Giuseppe Garibaldi (July 4, 1807 - June 2, 1882)
... was an Italian military and political figure. In his
twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot
revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection.
Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the
Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and
afterward returned to Italy as a commander in the conflicts
of the Risorgimento. He has been dubbed the "Hero of the Two
Worlds" in tribute to his military expeditions in both South
America and Europe. He is considered an Italian national
hero.
Early years
Giuseppe Garibaldi was born on July 4, 1807 in Nice
(Italian: Nizza), which at the time was the capital of the
French department of Alpes-Maritimes, before it was returned
to the House of Savoy, the rulers of the Kingdom of
Sardinia, in 1814 following Napoleon's defeat. In 1860,
however, the Savoys returned the city to France (an action
Garibaldi opposed), to get French aid in Italy's unification
wars. Garibaldi's family's involvement in coastal trade drew
him to a life at sea. He participated actively in the
community of the Nizzardo Italians and was certified in 1832
as a merchant marine captain. An influential day in
Garibaldi's life came in April 1833, in Taganrog, Russia
where he moored for ten days with the schooner Clorinda and
a shipment of oranges. In a seaport inn, he met Giovanni
Battista Cuneo from Oneglia, a political immigrant from
Italy and member of the secret movement La Giovine Italia
("Young Italy"), founded by Giuseppe Mazzini, an impassioned
proponent of Italian unification as a liberal republic
through political and social reforms. Garibaldi joined the
society, and took an oath dedicating his life to the
struggle to liberate his homeland from Austrian dominance.
In Geneva in November 1833, Garibaldi met Giuseppe Mazzini,
starting a relationship that later became troublesome. He
joined the Carbonari revolutionary association, and in
February 1834 participated in a failed Mazzinian
insurrection in Piedmont. A Genoese court sentenced him to
death in absentia, and he fled to Marseilles.
South American adventures
Garibaldi first sailed to Tunisia, before eventually finding
his way to Brazil. There he took up the cause of
independence of the Republic of Rio Grande do Sul (the
former Brazilian province of São Pedro do Rio Grande do
Sul), joining the gaucho rebels known as the farrapos
(tatters) against the newly independent Brazilian nation
(see War of Tatters). During this war he met a woman, Ana
Ribeiro da Silva (best known as "Anita"), when the Tatters
Army tried to proclaim another republic in the Brazilian
province of Santa Catarina. In October 1839, Anita joined
Garibaldi on his ship, the Rio Pardo. A month later, she
fought at her lover's side at the battles of Imbituba and
Laguna.
In 1841, the couple moved to Montevideo, Uruguay, where
Garibaldi worked as a trader and schoolmaster, and married
there the following year. They had four children, Menotti
(born 1840), Rosita (born 1843), Teresita (born 1845), and
Ricciotti (born 1847). A skilled horsewoman, Anita is said
to have taught Giuseppe about the gaucho culture of southern
Brazil and Uruguay. Around this time, he adopted his
trademark clothing, the red shirt, cloak (poncho), and
sombrero (hat) used by the gauchos.
In 1842, Garibaldi took command of the Uruguayan fleet and
raised an "Italian Legion" for the Uruguayan Civil War. He
aligned with the liberal coalition of Uruguayan Colorados of
Fructuoso Rivera and Argentine Unitarios (with substantive
support of France and United Kingdom) against the
conservative forces of former Uruguayan president Manuel
Oribe's Blancos and Argentine Federales under the rule of
Buenos Aires caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas. The Legion
adopted a black flag that represented Italy in mourning,
with a volcano at the center that symbolized the dormant
power in their homeland. Though there is no contemporary
mention of them, popular history asserts that it was in
Uruguay that the legion first wore the red shirts, said to
have been obtained from a factory in Montevideo that had
intended to export them to the slaughterhouses of Argentina.
It became the symbol of Garibaldi and his followers. Between
1842 and 1848, Garibaldi defended Montevideo against forces
led by Oribe. In 1845, he managed to occupy Colonia del
Sacramento and Isla Martín García, and led the controversial
sack of Gualeguaychú. Adopting skillful guerrilla tactics,
he achieved two celebrated victories in the battles of Cerro
and San Antonio del Santo in 1846.
The fate of his homeland, however, continued to concern
Garibaldi. The election of Pope Pius IX in 1846 caused a
sensation among Italian patriots, both at home and in exile.
When news of the Pope's initial reforms (which seemed to
identify him as the liberal pope prophesied by Vincenzo
Gioberti, who later led the unification of Italy) reached
Montevideo, Garibaldi wrote the following letter:
If these hands, used to fighting, would be acceptable to His
Holiness, we most thankfully dedicate them to the service of
him who deserves so well of the Church and of the
fatherland. Joyful indeed shall we and our companions in
whose name we speak be, if we may be allowed to shed our
blood in defence of Pius IX's work of redemption
- (October 12, 1847)
Also Mazzini, from his exile, applauded the first reforms of
Pius IX. In 1847, Garibaldi offered the apostolic nuncio at
Rio de Janeiro, Bedini, the service of his Italian Legion
for the liberation of the peninsula. News of the outbreak of
revolution in Palermo in January 1848 and revolutionary
agitation elsewhere in Italy encouraged Garibaldi to lead
some 60 members of his legion home.
Return to Italy and second exile
Garibaldi returned to Italy amongst the turmoil of the
revolutions of 1848, and offered his services to Charles
Albert of Sardinia. The monarch displayed some liberal
inclinations, but treated Garibaldi with coolness and
distrust. Rebuffed by the Piedmontese, he and his followers
crossed into Lombardy where they offered assistance to the
provisional government of Milan, which had rebelled against
the Austrian occupation. In the course of the following,
unsuccessful First Italian War of Independence, he led his
legion to two minor victories at Luino and Morazzone.
After the crushing Piedmontese defeat at Novara (March 23,
1849), Garibaldi moved to Rome to support the Republic
recently proclaimed in the Papal States, but a French force
sent by Louis Napoleon (the future Napoleon III) threatened
to topple it. At Mazzini's urging, Garibaldi took command of
the defence of Rome. In fighting near Velletri, Achille
Cantoni saved his life. After Cantoni's death, during the
Battle of Mentana, Garibaldi wrote the novel Cantoni il
volontario.
On April 30, 1849 the Republican army, under Garibaldi's
command, defeated a numerically far superior French army.
Subsequently, French reinforcements arrived, and the siege
of Rome began on June 1. Despite the resistance of the
Republican army, the French prevailed on June 29. On June 30
the Roman Assembly met and debated three options: surrender,
continue fighting in the streets, or retreat from Rome to
continue resistance from the Apennine mountains. Garibaldi
made a speech favoring the third option and then said:
Dovunque saremo, colà sarà Roma. (Wherever we may be, there
will be Rome).
A truce was negotiated on July 1, and on July 2 Garibaldi
withdrew from Rome with 4,000 troops. The French Army
entered Rome on July 3 and reestablished the Holy See's
temporal power. Garibaldi and his forces, hunted by
Austrian, French, Spanish, and Neapolitan troops, fled to
the north with the intention to reach Venice, where the
Venetians were still resisting the Austrian siege. After an
epic march, Garibaldi took momentary refuge in San Marino,
with only 250 men still following him. Anita, who was
carrying their fifth child, died near Comacchio during the
retreat.
America and the Pacific
Garibaldi eventually managed to reach Portovenere, near La
Spezia, but the Piedmontese government forced him to
emigrate again.
He went to Tangier, where he stayed with Francesco
Carpanetto, a wealthy Italian merchant. Carpanetto suggested
that he and some of his associates would finance the
purchase of a merchant ship, which Garibaldi would command.
Garibaldi agreed, feeling that his political goals were for
the moment unreachable, and he could at least earn his own
living.
The ship was to be purchased in the United States, so
Garibaldi went to New York, arriving on 30 July 1850. There
he stayed with various Italian friends, including some
exiled revolutionaries. However, funds for the purchase of a
ship were lacking.
The inventor Antonio Meucci employed Garibaldi in his candle
factory on Staten Island. The cottage on Staten Island where
he stayed is listed on the U.S. National Register of
Historic Places and is preserved as the Garibaldi Memorial.
Garibaldi was not satisfied with this. In April 1851 he left
New York with his friend Carpanetto for Central America,
where Carpanetto was establishing business operations. They
went first to Nicaragua, and then to other parts of the
region. Garibaldi accompanied Carpanetto as a companion, not
a business partner, and used the name "Giuseppe Pane."
Carponetto went on to Lima, Peru, where a ship-load of his
goods was due, arriving late in 1851 with Garibaldi. En
route, Garibaldi called on Andean revolutionary heroine
Manuela Sáenz.
At Lima, Garibaldi was generally welcomed. A local Italian
merchant, Pietro Denegri, gave him command of his ship
Carmen for a trading voyage across the Pacific. Garibaldi
took the Carmen to the Chincha Islands for a load of guano.
Then on 10 January 1852, he sailed from Peru for Canton,
China, arriving in April.
After side trips to Amoy and Manila, Garibaldi brought the
Carmen back to Peru via the Indian Ocean and the South
Pacific, passing clear around the south coast of Australia.
He visited Three Hummocks Island in Bass Strait.
Garibaldi then took the Carmen on a second voyage: to the
United States via Cape Horn with copper from Chile, and also
wool. Garibaldi arrived in Boston, and went on to New York.
There he received a hostile letter from Denegri, and
resigned his command.
Another Italian, Captain Figari, had just come to the U.S.
to buy a ship. He hired Garibaldi to take his ship to
Europe. Figari and Garibaldi bought the Commonwealth in
Baltimore, and Garibaldi left New York for the last time in
November 1853. He sailed the Commonwealth to London and then
to Newcastle on the River Tyne for coal.
Tyneside
The Commonwealth arrived on March 21, 1854. Garibaldi,
already a popular figure on Tyneside, was welcomed
enthusiastically by local workingmen, although the Newcastle
Courant reported that he refused an invitation to dine with
dignitaries in the city. He stayed in Tyneside for over a
month, departing at the end of April 1854. During his stay,
he was presented with an inscribed sword, which his grandson
later carried as a volunteer in British service in the Boer
War. He then sailed to Genoa, where his five years of exile
ended on 10 May 1854.
Second Italian War of Independence
Garibaldi returned again to Italy in 1854. Using a legacy
from the death of his brother, he bought half of the Italian
island of Caprera (north of Sardinia), devoting himself to
agriculture. In 1859, the Second Italian War of Independence
(also known as the Austro-Sardinian War) broke out in the
midst of internal plots at the Sardinian government.
Garibaldi was appointed major general, and formed a
volunteer unit named the Hunters of the Alps (Cacciatori
delle Alpi). Thenceforth, Garibaldi abandoned Mazzini's
republican ideal of the liberation of Italy, assuming that
only the Piedmontese monarchy could effectively achieve it.
With his volunteers, he won victories over the Austrians at
Varese, Como, and other places.
Garibaldi was however very displeased as his home city of
Nice (Nizza in Italian) was surrendered to the French, in
return for crucial military assistance. In April 1860, as
deputy for Nice in the Piedmontese parliament at Turin, he
vehemently attacked Cavour for ceding Nice and the County of
Nice (Nizzardo) to Louis Napoleon, Emperor of the French. In
the following years Garibaldi (with other passionate
Nizzardo Italians) promoted the Irredentism of his Nizza,
even with riots (in 1872).
Campaign of 1860
On January 24, 1860, Garibaldi married an 18-year-old
Lombard noblewoman, Giuseppina Raimondi. Immediately after
the wedding ceremony, however, she informed him that she was
pregnant with another man's child and Garibaldi left her the
same day.
At the beginning of April 1860, uprisings in Messina and
Palermo in the independent and peaceful Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies provided Garibaldi with an opportunity. He gathered
about a thousand volunteers (practically all northern
Italians, and called i Mille (the Thousand), or, as
popularly known, the Redshirts) in two ships named Piemonte
and Lombardo, left from Genoa on May 5 in the evening and
landed at Marsala, on the westernmost point of Sicily, on
May 11.
Swelling the ranks of his army with scattered bands of local
rebels, Garibaldi led 800 volunteers to victory over an
enemy force of 1500 on the hill of Calatafimi on May 15. He
used the counter-intuitive tactic of an uphill bayonet
charge. He saw that the hill the enemy had taken position on
was terraced, and the terraces would give shelter to his
advancing men. Though small by comparison with the coming
clashes at Palermo, Milazzo and Volturno, this battle was
decisive in terms of establishing Garibaldi's power in the
island. An apocryphal but realistic story had him say to his
lieutenant Nino Bixio, Qui si fa l'Italia o si muore, that
is, Here we either make Italy, or we die. In reality, the
Neapolitan forces were ill guided, and most of its higher
officers had been bought out. The next day, he declared
himself dictator of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel II
of Italy. He advanced to Palermo, the capital of the island,
and launched a siege on May 27. He had the support of many
inhabitants, who rose up against the garrison, but before
they could take the city , reinforcements arrived and
bombarded the city nearly to ruins. At this time, a British
admiral intervened and facilitated an armistice, by which
the Neapolitan royal troops and warships surrendered the
city and departed.
Garibaldi had won a single victory. He gained worldwide
renown and the adulation of Italians. Faith in his prowess
was so strong that doubt, confusion, and dismay seized even
the Neapolitan court. Six weeks later, he marched against
Messina in the east of the island, winning a ferocious and
difficult battle at Milazzo. By the end of July, only the
citadel resisted.
Having conquered Sicily, he crossed the Strait of Messina
with help from the British Royal Navy, and marched north.
Garibaldi's progress was met with more celebration than
resistance, and on September 7 he entered the capital city
of Naples, by train. Despite taking Naples, however, he had
not to this point defeated the Neapolitan army. Garibaldi's
volunteer army of 24,000 was not able to defeat conclusively
the reorganized Neapolitan army (about 25,000 men) on
September 30 at the Battle of Volturno. This was the largest
battle he ever fought, but its outcome was effectively
decided by the arrival of the Piedmontese Army. Following
this, Garibaldi's plans to march on to Rome were jeopardized
by the Piedmontese, technically his ally but unwilling to
risk war with France, whose army protected the Pope. (The
Piedmontese themselves had conquered most of the Pope's
territories in their march south to meet Garibaldi, but they
had deliberately avoided Rome, his capital.) Garibaldi chose
to hand over all his territorial gains in the south to the
Piedmontese and withdrew to Caprera and temporary
retirement. Some modern historians consider the handover of
his gains to the Piedmontese as a political defeat, but he
seemed willing to see Italian unity brought about under the
Piedmontese crown. The meeting at Teano between Garibaldi
and Victor Emmanuel II is the most important event in modern
Italian history, but is so shrouded in controversy that even
the exact site where it took place is in doubt.
Aftermath
Garibaldi deeply disliked the Sardinian Prime Minister,
Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour. To an extent, he simply
mistrusted Cavour's pragmatism and realpolitik, but he also
bore a personal grudge for trading away his home city of
Nice to the French the previous year. On the other hand, he
felt attracted toward the Piedmontese monarch, who in his
opinion had been chosen by Providence for the liberation of
Italy. In his famous meeting with Victor Emmanuel II at
Teano on October 26, 1860, Garibaldi greeted him as King of
Italy and shook his hand. Garibaldi rode into Naples at the
king's side on November 7, then retired to the rocky island
of Caprera, refusing to accept any reward for his services.
On October 5 Garibaldi set up the International Legion
bringing together different national divisions of French,
Poles, Swiss, German and other nationalities, with a view
not just of finishing the liberation of Italy, but also of
their homelands. With the motto "Free from the Alps to the
Adriatic," the unification movement set its gaze on Rome and
Venice. Mazzini was discontented with the perpetuation of
monarchial government, and continued to agitate for a
republic. Garibaldi, frustrated at inaction by the king, and
bristling over perceived snubs, organized a new venture.
This time, he intended to take on the Papal States.
At the outbreak of the American Civil War (in 1861),
Garibaldi volunteered his services to President Abraham
Lincoln. Garibaldi was offered a Major General's commission
in the U. S. Army through the letter from Secretary of State
William H. Seward to H. S. Sanford, the U. S. Minister at
Brussels, July 17, 1861. On September 18, 1861, Sanford sent
the following reply to Seward:
He (Garibaldi) said that the only way in which he could
render service, as he ardently desired to do, to the cause
of the United States, was as Commander-in-chief of its
forces, that he would only go as such, and with the
additional contingent power - to be governed by events - of
declaring the abolition of slavery; that he would be of
little use without the first, and without the second it
would appear like a civil war in which the world at large
could have little interest or sympathy.
According to Italian historian Petacco, "Garibaldi was ready
to accept Lincoln's 1862 offer but on one condition: that
the war's objective be declared as the abolition of slavery.
But at that stage Lincoln was unwilling to make such a
statement lest he worsen an agricultural crisis." On August
6, 1863, after the Emancipation Proclamation had been
issued, Garibaldi wrote to Lincoln: "Posterity will call you
the great emancipator, a more enviable title than any crown
could be, and greater than any merely mundane treasure."
Expedition against Rome
A challenge against the Pope's temporal domain was viewed
with great distrust by Catholics around the world, and the
French emperor Napoleon III had guaranteed the independence
of Rome from Italy by stationing a French garrison in Rome.
Victor Emmanuel was wary of the international repercussions
of attacking the Papal States, and discouraged his subjects
from participating in revolutionary ventures with such
intentions. Nonetheless, Garibaldi believed he had the
secret support of his government.
In June 1862, he sailed from Genoa and landed at Palermo,
seeking to gather volunteers for the impending campaign
under the slogan Roma o Morte (Rome or Death). An
enthusiastic party quickly joined him, and he turned for
Messina, hoping to cross to the mainland there. When he
arrived, he had a force of some two thousand, but the
garrison proved loyal to the king's instructions and barred
his passage. They turned south and set sail from Catania,
where Garibaldi declared that he would enter Rome as a
victor or perish beneath its walls. He landed at Melito on
August 14, and marched at once into the Calabrian mountains.
Far from supporting this endeavor, the Italian government
was quite disapproving. General Enrico Cialdini dispatched a
division of the regular army, under Colonel Pallavicino,
against the volunteer bands. On August 28 the two forces met
in the rugged Aspromonte. One of the regulars fired a chance
shot, and several volleys followed, killing a few of the
volunteers. The fighting ended quickly, as Garibaldi forbade
his men to return fire on fellow subjects of the Kingdom of
Italy. Many of the volunteers were taken prisoner, including
Garibaldi, who had been wounded by a shot in the foot.
This episode gave birth to a famous Italian nursery rhyme,
still known by boys and girls all over the country:
Garibaldi fu ferito ("Garibaldi was wounded").
A government steamer took him to Varignano, a prison near La
Spezia, where he was held in a sort of honorable
imprisonment, and was compelled to undergo a tedious and
painful operation for the healing of his wound. His venture
had failed, but he was at least consoled by Europe's
sympathy and continued interest. After being restored to
health, he was released and allowed to return to Caprera.
In 1864 he visited London, where his presence was received
with enthusiasm by the population. He met the British prime
minister Viscount Palmerston, as well as other
revolutionaries then living in exile in the city. At that
time, his ambitious international project included the
liberation of a range of occupied nations, such as Croatia,
Greece, Hungary, but none of them turned into reality.
Final struggle with Austria, and other adventures
Garibaldi took up arms again in 1866, this time with the
full support of the Italian government. The Austro-Prussian
War had broken out, and Italy had allied with Prussia
against Austria-Hungary in the hope of taking Venetia from
Austrian rule (Third Italian War of Independence). Garibaldi
gathered again his Hunters of the Alps, now some 40,000
strong, and led them into the Trentino. He defeated the
Austrians at Bezzecca (thus securing the only Italian
victory in that war) and made for Trento.
The Italian regular forces were defeated at Lissa on the
sea, and made little progress on land after the disaster of
Custoza. An armistice was signed, by which Austria ceded
Venetia to Italy, but this result was largely due to
Prussia's successes on the northern front. Garibaldi's
advance through Trentino was for nought and he was ordered
to stop his advance to Trento. Garibaldi answered with a
short telegram from the main square of Bezzecca with the
famous motto: Obbedisco! ("I obey!").
After the war, Garibaldi led a political party that agitated
for the capture of Rome, the peninsula's ancient capital. In
1867, he again marched on the city, but the Papal army,
supported by a French auxiliary force, proved a match for
his badly armed volunteers. He was shot and wounded in the
leg in the Battle of Mentana, and had to withdraw out of the
Papal territory. The Italian government again imprisoned and
held him for some time, after which he again returned to
Caprera.
In the same year, Garibaldi sought international support for
altogether eliminating the papacy. At an 1867 congress in
Geneva he proposed: "The papacy, being the most harmful of
all secret societies, ought to be abolished."
When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in July 1870, Italian
public opinion heavily favored the Prussians, and many
Italians attempted to sign up as volunteers at the Prussian
embassy in Florence. After the French garrison was recalled
from Rome, the Italian Army captured the Papal States
without Garibaldi's assistance. Following the wartime
collapse of the Second French Empire at the battle of Sedan,
Garibaldi, undaunted by the recent hostility shown to him by
the men of Napoleon III, switched his support to the newly
declared French Third Republic. On 7 September 1870, within
three days of the revolution of 4 September in Paris, he
wrote to the Movimento of Genoa:
Yesterday I said to you: war to the death to Bonaparte.
Today I say to you: rescue the French Republic by every
means.
Subsequently, Garibaldi went to France and assumed command
of the Army of the Vosges, an army of volunteers that was
never defeated by the Prussians.
Death
Despite being elected again to the Italian parliament,
Garibaldi spent much of his late years in Caprera. He
however supported an ambitious project of land reclamation
in the marshy areas of southern Lazio.
In 1879 he founded the "League of Democracy," which
advocated universal suffrage, abolition of ecclesiastical
property, emancipation of women, and maintenance of a
standing army. Ill and confined to a bed by arthritis, he
made trips to Calabria and Sicily. In 1880 he married
Francesca Armosino, with whom he had previously had three
children.
On his deathbed, Garibaldi asked that his bed be moved to
where he could gaze at the emerald and sapphire sea. Upon
his death on June 2, 1882 at the age of almost 75, his
wishes for a simple funeral and cremation were not
respected. He is buried on his farm on the island of Caprera
alongside his last wife and some of his children.
source: wikipedia |
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