Hunza-Nagars, having been treated with clemency, are now very well
disposed to us. They acknowledge our suzerainty, but are ruled by their
thums as of old; and we do not interfere with them in the least so
long as they abstain from raiding and slave-hunting. The Hunza valley
provides a new recruiting ground for India. When it was proposed to
raise a Hunza levy for frontier defence, the young tribesmen gladly
volunteered; and within a few months of the Hunza War, a small body of
our recent foes, led by British officers, completely defeated a far
superior force of Shinakas which had attacked our outposts on the Indus.
Lieutenant Manners-Smith, in recognition of his gallant leading of the
forlorn hope on the 20th, received the Victoria Cross--the third that
had been gained in the course of this short but memorable campaign.
[Illustration:
GILGIT RESIDENCY.]
[Illustration:
ASPROMONTE
BY CHARLES LOWE.]
Giuseppe (or Joseph) Garibaldi was for many years the most picturesque
and interesting figure in all Europe. He might be called the William
Wallace, or the William Tell, of Italy. His name (which is still a
common enough one in Genoa among all ranks of life) is said to have
been a corruption of Garibaldo, _i.e._ “Bold in War.” At any rate,
a warlike star presided over his birth (at Nice in 1807), for he first
saw the light in the very house where, forty years before, Masséna, one
of the Great Napoleon’s greatest generals, was born.
At the time of his birth his native country--Italy--was in a
woful state of disunion, and much of it was under the yoke of the
foreigner--the Austrians in particular. It was cut up into several
conflicting monarchies; while the Pope, the spiritual head of the
Roman Church, also claimed--and had his claim allowed--to be temporal
sovereign of Rome. But as the century grew older, the Italian people
began to be stirred with a deep desire for national unity, without
which they knew they could never become great, strong, or respected;
and of all who threw themselves into this movement, none did so with
more ardour than the son of the humble Nice skipper who sailed his own
little vessel all over the Mediterranean.
This son, Giuseppe, took to his father’s calling, and began life as
a sailor. Once, when second in command of a brig, he was attacked by
Greek pirates, after which he landed at St. Nicholas to re-victual
without so much as shoes to his feet. An Englishman, taking pity on
him, offered him a pair, and this touched him to the heart.
“When I look back upon it now,” wrote Garibaldi in 1870 to _Cassell’s
Magazine_, “I cannot help remembering that it was the first of the
many acts of kindness which bind me with such strong and lasting ties
of gratitude to your noble nation.”
In 1836 he had joined a revolutionary movement, which failed; and,
after many privations and vicissitudes, he finally sailed for South
America, where for the next ten years he led a life of the most
stirring excitement and adventure among the quarrelsome young Republics
of that continent--fighting now on one side and then on the other, like
Rittmeister Dugald Dalgetty in the Thirty Years’ War, and gaining a
name for the greatest personal bravery. The wanderings and adventures
of Ulysses were nothing to those of Garibaldi, which would fill volumes
of as fascinating reading as can be found in the pages of a novelist.
When the revolutionary movement of 1848 swept over Europe--including
Italy--Garibaldi returned home with a knowledge of guerilla--or
irregular--warfare such as was possessed probably by no other man
alive; and then, with his volunteers, he threw himself heart and soul
into the movement for “making Italy free,” as the phrase ran, “from the
Alps to the Adriatic.”
With his Red-Shirt Volunteers, Garibaldi took a prominent part in
the fighting of 1848 and 1859, and with his “Thousand”--as famous a
fighting force as Xenophon’s “Ten Thousand”--he, in 1860, attacked
and conquered the Two Sicilies (_i.e._ the island of Sicily
and Naples), and made a present of these kingdoms to his sovereign
Victor Emmanuel, after which he returned to his solitary farm on the
little island of Caprera. Here, on this rocky island--fifteen miles
in circumference, and five in length--Garibaldi was monarch of all he
surveyed.
“The absence of priests,” he wrote, “is one of the especial blessings
of this spot. Here God is worshipped in purity of spirit without
formalism, free from mockery, under the canopy of the blue heavens,
with the planets for lamps, the sea winds for music, and the green
sward of the island for altars.”
This was the den, so to speak, into which the lion-patriot retired
when no political prey was stirring. But no sooner did he scent the
opportunity for action than out again he would rush with a roar, which
was sometimes just as disquieting to his friends as to his foes. This
was more particularly the case on the occasion which led to Aspromonte.
But, before proceeding to the tragic scene of this encounter, let us
see what sort of fighters Garibaldi and his red-shirted followers were.
[Illustration: GENERAL GARIBALDI.]
“Garibaldi,” wrote a correspondent of _The Times_, “was a
middle-sized man, and not of an athletic build, though gifted with
uncommon strength and surprising agility. He looked to the greatest
advantage on horseback, since he sat in the saddle with such perfect
ease, and yet with such calm serenity, as if he were grown to it,
having had, though originally a sailor, the benefit of a long
experience in taming the wild mustangs of the Pampas. But his chief
beauty was the head and the unique dignity with which it rose on
the shoulders. The features were cast in the old classic mould: the
forehead was high and broad, a perpendicular line from the roots of the
hair to the eyebrows. His mass of tawny hair and full red beard gave
the countenance its peculiar lion-like character. The brow was open,
genial, sunny; the eyes dark grey, deep, shining with a steady reddish
light; the nose, mouth, and chin exquisitely chiselled, the countenance
habitually at rest, but at sight of those dear to him beaming with a
caressing smile, revealing all the innate strength and grace of his
loving nature.
“His garb consisted of a plain red shirt and grey trousers, over which
he threw the folds of the Spanish-American _poncho_--an ample
upper garment of thin white woollen cloth with crimson lining, which
did duty as a standard, and round which his volunteers were bidden to
rally in the thick of the fight, as did the French Huguenot chivalry
round Henry of Navarre’s ‘_panache blanche_.’ His sword was a fine
cavalry blade, forged in England and the gift of English friends, and
with it he might be seen at his early breakfast on the tented field
cutting his bread and slicing his Bologna sausage, and inviting those
he particularly wished to distinguish, to share that savoury fare.
The sabre did good slashing work at need, however, and at Milazzo, in
Sicily, it bore him out safely from the midst of a knot of Neapolitan
troopers who caught him by surprise and fancied they had him at their
discretion. Garibaldi carried no other weapons, though the officers in
his suite had pistols and daggers at their belts; and his negro groom,
by name Aguyar, who for a long time followed him as his shadow, like
Napoleon’s Mameluke, and was shot dead by his side at Rome, was armed
with a long lance with a crimson pennon, used as his chief’s banner.
“His staff officers were a numerous, quaint, and motley crew, men of
all ages and conditions, mostly devoted personal friends--not all of
them available for personal strength or technical knowledge, but all
to be relied upon for their readiness to die with or for him. The
veterans he brought with him from Montevideo, a Genoese battalion whom
his friend Augusto Vecchi helped to enlist, and the Lombard Legion,
under Manara, were all men of tried valour, well trained to the use
of the rifle, inured to hardships and privations; and they constituted
the nucleus of the Garibaldian force throughout its campaigns. The
remainder was a shapeless mass of raw recruits from all parts of Italy,
joining or leaving the band almost at their pleasure--mere boys from
the Universities, youths of noble and rich family, lean artisans from
the towns, stout peasants and labourers from the country, adventurers
of indifferent character, deserters from the army, and the like, all
marching in loose companies, like Falstaff’s recruits, under improvised
officers and non-commissioned officers; but all, or most of them,
entirely disinterested about pay or promotion, putting up with long
fasts and heavy marches, only asking to be brought face to face with
the enemy, and when under the immediate influence of Garibaldi himself
or of his trusty friends seldom guilty of soldierly excesses or of any
breach of discipline. The effect the presence of the hero had among
them was surprising. A word addressed to them in his clear, ringing,
silver voice electrified even the dullest. An order coming from him was
never questioned, never disregarded. No one waited for a second bidding
or an explanation. ‘Your business is not to inquire how you are to
storm that position. You must only go and do it.’ And it was done.”
[Illustration: “EVERYWHERE THIS FREE-LANCE EVOKED
ENTHUSIASM” (_p._ 302.)]
“On the approach of a foe,” wrote one of his Lombard volunteers,
Emilio Dandolo, “Garibaldi would ride up to a dominating point in the
landscape, survey the ground for hours with the spyglass in brooding
silence, and come down with a swoop on the enemy, acting upon some
well-contrived combination of movements by which advantage had been
taken of all circumstances in his favour.” And as this was his custom
in the field of war, so it was ever also his habit in what must be
called the field of politics. After finishing a campaign he would
sheathe his sword and return to Caprera, there to stand and strain
his eyes towards the mainland, watching for his next opportunity of
action. Not an event escaped his notice, and he heard with a smile of
contentment how Victor Emmanuel had stormed the fortress of Gaeta,
and the two crowns of the Sicilies had been placed upon the head
of the Piedmontese King. But the national unity was still far from
complete. Above all things, Venice still remained under the yoke of
the Austrians, while Rome was equally in the power of the French, who
remained there to champion with their bayonets the pretensions of the
Pope.
They had been there ever since 1849, when the Romans rose against the
Pope, declared a Republic, and were supported by Garibaldi and his Red
Shirts. But then the French rushed to the assistance of the Pope, and
after a three months’ siege--during which the Garibaldians behaved with
splendid bravery--at last stormed the city, restored the authority of
the Pope, and compelled the Hero of Caprera to retire to the mountains.
“Soldiers!” he had said, on leading his men away from the Eternal City,
“that which I have to offer you is this: hunger, thirst, cold, heat;
no pay, no barracks, no rations; but frequent alarms, forced marches,
charges at the point of the bayonet;” and 4,000 men had readily
answered to this appeal.
[Illustration: GARIBALDI’S MOVEMENT OF 1862.]
The memory of this defeat rankled ever after in Garibaldi’s mind, and
he determined to seize the first opportunity of retrieving it. This
opportunity, he deemed, had at last come in the year 1862, soon after
the death of the great statesman Cavour, who had been the Bismarck,
so to speak, of Italian unity, as Victor Emmanuel had been its King
William. But while Garibaldi had been their greatest support, he had
also been the source of their greatest weakness. For he was not a
regularly appointed servant of the Government, but the self-constituted
soldier and champion of his country. He chose his own time for
fighting, irrespective of what the King and his ministers wished, and
thus often placed them in the greatest difficulty. So little, indeed,
did Garibaldi consider his times and seasons for action, that he was
said by many to have “an ass’s head linked to a lion’s heart.” He was
nothing but a headlong soldier, who scorned the arts of statesmen; and
his head was turned with his extraordinary popularity among the masses
of the Italian people, who paid him something like Divine honours.
Everywhere this free-lance hero evoked far more enthusiasm than was
even shown the King, who, naturally enough, followed Garibaldi’s
movements with the greatest solicitude, whilst recognising that he had
done so much for his country that the very greatest indulgence and
forbearance had to be shown him.
But there came a time when it was thought that Garibaldi should not
be allowed the free hand which had hitherto been granted him. This
was when he announced his intention of placing the national flag on
the walls of Rome, which still owned the dominion of the Pope, and
was garrisoned by the French. However much Victor Emmanuel desired
to see Rome become the capital of Italy, he could not forget the
debt of gratitude which he owed the French, who had been his allies
in the successful war against Austria in 1859; and when he heard of
Garibaldi’s proposed enterprise, he issued a proclamation to his
subjects, saying: “It is painful to me to see deluded and inexperienced
young men forgetting their duties and the gratitude we owe our best
allies, and making the name of Rome a watchword of war.... Italians!
beware of guilty impatience and incautious agitation. When the hour to
finish the Government work shall have come, the voice of your King will
be heard among you. A call which does not come from him is a call to
rebellion and to civil war. The responsibility and the rigour of the
law will fall upon those who do not listen to my words.”
But this warning had no restraining effect on the eager Garibaldi, who
only panted to recover for his country the Eternal City, exclaiming:
“Rome! Rome! Who is not urged by thy very name to take up arms for
thy deliverance?” At the same time, there is considerable reason
for believing that the King and his Government had given secret
encouragement to Garibaldi to embark upon his mad enterprise, in order
to have a pretext for arresting the lion-hearted but inconvenient
rebel. In any case, away to Sicily he went to make preparations for
his Quixotic expedition. He probably calculated that the news of his
enterprise would induce his countrymen to rise _en masse_, and
that the French Emperor, seeing the enthusiasm of the Italian people,
would withdraw his troops from Rome.
He landed at Palermo, whence a body of his volunteers marched to
Corleone, a town of the interior, where they overpowered the National
Guard and armed themselves with their muskets. Then they took up their
quarters in a camp at Ficuzza, a forest district about twenty miles
from Palermo. Here they were visited on August 1st by Garibaldi, who
thus addressed them:
“My young fellow-soldiers! To-day again the holy cause of our country
unites us. Again to-day, without asking whither going, what to do,
with what hope of reward to our labours, with a smile on your lips and
joy in your hearts, you hasten to fight our overbearing dominators,
throwing a spark of comfort to our enslaved brethren.... I can
only promise you toils, hardships, and perils; but I rely on your
self-denial. I know you, ye brave young men, crippled in glorious
combat! It is needless to ask you to display valour in fight. What
I ask is discipline, for without that no army can exist. The Romans
were disciplined, and they mastered the world. Endeavour to conciliate
the goodwill of the population we are about to visit, as you did in
1860, and no less to win the esteem of our valiant army, in order,
thus united with that army, to bring about the longed-for unity of the
country.”
Garibaldi now went to Catania, where the royal troops already began to
close round him with intent to take him prisoner. But many deserted to
his side in the hope of sharing the martial glory which they believed
to be again in store for the wayward Hero of Caprera. His force soon
swelled to a very considerable body; but here it was on the island
of Sicily, and how was it to get across to the mainland in order to
commence its march on Rome? Garibaldi had no ships; but in the harbour
of Catania there were lying three vessels--a French frigate, the
_Marie Adelaide_; a French steamer, _Le Général Abbatucci_;
and an Italian steamer, _Il Dispaccio_, belonging to the Florio
Company. In addition to these vessels there was a royal Italian
man-of-war--_Il Duca di Genova_--the commander of which gave out
that he would fire on any of the other three ships which made bold to
carry over Garibaldi and his Red Shirts to the mainland.
One day, however, the _Duca di Genova_ took it into its head to go
for a little cruise outside the Straits of Messina--probably, indeed,
because it had received secret orders to do so, in order the better
to lure Garibaldi into the trap which had been laid for him. On the
disappearance of the _Duca di Genova_, Garibaldi stepped into a
boat with several trusty followers, and was rowed off to the other
three vessels above referred to, when he put their respective captains
under arrest, and then proceeded to fill them up with his impatient Red
Shirts.
“At five o’clock in the afternoon,” says one of his biographers, “the
embarkation commenced, and the good people of Catania crowded the
harbour, waving handkerchiefs and cheering. Menotti” (Garibaldi’s
son) “and his ‘Guides,’ the Tuscans, and the flower of the Sicilian
volunteers, moved off for _Il Dispaccio_; General Corrao, with
some more Sicilians, occupied _Le Général Abbatucci_; whilst
Garibaldi took the command of the former and put Burratini in command
of the _Marie Adelaide_, with orders to get her filled with troops
as soon as possible. During this time it had been growing dark, and
each ship was filled to suffocation, no one being able to lie down, or
get any rest, as boats were for ever arriving with their cargoes of
men. About midnight the ships were got under way; and after crossing
the Straits in the dark, without any mishap, the troops were all safely
landed at Melito next morning, on the spot celebrated as the one on
which the former expedition had gone ashore.”
Garibaldi landed in Calabria with a force of about 3,000 men--a very
insignificant body, one would have thought, to march against walled and
embattled Rome with its formidable French garrison. But by the time he
came into collision with the royal troops, who had been sent after him
to arrest his progress, his little army of Red Shirts had dwindled by
about a half on account of the privations to which it was exposed and
the rapid marches which had been exacted of it.
On hearing of Garibaldi’s naval _coup-de-main_ at Catania, and his
crossing over to Calabria, General Cialdini at once gave chase, and in
order to catch the Hero of Caprera, he sent two of his generals--Revel
and Vialardi--with a body of royal troops to draw a cordon across
the isthmus of Tiriolo at its narrowest point, between Nicastro and
Catanzaro, so as thus to bar the Rome-ward march of the Red Shirts.
Having done this, he next ordered three vessels of war to cruise about
the Straits so as to prevent Garibaldi from re-embarking, and then
despatched Major-General Pallavicini, at the head of a considerable
force, from Reggio, with instructions to drive the Red Shirts
northwards in the direction of the aforesaid cordon on the isthmus,
as game is driven by the beaters towards the sportsmen--Pallavicini’s
instructions being to attack Garibaldi “anywhere and anyhow,” unless he
consented to an unconditional surrender.
[Illustration: CATANIA.]
Things had thus assumed a very serious aspect indeed for the
disillusioned Hero of Caprera, who, on the evening of the 28th August,
after a long and tiring day’s march, had pitched his camp on the brow
of the far-famed hill of Aspromonte, on a plateau overlooking the
sea, with a wood behind which connected it with a high range of the
Apennines, and would afford ample shelter for his troops. The men were
encamped _al fresco_ under cover of this wood, whilst Garibaldi
occupied one of two woodmen’s huts which were on the plateau, and gave
the spot the name of “_i forestali_.” It was wet and gloomy, the
rain put out the bivouac fires, every rag on their backs was soaked,
and they had no provisions with them; so that the position of the
volunteers was far from enviable.
Next morning General Pallavacini came up with the Red Shirts, and at
once proceeded to carry out his orders. How he did this let us see from
his own pen.
“On the morning of the 29th I set forth early, directing my course
towards San Stefano, where I arrived at about half-past eight a.m.
There, from secret information received, I knew that General Garibaldi
had encamped with his force during the night on the plateau of
Aspromonte. I ordered the troops to pursue the march until within a
short distance of the plateau, and before allowing them to proceed I
caused the troops to rest themselves, as they were excessively fatigued
by a long march by abrupt paths. In the meantime I learned that only
two hours previously General Garibaldi had encamped at the foot of the
plateau of Aspromonte, and I saw that by two paths I could descend
towards his camp.
“I then divided my troops into two columns, which arrived at the same
time in view of the Garibaldian encampment, already abandoned by him,
he having taken up a position on the crest of a rugged hillock to
the east of the plateau of Aspromonte. I then sent an order to the
commandant of the left column, while making the right column fall
back by a rapid movement. I attacked the left flank of the rear of
the rebels, in order to cut off their retreat. In the meantime, with
a battalion, I caused the entrance of the valley to be occupied, that
they might not regain the plateau. The left column, with the 6th
Battalion of the Bersaglieri at their head, then attacked the rebels,
and after a smart fire carried the position at the point of the
bayonet with cries of ‘_Viva il Re!_’ ‘_Viva Italia!_’ while
the left side was also attacked by our troops. General Garibaldi and
his son Menotti” (who had written to a friend in Liverpool, “In three
weeks we shall be in Rome!”) “having been wounded, and the rebels being
surrounded on all sides, resistance became useless, whereupon the
Garibaldians gave the signal to cease firing.”
Their own account of the engagement was somewhat different. Garibaldi
himself wrote:--“They thirsted for blood, and I wished to spare
it.... Yes, they thirsted for blood. I perceived it with sorrow, and
I endeavoured, in consequence, to do my utmost to prevent that of our
assailants from being shed. I ran to the front of our line, crying
out to them not to fire, and from the centre to the left, where my
voice and those of my aides-de-camp could be heard, not a trigger was
pulled. It was not thus on the attacking side. Having arrived at a
distance of two hundred metres, they began a tremendous fire, and the
party of _Bersaglieri_ who were in front of me, directing their
shots against me, struck me with two balls--one in the left thigh, not
serious; the other in the ankle of the right foot, making a serious
wound.
“As all this happened at the opening of the conflict, and I was carried
to the skirt of the wood after being wounded, I could see nothing
more, a dense crowd having formed round me while my wound was being
dressed. I feel certain, however, that up to the end of the line (of
troops) which was at my litter, and to that of my aides-de-camp, not
a single musket shot was fired.... It was not so on our right. The
_Picciotti_, attacked by the regular troops, replied by a fire
along the whole line, and, although the trumpets sounded to cease
firing, there was at that spot a smart fusilade, which lasted not more
than a quarter of an hour. My wounds led to some confusion in our line.
Our soldiers, not seeing me, began to retreat into the woods, so that,
little by little, the crowd around me broke up, and the most faithful
alone remained.”
[Illustration: “RAISING HIS CAP IN THE AIR, HE CRIED
‘VIVA L’ITALIA!’” (_p._ 306).]