of Italian liberty, and Cavour had so manipulated events that political
progress was possible, came Garibaldi, to lead with all the fire of a
crusader the new race of Italian patriots. He was a hero of legends as
soon as he took the field. He cannot be compared to any modern general,
nor his army to any other army of recent centuries; he was the personal
hero whose red shirt and slouch hat became symbols of liberty, and whose
name was sufficient to work miracles of faith. Many a Calabrian peasant
confidently expected the millennium to follow in Garibaldi's footsteps,
and this faith, spreading as all great popular emotions do, swept him
and his ragged volunteers to victory after victory that a less legendary
but vastly more experienced general never would have known. He was
always the pure-hearted crusader with the single goal.
Giuseppe Garibaldi was born in Nice in the year 1807, two years the
junior of Mazzini, three years the senior of Cavour. His parents, who
were in very modest circumstances, wished him to enter the priesthood,
but his nature was too adventurous to suit him for the religious life.
Even as a boy he craved action and wanted to share his father's life on
the sea. Father and grandfather had been sailors, and the boy Giuseppe
could not be kept from boats. Realizing this inheritance, the father
took him with him on his voyages. His second voyage was made to Rome,
and the sight of that city stirred the boy to the foundations of his
nature. Years later he wrote of this first boyhood impression, "Rome,
which I had before admired and thought of frequently, I ever since have
loved. It has been dear to me beyond all things. I not only admired her
for her former power and the remains of antiquity, but even the smallest
thing connected with her was precious to me."
Very early, on a voyage to Russia, a young Ligurian mate told the youth
something of the plans of the scattered Italian patriots, and, once
conscious that there was a movement on foot to liberate his beloved
country, Garibaldi sought all people and writings which could enlighten
him on that score. Thus he came almost immediately under the influence
of Mazzini's work and joined his new movement of "Young Italy." From
the moment of this association his life held the single purpose, he was
ready to make any sacrifice in this cause. In 1834 he joined in the
ill-fated expedition to Savoy, and as a consequence found himself on
February 5, of that year, flying from Genoa as a proscript. A few days
later he learned from a newspaper that he had been condemned to death by
the government. Shortly afterwards he sailed from Marseilles for Brazil.
For the next fourteen years Garibaldi led the life of a guerilla
leader, fighting the battles of Montevideo, and taking a chief part in
the innumerable wars for independence which served to keep the South
American states in constant upheaval during the first half of the
Nineteenth Century. The various states were full of French, Spanish,
and Italian adventurers, and Garibaldi contrived, with that intuitive
insight into character which was one of the chief characteristics of
his genius, to choose certain of the Italians who were as intense
partisans of liberty as he, and form them into a legion, destined to be
the nucleus of that famous Italian "Legion" which was later to win its
victories on the other side of the world. The South American adventures
of the young general read like a story from the romantic pages of a
novelist, they are a perpetual record of battles, sieges, and alarms.
Through their turbulent course Garibaldi learned experience of rough,
irregular fighting, which was later to prove invaluable. To add to the
romance of these years Garibaldi met at a small town in the district of
Laguna, in Brazil, the woman who so charmed him at first sight that he
immediately wooed her and won her for his wife, the dearly beloved Anita
who accompanied him afterwards on all his military expeditions, both by
land and sea, and proved herself the equal of any of his men in devotion
and the most intrepid courage in the face of extreme peril.
In 1847 Pius IX., the new Pontiff, stirred all Italian patriots with the
brave words he uttered in behalf of a new and free Italy. To men who
had waited long for a leader who should unite all the small states the
Pope appeared as a real deliverer, and for a few short months he did
indeed stand at the head of a movement closely allied to the Guelphic
policies of the Middle Ages. The news of the Pope's call to all Italians
reached Garibaldi and his friends in Montevideo, and immediately the
former and his friend, Colonel Anzani, wrote to Pius IX. tendering
him their allegiance, and offering the assistance of their swords.
Lines throughout the letter show the self-abnegating, single-hearted
devotion of Garibaldi to Italy's cause, the one sacred service of his
life. "If then to-day our arms, which are not strangers to fighting,
are acceptable to your Holiness, we need not say how willingly we shall
offer them in the service of one who has done so much for our country
and our church. We shall count ourselves happy if we can but come to
aid Pius IX. in his work of redemption.... We shall consider ourselves
privileged if we are allowed to show our devotedness by offering our
blood." Unfortunately the Pope was not made of the same heroic fiber
as the South American soldier. No answer was made to the letter, but
Garibaldi was so eager to be on the scene of action and learn conditions
for himself that he immediately sailed, although still under sentence of
death, for Italy with fifty members of his Legion.
They landed at Nice on June 24, 1848. Already they had learned at
Alicante the stirring events of that memorable spring, and were burning
to take the field against the Austrians. The leader and his handful
of men hastened to Lombardy to offer their services to the Sardinian
King, Charles Albert. The King received the offer very coldly, but,
his ardor undaunted, Garibaldi pushed on to Milan. The latter city had
learned of his many battles in South America and hailed him with great
enthusiasm. From the country volunteers came pouring to his standard,
and in an incredibly short time at least 30,000 men had joined the
remnant of the legion. They were most of them wild with the desire to
drive the Austrians from Lombardy. Charles Albert was defeated and
signed an armistice by which Milan was given back to the Empire, but
the Garibaldian army paid no heed to the formal terms of peace, and
continued a guerilla warfare wherever white-coated Austrians were to be
found.
An eye-witness, Giulio Dandolo, thus describes the appearance of
Garibaldi's troops: "Picture to yourself," he says, "an incongruous
assemblage of individuals of all descriptions, boys of twelve or
fourteen, veteran soldiers attracted by the fame of the celebrated
chieftain of Montevideo, some stimulated by ambition, others seeking
for impunity and license in the confusion of war, yet so restrained by
the inflexible severity of their leader that courage and daring alone
could find a vent, whilst more lawless passions were curbed beneath
his will. The general and his staff all rode on American saddles, wore
scarlet blouses, with hats of every possible form, without distinction
of any kind, or pretension to military ornament.... Garibaldi, if the
encampment was far from the scene of danger, would stretch himself
under his tent; if on the contrary the enemy were near at hand he
remained constantly on horseback giving orders and visiting the
outposts. Often disguised as a peasant, he risked his own safety in
daring reconnaissances, but most frequently, seated on some commanding
elevation, he would pass whole hours examining the surrounding country
with his telescope. When the general's trumpet gave the signal to
prepare for departure lassoes secured the horses which had been left
to graze in the meadows. The order of march was always arranged on the
preceding day, and the corps set out without so much as knowing where
the evening would find them. Owing to this patriarchal simplicity,
pushed sometimes too far, Garibaldi appeared more like the chief of a
tribe of Indians than a general, but at the approach of danger and in
the heat of combat, his presence of mind was admirable; and then by the
astonishing rapidity of his movements he made up in a great measure for
his deficiency in those qualities which are generally supposed to be
absolutely essential to a military commander."
Speed and audacity constituted the two main elements of the leader's
tactics. One day when on Lake Maggiore Garibaldi managed to take two
Austrian steamers by surprise, and placing 1500 men upon them, suddenly
appeared at Luino. From there he planned an attack on 10,000 Austrians
encamped nearby, but news of his intentions reached the enemy, and he
was obliged to scatter his small force in a skilfully contrived retreat.
The actual result of such a campaign was small, but the extreme skill
of his sudden advances and retreats won him a European prestige as
a master of light warfare, and continually brought soldiers to his
standard. When the regular armies ceased fighting ardent patriots turned
to Garibaldi as the last remaining hope.
While in Switzerland he was seized with marsh fever and became
dangerously ill. When he recovered he joined his family at Nice and
there spent the autumn. Charles Albert had by now repented his cold
treatment of the young man's offer of service and tendered him a high
rank in the Sardinian army. Garibaldi, however, wished more immediate
action than such a position offered, and had moreover been fired with
hope at the reports of Daniel Manin's heroic defense of Venice against
the Austrians. He determined to go to Venice, and started with two
hundred and fifty volunteer companions. At Ravenna he learned of the
revolution at Rome, and then, as always in his life, could not resist
the call of the Eternal City. He changed his course towards Rome, and
as he traveled his followers increased to 1500 men. With this band he
approached the city, which had been deserted by that Pope of noble
impulses but timid resolution to whom Garibaldi had written offering his
services the previous year.
Pius IX. executed a complete volte-face. Terrified at the assassination
of his Prime Minister Rossi, and worked on by his clerical ministers of
State and foreign diplomatists, he withdrew the liberal concessions he
had just granted his Roman subjects, declared the notoriously vicious
King Bomba of Naples a model monarch and fled to Gaeta, leaving Rome to
the revolutionists. At the same time Mazzini the arch idealist appeared
among them, and he and Garibaldi, both hailed as pre-eminent leaders in
their respective fields, were elected members of the new Roman Assembly.
Mazzini was in charge of the civil government, Garibaldi of the army now
rapidly gathering from all parts of Italy. He took his position on the
frontier menaced by the Neapolitan army, and fortified the stronghold of
Rieti.
Meanwhile in northern Italy Charles Albert had again taken the field,
had lost the battle of Novara, and had abdicated. The Roman Republic
immediately found itself beset by great European Powers, Austria,
Spain, and Naples, eager to restore the Pontiff and teach his audacious
subjects a salutary lesson. As Manin in Venice, so Mazzini in Rome
looked to France for succor, or at least to uphold the policy of
non-intervention. Did not the constitution of the then existing French
Republic specifically state that that nation "would never employ her
arms against the liberty of any people"? Acting on this assumption
the Roman Assembly voted for the perpetual abolition of the temporal
power of the Pope, and on April 18, 1849, addressed a manifesto to the
governments of England and France, setting forth "that the Roman people
had the right to give themselves the form of government which pleased
them, that they had sanctioned the independence and free exercise of
the spiritual authority of the Pope, and that they trusted that England
and France would not assist in restoring a government irreconcilable by
its nature with liberty and civilization, and morally destitute of all
authority for many years past, and materially so during the previous
five months."
Nevertheless, Louis Napoleon, president of the French Republic, sent
an army under General Oudinot to Civita Vecchia, declaring that his
purpose was simply to maintain order. The Triumvirs, Mazzini, Armellini,
and Saffi, thought it wisest to prepare Rome for possible defense,
and called Garibaldi from the Neapolitan frontier. The Roman Republic
hailed him as its defender. "This mysterious conqueror," says Miraglia,
"surrounded by a brilliant halo of glory, who entered Rome on the eve
of the very day on which the Republic was about to be attacked, was in
the minds of the Roman people the only man capable of maintaining the
'decree of resistance;' therefore the multitudes on the very instant
united themselves with the man who personified the wants of the moment
and who was the hope of all."
April 30 was the date of the first French attack, an assault so
violently resisted that 7000 picked troops were disastrously routed by
a much smaller number of Garibaldi's volunteers. Oudinot was amazed,
and sought an armistice, while Louis Napoleon, in order to hurry
re-enforcements to Civita Vecchia, sent De Lesseps to open negotiations
for peace. Garibaldi desired no armistice, he feared delay, but the
Triumvirs still hoped to obtain France's assistance ultimately and so
checked his pursuing the first advantage. It was a contest between the
principles of diplomacy and warfare.
The negotiations with the French envoy dragged, but meanwhile Garibaldi
was not idle. On May 4, with 4000 light troops, he secretly left Rome.
On the 8th they reached Palestrina, and on the following day met the
Neapolitan army, some 7000 strong. Three hours of fighting put the
latter troops to ignominious flight. Later their general attributed the
overwhelming defeat to the superstitious terror inspired in his men
by the very name of Garibaldi, and the remarkable appearance of his
red-shirted troops. They were convinced that Garibaldi was the devil,
for they found that even holy silver bullets failed to strike him down.
Fearing lest the French might attack Rome in his absence Garibaldi now
returned there, making a rapid retreat and passing within two miles of
the enemy. De Lesseps and the Triumvirs were still conferring. Then for
some unaccountable reason a Colonel Roselli was placed over Garibaldi's
head, and the famous commander, probably the victim of malicious envy,
was only second in command. He did not complain. "Some of my friends,"
he wrote characteristically, "urged me not to accept a secondary
position, under a man who, only the day before, was my inferior, but
I confess these questions of self-love never yet troubled me; whoever
gives me a chance of fighting, if only as a common soldier, against the
enemy of my country, him will I thank."
The army of King Bomba now rallied, and took certain strongholds on
the road to Rome. Garibaldi was sent out to dislodge them, and met and
put to flight a large Neapolitan column near Velletri. The latter took
refuge in that city, but when the Roman volunteers made a reconnaissance
of the place in the morning they found the army had fled panic-stricken
during the night. Again the name of Garibaldi and the magic of his red
shirt, or famous "camicia rossa," had been too much for them. The only
credit the Neapolitan general could contrive to take to himself was
a statement in the official report of the extraordinary rapidity and
safety of his retreat.
A few days later General Roselli ordered Garibaldi to carry the war into
Neapolitan territory, and he had proceeded along the ancient Samnite
road as far as the banks of the Volturno when messengers called him in
all haste back to Rome to be present at the final negotiations with
the French. He returned to Rome on May 24, to be hailed again as the
invincible defender of the Republic.
The French Commissioner De Lesseps signed certain agreements with the
Roman Assembly and then referred these agreements to General Oudinot
for ratification. The General, however, had by this time received his
long-desired re-enforcements, and, stating that De Lesseps had exceeded
his authority, prepared for an immediate attack. He said, however, that
he would postpone the actual assault until Monday, June 4, but did
actually commence operations on Sunday the 3d, taking the Romans off
their guard and capturing the outposts and the Ponte Molle.
So soon as the treacherous attack was known the bells of the Capitol
gave the alarm, and Garibaldi's Legion, together with the Lombard
volunteers, rushed to the defense. The fighting in the entire circuit
of the city's walls was desperate, but the soldiers of the Legion were
no longer opposed to Austrians or superstitious Neapolitans, but to
veteran French troops, so numerous that losses meant little to them.
Nevertheless the city held out while De Lesseps pleaded for the terms
of his agreement at Paris. Garibaldi tried every device to dislodge the
French batteries which were shattering the Roman walls, but all to no
avail. It was clear that the siege would be only a matter of days before
news came that the French government disavowed any part in the agreement
signed by De Lesseps. Mazzini still urged resistance to the end, but the
disparity in forces was so overwhelming that Garibaldi could not agree
with him. This difference of opinion tended to widen still further the
gulf which already existed between the theorist and the soldier.
On June 21 the French succeeded in planting a battery within the city
walls, and from that time the work of destruction progressed more
rapidly. The defense was intensely dramatic, demagogues mixing with
the purest natured patriots, the popular orator Ciceruacchio, with
bloody shirt and sword, pouring forth his burning words on the spirit
of ancient Roman independence, Ugo Bassi, the monk, going about among
the dying, holding the crucifix before their eyes, utterly regardless
of the storm of bullets all around him. It was a noble defense, but it
could have only one end, and so finally on June 30, at the advice of
Garibaldi, who appeared before the Triumvirs, his clothing shot into
ribbons, the Government issued the order that "The Roman Republic in
the name of God and the people gives up a defense which has become
impossible."
On that same day the Triumvirs resigned, and the Assembly appointed
Garibaldi dictator. For a few days negotiations looking to an armistice
were conducted between the French and the Roman lines. Finally, on July
3, the negotiations came to an end. Garibaldi called the troops into
the great square before St. Peter's. "Soldiers!" he declared, "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. Whoever loves our country and glory may
follow me!" About four thousand men instantly volunteered, and at almost
the same hour when the French entered the city the little Legion left,
taking the road to Tivoli, with the purpose of gaining the broken Tuscan
mountain country. The leader's devoted wife Anita went with him, as
patiently his companion in adventures in Italy as in her native South
America.
The Papal banner was flung from the Castle of St. Angelo, and the Roman
Republic came to an end. Its story is almost as eventful, almost as
heroic as Manin's defense of the Venetian Republic during practically
the same time. In both cases the cities fell, but as Manin at Venice so
Mazzini and Garibaldi at Rome had taught their people that they were
capable of the greatest sacrifices in the cause of that liberty of which
all Italy was dreaming.
Long pages would be needed to tell of the excitements and dangers which
befell Garibaldi and his army as they threaded their way northward,
their ultimate destination Venice, which had not yet surrendered.
The French and Austrians were always at their heels, and the troop
must inevitably have been captured but for the masterly skill of the
general in such guerilla warfare. Swift night marches, daytime lying
in wait, sudden attacks and equally sudden retreats, served to carry
them gradually away from Rome. They left Orvieto one hour before the
French troops entered. Thence the route lay by Arezzo and Montepulciano
to the little republic of San Marino, close to Rimini. By this time
the army was sadly reduced in size and strength, the Austrians were
pressing close upon their heels, and Garibaldi saw that escape could
only lie in scattering his men. He released all the volunteers, bidding
them farewell, reminding them that it was better to die than to live as
slaves to the foreigner.
The Austrians threatened an immediate attack on San Marino, and
Garibaldi with a few companions fled secretly at night. Anita, although
utterly worn out by illness, would not leave him. The little band
reached the port of Cesenatico and embarked on the Adriatic in thirteen
small boats. The Austrian fire forced nine of the boats to surrender,
the remaining four, in one of which was the general, his wife,
Ciceruacchio, the Roman orator, and the priest Ugo Bassi, succeeded in
escaping and landing near the mouth of the Po.
The fugitives had barely landed when they were surrounded by Austrian
scouts. Anita became desperately ill, and was forced to hide with her
husband in a cornfield, an old comrade of Garibaldi's in South America
keeping watch over them. The general was beside himself with grief as
he tended his rapidly failing wife. Ugo Bassi, afraid to stay with them
lest his presence should lead to their discovery, was shortly captured
by Austrians, and Ciceruacchio and the nine others were soon after
taken prisoners. All but the orator and the priest were immediately
shot. Bassi and Ciceruacchio were taken to Bologna, and there ordered
executed by Bedini, the Papal Legate, a man of infamous memory, who
commanded that Bassi be tortured before execution. The heroic priest
must always stand forth as one of the rarest martyr-spirits produced by
the great struggle for Italian liberty.
Garibaldi succeeded in finding some kind-hearted peasants who carried
Anita to a cottage. Not long after she reached its shelter she died. The
general, broken-hearted, was forced by the approach of Austrian soldiers
to go to Ravenna, thence in disguise he went to Florence and finally
to Genoa. Here he visited his mother and his three children, who had
been left by Anita with their grandmother. His presence in Genoa was an
embarrassment to the Government at Turin, and they courteously asked him
to leave Italy. Instead of doing so he went to Sardinia, much to the
uneasiness of the French, who wished him farther away. In this mountain
island he lived a life, half that of a hermit, and half of a bandit,
continually hunted as an outlaw, and finding entire safety only on the
small island rock of Caprera. This tiny island, destined to become
famous as his home, abounded in natural beauty of a wild and desolate
type, and made a deep impression on the refugee, whose mind was always
peculiarly open to the spell of majestic scenery.
Finally, to the great relief of both France and Piedmont, Garibaldi was
induced to leave Sardinian territory. He went to Gibraltar, but was only
allowed to stay twenty-four hours. No European country was anxious to
harbor a man whose name had become a watchword for revolutionary zeal.
Finding this to be the case the general sailed for New York, and spent
about a year and a half engaged in making tallow candles in a small back
street. He was not alone in his exile, the disturbing years of 1848 and
1849 had sent many a revolutionary exile across the seas, and at one
time in New York Lamartine, Louis Blanc, Ledru Rollin, and three or four
others almost equally prominent were supporting themselves there by
manual labor.
When he left New York Garibaldi went again to South America, and became
captain of a merchant vessel trading between Peru and Hong Kong. Again
he returned to New York and commanded a trader flying the American flag
but sailed by Italians, who like himself were awaiting a new tide in
affairs before returning home. The many ups and downs of these roving
years abounded with adventures, but even here Garibaldi's life was no
more thrilling than when he was at the head of his irregular troops in
Italy.