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Giuseppe Garibaldi (July 5, 1807 – June 2, 1882) was an Italian patriot and soldier of the Risorgimento. He personally led many of the military campaigns that brought about the formation of a unified Italy. He was called the "Hero of the Two Worlds", in tribute to his military expeditions in South America and Europe.
Early activity Garibaldi was born in 1807 in the former Italian city of Nizza (called Nice in French), taken under French control in 1792. Garibaldi's family was involved in coastal trade, and he was reared to a life on the sea. He was certified in 1832 as a merchant marine captain. A very influential day in Garibaldi's life came during a visit to Taganrog, Russia, in April 1833, 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 “Young Italy” (La Giovine Italia). Garibaldi joined the society, and took an oath of dedicating his life to struggle for liberation of his homeland from Austrian dominance. In Geneva in November 1833, Garibaldi met Giuseppe Mazzini, an impassioned proponent of Italian unification as a liberal republic through political and social reforms. He joined the Young Italy movement and the Carbonari revolutionary association. Garibaldi participated in a failed republican uprising in Piedmont in February 1834. Sentenced to death in Genoa, he escaped to France later that year, then later traveled to Tunisia. Return to Italy Garibaldi returned to Italy in the tumult 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. Meanwhile, a Roman Republic had been 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 up the command of the defence of Rome. His wife, Anita, fought with him. Despite their effort, the city fell on June 30, 1849, and Garibaldi was forced to flee to the north, hunted by Austrian, French, Spanish, and Neapolitan troops. Anita died near Ravenna during the retreat. Garibaldi eventually managed to escape abroad. In 1850 he became a resident of New York, where he met Antonio Meucci. For some time he worked as a candlemaker on Staten Island. Afterwards he made several voyages to the Pacific, during which he visited Andean revolutionary heroine Manuela Sáenz in Peru. Garibaldi returned to Italy in 1854. In 1859, the Austro-Piedmontese War (also known as the Austro-Sardinian War) broke out through the machinations of the Sardinian government. Garibaldi was appointed major general, and formed a volunteer unit named the Hunters of the Alps. With his volunteers, he won victories over the Austrians at Varese, Como, and other places. One outcome of the war, though, left Garibaldi very displeased. His home city of Nice was surrendered to the French, in return for crucial military assistance. Campaign of 1860
Aftermath Garibaldi deeply disliked the Sardinian Prime Minister, Camillo 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 Sardinian 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. He resigned the next day. 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 and was invited to serve as a major general in the Union Army. Garibaldi then reconsidered saying that he would only serve on two conditions 1) that slavery would definitely be abolished and 2) that he would be given full command of the army. Both these conditions were impossible for Lincoln to accept and so the offer was quietly withdrawn. 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 of 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 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. A government steamer took him to Varignano, 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. 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. Garibaldi gathered again his Hunters of the Alps, now some 40,000 strong, and led them into the Tyrol. He defeated the Austrians at Bezzecca and made for Trento. The Italian regular forces, on the other hand, suffered defeat by land and sea. Austria did cede Venetia to Italy, but it was compelled to do so not by Italy's poor showing, but by 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. He answered with a short telegram 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 taken prisoner, held captive for a time, and then again returned to Caprera. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in July 1870, Italian public opinion heavily favored the Germans, 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. Subsequently, Garibaldi went to France and assumed command of the Army of the Vosges, an army of volunteers that was never defeated by the Germans. On his deathbed, Garibaldi asked that his bed be moved to where he could gaze at the emerald and sapphire sea. His wishes for a simple funeral and cremation were not respected. Writings Garibaldi wrote at least two novels: Legacy Garibaldi's popularity, his skill at rousing the masses, and his military exploits are all credited with making the unification of Italy possible. He also served as a global exemplar of mid-19th century revolutionary nationalism and liberalism. But following the liberation of southern Italy from the Neapolitan monarchy, Garibaldi chose to sacrifice his liberal republican principles for the sake of unification. Garibaldi subscribed to the anti-clericalism common among Latin liberals and did much to circumscribe the temporal power of the Papacy. His personal convictions bordered on atheism; he wrote in 1882, "Man created God, not God Man". An active freemason, Garibaldi had little use for rituals, but thought of masonry as a network to unite progressive men as brothers both within nations and as members of a global community. Giuseppe Garibaldi died on the Italian island of Caprera in 1882, where he was interred. Five ships of the Italian Navy have been named after him, among which a World War II cruiser and the current flagship, the aircraft carrier ''Giuseppe Garibaldi''. Statues of his likeness, as well as the handshake of Teano, stand in many Italian squares, and in other countries around the world. On the top of the Gianicolo hill in Rome, there is a statue of Garibaldi on horse-back with his face turned in the direction of the Vatican, an allusion to his ambition to conquer the Papal States. Trivia See also Notes | ||||||||||
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