The consequences of this were to make themselves clear in 1859. Now Camillo di Cavour, the Prime Minister of Sardinia-Piedmont, anxious to goad the Austrians into a war in which he knew he would have French support, engaged in a series of provocations against the Austrian position in Italy. Although Buol and the Austrians initially seemed unperturbed, to the extent that Cavour and his ally, Emperor Napoleon III of France, feared they would not be able to have their war, Buol soon gave them what they wanted by a clumsy ultimatum demanding Piedmontese demobilization. The Sardinian War which followed would prove disastrous for the Austrian position in Italy, but Buol himself was already dismissed in May 1859, for the missteps which had brought about the war.