The partisan chiefs in the kingdom of Naples were brigands, pure and simple, most of whom had either been long wanted by the police, or had already suffered in prison for their crimes. They organised their troops on the strict principles of brigand bands, and proposed to them the same object: pillage. 'Lieut-General' Chiavone who had a mania for imitating Garibaldi, was the least bad among them; unlike his prototype, he did not like being under fire, but neither did he care to spill innocent blood. What, however, can be said for Pilone, 'commander of His Majesty's forces' on Vesuvius; for Ninco Nanco, [Pg.331] Bianco dei Bianchi, Tardio, Palma; for Carusso, who cut the throats of thirteen out of fourteen labourers and told the one left to go and tell the tale; for the brothers La Gala, who roasted and ate a priest? It was said that no horror committed during the Indian Mutiny was here without a parallel.
Of respectable Neapolitans who held responsible posts under the late régime not one joined the bands, but they contained French, Austrian and Belgian officers, and one Prussian. A nephew of Mgr. de Mérode, the young Marquis de Trazégnies, was with Chiavone; the Carlist, Josè Borjès, was with a scoundrel named Crocco. Borjès' case is a hard one. He had been made to believe in the genuine character of the insurrection and thought that he was giving his sword to an honourable cause. The melancholy disillusion can be traced in the pages of a note-book which he kept from day to day, and which fell into the hands of the Italians when he was captured. The brief entries show a poetic mind; he observes the fertile soil, deploring, only, that it is not better cultivated; he admires the smiling valleys and the magnificent woods whose kings of the forest show no mark of the centuries that passed over their fresh verdure. At first Borjès was pleased with the peasants who came to him, but as they were few, he was obliged to join Crocco's large band, and he now began to see, with horror, what kind of associates he had fallen amongst. He had no authority; the brigands laughed at his rebukes; never in his life, he writes, had he come across such thieves. Before the enemy they ran away like a flock of sheep, but when it was safe to do so, they murdered both men and women. In desperation, Borjès resolved to try and get to Rome, that he might lay the whole truth before the King, but after suffering many hardships, he was taken with a few others close to the Papal frontier [Pg.332] and was immediately shot. He died bravely, chanting a Spanish litany.
Borjès' journal notes the opposition of all classes, except the very poorest and most ignorant. Was it to be believed, therefore, that this mountain warfare, however long drawn out, could alter one iota the course of events? If Francis II. supposed the insurrection to be the work of a virtuous peasantry, why did he allow them to rush to their destruction?
The task of restoring order was assigned to General Cialdini. He found the whole country, from the Abruzzi to Calabria, terrorised by the league of native assassins and foreign noblemen. The Modenese general was a severe officer who had learnt war in Spain, not a gentle school. If he exceeded the bounds of dire necessity he merits blame; but no one then hoped in the efficacy of half measures.
One element in the epidemic of brigandage, and looking forward, the most serious of all, was an unconscious but profoundly real socialism. If half-a-dozen socialistic emissaries had assumed the office of guides and instructors, it is even odds that the red flag of communism would have displaced the white one of Bourbon. This feature became more accentuated as the struggle wore on, and after experience had been made of the new political state. The economic condition of a great part of the southern population was deplorable, but liberty, so many thought, would exercise an instantaneous effect, filling the mouths of the hungry, clothing the naked, providing firing in winter, sending rain or sunshine as it was wanted. But liberty does none of these things. The disappointment of the discovery did not count for nothing in the difficulties of that period; it counts for everything [Pg.333] in the difficulties of this.
The reorganisation of the southern provinces proceeded very slowly. The post of Lieutenant-Governor was successively conferred on L.C. Farini, Prince Eugene of Carignano, and Count Ponza di San Martino; for a short time Cialdini was invested with the supreme civil as well as military power. None of these changes met with entire success. The government was sometimes too weak, sometimes too arbitrary; of the great number of Piedmontese officials distributed through the south, a few won general approval, but the majority betrayed want of knowledge and tact, and were judged accordingly. It was a misfortune for the new administration that it was not assisted by the steam power of moral enthusiasm which appeared and disappeared with Garibaldi. There is a great amount of certainty that the vast bulk of the population desired union with Italy; but it is equally certain that the new Government, though not without good intentions, began by failing to please anybody, and the seeds of much future trouble were planted.
On the 18th of February 1861, the first Italian legislature assembled at Turin in the old Chamber, where, by long years of patient work and self-sacrificing fidelity to principle, the possibility of establishing an Italian constitutional monarchy had been laboriously tested and established. Only the deputies of Rome and Venice were still missing. The first act of the new parliament was to pass an unanimous vote to the effect that Victor Emmanuel and his heirs should assume the title of King of Italy. The Italian kingdom thus constituted was recognised by England in a fortnight, by France in three months, by Prussia in a year, by Spain in four years, by the Pope never.
[ [Pg.334] After the merging of Naples in the Italian body-politic, one of the thorniest questions that arose was the disposal of the Garibaldian forces. The chief implored Victor Emmanuel to receive his comrades into his own army, a prayer which the King had not the power, even if he had the will, to grant, as in the constitutional course of things the decision was referred to the ministers, who, again, were crippled in their action by the military authorities at Turin. Though it is natural to sympathise with Garibaldi in his eagerness to obtain generous terms for his old companions-in-arms, it may be true that his demand was not one that could be satisfied in its full extent. The volunteers were not inferior to the ordinary soldier; about half of them were decidedly his superior, but they were a political body improvised for a special purpose, and it is easy to see how many were the reasons against their forming a division of a conventional army like that of Piedmont. Nevertheless, the means ought to have been found of convincing them that their King and country were proud of them, that their great, their incalculable services were appreciated. That such means were not found was supposed to be the fault of Cavour. It was only in 1885, on the publication of the fourth volume of the Count's letters, that it became known how strenuously he had fought for justice. Military prejudice was what was really to blame; General Fanti, the Minister of War, even provoked Cavour into telling him 'that they were not in Spain, and that in Italy the army obeyed.' 'A cry of reprobation would be raised,' he wrote, 'if, while the Bourbon officers who ran away disgracefully were confirmed in their rank, the Garibaldians who beat them were coolly sent about their business. Rather than bear the responsibility of such an act of black ingratitude, I would go and bury myself at Leri. I despise the [Pg.335] ungrateful to the point of not feeling angered by them, and I forgive their abuse. But, by Heaven, I could not bear the merited blot of having failed to recognise services such as the conquest of a kingdom of 9,000,000 inhabitants.'
Cavour, in fact, did obtain something; much more than the army authorities wished to give, but much less than Garibaldi asked or than the Count would doubtless have given had not his hands been tied. And, doubtless, he would have given it with more grace.
As it was, the volunteers were deeply offended and sent their griefs by every post to Caprera. Garibaldi, who refused every favour and honour for himself, was worked up into a state of fury by what he deemed the wrongs of his faithful followers, and in April he arrived unexpectedly at Turin to plead their cause before the Chamber of Deputies. Perhaps by a wise presentiment he had refused to stand for any constituency; but when Naples elected him her representative, almost without opposition, he submitted to the popular will. At Turin he fell ill with rheumatic fever, but on the day of the debate on the Southern Army he rose from his bed to take his seat in the Chamber. The case for the volunteers was opened, and this is worthy of note, by Baron Ricasoli, aristocrat and conservative. Afterwards Garibaldi got up—at first he tried to make out the statistics and particulars which he had on paper, but blinded by passion and by fever, he threw down his notes and launched into a fierce invective against 'the man who had made him a foreigner in his own birthplace and the government which was driving the country straight into civil war.' At the words 'civil war' Cavour sprang to his feet, unwontedly moved, and uttered some expressions of protest, which were lost in the general uproar. When this was quieted, Garibaldi finished his speech in a moderate [Pg.336] tone, and then General Bixio rose to make that noble appeal to concord which, had he done nothing else for Italy, should be a lasting title to her gratitude. 'I am one of those,' he said, 'who believe in the sacredness of the thoughts which have guided General Garibaldi, but I am also one of those who have faith in the patriotism of Count Cavour. In God's holy name let us make an Italy superior to the strife of parties.' He might not be making a parliamentary speech, he added, but he would give his children and his life to see peace established—words flowing so plainly from his honest heart that savage indeed would have been the enmity which, for the time, at least, was not quelled. Cavour grasped the olive branch at once; all his momentary ire vanished. He made excuses for his adversary; from the grief which he had felt himself when he advised the King to cede Savoy and Nice, he could understand the general's resentment. He had always been, he said in general terms, a friend to the volunteers. What he did not even remotely suggest was the dissension which existed between himself and his military colleague on the subject of the Garibaldians. The least hint would have gained for Cavour any amount of applause and popularity; but he preferred to bear all the blame rather than bring the national army into disfavour. Garibaldi replied 'that he had never doubted the Count's patriotism;' but at the end of the three days' debate he declared himself dissatisfied with the Ministerial assurances touching the volunteers in particular and the country's armaments as a whole. As Cavour left the Chamber after the final night's sitting, he remarked to a friend—all his fine equanimity returned: 'And yet, and yet, when the time comes for war, I shall take General Garibaldi under my arm and say: "Let's go and see what they are about inside Verona!"'