Did Napoleon III indirectly unify Italy and Germany by his alliance with Piedmont and Prussia in the 1860s?

Answer 1

Clearly Louis Nap's intrusion into the Italian war gave a great boost to Italian unification, as well as giving France large stretches of Mediterranean coast. The cost was huge in 19th C terms; check out the battles of Magenta and Solferino.

On the German end, this had to wait six years until what was called the Seven Weeks War, as the Imperial army was so quickly overcome by the North German states, led by Prussia. French influence didn't really intrude again until their disastrous defeat by German forces in 1870-71, which did indeed bring about German unification.