March 3, 2010 • 19 mins
Giuseppe Garibaldi led the ultimate underdogs in an expedition to overthrow the Bourbon family ruling Sicily in 1860. Tune in and learn how this ragged band of roughly 1,000 people forced the royal army of 20,000 men to surrender in this podcast.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy, and today we
are bringing you the ultimate underdog story. That's the story
(00:21):
of a group of one thousand men led by a
charismatic professional rebel named Giuseppe Garibaldi who bore gaucho pants.
We just want to get that right out there, if
I were a professional rubble and this group makes its
way to Sicily, where they topple the large and strong
Bourbon monarch. Their expedition is a success and delivers an
(00:43):
enormous piece of the fragmented Italian peninsula into the hands
of Pete mont Sardinia. So in this David and Goliath story,
again it's David who wins, and this is a really
big step in the creation of the Kingdom of Italy
and the unification of the country. So it's kind of
the most dramatic event, in my opinion, in that story
(01:04):
that spans almost a century. So we're gonna give you
some background on the Resourgimento or the resurgence, which is
pretty complicated. So we're going to try to cut it
down to the basics for you. Italy is made up
of states, and after Napoleonic rule ends, the peninsula shows
some movements toward nationalization, but there are centuries old divisions
(01:25):
between the states. You can even think of Italy today
and how different Florence is, say from Venice. It was
even more marked than the differences between them. There are
also differences in language and in food. So this isn't
a simple revolution. It's not going to be easy. You
have to answer the questions of who's going to rule,
and what would unified Italy look like, and who's going
(01:47):
to be leading it? Yeah, which state will take the
lead in unifying the country, and will it be under
a monarchy, will it be a republic? What's it going
to look like? And it's interesting too, this isn't just
a political movement, this um resurgence. It's also an ideology
and sometimes it's um just about the romance of reclaiming
(02:10):
a shared history. So uh, taking someone like Dante, who
is so tied to his own city and turning him
into a national figure. He's not just a Florentine, He's
an Italian, Italy's writer and um taking ancient Rome and
the antiquities and making that a national thing and not
(02:32):
just something in the distance outside of our communal history. Yeah,
much of the rebellion is directed against the Austrian occupiers
of northern Italy, but the idea of nationalism begins to
sweep through all the states. And we have two distinctive
varieties of this nationalism that are important for our story.
The first is the radical nationalism of Giuseppe Mazzini, who
(02:54):
wants to unite the peninsula into a republic. And on
the other side we have the liberal monarchy of Pete
Sardinia in northern Italy, which is ruled by Victor Emmanuel
the Second and run by his prime minister Cavor. They
also want to unite the peninsula, but under Piedmont rule
and under a monarchy, and they're careful and diplomatic people.
(03:14):
They support rebel movements secretly. They'll support Garibaldi at times, um,
but it's it's always They're always playing their cards close,
and they're conscious of their reputation and world affairs, so
they're not solely concerned with this unification of Italy. There
um aware of their position in Europe as a whole,
(03:35):
as far as where Garibaldi fits into this. He would
seem to be a natural fit with Mazzini's movement, but
he's a free agent. He's willing to work with a
monarchy if it means unification will happen. He's much more
tied to this idea of unification than he is to
the idea of a republic, a democracy, or a monarchy
or even his own ambitions. He just wants it to happen. Yeah,
(03:55):
and he does work with Matzini's movement when he's a youth,
but he later works with the pied Mont Sardinian so
he's really able to cross both fives here to get
what he wants to have happened actually happened. And let's
give you a little background on Garibaldi. He was born
in Niece in eighteen o seven, which at the time
(04:15):
is part of France. It's later given back to Sardinia
and the Savoy rulers. When Garibaldi was a boy after
Napoleon was defeated, and he comes from a family of
fishermen and coastal traders. He himself as a sailor for
more than ten years and becomes a merchant captain. So
by the eighteen thirties, while he's serving in the navy
of pied Montzardinia. He comes under the influence of Giuseppe Mazzini, who,
(04:39):
as we said, is the hero of Italian nationalism, and
he comes under the influence of the French socialist Conte
de Saint Simon, and by eighteen thirty four he's become
a revolutionary. He takes part in an attempt to provoke
a republican revolution in Piedmont. It doesn't work out. He's
convicted to death an absentia by a Genoese court and
(05:02):
he goes to South America. In retreat, goes into hiding.
He's kind of a rebel pirate in Brazil and he
elopes with a woman named Anna Maria Ribero da Silva,
a married woman. Their companions and arms until her death,
and he ends up in charge of the Uruguayan navy.
And all the while he's learning guerrilla warfare in South America.
(05:23):
We've decided that guerrilla warfares are new theme to replace exhimation.
He's a professional rebel and he wears a gaucho costume.
In eighteen forty three, still in the service of Uruguay,
he takes command of the Italian legion at Montevideo, which
is the first of the Red Shirts, and remember red Shirts,
because they're going to come into play later on. They
(05:45):
win a small battle and word gets back to Europe
about these guys. Alexander dumint pair helps foster the reputation
of Garibaldi, so he's becoming a somewhat of a celebrity
by this point, and this now famous garrible Aldi returned
to Italy in eighteen forty eight to fight the Austrians.
He is unsuccessful, but he's still incredibly courageous and becomes
(06:07):
known as the hero of two worlds, but still too
scary to the Piedmont monarchy. Um, you would think this guy,
who is now a hero in the Peninsula might be
welcomed back into the fold and his former treasonous activities
would be overlooked. But um, they're not going to go
for that. He goes into exile again, including a stop
(06:30):
in Staten Island, interestingly enough, and he's finally allowed to
return to Italy in eighteen fifty four. That free agent
business that we're talking about earlier frightens Cavour, who wants
to bring him back into Piedmont's fold. It's too dangerous
to have him out there. Um, you know, he could
potentially be lured back to Matsini, the Republican Metzini, which
(06:55):
is not something that Piedmont wants. Um. Garibaldi is, after all,
a really charismatic, really popular republic figure. So Cofre says,
let's fight Austria together. We'll give you the rank of
major general in the Piedmontese army. So he does that.
And also, the Piedmont has become more liberal in the
intervening years since Garibaldi has been gone. They've gotten a constitution.
(07:18):
Things have lightened up a bit, it's not so repressive.
So our action really heats up in September eighteen fifty nine,
and finally northern Italy is peaceful for once, and Garibaldi's
in the country and with nothing to do in the north.
I guess he's kind of bored. He needs something to do,
and he's hoping that there will be some action in
central Italy, and there sure is something for him to do.
(07:41):
Victor Emmanuel the Second makes a secret agreement with him,
basically saying, Garibaldi, you invade the Papal States, and if
it works, I'm completely behind you. But if it does end,
then tough luck for you. The king, however, realizes that
the last moment that this plan is too dangerous, so
he decides to abort the mission. Gara Baldi is really
disappointed with this, and Victor Manuel the Second makes things
(08:05):
even worse in Garibaldi's opinion, when he returns niece Garibaldi's
hometown to France. So that's that's gotta be too bad
for Garibaldi. Pete Mantzardina is just so diplomatic to Garibaldi,
and I think it really frustrates him right to him,
it's just so slow, slow paced. He doesn't like having
(08:25):
to deal with it. And also he's having some personal issues,
to say the least. Um, he's just gotten remarried. His
first wife died, Um, and he abandons this new wife
only a few hours after marrying her when he learns
that she's five months pregnant by another man, which he
(08:46):
and I had a good ten minute conversation about this earlier.
We're completely bewildered by just how this, how that happened,
But that's not our story today. So there's a revolt
in Sicily on April four, eighteen sixty and Garibaldi has
had it with the Piedmonts diplomatic tactics waiting around for them. Right,
He's going to attack the South and the Bourbon Kingdom,
and there's nothing you can do about it. Because he's
(09:07):
so popular, they can't stop him. But if he succeeds,
he does know that they will be there to help.
So we'll give you some stats on the Speedizion Admile,
or the expedition of a thousand. It wasn't actually a thousand.
There were a thousand twenty seven people, a thousand forty
four thousand eighty nine, no one's quite sure. The records disagree,
(09:29):
but this thousand was ranged in age from eleven to
sixty nine. And there was one woman, Rosalia Montmisson, who
was the wife of Francesco Crispy, a key planner in
the expedition. And four fifth of the group is from
the north, a third from Bergamo in Genoa alone, So
it's uh, it's an interesting group to be taking such
(09:52):
a strong interest in Sicily. And most of them are idealistic,
middle class people, kind of kind of the els who
would go along with that whole idea that Dante's Italy's writer,
Their teachers, writers, traders. There are a hundred and fifty
lawyers and law students, a hundred physicians, fifty engineers, twenty chemists,
(10:14):
ten painters and sculptors, three priests, and thirty naval officers,
which is good because they are taking boats and um
they're a really educated and very idealistic bunch of people,
and they're all wearing Garibaldi's classic red shirt. Supposedly this
idea of his came from the abattoirs of Uruguay, which
(10:34):
is pretty gross. And they're not very well trained, which
perhaps you already figured out from the list of fifty lawyers.
Come on, not so much. They have rusty rifles, but
they're they're ragtag group. They leave from Quarto May five
through six, and they almost run into the Bourbon Navy
on their way down, which would have been terrible. They
(10:54):
obviously were not prepared for a conflict at sea, but
they managed to land and in the western Sicilian port
of Marsala and Mayo Leven where they are welcomed by
the British consul. And we should give you a little
background two on the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It's
ruled by a Bourbon monarch, and yes, that is the
(11:15):
same French family you're thinking of their descendants of the
Louis and the Sicilian monarch. Francis the Second is young.
He's just inherited the kingdom from his tyrannical father, Ferdinand
the Second, known as Bomba and um. Well, Ferdinand the
Second was very tyrannical. He was also somewhat respected, I
(11:35):
guess just because he was so scary. Francis the Second
doesn't have that much going for him. He's just as tyrannical,
but he doesn't have the respect. This is not a
good combination. So he sends out twenty five thousand soldiers
to defend his new kingdom. But this Bourbon advance guard
can't get past Garibaldi's forces. So the Sicilian people mentioned
to Francis the Second, chagrin led by the mafia, side
(11:58):
with Garibaldi and welcome him. They're hoping he's going to
break up these landed estates and get them out of
the system of feudalism. The royal army surrenders. So many
Sicilian peasants were ambivalent about Garibaldi. But here you have
this opportunity for potential reform. You might as well, go
for it. So Garibaldi proclaims himself the dictator of Sicily,
(12:21):
but in the name of Victor Emmanuel, and he heads
towards Palermo, where they defeat in Neapolitan force at Coladophone
on My fifteen, and again the Sicilians join in, Hey,
you know, we hate the Bourbons too. Let we'll fight together.
And the Bourbon command just isn't that great? I mean
that explains in part why this small ragtag group of
(12:41):
non professional soldiers is managing to topple the monarch's army.
Um But Garibaldi captures Palermo on June six, which is
um the big city in the area, and by July,
with the Battle of Milazzo, he's won all of this
lee except from Sina, so now he wants Naples and
(13:04):
maybe even Rome. It's a dangerous thought, Garibaldi. So Francis, meanwhile,
is struggling to regroup. He grants a constitution and anesty
to the Sicilian rebels. He's trying to patch things over,
but it's too late for that, and by late August
Garibaldi crosses the Strait of Messina to land in Calabria
and advances towards Naples, and it's just a triumph. By
(13:26):
this time, the Bourbon rule is collapsed and Garibaldi is one. Yeah,
it's it's an easy ride into Naples. I think Garibaldi
might actually be on a train. So Francis flees to Gaieta,
and the last serious resistance of the Bourbons collapses at
the Battle of the Volturno, which is on October one.
(13:47):
So Victoria Manuel the Second rushes south to collect the spoils.
He and Garibaldi met to Teano, and Garibaldi hands everything
over to him. Yeah, obviously Victor Emmanuel is concerned. Um
as you would you would you would expect that this
charismatic leader who has conquered the entire south of Italy
(14:08):
to take over, might start getting some ideas and start thinking, well,
I wouldn't mind ruling this part of the world myself.
So that's why he's in such a hurry to get
down there and stake his own claim. But yeah, Garibaldi's
is quite impressive. He just hands it over to him,
and the Piedmont won't even let him govern during this
transitional period for the king either. He's again too scary,
(14:31):
he's too popular. And then there's the idea that what
if Mazzini got ahold of him and turned him anti monarchy,
and then there's the chance of a republican cou data.
So the Kingdom of Italy is officially proclaimed in March seventeenth,
eighteen sixty one. We haven't almost unified Italy. Uh. After
handing over the South to Piedmont, Garibaldi's thousand disbands. He
(14:55):
returns to his island home since he's not going to
get this job as the king's viceroy and um he
he retreats with his spoils of war, which sounds kind
of delicious coffee, sugar stockfish in macaroni, which you can't
mix together, but I think separately. Our lovely make a
good meal as a whole. But his meale feel shafted
(15:17):
by the Piedmontese, basically was the way Sarah put it.
And like they haven't been recognized appropriately. They don't feel
the territories are being run well, the North is exploiting
the South. They don't institute the expected land reform, and
hey guess what. Consequently, the mafia keeps their foothold there well,
and Garibaldi feels a little bit beholden to these people.
Who I mean, he would have believed he was liberating
(15:40):
them to see changes not happen as rapidly as he hoped.
And on a side note, Garibaldi is so popular. Abraham
Lincoln offers him a Union command in the Civil War,
and Garibaldi turns him down. Um, in part because he
wouldn't have had the supreme command over the Union's forces.
(16:01):
Sorry grant and um Lincoln wasn't anti slavery enough for him.
But digression aside, there are two big pieces of the
puzzle that are still missing in this unification process, Venice
and Rome. And Cavore believes that a new Italy must
have Rome as its real capital, not just not just
(16:21):
calling Rome it's capital and not controlling anything, but really
having Rome. And he even thinks that there should be
a separation between the religious and secular authority of Rome.
He's he's not anti Catholic Church here. He he thinks
that this will actually benefit the church, um, having it
an entirely spiritual entity. Um. But obviously this is an
(16:47):
incredibly tricky diplomatic situation since loads of countries have interests
in Rome and the Pope. And unfortunately, right when this
is going on, our great diplomat before dies and we're
left with what is called the Roman question. So maybe
we'll talk about the Roman question a little more later
(17:09):
and catch up with Garibaldi and his gauchos, but we're
gonna move on from there. And Sarah was saying earlier
to me that if you're looking for a good account
of Italian unification in fiction, you might want to try
lamp Produce as the Leopard, which is told from the
side of the Sicilian aristocracy. There's also a Burt Lancaster
(17:29):
movie which has an hour long dancing no joke it is.
But that brings us to listener mail. So today we
got an email from Mike about our podcast on Satchel Page,
and if you remember, at the end of the podcast,
we asked you to send us your opinion on who
is the best picture in history. So Mike said that
(17:52):
a few years ago I purchased a Major League Baseball
video game and it had two teams of historical legends
included in the game. The people who made this game
definitely felt that Satchel Page was the best picture ever
because his ability was ridiculously superior to any picture I've
ever artificially controlled. In a game. Eventually, in the interest
of fair play, my friend and I made a no
(18:14):
Satural rule, so we thought this was really funny, and um,
we're glad that some video game programmers out there are
definitely Satchel fans, because so were we, and we do
think he was, in fact, the greatest picture in history.
If you'd like to argue with us, feel free to
email at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
And if you'd like to learn more about Italian history,
(18:34):
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stuff works dot com home page
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy, and today we
are bringing you the ultimate underdog story. That's the story
(00:21):
of a group of one thousand men led by a
charismatic professional rebel named Giuseppe Garibaldi who bore gaucho pants.
We just want to get that right out there, if
I were a professional rubble and this group makes its
way to Sicily, where they topple the large and strong
Bourbon monarch. Their expedition is a success and delivers an
(00:43):
enormous piece of the fragmented Italian peninsula into the hands
of Pete mont Sardinia. So in this David and Goliath story,
again it's David who wins, and this is a really
big step in the creation of the Kingdom of Italy
and the unification of the country. So it's kind of
the most dramatic event, in my opinion, in that story
(01:04):
that spans almost a century. So we're gonna give you
some background on the Resourgimento or the resurgence, which is
pretty complicated. So we're going to try to cut it
down to the basics for you. Italy is made up
of states, and after Napoleonic rule ends, the peninsula shows
some movements toward nationalization, but there are centuries old divisions
(01:25):
between the states. You can even think of Italy today
and how different Florence is, say from Venice. It was
even more marked than the differences between them. There are
also differences in language and in food. So this isn't
a simple revolution. It's not going to be easy. You
have to answer the questions of who's going to rule,
and what would unified Italy look like, and who's going
(01:47):
to be leading it? Yeah, which state will take the
lead in unifying the country, and will it be under
a monarchy, will it be a republic? What's it going
to look like? And it's interesting too, this isn't just
a political movement, this um resurgence. It's also an ideology
and sometimes it's um just about the romance of reclaiming
(02:10):
a shared history. So uh, taking someone like Dante, who
is so tied to his own city and turning him
into a national figure. He's not just a Florentine, He's
an Italian, Italy's writer and um taking ancient Rome and
the antiquities and making that a national thing and not
(02:32):
just something in the distance outside of our communal history. Yeah,
much of the rebellion is directed against the Austrian occupiers
of northern Italy, but the idea of nationalism begins to
sweep through all the states. And we have two distinctive
varieties of this nationalism that are important for our story.
The first is the radical nationalism of Giuseppe Mazzini, who
(02:54):
wants to unite the peninsula into a republic. And on
the other side we have the liberal monarchy of Pete
Sardinia in northern Italy, which is ruled by Victor Emmanuel
the Second and run by his prime minister Cavor. They
also want to unite the peninsula, but under Piedmont rule
and under a monarchy, and they're careful and diplomatic people.
(03:14):
They support rebel movements secretly. They'll support Garibaldi at times, um,
but it's it's always They're always playing their cards close,
and they're conscious of their reputation and world affairs, so
they're not solely concerned with this unification of Italy. There
um aware of their position in Europe as a whole,
(03:35):
as far as where Garibaldi fits into this. He would
seem to be a natural fit with Mazzini's movement, but
he's a free agent. He's willing to work with a
monarchy if it means unification will happen. He's much more
tied to this idea of unification than he is to
the idea of a republic, a democracy, or a monarchy
or even his own ambitions. He just wants it to happen. Yeah,
(03:55):
and he does work with Matzini's movement when he's a youth,
but he later works with the pied Mont Sardinian so
he's really able to cross both fives here to get
what he wants to have happened actually happened. And let's
give you a little background on Garibaldi. He was born
in Niece in eighteen o seven, which at the time
(04:15):
is part of France. It's later given back to Sardinia
and the Savoy rulers. When Garibaldi was a boy after
Napoleon was defeated, and he comes from a family of
fishermen and coastal traders. He himself as a sailor for
more than ten years and becomes a merchant captain. So
by the eighteen thirties, while he's serving in the navy
of pied Montzardinia. He comes under the influence of Giuseppe Mazzini, who,
(04:39):
as we said, is the hero of Italian nationalism, and
he comes under the influence of the French socialist Conte
de Saint Simon, and by eighteen thirty four he's become
a revolutionary. He takes part in an attempt to provoke
a republican revolution in Piedmont. It doesn't work out. He's
convicted to death an absentia by a Genoese court and
(05:02):
he goes to South America. In retreat, goes into hiding.
He's kind of a rebel pirate in Brazil and he
elopes with a woman named Anna Maria Ribero da Silva,
a married woman. Their companions and arms until her death,
and he ends up in charge of the Uruguayan navy.
And all the while he's learning guerrilla warfare in South America.
(05:23):
We've decided that guerrilla warfares are new theme to replace exhimation.
He's a professional rebel and he wears a gaucho costume.
In eighteen forty three, still in the service of Uruguay,
he takes command of the Italian legion at Montevideo, which
is the first of the Red Shirts, and remember red Shirts,
because they're going to come into play later on. They
(05:45):
win a small battle and word gets back to Europe
about these guys. Alexander dumint pair helps foster the reputation
of Garibaldi, so he's becoming a somewhat of a celebrity
by this point, and this now famous garrible Aldi returned
to Italy in eighteen forty eight to fight the Austrians.
He is unsuccessful, but he's still incredibly courageous and becomes
(06:07):
known as the hero of two worlds, but still too
scary to the Piedmont monarchy. Um, you would think this guy,
who is now a hero in the Peninsula might be
welcomed back into the fold and his former treasonous activities
would be overlooked. But um, they're not going to go
for that. He goes into exile again, including a stop
(06:30):
in Staten Island, interestingly enough, and he's finally allowed to
return to Italy in eighteen fifty four. That free agent
business that we're talking about earlier frightens Cavour, who wants
to bring him back into Piedmont's fold. It's too dangerous
to have him out there. Um, you know, he could
potentially be lured back to Matsini, the Republican Metzini, which
(06:55):
is not something that Piedmont wants. Um. Garibaldi is, after all,
a really charismatic, really popular republic figure. So Cofre says,
let's fight Austria together. We'll give you the rank of
major general in the Piedmontese army. So he does that.
And also, the Piedmont has become more liberal in the
intervening years since Garibaldi has been gone. They've gotten a constitution.
(07:18):
Things have lightened up a bit, it's not so repressive.
So our action really heats up in September eighteen fifty nine,
and finally northern Italy is peaceful for once, and Garibaldi's
in the country and with nothing to do in the north.
I guess he's kind of bored. He needs something to do,
and he's hoping that there will be some action in
central Italy, and there sure is something for him to do.
(07:41):
Victor Emmanuel the Second makes a secret agreement with him,
basically saying, Garibaldi, you invade the Papal States, and if
it works, I'm completely behind you. But if it does end,
then tough luck for you. The king, however, realizes that
the last moment that this plan is too dangerous, so
he decides to abort the mission. Gara Baldi is really
disappointed with this, and Victor Manuel the Second makes things
(08:05):
even worse in Garibaldi's opinion, when he returns niece Garibaldi's
hometown to France. So that's that's gotta be too bad
for Garibaldi. Pete Mantzardina is just so diplomatic to Garibaldi,
and I think it really frustrates him right to him,
it's just so slow, slow paced. He doesn't like having
(08:25):
to deal with it. And also he's having some personal issues,
to say the least. Um, he's just gotten remarried. His
first wife died, Um, and he abandons this new wife
only a few hours after marrying her when he learns
that she's five months pregnant by another man, which he
(08:46):
and I had a good ten minute conversation about this earlier.
We're completely bewildered by just how this, how that happened,
But that's not our story today. So there's a revolt
in Sicily on April four, eighteen sixty and Garibaldi has
had it with the Piedmonts diplomatic tactics waiting around for them. Right,
He's going to attack the South and the Bourbon Kingdom,
and there's nothing you can do about it. Because he's
(09:07):
so popular, they can't stop him. But if he succeeds,
he does know that they will be there to help.
So we'll give you some stats on the Speedizion Admile,
or the expedition of a thousand. It wasn't actually a thousand.
There were a thousand twenty seven people, a thousand forty
four thousand eighty nine, no one's quite sure. The records disagree,
(09:29):
but this thousand was ranged in age from eleven to
sixty nine. And there was one woman, Rosalia Montmisson, who
was the wife of Francesco Crispy, a key planner in
the expedition. And four fifth of the group is from
the north, a third from Bergamo in Genoa alone, So
it's uh, it's an interesting group to be taking such
(09:52):
a strong interest in Sicily. And most of them are idealistic,
middle class people, kind of kind of the els who
would go along with that whole idea that Dante's Italy's writer,
Their teachers, writers, traders. There are a hundred and fifty
lawyers and law students, a hundred physicians, fifty engineers, twenty chemists,
(10:14):
ten painters and sculptors, three priests, and thirty naval officers,
which is good because they are taking boats and um
they're a really educated and very idealistic bunch of people,
and they're all wearing Garibaldi's classic red shirt. Supposedly this
idea of his came from the abattoirs of Uruguay, which
(10:34):
is pretty gross. And they're not very well trained, which
perhaps you already figured out from the list of fifty lawyers.
Come on, not so much. They have rusty rifles, but
they're they're ragtag group. They leave from Quarto May five
through six, and they almost run into the Bourbon Navy
on their way down, which would have been terrible. They
(10:54):
obviously were not prepared for a conflict at sea, but
they managed to land and in the western Sicilian port
of Marsala and Mayo Leven where they are welcomed by
the British consul. And we should give you a little
background two on the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It's
ruled by a Bourbon monarch, and yes, that is the
(11:15):
same French family you're thinking of their descendants of the
Louis and the Sicilian monarch. Francis the Second is young.
He's just inherited the kingdom from his tyrannical father, Ferdinand
the Second, known as Bomba and um. Well, Ferdinand the
Second was very tyrannical. He was also somewhat respected, I
(11:35):
guess just because he was so scary. Francis the Second
doesn't have that much going for him. He's just as tyrannical,
but he doesn't have the respect. This is not a
good combination. So he sends out twenty five thousand soldiers
to defend his new kingdom. But this Bourbon advance guard
can't get past Garibaldi's forces. So the Sicilian people mentioned
to Francis the Second, chagrin led by the mafia, side
(11:58):
with Garibaldi and welcome him. They're hoping he's going to
break up these landed estates and get them out of
the system of feudalism. The royal army surrenders. So many
Sicilian peasants were ambivalent about Garibaldi. But here you have
this opportunity for potential reform. You might as well, go
for it. So Garibaldi proclaims himself the dictator of Sicily,
(12:21):
but in the name of Victor Emmanuel, and he heads
towards Palermo, where they defeat in Neapolitan force at Coladophone
on My fifteen, and again the Sicilians join in, Hey,
you know, we hate the Bourbons too. Let we'll fight together.
And the Bourbon command just isn't that great? I mean
that explains in part why this small ragtag group of
(12:41):
non professional soldiers is managing to topple the monarch's army.
Um But Garibaldi captures Palermo on June six, which is
um the big city in the area, and by July,
with the Battle of Milazzo, he's won all of this
lee except from Sina, so now he wants Naples and
(13:04):
maybe even Rome. It's a dangerous thought, Garibaldi. So Francis, meanwhile,
is struggling to regroup. He grants a constitution and anesty
to the Sicilian rebels. He's trying to patch things over,
but it's too late for that, and by late August
Garibaldi crosses the Strait of Messina to land in Calabria
and advances towards Naples, and it's just a triumph. By
(13:26):
this time, the Bourbon rule is collapsed and Garibaldi is one. Yeah,
it's it's an easy ride into Naples. I think Garibaldi
might actually be on a train. So Francis flees to Gaieta,
and the last serious resistance of the Bourbons collapses at
the Battle of the Volturno, which is on October one.
(13:47):
So Victoria Manuel the Second rushes south to collect the spoils.
He and Garibaldi met to Teano, and Garibaldi hands everything
over to him. Yeah, obviously Victor Emmanuel is concerned. Um
as you would you would you would expect that this
charismatic leader who has conquered the entire south of Italy
(14:08):
to take over, might start getting some ideas and start thinking, well,
I wouldn't mind ruling this part of the world myself.
So that's why he's in such a hurry to get
down there and stake his own claim. But yeah, Garibaldi's
is quite impressive. He just hands it over to him,
and the Piedmont won't even let him govern during this
transitional period for the king either. He's again too scary,
(14:31):
he's too popular. And then there's the idea that what
if Mazzini got ahold of him and turned him anti monarchy,
and then there's the chance of a republican cou data.
So the Kingdom of Italy is officially proclaimed in March seventeenth,
eighteen sixty one. We haven't almost unified Italy. Uh. After
handing over the South to Piedmont, Garibaldi's thousand disbands. He
(14:55):
returns to his island home since he's not going to
get this job as the king's viceroy and um he
he retreats with his spoils of war, which sounds kind
of delicious coffee, sugar stockfish in macaroni, which you can't
mix together, but I think separately. Our lovely make a
good meal as a whole. But his meale feel shafted
(15:17):
by the Piedmontese, basically was the way Sarah put it.
And like they haven't been recognized appropriately. They don't feel
the territories are being run well, the North is exploiting
the South. They don't institute the expected land reform, and
hey guess what. Consequently, the mafia keeps their foothold there well,
and Garibaldi feels a little bit beholden to these people.
Who I mean, he would have believed he was liberating
(15:40):
them to see changes not happen as rapidly as he hoped.
And on a side note, Garibaldi is so popular. Abraham
Lincoln offers him a Union command in the Civil War,
and Garibaldi turns him down. Um, in part because he
wouldn't have had the supreme command over the Union's forces.
(16:01):
Sorry grant and um Lincoln wasn't anti slavery enough for him.
But digression aside, there are two big pieces of the
puzzle that are still missing in this unification process, Venice
and Rome. And Cavore believes that a new Italy must
have Rome as its real capital, not just not just
(16:21):
calling Rome it's capital and not controlling anything, but really
having Rome. And he even thinks that there should be
a separation between the religious and secular authority of Rome.
He's he's not anti Catholic Church here. He he thinks
that this will actually benefit the church, um, having it
an entirely spiritual entity. Um. But obviously this is an
(16:47):
incredibly tricky diplomatic situation since loads of countries have interests
in Rome and the Pope. And unfortunately, right when this
is going on, our great diplomat before dies and we're
left with what is called the Roman question. So maybe
we'll talk about the Roman question a little more later
(17:09):
and catch up with Garibaldi and his gauchos, but we're
gonna move on from there. And Sarah was saying earlier
to me that if you're looking for a good account
of Italian unification in fiction, you might want to try
lamp Produce as the Leopard, which is told from the
side of the Sicilian aristocracy. There's also a Burt Lancaster
(17:29):
movie which has an hour long dancing no joke it is.
But that brings us to listener mail. So today we
got an email from Mike about our podcast on Satchel Page,
and if you remember, at the end of the podcast,
we asked you to send us your opinion on who
is the best picture in history. So Mike said that
(17:52):
a few years ago I purchased a Major League Baseball
video game and it had two teams of historical legends
included in the game. The people who made this game
definitely felt that Satchel Page was the best picture ever
because his ability was ridiculously superior to any picture I've
ever artificially controlled. In a game. Eventually, in the interest
of fair play, my friend and I made a no
(18:14):
Satural rule, so we thought this was really funny, and um,
we're glad that some video game programmers out there are
definitely Satchel fans, because so were we, and we do
think he was, in fact, the greatest picture in history.
If you'd like to argue with us, feel free to
email at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
And if you'd like to learn more about Italian history,
(18:34):
check out our website at www dot how stuff works
dot com. We're also on Twitter at misston History. If
you'd like to come and follow us for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com and be sure to check out this
stuff you missed in History Glass Blog on the how
stuff works dot com home page
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