Prodané vítězství - Poslední válka za osvobození Itálie 1866 – Taraba Luboš (2020)

Few wars have been as unnecessary as the so-called Third Holy War for Italian unification in the summer of 1866. The apple of discord was Venice and South Tyrol, the "remnants" of the former Austrian Lombardo-Venetian kingdom still belonging to Emperor Franz Joseph I., which the first king of united Italy, Victor Emmanuel, longed for. Because in the previous wars with the Austrians, his armies had always been defeated, without a strong ally to gain these territories, he could not even think of it. And this is exactly what the Prussian Prime Minister Bismarck calculated, who was eager to finally unite Germany. In the intended conflict, Bismarck reserved a place for Italy, dreaming not only of expelling the Austrians from Venice but also of becoming, like ancient Rome, the ruler of the Mediterranean. Italy would occupy part of the Austrian army, allowing the Prussians to deal with its other part. The Italians wanted war and victory to finally rank among the foremost European powers. But they shouldn't have been Italians. And so came a series of defeats, at Custozza, in the Dolomites, and at sea near the island of Vis (Lissa). But in the end, Victor Emmanuel did achieve his goal, because Franz Joseph had already preemptively ceded Venice to Italy through the French emperor, regardless of how the war would turn out...