolphe de Genève") was the Count of Geneva from 1252 until his death in 1265. He was the eldest son of William II, and was described by a Renaissance historian as “the more quarrelsome son of a quarrelsome father.” He was a constant warrior, and his most frequent foes were of the House of Savoy.


In 1250, when the Savoyards appeared to be engaged in a concerted effort to expand their territory, William II and Rudolf again went to war, this time mainly in defence of the Albert III of La Tour-du-Pin, who was William's brother-in-law and Rudolf's father-in-law, and whose lands were threatened by both Peter and his brother Philip. In the war Savoy defeated Geneva, and Philip imposed a “Carthaginian peace” on the losers. The indemnity had never been paid and was mercifully halved, and more castles were taken. It was a reduced patrimony that Rudolf inherited two years later.


In November 1252 William II died at Domène. Rudolf immediately acted to expand his shrunken county of Geneva. By arms he forced Simon of Joinville, the lord of Gex and son of Simon, lord of Joinville, to do him homage. He seized the castle at Charousse and expelled a creditor of “the Little Charlemagne”, who was holding it as security on a loan. For this castle he steadfastly refused to do homage to any Savoyard. When his aunt, Margaret, the dowager countess of Savoy, died in 1258, Rudolf took over the lands at Cornillon and the Val des Clefs that formed her dowry.


Rudolf died in 1265 and was succeeded by his son Aymon II, who was later succeeded by his brother Amadeus II.


Amadeus I of Geneva (1098–1178) was count of Geneva. He succeeded his father in the county's government in 1128, and remained count of Geneva until his death in 1178. Amadeus was the son of Aymon I of Geneva (the preceding count) and of Ida Faucigny.


During his lifetime Amadeus I added the city of Annecy to his territories, thereby increasing the power of his County.


He also sought the protection of the House of Zähringen, after losing the rights to the dioceses of Sion, Lausanne and Geneva. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1156 granted the rights to Berthold IV of Zähringen instead. However, Pope Alexander III took the bishop of Lausanne under his protection and superseded all claims to Lausanne, thereby reducing the power of the Duke of Zähringen. The three bishops of the dioceses in question, however, wanted to maintain autonomy from all parties concerned.


In 1162, Amadeus permitted the use of the land of Vaud, and the forests that belonged to him, by the Abbot of Haut-Crêt.


In 1178 Amadeus donated the vineyards and tithes collected in Bossey to the canons of the chapter of St. Pierre Cathedral in Geneva.


Amadeus was the son of Aymon I of Geneva (f. 1128) and Ida Faucigny, daughter of Sir Luís I of Faucigny. For two years Amadeus was married to the Lady Matilde of Cuiseaux, daughter of Hugo I of Cuiseaux, with whom he had:


In a second marriage (1137), with Lady Beatriz de Domène, daughter of Pierre Ainar of Domène, he had:


Aymon III or Aimon III (died 30/31 August 1367), a soldier, statesman and Crusader, was the twelfth Count of Geneva between January 1367 and his death seven months thence. He was the eldest son and successor of Amadeus III and Mahaut d'Auvergne. He pursued a policy of alliance and cooperation with the House of Savoy begun by his father. By all contemporary accounts, he was "handsome [and] possessed great charm of person and of manner."


On 23 May 1366, shortly before leaving on Crusade, Aymon made a written agreement to marry Margaret, eldest daughter of the late Henri de Joinville, Count of Vaudémont, but the marriage never took place because of his death.


William II ("floruit" 1208–1252) was the Count of Geneva, originally a usurper, from 1225 until his death. He fought a long series of wars with the House of Savoy and lost control of all of his county outside of the traditional Genevois and saw his influence over the city of Geneva proper and the Bishop of Geneva severely reduced.


William was the second son of Count William I of Geneva (died 1195) and younger brother of Count Humbert I of Geneva. When Humbert died in 1225, William seized the county and expelled Humbert's sons, his nephews, Peter and Ebal, who eventually found protection under Peter "le Petit Charlemagne", who had brought them with him to England by 1244. That year Peter, the elder, married a rich English heiress, Mathilda de Lacy. Peter "le Petit Charlemagne" was in fact William's nephew, a son of his sister Margaret.


In September 1229 at Tournon William was one of the arbiters of a dispute between the Bishop of Valence, William of Savoy, who was a brother of "le Petit Charlemagne", and the citizens of Valence. In 1234 he had his second son, Amadeus, installed as a canon in the Diocese of Lausanne. In 1239 Amadeus was successful in leading the pro-Genevan party over he pro-Savoyard in the episcopal election which placed Jean de Cossonay on the bishop's seat.


William II died at Domène in November 1252 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Rudolf, while his younger son, Henry, received the fortresses of Vuache and Ternier. Besides his sons Rudolf, Amadeus and Henry, William II had four others. One Savoyard Renaissance historian described William II as “quarrelsome”.


Aymon II (died 1280) was the Count of Geneva from 1265. He was the son and heir of Count Rudolf, but died heirless himself and was succeeded by his brother Amadeus II. According to one modern historian, he was “overawed by the power of the count of Savoy”, and did little during his fifteen-year reign to recover the lands and jurisdictions lost to the Savoyards by his father and grandfather.


In 1279 Aymon married Constance, a daughter of Gaston VII of Béarn and viscountess in her own right of Marsan and Bigorre. The marriage was arranged by Gaston's second wife, “la Grande Dauphine” Beatrice, who as a daughter of Peter II of Savoy and widow of Guigues VII of Viennois, was related to two traditional rivals of the counts of Geneva. Constance was twice widowed herself, having been married very briefly to Alfonso, a son of James I of Aragon, and to Henry of Almain, son of Richard, King of Germany. She bore him no children.


Late in his life, Aymon may have become involved an anti-Angevin alliance under the auspices of the Crown of Aragon. In 1280, Peter III of Aragon (James's son), who had a claim on the Kingdom of Sicily, then ruled by an Angevin, sent a secretive message, "to treat of certain affairs", to several princes who were threatened by Angevin power in the County of Provence and the Piedmont. Dalmau de Villarasa, the ambassador bearing the letters, was accredited to, among others, the count of Geneva.


William III of Geneva (, 1280 - 1320) was the Count of Geneva from 1308 to 1320. He was the son of count Amadeus II of Geneva, and Agnès, daughter of John, Count of Chalon.


William was the oldest son of the Count of Geneva, Amadeus II, and Agnès de Chalon, daughter of Jean I of Chalon from the House of Ivrea. He was born in the Region of Savoy-Maurienne, he had two other brothers Hugues, a layman, and Amédée who will become bishop of Toul from 1320 to 1330. His sister Jeanne married Guichard VI of Albon, nicknamed LeGrand, lord of Beaujeuet, his other sister Marie, married Jean II de Chalon-Arlay son of John I of Chalon-Arlay (1259-1316).<br>


In 1297, married Agnes of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy, with issue:


William also had an illegitimate son with Emeraude de La Frasse, lady of Montjoie:


William III accession to the throne, his father Count Amadeus, establishes his will at the castle of La Balme, September 24, 1306. In this act, he designates him as his successor and specifies that these brothers, Amédée and Hugues, will receive the castles of Varey, Mornex, , Rumilly-sous-Cornillon, and Cornillon, for the vicedominus des Bornes, for the rights on the market of La Roche, and for the lands and rents which he possesses in Vaud, all under the condition that they will be able to alienate these castles and rights only in favor of the heirs of Count. His father dies on May 22, 1308, near the Vuache castle.


The actual entry in function of Count William III is not known, Pierre Duparc gives the hypothesis of Jules Vuy who considered that the new count became sometime before the death of Amadeus. This observation is based on the analysis of a charter, not original, of 1308. The historian Matthieu de la Corbière; however, indicates "by a transaction concluded on May 29, his eldest son Guillaume took over".


Death and succession, on April 11, 1319, Count William establishes his will at the castle of Annecy naming heir his son Amédée. In the event that his son disappears, he makes his brothers, Hugues and Amédée his successors. In his will, he leaves a rent to his brothers, his mother, Agnès of Chalon, and his wife Agnès of Savoy, his dowry and the Valley of the Keys and the castle of Charousse. The act is supplemented by donations to the Church and its institutions.


Amadeus II (died 22 May 1308) was the Count of Geneva, which included the Genevois, but not the city of Geneva, from 1280 to 1308. He was the second son of Count Rudolf and succeeded his heirless brother Aymon II.


Amadeus died 22 May 1308 "apud lu Bacho", and was buried the next day (23 May) at Montagny.


Amadeus married Agnes, daughter of John, Count of Chalon, and his second wife, Laurette de Commercy, by a marriage contract drawn up 1 June 1285. She bore him three sons and two daughters who were still living at his death:


The Genevois is a former province of the Duchy of Savoy. Its capital is Annecy and other centres include Faverges, Thônes, and La Clusaz. It was bordered by the provinces of Carouge to the north-west, Faucigny to the north-east, and Savoy proper to the south-east and south-west.


Although the province took its name from the city of Geneva, the Counts of Geneva were never able to exercise their authority in the city itself, which was ruled by the Bishops of Geneva. The County of Geneva, having passed to the de Thoire et Villars family on the death of Count Robert (the Avignon Pope Clement VII) in 1394, was sold in 1401 to the Counts of Savoy. It was subsequently conceded in appanage to several Savoyard princes before being joined to the Duchy of Savoy in 1659.


The Valais witch trials consisted of a witch-hunt including a series of witch trials which took place in the Valais (the House of Savoy and the prince-bishopric of Sion), today part of Switzerland, beginning in 1428.


The Valais witch-hunt is the first of the systematic campaigns which would become much more widespread in the decades to come, initiating the period of witch trials in Europe.


The persecutions started in French-speaking Lower Valais (House of Savoy and prince-bishopric of Sion) and spread to German-speaking Upper Valais and to nearby valleys in the Western Alps.


They subsided after six to eight years (c. 1434/6), but the phenomenon spread further afield from here, to Vaud, Fribourg, Neuchatel, and beyond.


Although occasional burning of witches ("hexen") is recorded in Switzerland since the beginning of the 15th century, the Valais trials of 1428 are the first event in which the accusation of sorcery leads to systematic persecution with hundreds of victims executed.


The main contemporary account of the event is the short report by Johannes Fründ of Lucerne, written in c. 1430, possibly on the request of Christoph von Silenen, at the time castellan in Siders. It is extant in two versions, one in Lucerne (Zentralbibliothek BB 335, pp. 483-488), the other in Strasbourg (BNU Ms. 2. 935, ff. 162-164). The Lucerne version is older, and a probable autograph. This is the oldest known account of the incipient systematic witch-hunts of the 1430s to 1440s. A critical edition was published along with four other early texts on the topic by Ostorero et al. (1999).


The witch-trials emerged before the background of the persecution of the Waldensians in Fribourg (1399–1430), due to which a functioning inquisition with a seat in Lausanne had been established. Additionally, the Valais was at the time politically fragmented, in the wake of the rebellion of 1415–1420 and the weakening of Savoyard rule in Vaud.


The events began in Val d'Anniviers ("Enfis") and Val d'Hérens ("Urens"), the valleys south of Siders and Sion, respectively. Still, in the same year, the witch-hunt spread first throughout the French-speaking ("walche") Lower Valais and then to the German-speaking ("tutsche") Upper Valais.


By the summer of 1428, the entire Valais was affected. On 7 August, the authorities in Leuk issued a formal proclamation of the necessary procedures for a witch trial. According to this document, the "public talk or slander of three or four neighbours" was enough for arrest and imprisonment, even if the accused was a member of the nobility. The use of torture was reserved for victims "slandered by five, six, or seven or more persons, up to the number of ten, who were qualified to do so and not under suspicion themselves", but also those "accused by three persons who had been tried and sentenced to death for the practice of sorcery".


According to Fründ's account, the victims were accused of murder, heresy, and sorcery, being in pact with the devil. They were supposedly paying tribute to the devil, who appeared as a black animal such as a bear or a ram. The devil asked his followers to avoid holy mass and confession. Fründ relates that some of the accused were tortured to death without issuing a confession, while others did confess a variety of evil deeds, such as causing lameness, blindness, madness, miscarriage, impotence, infertility, and killing and eating their own children.


He also alludes to the topos of flying witches - saying that they would apply a salve to their chairs, and then ride the chairs wherever they wanted - and the witches sabbath, saying that the witches would meet in people's cellars at night and drink their wine, and meeting to listen to anti-Christian sermons by the devil in the form of a schoolmaster, with a mock-confession of any good-deeds they might have done, which would gain much influence in the early modern period. He even reports some of them being werewolves, killing livestock in the shape of a wolf, and knowing the recipe of an invisibility potion.


Others confessed to ruining crops (wine and grain) and causing livestock to give no milk and plowing teams to stand still.


The trials continued for several years more, well into the 1430s.


The number of victims is unknown, but ranges in the hundreds. Fründ speaks of a conspiracy of "700" witches of which "more than 200" had been burned two years into the trials (c. 1430).


Contrary to the later phase of the European witch-trials, when the majority of those accused were women, the victims in the Valais witch trials are estimated to have been two-thirds male and one-third female.


After the witch trials had subsided in Valais and Savoy, the phenomenon spread further in the decades leading up to the Reformation, to Fribourg and Neuchatel (1440), Vevey (1448), the bishopric of Lausanne and Lake Geneva area (c. 1460–1480) and Dommartin (1498, 1524-1528).


The influence of the Valais on the much larger phenomenon of the witch trials in the early modern period, lasting throughout the 16th and 17th centuries in much of Western Europe, may have been amplified by the Council of Basel which took place during the same period, during 1431–1437.


Here, theologians discussed the evidence for the new phenomenon of witchcraft and collected the court proceedings from the Valais, Vaud, and Savoy region. These documents were perused by the first generation of authors on witchcraft, such as Johannes Nider, the author of "Formicarius" (written 1436–1438).


Italian-occupied France was an area of south-eastern France and Monaco occupied by the Kingdom of Italy between 1940 and 1943 in parallel to the German occupation of France. The occupation had two phases, divided by Case Anton in November 1942 in which the Italian zone expanded significantly. Italian forces retreated from France in September 1943 in the aftermath of the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, and German Wehrmacht forces occupied the abandoned areas until the Liberation (Operation Dragoon, 1944).


The initial Italian occupation of France territory occurred in June 1940; it was then expanded in November 1942.


The German offensive against the Low Countries and France began on 10 May and by the middle of May German forces were on French soil. By the start of June, British forces were evacuating from the pocket in Northern France. On 10 June 1940, Italy declared war against the French and British. Ten days later, the Italian army invaded France. On 24 June 1940, after the Fall of France, Italy and France signed the Franco-Italian Armistice, two days after the cessation of hostilities between France and Germany, agreeing upon an Italian zone of occupation.


This initial zone of occupation annexed officially to the Kingdom of Italy was and contained 28,500 inhabitants. The largest town contained within the initial Italian zone of occupation was Menton. The main city inside the "demilitarized zone" of from the former border with the Italian Alpine Wall was Nice.


In November 1942, in conjunction with "Case Anton", the German occupation of most of Vichy France, the Royal Italian Army ("Regio Esercito") expanded its occupation zone. Italian forces took control of Toulon and all of Provence up to the river Rhône, with the island of Corsica (claimed by the Italian irredentists). Nice and Corsica were to be annexed to Italy (as had happened in 1940 with Menton), in order to fulfil the aspirations of Italian irredentists (including local groups such as the Nizzardo Italians and the Corsican Italians). But this was not completed because of the Italian armistice in September 1943 when the Germans took over the Italian occupation zones.


The area of southeast France actually occupied by the Italians has been disputed. A study of the postal history of the region has cast new light on the part of France controlled by the Italians and the Germans (Trapnell, 2014). By studying mail that had been censored by the occupying power, this study showed that the Italians occupied the eastern part up to a "line" joining Toulon - Gap - Grenoble - Chambéry - Annecy - Geneva. Places occupied by the Italians west of this were few or transitory.


The Italian Army of occupation in southern France in November 1942 was made up of four infantry divisions with 136,000 soldiers and 6,000 officers, while in Corsica there were 66,000 soldiers with 3,000 officers. There was virtually no guerrilla war against the Italians in France until summer 1943. The Vichy regime that controlled southern France was friendly toward Italy, seeking concessions of the sort Germany would never make in its occupation zone.


Many thousands of Jews moved to the Italian zone of occupation to escape Nazi persecution in Vichy France. Nearly 80% of the remaining 300,000 French Jews took refuge there after November 1942. The book Robert O. Paxton's "Vichy France, Old Guard, New Order" describes how the Italian zone acted as a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution in Vichy France during the occupation.


The Italian Jewish banker Angelo Donati had an important role in convincing the Italian civil and military authorities to protect the Jews from French persecution.


In January 1943 the Italians refused to cooperate with the Nazis in rounding up the Jews living in the occupied zone of France under their control and in March prevented the Nazis from deporting Jews in their zone. German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop complained to Mussolini that "Italian military circles... lack a proper understanding of the Jewish question."


However, when the Italians signed the armistice with the Allies, German troops invaded the former Italian zone on 8 September 1943 and initiated brutal raids. Alois Brunner, the SS official for Jewish affairs, was placed at the head of units formed to search out Jews. Within five months, 5,000 Jews were caught and deported.


In August 1940, the Italian Royal Navy ("Regia Marina") established a submarine base at Bordeaux, outside Italian-occupied France.


Operating from "Bordeaux Sommergibile" ("BETASOM") as it was known, thirty-two Italian submarines participated in the Battle of the Atlantic. These submarines sank 109 Allied merchant ships (593,864 tons) and 18 warships (20,000 tons) up to September 1943. Eleven of these submarines were lost.


The Bishopric of Courland (, Low German: "Bisdom Curland") was the second smallest (4500 km2) ecclesiastical state in the Livonian Confederation founded in the aftermath of the Livonian Crusade. During the Livonian War in 1559 the bishopric became a possession of Denmark, and in 1585 sold by Denmark to Poland–Lithuania.


In ancient times a Baltic tribe, the Curonians, inhabited Courland and had strong links with the maritime tribes in both sides of the Baltic sea. In 1230, Lamekinas, Duke of West Courland, signed an agreement with the vice-legat Baldwin of Alna ("Baudoin d’Aulne") of the Pope Gregory IX about the voluntary conversion of his people to Christianity and receiving the same rights as the inhabitants of Gotland.


In 1234 Dominican friar Engelbert was appointed to be the first bishop of Courland. In 1242 the area of Courland passed under the influence of the Teutonic Knights owing to the amalgamation of this order with that of the Brethren of the Sword in 1237. In 1253 the territory of Courland was divided between the Bishopric of Courland and the Livonian branch of the Order of Teutonic Knights. After severe defeat of knights in the Battle of Durbe the Bishop Heinrich von Lützelburg left Courland in 1263 and the new bishop returned in his bishopric only after suppression of Curonian and Semigallian insurgencies in 1290.


During the Livonian War (1558–1582), under the increasing pressure of Muscovy, the Livonian Confederation dissolved.


In 1559 the Bishop of Courland and Ösel-Wiek sold his lands to King Frederick II of Denmark for 30,000 thalers. The Danish king gave the territory to his younger brother Duke Magnus of Holstein. Duke Magnus was crowned King of Livonia in 1570. In 1577, having lost Ivan's favor and receiving no support from his brother, Magnus called on the Livonian nobility to rally to him in a struggle against foreign occupation. He was attacked by Ivan's forces and taken prisoner. On his release, he renounced his royal title.


Magnus spent the last six years of his life at the castle of Pilten, where he died as a pensioner of the Polish crown. He promised to transfer it to the Duchy of Courland after his death, but this plan failed and only later Wilhelm Kettler did regain this district. After Magnus of Livonia died in 1583, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth invaded his territories in the Duchy of Courland and Frederick II of Denmark decided to sell his rights of inheritance.


The valleys of the Alps have been inhabited since prehistoric times. The Alpine culture, which developed there, centers on transhumance.


Currently the Alps are divided among eight states: France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia. In 1991 the Alpine Convention was established to regulate this transnational area, whose area measures about .


The Wildkirchli caves in the Appenzell Alps show traces of Neanderthal habitation (about 40,000 BCE). During the Würm glaciation (up to c. 11700 BP), the entire Alps were covered in ice.


Anatomically modern humans reach the Alpine region by c. 30,000 years ago. MtDNA Haplogroup K (believed to have originated in the mid-Upper Paleolithic, between about 30,000 and 22,000 years ago, with an estimated age here of c. 12,000 years BP), is a genetic marker associated with southeastern Alpine region.


Traces of transhumance appear in the neolithic. In the Bronze Age, the Alps formed the boundary of the Urnfield and Terramare cultures.


The mummy found on the Ötztaler Alps, known as "Ötzi the Iceman," lived c. 3200 BC. At that stage the population in its majority had already changed from an economy based on hunting and gathering to one based on agriculture and animal husbandry. It is still an open question whether forms of pastoral mobility, such as transhumance (alpiculture), already existed in prehistory.


The earliest historical accounts date to the Roman period, mostly due to Greco-Roman ethnography, with some epigraphic evidence due to the Raetians, Lepontii and Gauls, with Ligurians and Venetii occupying the fringes in the southwest and southeast, respectively (Cisalpine Gaul) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.


The Rock Drawings in Valcamonica date to this period. A few details have come down to modern scholars of the conquest of many of the Alpine tribes by Augustus, as well as Hannibal's battles across the Alps.


Most of the local Gallic tribes allied themselves with the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, for the duration of which Rome lost control over most of Northern Italy. The Roman conquest of Italy was only complete after the Roman victory over Carthage, by the 190s BC.


Between 35 and 6 BC, the Alpine region was gradually integrated into the expanding Roman Empire. The contemporary monument Tropaeum Alpium in La Turbie celebrates the victory won by the Romans over 46 tribes in these mountains. The subsequent construction of roads over the Alpine passes first permitted southern and northern Roman settlements in the Alps to be connected, and eventually integrated the inhabitants of the Alps into the culture of the Empire. The upper Rhône valley or "Vallis Poenina" fell to the Romans after a battle at Octodurus (Martigny) in 57 BC. Aosta was founded in 25 BC as "Augusta Praetoria Salassorum" in the former territory of the Salassi. Raetia was conquered in 15 BC.


In the 7th century, much of the Eastern Alps were settled by Slavs. Between the 7th and 9th century, the Slavic principality of Carantania existed as one of the few non-Germanic polities in the Alps. The Alpine Slavs, who inhabited the majority of present-day Austria and Slovenia, were gradually Germanized from the 9th to the 14th century. The modern Slovenes are their southernmost descendants.


The successive emigration and occupation of the Alpine region by the Alemanni from the 6th to the 8th centuries are, too, known only in outline. For "mainstream" history, the Frankish and later the Habsburg empire, the Alps had strategic importance as an obstacle, not as a landscape, and the Alpine passes have consequently had great significance militarily.


Between 889 and 973, a Muslim community existed at Fraxinetum in the Western Alps. These "Saracens", as they were known, blocked the Alpine passes to Christian travelers until their expulsion by Christian forces led by Arduin Glaber in 973, at which point transalpine trade was able to resume.


Not until the final breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries is it possible to trace out the local history of different parts of the Alps, notably with the High Medieval Walser migrations.


Later Medieval to Early Modern Era (1200 to 1900).


The process of state formation in the Alps was driven by the proximity to focal areas of European conflicts such as in the Italian wars of 1494–1559. In that period the socio-political structures of Alpine regions drifted apart. One can identify three different developmental models: one of princely centralization (Western Alps), a local-communal one (Switzerland) and an intermediate one, characterised by a powerful nobility (Eastern Alps).


In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1516 of the Swiss Confederacy, at least so far as regards the mountain Cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese.


In the 15th century, the Forest Cantons won the Val Leventina as well as Bellinzona and the Val Blenio (though the Ossola Valley was held for a time only). Blenio was added to the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire in 960 by the emperor Otto I), along with the valleys of Mesocco and of Poschiavo.


In the case of the Western Alps (excluding the part from the chain of Mont Blanc to the Simplon Pass, which followed the fortunes of the Valais), a prolonged struggle for control took place between the feudal lords of Savoy, the Dauphiné and Provence. In 1349 the Dauphiné fell to France, while in 1388 the county of Nice passed from Provence to the house of Savoy, which also then held Piedmont as well as other lands on the Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by little France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the Alps, forcing it to become a purely Italian power.


One turning-point in the rivalry was the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France ceded to Savoy the Alpine districts of Exilles, Bardonnèche (Bardonecchia), Oulx, Fenestrelles, and Châtean Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in this long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy, thus remaining sole ruler on the western slope of the Alps.


For the modern era it is possible to offer a quantitative estimate of the population of the Alpine region. Within the area delimited by the Alpine Convention, there were about 3.1 million inhabitants in 1500, 5.8 in 1800, 8.5 in 1900 and 13.9 in 2000.


During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries several important changes occurred. First, the Alpine population was now characterised by a particular growth rate, which was increasingly differentiated from that of the more dynamic non-mountain areas. Second, the migratory fluxes became ever more important and ever more directed toward extra-European destinations. Beginning in the early twentieth century, several regions were affected by depopulation. This process amplified the imbalanced distribution of the population within the Alps, because the urban centres at lower altitudes experienced strong growth and clearly became the most important dynamic localities during the twentieth century.


In general, it is noteworthy that even if modern industry – tourism, the railway and later the highway system – represented opportunities for the Alps, complementing its traditional openness to new challenges, it also produced negative consequences, such as the human impact on the environment.


Like other parts of Europe, the Alpine region was affected by the formation of the nation states that produced tensions between various groups and had consequences for border areas. In these regions, the coercive power of the state was felt much more strongly that it had been before. Borders lost their permeability and now bisected areas formerly characterised by a shared sense of community and ongoing exchanges. During World War I the eastern Alpine region was one of the epicentres of the conflict.


The fascination that the Alps exerted on the British has to be related to the general increase in charm and appeal of this mountain range during the eighteenth century. Yet British particularities were involved as well. Traditionally, many Englishmen felt the attraction of the Mediterranean, which was associated with the practice of the Grand Tour, and thus had to cross Europe and the Alps to reach it. From a place of transit, the Alps turned into a tourist destination as the flow of people and means of transport increased. Moreover, with the invention of new sports the Alps became an area of experimental training. The Alps offered many mountain climbers a degree of difficulty that fit their expectations.


The convergence of these phenomena granted to Alpine tourism a central position. It intensified from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and, in spite of fluctuations, would never lose its importance. Railway companies, travel guides, travelogues and travel agents joined forces to make the Alps a prestigious tourist destination. With Thomas Cook in particular, the Alps appeared, as early as 1861, in the catalog of tourist offers and were instrumental in the establishment of a “truly international industry” of tourism. This industry developed the infrastructure: railway lines, hotels and other services such as casinos, promenades, improvements, and funiculars.


The conquest of the Alps by British tourists was achieved along with their domestication and with the passionate participation of local, regional and national élites, be they political, economic or cultural. Leslie Stephen, in a best-selling book first published in 1871, defined the Alps as “the Playground of Europe.” The book highlights the incredible success of the mountains but it also reflects the tensions that emerged among their visitors. There was a clash between the “real enthusiasts,” sensitive to beauty, and the “flock of ordinary tourists” sticking to their customs and comforts.


The Alps are at the crossroads of the French, Italian, German and South Slavic linguistic sprachraums. They also act as a linguistic refugium, preserving archaic dialects such as Romansh, Walser German or Romance Lombardic. Extinct languages known to have been spoken in the Alpine region include Rhaetic, Lepontic, Ligurian and Langobardic.


As a result of the complicated history of the Alpine region, the native language and the national feelings of the inhabitants do not always correspond to the current international borders. The Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, which was annexed by Italy after World War I, has a German-speaking majority in the northern province of South Tyrol. There are Walser German speakers to found in northern Italy near the Swiss border. There are some French and Franco-Provencal-speaking districts in the Italian Aosta Valley, while there are clusters of Slovene-speakers in the Italian portion of the Julian Alps, in the Resia Valley (where the archaic Resian dialect of Slovene is still spoken) and in the mountain district known as Venetian Slovenia.


White Croats (; ; ; ), or simply known as Croats, were a group of Early Slavic tribes who lived among other West and East Slavic tribes in the area of modern-day Lesser Poland, Galicia (north of Carpathian Mountains), Western Ukraine, and Northeastern Bohemia. They were documented primarily by foreign medieval authors and managed to preserve their ethnic name until the early 20th century, primarily in Lesser Poland. It is considered that they were assimilated into Czech, Polish and Ukrainian ethnos, and are one of the predecessors of the Rusyn people. In the 7th century, some White Croats migrated from their homeland, White Croatia, to the territory of modern-day Croatia in Southeast Europe along the Adriatic Sea, forming the ancestors of the South Slavic ethnic group of Croats.


It is generally believed that the Croatian ethnonym - "Hrvat", "Horvat" and "Harvat" - etymologically is not of Slavic origin, but a borrowing from Iranian languages. According to the most plausible theory by Max Vasmer, it derives from "*(fšu-)haurvatā-" (cattle guardian), more correctly Proto-Ossetian / Alanian *"xurvæt-" or *"xurvāt-", in the meaning of "one who guards" ("guardian, protector").


It is considered that the ethnonym is first attested in anthroponyms Horoúathos, Horoáthos, and Horóathos on the two Tanais Tablets, found in the Greek colony of Tanais at the shores of Sea of Azov in the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD, at the time when the colony was surrounded by Iranian-speaking Sarmatians. However, acceptance of any non-Slavic etymology is problematic because it implies an ethnogenesis relationship with the specific ethnic group. There is no mention of an Iranian tribe named as "Horoat" in the historical sources, but it was not uncommon for Slavic tribes to get their tribal names from anthroponyms of their forefathers and chiefs of the tribe, like in the case of Czechs, Dulebes, Radimichs, and Vyatichi.


Any mention of the Croats before the 9th century is uncertain, and there were several loose attempts at tracing; "Struhates", "Auhates", and Krobyzoi by Herodotus, "Horites" by Orosius in 418 AD, and the "Harus" (original form "Hrws", some read "Hrwts"; "Hros", "Hrus") at the Sea of Azov, near the mythical Amazons, mentioned by Zacharias Rhetor in 550 AD. The "Hros" some relate to the ethnonym of the Rus' people. The distribution of the Croatian ethnonym in the form of toponyms in later centuries is considered to be hardly accidental because it is related with Slavic migrations to Central and South Europe.


The epithet "white" for the Croats and their homeland is related to the use of colors for cardinal directions among Eurasian people. That is, it meant "Western Croats", or "Northern Croats", in comparison to lands where they lived before. The epithet "great" signified an "old, ancient" or "former" homeland, for the Croats when they were new arrivals in the Roman province of Dalmatia.


Although the early medieval Croatian tribes in the scholarship are often called as White Croats, there's a scholarly dispute whether it is a correct term as some scholars differentiate the tribes according to separate regions and that the term implies only the medieval Croats who lived in Central Europe.


The first Iranian tribes who lived on the shores of the Sea of Azov were Scythians, who arrived there c. 7th century BCE. Around the 6th century BCE the Sarmatians began their migration westwards, gradually subordinating the Scythians by the 2nd-century BCE. During this period there was substantial cultural and linguistic contact between the Early Slavs and Iranians, and in this environment were formed the Antes. Antes were Slavic people who lived in that area and to the West between Dniester and Dnieper from the 4th until the 7th century. It is thought that the Croats were part of the Antes tribal polity who migrated to Galicia in the 3rd-4th century, under pressure by invading Huns and Goths.


Nestor the Chronicler in his "Primary Chronicle" (12th century) mentions the White Croats, calling them "Horvate Belii" or "Hrovate Belii", the name depending upon which manuscript of his is referred to:


Most what is known about the early history of White Croats comes from the work by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII, "De Administrando Imperio" (10th century). In the 30th chapter, "The Story of the Province of Dalmatia" Constantine wrote:


Croats seemingly were not recorded by the Bavarian Geographer (9th century), however, some scholars assumed that the unknown "Sittici" ("a region with many peoples and heavily fortified cities") and "Stadici" ("an infinite population with 516 gords") were part of the Carpathian Croats tribal polity, or that the Croats were part of these unknown tribal designations in Prykarpattia. Others saw "Lendizi" (98), "Vuislane", "Sleenzane" (50), "Fraganeo" (40; Prague), "Lupiglaa" (30 gords), "Opolini" (20), and "Golensizi" (5) as possible tribes of Croats. Lehr-Spławiński, Łowmiański and others concluded that Vistulans and Lendians because of their mention and described location in different sources were tribes behind which were hidden Croats.


In the Hebrew book "Josippon" (10th century) are listed four Slavic ethnic names from Venice to Saxony; "Mwr.wh" (Moravians), "Krw.tj" (Croats), "Swrbjn" (Sorbs), "Lwcnj" (Lučané or Lusatians). Since the Croats are placed between Moravians and Serbs it identified the Croatian realm with the Duchy of Bohemia.


To the upper accounts by the historians were related the Vladimir the Great's conquest of the Cherven Cities in 981, and "Annales Hildesheimenses" note that Vladimir threatened to attack the Duke of Poland, Bolesław I the Brave (992 to 1025), in 992. Polish chronicler Wincenty Kadłubek in his "Chronica Polonorum" (12-13th century) recounted that Bolesław I the Brave conquered some "Hunnos seu Hungaros, Cravatios et Mardos, gentem validam, suo mancipavit imperio"". The occurrence of the Croatian name among the people, and the fact during the period of Bolesław I the Brave the Polish realm expanded to the territory later-known as Lesser Poland, indicates that the mentioned Croats most probably lived on the territory of Lesser Poland.


Thietmar of Merseburg recorded in 981 toponym "Chrvuati vicus" (also later recorded in 11th-14th century), which is present-day Großkorbetha, between Halle and Merseburg in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The "Chruuati" (901) and "Chruuati" (981) near Halle. In charter by Henry II is recorded "Chruazzis" (1012), by Henry III as "Churbate" (1055), by Henry IV as "Grawat" (also "Curewate", 1086). This settlement today is Korbetha on river Saale, near Weißenfels.


In the 10th-12th centuries Croatian name can be often found in the territory of March and Duchy of Carinthia, as well March and Duchy of Styria. In 954, Otto I in his charter mentions župa "Croat" - ""hobas duas proorietatis nostrae in loco Zuric as in pago Crouuati et in ministerio Hartuuigi", and again in 961 "pago Crauuati". The "pago Chruuat" is also mentioned by Otto II (979), and "pago Croudi" by Otto III.


One of the legendary figures Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv who founded Kiev, brother Khoryv or Horiv, and its oronym Khorevytsia, is often related to the Croatian ethnonym. This legend, recorded by Nestor, has similar Armenian transcript from the 7th-8th century, in which Horiv is mentioned as "Horean". Paščenko related his name, beside to the Croatian ethnonym, to solar deity Hors. Near Kiev there's a stream where previously existed large homonymous village Horvatka or Hrovatka (destroyed in the time of Joseph Stalin), which flows into Stuhna River. In the vicinity are parts of the Serpent's Wall.


Scholars consider that Croats could have been mentioned in the Old English and Nordic epic poems. The verse in Old English poem "Widsith" (10th century):


The Hræda is genitive plural of *"Hraede", and is usually related with the Goths ("Hred-Gotum", "Hreth-Gotan", "Hreidhgotar"). However, this verse is similar to the one in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (13th century), where prior the battle between Goths and Huns, Heidrek died in "Harvaða fjöllum" (Carpathian Mountains) which is sometimes translated as "beneath the mountains of Harvathi", considered somewhere beneath Carpathian Mountains near river Dnieper. Lewicki argued that Anglo-Saxons, as in the case of Alfred the Great where called Croats "Horithi", often distorted foreign Slavic names.


The legendary Czech hermit from the 9th century, , is mentioned as the son of certain king Gestimul or Gostimysl, who according to the Czech chronicles descended from the Croats or Obotrites.


Polish writer Kazimierz Władysław Wóycicki released work "Pieśni ludu Białochrobatów, Mazurów i Rusi z nad Bugu" in 1836. In 1861, in the statistical data about population in Volhynia governorship released by Mikhail Lebedkin, were counted Horvati with 17,228 people. According to United States Congress Joint Immigration Commission which ended in 1911, Polish immigrants to the United States born in around Kraków reportedly declared themselves as Bielochrovat (i.e. White Croat), which with Krakus and Crakowiak/Cracovinian was "names applying to subdivisions of the Poles".


The Northern Croats contributed and assimilated into Czech, Polish and Ukrainian ethnos. They are considered as the predecessors of the Rusyns, specifically Dolinyans, Boykos, Hutsuls, and Lemkos.


By the 7th century the Croats had established and fortified Horods (Gord), which became a commerce and trade centers. Galicia was an important geographical location because it connected via an overland route Kiev in the East with Kraków, Buda, Prague and other cities in the West, as well as northwest to the Baltic Sea and southeast to the Black Sea. Along these routes were founded the settlements of Przemyśl, Zvenyhorod, Terebovlia, Halych, and Uzhhorod, of which the last was ruled by a mythical ruler Laborec.


The Republic was headed by Jaroslav Kacmarcyk as President of the Central National Council. It was ended by the Polish government in March 1920. Its fate was sealed by the September 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain, which gave Galicia west of the San to Poland and by the Peace of Riga in March 1921 whereby the fait accompli was recognized by Moscow.


This state should not be confused with the Komancza Republic of eastern Lemkivshchyna, another short-lived republic. This was a smaller pro-Ukrainian state that existed between November 1918 and 23 January 1919.


On 5 December 1918, the Republic's delegates issued the statement: "We, the Rusyn nation, living in a compact settlement in the southern parts of the Galician administrative units of Nowy Targ and in Sanok. Do not wish to be incorporated into the Polish state, and wish to share the fate of our Rusyn brothers [living] in Spiš, Šariš, and Zemplín counties as one indivisible geographic and ethnographic unit."


Saint Parthenius (died 3rd century) was an early Christian saint and martyr from Rome of Armenian origin. He is venerated in both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. His brother was Saint Calocerus. He is the patron of Galicia and included in their list of Orthodox saints.


While serving as a eunuch in his wife's palace, Parthenius was accused by Roman emperor Decius with embezzlement of Anatolia's money, and with the capital crime of Christianity. Ignoring the financial accusations, Parthenius and his brother defended the Christian faith. The court took their defense as an admission of their Christianity and sentenced them to death. Parthenius was thrown into a bonfire but did not burn. In order to carry out his sentence, guards took flaming brands from the fire and beat him to death. He was buried in the catacombs under Saint Callixtus.


In the 18th century, relics of St. Parthenius were moved to Vienna. In 1784, with the permission of Pope Pius VI, the relics were moved to Zhovkva in Eastern Galicia (then Austrian Empire, nowadays western Ukraine). They are now preserved in the Basilian Ukrainian Greek-Catholic monastery of Holy Jesus Heart in Zhovkva.


The Battle of Zawichost (1205) was a battle fought between Roman the Great of Galicia-Volhynia and Leszek I the White of Lesser Poland, along with his brother, Konrad I of Masovia. After declaring war and invading Lesser Poland, Roman and his forces (druzhina) were ambushed by the Poles in the vicinity of Zawichost by the Vistula (Visla) River. In the tumult that followed, Roman was killed and the Polish victory would lead to Poland's growing power and the weakening of Rus'.