It began to be clear that the Neapolitan Government would soon have too much on its hands at home for it to indulge in crusades. But the crisis was not hastened by Cavour, and he was one of the last to believe it imminent. Towards the end of March he learnt with surprise from Sir James Hudson that the reason the British Fleet had been sent to Naples was that a catastrophe was expected. He then asked the Sardinian Minister at the Neapolitan Court whether a Muratist restoration was still possible, and what chances there were at Naples for Italian unity? The Marquis Villamarina replied that the French, who once had many partisans, had lost most of them. As to unity he held out few hopes; it was popular in Sicily but not on the mainland, where the king had a strong following. If the Marquis had said "large" for "strong" his assertion would have been accurate. The misgovernment, which Lord John Russell had lately described as almost without a parallel in Europe, was not of a nature to be wholly unpopular; it was national after a fashion; bribery and espionage and the persecution of the best citizens may leave the masses content, and, in fact, at least in the capital, the basso popolo was royalist, as was the scarcely less ignorant nobility. The bulk of the clergy and the army was also loyal. All this support made the Bourbon régime look not insecure to those on the spot, who failed to understand the complete rottenness of its foundations.
When a revolutionary movement broke out in Sicily, Cavour thought of sending secretly a Piedmontese officer, who fought in the Sicilian insurrection of 1848, to assume the direction, but he did not do so, perhaps because he had very little faith in the success of the attempt. Save for the undoubted fact that Sicily was already separated in spirit not only from the Bourbon crown but from any rule which had its seat at Naples, the insurrection did not begin under promising circumstances. There were no signs of a concerted rising on a large scale, such as had overthrown the Government in 1848, and the authorities disposed of overwhelming means, if they knew how to use them, of crushing a few guerrilla bands. Cavour was slow to believe the catastrophe at hand, but he thought that the time was come to send the King of Naples a warning, which was practically an ultimatum. On April 15 Victor Emmanuel addressed a letter to Francis II, in which he told his cousin that there was possibly still time to save his dynasty, but that time was short. Two things must be done—the first was to restore the Constitution (this even Russia was advising), the second, that the kings of Sardinia and Naples should divide Italy between them, drive out the last Austrian, and constrain the Pope, in whatever strip of territory was left to him, to govern on the same liberal basis as themselves. If these things were not done, and at once, Francis would have the fate of his relative Charles X, and the King of Sardinia might be forced to become the chief instrument of his ruin. It cannot be said that the warning was not sufficiently explicit.
As the insurrection dragged on, the idea gained ground in North Italy of sending out reinforcements to the hard pressed insurgents. Landings on the southern coast had an unfortunate history from that of Murat downwards, but those who play at desperate hazards cannot be ruled by past experience. Cavour seems to have lent some material aid to a Sicilian named La Masa, who was preparing to take a handful of men to his native island, but it is not true that he either desired or abetted the expedition of Garibaldi. A Garibaldian venture could not be kept quiet, it would raise complications with the Powers, and, besides, what if it failed and cost Garibaldi his life? Some people have supposed that Cavour sent Garibaldi to Sicily to get rid of him at an awkward moment, for the General was planning a revolutionary stroke at Nice to resist the annexation. Though this theory sounds plausible, documentary evidence is all against it. Cavour had an interview with the Garibaldian general, Sirtori, to whom he expressed the conviction that if they went they would be all taken. Why, it may be asked, did he not stop the whole affair by placing Garibaldi under lock and key? It seems certain that only the king's absolute refusal prevented this effectual measure from being resorted to. The king, accompanied by Cavour, was paying a first visit to Tuscany; there were rumours of stormy scenes between them on the subject of the arrest, and Victor Emmanuel had his way. Whatever was their disagreement, it ceased when the die was cast. It was one of Cavour's chief merits that he instantly grasped a new situation. To let the expedition go and then place obstacles in its way would have been an irreparable mistake. Admiral Persano inquired whether he was to stop the steamers carrying the Thousand to Sicily, should stress of weather drive them into a Sardinian port? The answer by telegraph ran, "The Ministry decides for the arrest." Persano rightly judged this to mean that Cavour decided against it, and he telegraphed back, "I have understood."
Garibaldi sailed from Quarto late on May 5. Not Cavour himself had thought worse of the plan than he when it was first proposed to him, but, with the decision to go, doubt vanished. "At last," he wrote, "I shall be back in my element—action placed at the service of a great idea." No one seems to have pointed out the extraordinary boldness of choosing a fortified town of 18,000 inhabitants as the place of landing. The leaders of similar expeditions have always selected some quiet spot where they could land undisturbed, and the coast of Sicily presents many such spots. If Garibaldi had done the same he would have failed, for the success of the Thousand was a success of prestige. Italian patriots at home had some uneasy days. Victor Emmanuel, as he afterwards admitted, was in "a terrible fright"; Cavour went about silent and gloomy. A week passed, and no news came. On May 13, at eleven o'clock at night, a passer-by in the Via Carlo Alberto, not far from the Palazzo Cavour, heard some one gaily whistling the air
"Di quella pira …"
Of a sudden the individual, who was walking very quickly, vigorously rubbed his hands. The trait revealed the man—it was Cavour; he had just heard that Garibaldi, eluding the Neapolitan fleet, had disembarked with all his men at Marsala. Things were entering a new and critical phase, and it was not difficult to foretell that, while the hero would have all the laurels, the statesman would have all the thorns. This was a small matter to Cavour: they were again on the high seas, he said cheerfully, but what was the good of thinking of peace and quiet till Italy was made?
The Sardinian Government adopted the policy of assisting the expedition now as far as they could without being compromised with the Powers of Europe—but no farther. This via media had the merit of succeeding; it was, however, severely criticised by friends and foes at the time. On May 24 Prince Napoleon said in the presence of Marshal MacMahon, Prosper Mérimée, N.W. Senior, and others, that Cavour had done too much or too little; he should have kept Garibaldi back, or given him 5000 men; he had thrown on himself and on "my father-in-law" all the discredit of favouring the enterprise, and he would have been no more blamed and hated if he had given it real support. On higher grounds Massimo d'Azeglio was horrified at the lack of straightforwardness in mining the Bourbon edifice from below instead of declaring war. "Garibaldi has no minister at Naples, and he has gone to risk his skin, and long life to him, but we!!" Taking this view, the immaculate Massimo, as governor of Milan, impounded a number of rifles intended for the Thousand, and so nearly wrecked the affair. The King of Naples naturally applied the same criticism. "Don Peppino," he said, "had clean hands, but he was only a blind, behind which was ranged Piedmont with the Western Powers, which had vowed the end of his dynasty." Whether international law was violated or not, there was no real deception, if the essence of deception is to deceive, for the Neapolitan Government saw Cavour's hand everywhere, even where it was not.
Cavour was deterred from declaring war by the fear of foreign intervention. England was the only Power which applauded the drama enacting in Sicily. The cover afforded by English ships to the landing of Garibaldi was no doubt a happy accident, but, as Signor Crispi often repeats to this day, the landing could hardly have taken place without it. "C'est infâme et de la part des Anglais aussi," the Czar wrote on the telegram which announced the safe arrival of the "brigands" at Marsala. Cavour was afraid lest Russian sympathy with the court of Naples should take a more inconvenient form than angry words. Russia, however, remained quiescent, though "geography" was stated to be the only reason. Prussia also discovered that Naples was some way off. Yet there was nothing which the Prince Regent so disliked as to see kings overthrown, until he began to do it himself. But the two Northern Powers (and this was the meaning of the talk about geography) did not want to act without Austria. The Austrian Queen Dowager did all she could to obtain help to save the crown, which she expected would pass from the weakly Francis to her own son, but public opinion in Austria had long been irritated by the supineness and corruption of the Neapolitan régime, and though the Government protested, it did not go to the rescue. It is a question whether it would not have been forced to go, if, at the outset, Cavour had declared war. France joined in the protests of the other Powers, and Cavour's enemies spread a monstrous rumour that he was going to give up Genoa to win Napoleon's complaisance. In reply to an anxious inquiry from the British Government, he declared that under no circumstances would he yield another foot of ground.
When Garibaldi visited Admiral Persano's flag-ship at Palermo, he was received with a salute of nineteen guns, which practically recognised his position as dictator, and Medici's contingent of 3000 men was equipped and armed by Cavour; all secrecy as to the relations between the minister and the Sicilian revolution was, therefore, at an end. He wished that Sicily should be annexed at once. Though Garibaldi had performed every act since he landed in Sicily in Victor Emmanuel's name, Cavour was more and more afraid of the republicans in his camp. He exaggerated their influence over their leader, who, in vital matters, was not easy to move, and he did not believe that, in accordance with Mazzini's instructions, they were working for unity regardless of the form of government which might follow. Victor Emmanuel could sound the depths of Mazzini's patriotism; Cavour never could. The two men were made to misunderstand each other. There are differences too fundamental for even imagination to bridge over. Had they lived till now, when both are raised on pedestals in the Italian House of Fame, from which time shall not remove them, Mazzini would still have been for Cavour, and Cavour for Mazzini, the evil genius of his country.
The nightmare of Red Republicanism taking the bit between its teeth and bolting was not the only terror that disturbed Cavour's rest. He shuddered at the establishment of a dictatorial democracy which placed unlimited power in the hands of men of no experience, with only the lantern of advanced Liberalism to guide them. He, who had tried to make the Italian cause look respectable, as well as meritorious, asked himself what these improvised statesmen would do next? The Garibaldian dictatorship has not lacked defenders, and two of its administrators lived to be prime ministers of Italy, but it was inevitable that Cavour should judge it as he did.