tates
were inhabited by people speaking the same language and having the
same ideals and customs, they seemed to be unable to combine. One of
the results of this was the fact that the country adjoining on the
north, Austria, was meddling continually with Italian affairs and
attempting to gain a lasting influence over them. There were too
many racial differences, however, between the two countries to
permit an arrangement of this nature to continue for any length of
time without causing serious conflicts. Statesmen in the various
Italian states finally became convinced that it would be only a
question of time before some foreign nation would succeed in
dominating them unless they would be able to consolidate and show a
united front to any and all outsiders.

The difficulties in the way of Italian unification were manifold.
For our purposes, however, we are not interested in them or in the
means by which they were overcome beyond the fact that they finally
were overcome, and that as early as 1859 a large number of the
different Italian states had been united with the assistance of
Napoleon III under the rule of Victor Emmanuel II, originally King
of Sardinia and Piedmont. In that year, however, after Austria had
been driven out of Lombardy through the combined efforts of Italian
and French troops, Napoleon III suddenly arrived at an understanding
with Francis Joseph, and peace was concluded between France and
Austria. This left in the hands of the Austrians still an important
part of northern Italy known as the Quadrilateral. Rome, too, and a
considerable territory surrounding it, known as the Papal State, was
not included in the newly formed kingdom of Italy, the pope refusing
to give up his temporal powers and Napoleon III supporting him in
that refusal to the extent of maintaining French troops in Rome.

The Austro-Prussian War of 1866, as we have already shown, had
important results for Italy. For previous to its breaking out
Prussia had concluded a treaty with Italy, and when hostilities
began between Austria and Prussia, Italy immediately attacked her
old enemy. When peace was concluded between Prussia and Austria,
Prussia insisted, in order to reward her southern ally, that Austria
should relinquish practically all of her Italian possessions. Four
years later, in 1870, the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War
necessitated the withdrawal of the French troops from Rome, and
immediately after that event the forces o