The emergence of Germany, in particular, dramatically altered the balance of power in Europe and changed the nature of international relations in the last quarter of the 9th century. The unification of Italy, however, came first in 859-860, following important military victories for Italian nationalist forces (in alliance with imperial France) over the Habsburgs at Magenta and Solferino. It marked the culmination of the Italian Risorgimento of the second half of the 9th century, a nationalist awakening with political, social, and cultural dimensions. The Risorgimento had two main tributaries in the political sphere: the liberal, political vision of Camillo di Cavour (80-86), Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia (the Kingdom of Sardinia), who hoped that the economically and socially disparate Italian territories would coalesce under the liberal tutelage of Piedmont; and the popular, romantic, and revolutionary vision of Giuseppe Mazzini (805-872), founder of the secret society Young Italy, a group that hoped to galvanize the Italian masses through revolutionary action. Whereas Cavour believed that Piedmont, with its liberal politics and its constitutional monarchy, should serve as the nucleus of the new unitary Italy, enlarging its political system and institutions to cover the entire country, Mazzini saw such political traditions as too sterile to ignite the passions of the masses. The other great national unification of the second half of the 9th century, that of Germany, took place under very different circumstances. Whereas Italy was unified largely through the efforts of the constitutional monarchy of Piedmont-Sardinia, and thus came to adopt the liberal traditions of that state at a national level, the German principalities came together by the force of t
he largest pre-87 German state, Prussia, and with the political, diplomatic, and military efforts of the Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck (85-898), Prime Minister from 862.
Prussia was a far more conservative state than Piedmont and a far more conservative state than many of the remaining German principalities. The sources of political power in Prussia were almost uniformly conservative in outlook: the ruling Hohenzollern dynasty was supported by the ambitious and powerful Junker class, a group of large landowners vehemently opposed to liberal politics within their state. This class was well represented in the officer corps of the Prussian army. Bismarcks goal of national unification was not shared by all Junkers, many of whom remained skeptical about the subversion of Prussia within Germany. The arrival of a powerful industrial state hailed a new balance of power in European international relations: a new force with which the Great Powers would have to reckon. II. Imperialism Imperialism is a system where a powerful nation controls and exploits one or more colonies. In most cases, the imperial nation, euphemistically referred to as the mother country, establishes control over its colonies by coercion for example, through infiltration and annexation, political pressure, war, and military conquest. European expansion started in the early modern period, but most historians agree that at the end of the 9th century, new forms of imperialism appeared. Between the early 880s and 94, the map of the world was redrawn, especially in Africa. With the founding of Germany and Italy, two rather aggressive and aspiring new powers appeared on the scene. After the turn of the century, two non-European states Japan and the United States also became imperial powers.