{{short description|Italian politician}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2024}} {{more citations needed|date=June 2016}} [[File:Generale Raffaele Cadorna (1815-1897).jpg|thumb|General Raffaele Cadorna]] '''Raffaele Cadorna''' (9 February 1815 – 6 February 1897) was an Italian general who served as one of the major [[Kingdom of Sardinia|Piedmontese]] leaders responsible for the [[unification of Italy]] during the mid-19th century.
Born in [[Milan]], Cadorna entered the Piedmontese military academy at [[Turin]] in 1832. Joining the engineer corps in 1840, he commanded a volunteer engineer battalion in [[Lombardy]] from March 1848 until August 1849 during the [[First Italian War of Independence]].
Cadorna served with the Piedmontese forces in January 1855 during the [[Crimean War]]. He won distinction during the [[Second Italian War of Independence|Second War of Independence]] at the [[Battle of San Martino]] and was awarded the rank of Colonel in 1859. He was also appointed Minister of War to the republican regime of [[Tuscany]] that same year.
Cadorna served as a lieutenant general and corps commander in the [[Third Italian War of Independence|Italian front of the Austro-Prussian War]]. He led successful operations against the [[Austrian Empire|Austrians]] from June to July 1866.
In 1870, he led the invasion of the [[Papal States]]. Cadorna's [[capture of Rome]] on 20 September finally completed the unification of Italy.<ref name="D'Agostino">{{Cite book |author=D'Agostino, Peter R. |title=Rome in America |chapter=The Roman Question |url=http://www.uncpress.unc.edu/pdfs/SampleChapters/9780807863411_d%27agostino_rome_ch1.pdf |publisher= University of North Carolina Press |year=1978 |access-date=2016-05-09 |archive-date=2014-08-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140823033124/http://www.uncpress.unc.edu/pdfs/SampleChapters/9780807863411_d%27agostino_rome_ch1.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> For this service, he was named a [[Senate of the Kingdom of Italy|Senator]] the following year. Retiring from public life soon after, he lived in Tuscany until his death in 1897.
His son [[Luigi Cadorna]] rose to the rank of Field Marshal and served as Italian chief of staff during part of [[World War I]], while his grandson [[Raffaele Cadorna Jr.]] was a general and commander of the [[Italian resistance movement|Italian resistance]] during [[World War II]].
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cadorna, Raffaele}} [[Category:1815 births]] [[Category:1897 deaths]] [[Category:Military personnel from Milan]] [[Category:Italian Army generals]] [[Category:People of the Revolutions of 1848]] [[Category:People from the Kingdom of Sardinia]] [[Category:Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy]] [[Category:People of the Second Italian War of Independence]] [[Category:Military personnel of the Crimean War]] [[Category:People of the Third Italian War of Independence]]