The Armistice of Villafranca, concluded by Napoleon III of France and Franz Joseph I of Austria on July 11, 1859, set the stage for the end of the Second Italian War of Independence.
It was the consequence of a unilateral decision by France, which, at war alongside the Kingdom of Sardinia against Austria, needed to conclude peace because of the danger of the conflict spreading to Central Europe.
The armistice of Villafranca caused the resignation of Piedmontese Prime Minister Cavour, who considered it a violation of the Sardinian-French treaty of alliance. The latter provided for the cession of the entire Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia to Piedmont, unlike the terms of the armistice, which stipulated the cession of Lombardy alone (in its current extent except the Province of Mantua).
The armistice, which King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia also signed on July 12, was ratified by the Treaty of Zürich of November 1859.
From the Sardinian-French alliance to Villafranca
Beginning with the signing of the Treaty of Defensive Alliance between France and the Kingdom of Sardinia on January 26, 1859, Piedmontese Prime Minister Cavour began preparations for the liberation of northern Italy and the inevitable war with Austria. In the face of military preparations, Austrian grievances were not long in coming, and on April 24, 1859, Cavour, after rejecting Vienna's ultimatum instructing the Kingdom of Sardinia to demobilize its army, received a declaration of war from Austria.
Napoleon III's France honored the alliance with the Kingdom of Sardinia, initiating the Second Italian War of Independence. During the conflict, the Sardinian-French army achieved two important victories: the one at Magenta (June 4, 1859) and the very bloody one at Solferino (June 24, 1859). The defeated Austrian army retreated east of the Mincio River while in Paris, contrary to Cavour's hopes, Napoleon III began to consider the possibility of an armistice with Vienna. Important domestic and international political events were, in fact, dangerously ripening for France.
The situation in Europe
Almost isolated in his country by his decision to ally with the Kingdom of Sardinia and provoke a war in Italy, Napoleon III found himself in June 1859 facing the international consequences of his decision.
After the Battle of Magenta, Prussian Prince Regent Wilhelm moved closer to the positions of the party hostile to France, which defined Prussia as a party to a conflict involving Austria, a member and leader of the Germanic Confederation.
As the Sardinian-French army approached the Mincio, Prussia therefore decided on June 11, 1859, to mobilize six army corps to form an army to be deployed along the Rhine on the French border.
Later, however, on the 24th, Prussia formalized a proposal for mediation to Britain and Russia to examine with the two great powers the means by which peace could be restored in Europe. The latter initiative was an attempt by Prussian Foreign Minister Alexander von Schleinitz (1807-1885) to postpone the decision of a crisis with France.
In Britain the Prussian proposal for mediation was not received with particular interest: the new Liberal prime minister Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, although closer to French positions than his predecessor Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby was hampered by the Conservative followers in the government and by Queen Victoria, so the new executive differed little from the old one.
The proposal found a different reception in Saint Petersburg, where Ambassador Otto von Bismarck, the future chancellor, reported to Berlin of the favorable Russian disposition to joint mediation. At the same time Tsar Alexander II decided that he could go no further in favor of France. Russia was unable to seriously protect it from Prussia, since it was already engaged in the onerous problem of serfdom.
The situation in France
Faced with Prussian mobilization, British indifference, and a weak Russian demeanor, Napoleon III also faced an internal crisis.
Firmly opposed to the war in France were Foreign Minister Alexandre Walewski, moderate Catholic and conservative circles, Empress Eugénie, and War Minister Jacques Louis Randon.
Walewski communicated to Napoleon III the warning that came to him indirectly from St. Petersburg, that if the Sardinian-French army violated the territory of the German Confederation (in the Trentino region for example), even if only with Giuseppe Garibaldi's volunteers, Prussia would go to war with the other German states against France. The situation thus threatened to spiral out of Napoleon III's control.
He had, however, also to be wary of the Prussian hypothesis of mediation by Prussia, Britain and Russia, since peace would have appeared as imposed by Europe on France, which at the Congress of Paris (1856) had, instead, appeared to be the arbiter of the continent.
Resolved, therefore, to pursue the road to peace, Napoleon III, without waiting for the outcome of a listless British attempt to communicate France's intentions to Austria, sent General Émile Félix Fleury (1815-1884) on July 6, 1859, to the headquarters of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph with a proposal for an armistice.
The truce (July 6–8, 1859)
Leaving at dusk on July 6, 1859, from Valeggio, the parliamentary flag carriage of Napoleon III's first squire, Fleury, encountered enemy outposts two miles from Verona. In this town the French carriage arrived at the Austrian headquarters, escorted by a squad of Habsburg cavalry, at nightfall. Napoleon III demanded a truce, which astonished the young Austrian monarch, who, though pleased, asked for time for a reply until the following day.
On the morning of that same July 6, meanwhile, Napoleon III and Prince Napoléon had a meeting with their ally Victor Emmanuel II. The latter, informed of the situation in Europe, was not surprised by the proposed French truce; pointing out, however, that if the armistice anticipated peace, it had to be in accordance with mutual commitments, namely, the Sardinian-French treaty of alliance. That treaty included, if the outcome of the war permitted, a commitment to force Austria to cede all of Lombardy-Venetia to the Kingdom of Sardinia.
On the 7th, Franz Joseph granted the truce, and on the morning of July 8, 1859, the commissioners in charge met in Villafranca, between the Allied (at Valeggio sul Mincio) and Austrian (at Verona) headquarters. The following were appointed: for France, General Jean-Baptiste Philibert Vaillant; for the Kingdom of Sardinia, General Enrico Morozzo Della Rocca; and for Austria, General Heinrich von Heß. The conference lasted three hours, during which the carnage of the Battle of Solferino was also discussed. At the end, it was decided that the truce would last until August 16.
From truce to armistice (July 8–11)
On that same July 8, 1859, Victor Emmanuel II, fearing French initiatives to the detriment of the Kingdom of Sardinia, went to Napoleon III to reveal the proposals he planned to make to Austria. The French emperor replied that he intended to restore peace in Europe as soon as possible but also that the conditions of surrender for Austria would be harsh. If Vienna did not accept these conditions, the war would resume. In the meantime, he declared that he could prepare 200,000 men for the reopening of hostilities and asked for another 100,000 Italians. Victor Emmanuel, while not too happy about the truce, seemed to calm down.
Late in the afternoon of July 8, there was a further conversation between Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel. The French emperor proposed to the king of Sardinia the start of peace negotiations, advancing the possibility of asking Austria for Lombardy alone. Victor Emmanuel agreed, departing decisively from the expectations of his prime minister Cavour, who, having received a rather calming telegram from the king, left for the theater of operations, arriving in Desenzano on the morning of July 10. That same day Cavour met both Prince Napoléon and Napoleon III to whose explanations of the armistice terms he protested strongly, but with Victor Emmanuel the conversation was probably even worse.
However, the French emperor was determined to negotiate peace, and since Franz Joseph would never agree to negotiate directly with the king of Sardinia, on July 10 he expressed his desire to negotiate personally and alone with Franz Joseph. In accordance with this desire, the necessary arrangements were made during the night, which determined, as the place and time of the meeting, Villafranca and 9 a.m. on July 11.
The meeting between Napoleon III and Franz Joseph
On the morning of July 11, 1859, Napoleon III was very obsequious toward Franz Joseph. Arriving first at the appointment, he moved to meet the Austrian emperor, who was joined along the way. Both on horseback, they traveled the remaining road to Villafranca.
The meeting took place at the Gandini Morelli Bugna palace, now Bottagisio, where Napoleon III surprised Franz Joseph by presenting to him as British conditions that he had actually suggested to the British himself, even giving the impression that Prussia also agreed. These proposals were: that Venetia would remain with Austria, which would cede Lombardy while retaining the fortresses of the Quadrilatero and Province of Mantua. Francis Joseph, faced with this initiative, disappointed at the lack of initial support from London and Berlin during the war, believed Napoleon III and was supportive.
The emperor of Austria also agreed, as monarch of Venetia, to be part of the Italian confederation proposed by Napoleon III, but refused any further concessions. According to the diaries of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine, the two monarchs also stipulated that Cavour should be removed from the Piedmontese government, as they both considered him an opponent of the peace that was about to be concluded.
The talks lasted an hour. Finally, the two emperors went out into the open air and reviewed the French and Austrian cavalry that had been convened. Returning the courtesy of the arrival, Franz Joseph accompanied Napoleon III for a stretch on the Valeggio road. Then, in a clear and visible sign of peace, the two sovereigns shook hands.
Armistice negotiations and signatures
Half an hour later Napoleon III returned to Valeggio and immediately sent for Prince Napoléon to inform him of the outcome of the talks and send him to Verona to put pen to paper on the preliminaries of the Villafranca meeting. When Prince Napoléon arrived, the French emperor was in conversation with Victor Emmanuel II.
The two Bonapartes (Napoleon III and Prince Napoléon were cousins) insisted that the king of Sardinia reach a decision, and the French emperor after half an hour of discussion put on paper the following points to be proposed to Austria: Italian confederation under the honorary presidency of the pope, cession of Lombardy to France, which would in turn cede it to the Kingdom of Sardinia, Venetia to Austria but included in the Italian confederation, return of the pro-Austrian rulers to Modena and Tuscany in peaceful ways and with a commitment to grant a constitution, political reforms in the Papal States, and separate administration of the Papal Legations. With these basic proposals, Prince Napoleon left for Verona.
Cavour's resignation
These proposals were then communicated by Victor Emmanuel II to Cavour around 2 p.m. on July 11. The Prime Minister, in addition to seeing his hopes of liberating all of northern Italy from the Habsburgs thwarted, judged the entry of the Kingdom of Sardinia into the future confederation alongside Austria as catastrophic for national prestige. Once this serious disagreement emerged between him and the king, Cavour resigned as head of government in the afternoon.
The Austrian counterproposal
In Verona, meanwhile, Franz Joseph made various objections to Prince Napoléon and agreed to sign a draft agreement, the same evening of July 11, 1859, only after he had made it clear that the fortresses of the Quadrilatero and the Province of Mantua would remain with Austria, that for the return of the friendly sovereigns to Tuscany and Modena arms could be used, and that for the two states there would be no constitution and no administrative separation of the Papal Legations.
When his cousin returned from Verona, Napoleon III was satisfied with the counterproposal and affixed his signature. Not at all persuaded, however, appeared Victor Emmanuel II, who disputed the decision to abandon the two fortresses guarding Lombardy, without which the region was indefensible, and refused to sign. That night the king of Sardinia returned to Monzambano to his resigning prime minister, Cavour, who was waiting, "feverish and very agitated."