difficulties arose in the liberated city. Garibaldi was no
disciplinarian, he had always entrusted all harsh measures to others,
he refused to harbor suspicion or ill-will, his nature was patient and
simple and confiding. His sole concern was to drive the foreigners
out of Italy, beyond that he had few plans. But as soon as Naples was
free scores of theorists in government arose. Mazzini appeared, and
his followers tried to win Garibaldi over to their ideal republic, the
clerical party had another plan, the secret societies still another,
and the brigands who infested the country about Naples were already
intriguing for the return of the Bourbons, who had allowed them free
sway. Cavour sent his agents hurrying to Naples to keep the people quiet
and to urge them to advocate immediate annexation with Piedmont. He had,
however, a more difficult task on his hands at the same time. He feared
that Garibaldi would immediately march on Rome, and Cavour knew that
the Papal question could not be settled in any such summary fashion.
Napoleon would immediately intervene, and the Army of the South would
find itself fighting France. That was his great fear, and to prevent
the event if possible he sent the Army of Piedmont, of Lombardy, of
Tuscany south at the double quick. Victor Emmanuel must meet Garibaldi
before the latter crossed the Volturno if trouble with France were to be
avoided.
Garibaldi, however, cared very little for diplomacy, his object was
to take Rome with all speed, and he refused to heed Cavour's agents.
Fortunately Francis II. of Naples finally decided to make a stand, and
so detained Garibaldi until the northern army could arrive. Mazzini had
said to Garibaldi, "If you are not on your way towards Rome or Venice
before three weeks are over, your initiative will be at an end." The
prophecy, like so many of Mazzini's, proved true. Garibaldi had to fight
several battles on the Volturno and besiege Capua before he could turn
towards Rome, and by that time Victor Emmanuel had reached the scene of
action.
The last battles were the hardest fought of the campaign, but were
ultimately won by the Army of the South. Capua held out a little longer,
but finally fell, and Francis II. took himself safely to Gaeta.
On October 10 Garibaldi had called for a popular vote in the Two
Sicilies for or against their annexation to Piedmont. The vote was
overwhelmingly for annexation. Garibaldi issued a final proclamation,
ending, "Italy one (as the metropolis has wisely determined she
shall be), under the King, _galantuomo_, who is the symbol of our
regeneration, and the prosperity of our country." He met the King,
and handed over to him his dictatorship of the kingdom of Naples and
Sicily. This moment, which was the climax of his great expedition, was
the proudest of his career.
The general was still eager for an immediate march on Rome, but the King
would not have it. It was arranged that the Army of the South should be
incorporated with the royal army, and Garibaldi left Naples for Caprera.
He borrowed $100 to pay certain debts, and in the same meager state in
which he had set out he returned to his rock of Caprera to wait until he
should be needed.
At Caprera the general, now become the most romantic figure in Europe,
received countless deputations of admirers from all nations. For a short
time he was content to resume his farm labors, but the thought of Rome
loomed ever larger in his mind. He had not the gift of patience now, he
was convinced that his army of volunteers could fight and overcome both
France and Austria. The delays of Cavour's policy irritated him, and
finally he went in April, 1861, to the Parliament at Turin to speak his
mind. He made a violent attack on Cavour, to which the latter would not
reply in kind. A few days later the two men met at the King's request
and pretended a reconciliation. Garibaldi could not appreciate Cavour's
temperate statecraft, Cavour realized that Garibaldi was becoming the
most difficult problem Italy had to face. Unfortunately for Garibaldi,
and doubly unfortunately for Italy, Cavour was failing in strength, and
only a short time after the scene in Turin the great Minister died. If
he had lived Italy would have been spared much that followed.
Garibaldi returned to Caprera and watched from afar the policies of
the new premiers, first Ricasoli, then Rattazzi. The latter was always
suspected of French leanings, and the extremists were bitterly opposed
to him. He was a brilliant man, fated to meet disasters, as day after
day passed he found that the Garibaldian problem called ever louder
for solution. He saw that Genoa, Sicily, and Naples were hotbeds of
turbulence, he knew that the people of the last-named city had made
a god of Garibaldi, had built altars to him, and were imploring him
to lead them against the Pope, he knew that even in the Eternal City
hundreds were calling to him to deliver them. Yet Rattazzi also knew
that the problem of the temporal power of the Pope was one of concern
to all Europe, and that Italy was not ready to fight both France and
Austria. His final solution was this, one which must not be judged
too harshly when all the circumstances are considered, to encourage
Garibaldi to start a popular campaign against the Pope, and then send
the royal army to arrest him as fomenting civil strife. The plan
succeeded. In the spring of 1862 Garibaldi could restrain his eagerness
no longer. He announced to his delighted followers that he would lead
them to Rome. He was given to understand the government would not
actively interfere. So, two years after his first expedition, we find
him again arriving triumphantly in Sicily, again we find men of all
classes flocking to him, again by strategy he crossed the straits to
Calabria and took up his northward march. He had not gone far when he
found that the royal army was marching against him. He became convinced
of this when he bivouacked on the famous hill of Aspromonte and saw the
royal general, Pallavicini, camped opposite him. The next day he tried
to lead his soldiers past the other army, but they were stopped by the
regular troops. Both generals affirmed that they gave no orders to fire,
but nevertheless shots were exchanged, and both Garibaldi and his son
Menotti were wounded. A truce was agreed upon, and the volunteers were
placed under the charge of the royal army. Garibaldi became a state
prisoner, perhaps the most difficult prisoner any government ever had
to take upon its hands. All Italy was devoted to him, but found that
it could not control him. The government had been placed in the most
embarrassing situation conceivable, it had been obliged to disarm the
man who had just given the King two crowns. Aspromonte remains one of
the most unfortunate events in the great battle for Italian unity, but
it was in a large measure inevitable. Cavour might have contrived an
escape from it, but Garibaldi was too big a problem for his successors
to handle diplomatically.
The wounded general was taken by slow conveyances to Scylla, and thence
to the fort of Varignano in the Gulf of Spezia. The wound was painful,
it was difficult to locate the bullet, for a long time he was obliged
to keep to his bed and postpone further political action. His illness,
however, gave his friends a golden opportunity to show their devotion;
women of all ranks fought for the chance to nurse the hero, delegations
from England, from Germany, from all parts of Italy made pilgrimages to
his prison, the hotels at Spezia, the nearest town to the fortress, were
continually crowded by Garibaldi worshipers. It seemed that what he had
suffered at Aspromonte had actually canonized him in the eyes of the
world.
His imprisonment could not last long; October 5, 1862, the government
declared an amnesty covering all participators in the late expedition
against Rome except those soldiers who had left the regular army to
join the volunteers. Garibaldi was now moved to Spezia, thence after a
time to Pisa. Each city he passed greeted him tumultuously; in Pisa, the
night of his arrival, the Garibaldi hymn was cheered so loudly at the
theater that the manager abandoned the play and had nothing but the hymn
rendered all the evening, which pleased the audience greatly. At Pisa
the bullet was extracted from Garibaldi's foot, and his recovery became
more rapid. On December 20 he started for Caprera, giving a chance for
Leghorn to welcome him as he embarked for his island home. Once there
he found the rest of which he was so much in need, although visitors
continually besieged his little farm. The kindly instincts of his nature
showed in full flower, he gave whatever his children or his friends
asked of him, sacrificing his own comforts continually for their sake,
and continually being imposed upon. He wrote to the patriots suffering
in Poland and Denmark, and wished that he might go to aid them. Wherever
men were in trouble he sympathized, he could even find it in his heart
to contribute to the poor of Austria.
There were friends of the national cause who feared that the affair
of Aspromonte had injured Garibaldi's prestige, and to revive it
in full glory they planned his triumphal visit to England in the
spring of 1863. Garibaldi had always admired the English, and there
was no question but that the people of England had always zealously
sided with Italy against France and Austria, no matter how strongly
their government might feel that diplomacy required a middle course.
The general went from Caprera to Southampton, and thence to London,
acclaimed by thousands, who rivaled the warm-spirited Neapolitans in
their heights of enthusiasm. The modest, benign-faced warrior was
fêted as a national deliverer, the streets of London rang with his
hymn, women adopted the famous red Garibaldi shirt as the latest
fashion, aristocrats and working people fought for the opportunity of
entertaining him. Before he could take up his northern tour, however, it
was announced that he was overtired and would have to leave the country
for rest. His physicians denied this, and it appears as most probable
that Louis Napoleon was so much displeased and even alarmed at the
popular acclaim given the general that he made his wish known to Lord
Palmerston that the guest leave English shores. Again Garibaldi proved a
serious burden to diplomacy, his very fame made him the more difficult
to deal with. So rather than cause further international trouble the
general bade England an affectionate farewell and returned to Caprera.
The campaign of 1866, which won Venetia for the kingdom of Victor
Emmanuel, is not a glorious page in Italian history. Venice was freed
from Austria's rule because the Prussians won the battles of Sadowa and
Königgratz. What victories Italy won fell to the score of the volunteers
fighting with Garibaldi in the Lakes rather than to the regular army of
the new nation. From the date of the Liberator's return from England up
to the spring of 1866 he lived in comparative quiet, spending most of
his time at Caprera, and only making occasional visits to the mainland.
Meanwhile events were rapidly showing that Prussia and Austria must
soon fight for the supremacy in Germany, and Victor Emmanuel concluded
an alliance with Berlin. Then, in May, 1866, Garibaldi was asked by the
Italian Minister of War to take command of the volunteer forces. He
accepted gladly, and, as so often before, the news that he was about to
take the field was sufficient to gather innumerable patriots about him.
Unfortunately the generals of the regular army were again jealous of
Garibaldi, and continual obstacles were placed in his way, even his own
officers speedily formed cliques and wrought dissension in his command.
He was ordered to attack Austria from Como, and so through the Lakes
rather than from Hungary as he would have preferred.
Yet, with all these obstacles the campaign started at Como with much
of the old spirit. Again the veterans of 1859 and 1860, many of the
famous Thousand, many who had fought at Messala and on the Volturno,
gathered, clad in red shirts, on the banks of Lake Como, and raised the
Garibaldi hymn. Scores of enthusiastic Englishmen could not keep away
from the Lakes, an Englishwoman and her husband followed the general all
through the campaign, carrying a cooking-stove and store of provisions
for their idol. But notwithstanding all the enthusiasm the efforts to
dislodge the enemy were not very successful. The Austrians were not as
easily frightened or defeated as had been the soldiers of the King of
Naples, and the people of the Tyrol did not rise and join Garibaldi's
ranks as had the Sicilians and Calabrians. The commissariat service
was wretched, time and again the troops bivouacked without shelter
or food, conflicting orders were given, and but for their remarkable
light-heartedness and faith in their general the men would have been
in very bad shape for any manner of combat. On the first day of real
fighting, at Rocca d'Anfo, Garibaldi was wounded in the thigh, and after
that had to direct operations from a carriage. Nevertheless, he lost
nothing of his confidence, and planned his successive moves through
the mountains and lakes with his old skill in this form of irregular
warfare.
The actual military operations were of no permanent importance,
the volunteers were sent down the beautiful Lake of Como to Lecco
accompanied by a fleet of private boats filled with admiring friends.
From Lecco they went to Bergamo and thence to Brescia, and then for
a time their headquarters were at Salò, on the Lake of Garda. An
eye-witness contrasts their informal style of marching with that of the
regulars: "Some of them were lying at full length on bullock wagons,
with their rifles decorated with roses at their sides, others were
trudging sturdily along in the loosest manner, smoking, with their
shirts open, and their rugs rolled across their bodies."
When Garibaldi had completed his plans for marching north he received
word from General La Marmora to take Lonato, and turned there from
Salò. The Austrians withdrew before the Italian advance, and the
latter army was free to enter the Trentino. Their first step in this
direction was to take the rocky fort of Rocca d'Anfo, and after that
they marched on Darzo, which was the scene of much fighting, and then
on to the fort of Ampola. On July 16 the volunteers dragged their
cannon into position on the mountains, and on the 17th the real attack
began. Ampola capitulated, and the march to Riva began through the
Ledro valley. At a village near Bizecca they were attacked early in the
morning. The Austrians opened fire from the village houses. Chiassi,
one of Garibaldi's veterans, was killed, and for a time the volunteers
made little headway. Garibaldi's two sons and his son-in-law Canzio
did their utmost to encourage the men behind them, and gradually what
had threatened to be a rout was turned into a victory. Bizecca was
immediately captured, and the troops had started their march to Lardaro
when news came that an armistice was being arranged, and orders were
brought to Garibaldi bidding him leave the Trentino.
The Italian army had met with a reverse at the battle of Custozza,
but fortunately their Prussian allies had already won the two great
victories of Königgratz and Sadowa and were in a position to dictate
terms to Austria. The oft-fought-over Venetian provinces became at last
part of the kingdom of Italy. Venice was added to her sister cities,
which now only lacked Rome. The Tyrol, however, was left with Austria,
and so Garibaldi viewed the peace with disappointment. He was confident
that his volunteers could have won it, and found this another instance
of the mistakes of statesmanship.
As after the expedition of the Thousand, so after the campaign in the
Lakes, Garibaldi found that he could not rest quietly with Rome in Papal
hands. Italy was bound by agreement with France to leave Pius IX. in
temporary possession of the Eternal City, but Garibaldi cared little
or nothing for his country's obligations. He showed in a hundred ways
that he was unwilling that the kingdom should have rest or a chance to
recuperate until the city on the Tiber was won, and so again in 1867, as
in 1862, he became a tremendously difficult problem to the government,
the seat of which had been moved from Turin to Florence, and of which
Rattazzi was again the head.
As soon as the French left Rome a number of revolutionary societies
commenced operations in that city, and Garibaldi was asked to act in
conjunction with them. He made an electioneering tour in the spring
of 1867, and was received at Venice, at Verona, and at Legnano with a
veneration that partook of religious awe. He was elected deputy in the
new Parliament from four districts. He next appeared at the meeting
of the Universal Peace Congress at Geneva, and spoke against the
priesthood, denouncing the Papacy with his accustomed ardor. He then
returned to Italy and in a fiery speech at the Villa Cairoli called on
his countrymen to march on Rome. He started for the Papal frontier,
and the volunteers collected about him so rapidly that Rattazzi was
again obliged to arrange for his arrest. At Sinalunga he was taken
prisoner, and conveyed to Alessandria, and there arrangements were made
to take him to his home at Caprera and keep him virtually imprisoned
there. Unfortunately Garibaldi could not be kept quiet; even when his
island was guarded by four steamers and a frigate he managed to send
appeals to the mainland and keep the revolutionary party alert. Other
leaders were attacking Rome by now, Nicotera was advancing from Naples,
Menotti Garibaldi was waging guerilla warfare near Tivoli, the brothers
Cairoli--name famous in Italian annals--made their daring attack at the
Vigna Glori. Pius IX. and his Secretary of State, Cardinal Antonelli,
were not having a pleasant time in Rome. Barracks were blown up, bombs
were discovered, petitions were presented from his subjects urging him
to call in the army of Victor Emmanuel.
Meanwhile Garibaldi planned and executed his daring escape from Caprera.
He pretended to be ill, and then one dark night set off in a small boat
for Sardinia. He lay hidden until he could get horses to take him to
Porta Prudenza, and from there sailed with his son-in-law Canzio to
the mainland. A day or two later he was brazenly haranguing the people
from the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. The government learned that
they could not control him, and now concluded to repeat the tactics of
Aspromonte, and allow him to bring about his own destruction.
At Terni Garibaldi began active campaigning. He met his troops, and
planned an immediate attack on the town of Monte Rotondo, which crowns
a hill overlooking the Tiber and the roads to Rome. The hill town was
hotly defended, but the volunteers finally took it. From there, after
a short stay, Garibaldi moved his army, now numbering 15,000 men, on
towards the Ponte della Mentana, some four and a half miles from Rome.
It is said that an agreement had been made by which the Papal governor
of the castle of St. Angelo was to surrender his post for a sum of
money, and that this sum was raised by Garibaldi's English friends, but
through treachery was not properly used. This occasioned some delay, and
by that time French troops had been landed and were marching to the aid
of their allies, the Papal guards.
The general was obliged to retreat temporarily to Monte Rotondo, and
there he issued a public address. He relied on the fact that the Roman
Republic of 1849 had made him a Roman general. After rehearsing the
facts of the Italian government's position he said, "Then will I let
the world know that I alone, a Roman general, with full power, elected
by the universal suffrage of the only legal government in Rome, the
Republic, have the right to maintain myself armed in this, the territory
under my jurisdiction; and then if these my volunteers, champions of
liberty and Italian unity, wish to have Rome as the capital of Italy,
fulfilling the vote of Parliament and of the nation, they must not put
down their arms until Italy shall have acquired liberty of conscience
and worship, built upon the ruin of Jesuitism, and until the soldiers of
tyrants shall be banished from our land."
The French had now joined the Papal army, and the Italian troops were
massing in Garibaldi's rear. On November 3 he started towards Tivoli,
but had to fall back on Mentana, and there occurred the battle which
decided the fate of the expedition. The volunteers fought with the
greatest courage and enthusiasm, but their arms were no match for the
new chassepots of the French. Garibaldi had to fall back on Monte
Rotondo, and there, on discovering that his men had scarcely a cartridge
left, he was forced to order a further retreat. The expedition was at
an end, the volunteers were disbanded, and Garibaldi took train to
Florence. There he was arrested and conveyed a prisoner to the fort of
Varignano.
The battle of Mentana had cost many Italian lives. Victor Emmanuel
was deeply grieved and had a message sent to the French Emperor: "The
last events have suffocated every remembrance of gratitude in the heart
of Italy. It is no longer in the power of the government to maintain
an alliance with France, the chassepot gun at Mentana has given it a
fatal blow." The battle therefore had the result of severing the tacit
alliance between Italy and France, and henceforth the problem of Roman
occupation became simpler to the King's government.
In 1870 the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war compelled Napoleon to
defend his own borders, and no longer to support a Papal government in
a foreign land. When the French and Germans were fighting the question
of the temporal power of the Church was quietly settled, with almost no
fighting and little outside attention, by the entrance of the King of
Italy into Rome. At last Italy was united. Garibaldi had nothing to do
with this final occupation, for which he had laid plans since his early
South American days.
When Napoleon was eliminated from French politics Garibaldi could
no longer restrain his ardor for the republican government. He took
sword, and left Caprera to volunteer for service with France. He was
given command of the army of the Vosges, and his campaign against the
Prussians at Autun and Dijon was at least as successful as that of the
regular French generals. The Prussians were too strong, the Army of the
East gave way before them, and Garibaldi's brief campaign was at an
end. After the peace he was elected deputy from Paris, Dijon, and Nice,
but was not allowed to sit in the Assembly on the ground that he was a
foreigner. He received the official thanks of the French government and
returned home.
There remained a somewhat turbulent old age for Garibaldi. Italy was
united and rapidly growing stronger under the happy influence of
continued peace. Garibaldi, however, could not remain quiet, and when
he appeared in public he was publicly worshiped and privately feared.
He became more and more ardently a republican as time went on, and his
republicanism was only too apt to take the color of the last man with
whom he had talked. He was not an able original thinker, and except in
military manoeuvers had always been too much inclined to lean on the
advice of others.
In the elections of 1874 the general was chosen by several districts,
among others the city of Rome, to sit in the Senate. He made a triumphal
progress from Caprera to the capital, and when he was sworn in as a
Senator the members forgot all past and present difficulties and
cheered to the echo the man who had led the Thousand from Genoa to
Naples. He went to the Quirinal to see the King, a sovereign whom he had
ardently admired since the time when he had first seen him in battle.
A little later we find him a member of a committee with the King and
Prince Torlonia to divert the course of the Tiber and improve the
Campagna.
Meanwhile at Caprera Francesca, the devoted woman who had first gone
there to nurse Garibaldi's daughter, had taken Anita's position, and
become the mother of the general's youngest children, Manlio and Clelia.
In 1880 the Court of Appeal at Rome declared Garibaldi's marriage to
Giuseppina Raymondi, the adventuress who had taken advantage of him long
before, null and void. Fortunately the marriage had been contracted
under Austrian and not Italian jurisdiction. Had it been otherwise the
annulment would not have been allowed. Immediately on receipt of the
news Garibaldi and Francesca were married. At Caprera Garibaldi lived
like an island prince, continually receiving visits and presents from
admirers of all nations.