Giuseppe Garibaldi
(Nice, 1807-Caprera, Italy, 1882) Italian nationalist leader who was one of the main architects of the unification of Italy.During his youth he followed in the footsteps of his father, a sailor of Genoese origin, and was on board for more than ten years.In 1832 he obtained the title of captain of merchant ships.While working in the service of the Sardinian navy, he took part in a Republican mutiny in Piedmont that proved unsuccessful.Although he was able to escape, he was sentenced to exile.By then he had come into contact with the work of Giuseppe Mazzini, the great prophet of Italian nationalism, and that of the French socialist Henri de Saint-Simon.
Garibaldi
Between 1836 and 1848 he lived in South America, where he participated in various military events, always alongside those who fought for freedom or independence of the Portuguese and Spanish colonies.In 1836 he voluntarily intervened as a ship captain in the failed secessionist insurrection of the Brazilian republic of Rio Grande do Sul, and in 1842 he was appointed captain of the Uruguayan fleet in his fight against the Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas.The following year, during the defense of Montevideo, he organized an Italian military legion, whose members were the first "red shirts."
News of his good work as a soldier and strategist reached Europe, where he returned in 1848 to fight in Lombardy against the Austrian army and take a first step towards the unification of Italy, which was his objective during the three following decades.His attempt to push back the Austrians was unsuccessful and he had to take refuge first in Switzerland and later in Nice.
At the end of 1848 Pope Pius IX, fearful of the liberal forces, left Rome, where Garibaldi went along with a group of volunteers.In February 1849 he was elected a republican deputy in the constituent assembly, before which he argued that Rome should become an independent republic.In April he faced a French army trying to reestablish papal authority, and he did the same in May against a Neapolitan army.While he had no option to prevent the fall of the city, his fight turned into one of the most epic and remembered passages of the Risorgimiento.
On July 1, Rome was finally stormed, and Garibaldi and his men took refuge in the neutral territory of San Marino.Sentenced to exile for the second time, he lived in Tangier, Staten Island (New York) and Peru, where he returned to his former position as captain of a merchant ship.
In 1852 Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, was appointed Prime Minister of Piedmont, where Victor Emmanuel II reigned.The Comte de Cavour believed that, if allowed to return to Italy, Garibaldi would distance himself from the republican Mazzini; For this he was granted, two years later, the command of the Piedmontese forces in battle with the Austrians.Garibaldi won at Varese and Como, both in May 1859, and entered Brescia the following month, with which the Kingdom of Lombardy seized Piedmont.Having achieved peace in the north of the country, Garibaldi went to central Italy.The King of Piedmont, Victor Emmanuel II, initially supported an attack on the papal territories, but at the last minute it seemed too dangerous and forced him to abandon the project.
Garibaldi accepted the resignation and remained faithful, but the transfer of Nice and Savoy to France by Cavour and Victor Emmanuel seemed to him an act of treason and he decided to act on his own.As an agreement was impossible to the north, he decided to force unification by conquering the Kingdom of Naples, under Bourbon sovereignty.In May 1860, at the head of an army of a thousand men (the expedition of the thousand or the "red shirts"), he seized Sicily and in September entered Naples, which he yielded to Victor Emmanuel II.
In 1861 the new Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, but from the beginning Garibaldi remained in opposition, since Rome continued to be a papal city.With the slogan of "Rome or death", he tried for years to fight against the pontifical power, without much success, until in 1862, at the battle of Aspromonte, he fell wounded and was taken prisoner.After being amnestied, he went on to chair the Italian Central Unitary Committee and offered his services to France.He was elected deputy to the Bordeaux Assembly (1871) and deputy to the Italian Parliament (1875), which a few years before his death assigned him a life pension for the services rendered.
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