When Mazzini had stirred men’s minds to fever-heat in the great cause of Italian liberty, and Cavour had so manipulated events that political progress was possible, came Garibaldi, to lead with all the fire of a crusader the new race of Italian patriots. He was a hero of legends as soon as he took the field. He cannot be compared to any modern general, nor his army to any other army of recent centuries; he was the personal hero whose red shirt and slouch hat became symbols of liberty, and whose name was sufficient to work miracles of faith. Many a Calabrian peasant confidently expected the millennium to follow in Garibaldi’s footsteps, and this faith, spreading as all great popular emotions do, swept him and his ragged volunteers to victory after victory that a less legendary but vastly more experienced general never would have known. He was always the pure-hearted crusader with the single goal.

Giuseppe Garibaldi was born in Nice in the year 1807, two years the junior of Mazzini, three years the senior of Cavour. His parents, who were in very modest circumstances, wished him to enter the priesthood, but his nature was too adventurous to suit him for the religious life. Even as a boy he craved action and wanted to share his father’s life on the sea. Father and grandfather had been sailors, and the boy Giuseppe could not be kept from boats. Realizing this inheritance, the father took him with him on his voyages. His second voyage was made to Rome, and the sight of that city stirred the boy to the foundations of his nature. Years later he wrote of this first boyhood impression, “Rome, which I had before admired and thought of frequently, I ever since have loved. It has been dear to me beyond all things. I not only admired her for her former power and the remains of antiquity, but even the smallest thing connected with her was precious to me.”

Very early, on a voyage to Russia, a young Ligurian mate told the youth something of the plans of the scattered Italian patriots, and, once conscious that there was a movement on foot to liberate his beloved country, Garibaldi sought all people and writings which could enlighten him on that score. Thus he came almost immediately under the influence of Mazzini’s work and joined his new movement of “Young Italy.” From the moment of this association his life held the single purpose, he was ready to make any sacrifice in this cause. In 1834 he joined in the ill-fated expedition to Savoy, and as a consequence found himself on February 5, of that year, flying from Genoa as a proscript. A few days later he learned from a newspaper that he had been condemned to death by the government. Shortly afterwards he sailed from Marseilles for Brazil.

For the next fourteen years Garibaldi led the life of a guerilla leader, fighting the battles of Montevideo, and taking a chief part in the innumerable wars for independence which served to keep the South American states in constant upheaval during the first half of the Nineteenth Century. The various states were full of French, Spanish, and Italian adventurers, and Garibaldi contrived, with that intuitive insight into character which was one of the chief characteristics of his genius, to choose certain of the Italians who were as intense partisans of liberty as he, and form them into a legion, destined to be the nucleus of that famous Italian “Legion” which was later to win its victories on the other side of the world. The South American adventures of the young general read like a story from the romantic pages of a novelist, they are a perpetual record of battles, sieges, and alarms. Through their turbulent course Garibaldi learned experience of rough, irregular fighting, which was later to prove invaluable. To add to the romance of these years Garibaldi met at a small town in the district of Laguna, in Brazil, the woman who so charmed him at first sight that he immediately wooed her and won her for his wife, the dearly beloved Anita who accompanied him afterwards on all his military expeditions, both by land and sea, and proved herself the equal of any of his men in devotion and the most intrepid courage in the face of extreme peril.

In 1847 Pius IX., the new Pontiff, stirred all Italian patriots with the brave words he uttered in behalf of a new and free Italy. To men who had waited long for a leader who should unite all the small states the Pope appeared as a real deliverer, and for a few short months he did indeed stand at the head of a movement closely allied to the Guelphic policies of the Middle Ages. The news of the Pope’s call to all Italians reached Garibaldi and his friends in Montevideo, and immediately the former and his friend, Colonel Anzani, wrote to Pius IX. tendering him their allegiance, and offering the assistance of their swords. Lines throughout the letter show the self-abnegating, single-hearted devotion of Garibaldi to Italy’s cause, the one sacred service of his life. “If then to-day our arms, which are not strangers to fighting, are acceptable to your Holiness, we need not say how willingly we shall offer them in the service of one who has done so much for our country and our church. We shall count ourselves happy if we can but come to aid Pius IX. in his work of redemption.... We shall consider ourselves privileged if we are allowed to show our devotedness by offering our blood.” Unfortunately the Pope was not made of the same heroic fiber as the South American soldier. No answer was made to the letter, but Garibaldi was so eager to be on the scene of action and learn conditions for himself that he immediately sailed, although still under sentence of death, for Italy with fifty members of his Legion.

They landed at Nice on June 24, 1848. Already they had learned at Alicante the stirring events of that memorable spring, and were burning to take the field against the Austrians. The leader and his handful of men hastened to Lombardy to offer their services to the Sardinian King, Charles Albert. The King received the offer very coldly, but, his ardor undaunted, Garibaldi pushed on to Milan. The latter city had learned of his many battles in South America and hailed him with great enthusiasm. From the country volunteers came pouring to his standard, and in an incredibly short time at least 30,000 men had joined the remnant of the legion. They were most of them wild with the desire to drive the Austrians from Lombardy. Charles Albert was defeated and signed an armistice by which Milan was given back to the Empire, but the Garibaldian army paid no heed to the formal terms of peace, and continued a guerilla warfare wherever white-coated Austrians were to be found.

An eye-witness, Giulio Dandolo, thus describes the appearance of Garibaldi’s troops: “Picture to yourself,” he says, “an incongruous assemblage of individuals of all descriptions, boys of twelve or fourteen, veteran soldiers attracted by the fame of the celebrated chieftain of Montevideo, some stimulated by ambition, others seeking for impunity and license in the confusion of war, yet so restrained by the inflexible severity of their leader that courage and daring alone could find a vent, whilst more lawless passions were curbed beneath his will. The general and his staff all rode on American saddles, wore scarlet blouses, with hats of every possible form, without distinction of any kind, or pretension to military ornament.... Garibaldi, if the encampment was far from the scene of danger, would stretch himself under his tent; if on the contrary the enemy were near at hand he remained constantly on horseback giving orders and visiting the outposts. Often disguised as a peasant, he risked his own safety in daring reconnaissances, but most frequently, seated on some commanding elevation, he would pass whole hours examining the surrounding country with his telescope. When the general’s trumpet gave the signal to prepare for departure lassoes secured the horses which had been left to graze in the meadows. The order of march was always arranged on the preceding day, and the corps set out without so much as knowing where the evening would find them. Owing to this patriarchal simplicity, pushed sometimes too far, Garibaldi appeared more like the chief of a tribe of Indians than a general, but at the approach of danger and in the heat of combat, his presence of mind was admirable; and then by the astonishing rapidity of his movements he made up in a great measure for his deficiency in those qualities which are generally supposed to be absolutely essential to a military commander.”

Speed and audacity constituted the two main elements of the leader’s tactics. One day when on Lake Maggiore Garibaldi managed to take two Austrian steamers by surprise, and placing 1500 men upon them, suddenly appeared at Luino. From there he planned an attack on 10,000 Austrians encamped nearby, but news of his intentions reached the enemy, and he was obliged to scatter his small force in a skilfully contrived retreat. The actual result of such a campaign was small, but the extreme skill of his sudden advances and retreats won him a European prestige as a master of light warfare, and continually brought soldiers to his standard. When the regular armies ceased fighting ardent patriots turned to Garibaldi as the last remaining hope.

While in Switzerland he was seized with marsh fever and became dangerously ill. When he recovered he joined his family at Nice and there spent the autumn. Charles Albert had by now repented his cold treatment of the young man’s offer of service and tendered him a high rank in the Sardinian army. Garibaldi, however, wished more immediate action than such a position offered, and had moreover been fired with hope at the reports of Daniel Manin’s heroic defense of Venice against the Austrians. He determined to go to Venice, and started with two hundred and fifty volunteer companions. At Ravenna he learned of the revolution at Rome, and then, as always in his life, could not resist the call of the Eternal City. He changed his course towards Rome, and as he traveled his followers increased to 1500 men. With this band he approached the city, which had been deserted by that Pope of noble impulses but timid resolution to whom Garibaldi had written offering his services the previous year.

Pius IX. executed a complete volte-face. Terrified at the assassination of his Prime Minister Rossi, and worked on by his clerical ministers of State and foreign diplomatists, he withdrew the liberal concessions he had just granted his Roman subjects, declared the notoriously vicious King Bomba of Naples a model monarch and fled to Gaeta, leaving Rome to the revolutionists. At the same time Mazzini the arch idealist appeared among them, and he and Garibaldi, both hailed as pre-eminent leaders in their respective fields, were elected members of the new Roman Assembly. Mazzini was in charge of the civil government, Garibaldi of the army now rapidly gathering from all parts of Italy. He took his position on the frontier menaced by the Neapolitan army, and fortified the stronghold of Rieti.

Meanwhile in northern Italy Charles Albert had again taken the field, had lost the battle of Novara, and had abdicated. The Roman Republic immediately found itself beset by great European Powers, Austria, Spain, and Naples, eager to restore the Pontiff and teach his audacious subjects a salutary lesson. As Manin in Venice, so Mazzini in Rome looked to France for succor, or at least to uphold the policy of non-intervention. Did not the constitution of the then existing French Republic specifically state that that nation “would never employ her arms against the liberty of any people”? Acting on this assumption the Roman Assembly voted for the perpetual abolition of the temporal power of the Pope, and on April 18, 1849, addressed a manifesto to the governments of England and France, setting forth “that the Roman people had the right to give themselves the form of government which pleased them, that they had sanctioned the independence and free exercise of the spiritual authority of the Pope, and that they trusted that England and France would not assist in restoring a government irreconcilable by its nature with liberty and civilization, and morally destitute of all authority for many years past, and materially so during the previous five months.”

Nevertheless, Louis Napoleon, president of the French Republic, sent an army under General Oudinot to Civita Vecchia, declaring that his purpose was simply to maintain order. The Triumvirs, Mazzini, Armellini, and Saffi, thought it wisest to prepare Rome for possible defense, and called Garibaldi from the Neapolitan frontier. The Roman Republic hailed him as its defender. “This mysterious conqueror,” says Miraglia, “surrounded by a brilliant halo of glory, who entered Rome on the eve of the very day on which the Republic was about to be attacked, was in the minds of the Roman people the only man capable of maintaining the ‘decree of resistance;’ therefore the multitudes on the very instant united themselves with the man who personified the wants of the moment and who was the hope of all.”

April 30 was the date of the first French attack, an assault so violently resisted that 7000 picked troops were disastrously routed by a much smaller number of Garibaldi’s volunteers. Oudinot was amazed, and sought an armistice, while Louis Napoleon, in order to hurry re-enforcements to Civita Vecchia, sent De Lesseps to open negotiations for peace. Garibaldi desired no armistice, he feared delay, but the Triumvirs still hoped to obtain France’s assistance ultimately and so checked his pursuing the first advantage. It was a contest between the principles of diplomacy and warfare.

The negotiations with the French envoy dragged, but meanwhile Garibaldi was not idle. On May 4, with 4000 light troops, he secretly left Rome. On the 8th they reached Palestrina, and on the following day met the Neapolitan army, some 7000 strong. Three hours of fighting put the latter troops to ignominious flight. Later their general attributed the overwhelming defeat to the superstitious terror inspired in his men by the very name of Garibaldi, and the remarkable appearance of his red-shirted troops. They were convinced that Garibaldi was the devil, for they found that even holy silver bullets failed to strike him down.

Fearing lest the French might attack Rome in his absence Garibaldi now returned there, making a rapid retreat and passing within two miles of the enemy. De Lesseps and the Triumvirs were still conferring. Then for some unaccountable reason a Colonel Roselli was placed over Garibaldi’s head, and the famous commander, probably the victim of malicious envy, was only second in command. He did not complain. “Some of my friends,” he wrote characteristically, “urged me not to accept a secondary position, under a man who, only the day before, was my inferior, but I confess these questions of self-love never yet troubled me; whoever gives me a chance of fighting, if only as a common soldier, against the enemy of my country, him will I thank.”

The army of King Bomba now rallied, and took certain strongholds on the road to Rome. Garibaldi was sent out to dislodge them, and met and put to flight a large Neapolitan column near Velletri. The latter took refuge in that city, but when the Roman volunteers made a reconnaissance of the place in the morning they found the army had fled panic-stricken during the night. Again the name of Garibaldi and the magic of his red shirt, or famous “camicia rossa,” had been too much for them. The only credit the Neapolitan general could contrive to take to himself was a statement in the official report of the extraordinary rapidity and safety of his retreat.

A few days later General Roselli ordered Garibaldi to carry the war into Neapolitan territory, and he had proceeded along the ancient Samnite road as far as the banks of the Volturno when messengers called him in all haste back to Rome to be present at the final negotiations with the French. He returned to Rome on May 24, to be hailed again as the invincible defender of the Republic.

The French Commissioner De Lesseps signed certain agreements with the Roman Assembly and then referred these agreements to General Oudinot for ratification. The General, however, had by this time received his long-desired re-enforcements, and, stating that De Lesseps had exceeded his authority, prepared for an immediate attack. He said, however, that he would postpone the actual assault until Monday, June 4, but did actually commence operations on Sunday the 3d, taking the Romans off their guard and capturing the outposts and the Ponte Molle.

So soon as the treacherous attack was known the bells of the Capitol gave the alarm, and Garibaldi’s Legion, together with the Lombard volunteers, rushed to the defense. The fighting in the entire circuit of the city’s walls was desperate, but the soldiers of the Legion were no longer opposed to Austrians or superstitious Neapolitans, but to veteran French troops, so numerous that losses meant little to them. Nevertheless the city held out while De Lesseps pleaded for the terms of his agreement at Paris. Garibaldi tried every device to dislodge the French batteries which were shattering the Roman walls, but all to no avail. It was clear that the siege would be only a matter of days before news came that the French government disavowed any part in the agreement signed by De Lesseps. Mazzini still urged resistance to the end, but the disparity in forces was so overwhelming that Garibaldi could not agree with him. This difference of opinion tended to widen still further the gulf which already existed between the theorist and the soldier.

On June 21 the French succeeded in planting a battery within the city walls, and from that time the work of destruction progressed more rapidly. The defense was intensely dramatic, demagogues mixing with the purest natured patriots, the popular orator Ciceruacchio, with bloody shirt and sword, pouring forth his burning words on the spirit of ancient Roman independence, Ugo Bassi, the monk, going about among the dying, holding the crucifix before their eyes, utterly regardless of the storm of bullets all around him. It was a noble defense, but it could have only one end, and so finally on June 30, at the advice of Garibaldi, who appeared before the Triumvirs, his clothing shot into ribbons, the Government issued the order that “The Roman Republic in the name of God and the people gives up a defense which has become impossible.”

On that same day the Triumvirs resigned, and the Assembly appointed Garibaldi dictator. For a few days negotiations looking to an armistice were conducted between the French and the Roman lines. Finally, on July 3, the negotiations came to an end. Garibaldi called the troops into the great square before St. Peter’s. “Soldiers!” he declared, “that which I have to offer you is this; hunger, thirst, cold, heat; no pay, no barracks, no rations, but frequent alarms, forced marches, charges at the point of the bayonet. Whoever loves our country and glory may follow me!” About four thousand men instantly volunteered, and at almost the same hour when the French entered the city the little Legion left, taking the road to Tivoli, with the purpose of gaining the broken Tuscan mountain country. The leader’s devoted wife Anita went with him, as patiently his companion in adventures in Italy as in her native South America.

The Papal banner was flung from the Castle of St. Angelo, and the Roman Republic came to an end. Its story is almost as eventful, almost as heroic as Manin’s defense of the Venetian Republic during practically the same time. In both cases the cities fell, but as Manin at Venice so Mazzini and Garibaldi at Rome had taught their people that they were capable of the greatest sacrifices in the cause of that liberty of which all Italy was dreaming.

Long pages would be needed to tell of the excitements and dangers which befell Garibaldi and his army as they threaded their way northward, their ultimate destination Venice, which had not yet surrendered. The French and Austrians were always at their heels, and the troop must inevitably have been captured but for the masterly skill of the general in such guerilla warfare. Swift night marches, daytime lying in wait, sudden attacks and equally sudden retreats, served to carry them gradually away from Rome. They left Orvieto one hour before the French troops entered. Thence the route lay by Arezzo and Montepulciano to the little republic of San Marino, close to Rimini. By this time the army was sadly reduced in size and strength, the Austrians were pressing close upon their heels, and Garibaldi saw that escape could only lie in scattering his men. He released all the volunteers, bidding them farewell, reminding them that it was better to die than to live as slaves to the foreigner.

The Austrians threatened an immediate attack on San Marino, and Garibaldi with a few companions fled secretly at night. Anita, although utterly worn out by illness, would not leave him. The little band reached the port of Cesenatico and embarked on the Adriatic in thirteen small boats. The Austrian fire forced nine of the boats to surrender, the remaining four, in one of which was the general, his wife, Ciceruacchio, the Roman orator, and the priest Ugo Bassi, succeeded in escaping and landing near the mouth of the Po.

The fugitives had barely landed when they were surrounded by Austrian scouts. Anita became desperately ill, and was forced to hide with her husband in a cornfield, an old comrade of Garibaldi’s in South America keeping watch over them. The general was beside himself with grief as he tended his rapidly failing wife. Ugo Bassi, afraid to stay with them lest his presence should lead to their discovery, was shortly captured by Austrians, and Ciceruacchio and the nine others were soon after taken prisoners. All but the orator and the priest were immediately shot. Bassi and Ciceruacchio were taken to Bologna, and there ordered executed by Bedini, the Papal Legate, a man of infamous memory, who commanded that Bassi be tortured before execution. The heroic priest must always stand forth as one of the rarest martyr-spirits produced by the great struggle for Italian liberty.

Garibaldi succeeded in finding some kind-hearted peasants who carried Anita to a cottage. Not long after she reached its shelter she died. The general, broken-hearted, was forced by the approach of Austrian soldiers to go to Ravenna, thence in disguise he went to Florence and finally to Genoa. Here he visited his mother and his three children, who had been left by Anita with their grandmother. His presence in Genoa was an embarrassment to the Government at Turin, and they courteously asked him to leave Italy. Instead of doing so he went to Sardinia, much to the uneasiness of the French, who wished him farther away. In this mountain island he lived a life, half that of a hermit, and half of a bandit, continually hunted as an outlaw, and finding entire safety only on the small island rock of Caprera. This tiny island, destined to become famous as his home, abounded in natural beauty of a wild and desolate type, and made a deep impression on the refugee, whose mind was always peculiarly open to the spell of majestic scenery.

Finally, to the great relief of both France and Piedmont, Garibaldi was induced to leave Sardinian territory. He went to Gibraltar, but was only allowed to stay twenty-four hours. No European country was anxious to harbor a man whose name had become a watchword for revolutionary zeal. Finding this to be the case the general sailed for New York, and spent about a year and a half engaged in making tallow candles in a small back street. He was not alone in his exile, the disturbing years of 1848 and 1849 had sent many a revolutionary exile across the seas, and at one time in New York Lamartine, Louis Blanc, Ledru Rollin, and three or four others almost equally prominent were supporting themselves there by manual labor.

When he left New York Garibaldi went again to South America, and became captain of a merchant vessel trading between Peru and Hong Kong. Again he returned to New York and commanded a trader flying the American flag but sailed by Italians, who like himself were awaiting a new tide in affairs before returning home. The many ups and downs of these roving years abounded with adventures, but even here Garibaldi’s life was no more thrilling than when he was at the head of his irregular troops in Italy.

After four years of wandering he returned to Genoa, stopping for a short stay at Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he was enthusiastically greeted by English admirers, and given a presentation sword. When he reached Genoa he found that his mother had died, and that his three children were living with his cousins. A few short trips at sea succeeded in earning him sufficient money to buy part of the little island of Caprera, of which he was so fond. Here he established himself to await events. Europe had grown more peaceful, but Garibaldi, hot-headed as he was, could see that Piedmont was slowly but surely widening the breach between herself and Austria. He began to look to Piedmont as the hope of Italy, and little by little to understand, especially when the small kingdom allied itself with France and England against Russia, that Piedmont meant Cavour, and that the latter was the match of any diplomatic strategist in Europe.

Garibaldi purchased half of the island of Caprera in 1855, and immediately took possession. Working with his own hands he built first a log hut and then a more pretentious villa, to which in time he brought his cousins, the Deideris, and his children, Theresita, who was rapidly becoming a very beautiful girl, and the boys Menotti and Ricciotti. The general called himself the “recluse of Caprera,” and worked hard to cultivate a soil naturally barren and difficult. He was glad of the opportunity to rest after so many years of stirring action, and day by day grew more enamoured of the wild vegetation of his island home and the steep cliffs that bordered it against the sea. Often he had visitors from nearby Sardinia, simple enthusiastic folk who were delighted to look upon him as a national hero, and confidently expected that some day he would lead an Italian army to the greatest victories. In such patriarchal simplicity he spent the years until 1859, hearing from time to time news of Cavour’s policies at Turin, always eager in hope that his sword might soon be drawn in conjunction with that of a national army.

Ten years of patient waiting and subtle diplomacy mark the decade between the siege of Rome and 1859. In that time Cavour, by the successive steps of the Crimean War, the Congress of Paris, and the secret Pact of PlombiÈres, had succeeded in isolating Austria from the other Powers, and in allying Louis Napoleon with Piedmont. His next step was to prepare actively for war, and with this purpose he called Garibaldi to see him at Turin. Garibaldi went to the Minister’s house, dressed in his usual campaign clothes, wearing a loose red blouse and broad-brimmed hat, and refused to give his name to the servant. On Cavour’s hearing of the presence of such a disreputable appearing stranger, he said, “Let the poor devil in, he probably has some petition to ask of me.”

The meeting was most amicable, Cavour asked Garibaldi to command the new volunteer army known as the “Hunters of the Alps,” and Garibaldi was delighted to accept. Immediately he began recruiting his forces, and so spontaneous was the rising throughout northern and central Italy that by May of that year he was at the head of three regiments of infantry well-equipped for instant service. Austria was dismayed, and demanded that Cavour dismiss the men, but by what was probably the most fortunate coup in his whole career Cavour was able to appear willing to have peace, and yet force Austria to war. Napoleon stood by Piedmont, and in May, 1859, the campaign that was to redeem the inglorious field of Novara commenced.

Garibaldi’s great reputation caused friction between him and the officers of the regular army, and he who had been used to the greatest freedom of action found himself seriously hampered by directions from headquarters. He hailed with delight King Victor Emmanuel’s permission to separate from the regular army and fight as he pleased, accompanied as it was with the King’s remark, “Go where you like, do what you like; I feel only one regret, that I am not able to follow you.”

The resulting campaign showed the great guerilla warrior at his best. As with the Neapolitans in 1849, so with the Croats in 1859, Garibaldi was credited with superhuman powers. At times the success attending his sheer effrontery seemed almost to justify such a conclusion. Time and again he placed himself in positions so desperate that it was only his quickness of wit in seizing at a possible chance that saved him. Had he failed he would have been rated as a bungler, but as he succeeded the desperation of each chance served only to magnify his strategy. He was a remarkable mathematician, able to estimate all possible combinations adroitly and quickly, he never despaired, and never hesitated when he had decided on a plan. As a result the “Hunters of the Alps,” or Garibaldini, as the volunteers were called, hung on the Austrian troops all through Lombardy and the Lake country, driving them from town after town by sudden assaults, continually tricking much larger forces by clever misrepresentations of their own strength. Garibaldi entered Lombard territory and took Varese. After defeating the Austrians near there in the battle of Malnate he swept up to Cavallesca, near Como, and, attacking a much larger force than his own, drove the enemy through Como towards Monza. Como received the Hunters with open arms, Garibaldi telegraphed to Milan, using the Austrian General’s name, and so gained information of the Allies. Soon afterwards he stationed his advance guard at the Villa Medici, looking down over lake after lake, and with a panoramic view of the Alps. Here the Austrians thought to surround him, but by means of sending false messages planned to fall into the enemy’s hands, and by taking advantage of a heavy storm at night, he succeeded in escaping them and regaining Como.

Meanwhile the regular army was winning victories, Montebello, Magenta, Solferino, and San Martino were falling to the glory of French and Italian arms. The Austrians were steadily being driven back, Garibaldi left Como and took Bergamo, then Brescia. As he advanced the men of the land he crossed joined his army, Brescia set to work to fortify its walls at his command. He was ordered to follow the Austrians, and pursued them to Tre Ponti, which he won, although at such a cost he was obliged to fall back on the main army.

Napoleon the Third had no intention of winning too many victories for Italy, nor of allowing the Garibaldian troops to gain unseemly power. The plans of the general were therefore interfered with, his recruits diverted into other channels, and the Hunters sent into the passes of the Stelvio on the pretext of preventing an attack from Germany, but in reality to prevent Garibaldi from crossing Lake Garda and gaining the valley of the Adige and the Veronese mountains. The general obeyed, and conducted a markedly successful campaign near Sondrio and Bormio, finding himself in his true element among the Alps.

Then came the stupefying news that Napoleon had made the peace of Villafranca. The rage of the Garibaldini knew no bounds, their general hurried to Victor Emmanuel’s camp to tender his resignation. The King would not accept it. “Italy still requires the legions you command,” he said, “you must remain!” Garibaldi returned to his troops, his hatred for Louis Napoleon more intense than ever, but convinced that the peace only marked a short pause in the great forward movement.

Too much credit cannot be given Victor Emmanuel for his resolution at this time. Bitterly disappointed as he must have been at such an abrupt end to a campaign that had promised to open Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, he yet managed to hide his chagrin, and held Garibaldi, even as he a little later induced Cavour to resume the post which he had in a burst of rage resigned. Fortunately also the formal statement of the peace-makers that the Princes should be restored to their thrones in Florence, Modena, and Parma, and the Pope’s legates at Bologna, Ferrara, Forli, and Ravenna was simply a statement, the people of those cities had quite different views. They had tasted of liberty and of the victories of a national army, and one city after another announced that it would have no more of its foreign rulers, that its people wished to become citizens of Italy and subjects of Victor Emmanuel. Garibaldi heard this and was convinced that it no longer lay in the power of his arch enemy, Louis Napoleon, to keep Italians separated. “Whatever may be the march of existing circumstances,” he said to his men, “Italians must neither lay aside their arms, nor be discouraged. They ought on the contrary to increase in number in their ranks, to testify to Europe that, guided by their King, Victor Emmanuel, they are ready to face again the vicissitudes of war, whatever they may be. Perhaps at the moment we least expect it the signal of alarm may again be sounded!”

He was sent into central Italy, and at Florence, at Bologna, at Rimini, he had only to appear to have volunteers crowd about him. Napoleon learned of this and remonstrated to the government at Turin, which attempted to check the ardor of its great general, and yet keep him for further use. It was a time when Cavour’s skill was taxed to the uttermost to avoid a break either with the French or with the Garibaldians.

The news of Cavour’s decision to cede Savoy and Nice to France, a decision only reached when it became evident that it was the price Napoleon demanded for allowing central Italy to unite with Piedmont, came like a thunder clap to Garibaldi. Born in Nice he declared that the act made him “a stranger in his own country.” He was immediately returned to Parliament for Nice and bitterly attacked Cavour’s policy in the Chamber. He spoke at length, claiming that the cession was both an infraction of the original charter by which Nice had become a part of the Sardinian kingdom, and a violation of the fundamental law of nationality. Cavour, however, carried the Parliament with him, and Garibaldi left for Nice to take farewell of it, for he refused to remain there and become a citizen of France. He was disgusted with the compromises of diplomacy. “I have nothing to do with men or political parties,” he declared, “my country, and nothing but my country, is my object.”

Two other incidents of the campaign of 1859 must be mentioned, the one Garibaldi’s visit to Anita’s grave near Ravenna, the scene of those bitter days immediately after the fall of Rome, to which he now returned as a conqueror. The other was his marriage at Como during his fighting in the Lakes to Giuseppina Raymondi, the adventurous daughter of the Marquis Raymondi, who persuaded the general that she was deeply in love with him, in order that marriage might shield her sadly tarnished name. Garibaldi would not hear of the marriage at first, and declared that since Anita’s death his heart was withered. The Marquis answered, “It is with freedom, and with Italian unity that my daughter is enamoured, and with you as the embodiment of it in Italy.” The general could not withstand that appeal, and consented to the marriage. The depths of the treachery were revealed to him immediately afterwards, and he left his new wife at once. It was years, however, before he was granted a divorce from her.

Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi each played an important part in the next act of the great drama of Italy, but Garibaldi unquestionably held the center of the stage. The act was the famous expedition of the Thousand to Sicily, a performance foolhardy and rash in the extreme, which was, however, destined to bring to a speedy fruition the long-deferred hopes of all Italians patriots. Mazzini’s part was to prepare the field, he had early chosen Sicily as a most favorable scene for revolutionary action, and had sent agents to smuggle arms into the island, to hold meetings and generally to arouse the people. Cavour’s part was to play the double game of protesting against the expedition in the eyes of the Powers, and of aiding it as best he could secretly. He foresaw the risks that would beset it, and the even greater risk to his King of having such a dictator as Garibaldi win many victories, yet he could not absolutely prevent a scheme devised in all patriotic fervor. He gave public orders to the Sardinian admiral to capture Garibaldi and bring him back, but with a secret message which the admiral rightly understood as meaning that Cavour wished no such event to happen. In much the same manner the British ambassador at Turin, Sir James Hudson, and the British fleet in the Mediterranean, although ostensibly strictly neutral, contrived not to embarrass Garibaldi, and the fleet even went so far as to appear inadvertently between the Neapolitan ships and those that bore the Thousand, thereby preventing what might have been an untimely cannonade. Though few in official places therefore openly countenanced the expedition, many hoped that it would succeed. Under such circumstances the general sailed from Genoa on May 5, 1860, with some 1067 picked men, many recruited from the “Hunters of the Alps,” henceforth to be known as the “Mille,” and destined to make one of the greatest expeditions in history, and eventually to give two crowns to the house of Savoy.

It was an historic day when the “great filibuster,” as Garibaldi was called, sailed from Genoa. Parents, wives, and children bade the Thousand a tearful farewell in the rocky bay of Quarto, where to-day a marble star upon the cliff commemorates the event. At Talamone they landed to seize some arms and to send a force of one hundred men into the Papal States to incite rebellion. Then they set sail fairly out to sea, and Garibaldi and his chiefs planned the Sicilian campaign. May 11 the two shiploads reached Marsala, hotly pursued by Neapolitan cruisers. The Thousand took possession of the town, the general issued glowing proclamations to the citizens, and quickly recruited a corps of over a thousand Sicilian scouts. From Marsala they went to Salemi, a march triumphantly acclaimed by monks, priests, women, and children who lined the roads, and with Sicilian impetuosity were carried away by the sudden appearance of an Italian army. At Salemi Garibaldi issued this pronunciamento: “Garibaldi, commander-in-chief of the national forces in Sicily, on the invitation of the principal citizens, and on the deliberation of the free communes of the island, considering that in time of war it is necessary that the civil and military power should be united in one person, assumes, in the name of Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, the Dictatorship in Sicily.”

The first battle was fought in the heart of the mountains, at Calatafimi, where numbers of ancient ruins gave Garibaldi opportunity to use his skill in irregular fighting. The battle lasted three hours, both Garibaldi’s son Menotti, and the son of Daniel Manin of Venice, were wounded; in the end the conflict was a victory for the Thousand. The Neapolitans fell back on Palermo, and Garibaldi planned to take the Sicilian capital.

Throughout the campaign the officers of the King of Naples showed the same sublime incompetence which characterized their sovereign. Palermo should have been easy to defend, and with this knowledge, and misled by Garibaldi’s tactics into believing him in retreat, the Neapolitan general gave a great dinner at the capital and proceeded to forget the war altogether. As a result, by a remarkably swift march, Garibaldi appeared at the gates of Palermo, carried them, swept through street after street of the city, and drove the enemy into the castle and palace. For a few days the city was laid waste by bombs from the two latter positions, and from the fleet in the harbor, then the Neapolitan general asked for an armistice, which eventually ended in the evacuation of Sicily, except at Messina and a few forts, by the army of the King of Naples. As most of the soldiers were Austrians, they left without any deep regret, in fact with almost as much rejoicing as though they had been victors. Free from the foreigners, Palermo gave itself up to rejoicing, men and women donned red shirts and acclaimed Garibaldi as a second Cincinnatus and new Washington. All relics of the former rulers were destroyed, Sicily felt itself at last free to join the other states of Italy. Immediately Cavour sent agents to urge annexation to Piedmont, but Garibaldi was not yet ready for that step. He planned to win Naples and Rome before he gave over his independent dictatorship.

The scene now changes to Milazzo. Thither Garibaldi’s army, composed of the Thousand, of many Palermitans, of an English brigade, and of Hungarians, Frenchmen, Italians of all ranks, all drawn to the great general whose fame had now spread from end to end of Europe, proceeded. There was hard fighting at Milazzo, but in time the city fell, and Messina lay practically open to the invaders. A few more days and Garibaldi was encamped there, resting and recuperating after the entire liberation of Sicily.

It is no exaggeration to say that fortune had showered her richest gifts on Garibaldi during this campaign. In a few short weeks he had driven all the Neapolitan forces out of the island with little loss of life to his own men, had come into possession of money, arms, boats, stores of all kinds, had increased his army to some 25,000 men, had become the idol of all Sicily, to whom the red shirt became the proudest badge of man or woman, had so thoroughly frightened King Francis II. that he was unwilling to join his own army of defense, and had so completely aroused Italy that from each town young and old poured forth to make their way to his invincible standard. Through it all, he, whom fortune was doing everything to spoil, remained as simple, as unmindful of personal comfort or aggrandizement, as in his early days. He was at his best when he won Sicily and planned his march on Naples, it was unfortunate that the warrior should ever have attempted to become the statesman.

Garibaldi’s army remained at Messina for twenty-three days. During part of that time the general was engaged in assuring the Sardinian government that he had no interest in a revolutionary expedition which was attempting to march into the Papal States. The rest of the time was given to perfecting his plans for a descent on Calabria.

August 19 the first detachment of the army sailed from Taormina in the Torino and the Franklin. The Neapolitan fleet was led into the belief that the embarkation would be at Messina, and by this ruse the ships succeeded in crossing to the mainland unmolested. They landed at Melito, and early the next morning Garibaldi prepared to march on Reggio. Again speed stood him in good stead. The new Army of the South, as the Thousand with its recruits was now called, took the Neapolitan general by surprise. At two in the morning Garibaldi’s army marched into the city to find the garrison asleep. The Neapolitan soldiers, thoroughly alarmed at the appearance of the devil, as they named Garibaldi, so suddenly among them, paid no heed to their officers and rushed to a nearby fortress. There severe fighting occurred during the afternoon and night, but finally the stronghold capitulated, and the Garibaldians had won an important base on the mainland. He sent to Messina for the remainder of his troops, and on August 22 began that celebrated “promenade militaire” from Reggio to Naples, which bore little resemblance to warfare, as the enemy fled as fast as he approached, and the countrymen, as well as deserters from the army of Naples, flocked to join his march.

Matters had now come to such a pass that it was only necessary for Garibaldi to appear before a town for it to capitulate; at Villa San Giovanni, Garibaldi with a few hundred men back of him, ordered 12,000 Neapolitans to surrender, and they immediately did so. Again at Soveria he ordered 1500 of the enemy to surrender and was obeyed. It was enough for a red shirt to appear to cause the enemy to fly or surrender, at certain parts of the march the Neapolitan soldiers walked side by side with the Garibaldians. Town after town welcomed the great general as the Liberator, as a second John the Baptist. Both natives and Austrians looked upon him with religious awe. He had only to appear to be surrounded with ecstatic multitudes, his scouts had merely to say that Garibaldi was coming to send the enemy flying in all haste. In one case it was enough to telegraph he was near the town of Salerno, the defenders immediately decamped.

The road to Naples lay open, the citizens of that easily-excited capital were fairly beside themselves in eagerness to welcome the Liberator. The general left Salerno by train on September 7, but as far as speed was concerned he might almost as well have walked. The people of all the towns on the route, Torre del Greco, Resina, Portici, turned out, covered the railroad tracks, boarded the train, climbed on the engine, shouting with joy, singing the Garibaldi hymn, frantic with enthusiasm as they hailed the man who they believed brought with him the millennium.

In Naples it was the same, there was no end to the uproar, to the enthusiasm, to the adulation. Every one wore red, every one cheered, even the troops of King Francis, who had retired to the castle and fortress, could not resist the enthusiasm, and flung up their caps and cheered for Garibaldi.

Naples had no government, Garibaldi appointed a temporary governor, and issued a proclamation glowing with patriotic fervor.

“People of Naples—

“It is with feelings of the profoundest respect and love that I present myself before you in this center of a noble and long-suffering people, whom four centuries of tyranny have not been able to humiliate, and whose spirit could never be broken by a ruthless despotism. The first necessity of Italy is harmony and social order, without which the unity of Italy is impossible. This day Providence has conferred that blessing upon you, and has made me its minister. The same Providence has also given you Victor Emmanuel, whom from this moment I will designate the father of our country.

“The model of all sovereigns, he will impress upon his posterity the duty that they owe to a people, who have with so much enthusiasm chosen him for their king. You are supported by the clergy, who, conscious of their true mission, have with patriotic ardor and truly Christian conduct, braved the gravest dangers of battle at the head of our Italian soldiers. The good Monks of La Gancia, and the noble-hearted priests of the Neapolitan continent have one and all assisted us in the good fight.

“I repeat that harmony is the one essential thing for Italy, and let us freely forgive those who, having disagreed with us, are now repentant, and are willing to contribute their mite to build up the monument of our national glory.

“Lastly, we must make it apparent to all that, while we respect the houses of other people, we are determined to be masters in our own house, whether the powers of the earth like it or not.—G. Garibaldi.”

No sooner was the need for actual warfare at an end than countless difficulties arose in the liberated city. Garibaldi was no disciplinarian, he had always entrusted all harsh measures to others, he refused to harbor suspicion or ill-will, his nature was patient and simple and confiding. His sole concern was to drive the foreigners out of Italy, beyond that he had few plans. But as soon as Naples was free scores of theorists in government arose. Mazzini appeared, and his followers tried to win Garibaldi over to their ideal republic, the clerical party had another plan, the secret societies still another, and the brigands who infested the country about Naples were already intriguing for the return of the Bourbons, who had allowed them free sway. Cavour sent his agents hurrying to Naples to keep the people quiet and to urge them to advocate immediate annexation with Piedmont. He had, however, a more difficult task on his hands at the same time. He feared that Garibaldi would immediately march on Rome, and Cavour knew that the Papal question could not be settled in any such summary fashion. Napoleon would immediately intervene, and the Army of the South would find itself fighting France. That was his great fear, and to prevent the event if possible he sent the Army of Piedmont, of Lombardy, of Tuscany south at the double quick. Victor Emmanuel must meet Garibaldi before the latter crossed the Volturno if trouble with France were to be avoided.

Garibaldi, however, cared very little for diplomacy, his object was to take Rome with all speed, and he refused to heed Cavour’s agents. Fortunately Francis II. of Naples finally decided to make a stand, and so detained Garibaldi until the northern army could arrive. Mazzini had said to Garibaldi, “If you are not on your way towards Rome or Venice before three weeks are over, your initiative will be at an end.” The prophecy, like so many of Mazzini’s, proved true. Garibaldi had to fight several battles on the Volturno and besiege Capua before he could turn towards Rome, and by that time Victor Emmanuel had reached the scene of action.

The last battles were the hardest fought of the campaign, but were ultimately won by the Army of the South. Capua held out a little longer, but finally fell, and Francis II. took himself safely to Gaeta.

On October 10 Garibaldi had called for a popular vote in the Two Sicilies for or against their annexation to Piedmont. The vote was overwhelmingly for annexation. Garibaldi issued a final proclamation, ending, “Italy one (as the metropolis has wisely determined she shall be), under the King, galantuomo, who is the symbol of our regeneration, and the prosperity of our country.” He met the King, and handed over to him his dictatorship of the kingdom of Naples and Sicily. This moment, which was the climax of his great expedition, was the proudest of his career.

The general was still eager for an immediate march on Rome, but the King would not have it. It was arranged that the Army of the South should be incorporated with the royal army, and Garibaldi left Naples for Caprera. He borrowed $100 to pay certain debts, and in the same meager state in which he had set out he returned to his rock of Caprera to wait until he should be needed.

At Caprera the general, now become the most romantic figure in Europe, received countless deputations of admirers from all nations. For a short time he was content to resume his farm labors, but the thought of Rome loomed ever larger in his mind. He had not the gift of patience now, he was convinced that his army of volunteers could fight and overcome both France and Austria. The delays of Cavour’s policy irritated him, and finally he went in April, 1861, to the Parliament at Turin to speak his mind. He made a violent attack on Cavour, to which the latter would not reply in kind. A few days later the two men met at the King’s request and pretended a reconciliation. Garibaldi could not appreciate Cavour’s temperate statecraft, Cavour realized that Garibaldi was becoming the most difficult problem Italy had to face. Unfortunately for Garibaldi, and doubly unfortunately for Italy, Cavour was failing in strength, and only a short time after the scene in Turin the great Minister died. If he had lived Italy would have been spared much that followed.

Garibaldi returned to Caprera and watched from afar the policies of the new premiers, first Ricasoli, then Rattazzi. The latter was always suspected of French leanings, and the extremists were bitterly opposed to him. He was a brilliant man, fated to meet disasters, as day after day passed he found that the Garibaldian problem called ever louder for solution. He saw that Genoa, Sicily, and Naples were hotbeds of turbulence, he knew that the people of the last-named city had made a god of Garibaldi, had built altars to him, and were imploring him to lead them against the Pope, he knew that even in the Eternal City hundreds were calling to him to deliver them. Yet Rattazzi also knew that the problem of the temporal power of the Pope was one of concern to all Europe, and that Italy was not ready to fight both France and Austria. His final solution was this, one which must not be judged too harshly when all the circumstances are considered, to encourage Garibaldi to start a popular campaign against the Pope, and then send the royal army to arrest him as fomenting civil strife. The plan succeeded. In the spring of 1862 Garibaldi could restrain his eagerness no longer. He announced to his delighted followers that he would lead them to Rome. He was given to understand the government would not actively interfere. So, two years after his first expedition, we find him again arriving triumphantly in Sicily, again we find men of all classes flocking to him, again by strategy he crossed the straits to Calabria and took up his northward march. He had not gone far when he found that the royal army was marching against him. He became convinced of this when he bivouacked on the famous hill of Aspromonte and saw the royal general, Pallavicini, camped opposite him. The next day he tried to lead his soldiers past the other army, but they were stopped by the regular troops. Both generals affirmed that they gave no orders to fire, but nevertheless shots were exchanged, and both Garibaldi and his son Menotti were wounded. A truce was agreed upon, and the volunteers were placed under the charge of the royal army. Garibaldi became a state prisoner, perhaps the most difficult prisoner any government ever had to take upon its hands. All Italy was devoted to him, but found that it could not control him. The government had been placed in the most embarrassing situation conceivable, it had been obliged to disarm the man who had just given the King two crowns. Aspromonte remains one of the most unfortunate events in the great battle for Italian unity, but it was in a large measure inevitable. Cavour might have contrived an escape from it, but Garibaldi was too big a problem for his successors to handle diplomatically.

The wounded general was taken by slow conveyances to Scylla, and thence to the fort of Varignano in the Gulf of Spezia. The wound was painful, it was difficult to locate the bullet, for a long time he was obliged to keep to his bed and postpone further political action. His illness, however, gave his friends a golden opportunity to show their devotion; women of all ranks fought for the chance to nurse the hero, delegations from England, from Germany, from all parts of Italy made pilgrimages to his prison, the hotels at Spezia, the nearest town to the fortress, were continually crowded by Garibaldi worshipers. It seemed that what he had suffered at Aspromonte had actually canonized him in the eyes of the world.

His imprisonment could not last long; October 5, 1862, the government declared an amnesty covering all participators in the late expedition against Rome except those soldiers who had left the regular army to join the volunteers. Garibaldi was now moved to Spezia, thence after a time to Pisa. Each city he passed greeted him tumultuously; in Pisa, the night of his arrival, the Garibaldi hymn was cheered so loudly at the theater that the manager abandoned the play and had nothing but the hymn rendered all the evening, which pleased the audience greatly. At Pisa the bullet was extracted from Garibaldi’s foot, and his recovery became more rapid. On December 20 he started for Caprera, giving a chance for Leghorn to welcome him as he embarked for his island home. Once there he found the rest of which he was so much in need, although visitors continually besieged his little farm. The kindly instincts of his nature showed in full flower, he gave whatever his children or his friends asked of him, sacrificing his own comforts continually for their sake, and continually being imposed upon. He wrote to the patriots suffering in Poland and Denmark, and wished that he might go to aid them. Wherever men were in trouble he sympathized, he could even find it in his heart to contribute to the poor of Austria.

There were friends of the national cause who feared that the affair of Aspromonte had injured Garibaldi’s prestige, and to revive it in full glory they planned his triumphal visit to England in the spring of 1863. Garibaldi had always admired the English, and there was no question but that the people of England had always zealously sided with Italy against France and Austria, no matter how strongly their government might feel that diplomacy required a middle course. The general went from Caprera to Southampton, and thence to London, acclaimed by thousands, who rivaled the warm-spirited Neapolitans in their heights of enthusiasm. The modest, benign-faced warrior was fÊted as a national deliverer, the streets of London rang with his hymn, women adopted the famous red Garibaldi shirt as the latest fashion, aristocrats and working people fought for the opportunity of entertaining him. Before he could take up his northern tour, however, it was announced that he was overtired and would have to leave the country for rest. His physicians denied this, and it appears as most probable that Louis Napoleon was so much displeased and even alarmed at the popular acclaim given the general that he made his wish known to Lord Palmerston that the guest leave English shores. Again Garibaldi proved a serious burden to diplomacy, his very fame made him the more difficult to deal with. So rather than cause further international trouble the general bade England an affectionate farewell and returned to Caprera.

The campaign of 1866, which won Venetia for the kingdom of Victor Emmanuel, is not a glorious page in Italian history. Venice was freed from Austria’s rule because the Prussians won the battles of Sadowa and KÖniggratz. What victories Italy won fell to the score of the volunteers fighting with Garibaldi in the Lakes rather than to the regular army of the new nation. From the date of the Liberator’s return from England up to the spring of 1866 he lived in comparative quiet, spending most of his time at Caprera, and only making occasional visits to the mainland. Meanwhile events were rapidly showing that Prussia and Austria must soon fight for the supremacy in Germany, and Victor Emmanuel concluded an alliance with Berlin. Then, in May, 1866, Garibaldi was asked by the Italian Minister of War to take command of the volunteer forces. He accepted gladly, and, as so often before, the news that he was about to take the field was sufficient to gather innumerable patriots about him. Unfortunately the generals of the regular army were again jealous of Garibaldi, and continual obstacles were placed in his way, even his own officers speedily formed cliques and wrought dissension in his command. He was ordered to attack Austria from Como, and so through the Lakes rather than from Hungary as he would have preferred.

Yet, with all these obstacles the campaign started at Como with much of the old spirit. Again the veterans of 1859 and 1860, many of the famous Thousand, many who had fought at Messala and on the Volturno, gathered, clad in red shirts, on the banks of Lake Como, and raised the Garibaldi hymn. Scores of enthusiastic Englishmen could not keep away from the Lakes, an Englishwoman and her husband followed the general all through the campaign, carrying a cooking-stove and store of provisions for their idol. But notwithstanding all the enthusiasm the efforts to dislodge the enemy were not very successful. The Austrians were not as easily frightened or defeated as had been the soldiers of the King of Naples, and the people of the Tyrol did not rise and join Garibaldi’s ranks as had the Sicilians and Calabrians. The commissariat service was wretched, time and again the troops bivouacked without shelter or food, conflicting orders were given, and but for their remarkable light-heartedness and faith in their general the men would have been in very bad shape for any manner of combat. On the first day of real fighting, at Rocca d’Anfo, Garibaldi was wounded in the thigh, and after that had to direct operations from a carriage. Nevertheless, he lost nothing of his confidence, and planned his successive moves through the mountains and lakes with his old skill in this form of irregular warfare.

The actual military operations were of no permanent importance, the volunteers were sent down the beautiful Lake of Como to Lecco accompanied by a fleet of private boats filled with admiring friends. From Lecco they went to Bergamo and thence to Brescia, and then for a time their headquarters were at SalÒ, on the Lake of Garda. An eye-witness contrasts their informal style of marching with that of the regulars: “Some of them were lying at full length on bullock wagons, with their rifles decorated with roses at their sides, others were trudging sturdily along in the loosest manner, smoking, with their shirts open, and their rugs rolled across their bodies.”

When Garibaldi had completed his plans for marching north he received word from General La Marmora to take Lonato, and turned there from SalÒ. The Austrians withdrew before the Italian advance, and the latter army was free to enter the Trentino. Their first step in this direction was to take the rocky fort of Rocca d’Anfo, and after that they marched on Darzo, which was the scene of much fighting, and then on to the fort of Ampola. On July 16 the volunteers dragged their cannon into position on the mountains, and on the 17th the real attack began. Ampola capitulated, and the march to Riva began through the Ledro valley. At a village near Bizecca they were attacked early in the morning. The Austrians opened fire from the village houses. Chiassi, one of Garibaldi’s veterans, was killed, and for a time the volunteers made little headway. Garibaldi’s two sons and his son-in-law Canzio did their utmost to encourage the men behind them, and gradually what had threatened to be a rout was turned into a victory. Bizecca was immediately captured, and the troops had started their march to Lardaro when news came that an armistice was being arranged, and orders were brought to Garibaldi bidding him leave the Trentino.

The Italian army had met with a reverse at the battle of Custozza, but fortunately their Prussian allies had already won the two great victories of KÖniggratz and Sadowa and were in a position to dictate terms to Austria. The oft-fought-over Venetian provinces became at last part of the kingdom of Italy. Venice was added to her sister cities, which now only lacked Rome. The Tyrol, however, was left with Austria, and so Garibaldi viewed the peace with disappointment. He was confident that his volunteers could have won it, and found this another instance of the mistakes of statesmanship.

As after the expedition of the Thousand, so after the campaign in the Lakes, Garibaldi found that he could not rest quietly with Rome in Papal hands. Italy was bound by agreement with France to leave Pius IX. in temporary possession of the Eternal City, but Garibaldi cared little or nothing for his country’s obligations. He showed in a hundred ways that he was unwilling that the kingdom should have rest or a chance to recuperate until the city on the Tiber was won, and so again in 1867, as in 1862, he became a tremendously difficult problem to the government, the seat of which had been moved from Turin to Florence, and of which Rattazzi was again the head.

As soon as the French left Rome a number of revolutionary societies commenced operations in that city, and Garibaldi was asked to act in conjunction with them. He made an electioneering tour in the spring of 1867, and was received at Venice, at Verona, and at Legnano with a veneration that partook of religious awe. He was elected deputy in the new Parliament from four districts. He next appeared at the meeting of the Universal Peace Congress at Geneva, and spoke against the priesthood, denouncing the Papacy with his accustomed ardor. He then returned to Italy and in a fiery speech at the Villa Cairoli called on his countrymen to march on Rome. He started for the Papal frontier, and the volunteers collected about him so rapidly that Rattazzi was again obliged to arrange for his arrest. At Sinalunga he was taken prisoner, and conveyed to Alessandria, and there arrangements were made to take him to his home at Caprera and keep him virtually imprisoned there. Unfortunately Garibaldi could not be kept quiet; even when his island was guarded by four steamers and a frigate he managed to send appeals to the mainland and keep the revolutionary party alert. Other leaders were attacking Rome by now, Nicotera was advancing from Naples, Menotti Garibaldi was waging guerilla warfare near Tivoli, the brothers Cairoli—name famous in Italian annals—made their daring attack at the Vigna Glori. Pius IX. and his Secretary of State, Cardinal Antonelli, were not having a pleasant time in Rome. Barracks were blown up, bombs were discovered, petitions were presented from his subjects urging him to call in the army of Victor Emmanuel.

Meanwhile Garibaldi planned and executed his daring escape from Caprera. He pretended to be ill, and then one dark night set off in a small boat for Sardinia. He lay hidden until he could get horses to take him to Porta Prudenza, and from there sailed with his son-in-law Canzio to the mainland. A day or two later he was brazenly haranguing the people from the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. The government learned that they could not control him, and now concluded to repeat the tactics of Aspromonte, and allow him to bring about his own destruction.

At Terni Garibaldi began active campaigning. He met his troops, and planned an immediate attack on the town of Monte Rotondo, which crowns a hill overlooking the Tiber and the roads to Rome. The hill town was hotly defended, but the volunteers finally took it. From there, after a short stay, Garibaldi moved his army, now numbering 15,000 men, on towards the Ponte della Mentana, some four and a half miles from Rome. It is said that an agreement had been made by which the Papal governor of the castle of St. Angelo was to surrender his post for a sum of money, and that this sum was raised by Garibaldi’s English friends, but through treachery was not properly used. This occasioned some delay, and by that time French troops had been landed and were marching to the aid of their allies, the Papal guards.

The general was obliged to retreat temporarily to Monte Rotondo, and there he issued a public address. He relied on the fact that the Roman Republic of 1849 had made him a Roman general. After rehearsing the facts of the Italian government’s position he said, “Then will I let the world know that I alone, a Roman general, with full power, elected by the universal suffrage of the only legal government in Rome, the Republic, have the right to maintain myself armed in this, the territory under my jurisdiction; and then if these my volunteers, champions of liberty and Italian unity, wish to have Rome as the capital of Italy, fulfilling the vote of Parliament and of the nation, they must not put down their arms until Italy shall have acquired liberty of conscience and worship, built upon the ruin of Jesuitism, and until the soldiers of tyrants shall be banished from our land.”

The French had now joined the Papal army, and the Italian troops were massing in Garibaldi’s rear. On November 3 he started towards Tivoli, but had to fall back on Mentana, and there occurred the battle which decided the fate of the expedition. The volunteers fought with the greatest courage and enthusiasm, but their arms were no match for the new chassepots of the French. Garibaldi had to fall back on Monte Rotondo, and there, on discovering that his men had scarcely a cartridge left, he was forced to order a further retreat. The expedition was at an end, the volunteers were disbanded, and Garibaldi took train to Florence. There he was arrested and conveyed a prisoner to the fort of Varignano.

The battle of Mentana had cost many Italian lives. Victor Emmanuel was deeply grieved and had a message sent to the French Emperor: “The last events have suffocated every remembrance of gratitude in the heart of Italy. It is no longer in the power of the government to maintain an alliance with France, the chassepot gun at Mentana has given it a fatal blow.” The battle therefore had the result of severing the tacit alliance between Italy and France, and henceforth the problem of Roman occupation became simpler to the King’s government.

In 1870 the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war compelled Napoleon to defend his own borders, and no longer to support a Papal government in a foreign land. When the French and Germans were fighting the question of the temporal power of the Church was quietly settled, with almost no fighting and little outside attention, by the entrance of the King of Italy into Rome. At last Italy was united. Garibaldi had nothing to do with this final occupation, for which he had laid plans since his early South American days.

When Napoleon was eliminated from French politics Garibaldi could no longer restrain his ardor for the republican government. He took sword, and left Caprera to volunteer for service with France. He was given command of the army of the Vosges, and his campaign against the Prussians at Autun and Dijon was at least as successful as that of the regular French generals. The Prussians were too strong, the Army of the East gave way before them, and Garibaldi’s brief campaign was at an end. After the peace he was elected deputy from Paris, Dijon, and Nice, but was not allowed to sit in the Assembly on the ground that he was a foreigner. He received the official thanks of the French government and returned home.

There remained a somewhat turbulent old age for Garibaldi. Italy was united and rapidly growing stronger under the happy influence of continued peace. Garibaldi, however, could not remain quiet, and when he appeared in public he was publicly worshiped and privately feared. He became more and more ardently a republican as time went on, and his republicanism was only too apt to take the color of the last man with whom he had talked. He was not an able original thinker, and except in military manoeuvers had always been too much inclined to lean on the advice of others.

In the elections of 1874 the general was chosen by several districts, among others the city of Rome, to sit in the Senate. He made a triumphal progress from Caprera to the capital, and when he was sworn in as a Senator the members forgot all past and present difficulties and cheered to the echo the man who had led the Thousand from Genoa to Naples. He went to the Quirinal to see the King, a sovereign whom he had ardently admired since the time when he had first seen him in battle. A little later we find him a member of a committee with the King and Prince Torlonia to divert the course of the Tiber and improve the Campagna.

Meanwhile at Caprera Francesca, the devoted woman who had first gone there to nurse Garibaldi’s daughter, had taken Anita’s position, and become the mother of the general’s youngest children, Manlio and Clelia. In 1880 the Court of Appeal at Rome declared Garibaldi’s marriage to Giuseppina Raymondi, the adventuress who had taken advantage of him long before, null and void. Fortunately the marriage had been contracted under Austrian and not Italian jurisdiction. Had it been otherwise the annulment would not have been allowed. Immediately on receipt of the news Garibaldi and Francesca were married. At Caprera Garibaldi lived like an island prince, continually receiving visits and presents from admirers of all nations.

Yet, for all his domestic happiness, the old warrior would mix in public affairs, and almost always as an opponent of the existing government. Even when his old friend and comrade-in-arms, Benedetto Cairoli, fourth of the famous brothers, became Prime Minister, he was not content with his policies. He embarrassed the government by continually writing ultra-radical letters to the newspapers. Two or three times more he appeared in public, became again an active figure when his son-in-law Canzio was arrested at a turbulent meeting in Genoa, and resigned his seat in the National Chambers. He was, however, too worn out physically to make further dangerous expeditions, and was persuaded to leave the more active part to younger men. In 1882 he died at Caprera.

Neither the character nor the achievements of Garibaldi are difficult to estimate. His character was simple, he was ingenuously frank and open-minded, absolutely sincere, warm-hearted, and forgiving to a fault. His whole career is filled with instances in which his generosity was traded on, notably the case of his second marriage. He was always frugal, unostentatious, unselfish, never did a breath of public scandal sully his name. Although he had many opportunities to gain wealth he was always poor. During the last days of his life he enjoyed a pension from the government, but the most of that was given to his children or dispensed in charity.

Given this true, straightforward nature, we find that from his boyhood he had above everything desired a free united Italy, with Rome as its capital. The name Rome never failed to thrill him. So long as the master-hand of Cavour was ready to guide him Garibaldi proceeded gloriously forward, the crusader who could lead men into battle and fill them with a great enthusiasm. Cavour could fight against the Mazzinian theories of a republic, he had to fight hard to keep the soldier in the straight path, particularly in those early days in Naples, but he succeeded, and saw Garibaldi proudly deliver Naples and Sicily into the care of his King. How great was Cavour’s steering hand we find in later years; without that powerful mind to control him, Garibaldi fell under the influence of many different types of men, and his simple confiding nature found it easy to trust each seeming friend in turn. The very virtue of his nature acted against him then, he became a tool for men to use, his great name a flag for any new quixotic idea. It was only when he was fighting that he was his own commander, at other times he was ever ready to sink his own opinions in those of others. The latter part of his life was therefore continually stormy, he had not the art to weather varying changes in national sentiment.

Almost as easy to estimate as his character were his achievements. They were superlatively great for Italy. Nobody can tell whether Cavour’s diplomacy alone would ever have won the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Garibaldi started from Genoa on an expedition that seemed doomed to disaster, but which, successfully begun, carried all opposition before it. It is true that the army of Francis II. was poor, and that the battles, with the exception of Calatafimi in Sicily, are not to be classed as great conflicts, but Garibaldi did much more than win battles, he roused the people to a pitch of fighting spirit they had never known before. The fame of the Thousand spread across Europe, and with it rose European admiration and interest in the Italian cause. Foreigners joined his army, and when the great general met Victor Emmanuel and gave over the two crowns he had won the eyes of the whole world were focused on the sovereign and the hero. The glory of that expedition could not fade, whatever Garibaldi did later could not efface the memory of those great days; even the governments that found him rebelling against the laws and treaties they had made could not but thrill at the recollection of the days of 1860 and 1861. The red shirt became an oriflamme to lovers of liberty in all lands, the Garibaldian hymn set hearts to dancing with pride and exultation, the simple soldier with his dramatic effects of life and bearing became an Italian national hero with all the mythical charm of a Cid Campeador or a William Tell. He will take a place in Italian legendary history that was empty until his day.

This atmosphere of romance that surrounded him was of his nature. He wrote two books, one, “The Rule of the Monk,” which appeared after his imprisonment at Varignano, the other, “The Thousand,” after the Vosges campaign. They were both extravagant, artificial, as wildly eventful as any novels ever penned. Yet in a sense they catch the flavor of his own career. When he describes the monks he pictures them as they actually seemed to him, agents of the power which had so hounded him after the siege of Rome, and which had executed his friend Ugo Bassi. When he writes of “The Thousand” he shows his followers as men capable of any heroism, and the expedition becomes one series of marvellous adventures. He saw that intensely dramatic side of the struggle, and he became the symbol of that dramatic element in the eyes of the world. His country needed that symbol, the glory of a crusader was as essential to Italian redemption as the soul-stirring fanaticism of a Mazzini, the statecraft of a Cavour, or the kingship of a Victor Emmanuel. He was the living personification of the great fight for liberty; that was his contribution to the cause.