“To Be Ready Ever to Fight for the Cause They Think is Right”
Italy at war without a Garibaldi somewhere in the fighting columns is
unthinkable. Even before the days of the famous Liberator, Giuseppe
himself, there were Garibaldi who had arms and hearts ready to strike
for freedom; but since the days when the great patriot and lover of
liberty made romance as well as history out of his revolutionary
spirit, arms and the defense of freedom are tenets of religion with
the Garibaldi. With the exception of the Russian-Japanese War, it is
said there has been no conflict of powers or revolutionary struggle
without its Garibaldi bearing gun or sword. It goes _sans dire_, then,
that the outbreak of war which arrayed western democracy against the
encroachments of German autocracy was like a clarion call to the blood
of the Garibaldi. They did not wait for Italy to speak—France was
calling and that sufficed.
The son of the Great Garibaldi wrote letters to five of his seven sons
scattered about the world. Two of them were in New York (Giuseppe,
named for his grandfather, and Ricciotti, on his way to South America),
one (Merotti) was in China, and one (Bruno) was in Cuba, and one
(Sante) was in Upper Egypt. The two youngest, Costante and Ezio, were
pursuing their studies in Italy. There was a sister, Italia, in Rio de
Janeiro, who devoted herself to Red Cross organization. In the letters
the sons were told to hold themselves in readiness for the receipt of a
telegram appointing a rendezvous for which they were to start at once.
The cablegram came; the rendezvous was Paris. Giuseppe and Ricciotti
sailed from New York by the next available steamer. They found Costante
and Ezio awaiting them. Bruno and Sante arrived a few days later. But
Merotti could not come from China until several months later, when
Italy had entered the war. Other Italians were there also to tender
their services to France and they organized an Italian Legion that was
incorporated with that famous multiple battalion, the Foreign Legion.
The Italians were soldiers of fortune all, and the brothers had hoped
to be sent to the Balkans, Giuseppe frankly confessing that guerrilla
warfare was his preference. But Ezio, who was sent to drive a camion at
Salonika, was the only Garibaldi who got to the Balkans.
[Illustration:
© _New York Herald._