Napoleon III and Cavour were mutually indebted because he had withdrawn from the Second Italian War of Independence before the expected conquest of Veneto, and because he had allowed the uprisings to spread to the territories of central-northern Italy, thus going beyond what was agreed with the Plombières Agreement.

The political stalemate was resolved on 24 March 1860, when Cavour signed the cession of the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice to France with the Treaty of Turin (1860), obtaining in exchange the consent of the French emperor to the annexation of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia.

[10] In fact, the United Kingdom, which together with France dominated North Africa, did not want Napoleon III to extend his influence on the Italian peninsula to have greater control of the Mediterranean Sea.

When the idea of a conference regarding the reorganization of Italy following recent events circulated in European diplomatic circles in late 1859, Francis II proved indifferent, not taking the opportunity to show an active presence internationally.

[16] Lorenzo del Boca suggested that British support for Garibaldi's expedition was spurred by the necessity to obtain more favourable economic conditions for Sicilian sulfur, which was needed in great quantities for munitions.

[29] The populations of the provinces of the peninsular part are generally close to the Bourbon dynasty, as demonstrated by the success of the Sanfedist movement which overthrew the Parthenopean Republic in 1799 by massacring the Jacobins of the Kingdom of Naples, as well as the anti-French of the period 1806–15.

[39] Sicily, as shown by the history of the past decades, was fertile ground, and the liberal south, especially those returning after an amnesty granted by the young king, who worked in this direction for some time.

Furthermore, the Bourbon commanders, ignoring the recommendations of the secret services of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, just one day before the landing, had the column of General Letizia and Major d'Ambrosio repatriated to Palermo to face the insurrectionary threat in the Sicilian capital.

[64] The neutrality of the English navy was confirmed during the following battle of Palermo, when Garibaldi, left almost without gunpowder, requested it in vain from the commanders of the war fleets moored off the coast of the city.

On 6 June the Bourbon troops defending the Sicilian capital capitulated in exchange for permission to leave the city, asking for the honor of arms, which Garibaldi granted as they were also Italian.

Giacomo Medici and Enrico Cosenz were joined by 33 Englishmen, as well as the socialist Paul de Flotte [fr][83] who was the only foreign Garibaldian to obtain, posthumously, the Medal of the Thousand.

[54]: 63 Meanwhile the dictatorial government was taking shape, on 2 June in Palermo, six ministries were created by Garibaldi: War, Interior, Finance, Justice, Public Education and Worship, Foreign Affairs and Commerce.

An insurrection that had broken out in Catania on 31 May, led by Nicola Fabrizi, was crushed by the local garrison, but the order to leave for Messina meant that this Bourbon tactical success would have no practical results.

[89] On 3 June the royal troops retreated from Catania by land towards Messina, escorted from the sea by a warship followed by other chartered ships loaded with ammunition and everything they had been able to take from the city they had abandoned.

His passage to Lucania ended without problems, since the pro-dictatorial government was established well before his arrival (19 August), due to the contribution of Giacinto Albini [it] and Pietro Lacava [it], authors of the Lucanian insurrection in favor of national unity.

[104] István Türr acted with caution, ordering the shooting of only two of the ringleaders of the massacre and the violence, without giving in to the demands of the local liberals who would have instead wanted a much more extensive punishment for at least a dozen of those responsible.

[106][107] The episodes of reaction against the liberals and supporters of the unity of Italy continued and were often bloody as reported by the press of the time in the case of the Lauro massacre in the then Terra di Lavoro, which occurred with great brutality.

King Victor Emmanuel II then decided to intervene with his army to annex Marche and Umbria, still in the hands of the Papal State, and thus unite the north and south of Italy.

The Papal Army was led by Louis Juchault de Lamoricière, though Pope Pius IX's hope that Napoleon III and Franz Josef I of Austria would come to his aid was unfounded.

The decision was subsequently explained by Garibaldi that the exaggerated flattery of which he had been the subject of many respected people, who until shortly before had been Bourbons and who very quickly proclaimed themselves Garibaldines, as well as expressing criticism towards other protagonists of the events of that period.

The flag of the Constitutional Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a white field charged with the royal coat of arms, was modified by Ferdinand II during revolutions of 1848 through the addition of a red and green border.

Recognition by the Netherlands and Belgium occurred in two phases; they recognized the new title of Victor Emmanuel II in July, then the kingdom in November, after a long clash between conservatives and liberals in the Belgian parliament over the latter.

[141][142] This narrative, spread by neo-bourbonian revisionist in the 1990s, has been definitively denied by more recent studies; the Bourbon prisoners who passed through Fenestrelle were 1,186, the duration of imprisonment was three weeks and the deaths, due to illness or consequences of the wounds, were only five.

After believing that Giuseppe Garibaldi, who conveyed the image of protector of the oppressed, would improve their living conditions, farmers and the poorest sections of the population instead had to face higher taxes and compulsory conscription.

[96] Many liberals of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies who responded to the appeal for the unification of Italy were disappointed as the political situation remained substantially unchanged since the development achieved under Bourbon rule suddenly stopped.

The clergy were disappointed, both by the loss of Umbria and the Marche belonging to the Papal State, and by the frequent expropriations of ecclesiastical assets, the suppression of religious orders and the closure of numerous schools of social utility.

In the following years, the rise of local resistance (the so-called brigantaggio or brigandage), required at one point the presence of some 140,000 Piedmontese troops to maintain control of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Some historians see in Giuseppe Garibaldi's enterprise the origin of complex phenomena such as post-unification brigandage, the north-south imbalance, the absent emigration in the South before unification and the Southern Question.

[151] Some schools of thought believe that traditional historiography has proposed a hagiographic vision of the Expedition of the Thousand, to be linked to the damnatio memoriae that struck the fallen Bourbon dynasty and to the violent repression of brigandage by the new Kingdom of Italy.

In reality, the Bourbon generals were divided by rivalries and jealousies, with a tendency to dodge responsibilities to overcome, as best they could, that difficult moment, not being convinced that it was worth fighting at the risk of life or reputation for a king who was neither loved nor feared.