THE LAST CRUSADE
1867
The French leave Rome--Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape--The Second
French Intervention--Monte Rotondo--Mentana.
The words of Victor Emmanuel to the Venetian Deputation contained a
riddle easy to solve: what was meant by the 'completion' of Italy was
the establishment of her capital on the Tiber. In most minds there was
an intense belief in the inevitability of the union of Rome with the
rest of Italy, but no one saw how it was to be brought about. What
soothsayer foretold Sédan?
In the first period after the war, domestic difficulties fixed the
attention of the Italian Government on the present rather than on the
future. An insurrection at Palermo assumed threatening proportions
owing to the smallness of the garrison, and might have had still more
serious consequences but for the courage and presence of mind shown by
the Syndic, the young Marquis di Rudini. Crime and poverty, republican
hankerings, the irritation of the priesthood at recent legislation,
and most of all, the feeling that little had been done since 1860 to
realise the millennium then promised, contributed to the outbreak
which was quelled when troops arrived from the mainland, but the
ministers were blamed for not having taken better precautions against
its occurrence. Another stumbling-block lay in the path of Ricasoli,
namely, the application of the law for the suppression of religious
houses, and the expropriation of ecclesiastical property. After an
unsuccessful endeavour to cope with it, he dissolved the Chamber, but
the new Parliament proved no more willing to support his measures,
which were of the nature of a compromise, than the old one, and he
finally resigned office. He was succeeded by Urban Rattazzi, under
whose administration a measure was passed which, though drastic in
appearance, has not prevented the re-establishment of a great many
convents of which the property was bought in under the name of
private individuals. Every Catholic country has seen the necessity
sooner or later of putting a check to the increase of monasticism, but
it may be a matter of regret that in Italy, the toleration granted to
the learned community of Monte Cassino was not extended to more of the
historic monasteries. The abstention of the Clerical party from the
voting urns deprived them of an influence which, on such points as
these, they might have exercised legitimately and perhaps
beneficially. To that abstention, the disequilibrium of Italian
political life, from first to last, is largely due.
The time allowed to the French under the September Convention for the
evacuation of Rome expired in December 1866, and at the opening of the
new year, for the first time since 1849, the Eternal City was without
a garrison in the service of a foreign Power. While executing their
engagement, the French Government took occasion to say that they kept
their hands perfectly free as concerned future action. The anomalous
obligations of the September Convention now came into force, and it
was not long before their inconvenience was felt. Had Ricasoli
remained at the head of affairs the _status quo_ might have lasted for
a time; because, although he was an unflinching opponent of the
Temporal Power, he would have made it clear that since the Convention
existed he meant to respect it, and to make others respect it. He had
shown that he could dare, but that was when he bore himself the whole
responsibility of his daring. He was not the man to tolerate heroic
imprudence in others with the mental reservation of owning or
disowning the results, as might prove convenient. Rattazzi, on the
other hand, was believed to answer very closely to this description;
and patriots who were willing to bear all the blame in case of
failure and yield all the praise in case of success, began once more
to speculate on the profit to the national cause which might be
extracted from the peculiarities of his character. Aspromonte, that
should have placed them on their guard, had the contrary effect, for
it was supposed that the Prime Minister was very anxious to wipe that
stain from his reputation.
Nevertheless, the Party of Action considered that, for the present,
the wisest course was to wait and watch the development of events.
This was Mazzini's personal view, but Garibaldi, almost alone in his
dissent, did not share it. Impelled partly, no doubt, by the
impatience of a man who sees the years going by and his own life
ebbing away without the realisation of its dearest dream, but partly
also by the deliberate belief that the political situation offered
some favourable features which might not soon be repeated, Garibaldi
decided to take the field in the autumn of 1867. His friends, who one
and all tried to dissuade him, found him immovable. It is too much to
say that he expected assistance from the Government, but that he hoped
to draw Rattazzi after him is scarcely doubtful, and he had good
reason for the hope.
In Rattazzi's own version and defence of his policy, it is set forth
that before the die was cast he did all that was humanly possible to
prevent the expedition, but that having failed, he intended sending the
Italian army over the frontier in the wake of the broken-loose
condottiere. Though this gives a colour of consistency to his conduct,
it is not satisfactory as an explanation, and still less as an apology.
General La Marmora, who had always opposed the Convention, though he
belonged to the party which made it, once declared that 200,000 men
would not be sufficient to hold the Papal frontier against a guerilla
invasion. True as this may be, it is impossible to resist the
conclusion that a minister who had resolutely made up his mind to
prevent any attempt from being made would not have acted as Rattazzi
acted. The Prime Minister thought that he was imitating Cavour, but in
reality he simply imitated the pendulum of a clock.
Rattazzi's taste was for intrigue rather than for adventure in the
grand sense. An adventurous minister would have accelerated the
enterprise to the utmost, in secret or not in secret, and would then
have preceded Garibaldi to Rome before the Clerical party in France
had time to force Napoleon to act. The rest could have been left to
the Roman people. What they did in 1870 they would have done in 1867;
they were ready to acclaim any conquering liberator; they were not
ready to make a revolution on their own account, and with all their
leaders in prison or in exile, they are hardly to be blamed for it.
For such a policy Italy might have pleaded that necessity which knows
no law. Everybody allowed that if Garibaldi went to Rome the Italians
must go there too: the very security of the Pope demanded it--at
least, he said so. As to the first part of the programme, complicity
in the preparation of the movement, it would have been an infringement
of the Convention, but had France kept the Convention? French bishops
recruited soldiers for the Pope in every province of France, and the
Antibes Legion was drawn, officers and men, from the French army. When
some of the men deserted, the French War Office sent General Dumont to
Rome to look to the discipline of the regiment. Those who argued that
the spirit, if not the letter, of the agreement had been already
evaded, could make out a good case for their position.
It has been suggested that this is what Rattazzi's policy would have
been, but for the opposition of the King. Were it so, the minister
ought to have resigned at the beginning of the proceedings instead of
at the end. That in the ultimate crisis it was the King who prevented
the troops from moving is a fact, but the propitious moment was then
past and gone. 'Do as you like, but do it quickly,' Napoleon said to
Cavour when Cialdini was to be sent to the Cattolica. And it was done
quickly.
After letting Garibaldi make what arrangements and issue what
manifestoes he chose for six weeks, Rattazzi suddenly had him arrested
at Sinalunga on the 23rd of September. The only consequence was fatal
delay; not knowing what to do with their prisoner, the Government
shipped him to Caprera. Personally he was perfectly free; no
conditions were imposed; but nine men-of-war were despatched to the
island to sweep the seas of erratic heroes. In spite of which,
Garibaldi escaped in a canoe on the 14th of October.
That night, between sundown and moonrise, there was only one hour's
dark, but it sufficed the fugitive to make good his passage from
Caprera to the island of Maddalena. A strong south-east breeze was
blowing; the waves, however, were rather favourable to the venture, as
they hid the frail bark from any eyes that might be peering through
the night. Garibaldi did not fear; he had often put out on this
terrible sea when lashed to fury to succour sailors in their peril. On
reaching Maddalena he scrambled over the rocks to the house of an
English lady who was delighted to give him hospitality. Next evening
he proceeded to Sardinia, from which, after several adventures, he
sailed for the Tuscan coast in a boat held in readiness by his
son-in-law, Canzio. And so, to the amazement of friends and foes, he
arrived in Florence, where, before many hours were past, he was
haranguing the enthusiastic crowd from a balcony.
Garibaldi had escaped, but the mischief done to the movement by the
loss of nearly a month could not be remedied. Although large armed
bands under Acerbi, Nicotera and Menotti Garibaldi were gathered near
Viterbo, as usually happened in the absence of the chief, nothing
effectual was done. But it was in Paris that the delay brought the
most ruinous results.
The history of the second French expedition to Rome will never be
satisfactorily told, because, while the outward circumstances point
one way, the inward probabilities point another. Napoleon had said
that if the Convention were not observed he would intervene, and he
did intervene; nothing could seem simpler. Yet it is not doubtful
that, in his inmost heart, he was wishing day and night that something
would turn up to extricate him from the Roman dilemma once for all.
While he hesitated, the Clerical party in France did not hesitate. Not
a moment was thrown away by them. Towards the middle of October, it
was reported that 'half royalist and half Catholic France will be in
Rome in the course of the week. Men with names belonging to the
proudest French nobility--the De Lusignans, De Clissons, De Lumleys,
De Bourbon-Chalens, etc., are chartering vessels, arriving in Rome by
scores and hundreds, and hence hurrying to the front to take their
places as privates in the Zouaves.' That, however, does not describe
the most important sphere of their activity which was the
ante-chamber, nay, the boudoir of St Cloud. In that palace, three
years later to be rased to the ground by the Germans, the net was
woven which every day closed tighter and tighter round Napoleon, till
he was enveloped in its meshes past escape. Ever since De Morny's
death, the influence nearest the throne had been increasing in
strength; it is needless to say in which direction it was exercised.
Napoleon was ill; Maximilian's ghost floated over him; he felt his
power slipping from his hands in spite of the noise and show of the
Exhibition, which was supposed to mark its zenith. The words of the
old pact with the Royalists buzzed in his ears: 'Do you keep the Pope
on his throne, and we will keep you on yours.' And he yielded.
The 'principle' of French intervention was adopted by the council of
ministers on the 17th of October. Then, and not till then, Rattazzi
decided to send the Italian troops over the frontier. On finding that
neither the King nor several of his colleagues in the ministry would
support him, he resigned office on the 19th of the month.
It was on the day after that Garibaldi appeared in Florence. As there
was no ministry, no one thought it his business to interfere with him.
Cialdini, whom the King had requested to form a cabinet, did go and
ask him to keep quiet till there was some properly qualified person to
arrest him; but this, not unnaturally, he declined to do. He left
Florence by special train for Terni, whence he crossed the frontier
and joined the insurgent bands near Rome.
From the 19th to the 26th, Napoleon again and again ordered and
countermanded the departure of the transports from Toulon. On the last
date the final order was given and the ships started. The news must
have just reached Paris that the King had called upon General Menabrea
to undertake the task which had been abandoned by Cialdini, whose name
recalled Castelfidardo too strongly to have a sound welcome either in
the Vatican or at St Cloud. When Napoleon heard that Menabrea was to
be Rattazzi's successor, he knew that there was no fear that the new
Government, carried away by the popular current which was manifestly
having its effect on the King, should, after all, order the Italian
army to the front. Menabrea, the Savoyard who in 1860 chose the
Italian nationality which his son has lately cast away, was the old
opponent of Cavour in the Turinese chamber, and of all Italian
politicians he was the most lukewarm on the Roman question. All chance
of a collision between the French and Italian armies was removed.
Menabrea did occupy some positions over the Papal frontier, it would
be hard to say with what intention, unless it were to appear to fulfil
a sort of promise given by the King during the ministerial
interregnum. The troops were ordered on no account to attack the
French, and as soon as the Garibaldian campaign was at an end, they
were brought home. It was not worth while to send them with their
hands tied to almost within earshot of where other Italians were
fighting and falling. Menabrea's attitude towards the volunteers was
immediately revealed by the issue of a royal proclamation, in which
they were declared rebels. The French were free to act.
All this time the revolution in Rome, which it was admitted on all
sides would have gone far towards cutting the knot, did not begin.
Besides the cause already assigned, the absence of the heads, there was
another, the almost total lack of arms. To remedy this, Enrico and
Giovanni Cairoli, with some seventy followers, tried to take a supply of
arms up the Tiber to Rome. Only the immense importance of the object
could have justified so desperate an attempt. Obliged to abandon their
boats near Ponte Molle, they struck off into the Monti Parioli, where
they were attacked, within sight of the promised land, at a spot called
Villa Gloria. Their assailants were three times their number, and those
who were not killed were carried prisoners to Rome. Among the killed was
the captain of the band, who fell in the arms of his young brother. As
Enrico Cairoli lay dying, the French Zouaves (was this the chivalry of
France?) charged the two brothers with their bayonets, piercing Giovanni
with ten wounds, from injuries arising from one of which he expired a
year later, after long torments. 'Dastardly French!' cried Enrico with
his last breath. They were the third and fourth sons of Adelaide Cairoli
who died for their country. One only of her five children remained to
stand by her own death-bed--Benedetto, the future Prime Minister, and
saviour of King Humbert from the knife of an assassin.
The Papal army was composed of 13,000 men, General de Courten
commanding the portion of it which could be spared out of Rome. The
Breton, Colonel Charette, had charge of the Zouaves. Since the French
garrison left, much trouble had been taken to make this force
efficient. Under Garibaldi's own orders there were between 7000 and
8000 volunteers. Those who have made a higher estimate have included
other bands which, either from the difficulty of provisioning a larger
number, or from want of time for concentration, remained at a
distance.
The chief's arrival soon infused new life into the camp. On the 24th
he moved towards Monte Rotondo, one of the castellated heights near
Rome, which commands the Nomentane and Tiburtine ways to the south,
and the railway and Via Salara to the west. It was generally
considered the most important military position in the Papal states.
The garrison was small, but, perched as they were on a hill crest
which looks inaccessible, the defenders might well hope to hold out
till help came from Rome. They had artillery, of which the volunteers
had none, and the old castle of the Orsini, where they made their
principal stand, was well adapted for defence. From the morning of the
25th till midnight, the Garibaldians hurled themselves against the
walls of the rock town without making much way; but at last the
resistance grew weak, and when the morning light came, the white flag
was seen flying. At four in the afternoon of the 26th a Papal column
tardily arrived upon the scene, but they perceived that all was over
at Monte Rotondo, and, after firing a few musket shots, they fled to
Rome in disorder.
Garibaldi rode into the cathedral, where he fixed his quarters for the
night. In Italy churches have ever been applied to such uses. After
the reduction of Milan, Francesco Sforza rode into the Duomo, and when
King Ladislaus of Naples conquered Rome, he rode into the basilica of
St John Lateran. The guerilla chief bivouacked in a confessional,
while his Red-shirts slept where they could on the cathedral floor.
Four hundred of them had been killed or wounded in the assault.
The prisoners of war were brought before Garibaldi, who praised their
valour and sent them under an escort to the Italian frontier. Two or
three were retained for the following reason. Garibaldi had heard of
the Cairolis' heroic failure, and after his victory his first thought
was of them and of their sorrowing mother. He asked Signora Mario if
there were any notabilities among the Papal prisoners. She mentioned
Captain Quatrebras and others, and he sent her into Rome on a mission
to the Papal commander with a view to exchanging these prisoners for
the wounded Giovanni and for his brother's body. The proposal was
accepted, and the compact kept after Mentana had changed the aspect of
affairs.
'Garibaldi at the gates!' was the news that spread like wildfire
through Rome on the evening of the 26th of October. Terror, real
terror, and no less real joy filled all hearts; but the sides were
soon to be reversed. Another piece of news was not long in coming:
'The French at Civita Vecchia!'
The French arrived on the 29th, and on the same day Garibaldi advanced
almost to the walls of Rome, still hoping for a revolutionary movement
to break out within the city; but the information which he then
received deprived him finally of this hope, and he gave the order to
return to Monte Rotondo. Volunteers have the defect of being soldiers
who _think_; on this occasion they thought that the backward march was
the beginning of the end--that, in short, the game was up. A third of
the whole number deserted, and took the road towards the Italian
frontier. Garibaldi himself seems to have had a first idea of crossing
into the Abruzzi, and there waiting to see what turn events would
take; but he did not long entertain it, and, when he again left Monte
Rotondo, it was with the fixed design of fighting a battle. He
expected, however, to fight the Papal troops alone, and not the
French.
This was very nearly being the case. On the 1st of November, the Papal
General Kanzler called on General De Failly at Civita Vecchia, and
found him, to his concern, by no means anxious to rush into the fray.
Even when sending the troops, Napoleon seems to have hoped to escape
from being seriously compromised. He probably thought that the moral
effect of their landing would cause Garibaldi to retire, and that thus
the whole affair would collapse. But the Papal authorities did not
want it to collapse; they wanted more bloodshed, and if the words
which express the ungarnished truth as acknowledged by their own
writers and apologists, sound indecent when describing the government
of the Vicar of Christ, it only shows once more the irreconcilability
of the offices of priest and king in the nineteenth century. Kanzler
insisted that a crushing blow must be inflicted on the volunteers
before they had time to retreat. He argued so long and so well that De
Failly promised him a brigade under General Polhès to aid in the
attack which he proposed to make on Monte Rotondo.
The Papal forces left Rome by Porta Pia, and took the Via Nomentana,
which leads to Monte Rotondo by Mentana. They were on the march at
four o'clock a.m. Garibaldi had ordered his men to be ready at dawn on
the same day (it was the 3rd of November); but Menotti suggested that,
before they started, there should be a distribution of shoes, a
consignment of which had just reached the camp. Many of the volunteers
were barefoot, which gives a notion of their general equipment.
Garibaldi, who rarely took advice, yielded to his son. Had he not done
so, before the Papal army reached Mentana, he would have been at
Tivoli. One delay brings another, and it was midday when the march
began. Garibaldi looked sad, and spoke to no one, but hummed some bars
of Riego's hymn, the Spanish song of freedom, full of a wild, sweet
pathos, to which his tanned-faced legionaries had marched under the
Monte Videan sun. Could he but have had with him those strong warriors
now! He mounted his horse, put it to a gallop, which he rarely did,
and, riding down the ranks of the column, took his place at its head.
When he arrived at the village of Mentana, he heard that the
Pontificals were close by, and he waited to give them battle.
Mentana lies in a depression commanded by the neighbouring mounds,
not a good configuration for defence. This village in the Roman
Campagna sprang into history on a November day one thousand and
sixty-seven years before, as the meeting-place of Charlemagne and Leo
III. Here they shook hands over their bargain: that the Pope should
crown the great Charles Emperor, and that the Emperor should assure to
the Pope his temporal power. And now the ragged band of Italian youths
was come to say that of bargains between Popes and Emperors there had
been enough.
They numbered less than 5000. General De Failly reckoned the Papal
troops engaged at 3000 and the French at 2000, but Italian authorities
compute the former at a higher figure. The most experienced of the
Garibaldian officers thought that the attackers were twice as numerous
as they were. At the first onslaught great confusion prevailed among
the volunteers. Mentana seemed lost, but the sound of the guns they
had captured at Monte Rotondo restored their _moral_, and making a
gallant rush forward they retook the principal positions with the
bayonet. As they saw the Pontificals swerve back they uttered cries of
joy. It was two o'clock. The enemy's fire slackened; something was
going on which the volunteers could not make out. All at once there
was a sharp unfamiliar detonation, resembling the whirring sound of a
machine. The French had come into action.
A hailstorm of bullets mowed down the Garibaldian ranks. Their two
guns were useless, for the ammunition, seventy rounds in all, was
exhausted. They fought till four o'clock--till nearly their last
cartridge was gone; then they slowly retreated. Very few of them
guessed what that peculiar sound meant, or imagined that they had been
engaged with the French, but next morning Europe knew from General De
Failly's report that 'the Chassepots had done wonders.'
Garibaldi left the field, haggard and aged, unable to reconcile
himself to a defeat which he thought that more discipline, more
steadiness in his rank and file, would have turned into a victory. He
had always demanded the impossible of his men; till now they had given
it to him. In time he judged more justly. Those miserably-armed lads
who lately had been glad to eat the herbs of the field, if haply they
found any, stood out for four hours against the pick of two regular
armies, one of which was supposed to be the finest in the world. They
had done well.
Mentana remained that night in the hands of 1500 Garibaldians, who
still occupied the castle and most of the houses when the general
retreat was ordered. In the morning the Garibaldian officer who held
the castle capitulated, on condition that the volunteers 'shut up in
Mentana' should be reconducted across the frontier; terms which the
French and Papal generals interpreted to embrace only the defenders of
the castle. Eight hundred of the others were taken in triumph to Rome.
It would have been wiser to let them go. The Romans had been told that
the Garibaldians were cut-throats, incendiaries, human bloodhounds
waiting to fly at them. What did they behold? 'The beast is gentle,'
as Euripides makes his captors say of Dionysius. The stalwart Romans
saw a host of boys, with pale, wistful, very young-looking faces. If
anything was wanting to seal the fate of the Temporal Power it was the
sight of that procession of famished and wounded Italians brought to
Rome by the foreigner.
The victors, however, were jubilant. Their inharmonious shouts of
_Vive Pie Neuf_ vexed the delicate Roman ears. It was the battle-cry
of the day of Mentana. Begun by the masked, finished by the unmasked
soldiers of France, Mentana was a French victory, and it was the last.
The Garibaldian retreat continued through the night to Passo Corese on
the Italian frontier. The silence of the Campagna was only broken by
little gusts of a chilly wind off the Tiber; it seemed as if a
spectral army moved without sound. Garibaldi rode with his hat pressed
down over his eyes; only once he spoke: 'It is the first time they
make me turn my back like this,' he said to an old comrade, 'it would
have been better ...' He stopped, but it was easy to supply the words:
'to die.'
As he was getting into the train at Figline, with the intention of
going straight to Caprera, he was placed under arrest by order of the
Italian Government. His officers had their hands on their swords, but
he forbade their using force. The arrest seemed an unnecessary slight
on the beaten man, who had loved Italy too well. But General Menabrea,
who ordered it, believes that he thereby saved Italian unity.
According to an account given by him many years after to the
correspondent of an English newspaper, Napoleon wrote at this juncture
to King Victor Emmanuel, that as he was not strong enough to govern
his kingdom, he, Napoleon, was about to help him by relieving him of
all parts of it except Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia. The arrest of
Garibaldi, by showing that the King 'could govern,' averted the
impending danger. In communicating it to Napoleon, the King is said to
have added 'that Italians would lose their last drop of blood before
consenting to disruption,' a warning which he was not unlikely to
give, but the whole story lacks verisimilitude. It appears more
credible that an old man's memory is at fault than that a letter, so
colossally insolent, was actually written. Menabrea, and even the
King, may have feared that something of the kind was in the mind of
the Emperor.
As after Aspromonte so after Mentana; Garibaldi was confined in the
fortress of Varignano, on the bay of Spezia. A few weeks later he was
released and sent to Caprera. As he left the fortress-prison he wrote
the words: 'Farewell, Rome; farewell, Capitol; who knows who will
think of thee, and when?'
The last crusade was over; destiny would do the rest.