Italian irredentism () was a nationalist movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Italy with irredentist goals which promoted the unification of geographic areas in which indigenous peoples considered to be ethnic Italians and/or Italian-speaking individuals formed a majority, or substantial minority, of the population. At the beginning, the movement promoted the annexation to Italy of territories inhabited by Italian indigenous population, but retained by the Austrian Empire after the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866. These included Trentino, but also multilingual and multiethnic areas within the northern Italian region encompassed by the Alps, with German, Italian, Slovene, Croatian, Ladin and Istro-Romanian population, such as South Tyrol, Trieste, a part of Istria, Gorizia and Gradisca and part of Dalmatia. The claims were extended also to the city of Fiume, Corsica, the island of Malta, the County of Nice and Italian Switzerland. During the Risorgimento in 1860, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, who was leading the unification effort, faced the view of French Emperor Napoleon III who indicated that France would support militarily the Italian unification provided that France was given Nice and Savoy that were held by Sardinia, as France did not want a powerful state having control of the passages of the Alps. As a result, Sardinia was pressured to cede Nice and Savoy to France in exchange for France accepting the sending of troops to help the unification of Italy. To avoid confusion and in line with convention, this article uses modern English place names throughout. However, most places have alternative names in Italian. See List of Italian place names in Dalmatia. Characteristics Italian irredentism was not a formal organization but rather an opinion movement, advocated by several different groups, claiming that Italy had to reach its "natural borders" or unify territories inhabited by Italians. Similar nationalistic ideas were common in Europe in the late 19th century. The term "irredentism", coined from the Italian word, came into use in many countries (see List of irredentist claims or disputes). This idea of Italia irredenta is not to be confused with the Risorgimento, the historical events that led to irredentism, nor with nationalism or Imperial Italy, the political philosophy that took the idea further under fascism. During the 19th century, Italian irredentism fully developed the characteristic of defending the Italian language from other people's languages like, for example,