A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 51

[Treaty of Zurich, Nov. 10.]

Napoleon stood a conqueror, but a conqueror at terrible cost; and in front of him he saw the fortresses of the Quadrilateral, while new divisions were hastening from the north and east to the support of the still unbroken Austrian army. He might well doubt whether, even against his present antagonist alone, further success was possible. The fearful spectacle of Solferino, heightened by the effects of overpowering summer heat, probably affected a mind humane and sensitive and untried in the experience of war.

The condition of the French army, there is reason to believe, was far different from that represented in official reports, and likely to make the continuance of the campaign perilous in the extreme. But beyond all this, the Emperor knew that if he advanced farther Prussia and all Germany might at any moment take up arms against him. There had been a strong outburst of sympathy for Austria in the south-western German States. National patriotism was excited by the attack of Napoleon on the chief of the German sovereigns, and the belief was widely spread that French conquest in Italy would soon be followed by French conquest on the Rhine. Prussia had hitherto shown reserve. It would have joined its arms with those of Austria if its own claims to an improved position in Germany had been granted by the Court of Vienna; but Francis Joseph had up to this time refused the concessions demanded. In the stress of his peril he might at any moment close with the offers which he had before rejected; even without a distinct agreement between the two Courts, and in mere deference to German public opinion, Prussia might launch against France the armies which it had already brought into readiness for the field. A war upon the Rhine would then be added to the war before the Quadrilateral, and from the risks of this double effort Napoleon might well shrink in the interest of France not less than of his own dynasty. He determined to seek an interview with Francis Joseph, and to ascertain on what terms peace might now be made. The interview took place at Villafranca, east of the Mincio, on the 11th of July. Francis Joseph refused to cede any part of Venetia without a further struggle. He was willing to give up Lombardy, and to consent to the establishment of an Italian Federation under the presidency of the Pope, of which Federation Venetia, still under Austria's rule, should be a member; but he required that Mantua should be left within his own frontier, and that the sovereigns of Tuscany and Modena should resume possession of their dominions. To these terms Napoleon a.s.sented, on obtaining a verbal agreement that the dispossessed princes should not be restored by foreign arms. Regarding Parma and the restoration of the Papal authority in the Romagna no stipulations were made. With the signature of the Preliminaries of Villafranca, which were to form the base of a regular Treaty to be negotiated at Zurich, and to which Victor Emmanuel added his name with words of reservation, hostilities came to a close. The negotiations at Zurich, though they lasted for several months, added nothing of importance to the matter of the Preliminaries, and decided nothing that had been left in uncertainty. The Italian Federation remained a scheme which the two Emperors, and they alone, undertook to promote. Piedmont entered into no engagement either with regard to the Duchies or with regard to Federation.

Victor Emmanuel had in fact announced from the first that he would enter no League of which a province governed by Austria formed a part, and from this resolution he never swerved. [493]

[Resignation of Cavour.]

[Central Italy.]

Though Lombardy was gained, the impression made upon the Italians by the peace of Villafranca was one of the utmost dismay. Napoleon had so confidently and so recently promised the liberation of all Northern Italy that public opinion ascribed to treachery or weakness what was in truth an act of political necessity. On the first rumour of the negotiations Cavour had hurried from Turin, but the agreement was signed before his arrival.

The anger and the grief of Cavour are described by those who then saw him as terrible to witness. [494] Napoleon had not the courage to face him; Victor Emmanuel bore for two hours the reproaches of his Minister, who had now completely lost his self-control. Cavour returned to Turin, and shortly afterwards withdrew from office, his last act being the despatch of ten thousand muskets to Farini at Modena. In accordance with the terms of peace, instructions, which were probably not meant to be obeyed, were sent by Cavour's successor, Rattazzi, to the Piedmontese Commissioners in Central Italy, bidding them to return to Turin and to disband any forces that they had collected. Farini, on receipt of this order, adroitly divested himself of his Piedmontese citizens.h.i.+p, and, as an honorary burgher of Modena, accepted the Dictators.h.i.+p from his fellow-townsmen.

Azeglio returned to Turin, but took care before quitting the Romagna to place four thousand soldiers under competent leaders in a position to resist attack. It was not the least of Cavour's merits that he had gathered about him a body of men who, when his own hand was for a while withdrawn, could pursue his policy with so much energy and sagacity as was now shown by the leaders of the national movement in Central Italy. Venetia was lost for the present; but if Napoleon's promise was broken, districts which he had failed or had not intended to liberate might be united with the Italian Kingdom. The Duke of Modena, with six thousand men who had remained true to him, lay on the Austrian frontier, and threatened to march upon his capital. Farini mined the city gates, and armed so considerable a force that it became clear that the Duke would not recover his dominions without a serious battle. Parma placed itself under the same Dictators.h.i.+p with Modena; in the Romagna a Provisional Government which Azeglio had left behind him continued his work. Tuscany, where Napoleon had hoped to find a throne for his cousin, p.r.o.nounced for national union, and organised a common military force with its neighbours. During the weeks that followed the Peace of Villafranca, declarations signed by tens of thousands, the votes of representative bodies, and popular demonstrations throughout Central Italy, showed in an orderly and peaceful form how universal was the desire for union under the House of Savoy.

[Cavour's Plans before Villafranca.]

[Central Italy after Villafranca. July-November.]

[Mazzini and Garibaldi. August-November.]

Cavour, in the plans which he had made before 1859, had not looked for a direct and immediate result beyond the creation of an Italian Kingdom including the whole of the territory north of the Po. The other steps in the consolidation of Italy would, he believed, follow in their order. They might be close at hand, or they might be delayed for a while; but in the expulsion of Austria, in the interposition of a purely Italian State numbering above ten millions of inhabitants, mistress of the fortresses and of a powerful fleet, between Austria and those who had been its va.s.sals, the essential conditions of Italian national independence would have been won. For the rest, Italy might be content to wait upon time and opportunity. But the Peace of Villafranca, leaving Venetia in the enemy's hands, completely changed this prospect. The fiction of an Italian Federation in which the Hapsburg Emperor, as lord of Venice, should forget his Austrian interests and play the part of Italian patriot, was too gross to deceive any one. Italy, on these terms, would either continue to be governed from Vienna, or be made a p.a.w.n in the hands of its French protector. What therefore Cavour had hitherto been willing to leave to future years now became the need of the present. "Before Villafranca," in his own words, "the union of Italy was a possibility; since Villafranca it is a necessity." Victor Emmanuel understood this too, and saw the need for action more clearly than Rattazzi and the Ministers who, on Cavour's withdrawal in July, stepped for a few months into his place. The situation was one that called indeed for no mean exercise of statesmans.h.i.+p. If Italy was not to be left dependent upon the foreigner and the reputation of the House of Savoy ruined, it was necessary not only that the Duchies of Modena and Parma, but that Central Italy, including Tuscany and at least the Romagna, should be united with the Kingdom of Piedmont; yet the accomplishment of this work was attended with the utmost danger. Napoleon himself was hoping to form Tuscany, with an augmented territory, into a rival Kingdom of Etruria or Central Italy, and to place his cousin on its throne. The Ultramontane party in France was alarmed and indignant at the overthrow of the Pope's authority in the Romagna, and already called upon the Emperor to fulfil his duties towards the Holy See. If the national movement should extend to Rome itself, the hostile intervention of France was almost inevitable. While the negotiations with Austria at Zurich were still proceeding, Victor Emmanuel could not safely accept the sovereignty that was offered him by Tuscany and the neighbouring provinces, nor permit his cousin, the Prince of Carignano, to a.s.sume the regency which, during the period of suspense, it was proposed to confer upon him. Above all, it was necessary that the Government should not allow the popular forces with which it was co-operating to pa.s.s beyond its own control. In the critical period that followed the armistice of Villafranca, Mazzini approached Victor Emmanuel, as thirty years before he had approached his father, and offered his own a.s.sistance in the establishment of Italian union under the House of Savoy. He proposed, as the first step, to overthrow the Neapolitan Government by means of an expedition headed by Garibaldi, and to unite Sicily and Naples to the King's dominions; but he demanded in return that Piedmont should oppose armed resistance to any foreign intervention occasioned by this enterprise; and he seems also to have required that an attack should be made immediately afterwards upon Rome and upon Venetia. To these conditions the King could not accede; and Mazzini, confirmed in his att.i.tude of distrust towards the Court of Turin, turned to Garibaldi, who was now at Modena. At his instigation Garibaldi resolved to lead an expedition at once against Rome itself. Napoleon was at this very moment promising reforms on behalf of the Pope, and warning Victor Emmanuel against the annexation even of the Romagna (Oct. 20th). At the risk of incurring the hostility of Garibaldi's followers and throwing their leader into opposition to the dynasty, it was necessary for the Sardinian Government to check him in his course. The moment was a critical one in the history of the House of Savoy. But the soldier of Republican Italy proved more tractable than its prophet. Garibaldi was persuaded to abandon or postpone an enterprise which could only have resulted in disaster for Italy; and with expressions of cordiality towards the King himself, and of bitter contempt for the fox-like politicians who advised him, he resigned his command and bade farewell to his comrades, recommending them, however, to remain under arms, in full confidence that they would ere long find a better opportunity for carrying the national flag southwards. [495]

[The proposed Congress.]

Soon after the Agreement of Villafranca, Napoleon had proposed to the British Government that a Congress of all the Powers should a.s.semble at Paris in order to decide upon the many Italian questions which still remained unsettled. In taking upon himself the emanc.i.p.ation of Northern Italy Napoleon had, as it proved, attempted a task far beyond his own powers. The work had been abruptly broken off; the promised services had not been rendered, the stipulated reward had not been won. On the other hand, forces had been set in motion which he who raised them could not allay; populations stood in arms against the Governments which the Agreement of Villafranca purported to restore; the Pope's authority in the northern part of his dominions was at an end; the Italian League over which France and Austria were to join hands of benediction remained the laughing-stock of Europe. Napoleon's victories had added Lombardy to Piedmont; for the rest, except from the Italian point of view, they had only thrown affairs into confusion. Hesitating at the first between his obligations towards Austria and the maintenance of his prestige in Italy, perplexed between the contradictory claims of nationality and of Ultramontanism, Napoleon would gladly have cast upon Great Britain, or upon Europe at large, the task of extricating him from his embarra.s.sment. But the Cabinet of London, while favourable to Italy, showed little inclination to entangle itself in engagements which might lead to war with Austria and Germany in the interest of the French Sovereign. Italian affairs, it was urged by Lord John Russell, might well be governed by the course of events within Italy itself; and, as Austria remained inactive, the principle of non-intervention really gained the day. The firm att.i.tude of the population both in the Duchies and in the Romagna, their unanimity and self-control, the absence of those disorders which had so often been made a pretext for foreign intervention, told upon the mind of Napoleon and on the opinion of Europe at large. Each month that pa.s.sed rendered the restoration of the fallen Governments a work of greater difficulty, and increased the confidence of the Italians in themselves. Napoleon watched and wavered.

When the Treaty of Zurich was signed his policy was still undetermined. By the prompt and liberal concession of reforms the Papal Government might perhaps even now have turned the balance in its favour. But the obstinate mind of Pius IX. was proof against every politic and every generous influence. The stubbornness shown by Rome, the remembrance of Antonelli's conduct towards the French Republic in 1849, possibly also the discovery of a Treaty of Alliance between the Papal Government and Austria, at length overcame Napoleon's hesitation in meeting the national demand of Italy, and gave him courage to defy both the Papal Court and the French priesthood. He resolved to consent to the formation of an Italian Kingdom under Victor Emmanuel including the northern part of the Papal territories as well as Tuscany and the other Duchies, and to silence the outcry which this act of spoliation would excite among the clerical party in France by the annexation of Nice and Savoy.

["The Pope and the Congress," Dec. 24.]

[Change of Ministry at Paris, Jan. 5, 1860.]

[Cavour resumes office, Jan. 16.]

The decision of the Emperor was foreshadowed by the publication on the 24th of December of a pamphlet ent.i.tled "The Pope and the Congress." The doctrine advanced in this essay was that, although a temporal authority was necessary to the Pope's spiritual independence, the peace and unity which should surround the Vicar of Christ would be best attained when his temporal sovereignty was reduced within the narrowest possible limits. Rome and the territory immediately around it, if guaranteed to the Pope by the Great Powers, would be sufficient for the temporal needs of the Holy See.

The revenue lost by the separation of the remainder of the Papal territories might be replaced by a yearly tribute of reverence paid by the Catholic Powers to the Head of the Church. That the pamphlet advocating this policy was written at the dictation of Napoleon was not made a secret.

Its appearance occasioned an indignant protest at Rome. The Pope announced that he would take no part in the proposed Congress unless the doctrines advanced in the pamphlet were disavowed by the French Government. Napoleon in reply submitted to the Pope that he would do well to purchase the guarantee of the Powers for the remainder of his territories by giving up all claim to the Romagna, which he had already lost. Pius retorted that he could not cede what Heaven had granted, not to himself, but to the Church; and that if the Powers would but clear the Romagna of Piedmontese intruders he would soon reconquer the rebellious province without the a.s.sistance either of France or of Austria. The att.i.tude a.s.sumed by the Papal Court gave Napoleon a good pretext for abandoning the plan of a European Congress, from which he could hardly expect to obtain a grant of Nice and Savoy. It was announced at Paris that the Congress would be postponed; and on the 5th of January, 1860, the change in Napoleon's policy was publicly marked by the dismissal of his Foreign Minister, Walewski, and the appointment in his place of Thouvenel, a friend to Italian union. Ten days later Rattazzi gave up office at Turin, and Cavour returned to power.

[Cavour and Napoleon, Jan-March.]

[Union of the Duchies and the Romagna with Piedmont, March.]

[Savoy and Nice ceded to France.]

Rattazzi, during the six months that he had conducted affairs, had steered safely past some dangerous rocks; but he held the helm with an unsteady and untrusted hand, and he appears to have displayed an unworthy jealousy towards Cavour, who, while out of office, had not ceased to render what services he could to his country. Cavour resumed his post, with the resolve to defer no longer the annexation of Central Italy, but with the heavy consciousness that Napoleon would demand in return for his consent to this union the cession of Nice and Savoy. No Treaty ent.i.tled France to claim this reward, for the Austrians still held Venetia; but Napoleon's troops lay at Milan, and by a march southwards they could easily throw Italian affairs again into confusion, and undo all that the last six months had effected. Cavour would perhaps have lent himself to any European combination which, while directed against the extension, of France, would have secured the existence of the Italian Kingdom; but no such alternative to the French alliance proved possible; and the subsequent negotiations between Paris and Turin were intended only to vest with a certain diplomatic propriety the now inevitable transfer of territory from the weaker to the stronger State. A series of propositions made from London with the view of withdrawing from Italy both French and Austrian influence led the Austrian Court to acknowledge that its army would not be employed for the restoration of the sovereigns of Tuscany and Modena. Construing this statement as an admission that the stipulations of Villafranca and Zurich as to the return of the fugitive princes had become impracticable, Napoleon now suggested that Victor Emmanuel should annex Parma and Modena, and a.s.sume secular power in the Romagna as Vicar of the Pope, leaving Tuscany to form a separate Government. The establishment of so powerful a kingdom on the confines of France was, he added, not in accordance with the traditions of French foreign policy, and in self-defence France must rectify its military frontier by the acquisition of Nice and Savoy (Feb.

24th). Cavour well understood that the mention of Tuscan independence, and the qualified recognition of the Pope's rights in the Romagna, were no more than suggestions of the means of pressure by which France might enforce the cessions it required. He answered that, although Victor Emmanuel could not alienate any part of his dominions, his Government recognised the same popular rights in Savoy and Nice as in Central Italy; and accordingly that if the population of these districts declared in a legal form their desire to be incorporated with France, the King would not resist their will.

Having thus consented to the necessary sacrifice, and ignoring Napoleon's reservations with regard to Tuscany and the Pope, Cavour gave orders that a popular vote should at once be taken in Tuscany, as well as in Parma, Modena, and the Romagna, on the question of union with Piedmont. The voting took place early in March, and gave an overwhelming majority in favour of union. The Pope issued the major excommunication against the authors, abettors, and agents in this work of sacrilege, and heaped curses on curses; but no one seemed the worse for them. Victor Emmanuel accepted the sovereignty that was offered to him, and on the 2nd of April the Parliament of the united kingdom a.s.sembled at Turin. It had already been announced to the inhabitants of Nice and Savoy that the King had consented to their union with France. The formality of a _plebiscite_ was enacted a few days later, and under the combined pressure of the French and Sardinian Governments the desired results were obtained. Not more than a few hundred persons protested by their vote against a transaction to which it was understood that the King had no choice but to submit. [496]

[Cavour on the cession of Nice and Savoy.]

That Victor Emmanuel had at one time been disposed to resist Cavour's surrender of the home of his race is well known. Above a year, however, had pa.s.sed since the project had been accepted as the basis of the French alliance; and if, during the interval of suspense after Villafranca, the King had cherished a hope that the sacrifice might be avoided without prejudice either to the cause of Italy or to his own relations with Napoleon, Cavour had entertained no such illusions. He knew that the cession was an indispensable link in the chain of his own policy, that policy which had made it possible to defeat Austria, and which, he believed, would lead to the further consolidation of Italy. Looking to Rome, to Palermo, where the smouldering fire might at any moment blaze out, he could not yet dispense with the friends.h.i.+p of Napoleon, he could not provoke the one man powerful enough to shape the action of France in defiance of Clerical and of Legitimist aims. Rattazzi might claim credit for having brought Piedmont past the Treaty of Zurich without loss of territory; Cavour, in a far finer spirit, took upon himself the responsibility for the sacrifice made to France, and bade the Parliament of Italy pa.s.s judgment upon his act. The cession of the border-provinces overshadowed what would otherwise have been the brightest scene in Italian history for many generations, the meeting of the first North-Italian Parliament at Turin. Garibaldi, coming as deputy from his birthplace, Nice, uttered words of scorn and injustice against the man who had made him an alien in Italy, and quitted the Chamber. Bitterly as Cavour felt, both now and down to the end of his life, the reproaches that were levelled against him, he allowed no trace of wounded feeling, of impatience, of the sense of wrong, to escape him in the masterly speech in which he justified his policy and won for it the ratification of the Parliament. It was not until a year later, when the hand of death was almost upon him, that fierce words addressed to him face to face by Garibaldi wrung from him the impressive answer, "The act that has made this gulf between us was the most painful duty of my life. By what I have felt myself I know what Garibaldi must have felt. If he refuses me his forgiveness I cannot reproach him for it." [497]

[The cession in relation to Europe and Italy.]

The annexation of Nice and Savoy by Napoleon was seen with extreme displeasure in Europe generally, and most of all in England. It directly affected the history of Britain by the stimulus which it gave to the development of the Volunteer Forces. Owing their origin to certain demonstrations of hostility towards England made by the French army after Orsini's conspiracy and the acquittal of one of his confederates in London, the Volunteer Forces rose in the three months that followed the annexation of Nice and Savoy from seventy to a hundred and eighty thousand men. If viewed as an indication that the ruler of France would not be content with the frontiers of 1815, the acquisition of the Sub-Alpine provinces might with some reason excite alarm; on no other ground could their transfer be justly condemned. Geographical position, language, commercial interests, separated Savoy from Piedmont and connected it with France; and though in certain parts of the County of Nice the Italian character predominated, this district as a whole bore the stamp not of Piedmont or Liguria but of Provence. Since the separation from France in 1815 there had always been, both in Nice and Savoy, a considerable party which desired reunion with that country. The political and social order of the Sardinian Kingdom had from 1815 to 1848 been so backward, so reactionary, that the middle cla.s.ses in the border-provinces looked wistfully to France as a land where their own grievances had been removed and their own ideals attained. The const.i.tutional system of Victor Emmanuel, and the despotic system of Louis Napoleon had both been too recently introduced to reverse in the minds of the greater number the political tradition of the preceding thirty years.

Thus if there were a few who, like Garibaldi, himself of Genoese descent though born at Nice, pa.s.sionately resented separation from Italy, they found no considerable party either in Nice or in Savoy animated by the same feeling. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical sentiment of Savoy rendered its transfer to France an actual advantage to the Italian State. The Papacy had here a deeply-rooted influence. The reforms begun by Azeglio's Ministry had been steadily resisted by a Savoyard group of deputies in the interests of Rome. Cavour himself, in the prosecution of his larger plans, had always been exposed to the danger of a coalition between this ultra-Conservative party and his opponents of the other extreme. It was well that in the conflict with the Papacy, without which there could be no such thing as a Kingdom of United Italy, these influences of the Savoyard Church and n.o.blesse should be removed from the Parliament and the Throne. Honourable as the Savoyard party of resistance had proved themselves in Parliamentary life, loyal and faithful as they were to their sovereign, they were yet not a part of the Italian nation. Their interests were not bound up with the cause of Italian union; their leaders were not inspired with the ideal of Italian national life. The forces that threatened the future of the new State from within were too powerful for the surrender of a priest-governed and half-foreign element to be considered as a real loss.

[Naples.]

Nice and Savoy had hardly been handed over to Napoleon when Garibaldi set out from Genoa to effect the liberation of Sicily and Naples. King Ferdinand II., known to his subjects and to Western Europe as King Bomba, had died a few days before the battle of Magenta, leaving the throne to his son Francis II. In consequence of the friends.h.i.+p shown by Ferdinand to Russia during the Crimean War, and of his refusal to amend his tyrannical system of government, the Western Powers had in 1856 withdrawn their representatives from Naples. On the accession of Francis II. diplomatic intercourse was renewed, and Cavour, who had been at bitter enmity with Ferdinand, sought to establish relations of friends.h.i.+p with his son. In the war against Austria an alliance with Naples would have been of value to Sardinia as a counterpoise to Napoleon's influence, and this alliance Cavour attempted to obtain. He was, however, unsuccessful; and after the Peace of Villafranca the Neapolitan Court threw itself with ardour into schemes for the restoration of the fallen Governments and the overthrow of Piedmontese authority in the Romagna by means of a coalition with Austria and Spain and a counterrevolutionary movement in Italy itself. A rising on behalf of the fugitive Grand Duke of Tuscany was to give the signal for the march of the Neapolitan army northwards. This rising, however, was expected in vain, and the great Catholic design resulted in nothing. Baffled in its larger aims, the Bourbon Government proposed in the spring of 1860 to occupy Umbria and the Marches, in order to prevent the revolutionary movement from spreading farther into the Papal States. Against this Cavour protested, and King Francis yielded to his threat to withdraw the Sardinian amba.s.sador from Naples. Knowing that a conspiracy existed for the restoration of the House of Murat to the Neapolitan throne, which would have given France the ascendency in Southern Italy, Cavour now renewed his demand that Francis II. should enter into alliance with Piedmont, accepting a const.i.tutional system of government and the national Italian policy of Victor Emmanuel. But neither the summons from Turin, nor the agitation of the Muratists, nor the warnings of Great Britain that the Bourbon dynasty could only avert its fall by reform, produced any real change in the spirit of the Neapolitan Court. Ministers were removed, but the absolutist and anti-national system remained the same. Meanwhile Garibaldi was gathering his followers round him in Genoa. On the 15th of April Victor Emmanuel wrote to King Francis that unless his fatal system of policy was immediately abandoned the Piedmontese Government itself might shortly be forced to become the agent of his destruction. Even this menace proved fruitless; and after thus fairly exposing to the Court of Naples the consequence of its own stubbornness, Victor Emmanuel let loose against it the revolutionary forces of Garibaldi.

[Sicily.]

[Garibaldi starts for Sicily, May 5.]

[Garibaldi at Marsala, May 11.]

Since the campaign of 1859 insurrectionary committees had been active in the princ.i.p.al Sicilian towns. The old desire of the Sicilian Liberals for the independence of the island had given place, under the influence of the events of the past year, to the desire for Italian union. On the abandonment of Garibaldi's plan for the march on Rome in November, 1859, the liberation of Sicily had been suggested to him as a more feasible enterprise, and the general himself wavered in the spring of 1860 between the resumption of his Roman project and an attack upon the Bourbons of Naples from the south. The rumour spread through Sicily that Garibaldi would soon appear there at the head of his followers. On the 3rd of April an attempt at insurrection was made at Palermo. It was repressed without difficulty; and although disturbances broke out in other parts of the island, the reports which reached Garibaldi at Genoa as to the spirit and prospects of the Sicilians were so disheartening that for a while he seemed disposed to abandon the project of invasion as hopeless for the present. It was only when some of the Sicilian exiles declared that they would risk the enterprise without him that he resolved upon immediate action. On the night of the 5th of May two steams.h.i.+ps lying in the harbour of Genoa were seized, and on these Garibaldi with his Thousand put to sea. Cavour, though he would have preferred that Sicily should remain unmolested until some progress had been made in the consolidation of the North Italian Kingdom, did not venture to restrain Garibaldi's movements, with which he was well acquainted. He required, however, that the expedition should not touch at the island of Sardinia, and gave ostensible orders to his admiral, Persano, to seize the s.h.i.+ps of Garibaldi if they should put into any Sardinian port.

Garibaldi, who had sheltered the Sardinian Government from responsibility at the outset by the fiction of a sudden capture of the two merchant-s.h.i.+ps, continued to spare Victor Emmanuel unnecessary difficulties by avoiding the fleet which was supposed to be on the watch for him off Cagliari in Sardinia, and only interrupted his voyage by a landing at a desolate spot on the Tuscan coast in order to take up artillery and ammunition which were waiting for him there. On the 11th of May, having heard from some English merchantmen that there were no Neapolitan vessels of war at Marsala, he made for this harbour. The first of his two s.h.i.+ps entered it in safety and disembarked her crew; the second, running on a rock, lay for some time within range of the guns of a Neapolitan war-steamer which was bearing up towards the port. But for some unknown reason the Neapolitan commander delayed opening fire, and the landing of Garibaldi's followers was during this interval completed without loss. [498]

[Garibaldi captures Palermo, May 26.]

On the following day the little army, attired in the red s.h.i.+rts which are worn by cattle-ranchers in South America, marched eastwards from Marsala.

Bands of villagers joined them as they moved through the country, and many unexpected adherents were gained among the priests. On the third day's march Neapolitan troops were seen in position at Calatafimi. They were attacked by Garibaldi, and, though far superior in number, were put to the rout. The moral effects of this first victory were very great. The Neapolitan commander retired into Palermo, leaving Garibaldi master of the western portion of the island. Insurrection spread towards the interior; the revolutionary party at Palermo itself regained its courage and prepared to co-operate with Garibaldi on his approach. On nearing the city Garibaldi determined that he could not risk a direct a.s.sault upon the forces which occupied it. He resolved, if possible, to lure part of the defenders into the mountains, and during their absence to throw himself into the city and to trust to the energy of its inhabitants to maintain himself there. This strategy succeeded. While the officer in command of some of the Neapolitan battalions, tempted by an easy victory over the ill-disciplined Sicilian bands opposed to him, pursued his beaten enemy into the mountains, Garibaldi with the best of his troops fought his way into Palermo on the night of May 26th. Fighting continued in the streets during the next two days, and the cannon of the forts and of the Neapolitan vessels in harbour ineffectually bombarded the city. On the 30th, at the moment when the absent battalions were coming again into sight, an armistice was signed on board the British man-of-war _Hannibal_. The Neapolitan commander gave up to Garibaldi the bank and public buildings, and withdrew into the forts outside the town. But the Government at Naples was now becoming thoroughly alarmed; and considering Palermo as lost, it directed the troops to be s.h.i.+pped to Messina and to Naples itself. Garibaldi was thus left in undisputed possession of the Sicilian capital. He remained there for nearly two months, a.s.suming the government of Sicily as Dictator in the name of Victor Emmanuel, appointing Ministers, and levying taxes. Heavy reinforcements reached him from Italy. The Neapolitans, driven from the interior as well as from the towns occupied by the invader, now held only the north-eastern extremity of the island. On the 20th of July Garibaldi, operating both by land and sea, attacked and defeated them at Milazzo on the northern coast. The result of this victory was that Messina itself, with the exception of the citadel, was evacuated by the Neapolitans without resistance. Garibaldi, whose troops now numbered eighteen thousand, was master of the island from sea to sea, and could with confidence look forward to the overthrow of Bourbon authority on the Italian mainland.

[The Party of Action.]

During Garibaldi's stay at Palermo the antagonism between the two political creeds which severed those whose devotion to Italy was the strongest came clearly into view. This antagonism stood embodied in its extreme form in the contrast between Mazzini and Cavour. Mazzini, handling moral and political conceptions with something of the independence of a mathematician, laid it down as the first duty of the Italian nation to possess itself of Rome and Venice, regardless of difficulties that might be raised from without. By conviction he desired that Italy should be a Republic, though under certain conditions he might be willing to tolerate the monarchy of Victor Emmanuel. Cavour, accurately observing the play of political forces in Europe, conscious above all of the strength of those ties which still bound Napoleon to the clerical cause, knew that there were limits which Italy could not at present pa.s.s without ruin. The centre of Mazzini's hopes, an advance upon Rome itself, he knew to be an act of self-destruction for Italy, and this advance he was resolved at all costs to prevent. Cavour had not hindered the expedition to Sicily; he had not considered it likely to embroil Italy with its ally; but neither had he been the author of this enterprise. The liberation of Sicily might be deemed the work rather of the school of Mazzini than of Cavour. Garibaldi indeed was personally loyal to Victor Emmanuel; but around him there were men who, if not Republicans, were at least disposed to make the grant of Sicily to Victor Emmanuel conditional upon the king's fulfilling the will of the so-called Party of Action, and consenting to an attack upon Rome.

Under the influence of these politicians Garibaldi, in reply to a deputation expressing to him the desire of the Sicilians for union with the Kingdom of Victor Emmanuel, declared that he had come to fight not for Sicily alone but for all Italy, and that if the annexation of Sicily was to take place before the union of Italy was a.s.sured, he must withdraw his hand from the work and retire. The effect produced by these words of Garibaldi was so serious that the Ministers whom he had placed in office resigned.

Garibaldi endeavoured to subst.i.tute for them men more agreeable to the Party of Action, but a demonstration in Palermo itself forced him to nominate Sicilians in favour of immediate annexation. The public opinion of the island was hostile to Republicanism and to the friends of Mazzini; nor could the prevailing anarchy long continue without danger of a reactionary movement. Garibaldi himself possessed no glimmer of administrative faculty.

After weeks of confusion and misgovernment he saw the necessity of accepting direction from Turin, and consented to recognise as Pro-Dictator of the island a nominee of Cavour, the Piedmontese Depretis. Under the influence of Depretis a commencement was made in the work of political and social reorganisation. [499]

[Cavour's policy with regard to Naples.]

[Garibaldi crosses to the mainland, Aug. 19.]

Cavour, during Garibaldi's preparation for his descent upon Sicily and until the capture of Palermo, had affected to disavow and condemn the enterprise as one undertaken by individuals in spite of the Government, and at their own risk. The Piedmontese amba.s.sador was still at Naples as the representative of a friendly Court; and in reply to the reproaches of Germany and Russia, Cavour alleged that the t.i.tle of Dictator of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel had been a.s.sumed by Garibaldi without the knowledge or consent of his sovereign. But whatever might be said to Foreign Powers, Cavour, from the time of the capture of Palermo, recognised that the hour had come for further steps towards Italian union; and, without committing himself to any definite line of action, he began already to contemplate the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty at Naples. It was in vain that King Francis now released his political prisoners, declared the Const.i.tution of 1848 in force, and tendered to Piedmont the alliance which he had before refused. Cavour, in reply to his overtures, stated that he could not on his own authority pledge Piedmont to the support of a dynasty now almost in the agonies of dissolution, and that the matter must await the meeting of Parliament at Turin. Thus far the way had not been absolutely closed to a reconciliation between the two Courts; but after the victory of Garibaldi at Milazzo and the evacuation of Messina at the end of July Cavour cast aside all hesitation and reserve. He appears to have thought a renewal of the war with Austria probable, and now strained every nerve to become master of Naples and its fleet before Austria could take the field. He ordered Admiral Persano to leave two s.h.i.+ps of war to cover Garibaldi's pa.s.sage to the mainland, and with one s.h.i.+p to proceed to Naples himself, and there excite insurrection and win over the Neapolitan fleet to the flag of Victor Emmanuel. Persano reached Naples on the 3rd of August, and on the next day the negotiations between the two Courts were broken off. On the 19th Garibaldi crossed from Sicily to the mainland. His march upon the capital was one unbroken triumph.

[Persano and Villamarina at Naples.]

[Departure of King Francis, Sept. 6.]

[Garibaldi enters Naples, Sept. 7.]

It was the hope of Cavour that before Garibaldi could reach Naples a popular movement in the city itself would force the King to take flight, so that Garibaldi on his arrival would find the machinery of government, as well as the command of the fleet and the army, already in the hands of Victor Emmanuel's representatives. If war with Austria was really impending, incalculable mischief might be caused by the existence of a semi-independent Government at Naples, reckless, in its enthusiasm for the march on Rome, of the effect which its acts might produce on the French alliance. In any case the control of Italian affairs could but half belong to the King and his Minister if Garibaldi, in the full glory of his unparalleled exploits, should add the Dictators.h.i.+p of Naples to the Dictators.h.i.+p of Sicily. Accordingly Cavour plied every art to accelerate the inevitable revolution. Persano and the Sardinian amba.s.sador, Villamarina, had their confederates in the Bourbon Ministry and in the Royal Family itself. But their efforts to drive King Francis from Naples, and to establish the authority of Victor Emmanuel before Garibaldi's arrival, were baffled partly by the tenacity of the King and Queen, partly by the opposition of the committees of the Party of Action, who were determined that power should fall into no hands but those of Garibaldi himself. It was not till Garibaldi had reached Salerno, and the Bourbon generals had one after another declined to undertake the responsibility of command in a battle against him, that Francis resolved on flight. It was now feared that he might induce the fleet to sail with him, and even that he might hand it over to the Austrians. The crews, it was believed, were willing to follow the King; the officers, though inclined to the Italian cause, would be powerless to prevent them. There was not an hour to lose.

On the night of September 5th, after the King's intention to quit the capital had become known, Persano and Villamarina disguised themselves, and in company with their partisans mingled with the crews of the fleet, whom they induced by bribes and persuasion to empty the boilers and to cripple the engines of their s.h.i.+ps. When, on the 6th, King Francis, having announced his intention to spare the capital bloodshed, went on board a mail steamer and quitted the harbour, accompanied by the amba.s.sadors of Austria, Prussia, and Spain, only one vessel of the fleet of followed him.

An urgent summons was sent to Garibaldi, whose presence was now desired by all parties alike in order to prevent the outbreak of disorders. Leaving his troops at Salerno, Garibaldi came by railroad to Naples on the morning of the 7th, escorted only by some of his staff. The forts were still garrisoned by eight thousand of the Bourbon troops, but all idea of resistance had been abandoned, and Garibaldi drove fearlessly through the city in the midst of joyous crowds. His first act as Dictator was to declare the s.h.i.+ps of war belonging to the State of the Two Sicilies united to those of King Victor Emmanuel under Admiral Persano's command. Before sunset the flag of Italy was hoisted by the Neapolitan fleet. The army was not to be so easily incorporated with the national forces. King Francis, after abandoning the idea of a battle between Naples and Salerno, had ordered the ma.s.s of his troops to retire upon Capua in order to make a final struggle on the line of the Volturno, and this order had been obeyed.

[500]

[The Piedmontese army enters Umbria and the Marches. Sept. 11.]