Builders of United Italy

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The meeting was most amicable, Cavour asked Garibaldi to command the new volunteer army known as the “Hunters of the Alps,” and Garibaldi was delighted to accept. Immediately he began recruiting his forces, and so spontaneous was the rising throughout northern and central Italy that by May of that year he was at the head of three regiments of infantry well-equipped for instant service. Austria was dismayed, and demanded that Cavour dismiss the men, but by what was probably the most fortunate coup in his whole career Cavour was able to appear willing to have peace, and yet force Austria to war. Napoleon stood by Piedmont, and in May, 1859, the campaign that was to redeem the inglorious field of Novara commenced.

Garibaldi’s great reputation caused friction between him and the officers of the regular army, and he who had been used to the greatest freedom of action found himself seriously hampered by directions from headquarters. He hailed with delight King Victor Emmanuel’s permission to separate from the regular army and fight as he pleased, accompanied as it was with the King’s remark, “Go where you like, do what you like; I feel only one regret, that I am not able to follow you.”

The resulting campaign showed the great guerilla warrior at his best. As with the Neapolitans in 1849, so with the Croats in 1859, Garibaldi was credited with superhuman powers. At times the success attending his sheer effrontery seemed almost to justify such a conclusion. Time and again he placed himself in positions so desperate that it was only his quickness of wit in seizing at a possible chance that saved him. Had he failed he would have been rated as a bungler, but as he succeeded the desperation of each chance served only to magnify his strategy. He was a remarkable mathematician, able to estimate all possible combinations adroitly and quickly, he never despaired, and never hesitated when he had decided on a plan. As a result the “Hunters of the Alps,” or Garibaldini, as the volunteers were called, hung on the Austrian troops all through Lombardy and the Lake country, driving them from town after town by sudden assaults, continually tricking much larger forces by clever misrepresentations of their own strength. Garibaldi entered Lombard territory and took Varese. After defeating the Austrians near there in the battle of Malnate he swept up to Cavallesca, near Como, and, attacking a much larger force than his own, drove the enemy through Como towards Monza. Como received the Hunters with open arms, Garibaldi telegraphed to Milan, using the Austrian General’s name, and so gained information of the Allies. Soon afterwards he stationed his advance guard at the Villa Medici, looking down over lake after lake, and with a panoramic view of the Alps. Here the Austrians thought to surround him, but by means of sending false messages planned to fall into the enemy’s hands, and by taking advantage of a heavy storm at night, he succeeded in escaping them and regaining Como.

Meanwhile the regular army was winning victories, Montebello, Magenta, Solferino, and San Martino were falling to the glory of French and Italian arms. The Austrians were steadily being driven back, Garibaldi left Como and took Bergamo, then Brescia. As he advanced the men of the land he crossed joined his army, Brescia set to work to fortify its walls at his command. He was ordered to follow the Austrians, and pursued them to Tre Ponti, which he won, although at such a cost he was obliged to fall back on the main army.

Napoleon the Third had no intention of winning too many victories for Italy, nor of allowing the Garibaldian troops to gain unseemly power. The plans of the general were therefore interfered with, his recruits diverted into other channels, and the Hunters sent into the passes of the Stelvio on the pretext of preventing an attack from Germany, but in reality to prevent Garibaldi from crossing Lake Garda and gaining the valley of the Adige and the Veronese mountains. The general obeyed, and conducted a markedly successful campaign near Sondrio and Bormio, finding himself in his true element among the Alps.

Then came the stupefying news that Napoleon had made the peace of Villafranca. The rage of the Garibaldini knew no bounds, their general hurried to Victor Emmanuel’s camp to tender his resignation. The King would not accept it. “Italy still requires the legions you command,” he said, “you must remain!” Garibaldi returned to his troops, his hatred for Louis Napoleon more intense than ever, but convinced that the peace only marked a short pause in the great forward movement.

Too much credit cannot be given Victor Emmanuel for his resolution at this time. Bitterly disappointed as he must have been at such an abrupt end to a campaign that had promised to open Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, he yet managed to hide his chagrin, and held Garibaldi, even as he a little later induced Cavour to resume the post which he had in a burst of rage resigned. Fortunately also the formal statement of the peace-makers that the Princes should be restored to their thrones in Florence, Modena, and Parma, and the Pope’s legates at Bologna, Ferrara, Forli, and Ravenna was simply a statement, the people of those cities had quite different views. They had tasted of liberty and of the victories of a national army, and one city after another announced that it would have no more of its foreign rulers, that its people wished to become citizens of Italy and subjects of Victor Emmanuel. Garibaldi heard this and was convinced that it no longer lay in the power of his arch enemy, Louis Napoleon, to keep Italians separated. “Whatever may be the march of existing circumstances,” he said to his men, “Italians must neither lay aside their arms, nor be discouraged. They ought on the contrary to increase in number in their ranks, to testify to Europe that, guided by their King, Victor Emmanuel, they are ready to face again the vicissitudes of war, whatever they may be. Perhaps at the moment we least expect it the signal of alarm may again be sounded!”

He was sent into central Italy, and at Florence, at Bologna, at Rimini, he had only to appear to have volunteers crowd about him. Napoleon learned of this and remonstrated to the government at Turin, which attempted to check the ardor of its great general, and yet keep him for further use. It was a time when Cavour’s skill was taxed to the uttermost to avoid a break either with the French or with the Garibaldians.

The news of Cavour’s decision to cede Savoy and Nice to France, a decision only reached when it became evident that it was the price Napoleon demanded for allowing central Italy to unite with Piedmont, came like a thunder clap to Garibaldi. Born in Nice he declared that the act made him “a stranger in his own country.” He was immediately returned to Parliament for Nice and bitterly attacked Cavour’s policy in the Chamber. He spoke at length, claiming that the cession was both an infraction of the original charter by which Nice had become a part of the Sardinian kingdom, and a violation of the fundamental law of nationality. Cavour, however, carried the Parliament with him, and Garibaldi left for Nice to take farewell of it, for he refused to remain there and become a citizen of France. He was disgusted with the compromises of diplomacy. “I have nothing to do with men or political parties,” he declared, “my country, and nothing but my country, is my object.”