After the Revolutions of 1848, the apparent leader of the Italian unification movement was Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, renowned for his extremely loyal followers. Garibaldi led the Italian republican drive for unification in Southern Italy, but the Northern Italy monarchy of the House of Savoy in the Kingdom of Sardinia, a state with an important Italian population, whose government was led by Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, also had ambitions of establishing a united Italian state. Though the Kingdom had no physical connection to Rome (seen by all as the natural capital of Italy, but still capital of the Papal States), the Kingdom had successfully challenged Austria in the Second Italian War of Independence, liberating Lombardy-Venetia from Austrian rule. The Kingdom also had established important alliances which helped it improve the possibility of Italian unification, such as with the United Kingdom and France in the Crimean War. Sardinia was dependent on French protection and in 1860 Sardinia was forced to cede territory to France to maintain relations, including Garibaldi's birthplace, Nizza.