THE WAR BETWEEN NAPLES AND SICILY
[1848-1850 A.D.]
A state of war of insupportable animosity and irritation reigned over the whole of the Subalpine dual monarchy, when the February revolution of 1848 in Paris threw a firebrand into this inflammable material. In 1847, Metternich is said to have written to the field-marshal Radetzky: “It is not easy to fight larvæ and fantastic shapes and yet this is our ceaseless warfare, ever since the appearance of a liberal pope upon the scene.” These larvæ and fantastic shapes were now to gain body and substance.
In Sicily, where already a provincial government under the leadership of a few heads of the nobility like Ruggiero Settimo, Peter Lanza, Prince of Butera, etc., had taken charge of public affairs in Palermo and other places, negotiations with King Ferdinand, with Lord Minto as an intermediary, led to no agreement. A union of the two kingdoms, which according to the “ultimatum” of the Sicilians could have its only bond in the person of the monarch, was in opposition to Ferdinand’s desire for rule. Accordingly Sicily held to its outspoken independence from Naples and rejected every approach to an understanding with King Ferdinand II.
The Sicilian national representatives, divided into two chambers, elected the popular and respected noble Ruggiero Settimo, as president of the provisory government, and on April 13th adopted the resolution: “The throne of Sicily is declared vacant. Ferdinand Bourbon and his dynasty are forever removed from the Sicilian throne. Sicily shall be governed constitutionally and as soon as its constitution has been revised an Italian prince shall be called to the throne.” When Ferdinand, under the stress of events before Verona and in Rome, allowed himself to be moved by reactionary influence to dissolve the chambers of deputies on the very day of their opening “on account of their assuming illegal authority and exceeding their limits of power,” when he suppressed an uprisal of the militia and of the radicals by his Swiss guards and by the unloosed populace in a barricade battle, and, as Queen Caroline had done fifty years before, gave up the well-to-do population of his capital to the murderous and plundering greed of crowds of lazzaroni, then the cloth which had covered the two kingdoms was completely torn asunder. The frivolous, uneducated, and powerless people of Naples endured the hard yoke of military despotism and of a reactionary camarilla; but Sicily held all the more firmly to the exclusion of the Bourbons and proceeded to elect a new king after the new constitution had been rapidly revised in favour of democratic views. After many proposals, in which foreign influences also had a hand, the highest state authorities, the government, senate, and commune, united in the resolve to call the second son of Charles Albert, Prince Albert Amadeus of Savoy, duke of Genoa, to be the constitutional king of Sicily. But the fate of the beautiful, unfortunate island was not yet fulfilled, the sanguinary drama not yet played out. The news of the election reached the royal camp when the star of the Italian army was already in the descendant.
Charles Albert consequently declined the crown for his son in order not to incense France or England against him. Ferdinand, however, swore to preserve the integrity of his kingdom and took measures to subjugate the island from the citadel of Messina [Sept. 7th-9th], where there was a strong and well-equipped Neapolitan garrison. There now broke out a civil war full of horror, and with scenes of wild barbarity, patriotic heroism, and fanatic passion. General Filangieri, an energetic warrior from the time of Murat, bombarded Messina, so that thousands of dead bodies lay in the streets, many houses were burned, and the greater part of the surviving inhabitants sought safety and protection on the foreign ships in the harbour. From that time on Ferdinand II was designated as “King Bomba.”
After some time a truce was brought about through the intervention of France and England. In April, 1849, however, the war broke out anew. A numerous company of foreigners, commanded by the Pole, Mieroslawski, came to the aid of the Sicilians, but the military training and the better equipment of the Neapolitan mercenaries, especially of the Swiss, carried the day in the battle of Catania (April 6th, 1849).
On May 14th the Neapolitan army made its entry into Palermo, the capital of Sicily, and the unfortunate island, over which the tricoloured flag had waved for more than a year, became again enchained to the military dominion of the Bourbons. The heads of the provisory government, all of them men of culture and of noble birth and character, sought refuge among strangers. Filangieri, elevated to the rank of duke of Taormina, became governor of Sicily.