The Liberation of Italy, 1815-1870 Part 15

On the 5th of September the King and Queen with the Austrian, Prussian, Bavarian and Spanish ministers, left Naples for Gaeta on board a Spanish man-of-war. The King issued a proclamation of which the language was dignified and even pathetic: it is believed to have been written by Liborio Romano, the Prime Minister, who was at the same moment betraying his master. Be that as it may, the King's farewell to his subjects and fellow-citizens might have touched hearts of stone could they but have forgotten the record of the hundred and twenty-six years of rule to which he fondly alluded. As it was, in the vast crowds that watched him go, there was not found a man who said, 'G.o.d bless him;' not a woman who shed a tear. Had any one of the bullets aimed at Ferdinand II. taken fatal effect, it would have been a less striking punishment for his political sins than this leaden weight of indifference which descended on his son.

In the Royal Proclamation Francis II. stated that he had adhered to the great principles of Italian nationality, and had irrevocably surrounded his throne with free inst.i.tutions; nevertheless it is alleged on what seems good authority that in those last days he veered round to the party of the Queen Dowager, who was doing all she could to provoke the lazzaroni to reaction. It was also believed at Naples that he left orders for Castel Sant' Elmo to bombard the town if Garibaldi entered.

The Dictator was so much pleased with Colonel Peard's telegraphic feats at Eboli, that he sent him on to Salerno to repeat the farce.

Peard's despatches determined the departure of the Court, and it was to him (in the belief that he was Garibaldi) that Liborio Romano, three hours before the King embarked, addressed the celebrated telegram invoking the 'most desired presence' of the Dictator in Naples. With this doc.u.ment in his hand, Peard went out with the National Guard to meet the real Garibaldi who was on his way from Auletta. The Dictator hailed his double with the cry of 'Viva Garibaldi,' in which Cosenz and the other officers cordially joined.

The entry of the Liberator into Salerno was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm, the wonderful beauty of the surroundings seeming a fitting setting for a scene like the vision of some freedom-loving poet.

Next morning at half-past nine, Garibaldi, with thirteen of his staff, started by special train for the capital.

It must be remembered that though the army of Salerno was recalled to the Volturno, no troops had been withdrawn from Naples. The sentries still paced before the palaces and public offices, the barracks held their full complement, Castel Sant' Elmo had all its guns in position.

These troops quartered in the capital, where everything contributed to stimulate their fidelity, were of different stuff from Ghio's or Caldarelli's frightened sheep; a White Terror, a repet.i.tion of the 15th of May 1848, would have been much to their mind. There had been no actual revolution; nothing officially proved that Naples had thrown off the royal allegiance. Such were the strange circ.u.mstances under which Garibaldi, without a single battalion, came to take possession of a city of 300,000 inhabitants.

Courage of this sort either does not exist, or it is supremely unconscious. It is likely, therefore, that the Dictator gave no thought to the enormous risk he ran, but his pa.s.sage from the station to the palace of the Foresteria, where he descended, was a bad quarter-of-an-hour to the friends who followed him, and to whom his life seemed the point on which Italian regeneration yet hung. A chance shot fired by some Royalist fanatic, and who could measure the result?

As he pa.s.sed under the muzzle of the guns at the opening of the Toledo, he gave the order: 'Drive slower, slower--more slowly still.'

And he rose and stood up for a moment in the carriage with his arms crossed. The artillerymen, who had begun to make a kind of hostile demonstration, changed their minds and saluted. The sullen looks of the royal soldiers was the only jarring note in the display of intoxicating joy with which the Neapolitans welcomed the bringer of their freedom; freedom all too easily had, for if anything could have purified the Neapolitans from the evil influences of servitude, it would have been the necessity of paying dearly for their liberties.

The delirium in the streets lasted for several days and nights; what the consequences would have been of such a state of madness under a paler sky, it is not pleasant to reflect; here, at least, there were no robberies, no drunken person was seen; if there were some murders, a careful inquiry made by an Englishman showed that the number was the same as the average number of street-murders through the year. At night, when the word pa.s.sed 'Il Dittatore dorme,' it was enough to clear the streets as if by magic near the palace (a private one) where in a sixth floor room the idol of the hour slept. The National Guard, who were the sole guardians of order, behaved admirably.

For a few days such of the townsfolk as had not completely lost their heads, underwent acute anxiety as they gazed at the frowning pile of Sant' Elmo; but finally the officers in command of the garrison decided to capitulate, contrary, in this instance, to the wishes of the soldiery. The royal troops marched out of the city towards Capua on the 11th of September.

Garibaldi's first act had been to hand over the Neapolitan fleet in the bay to Admiral Persano, a solemn rea.s.sertion of his loyalty to Victor Emmanuel, whom, in his every utterance, he held up to the people as the best of kings and the father of his country. He instructed his Neapolitan officer, Cosenz, to form a ministry, and wrote to the Marquis Pallavicini, the prisoner of Spielberg, inviting him to become Pro-Dictator. Had a man of authority like Pallavicini, who also entirely possessed the Dictator's confidence, at once a.s.sumed that office, much of the friction which followed might have been spared. But he did not enter into his functions till October, and in the meanwhile the 'dualism' of Sicily broke out in an exaggerated form, each side sincerely believing the other to be on the verge of ruining the country to which they were both sincerely attached. The appointment of Dr Bertani as Secretary of the Dictators.h.i.+p gave rise to controversies which even now, when the grave has closed over the actors, are hardly at rest. It is time that they should be. Apart from the war about persons, some of them not very wise persons, and apart from the fears entertained at Turin, that the freeing of the Two Sicilies would drift into a republican movement: fears which were invincible, though, as far as they regarded Garibaldi, they were neither just nor generous, the question resolved itself, as was the case in Sicily, into whether the unification of Italy was to go on or whether it was to halt? Garibaldi refused to give up Sicily to the King's government because he intended making it the base for the liberation of Naples. Events had justified him. He now refused to hand over Naples because he intended making it the base for the liberation of Rome. It has been seen that he and he alone prevented an attempt at a landing in the Papal states from being made in the month of August.

In deciding, however, that it was expedient to finish one enterprise before beginning another, he did not give up Rome: he merely chose what he thought a safer road to go there. And he now declared without the least concealment that he intended to proclaim Victor Emmanuel King of Italy from the Quirinal.

Would events have justified him again? There was a French garrison in Rome; this, to Cavour, seemed a conclusive answer.

Cavour was engaged on a series of measures, unscrupulous manoeuvres as some have called them, masterpieces of statesmans.h.i.+p as they have been described by others, by which he got back the reins of the Italian team into his own hands. The plan of an annexionist revolution in Naples before Garibaldi arrived had failed. So much discontent was felt at the apparent indifference, or, at least, 'masterly inactivity'

of the Sardinian government in presence of the great struggle in the south that Cavour began to be afraid of a revolution breaking out in quite a different quarter, in Victor Emmanuel's own kingdom. It was at this critical juncture that he resolved to invade the Papal states, and take possession of the Province of Umbria and the Marches of Ancona.

The decision was one of extreme boldness. For three months Cavour had been stormed at by all the Foreign Ministers in Turin, excepting Sir James Hudson, but, as he wrote to the Marquis E. D'Azeglio: 'I shall not draw back save before fleets and armies.'

Austria, France, Spain, Russia and Prussia now broke off diplomatic relations with Sardinia. What would be their next act? The danger of Austria intervening was smaller than it then appeared; Austria was too much embarra.s.sed in her own house, and especially in Hungary, for her to covet adventures in Italy. But the French Government did, in the plainest terms, threaten to intervene, and this notwithstanding that the Emperor himself appeared to be convinced by Cavour's argument, that the proposed scheme was the only means of checking the march of revolution, which from Rome might spread to Paris. By announcing one line of policy in public and another in private, Napoleon left the door open to adopt either one or the other, according to the development of events. In the sequel, the Papal party had a right to say that he lured them to their destruction, as their plan of operations, and in particular the defence of Ancona, was undertaken in the distinct expectation of being supported by the French fleet.

As early as April 1860, the Pope invited the Orleanist General Lamoriciere to organise and command the forces for the defence of the Temporal Power, which he had summoned from the four quarters of the Catholic world. 5000 men, more or less, answered the call; they came chiefly from France, Belgium and Ireland. Of his own subjects the Pope had 10,000 under arms. In a proclamation, issued on a.s.suming the command, Lamoriciere compared the Italian movement with Islamism, a comparison which aroused intense exasperation in Italy, where the rally of a foreign crusade against the object which was nearest to Italian hearts, and for which so many of the best Italians had suffered and died, could not but call up feelings which in their turn were expressed in no moderate language. It was a fresh ill.u.s.tration of the old truth--that the Papal throne existed only by force of foreign arms, foreign influence. Lamoriciere's 'mercenaries' did much harm to the Pope's cause by bringing home this truth once more to the minds of all. That the corps contained some of the bluest blood of France, that there were good young men in it, who thought heaven the sure reward for death in defence of dominions painfully added in the course of centuries by devices not heavenly to the original patrimony of Peter, did not and could not reconcile the Italians to the defiance thrown down to them by a band of strangers in their own country.

Before the opening of hostilities, Victor Emmanuel offered Pius IX. to a.s.sume the administration of the Papal states (barring Rome) while leaving the nominal sovereignty to the Pope. Nothing came of the proposal, which was followed by a formal demand for the dissolution of Lamoriciere's army, and an intimation that the Sardinian troops would intervene were force used to put down risings within the Papal border.

On the 11th of September, symptoms of revolution having meanwhile broken out in the Marches, General Fanti in command of 35,000 men crossed the frontier. Half these forces under Fanti himself were directed on Perugia; the other half under Cialdini marched towards Ancona. The garrisons of Perugia and Spoleto were compelled to surrender, and Lamoriciere found his communications cut off, so that he could only reach the last fortress in the power of the Papal troops, Ancona, by fighting his way through Cialdini's division, which by rapid marches had reached the heights of Castelfidardo. His men pa.s.sed the day of the 17th in religious exercises, and in going to confession; the vicinity of the Holy House of Loreto, brought hither by angels from Bethlehem, filled the young Breton soldiers with transports of religious fervour. Lamoriciere had taken from the Santa Casa some of the flags of the victors of Lepanto to wave over his columns. In the battle of the next day the French fought with the gallantry of the Vendeans whose descendants they were, and the Irish behaved as Irishmen generally behave under fire, but the Swiss and Romans mostly fought ill or not at all. Lamoriciere excused the conduct of the latter on the ground that they were young troops; it is likely that they had but little eagerness to fire on their fellow-countrymen. Being Italians, and above all being Romans, they a.s.suredly were not sustained by one sc.r.a.p of the mystical enthusiasm of the French: such a state of mind would have been incomprehensible to them. They knew that so far as dogmas went Victor Emmanuel was as good a Catholic as the Pope. It is surprising that with part of his force demoralised Lamoriciere was still able to hold his own for three or four hours. General Pimodan and many of the French officers were killed; Lamoriciere could say truly: 'All the best names of France are left on the battlefield.'

After the victory of Castelfidardo, the Sardinian attack was concentrated on Ancona. Admiral Persano brought the squadron from Naples to co-operate with Fanti's land forces, and the fortress capitulated on the 29th of September. The campaign had lasted eighteen days. The Piedmontese held Umbria and the Marches, and a road was thus opened for the army of Victor Emmanuel to march to Naples. During the progress of these events Garibaldi was preparing for the final struggle on the Volturno. He had not yet given up the hope of carrying his victorious arms to the Capitol, and from the Capitol to the Square of St Mark. The whole republican party, and Mazzini himself, who had arrived in Naples, ardently adhered to this programme. Their argument was not without force, risk or no risk, when would there be another opportunity as good as the present? It was very well for Cavour to look forward, as he did to the day of his death, to a pacific solution of the Roman question; Mazzini saw--in which he was far more clear-sighted than Cavour--that such a solution would never take place. His arrival at Naples caused alarm at Turin, both on account of his presumed influence over Garibaldi, the extent of which was much exaggerated, and from the terror his name spread among European diplomatists. The Dictator was asked to proscribe the man whose latest act had been to give the last 30,000 francs he possessed in the world to the expenses of the Calabrian campaign. He refused to do this. 'How could I have insisted upon sending Mazzini into exile when he has done so much for Italian unity?' he said afterwards to Victor Emmanuel, who agreed that he was right. However, he allowed the Pro-Dictator Pallavicini to write a letter to Mazzini, inviting him to show his generosity by spontaneously leaving Naples in order to remove the unjust fears occasioned by his presence. Mazzini replied, as he had a perfect right to do, that every citizen is ent.i.tled to remain in a free country as long as he does not break the laws. And so the incident closed.

While the Party of Action urged Garibaldi not to give up Rome, other influences were brought to bear on him in the opposite sense, and especially that of the English Government, which instructed Admiral Mundy to arrange a 'chance' meeting between the Dictator and the English Minister at Naples, Mr. Elliot, on board the flags.h.i.+p _Hannibal_. Mr. Elliot pointed out the likelihood of a European war arising from an attack on Venice, and the certainty of French intervention in case of a revolutionary dash on Rome. Garibaldi replied that Rome was an Italian city, and that neither the Emperor nor anyone else had a right to keep him out of it. 'He was evidently,'

writes Admiral Mundy in reporting the interview, 'not to be swayed by any dictates of prudence.'

In Sicily, the rival factions were bringing about a state approaching anarchy, but a flying visit from Garibaldi in the middle of September averted the storm. At this time, Garibaldi's headquarters were at Caserta, in the vast palace where Ferdinand II. breathed his last. The Garibaldian and the Royal armies lay face to face with one another, and each was engaged in completing its preparations. It might have been expected, and for a moment it seems that Garibaldi did expect, that after the solemn collapse of the Neapolitan army south of Naples, the comedy was now only awaiting its final act and the fall of the curtain. But it soon became apparent that, instead of the last act of a comedy, the next might be the first of a tragedy. The troops concentrated on the right bank of the Volturno amounted to 35,000, with 6000 garrisoning Capua. About 15,000 more formed the reserves and the garrison of Gaeta. The position on the Volturno was favourable to the Royalists; the fortress of Capua on the left bank gave them a free pa.s.sage to and fro, while the Volturno, which is rather wide and very deep, formed a grave impediment to the advance of their opponents. But the chief reason why there was a serious possibility of the fortunes of war being reversed, lay in the fact that the _moral_ of these troops was good. All the picked regiments of the army were here, including 2500 cavalry. The men were ashamed of the stampede from the south, and were sincerely anxious to take their revenge. Thus the Neapolitan plan of a pitched battle and a victorious march on Naples was by no means foredoomed, on the face of things, to failure.

In Garibaldi's short absence at Palermo, the Southern Army (as he now called his forces) was left under the command of the Hungarian General Turr, as brave an officer as ever lived, and a fast friend to Italy, but his merits do not undo the fact that as soon as the Dictator's back was turned, everything got into a muddle. Pontoon bridges had been thrown across the river at four points; availing himself of one of these, Turr crossed the Volturno with a view to taking up a position on the right bank at a place called Caiazzo, a step which, if attempted at all, ought to have been supported by a very strong force.

On the 19th of September, Caiazzo was actually taken, but on the 21st the Royalists came out of Capua with 3000 men and defeated with great loss the thousand or fewer Garibaldians charged with its defence, only a small number of whom were able to recross the bridges and join their companions. The saddest part of this adventure was the slaughter of nearly the whole of the boys' company--lads under fifteen, who had run away from home or school to fight with Garibaldi. Fight they did for five mortal hours, with the heroism of veterans or of children. Only about twenty were left.

When Garibaldi returned from Sicily, this was the first news he heard, and it was not cheering. The Royalists, who thought they had won another Waterloo, were in the wildest spirits, and the march on Naples was talked of in their camp as being as good as accomplished.

Garibaldi's lines were spread in the shape of a semi-circle, of which the two ends started from Santa Maria on the left, and Maddaloni on the right, with Castel Morone at the apex. The country is hilly, and this fact, together with the great distance covered, divided the 20,000 men into a number of practically distinct bodies, each of which, in the decisive battle, had to fight its own fight. Here and there improvised fortifications were thrown up. Garibaldi was aware that his line of battle was perilously extended, but the necessity of blocking all the roads and by-ways which led to Naples, dictated tactics which he was the last to defend.

The best policy for the Royalists would have been to bring overwhelming numbers to bear on a single point, and, breaking the line, to march straight on the capital. They were doubtless afraid of an advance which would have left a portion of the Garibaldian army unbeaten in their rear. Nevertheless, of the chances that remained to them, this was the best. At Naples there were no Garibaldian troops to speak of, and the powers of reaction had been working night and day to procure for the rightful King the reception due to a saviour of society. Perhaps they would not have completely failed. There were n.o.bles who were sulking, shopkeepers who were frightened, professional beggars with whom the Dictator had opened a fierce but unequal contest, for no blue-bottle fly is more difficult to tackle than a genuine Neapolitan mendicant; there were priests who, though not by any means all unpatriotic, were beginning to be scared by Garibaldi's gift of a piece of land for the erection of an English church, and by the sale of Diodati's Bible in the streets. And finally, there was the Carrozzella driver whom a Garibaldian officer had struck because he beat his horse. These individuals formed a nucleus respectably numerous, if not otherwise respectable, of anxious watchers for the Happy Return.

If anyone question the fairness of this catalogue of the partisans of the fallen dynasty, the answer is, that had their ranks contained worthier elements, they would not have carefully reserved the demonstration of their allegiance till the King should prove that he had the right of the strongest.

Towards five o'clock in the morning of the 1st of October, the royalists, who crossed the river in three columns, fired the first shots, and the fight soon became general. King Francis had come from Gaeta to Capua to witness what was meant to be an auspicious celebration of his birthday. General Ritucci held the chief command.

Of the Garibaldians, Milbitz and Medici commanded the left wing (Santa Maria and Sant' Angelo), and Bixio the right (Maddaloni), while Castel Morone, through which a road led to Caserta, was entrusted to Colonel Pilade Bronzetti and three hundred picked volunteers. Garibaldi's own headquarters was with the reserves at Caserta, but he appeared, as if by magic, at all parts of the line during the day, sometimes bringing up reinforcements, sometimes almost alone, always arriving at the nick of time whenever things looked serious, to help, direct and reanimate the men. A dozen times in these journeys by the rugged mountain paths he narrowly escaped falling into the enemy's hands. No trace of uneasiness was visible on his placid face; there was, however, more than enough to make a man uneasy. In the early part of the battle, both Medici and Bixio were pushed back from their positions. Only Pilade Bronzetti with his handful of Lombard Bersaglieri never swerved, and held in check an entire Neapolitan column, whose commander (Perrone) has been blamed for wasting so much time in trying to take that position instead of joining his 2000 men to the troops attacking Bixio, but his object was to march on Caserta, where his appearance might have caused very serious embarra.s.sment.

Up to midday the Royalists advanced, not fast, indeed, but surely.

They fired all the buildings on their path, and amongst others one in which there were thirty wounded Garibaldians who were burned to death.

It was said to be an accident, but such accidents had better not happen. Victory seemed a.s.sured to them. It is not disputed that on this occasion they fought well, and they had all the advantages of ground, numbers and artillery. But the volunteers, also, were at their best; they surpa.s.sed themselves. If every man of them had not shown the best military qualities, skill, resource, the power of recovery, Francis II. would have slept that night at Naples.

Medici acted with splendid firmness, but at the most critical moment he had Garibaldi by his side. Bixio was left to fight his separate battle unaided (so great was the chief's confidence in him), and consummately well he fought it. After the middle of the day, the Garibaldians began to retake their positions, and at some points to a.s.sume the offensive; still it was five o'clock before Garibaldi could send his famous despatch to Naples: 'Victory along all the line.' The battle had lasted ten hours.

The Sicilians and Calabrese under Dunne, who stemmed the first onset at Casa Brucciata, and under Eber, whose desperate charge at Porta Capua ushered in the changing fortunes of the day, rivalled the North Italians in steadiness and in dash. The French company and the Hungarian Legion covered themselves with glory; it was a pity there was not the English brigade, 600 strong, which mismanaged to arrive at Naples the day after the fair. Had they been in time for the fight, they would doubtless have left a brighter record than the only one which they did leave: that of being out of place in a country where wine was cheap.

Putting aside Dunne and a few other English officers, England was represented on the Volturno by three or four Royal Marines who had slipped away from their s.h.i.+p, the _Renown_, and were come over to see the 'fun.' It seems that they did ask for rifles, but they did not get them, their martial deeds consisting in the help they gave in dragging off two captured field-pieces. Never did an exploit cause so much discussion in proportion with its importance; the Neapolitan Minister in London informed Lord John Russell that a body of armed men from the British fleet had been sent by Admiral Mundy to serve pieces of Garibaldian artillery.

Of all the striking incidents of the day, that which should be remembered while Italy endures, was the defence of the hillock of Castel Morone by Bronzetti and his Lombards. Their invincible courage contributed in no small degree to the final result. One man to eight, they held their own for ten hours; when summoned to yield by the Neapolitan officer, who could not help admiring his courage, Pilade Bronzetti replied: 'Soldiers of liberty never surrender!' It was only in the moment of victory that Perrone pa.s.sed over their dead bodies and uselessly advanced--which cost him dear on the morrow.

The Garibaldian losses were 2000 killed and wounded and 150 prisoners; the Neapolitans had the same number placed _hors de combat_, and lost 3000 prisoners.

Garibaldi had none but his own men; the report that the battle had been won by soldiers of the Sardinian army who arrived in the afternoon was false, because they did not arrive till next day, when a battalion of Piedmontese Bersaglieri took part in defeating Perrone's column, which (it is hard to say with what idea) descended nearly to Caserta, as its commander wished to do on the first. Did Perrone not know of the defeat of yesterday? His column was surrounded and all the men were taken prisoners.

After the battle of the Volturno the belligerents re-occupied the positions on the right and left banks of that river which they held before. Military critics speculate as to why Garibaldi did not follow up his advantage, and the opinion seems general that he did not feel himself strong enough to do so. The fortress of Capua was a serious obstacle, but Garibaldi was not accustomed to attach much weight to obstacles whatever they were, and it is pretty certain that he would have gone in pursuit had he not received a letter from Victor Emmanuel, who bade him wait till he came.

By this time he had abandoned all thoughts of marching on Rome. From the moment that the King's army started for Naples he understood that persistence in the Roman programme would lead to something graver than a war of words with the authorities at Turin. Always positive, he gathered some consolation from the gain to Italy of two Roman provinces, Umbria and the Marches, and trusted the future with the larger hope.

Const.i.tutional government triumphed over the old absolutism and over the new dictators.h.i.+p. And here it may be noted which Const.i.tutional government, which never had a more sincere and faithful votary than Cavour, found no favour with Garibaldi at any period of his life. Its hampering restrictions, its slow processes, irritated his mind, intolerant of constraint, and he failed to see that this c.u.mbersome mechanism still gives the best, if not the only, guarantee for the maintenance of freedom. The sudden transition of Southern Italy from a corrupt despotism to free inst.i.tutions brought with it a train of evils, but there was no alternative. If Italy was to be one, all parts of it must be placed under the same laws, and that at once.

On the 11th of October the Sardinian parliament sitting at Turin pa.s.sed all but unanimously the motion authorising the King's Government to accept the annexation of those Italian provinces which manifested, by universal suffrage, their desire to form part of the Const.i.tutional Monarchy. Cavour's speech on this occasion was memorable: 'Rome,' he said, 'would inevitably become the splendid capital of the Italian kingdom, but that great result would be reached by means of moral force; it was impossible that enlightened Catholics should not end by recognising that the Head of Catholicism would exercise his high office with truer freedom and independence guarded by the love and respect of 22,000,000 Italians than entrenched behind 25,000 bayonets.' Of Venice, the martyr-city, he said 'that public opinion was rapidly turning against its retention by Austria, and that when the great majority of Germans refused to be any longer accomplices in its subjection, that subjection would be brought to a close either by force of arms or by pacific negotiations.'

The words were strangely prescient at a time when the Prince Regent of Prussia was making most melancholy wails over the fall of the Neapolitan King. The Prussian Government issued a formal protest, which Cavour met by observing that Prussia, of all Powers, had the least reason to object, as Piedmont was simply setting her an example which she ought to follow and would follow, the mission of the two nations being identical. He already thought of Prussia as an ally: 'Never more French alliances,' he was once heard to say.

On the same day, the 11th of October, Victor Emmanuel crossed the Neapolitan frontier at the head of the army which Cialdini led to victory at Castelfidardo. The King published a proclamation, in which he said that he closed the era of revolution in Italy. Other bodies of Piedmontese troops had been despatched by sea to Naples and Manfredonia. The pa.s.sage of the Piedmontese troops over the Abruzzi mountains was opposed both by a division of the Bourbon army and by armed peasants, who burnt a man alive at a place called Isernia; but their advance was not long delayed.

The Neapolitans now began to retire from the right bank of the Volturno, and retreat towards the Garigliano, their last line of defence. Garibaldi crossed the river with 5000 men, and moved in the direction by which the vanguard of the Piedmontese was expected to arrive. At daybreak on the 26th of October, near Teano, the Piedmontese came in sight. Garibaldi, who had dismounted, walked up to Victor Emmanuel and said: 'Hail, King of Italy!'

Once before the t.i.tle was given to a prince of the House of Savoy--to Charles Albert, in the bitterest irony by the Austrian officers who saw him flying from his friends and country by order of his implacable uncle. A change had come since then.

Victor Emmanuel answered simply: 'Thanks,' and remained talking for a quarter of an hour in the particularly kind and affectionate manner he used with Garibaldi, but at the end of the interview, when the leader of the volunteers asked that in the imminent battle on the Garigliano they might have the honour of occupying the front line, he received the reply: 'Your troops are tired, mine are fresh, it is my turn now.'

Garibaldi said sadly that evening to an English friend: 'They have sent us to the rear.' It was the first sign of the ungenerous treatment meted out to the Garibaldian array to which the King lent himself more than he ought to have done. He promised to be present on the 6th of November, when Garibaldi reviewed his volunteers, but after keeping them waiting, sent a message to say that he could not come.

The last meeting of all between the chief and his faithful followers was at Naples, on the occasion of the distribution of medals to as many as were left of the Thousand--less than half. In all his farewell addresses the same note sounded: 'We have done much in a short time.... I thank you in the name of our country.... We shall meet again.'

The plebiscites in Umbria and the Marches and in the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily took place in October. The formula adopted at Naples was more broadly framed than in the previous plebiscites; it ran: 'The people desire an united Italy under the sceptre of the House of Savoy.' The vote was almost unanimous.

On the 7th of November, Victor Emmanuel made his entry into Naples, with Garibaldi at his side. Next day, in the great throne-room of the palace, the king-maker delivered to the King the plebiscites of the Two Sicilies.