Chapter Seven

Cavour, Garibaldi and Napoleon III in the Wars for the Formation of Italy

In mid-April 1859, the Austrian government revealed its determination to dispatch an ultimatum to Turin, demanding disarmament in three days and threatening to launch an attack if its conditions were not accepted. Metternich commented that the die had been cast.¹ Cavour rejoiced not only because war was inevitable, but since the Piedmontese had been alerted, the prospect of defeat before the arrival of French support was unlikely. On 23rd April, the day the ultimatum was delivered by Count Kellersperg, Cavour convened the Sub-alpine parliament into session, presenting a project placing dictatorial powers in the hands of King Vittorio Emanuele for the duration of the impending conflict. It was approved by a vote of 110 to 24. When Cavour heard that Kellersperg had arrived at the station, he left the Chamber predicting it would be the last of the Piedmontese parliament – the next would be that of the Italian Kingdom.

On 25th April, as the Senate approved Cavour’s emergency measure, French forces arrived in Chambèry in trains bearing the slogan, ‘Excursion to Italy’. The following day, 26th April, at the appointed hour, Cavour rejected the Austrian ultimatum and awaited events, confident of the future. Relations between Paris and Vienna were now shattered; on 29th April declarations of war were issued by the Vienna and Turin governments. Austria, in her proclamation of war, noted that providence had often relied upon her sword when revolution threatened the continent, and hoped for German, if not European support. The proclamation of Vittorio Emanuele, written by Cavour, blamed Austrian domination and aggression for provoking the war, which Piedmont, in honour, could not avoid. Cavour had Vittorio Emanuele pledge to serve as the first soldier of Italian independence,² and welcomed Napoleon to Italy, delighted to see his plans materialize.

On 29 April 1859, the Austrian force finally crossed the Ticino and entered Piedmont. Shortly after, on 3rd May, Napoleon asserted that in attacking his ally, Piedmont, Austria also waged war on France. Napoleon argued that Austrian actions had created a situation whereby the Hapsburgs would either control all of northern Italy, or Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic would be free. To reassure the powers, and above all the British, Napoleon contended that the French had no territorial ambitions, and were seeking only to defend the cause of humanity and Italian independence. Promising to respect the position of all neutrals, Napoleon repeated his promise to protect the Pope.³ His proclamation publicly reiterated what he had privately assured Pius IX – that during the course of the war in Italy he would uphold the cause of the Holy See and the sovereignty of the Holy Father.⁴ The pledge was easier made than kept.

At the outbreak of the war, before hostilities began, national manifestations erupted in Florence, which were echoed in other towns of the duchy, including Pisa, Lucca and Sienna, leading the Grand Duke Leopold II and his family to flee for Mantua. As four coaches spirited the Tuscan Habsburgs back to Austria, the provisional government established in Florence, under the Baron Bettino Ricasoli, offered the Piedmontese king a temporary dictatorship over the duchy, pending a final political solution. Count Cavour orchestrated and funded the rebellion with this prospect in mind, but he and Vittorio Emanuele had to secure the approval of their ally, whose enthusiasm for revolution and upheaval in the peninsula did not match their own. On the French Emperor’s suggestion, Vittorio Emanuele refused the dictatorship but secured command of the troops raised in Tuscany, assuming responsibility for the protection of the duchy during the course of the war. Carlo Boncompagni, nominated Sardinian Minister plenipotentiary to Florence, was assigned the dual task of preserving order and Sardinian interests there.

Developments elsewhere in the peninsula followed the course of military events. The Austrian commander, General Ferencz Gyulai, from the first assumed a defensive rather than an aggressive posture, even though his troops outnumbered the Piedmontese and initially outnumbered the combined Franco-Piedmontese forces. (The French dispatched some 128,000 men and the Piedmontese another 70,000, while the Austrians had more than 220,000 soldiers available.) Gyulai did not take advantage of the vulnerability of Turin, the Piedmontese capital, which might have capitulated to a decisive Austrian attack. The Austrian commander in fact showed little initiative, allowing the French and Piedmontese to link up at Alessandria; Gyulai preferred a war of position rather than of action, assuring that the major battles would be fought in Lombardy and Venetia.

In May the Franco-Piedmontese forces achieved small but strategic moral-building victories at Montebello and Palestro, driving the enemy back across the Ticino. Rumours of an Austrian rout encouraged the peoples of Massa and Carrara, as well as the Duchy of Parma, to appeal to the Piedmontese for assistance against their rulers. Events there, as well as in Modena and the Romagna, would be dictated by the march and fortune of the respective armies, and the attitude assumed by Napoleon III. Pius appealed to Napoleon for protection, deploring the prospect of Catholic Austria and Catholic France waging war in the provinces of the Papal States. For this, among other reasons, the French Emperor urged Cavour and Vittorio Emanuele to exercise caution regarding the Papal States. The Piedmontese king, who wrote to Pius IX imploring absolution from ecclesiastical censure during the course of the conflict, appeared more prone to listen to the Emperor than did Cavour.⁵ The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, at the bottom of the peninsula, declared its neutrality at the outbreak of the war, but the disquieting events in Italy and the death of Ferdinand II on 22 May 1859, rendered its future insecure. The son of ‘Bomba’, the young and inexperienced Francis II, ascended the Neapolitan throne during the turmoil.

On 4 June 1859 the belligerents waged a three-hour battle at Magenta, on the road to Milan, which the allies won only after the arrival of General Maurice MacMahon leading French reinforcements. Although the Austrian army retreated in good order, Gyulai evacuated Milan. Four days later Napoleon and Vittorio Emanuele triumphantly entered the Lombard capital. Their entry was heralded by a proclamation of 5th June to the people of Milan, urging them to place their trust in Vittorio Emanuele and to enlist in his army.⁶ While the proclamation was addressed to the Lombards, its message also aroused the people of Central Italy, whose freedom of action had increased as a result of the withdrawal of the Austrian garrisons from Pavia, Piacenza, Ancona, Bologna and Ferrara, following Magenta.

On 12 June 1859, the Legate in Bologna, Cardinal Giuseppe Milesi Pironi Ferretti, appalled to find his palace surrounded by angry demonstrators no longer restrained by the Austrians, fled to Ferrara. While he entreated respect for the sovereign rights of Pio Nono, the population appealed for the protection of Vittorio Emanuele. In response, the Piedmontese king dispatched 2,000 men, appointing Massimo D’Azeglio his representative in the Romagna. With the whole of the Romagna on the verge of falling into Piedmontese hands, Catholics in Italy and France wondered how Napoleon could keep his word to the Pope to protect his dominions.⁷ When the Austrians withdrew into the security of the Quadrilateral, now under the command of the Emperor Franz-Josef, the upheaval quickly spread to Ravenna and Ferrara.

As the Franco-Piedmontese forces prepared for a confrontation against the Austrians at Solferino on 24th June, Napoleon, fearing the political ramifications in France of the protests of Pio Nono and Cardinal Antonelli, walked a political tightrope. He blocked the Piedmontese absorption of the Romagna, but Antonelli responded by sending the Pope’s Swiss troops to retake Perugia which was sacked on 20th June, thus returning the Marches to Papal sovereignty. Meanwhile the diplomacy of the Papal Secretary of State worked to prevent the Piedmontese from moving from the Romagna to the restored provinces of the Marches.

Although the Franco-Piedmontese army triumphed in the bloody Battle of Solferino (24th June), the losses were heavy. The Piedmontese suffered more than 5,000 casualties while their French allies had some 13,000 men wounded or killed – losses greater than their Austrian adversary. Napoleon, no less than Franz-Josef, was shaken by the large number of dead and the miseries of the wounded. To make matters worse, the battle, while important, proved indecisive, for Franz-Josef’s forces had retreated in orderly fashion behind the River Mincio, and re-entered the security of the Quadrilateral. The prospect of a quick French victory remained more elusive than ever, and Napoleon worried about the deterioration of his political and military situation. Solferino, like Magenta, had not been an easy victory, and the Emperor faced the prospect of a long siege of the Quadrilateral fortresses, complicated by the possible intervention of Prussia and the German confederation on Austria’s behalf. Furthermore, the war was unpopular at home and the plight of the Pope undermined his Catholic support. Finally, his ally, Cavour, seemed lukewarm about the confederation he had accepted at Plombières, and schemed to create a far stronger state than the Emperor had envisioned. For these reasons Napoleon sought negotiations to end the war.

From the outset Napoleon had foreseen the need for a European settlement of the Italian question, and in the light of the difficulties he encountered in Italy and at home, hoped for mediation. Austria, too, was prepared for a negotiated solution, having been disillusioned by Germany’s failure to spring to her defence and the Pope’s hesitation to unleash an excommunication against Franco-Piedmontese aggression. (The Habsburgs were, moreover, haunted by the threat of a French-inspired Hungarian revolution.) The suggestions sent to Pio Nono to act as mediator went unanswered, as the Pope could not see on what basis he could propose peace to Austria. Pius perceived that Austria would demand a return to the situation ante bellum, but doubted if this would be acceptable to Napoleon.⁸ Some hoped that Britain, which had sought to prevent the outbreak of war, could help restore the peace. However, the country’s sympathies, the Earl of Derby explained, were neither with France nor Austria, but increasingly in favour of Italy.

On 24th June, the day the Battle of Solferino erupted, the Prince Regent of Prussia requested the support of Britain and Russia in an armed mediation on the basis of the current status quo, and Austrian acceptance of reform in north and central Italy. The offer was rejected by the pro-Italian Cabinet, headed by Palmerston and his Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell, which in early June had replaced the more conservative Derby Cabinet. The mission of Prince Paul Esterhazy to London in June to persuade the British government to intervene on Austria’s behalf likewise proved abortive.

Meanwhile Napoleon telegraphed his ambassador, Persigny, in London, urging the British government to propose an armistice and suggesting as peace terms the creation of an Italian Confederation, under the presidency of the Pope. Napoleon indicated that the Confederation would include an enlarged Piedmont, which would absorb Lombardy and Parma, a new state combining Venice and Modena under an Austrian archduke, the Legations, under the direction of a Piedmontese vicar, while the rest of the Papal States, Tuscany and Naples would be included under their existing regimes. Finally, a European congress would be called to arrange a permanent peace upon these general terms. While Palmerston and Russell, who favoured the formation of a broader Kingdom of Upper Italy, disliked Napoleon’s proposals, which fell short of their expectations, Queen Victoria, who was entirely unsympathetic to the Italian cause, indicated that the French initiative should not receive any moral support from Britain.⁹

Napoleon, distressed by the delays in mediation and the pressure from his Foreign Minister, Walewski, for peace, on the evening of 6th July secretly sent General Fleury with a letter to Franz-Josef at Verona, proposing a truce during which they could agree upon peace terms. Napoleon thus violated the provision of his treaty with Sardinia not to consider any unilateral proposition on the cessation of hostilities. It proved to be neither the first nor the last of Napoleon’s displays of bad faith. Franz-Josef, concerned that a long struggle would weaken Austria’s power in Germany as well as Italy, accepted immediately, suggesting a meeting at Villafranca to set conditions. On 8th July, the French and Austrian representatives agreed to an armistice until 15th August. Cavour confronted a fait accompli. Napoleon called for a meeting of the two emperors at Villafranca, where the two might personally negotiate the preliminaries for the peace treaty. During these discussions Franz-Josef reluctantly renounced the territory the Franco-Piedmontese forces occupied, which included most of Lombardy, apart from the fortresses of Mantua and Peschiera, but would concede no more. Napoleon was free to turn this Lombard territory over to Piedmont, while Venetia would remain in Austrian hands, but join the Italian Confederation presided over by the Pope. The Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena were to return to their states, although they would proclaim a general amnesty, protecting the population which had forced them to flee.

Reaction to Villafranca was immediate and predictable. Russia, whose reformism following the Crimean War required peace and stability, appeared relieved that the conflict which threatened the continent’s tranquillity had ended. Britain, whose colonial and maritime ventures likewise called for continental peace, nonetheless found the terms of Villafranca unfortunate, and was distressed by the prospect of an Italian Confederation under the presidency of the Papacy. British ministers were convinced that the projected Austrian participation assured Habsburg domination of Italy. Berlin, which envisioned a role in galvanizing Germany against France, found its efforts truncated and its campaign for German leadership thwarted. Rome was elated, but Pius IX, noting that the enemies of the peace were ‘insane and evil’ feared that it would not be implemented.¹⁰ Turin, of course, was most disappointed, and the king and his chief minister felt betrayed and cheated.

Cavour, outraged by Napoleon’s failure to liberate Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic as promised, pressed Vittorio Emanuele to continue the struggle alone, which the king wisely refused to do. Enraged and frustrated, Cavour resigned on 11th July, and the next day Vittorio Emanuele signed the peace preliminaries, but added before his signature, ‘in so far as they concern me’. It was an important reservation, absolving the king and his government from enforcing the unpopular provisions of the peace: the preservation of the integrity of the Papal States, the restoration of the dukes, or even the creation of the Italian Confederation with Austrian participation.

Cavour, acknowledging he had suffered ‘a stunning defeat’ and no longer issued orders as ‘Commander-in-Chief, promised to continue the fight, behind the scenes, ‘as a private’. He had no immediate family, he confided to his friend Massari, adding he would do all that he could for the Italian cause.¹¹ He proved true to his words.

Cavour suggested General La Marmora and Rattazzi to head the successor government that had to confront the implementation of the Villafranca terms. Likewise, Cavour advised the Piedmontese commissioners sent to Central Italy and formally recalled, to remain in an unofficial capacity, directing public opinion against any restoration of the former rulers. They succeeded, as Pio Nono complained to Napoleon that Piedmont still fomented anarchy in Central Italy, preventing the restoration of the ‘legitimate’ order. Finally Cavour’s outburst of indignation against the Villafranca agreement placed Napoleon on the defensive and made it difficult for him to claim either Nice or Savoy according to the Plombières pact. The distraught Cavour bristled that, having failed to keep his part of the bargain, Napoleon should not expect the Piedmontese to fulfil theirs.

In August 1859 Cavour, writing from abroad, explained that the pain of Villafranca was mitigated by the admirable conduct of central Italy, which prevented the return of the dukes and the Papal regime, and therefore owed its independence not to foreign arms but its own efforts. Cavour played no small part in this development, leading Massari to conclude that he remained the real prime minister of Italy. Word reached Turin that Lord John Russell and Palmerston supported Cavour’s central Italian policy, reminding the Piedmontese that God helps those who help themselves. The Liberal government disagreed with the Conservative non-interventionist course, and was prepared to play a more active role to achieve an Italian settlement. The British representative to Turin, Sir James Hudson, advised the Piedmontese to establish a Regency over central Italy. Meanwhile conservative Catholics who questioned Cavour’s policies vis-à-vis Rome, acknowledged his popularity in Piedmont and abroad.

The actions in Tuscany, Emilia and the Romagna in favour of union with Piedmont created a dilemma for Napoleon. The Emperor was torn between his desire to fulfil his pledge to the Pope while honouring his commitment to Austria at Villafranca, and his national programme and the promises he had made to Cavour. The double game played by Napoleon led Lord Cowley to quip during the summer of 1859, that he never knew any man to talk so little and tell so many lies. It was a sentiment shared by Pius IX, who refused to consider Napoleon’s plan for a vice-realm for the Romagna under Piedmontese protection, and provided only vague assurances as regards the French demand for Papal reforms. Disregarding Napoleon’s call for compromise and concessions, early in October the Piedmontese Minister to Rome was handed his passport and hustled out of Rome.¹²

The November Treaty of Zurich confirmed the terms of Villafranca. Proclaiming the rights of the legitimate rulers in central Italy, no provision was made for their return. To make matters worse from Rome’s perspective, Article 18 stipulated that the two signatory parties concurred in their efforts to assure that the Holy Father would make necessary reforms in the administration of his state. The final Italian settlement would be determined at a European congress to be convened in Paris on 19 January 1861.

Napoleon’s stance at the projected congress was revealed in the pages of a pamphlet entitled ‘Le Pape et Le Congrès’, supposedly written by La Guéronnière, but widely believed to have been inspired by the Emperor himself. The work acknowledged that France could not permit the forceful restoration of the deposed rulers against the popular will, while calling for the separation of the Romagna from the Papal States. It thus made the participation of Rome and Vienna in the congress impossible, effectively scuttling it in the process. Finally, it paved the way for Cavour’s return to power, as the sole figure capable of dealing with the inscrutable French Emperor. Cavour returned to Turin on 20 January 1860, amid scenes of public celebrations and excitement, during which illuminations also lit up the streets of Bologna.¹³

Britain was delighted to have Cavour at the helm again. Lord John Russell preferred his common sense and extraordinary ability to the ‘nonentities’ who had governed in his stead. France was also pleased, now that Walewski had resigned, and Napoleon schemed to have Cavour cede the provinces of Nice and Savoy to the French. Cavour, in turn, considered this cession the price he had to pay to the man who held the keys to central Italy, for the absorption of Tuscany, the Duchies and the Legations. Knowing that the exchange had to be justified before the courts of Europe, Cavour instructed his agents in central Italy to conduct plebiscites to demonstrate that the people of these provinces supported the decisions of their assemblies which favoured union with Piedmont. The French concurred as the new Foreign Minister, Thouvenel, did not mince words in warning Rome that the restoration of the dynasties to the duchies or the Legations to the Holy See was unlikely. He also hinted that if central Italy were absorbed by Piedmont, France would have to be compensated by the acquisition of Nice and Savoy.¹⁴

The British, favouring a strong kingdom in northern Italy, were prepared to recognize Piedmontese acquisitions there, but deplored the French designs on Nice and Savoy. Early in February Lord Cowley transmitted an English project to solve the Italian question, prohibiting either France or Austria from intervening without the consent of the great powers. Cavour was alarmed to receive reports that Paris and London had reached an agreement to give them only Parma, Modena and the Legations, with the latter remaining under the nominal sovereignty of the Pope. Tuscany would have a Piedmontese prince rather than become a Piedmontese province. Cavour complained that the proposed arrangement was acceptable neither to the Piedmontese nor the people of central Italy. He confided to La Farina, who headed the National Society, that they could not rely on diplomacy alone to achieve their objectives, and that they would have to present the courts of Europe with actions.¹⁵

Rome resented the sequence of events and French Catholics lamented the persecution of the Church. Catholics in Turin marvelled at the radical shift in public opinion that led even moderates to make proposals concerning the Pope and the Papal States that had been unthinkable earlier. The winds of change did not reach the Curia, however. Pius IX and Antonelli protested that they would never willingly surrender the Legations to the Piedmontese. Their solution called for the complete evacuation of the Romagna by the Piedmontese and its restoration to the Holy Father. Pio Nono branded Vittorio Emanuele’s suggestion that he transfer the Romagna to him as neither wise nor worthy of a Catholic king of the House of Savoy.¹⁶

Turin and Paris were deterred neither by the opposition of the Pope, nor the threat of ecclesiastical fulminations. Early in March, Cavour’s agent in Bologna, Luigi Carlo Farini, announced a plebiscite to determine the future of the area. Napoleon, in turn, sent Count Vincent Benedetti, chief of the political bureau of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to Turin with the agreement whereby central Italy would go to Piedmont and the latter would transfer Nice and Savoy to France. Once again Napoleon and Cavour had become coconspirators. The vote in the Romagna, the Duchies, and Nice and Savoy, confirmed what the French and the Piedmontese had predetermined. Cavour warned Agostino Depretis, the Piedmontese agent in Brescia, that the moment the results of the plebiscite were announced they could expect an excommunication from Rome, alerting him to take steps to preserve tranquillity.¹⁷ Garibaldi, like Pio Nono, was scandalized by Cavour’s schemes.

Garibaldi, denied a key role during the campaign of 1859, was angry with Cavour’s ministry, which he saw as responsible for the slight, and wounded by the ‘betrayal’ of Napoleon at Villafranca. His sense of outrage was compounded because Mazzini and others on the extreme left had predicted that Cavour and Napoleon could not be trusted and would conspire to exploit him. In Turin, Giorgio Asproni of the parliamentary left deplored the vacillations of Cavour, denouncing him as vain, mendacious, autocratic, superficial, overbearing, inconsiderate and unscrupulous. Garibaldi concurred with Asproni’s assessment as the drama of Nice and Savoy unfolded.

There had been rumours, which Cavour continued to deny, that Napoleon coveted Nice and Savoy. Nevertheless, on 12th March, he signed the secret agreement providing for their cession to France, and two weeks later, on 24th March, Napoleon demanded that this transfer be made public, informed his people the next day of the pending acquisition. In April, Garibaldi, who was elected to the enlarged Piedmontese parliament, cross-examined Cavour on the ‘deal’ which led him to abandon Nice to the ‘executioner’ of the Roman Republic of 1849 and threatened to make him a foreigner in his own land. Though Garibaldi questioned the morality as well as the constitutionality of the transfer, he was overruled by the majority which concurred with Cavour that the loss, however unfortunate, was politically necessary.

Garibaldi vowed never to forget the bartering of his home province to the French, and never forgave Cavour for negotiating the arrangement. Nonetheless, the rapid course of events in the peninsula did not allow Garibaldi the leisure to sulk over his loss. For some time republican stalwarts had been planning an expedition to the South, not only to overturn the illiberal Neapolitan government, but also to provide a popular initiative for the Italian movement that would contest the role of Cavour and the monarchical party in the unification movement. Crispi implored Garibaldi to lead such an expedition, but he reacted cautiously. On 15 March 1860, he promised Crispi he was prepared to risk his life to combat the enemies of his country and champion its cause. In an obvious reference to the policies of Cavour, Garibaldi lamented that the country was guided by empirical politicians who relied on diplomacy to achieve their objectives and blinded the people by the prospect of success. The revolutionary movement had to await the failure of the diplomatic and pragmatic course presently in vogue.¹⁸

By early April two factors led Garibaldi to re-evaluate his stance, prompted by his outrage at the cession of Nice, made public after 25th March, and the outbreak of rebellion in Palermo on 5th April. Garibaldi still hesitated assuming command of the planned expedition, but decided to assess the attitude of the Turin government, whose help would be crucial. Apparently Cavour, and his Minister of the Interior, Farini, responded that while they could not offer any public support, they would not attempt to prohibit the venture. Privately they assured financial and military assistance, for Garibaldi returned to Genoa determined to lead the expedition. Indeed he confided to potential recruits that Vittorio Emanuele and the Piedmontese government secretly incited him to undertake the enterprise against the Neapolitan government.¹⁹

For years the left had envisioned a drive to topple the Neapolitan government, with Mazzini proposing a Sicilian coup to Garibaldi in 1854, and inspiring the ill-fated Pisacane expedition to Sapri in 1857. Mazzini did not lose hope, although in the later 1850s the Sicilian Francesco Crispi emerged as the leading advocate of action against Sicily. When Sicilian revolutionaries, encouraged by Crispi, invoked his assistance in the fall of 1859, Garibaldi spoke of the need to act under the banner of ‘Vittorio Emanuele and Italy’. Both Garibaldi and the Sicilians were encouraged by the assurances provided by La Farina, President of the Italian National Society, and Cavour’s unofficial spokesman. They learned that Cavour’s Piedmont, which was accountable to the international community, could not intervene on behalf of the Sicilians against their Neapolitan king, but promised that if they liberated themselves, the king’s government would act to prevent their reconquest. Encouragement also came from Britain where Lord John Russell provided moral support, concluding it was meritorious to overturn a tyrannical government.²⁰

Although the Turin government claimed to oppose Garibaldi’s manoeuvres, it nevertheless allowed him and his volunteers to embark from Quarto, near Genoa, on 6th May, with arms from the government depot. Admiral Persano’s Sardinian fleet, which might have blocked the passage south, received no instructions to do so. Rome, Naples, as well as Paris, all suspected Piedmontese complicity, but Cavour was most concerned about the irritation and exasperation of Napoleon. Cavour explained that he had no choice but to allow the expedition to depart for Sicily, pleading that any attempt to block this crusade would create grave problems for the Sub-alpine government and threaten his ministry’s popularity and parliamentary support.²¹

On the night of 5 May 1860, Garibaldi’s volunteers boarded two ships the Piemonte and the Lombardo, owned by the Rubattino Shipping Company of Genoa, and set out for Talamone in Tuscany. Once at sea, Garibaldi caused some consternation among the republicans on board, when he announced that their programme was to unite Italy under the House of Savoy, unfolding the banner of ‘Italy and Vittorio Emanuele’. Garibaldi, seeking to undermine the Papal States as well as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, left a small force under Callimico Zambianchi behind with the mission of crossing into the Papal States and initiating a revolution. Zambianchi did not find the population of what remained of the Papal States restive, while their ‘corrupt’ army proved both loyal and efficient. The small band of Garibaldini was easily repulsed by the Papal troops, forcing the invaders back across the border into Tuscany.

The main band of the ‘thousand’ fared better, landing virtually unopposed at Marsala, Sicily, on 11th May. When Cavour, who was prepared to reap the advantages offered by Garibaldi, should he succeed, but to disavow him in case of failure, heard of the landing he hastened to provide additional assistance. Cavour allowed Garibaldi’s followers in Piedmont to collect money, men and supplies for the venture, and a number of the ‘volunteers’ were secretly armed, outfitted and paid by the Turin government. Cavour, who had thought of annexing Southern Italy but attended to matters in northern and central Italy first, immediately grasped the opportunity provided by Garibaldi. The prospect of unification of the entire peninsula rose before Cavour, and despite the dangers which it entailed, it was an opportunity he was not prepared to let pass.

Cavour had to move cautiously, lest his complicity be exposed before the international community. The fact that Garibaldi fought under the Italian Tricolour adorned with the seal of Savoy, and that at Marsala he proclaimed a dictatorship in the name of Vittorio Emanuele, roused suspicion in Rome, Naples and Paris. Even the American Minister to Turin recognized that Cavour’s Sardinia had covertly waged war against the Kingdom of Naples. Meanwhile the Garibaldini victory over the Neapolitans at Calatafimi, on the way to Palermo, convinced the islanders of his invincibility, bringing him additional volunteers. Both the charisma of Garibaldi and the incompetence of the Neapolitan viceroy, Ferdinando Lanza, contributed to the Neapolitan evacuation of Palermo early in June, to the surprise of all of Europe. In Rome a startled Pius IX exclaimed that the success of the expedition, which stunned contemporaries, would undoubtedly mystify succeeding generations.

Cavour may have been jolted, but immediately regained his balance, taking steps to secure Turin’s position in Sicily. On 7th June, the very day that the Neapolitan forces evacuated Palermo, Cavour’s agent, La Farina, landed in the Sicilian capital, to begin the campaign to bring the island under the aegis of Piedmont. Placards calling for annexation were distributed by La Farina, to the disgust of republicans and Mazzinians. Meanwhile Cavour’s agents cautioned the aid committees working for Garibaldi in Turin and Genoa to keep an eye on the charismatic and popular military leader. Agostino Depretis, a friend of Garibaldi’s, was advised to venture to Sicily to monitor the general’s actions. While these men recognized that Garibaldi was the arm of the operation, they insisted that the popular hero needed guidance and direction.²²

Turin’s blatant attempts to profit from Garibaldi’s actions, which it publicly condemned, both confused and roused the anger of the general. While La Farina and his master in Turin seemed content to absorb Sicily, Garibaldi had broader ambitions, convinced that the rest of Italy had to be incorporated. Distressed by the intrigues and interference of La Farina and his National Society, Garibaldi expelled him from the island early in July. Cavour, dreading the triumph of republicanism and the international complications resulting from Garibaldi’s threat to occupy Naples and then Rome, termed the expulsion ‘a savage act’. He retaliated by prohibiting Garibaldi’s agents in Genoa from transmitting any further men or supplies to reinforce the general. However, pragmatism prevailed over pique, and realizing that Garibaldi could be of further service, Cavour countermanded the embargo, so the flow of arms and money from Piedmont to Sicily continued.

Cavour continued to condemn the expedition, denying all complicity and territorial ambitions. Indeed, his government encouraged the Neapolitans to believe that an alliance might be concluded between Turin and Rome. But, despite his public protestations, Cavour privately contemplated Piedmontese absorption of a good part of their dominion and the creation of a Kingdom of Italy spanning the entire peninsula. Nonetheless, republicans in Garibaldi’s camp and royalists in Naples believed that Cavour seriously considered a strategic alliance between Piedmont and Naples. While the former feared the consequences of such an arrangement, and sought to frustrate it, Francesco in Naples thought that the establishment of constitutionalism in his state would facilitate such an agreement.²³ Both were fooled by Cavour, who acknowledged a certain duplicity on his part, justifying his conduct on the basis that it served the Italian cause rather than his own personal profit.

In order to reassure Paris and Rome, Vittorio Emanuele ordered Garibaldi to refrain from his plan to march first on Naples and then on Rome. Garibaldi refused to obey the king’s request and proceeded with his plans. In Naples, Francesco, perturbed by Garibaldi’s threats, called upon Pius IX to pray for him. One day in June, stricken by a particularly severe panic attack, the young Neapolitan King telegraphed for the Pope’s blessing on five different occasions.²⁴

The Pope, suspicious of Garibaldi and his Piedmontese paymasters, did not share Francesco’s apprehensions. He realized that Garibaldi considered him and Antonelli traitors for provoking the intervention of the Catholic powers against the Roman Republic in 1849, and had named his ugliest donkeys on the island of Caprera ‘Pio Nono’ and ‘Antonelli’. Nonetheless, he remained calm in Rome, awaiting the dramatic outcome of events undermining the status quo. The Pope, confident of divine providence and the diplomacy of Antonelli, refused to budge from Rome.²⁵

Neither Napoleon nor Cavour shared the Pope’s calm. The Emperor was troubled by Garibaldi’s proposed programme: the annexation of Naples, Rome, Venice and afterwards Nice, to be followed by a revolution in southern France against the tyranny of the Empire. Paris was alarmed by Garibaldi’s open expression of hatred against the Empire. From Vienna Franz-Josef, still suspicious of Napoleon’s schemes, was scandalized by the audacity of the revolutionary spirit that triumphed in Italy and threatened both thrones and altar. Cavour, who many considered the sole figure capable of piloting the ship of state in these perilous and uncharted waters, was likewise troubled. He compared himself to a sailor in a storm, who in the midst of the wind and waves vowed never to expose himself again to the perils of the deep.²⁶

Cavour, aware that his king clandestinely encouraged Garibaldi, sought to re-establish his own bond with the general, which had originally been disrupted by the news of the cession of Nice and Savoy. At the same time the ‘Piedmontese Machiavelli’ secretly sent men, money, arms and advice to Naples, with the aim of provoking a revolution, hoping that once his revolutionary committee triumphed in the capital it would call for Piedmontese intervention. Neither scheme materialized as Cavour proved unable either to win over Garibaldi or to initiate a revolution in the Neapolitan capital. Nonetheless, he did not despair, and sought to consolidate his position in Sicily. He alerted Depretis in late August that since Garibaldi had crossed the straits and taken Reggio, and would soon be in Naples, a plebiscite should be held on the island, proposing union with Piedmont.²⁷

Cavour’s schemes and suggestions aroused suspicion in Sicily as well as on the mainland. There was resistance to his public attempts to frustrate Garibaldi’s advance, as well as word of a new bargain with Napoleon, once again on the basis of sacrificing Italian soil. Rumours abounded that the French Emperor might allow the Piedmontese to absorb additional Italian territory, but only on condition that Cavour relinquish the Liguria and the Island of Sardinia to France. Cavour appreciated that Garibaldi had been angered by the cession of Nice and Savoy, but countered that it had served as a powerful stimulus. He confided to friends that without that cession, Garibaldi would most likely still be on the island of Caprera rather than completing the work assigned to him by providence for Italy.

In August 1860, while publicly preserving his pose of opposition to Garibaldi’s conquest of southern Italy, Cavour privately confided that without Piedmontese assistance the general’s mission would have ended in failure. Garibaldi, he argued, would not have had the men to fight the Neapolitan government, the ships to transport the expedition to the south, the arms to fight the Bourbon soldiers, not to mention the diplomatic skills which prevented outside intervention. For reasons of public security Cavour insisted this information would have to remain confidential. Finally, he confessed that whatever arrangements he made to assure the success of Garibaldi’s mission and the completion of Italian unity, it did not include the further transfer of any Italian territory. He would rather see his two hands cut off, he pledged, than cede one more inch of Italian territory whether on the continent or on the island of Sardinia.²⁸

Although Cavour publicly criticized Garibaldi’s intention to march to Rome, then on to Venice and Nice, he immediately proceeded to use the threat to his advantage. Cavour insisted that Garibaldi’s antagonism towards the French government, as well as his other indiscretions, constrained the Piedmontese government to take energetic measures regarding the Marches and Umbria. To further frighten the French, he sought to stimulate revolutionary agitation in the Papal States, and then present the spectre of a revolutionary upheaval undermining not only the stability of Italy but the whole of Europe. In August, Cavour proposed his solution to exorcize this spectre, knowing that Napoleon found it inconsistent to strike against the Italian nationalism he had inspired and would not permit Austrian intervention in Italy. Piedmont would have to enter and take possession of Umbria and the Marches to crush the revolutionary agitation and block Garibaldi’s march north.

In late August Napoleon met in Savoy with the Italian Minister of War, Farini, and General Cialdini, who convinced him of the dire consequences of Garibaldi’s northward advance. The Emperor posed no objection to Cavour’s proposal to annex the bulk of what remained of the Papal States, so long as the Pope was left in possession of Rome and its immediate environs. Indeed the Emperor’s parting words to his Italian visitors supposedly were ‘Good luck, and act quickly’. To those around him, the Emperor added, that if Piedmont believed this intervention in the Papal States was needed to save herself, Italy and Europe from grave danger, she should do so – but she alone would have to shoulder the risk and responsibility.²⁹

Napoleon was particularly concerned about the reaction of Rome and French Catholics, who had hitherto supported him. Rome did not doubt that Cavour and the Turin government were behind the Garibaldi enterprise, pulling all the strings. Pius and Antonelli suspected that the Piedmontese lusted after all the Papal provinces. The Emperor assured the Cardinal Secretary of State, Antonelli, that his government would oppose an unprovoked Piedmontese intervention upon Papal territory. ‘Your Majesty knows I am devoted to the cause of Italian independence’, the French Emperor wrote to Vittorio Emanuele on 9 September 1860, ‘but if your troops, without legitimate reason, enter the states of the Pope, I will be forced to oppose the venture.’³⁰ Word of the French threat to break diplomatic relations with Turin was simultaneously sent to the Papal government, both to reassure it and convince French Catholics that the Emperor had kept his promise to the Pope and Antonelli. Cavour, who was privy to the Emperor’s real intentions and knew he had warned Vienna not to violate Villafranca by an intervention in central Italy, was not deterred.

Cavour provided precise instructions to General Fanti, poised on the border of the remaining Papal territory, alerting him that his mission was as much political as military. The moment the disturbances which Cavour had plotted and prepared erupted, Fanti was to warn the commanders of the Papal forces to desist from any repression or attempt to stifle these ‘national manifestations’. Should the Papal Commander refuse to follow these ‘humane considerations’, Fanti and his Piedmontese forces were to occupy the areas to spare the population violence and bloodshed. In so doing, Cavour cautioned Fanti, his actions had to be justified before the twin tribunals of diplomacy and public opinion.³¹

Although Napoleon had promised to protect the Pope against ‘unprovoked aggression’, Cavour sensed that, given the proper pretext and the subterfuge of popular revolution, Napoleon would not molest the Piedmontese, so long as they avoided French-held positions in Rome and the surrounding region. His assessment proved accurate, for while Napoleon withdrew his ambassador from Turin following the Piedmontese occupation of the Marches, he did nothing militarily, and little else diplomatically, to prevent the Piedmontese from absorbing the bulk of the Papal States and imposing their laws and tariffs. Cavour reassured General Fanti that while the French press condemned their actions and the French Emperor continued to insist on the rights of the Pope, Paris would place no real obstacles in their way.³² ‘Italy is in a very critical position’, Cavour wrote in September 1860, ‘On the one side diplomacy, on the other Garibaldi – that is not exactly comfortable.’³³ In fact, Cavour managed to achieve his Italian objectives precisely because he knew how to play one off against the other.

Early in September, as Garibaldi approached Naples, Francesco and the royal family abandoned the capital for the fortress of Gaeta in the north. Cavour dispatched half the Sardinian army, more than 30,000 men, into the Papal States to occupy the area and block any Garibaldian venture against the French, who protected the Pope in Rome. ‘Please keep in mind, General’, Vittorio Emanuele wrote to his Commander Fanti, ‘that Garibaldi is not to cross the frontier of the Kingdom of Naples into the Papal States; I promised Napoleon he would not.’³⁴ In his public proclamation, inspired by Cavour, the king insisted that his entry into the Pope’s territory was governed neither by greed nor ambition. His mission was humane and pacific, seeking to introduce liberty in Italy while freeing Europe from the scourge of war and revolution. When a revolutionary movement erupted in the Neapolitan province of Abruzzi, and the provisional government implored Vittorio Emanuele to enter that kingdom, Cavour had a pretext for intervention.

Early in October, while the parliament convened in Turin, Garibaldi, in the battle of the Volturno, frustrated the Neapolitan attempt to reopen the road to Naples. Since the Neapolitan army of 50,000 men remained entrenched in the fortresses of Capua and Gaeta, they could easily resume their offensive. Thus Francesco’s Neapolitans, more than Napoleon’s French forces or Cavour’s Piedmontese troops, prevented Garibaldi from advancing to Rome. Recognizing that his volunteers lacked the strength, equipment and discipline to besiege the fortresses, Garibaldi urged Vittorio Emanuele to lead his army into the southern kingdom. In mid-October the king complied, meeting Garibaldi’s forces near Teano, north of Capua. Meanwhile the people of the kingdom had voted overwhelmingly for inclusion in a united Italy under the constitutional rule of Vittorio Emanuele.

By the end of October 1860, the Kingdom of Italy had been made if not yet promulgated. In mid-March 1861, the Italian parliament unanimously proclaimed Vittorio Emanuele II King of Italy. The state formed in 1861 included Piedmont, Lombardy, the Duchies of Central Italy, most of the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Two major areas remained outside: Venice and Rome, and Cavour believed these would be incorporated when the issue of German unification arose.

Notes

1. Mémoires, Documents et Ecrits Divers laissés par le Prince de Metternich, ed. M.A. Klinkowstroem (Paris: Plon et C., 1884) VIII, 629.

2. War Proclamation of Vittorio Emanuele II, 29 April 1859, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Archivio Depretis, serie I, busta 1, fascicolo 6.

3. ‘Proclamation L’Empereur au Peuple Français’, Le Moniteur Universel. Journal Officiel de L’Empire Français, 3 May, 1859.

4. Napoleon III to Pius IX, 1 May 1859, Archivio Segreto del Vaticano, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Sovrani, Francia, no. 42.

5. Vittorio Emanuele II to Pius IX, 25 May 1859 and 29 May 1859, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Sovrani, Sardegna, No. 52.

6. Proclamation to the Citizens of Milan, 5 June 1859, ASV, Segreteria di Stato Esteri, 1860, rubrica 165, fascicolo 79.

7. Mariano Gabriele (ed.), Il Carteggio Antonelli – Sacconi (1858–1860) (Rome: Istituto per la Storia del Risorgimento Italiano, 1862), I, p. 136; Federigo Sclopis di Salerano, Diario Segreto (1859–1878), ed. Pietro P. Pirri (Turin: Deputazione subalpina di storia patria, 1959), p. 134.

8. Il Carteggio Antonelli – Sacconi, I, p. 158; Pietro P. Pirri, (ed.), La Questione Romana (Rome: Pontifica Università Gregoriana, 1951), II, p. 80.

9. The Letters of Queen Victoria, first series, ed. Arthur C. Benson and Viscount Esher (London: John Murray, 1907), III, pp. 337, 352–3.

10. Antonio Monti, Pio IX nel Risorgimento Italiano con Documenti Inediti (Bari: Laterza, 1928), p. 146.

11. Giuseppe Massari, Diario dalle cento voci (Bologna: Capelli, 1959), p. 308.

12. Ibid. p. 345; Archivio di Stato di Roma, Miscellanea di Carte Politiche o Riservate, busta 132.

13. ASV, Segreteria di Stato Esteri, 1860, rubrica 165, fascicolo 79.

14. Posthumous Papers ofJesse White Mario: the Birth of Modern Italy, ed. Duk Litta-Visconti-Arese (New York: Scribners, 1909), pp. 294–5; L. Thou venel (ed.), Le Secret de L’Empereur. Correspondance confidentielle et inédir échangée entre M. Thouvenel, Le Duc de Gramont et Le Général Compte de Flahaut 1860–1863 (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1889), I, pp. 8–10.

15. Cavour to Manfredo Fanti, 18 February 1860, Archivio Centrale dell Stato. Archivio Fanti, scatola 1.

16. Pius to Vittorio Emanuele II, 14 February 1860, ASV, Archivio Particolar Pio IX, Sovrani, Sardegna, no. 57; Pirri (ed.), La Questione Romana, II, p 160.

17. Plebiscite in Bologna in March 1860, ASV, Segreteria di Stato Esteri 1860, rubrica 165, fascicolo 79; Cavour to Depretis, 14 March 1860 Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Archivio Depretis, serie I, busta 3, fascicolo 9 sottofascicolo 9.

18. The Memoirs of Francesco Crispi, ed. Thomas Palamenghi-Crispi, trans Mary Prichard Agnetti (New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1912), I pp. 134, 308.

19. Gaetano Tortonellogo to Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, ASV, Segreteria di Stato Esteri, 1860, rubrica 165, fascicolo 71, sottofascicoli 57–8.

20. Lord John Russell to Queen Victoria, 30 April 1860, The Letters of Queei Victoria, III, p. 398.

21. Ettore Passerin D’Entreves, ‘Appunti sull’ impostazione delle ultime trattative del governo cavouriano colla S. Sede per una soluzione della questione romana (novembre 1860-marzo 1861’, in Chiesa e stato nell’Ottocento. Mischellanea in onore di Pietro Pirri, ed. R. Aubert, A. M Ghisalberti and E. Passerin D’Entreves (Padua: Editrice Antinore, 1962), II, p. 568.

22. The Garibaldi Aid Society to Depretis, 20 June 1860, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Archivio Depretis, busta 2, fascicolo 8, sottofascicolo 2, no. 8.

23. Sovereign Act by which Francis of Naples concedes Constitutional Government, 25 June 1860, Archivio di Stato di Roma, Miscellanea di Carte Politiche o Riservate, busta 134, fascicolo 4870.

24. Harold Acton, The Last Bourbons of Naples (1825–1861) (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1961), pp. 448–9.

25. Pius IX to Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, 7 August 1860, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Sovrani, Austria, no. 33.

26. Franz-Josef to Pius IX, 27 August 1860, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Sovrani, Austria, no. 35; Cavour to Madame de Circourt, 16 July 1860, Count Cavour and Madame de Circourt: some Unpublished Correspondence, ed. Costantino Nigra, trans. Arthur John Butler (London: Cassell and Co., 1894), p. 86.

27. Cavour to Depretis, 27 August 1860, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Archivio Depretis, serie I, busta 3, fascicolo 9, sottofascicolo 9.

28. Cavour to Cabella, August, 1860, Archivio di Stato di Roma, Miscellanea di Carte Politiche o Riservate, busta 134, fascicolo 4862.

29. Thouvenel (ed.), Le Secret de L’Empereur, I, pp. 185–6, 252.

30. French Minister of Foreign Affairs to French Minister at Rome, 11 September 1860, Archivio di Stato di Roma, busta 1.

31. Cavour to General Fanti, 7 September 1860, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Archivio Fanti, scatola 1.

32. Cavour to General Fanti, 11 September 1860, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Archivio Fanti, busta 1.

33. Count Cavour and Madame de Circourt, p. 89.

34. Vittorio Emanuele II to General Fanti, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Archivio Fanti, busta 1.