First Italian War of Independence

The First Italian War of Independence was fought from 1848 to 1849, when King Charles Albert of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont declared war on the Austrian Empire amid the wider revolutionary upheavals of 1848, hoping to expel Austrian rule from northern Italy and lead a movement toward Italian unification. Early Piedmontese successes gave way to defeat once Austrian commander Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky regrouped his forces, decisively beating the Piedmontese army at the Battle of Custoza in 1848 and again, after a brief renewal of fighting, at the Battle of Novara in March 1849. The crushing defeat at Novara forced Charles Albert to abdicate in favor of his son Victor Emmanuel II, and the war ended with Austrian power in northern Italy fully restored, a setback that nonetheless kept the cause of Italian unification, or Risorgimento, alive for the following decade.