Giuseppe
Garibaldi
1807-1882
Garibaldi has not left the world without some account of his
birth, parentage, and early life. Not a little of his great, naive, and
enthusiastic character may be studied in those Memoirs, of which his eccentric
friend, Alexander Dumas, published a free translation. He was born July 22,
1807. He was a native of Nice, a city inhabited by a mongrel race, but himself
sprung from a purely Italian family The name of Garibaldi, common enough
throughout North Italy, betokens old Lombard descent. He first saw light, as he
states, in the very house and room where, forty-nine years before, Masséna was
born. His father, Domenico, had come from Chiavari, in the Riviera di Levante;
he gives his mother's name Rosa Raguindo. Garibaldi's father and grandfather
were seamen, and he took to the sea as his native element, developing great
strength and skill as a swimmer, an accomplishment which enabled him to save
drowning men on several memorable occasions. For what book learning he had he
seems to have been indebted to the desultory lessons of priestly schoolmasters
under the direction of his mother. Of this latter he always spoke with great
tenderness, acknowledging that "to her inspiration he owed his patriotic
feelings," and stating that "in his greatest dangers by land and sea his
imagination always conjured up the picture of the pious woman prostrated at the
feet of the Most High interceding for the safety of her beloved."
In early life he embarked in his father's merchant vessel, a brig,
and in that and other craft he made frequent voyages to Odessa, Rome, and
Constantinople. Soon after the revolutionary movements of 1831 he was at
Marseilles, where he fell in with Mazzini, busy at that time with the
organization of "Young Italy," and with the preparations for an invasion of
Italy by sea, which, upon Mazzini's expulsion from Marseilles, was attempted at
Geneva, and directed against the Savoy frontier. The Savoy expedition turned out
an egregious failure, the blame of which Garibaldi, on Mazzini's statement,
throws on the Polish General Ramorino's treachery. Garibaldi himself, who had
embarked on board the royal frigate Eurydice to gain possession of that vessel
by a mutiny of the crew, being off Genoa, and hearing of a plot to storm the
barracks of the Carabinieri, landed in the town to join it; but the attack upon
the barracks miscarried, and he, not daring to go back to his ship, saw himself
irreparably compromised, fled to Nice, and thence crossed the Var and found
himself an exile at Marseilles. Here he betook himself again to his sea life,
sailed for the Black Sea and for Tunis, and at last on board the Nageur, of
Nantes, for Rio de Janeiro.
In the commentaries before alluded to
Garibaldi gives the fullest particulars of the exploits by which he rose to
distinction beyond the Atlantic during the twelve years elapsing from his
leaving Europe in 1836 to his return to Italy in 1848. It is the romance of his
career, and will some day be wrought into an epic blending the charms of the
Odyssey with those of the Iliad—a battle and a march being the theme of the
eventful tale almost from beginning to end.
Garibaldi took service
with the Republic of Rio Grande do Sul, a vast territory belonging to Brazil,
then in open rebellion and war against that empire. He took the command of a
privateer's boat with a crew of twelve men, to which he gave the name of
Mazzini, and by the aid of which he soon helped himself to a larger and
better-armed vessel, a prize taken from the enemy. In his many encounters with
the Imperial or Brazilian party the hero bought experience both of wonderfully
propitious and terribly adverse fortune, and had every imaginable variety of
romantic adventure and hair-breadth escapes. He was severely wounded, taken
prisoner, and in one instance at Gualeguay, in the Argentine territory, he found
himself in the power of one Leonardo Millan, a type of Spanish South American
brutality, by whom he was savagely struck in the face with a horsewhip,
submitted to several hours' rack and torture, and thrown into a dungeon in which
his sufferings were soothed by the ministration of that "angel of charity," a
woman, by name Madame Alleman.
Meeting of Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi.
Escaping from his tormentor by the
intervention of the Governor of Gualeguay, Paolo Echague, Garibaldi crossed from
the territories of the Plate into those of the Rio Grande, and faithful to the
cause of that republic, he fought with better success, winning battles, storming
fortresses, standing his ground with a handful of men, or even single-handed,
against incredible odds, beating strong squadrons with a few small vessels,
giving through all proofs of the rarest disinterestedness, humanity, and
generosity, disobeying orders to sack and ravage vanquished cities, and
exercising that mixture of authority and glamour over his followers which almost
enabled him to dispense with the ties of stern rule and discipline. At last,
after losing a flotilla in a hurricane on the coast of Santa Caterina, where he
landed wrecked and forlorn, having seen his bravest and most cherished Italian
friends shot down or drowned, he fell in with his Anita—not, apparently, the
first fair one for whom he had a passing fancy—with whom he united his
destinies, for better for worse, in life and till death, in some off-hand
manner, about which he is reticent and mysterious. Anita turned out almost as
great and daring and long-enduring a being as her heroic mate, and was by his
side in all fights by land and sea, till the fortunes of the Republic of Rio
Grande declined, when, after giving birth to her first-born, Menotti Garibaldi,
September 16, 1840, she went with that infant and his father through unheard of
hardships and dangers in the disastrous retreat of Las Antas; when at last,
Garibaldi, beginning to feel the responsibilities of a growing family, and
despairing of the issues of an ill-conducted war, took leave of his Republican
friends at Rio Grande and went for a short respite in his adventurous career to
Montevideo.
After trying on the journey to find employment as a
cattle-driver, Garibaldi settled at Montevideo in the capacity of a general
broker and teacher of mathematics; but war having broken out between the
Republic of the Uruguay and Buenos Ayres, the Condottiere was solicited to draw
his sword for the former state which afforded him hospitality, and was trusted
with the command of a little squadron destined to operate on the Parana River
against a largely superior Argentine force. This expedition was contrived by
enemies high in power in the Montevidean Government, who, jealous of the
reputation won by Garibaldi at Rio Grande, vainly plotted to have him
assassinated with his friend Anzani, and hoped to rid themselves of him by
exposing him to dangers from which it seemed impossible that he could extricate
himself. Garibaldi, however, made the best of his desperate position, and
escaped, not only with his life, but also with "honor—the only thing that was
not lost."
Presently, danger pressing sorely on the republic, he
organized his Italian Legion, which behaved well through a new series of land
and sea combats, its band of only 400 combatants often beating the enemy's corps
600 men strong, at the close of which exploits its soldiers refused grants of
land offered to them by a grateful state, "the stimulus of their exertions," as
their commander said, "being only the triumph of the Republican cause." The
legion was afterward as a mark of honor, allowed precedence over all the other
troops of the republic. The war continued, and under the auspices of their
commander the soldiers of the Italian Legion rose to such distinction that at
the affairs of the Boyada and of Salto Sant' Antonio, February, 1846, Garibaldi
was empowered to write to the government of the republic that the brilliant
successes of those deeds of arms were entirely due to their gallantry.
Meanwhile, however, news from Europe came to turn the attention of
Italian patriots to the momentous events which were rapidly changing the
conditions of the peninsula. Years had passed. Pius IX. was Pope; Sicily had
risen in open and successful revolt; a republic had been proclaimed in France;
Constitutions were being wrested from the reluctant hands of most European
despots. Austria was convulsed with insurrectionary attempts; the Milanese drove
Radetsky from their city after five days' fighting, and Charles Albert unfurled
the national standard and crossed the Ticino.
The theatre of the
exploits of the hero of Montevideo was soon changed. All who had a heart and
soul in Italy were up and doing, and could Italy's greatest heart and soul
remain beyond the seas? Garibaldi, on the first reports of the Pope's liberal
leanings, wrote to the Nuncio Bedini at Montevideo, October 17, 1847, offering
the services of the Italian Legion to his Holiness, who was now almost on the
eve of a war with Austria, "although," the letter said, "the writer was well
aware that St. Peter's throne rests on a solid basis, proof against all human
attacks and needing no mortal defenders." The Nuncio returned thanks and praises
and referred Garibaldi's tender to the Pontifical Government at Rome. But
Garibaldi, never well disposed to losing time, after vainly waiting for further
communication from Pope or Nuncio, brooked no longer delay. With incredible
difficulty he scraped together money and means, and embarked with his brave
friend, Anzani (who died at Genoa soon after landing), having with him only 85
men and two cannon, and leaving the remainder of his legion to follow when and
how it could.
He crossed the ocean, landed at Nice, proceeded to
Genoa and Milan, and when Charles Albert, defeated at Custozza, withdrew from
the Lombard city and accepted an armistice, which saved Piedmont from invasion,
August, 1848, Garibaldi passed over to Mazzini, and at the head of a volunteer
force, of which Mazzini was the standard-bearer, issued a manifesto in which he
proclaimed the Sardinian king a traitor, and declared that "the royal war was at
an end, and that of the people was now to begin." That proclamation was,
however, only an idle bravado. Mazzini, even if he had the spirit, lacked the
physical strength of a fighting man. The Garibaldians, on hearing the news of
the fall of Milan, lost heart, and many crossed over the frontier to
Switzerland. With thinned and dispirited bands, Garibaldi, aided by his friend
Medici, ventured on a few desultory fights near Luino, on Lake Maggiore, but
soon fell back and withdrew to Lugano in the Canton Ticino, his health, it is
said, breaking down, and his immediate followers being reduced to some three
hundred.
A few months later Pius IX., fallen from his popularity
and pressed hard by his disaffected subjects, who murdered his minister and
almost stormed him in his palace at the Quirinal, ran away to Gaëta, and a Roman
Republic was proclaimed, of which Mazzini, in a triumvirate with two others,
mere men of straw, became the head. Attacked by the French in flagrant violation
of all rights of nations, Rome undertook to defend itself, and whatever Italy
could boast of generous hearts, regardless of party differences, rallied round
Garibaldi, who drove back the French from Porta Pancrazia, April 29 and 30,
1849, defeated the Neapolitans in that campaign of Velletri, which was like the
farce contrasting with the tragic drama soon to be acted at Rome, and withstood
a three months' siege, in which many of the noblest champions of the Italian
cause lavished their lives in a hopeless, yet, as it proved, not a fruitless
struggle.
The French having gained possession of the city July 13,
1849, Garibaldi left it with a band of devoted volunteers, retired via Terni and
Orvieto, gathering together about 2,000 men in his progress, crossed the
Apennines, and pressed by the Austrians with overwhelming forces, sought a
refuge at San Marino, gave the enemy the slip in the night, embarked at
Cesenatico for Venice, which was still withstanding the Austrian siege, was met
by four Austrian men-of-war, which compelled him to put back and land on the
coast near Ravenna, and wandered ashore in the woods, where Anita, his
inseparable companion in this disastrous march, succumbed to the fatigues of the
journey, and expired in the hero's arms. Garibaldi's devoted friends Ugo Bassi
and Ciceruacchio, falling into the hands of the Austrians, were shot by them
without any forms of trial and by an act of barbarism which no human or divine
law could justify. The heart-broken hero, with a few trusty men, made his way
from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean, was arrested by the Sardinian
Carabinieri at Chiaveri, conveyed to Genoa, where La Marmora was in command, and
there embarked for Tunis; hence, finding nowhere a refuge, he proceeded to the
Island of La Maddalena, off the shore of Sardinia, and hence again to Gibraltar
and Tangier.
La Marmora received the heart-broken fugitive as a
brother, supplied him with ample means for his journey to Tunis, and obtained
for him from the Turin Government the assignment of an honorable pension, which
Garibaldi did not in his straits disdain to accept. But, in his opinion, all
seemed now over for Italy; Charles Albert's son, Victor Emmanuel, after the
defeat of Navara, had made his peace with Austria in March, 1849. Venice had
succumbed after heroic sufferings in August, and Garibaldi, again crossing the
ocean, settled at New York as a tallow chandler, and only came back to Europe in
1855.
When Garibaldi returned from America he did not look out for
Mazzini or his Republicans in England or Switzerland, but sought a home in
Piedmont, a Constitutional State, which allowed him an obscure but peaceful
retreat in his hermitage at Caprera, an island rock on the Sardinian coast near
the Maddalena, and conveyed to him a hint that the time might soon come in which
his country's cause would summon him from retirement. And, truly, four years
later (1859) the destinies of Italy were nearing their fulfilment. France and
Piedmont took the field against Austria. Garibaldi, leaving his island home, was
met and highly welcomed by Victor Emmanuel, to whom he swore fealty as the only
hope of Italy. He now took the command of the Chasseurs des Alpes, aided the
royal army in its defence of the territory previous to the arrival of its great
French auxiliary, and, following in the upper region a line parallel to that
kept in the plain by the conquest of Palestro, Magenta, and Solferino, beat the
Austrians at Varese and San Fermo, bewildered his adversary Urban, by the
rashness of his movements on the mountains above Como, advanced upon Bergamo and
Brescia, and pushed on to the Valtellina up to the very summit of the Stelvia
Pass. Here the peace of Villafranca put an end to the struggle, and Garibaldi,
afflicted by the arthritic pains to which he was a martyr all his life,
travelled for a few days' rest to Tuscany and Genoa.
At Genoa,
during the autumn and winter, Garibaldi, hospitably entertained by his friend
Augusto Vecchi outside the city, busied himself with that expedition of "the
Thousand" which made one state of the south and north of Italy. He embarked on
May 11, 1860, at Genoa, landed in Sicily, at Marsala, beat the Neapolitans at
Calatafimi, followed up his success to Palermo, and, aided by the insurgent
city, compelled the garrison to surrender. He again routed the Bourbon troops at
Milazzo, and had soon the whole island at his discretion with the exception of
the citadel of Messina. He then crossed over into Calabria, and, almost without
firing a shot, drove the Neapolitan king's troops before him all over the
mainland, compelled the king to abandon the strong pass of La Cava and to
withdraw his forces from his capital, where Garibaldi, with only a few of his
staff, made his triumphal entry on September 7, 1860.
After
a few days' rest Garibaldi followed the disheartened king to Capua, obtained new
signal successes on the Volturno, at Santa Maria, and Caserta; but would
probably have been unable to accomplish the enterprise had not the Piedmontese,
whose government had aided Garibaldi's expedition while pretending to oppose it,
overrun the Marches, beaten Lamoricière and the Papal forces at Castel Fidardo,
and, crossing the frontier and the Apennines, besieged and reduced the strong
places of Capua and Gaëta. Garibaldi, who, as a dictator, had with doubtful
success endeavored to establish something like rule in the Two Sicilies, aware
of the arduousness of a task which would have exceeded many wiser men's powers,
met Victor Emmanuel at Naples, delivered the two kingdoms into his hands, and,
declining all the proffered honors and emoluments for himself, took leave of his
sovereign and embarked for the solitude of his rock-farm at Caprera.
Garibaldi welcomed in London.
Rome alone now remained outside of the United Italian Kingdom, and
Garibaldi, raising bands of adventurers, made two or three attempts to capture
it, but was repulsed by its French garrison, and it was not until 1870 that, the
French troops being recalled to their own sorely distressed country, the union
of Italy under Victor Emmanuel became an accomplished fact, though in the great
liberator's absence. Garibaldi once more was seen in Rome, April, 1879. He was
supposed to be proposing great purchases of arms, to be enlisting hosts of
volunteers, to be planning thorough reforms and preparing formidable expeditions
against Austria. But Garibaldi, away from Caprera, could not fail to have his
good as well as his evil angels about him. He saw the king; he listened to
General Medici, his own right arm in so many campaigns, and now first
aide-de-camp to King Humbert, as he had before been to King Victor Emmanuel. He
listened, while they showed him the folly of further war, and, though not
convinced, he was silenced. Although too proud to acknowledge the absurdity of
his schemes in words, he was too wise not to give them up in deeds. He withdrew
from the vain popular acclamation; shut his door against the crowd of his
visitors, and although he announced his intention to take up his domicile in
Rome, he pleaded indisposition as an excuse for inaction and retirement.
Unfortunately there was only too much ground in the plea. The arthritic pains,
of which symptoms had manifested themselves as early as during the Lombard
campaign of 1849, had been seriously aggravated by his toils, and the sight of
his helplessness in Rome as he hobbled up the steps of Montecitorio in 1874, was
saddening to all beholders, and prepared his friends for that end which,
however, was to be put off for several years. The fatigue of the voyage from
Caprera in 1879, and still more the excitement of incessant calls, objectless
conferences, and endless exhibitions soon entirely prostrated the hero, and
before the backward spring had fully set in it became evident that Garibaldi's
life could only be a lingering agony.
His life, if life it may be
called, and at all events his sufferings, were prolonged yet a few years. He
left home in the spring of 1881 on a mad scheme of liberating, "by force if
necessary," his son-in-law, Canzio, who had been arrested as a plotter for the
republic. But having obtained the man's release from the king's government as a
favor, he once more sought the peace of his hermitage where he died, June 2,
1882.
Left to right Pascual Orozco, Oscar Braniff, Pancho Villa, Giuseppe Garibaldi Jr.
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