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Description
[Charente]
Italian Campaign of 1859
Official poster, 56 x 43 cm (tears and marks), printed under the authority of the Charente Prefecture (Angoulême), faithfully reproducing a confidential telegram sent to the Ministry of the Interior to be distributed urgently throughout the country to inform the public.
Julien-Théophile-Henri Chadenet, Master of Requests at the Council of State and Prefect of Charente (stationed in Angoulême from 1856 to 1864), announces the preliminary peace terms of Villafranca, which brought the Italian campaign of 1859 (the Second Italian War of Independence) to an abrupt end.
Following the extremely bloody Franco-Piedmontese victories at Magenta and Solferino in June 1859, Napoleon III decided, without fully consulting his Piedmontese ally, to sign an armistice with the Emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph I, on the basis of: the creation of a league of Italian states presided over by the Pope (the Italian Confederation); the cession of Lombardy by Austria to France, which immediately handed it over to the King of Sardinia (Victor Emmanuel II), a crucial starting point for the creation of the modern Kingdom of Italy; and the provisional retention of Veneto by Austria (which joined Italy in 1866)
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
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