Excerpt from No truce, no peace: the mission for the unification of Italy by Federico Manfredi
Not surprisingly, the first effects of the assassination of Napoleon III were felt on the Italian peninsula.
The new French hostility toward the unification of the peninsula posed a problem for the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. If until a few months earlier it seemed that an alliance between Paris and Turin was imminent, the political rise of the new French government quickly put an end to that project.
The always ingenious Cavour, however, found a way to use the situation to his advantage. The Kingdom of Sardinia was the first Italian state to pass new laws against the followers of Mazzini and other republican radicals. Cavour had never trusted those political groups and wanted to use the new laws also to diminish Garibaldi's influence at the Savoy court. At the same time, Cavour set to work to seek new allies against the Austro-Hungarian Empire and perhaps also against France. In addition to being able to count on English sympathy for a possible unification of the peninsula, Turin soon found a concrete ally in Berlin.
Garibaldi leaving Piedmont to assist the liberals in the Mexican Civil War was of course the icing on the cake.
In contrast, the domestic policies of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Papal States did not change significantly. By then both Pius IX and Ferdinand II had for years abandoned their initial liberalism, embracing absolutism and repression to prevent a repeat of the 1848 uprisings.
The situation was considerably different in the territories under Austrian control. Emperor Franz Joseph, mindful of the rebellions that had shaken northern Italy and Tuscany ten years earlier, moved to prevent further possible unrest.
In Lombardy-Veneto, the liberal Maximilian of Habsburg was replaced by the more conservative Eduard Clam-Gallas as viceroy. The new viceroy abolished many of his predecessor's political reforms, except for the renewal of the fleet and other military innovations. In the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Vienna forced Leopold II to abdicate in favor of his son Ferdinand.
Although Ferdinand IV shared his father's liberal inclinations, fear of further unrest prompted him to increase censorship and increase troop numbers in preparation for a new conflict. It was precisely the reluctant repression of the new Grand Duke that laid the groundwork for the Second Italian War of Independence. The sudden abolition of freedom of the press and assembly paradoxically increased the Tuscans' support for the unification of Italy or at least for the expulsion of the Austrians from the state.
On the one hand, Tuscans considered Mazzini's followers the only group truly interested in the region's welfare precisely because they were persecuted in every corner of the peninsula. On the other hand, Ferdinand IV's reluctance to enforce the new repressive laws also meant that Mazzini groups could act with almost no fear. The distribution of leaflets against the grand ducal government and the organization of protests against the government soon became almost daily events in Tuscany.
Tuscany was the only Italian region where radical republican groups were thus strengthened by the new government repressions.
Excerpt from Blood and Iron: the history of Europe in the second half of the 19th century by Edward Connors
Poland soon became the prime example of the contradictions that would characterize the reign of Alexander II.
Indeed, in early 1860, the Tsar announced that the unpopular viceroy Mikhail Gorchakov would be replaced by Aleksander Wielopolski. For the first time since the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, Poland would be ruled by a local nobleman instead of a Russian bureaucrat.
Alexander II's choice was due to mostly pragmatic reasons. Despite his Polish origins, Wielopolski had repeatedly demonstrated his loyalty to the Czarist government. The nobleman had condemned the failed insurrection of 1830, arguing that any attempt to rebel against St. Petersburg was counterproductive.
The new viceroy also belonged to the "white" faction of the Polish independence movement, mostly composed of members of the local nobility and upper class. Unlike their more radical compatriots, Wielopolski and his allies demanded no economic reform but only greater internal freedom.
In 1865, Stefan Bobrowski summed up the Polish reaction to the new viceroy's policies with this sentence: "To the Tsar every Pole is a dog. Aleksander and his friends were purebred dogs who were allowed to live in their master's house and receive leftovers directly from the table. I and the rest of Poland, on the other hand, were strays to kick around for the fun of it."
Although the revolutionary's opinion was probably influenced by anger over his exile, there is no doubt that the lack of economic reforms did not help the situation of Poles in any way. Founding new schools and renewing permission to teach the Polish language were futile, as more than three-quarters of the population was illiterate or had no time or money to study.
Likewise the Tsar, self-proclaimed earthly defender of the Russian Orthodox Church, had not softened his stance toward Catholics. The masses of Polish priests were still kept under close surveillance to prevent the spread of ideals contrary to the economic interests of the Russian government.
Even after the partial removal of the Russian courts, the Polish judicial system was still controlled by Russian interests. According to the rulings of judges appointed directly by Moscow, Polish workers were still forced to send most of their savings or crops to St. Petersburg.
While Wielopolski and his subordinates could enjoy considerable autonomy in the late 1860s, the rest of Poland continued to live as before, if not worse.
Both the Tsar and the new viceroy had underestimated how widespread poverty and glaring economic disparities fueled Polish popular discontent against St. Petersburg. The only result of the contradictory and limited reforms in Poland was a strengthening of the "red" faction of Polish independents and a long series of problems that would plague the Russian empire for the rest of the 19th century.
Excerpt from Between Vienna and Constantinople: the Balkans and their history by Nikola Pašić
By early 1859, even Alexander Karađorđević's most diehard supporters knew that his monarchy was on the verge of collapse.[1] The Serbian king's attempts to simply purge his political opponents had backfired, leading to further protests and conspiracies against his rule. His steadfast refusal to condemn the Ottomans' purges against other Serbs in the Balkans had also alienated a good chunk of the army.
Cornered, Karađorđević decided to turn to his Viennese allies in the hope of gaining some military or political support. His expectations were however quickly dashed.
Despite his reputation as a conservative hothead, Franz Joseph knew that supporting the unpopular Karađorđević would have only further jeopardized Vienna's interests in the Balkans. Rather than support a frankly unreliable and useless ally, Austrian diplomatic intervention was primarily aimed at finding a more suitable alternative for the Serbian throne.
Eventually the choice fell on Mihailo Obrenović, a member of the previous Serbian ruling family. Obrenović was very popular among the Serbs and, unlike his grandfather and uncles, was surprisingly friendly with the Austrian government. [2] He may have been too liberal for Franz Joseph's tastes, but the new king could ensure the security of Austria-Hungary's eastern borders while the situation on the Italian peninsula became increasingly complicated
In mid-1859, two dimetrically opposite journeys occurred on the border between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia. Karađorđević and his family left their former kingdom in an anonymous carriage, taking with them a substantial part of the Serbian treasury.
Instead, Obrenović entered Belgrade on horseback, warmly welcomed by much of the city. The new king's inauguration speech contained the usual arguments and promises, often used by politicians of all stripes on such occasions. However, there was one word in his speech that would redefine Balkan history in the following decades.
Theatrically turning his finger in the direction of the border between Serbia and the Ottoman Empire, Obrenović promised that the Slavic compatriots of the Serbs would be soon liberated and he used the term Yugoslavia for the first time.
[1] I immagine the butterflies would allow to remain on the throne a few more months ITTL. However by this point he was already too impopular both inside and outside Serbia for his neutrality during the Crimean War.
[2] Tecnically the throne should have gone to his father. However the Austrian aren't going to give the Serbian throne to an increasingly sick man with unclear loyalties.