Giuseppe Garibaldi

Some of the excerpts in this blog post are taken from the book: La storia delll’Italia Unita by Enrico Fagnano.

Mr. Garibaldi one of the most celebrated figures responsible for the creation of the Italian nation, circa 160 years ago, has always been portrayed as the hero that single-handedly brought “freedom” and “progress” to Southern Italy, then an independent nation called the Kingdom of two Sicilies. The Italian version of a founding father.

What the official history books do not say though is the fact that nobody asked the southerners if they felt to be enslaved and if they wanted to be freed. They also say that Garibaldi with 1000 volunteers (the red shirts) defeated a respectable and organized army and navy of the southern state. They fail to say that England played a crucial role by supporting what amounted to be an invasion, without a declaration of war, on the part of Garibaldi’s mercenaries and by the northern kingdom of Sardinia (aka Piedmont or Savoy), behind all this. England had all the interest to destroy the Kingdom of two Sicilies because it interfered with its established economic interests in the Mediterranean Sea due also to the imminent opening of the Suez Canal (1869).

This was the beginning of huge problems for the southern regions of Italy. It suffices to say, after the unification of Italy, a civil war ensued that lasted 10 years with the burning of towns, mass executions, and incarcerations of many southerners, some labeled Brigant, on the part of the Piedmontese army that imposed the martial law on many occasions. This was the beginning of the big economic disparity between the north and the south that still persists today due to precise political choices made by the central government in Rome that always favored the northern regions. Also, this was the beginning of the emigration exodus by millions from the South. Think about this. Before the unification, not many emigrated from the South, twenty years after the unification millions emigrated!!

This is the historical context that forced many of our ancestors to emigrate to the US and to many other countries.

The expedition of the thousand

Italian official historians always promoted the propagandistic narrative of the glorious expedition of thousand men in red shirts (“spedizione dei mille” in Italian), led by Garibaldi, who left the coasts of Liguria to lend in Sicily and start the “glorious” war of “liberation” of the “oppressed” people of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. And so this is the way the two-century-old mythology goes, lying about how things really went. We’ll try to shed some light on this, so keep reading.

The expedition was heavily subsidized and supported by the British government and financial institutions and opened the way to the invasion of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies by the Kingdom of Savoy (Piedmont) in an undeclared war with the intent to appropriate the riches of the southern regions, under the pretense of bringing freedom.

A thousand, really?

Reinforcements continually arrived for the men of Garibaldi as they advanced. On June 1st the ship Utile landed 60 men, on June 17 the Washington and Franklin ships landed 2,700 men, led by Giacomo Medici (the Piedmontese officer who had bought the boats and in the meantime had resigned from the regular army), at the beginning of July the Medeach, the Provence and again Washington landed 2,600 men, led by Enrico Cosenz, on the 11th of July the City of Aberdeen landed 890 men, on the 16th of July the Provence landed 405 men again, on the 18th of July the American ship Charles George and again the Utile landed 800 men, on the 21st again the Franklin landed 564 men, on the 22nd the Amazon landed 390 men, on the 23 the Isere landed 413 and shortly after the Turin landed 1,535. Among those who joined the attackers, however, alongside the real volunteers, there were also many dismissed Piedmontese soldiers, who were then re-enlisted with a royal decree of November 29, 1860. The expeditions, which totaled 22, had high costs, especially for the chartering of ships, but we know that in England by now there were many active money collections and we also know that Freemasonry, the British, and the Piedmont governments never stopped financing Garibaldi’s operation.

Among the famous “thousand red-shirts”, which Garibaldi himself on December 5, 1861, in Turin defined: “All generally of bad origin and mostly thieves; and with a few exceptions with genealogical roots in the dunghill of violence and crime“, landed in Sicily, French, Swiss, English, Indians, Poles, Russians and above all Hungarians, so much so that a Hungarian legion was formed, used for the most ferocious repressions. Following this real human scum, another 22,000 Piedmontese soldiers specifically declared “dismissed or deserters” landed.

Criminal organizations as allies

It is a proven fact that Garibaldi used criminal organizations present in the South to help his cause. In particular, it used the Mafia in Sicily and Camorra in the Campania region. This is one of the “original sins” of the creation of the unified state of Italy. This is a curse that plagues Italy still today. Many courageous Italians have died fighting these criminal organizations and the corruption that at times enlists politicians and other public figures who should fight the criminals.

Mafia ally of Garibaldi in the advance in Sicily

Mafia involvement in Garibaldi’s mercenary red-shirt actions is extensively documented. Pasquale Villari was a proud opponent of the Bourbon, but this did not stop him from being at the forefront of denouncing injustices and violence against the South. Here’s what he writes about the criminal organization in his book The Southern Letters (1875):

• The revolution resorted to it (mafia), which could immediately arm farmers and people, put themselves on their heads, and overthrow the established Government.
• Concerning, then, the way his power consolidated after the unification of Italy, the great Neapolitan intellectual is equally explicit, adding: “Public security was entrusted to the mafia, thus giving society in its hands, and this approach was always followed and made even more strong the criminal organization that they wanted to destroy.

More or less in the same terms, Napoleone Colajanni, ex-Garibaldi’s red shirt. expresses himself (he was the politician known for having raised the Roman Bank scandal in the Italian parliament, one of the many gifts of Italian unification). In the article Reign of the Mafia (Rivista Popular, 1900) writes:

• The mafia did the greatest services to the cause of the revolution against Bourbon (Kingdom of the Two Sicilies).
• The same mafia fought in 1860 amongst Garibaldi’s troops and when the “legendary” expedition of the thousand triumphed, at the moment when a new life was to begin for Sicily, the mafia was surrounded by the halo of patriotism, and with the baptism of blood spilled in defense of the “freedom”.

The presence of the mafia next to Garibaldi’s troops is also reported by different protagonists of the fights of those days, including Crispi in “I Mille” (Treves, 1911), Nicolo’ Turrisi Colonna in ‘Cenni ‘on the current state of public security in Sicily (Lorsnaider, 1864) and Francesco Brancaccio di Carpino in ‘Three Months in the Vicaria of Palermo in 1860‘ (Ruggiano, 1901). Even Ippolito Nievo talks about it, in a letter sent on July 1st, 1860 to his mother says: “The whole revolution is concentrated in the rural bands called teams and composed for the majority of emeritus criminals… It’s true that we have to act like policemen against our allies of yesterday. In regard, finally, the historic Raffaele De Cesare in “The End of a Kingdom” (Lapi, 1909) states: The teams got bigger recruiting people of all walks of life and the mafia, which in those days took on a provocative air, gave itself a big uplift.

In conclusion, it seems surprising (not to say anything else) that in the face of so many testimonies (but there are still more) the official history doesn’t talk about the presence of the mafia next to the Garibaldi’s troops. History must tell the truth, not mystify it or silence it. In the events of all states, there are facts, of which their citizens should only be ashamed, and foreign historians describe the events of their states without refraining so must the Italians. It is up to contemporary people to deal with these uncomfortable truths and learn how to live with them

Camorra ally of Garibaldi in the advance in the rest of the South

After the Mafia, the Camorra, which is a criminal organization in the area of Naples, was also recruited in an anti-Bourbon key and its involvement was the work of Liborio Romano, one of the biggest representatives of the Masons in the South. The Apulian politician was appointed the first prefect and then on July 14, 1860, Minister of the Interior of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, he fired the police chiefs in the capital Naples, replacing them with the men of the criminal organization Camorra. Its leader, Salvatore De Crescenzo, became “head of the city guard”, while the other main representatives of the Camorra became captains, as remembered by the writer Luigi Iroso in the book Scrubbed Naples (Pironti, 2014). Among those responsible for the police precincts, then, the minister recruited men so-called “of respect”, such as Nicola Jossa and Nicola Capuano, or political agitators, such as Ferdinando Mele and Tommaso Perifano. Needless to say, the removed officials had to quickly leave town to avoid retaliation by criminals, now at the top of law enforcement. From the Camorra were also taken the foot soldiers, and the newspaper Civilta’ Cattolica on March 9, 1861, reports that its men who passed to the police or placed in the national guard, were a few thousand, a figure roughly confirmed by historian Marcella Marmo in ‘When the State Collapses’ (edited by Paolo Macry, Liguori, 2003), which reports that there were at least a thousand.

All of this is widely documented and even Liborio Romano himself talks about it in his “Memorie politiche” (published by his brother Joseph in 1873). Here’s what he writes:

I thought of preventing the sad works of the camorristi, by offering the most influential leaders a means of rehabilitation: and so I think I could remove them from the party of disorder.

You may condemn now the vehicle I used; you may accuse me of having introduced to the police a “few broken men” with all manner of vices and abuses. I will tell these Puritans that my job was to save the order and you saved it with the applause of the whole country.

In modern parlance we would say this is bull shit, Mr. Romano was a traitor of his country, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, he sold himself and used criminals to terrorize and subjugate the population to help the invaders. Shame on him.

Rehabilitating the camorristi was not his job, because he, as Francesco II’s (Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) minister, should have done much else, that is to try to stop Garibaldi. Instead, he went to meet the general, he welcomed him with open arms and even took care to protect him from possible attacks. The alliance between liberals and the Camorra existed for a long time and Romanos’ actions were nothing but the logical conclusion of this agreement.

The historian Alberto Consiglio in the essay La Camorra a Napoli (Duke, 1959) writes: The Camorrists did in practice for the liberal cause, that is for the unity of Italy at least as much, if not more, than the liberals themselves did.

Regarding the money with which their support was bought, considering that it was large sums, the Neapolitan intellectual believed it came from international funding by the powerful anti-bourbon coalition and he states: The entity of the funds that the Camorrists received leaves us suspect that the money should come from outside kingdom.

The operation of the minister of the Interior Liborio Romano, therefore, was not the result of his improper initiative, but it was shared by the revolutionary forces and this is proven by the fact that Garibaldi’s administration confirmed the criminals in the places assigned to them by the minister.

How much their contribution was appreciated by the new Italian governors, is proven by the awards assigned to the criminal organization, to which 75,000 ducats were awarded, formally to be distributed among the neediest, while to their women more visible, Marianna De Crescenzo (sister of Salvatore De Crescenzo, aka the Sangiovannara), Antonietta Pace, Carmela Puritano, Costanza Leipnecher, and Pasquarella Proto, the pro-dictator Giorgio Pallavicino, by decree on October 26, 1860, awarded a pension of 12 ducats per month. These are big sums at that time.

So the seeds were planted of the connections between State entities and criminal organizations, a disease that still plagues Italy today. This beg the question, if the intent of the “northern brothers” was to free the “southern brothers” from their bondages, why they allied themselves with criminal organizations that made these bondages even stronger if they existed? Perhaps the intent of the invasion was a different one, as we’ll see elsewhere in this blog.

Betrayal of the Bourbon officers

It is impossible to believe that Garibaldi conquered a whole kingdom with an army of a thousand men, winning an army of 93,000 men, plus 4 auxiliary foreign regiments as well as the most powerful fleet in the Mediterranean. Probably things went differently from the way the official history books tell us. As we saw earlier, Garibaldi’s mercenaries were not 1000 but many more than that aided directly by the Piemontese army and indirectly by England and France both monetarily and with a show of force by the British fleet protecting the red shirts every step of the way.

To all that, more importantly, you must add the betrayal of key Bourbon army officers that sold themselves to the attacking army.

The landing of the red shirts in Marsala (Sicily) was deliberately “seen” late by the Kingdom of Two Sicilies navy, whose leaders had already passed to the Piedmontese side, and were protected by the English fleet, which with its positioning prevented any possible offense.

Let’s describe a few episodes.

• The generals Francesco Landi in the battle of Calatafimi and Ferdinando Lanza and Giuseppe Letizia in the battle of Palermo ordered the army to retreat for no apparent reason. Lanza did much more. When his troops were almost defeating the invaders (red-shirts), he ordered a cease-fire first for 24 hours, then for 72 hours, to the dismay of his army. This allowed the invaders to regroup and receive aid. Finally, Lanza ordered his troops to retreat to Messina, leaving Palermo in the hands of Garibaldi.
• The only real battle was fought in Milazzo, where Colonel Ferdinando Beneventano Del Bosco led the Bourbon army in a ferocious fight that caused heavy losses on both sides. Specifically, 800 red-shirts and 150 bourbon soldiers. Then an order came from Naples telling the colonel to leave Sicily,

A couple of observations regarding the last point above.

• If we assume that 1000 red shirts landed in Sicily to “free” the South. After the battle of Milazzo, using simple arithmetic we have 1000-800 = 200. So only 200 red shirts were left. These 200 men supposedly fought all the way from Sicily to Naples defeating the organized Bourbon army. We know that it did not work that way, right?
• The colonel was called back to Naples because the young king Franceso II of Naples, was negotiating with king Vittorio Emanuele II of Piedmont a peace treaty with the intent to create a confederation between the two kingdoms. Obviously, this is a Piedmontese trick to buy time. The deception was the name of the game.

Garibaldi’s remorse

Many years later, in his memoirs I Mille, Garibaldi expresses with harsh words his condemnation of the way the kingdom of Sardinia (or better Piedmont, or Savoy) handled the unification of Italy and in particular how the Southern regions were misgoverned. Here are some of his words.

• [Page 107]. But how should you have faith in five hundred individuals, mostly doctors and most but they have done proof so far so bad in governments and parliaments as to make one despair of them? Venal, men who come up from the mud where they are condemned because of laziness and often vice; they come up, I say, by force of cabals and of favoritism, and brazenly sit among the legislators of one nation, with only their individual interest in mind and always willing to sanction every monarchical injustice, thus paying homage to the infamous acts of perverse governments that without that crew of parasites, they would have responsibility for their deeds, while with servile parliaments they are despotic, and appear or pretend to be honest.
• [Page 136]. The Neapolitans like the Sicilians, second to no people for individual intelligence and courage were almost always ill-governed, unfortunately, many times with foreign governments on their necks. And this self-nominated government (by the Savoy) of freedom, does it do better than the others? He could do it! He had to do it! Not even in your dreams!! These ardent and good people who had so much enthusiasm greeted the day of the Risorgimento and the aggregation of the sisters Italian, are today ….. yes, today reduced to cursing those who with so much joy once they called liberators!

On the 5th of December 1861, Garibaldi defined the red shirts in this way:

All generally of bad origin and mostly thieves; and with few exceptions, with genealogical roots in the dunghill of violence and crime.

Garibaldi made that statement during a meeting with the provisional government of Naples in 1861. At that time, Garibaldi was deeply disappointed by the behavior and actions of some of his followers, particularly those who had joined him during his military campaigns in southern Italy.

A note about the support by the British oligarchy. During his stay in London in 1864, Garibaldi recognized the support he received from the British power during his advance, thanking Lord Palmerston and Admiral George Rodney Mundy, head of the empire’s fleet, for this.