Four great personalities fill the period from 1840 to 1860--“each was complementary in his life work to the other”--Mazzini, Cavour, Garibaldi, and behind them all, displaying rare wisdom and common sense at every crisis, the warrior king, Victor Emmanuel II. Mazzini has been called the Prophet of Italian unity; Cavour, its Statesman; and Garibaldi, its Knight-Errant. Of these three, Mazzini is most difficult to understand. The secondary student will find it next to impossible to enter into the far-reaching, although somewhat Utopian, schemes of this great Italian publicist. It is enough perhaps to point out how, by organizing Young Italy, he created the necessary enthusiasm among his countrymen to make possible the work of Cavour and Garibaldi.
Neither is Cavour’s public career devoid of difficulties. The attention of the class should be confined here to his efforts to place Sardinia on a sound economic basis, and at the same time secure for her the support and friendship of the great powers of Europe. The ambitions of Napoleon III, who dominated European politics prior to 1870, were utilized by the great state-maker in the furtherance of these plans. (See also Cesaresco, Cavour, Preface, for an outline of the policy of Cavour.)
When the “epoch of realization” (1859-1870) has been reached, several plans are open to the instructor for presenting the various steps in the process of state-making. Beginning with the Crimean War, it is possible to associate the various acquisitions of territory with the wars which fill the period, namely, the Austro-Sardinian War, the Six Weeks’ War and the Franco-Prussian struggle; or to deal with the successive additions of territory as such, emphasizing the date and circumstances attending each. (See Seignobos, p. 351.) In the first case, emphasis is placed on the means employed; in the second, on the end attained. In either case reference should be made to the eagerness of the people to join with Sardinia, as shown in the plebiscites. If the second plan be followed, it will be easier to introduce Garibaldi. The episode of the Thousand offers material for an interesting report. In this connection mention might be made of a recent work by G. M. Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Thousand.