Sardinia to try once more the contest which had proved so disastrous
eleven years before. The King, Victor Emmanuel II, prepared for war
against Austria. The French joined him, so did the little North Italian
States, and their combined forces were victorious at Magenta and
Solferino. [Footnote: See _Battles of Magenta and Solferino_.]

Napoleon had declared that the combat should not cease until the
Austrians were driven entirely out of Italy. As the price of his
alliance he secured Nice and Savoy from Sardinia; and then, immediately
after the bloody Battle of Solferino he suddenly changed front and
declared that the war must cease. Austria yielded Lombardy, but kept
Venice, the last of the possessions for which during more than three
hundred years she had been battling in Italy. The Kingdom of Sardinia
became the Kingdom of Northern Italy.

The next year (1860) Garibaldi, the lion-like fighter, the enthusiastic
lover of Italy, gathering round him a thousand followers, made an
unexpected attack on Sicily, which was held by the tyrant King of
Naples. With his celebrated "Thousand" he won two remarkable victories.
The Sicilians joined him; the Neapolitans were driven from the island.
Not giving them time to recover, Garibaldi followed to the mainland,
defeated them again, and was master of all Southern Italy. Meanwhile
Victor Emmanuel, marching his troops southward, seized what was left of
the States of the Church. The two conquerors met midway in Italy, and
Garibaldi, grasping his sovereign by the hand, saluted him as King at
last of a united Italy. Only Rome and Venice remained outside the pale,
Rome protected by being in actual possession of the Pope, and, since
France was still Catholic, guarded by French troops from the eager
Italians. The year 1860 had been second only to 1848 in its importance
in changing the outlines of modern Europe. [Footnote: See _The Kingdom