Was Italy's success in the Wars of Independence thanks to military prowess, shrewd diplomacy, luck or a bit of all three?

Italy's success in it's Wars of Independence is mostly asserted to foreign powers intervening on their behalf, or allying with the precursor Italian state, the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. The only War of Independence that the Kingdom of Sardinia fought by itself was the First, 1848-1849, and it was soundly defeated by Austria-Hungary, forcing King Charles Albert to resign, and a new king, Vittorio Emmanuele II, was placed on the throne, a man who was just as ambitious as his predecessor. The Second War of Italian Independence began in 1859, and was the brain child of Camillo Benso di Cavour, King Emmanuele II's foreign minister. He was able to secure French support from Emperor Napoleon III, who had hoped to restore some prestige to the French army which had, in the not so distant past, suffered embarrassing defeats in North America, and when Napoleon was defeated. The Sardinian-Piedmontese army performed poorly in the war, and the Austrians attempted to secure Piedmont before French troops could arrive; however it was useless, as French troops arrived on time and secured an early victory at Montebello, and they would go on to secure two more major victories at Magenta, and Solferino, which concluded the war, giving Lombardy to Sardinia-Piedmont. France was given Savoy and Nice in return, which was under Piedmontese control prior to the treaty. The gap inbetween the start of the Third war of Independence in 1866, and the end of the Second in 1859 saw Piedmont deploy troops south to secure important cities and areas which fell to them, some areas of which were attacked indiscriminately by Emmanuele II's general Cialdini. While Cialdini waged his war against the Papal States in the North, Giuseppe Garibaldi initiated his infamous 'Expedition of the Thousand', and conquered the Kingdom of Naples, which he would give up to King Vittorio Emmanuele II, peacefully, as he desired not to fight a war when he knew the Italian people were already becoming war weary. Now King of Italy, Emmanuele II had only to conquer Rome, which he would achieve later in 1870 after the wars of Independence, and Venetia, which is the focus of the Third War. The Third War began in 1866, and is parallel to the Austro-Prussian War, as the Italians allied themselves with Prussia in hopes of acquiring more lands from Austria. Again, during this war Italian troops made no special progress or victories on their front; the largest engagement on their front, at the Battle of Custoza, saw 110,000 Italians engage 75,000 Austrians (roughly). The Italian armies under La Marmora and our old friend Cialdini were driven off. Despite the Italians later on making progress into Trentino, their victories were forgotten when the Italian navy was defeated by the Austrians at Lissa. Fortunately for the Italians, their northern ally, Prussia had secured a resounding victory at Koniggratz, while France was pushing for a swift diplomatic ending. In the end, Italy was able to acquire Venetia, which Austria had seceded to France as not to hand it over to an 'undeserving victor'. The situation is best put in perspective by Otto von Bismarck who remarked 'Italian independence was secured by the battles,Sadowa, and solferino, neither of which took place on Italian soil."

Alright, now that I have extra free time, my sources for this writing are Sir David Gilmour's The Pursuit of Italy, and Derek Beales' and Eugenio Biagini's The Risorgrimento and the Unification of Italy.