Giuseppe Garibaldi, born in Nice[1], July 4, 1807 and died in Caprera (Kingdom of Italy), June 2, 1882, is an Italian politician, nicknamed the Hero of Two Worlds.
His parents, originally from the Genoa region, settled in Nice. But, from the age of 7, in 1814, he became a subject of Victor-Emmanuel I, since Nice returned to the House of Savoy because of the first article of the Treaty of Paris. Joseph and his family acquired French nationality by virtue of the treaty of March 24, 1860 (article 6 a contrario). His father was a captain in the merchant navy, his brothers merchants or traders. At fifteen, he enlisted as a cabin boy and made his first trip to Odessa. It was at the age of 18, in 1825, that he discovered Rome. This trip to Rome is for him a revelation, but also a disappointment:the Rome of the popes, bloodless, corrupt is very different from the one he imagined. Rome then becomes an obsession.
In 1833, while he was second-in-command of the Clorinda, he made a trip to the Black Sea during which he discovered Mazzini's "Young Italy" movement.
In February 1834, he was commissioned by Mazzini to provoke an uprising at the arsenal of Genoa. It is a failure following which he will be condemned to death in absentia. In December 1835, he embarked for Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. After a few years of commercial activities, in 1838 Garibaldi became commander-in-chief of the naval forces of the Republic of Rio Grande do Sul. In 1839, he met Anita who would become his wife in 1842.
It was during the defense of Montevideo in 1843 that the Italian legion he commanded put on the red shirt (a garment originally intended for workers in Argentine slaughterhouses). This red shirt is an essential element of the Garibaldian myth, but we must also mention the gaúcho hat and the pampas poncho.
When the revolution broke out in Italy in 1848, Garibaldi, whose reputation preceded the coming, offered his sword to the King of Sardinia and henceforth identified his destiny with that of Italy. He then became the hero of the Risorgimento wars against Austria to rid Italian soil of the foreign presence in Lombardy-Venetia (wars against Austria, 1848, 1849, 1859, epic of the Roman Republic and the artisan of the Italian unification, from the Alps to Sicily.
The flight from Rome and the death of Anita
During the Roman Republic, Garibaldi was the most important and brilliant general of the Roman army, formed by Italians from all over the peninsula and also by foreigners (mainly Swiss). On February 8, 1849, the Roman Republic was proclaimed. Garibaldi, who was appointed brigadier general of the Roman Republic, defeated the French on April 30. He animates the resistance from June 3 to July 3. Faced with well-trained and equipped French troops, he resisted for a month in a trench battle when he was rather used to guerrilla actions. He thus shows once again his genius. With the end of the Roman Republic, Garibaldi left the city with the intention of joining Venice where the Republic of Venice was still resisting the Austrians. Pursued by his enemies, he took refuge in San Marino on July 31. On August 2, 1849, the town of Cesenatico supplies Garibaldi with supplies and provides him with 13 fishing boats so that he and his men can reach Venice by sea.
On August 3, he was forced to land in the marshes of Comacchio (Po delta), to deposit there, in a small fisherman's house, his wife Anita, seriously ill and who died there on August 4.
Garibaldi managed to escape his pursuers. But discouraged and wounded in his pride, he embarks again for America. After a brief period in New York (July 1850 - March 1851) where he worked in the candle factory of Antonio Meucci, the inventor of the telephone, he returned to Peru to enlist as a captain in the navy and travel the world:Lima, China, Manila, Australia...
Garibaldi's Thousand:The Sicily Expedition
In 1858-1859, Garibaldi was commissioned by Cavour to constitute troops which would later become the corps of Hunters of the Alps with the rank of major-general.
In March 1860, he was elected deputy of Nice. On April 15, Nice becomes French. Garibaldi resigns from his mandate, unable to accept the idea of the "barter of Nice".
From April to May 1860, it is a question of bringing together volunteers and fixing the main strategic lines and the logistical support of the operation, the number of volunteers is difficult to know, but close to a thousand, which gave its legend name to business.
The embarkation of the troops takes place on May 5 and 6 in Genoa, in Quarto, and the journey begins in disorder with the loss of the barges loaded with ammunition and food. On May 11, the squadron arrived in Sicily and disembarked at Marsala, benefiting from the protection of two British ships at the entrance to the port.
On the big island, the fighting turned to the advantage of the Garibaldians, helped by new volunteers from Sicily and Piedmont:they won the victory of Calatafimi over the troops of François II on May 15, 1860, seized Palermo on May 27 and overcome a Neapolitan counter-offensive near the Strait of Messina, in Milazzo, on July 20. Since May, Garibaldi has proclaimed himself dictator (in the Roman sense of the word) and, in June, declared abolished the power of the King of Naples over Sicily. From then on, Garibaldi wanted to continue his conquest on the continent and march on Naples. This was the case, after a long political crisis between Garibaldi and Cavour, since the first, unlike the second, did not want to cede Savoy and Nice to the France of Napoleon III.
On March 14, 1861, the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed.
In 1862, clashes took place between the Garibaldians and the Piedmontese troops.
In 1866, recalled by the government, he was given command of an army corps. The armistice was signed with the Austrians on July 25, 1866.
In 1867, Garibaldi was a leftist and anticlerical candidate for the legislative elections. He was arrested and placed under house arrest on his island of Caprera (acquired in 1855) in September, from which he escaped in October 1867 to resume his fight against the French and papal troops.
He will have to wait for the defeat of the French Empire and the capitulation of Napoleon III on September 2, 1870 for Rome to be conquered by Italian troops on September 20, 1870. On October 2, 1870, Rome is attached to Italy following a plebiscite. Garibaldi's Italian dream is realized, but the motives for combat still exist and in particular the defense of the Republic.
The battles of France
The National Defense Committees, under the leadership of Gambetta, appealed to Garibaldi. In 1870, he put his sword in the service of France during the Franco-German war, On November 25 and 26, with his two sons, Ricciotti and Menotti, at the head of 10,000 French skirmishers of the Armée des Vosges, he won a victory at Dijon (Battle of Dijon). It was on this occasion that he became the only French commander to have achieved a victory against the Prussians.
In February 1871, Garibaldi was elected, without having been a candidate, to the French National Assembly as deputy for Côte-d'Or, Paris, Algiers and Nice. In Paris, he comes in fourth position behind Louis Blanc, Gambetta and Victor Hugo. He will however decline his mandates, hurt by the reception of the new monarchist majority of the Chamber, which will lead to the resignation of Victor Hugo from his own mandate as a sign of support. On March 10, the corps of Garibaldian volunteers was dissolved. On the 15th he returned to Caprera. On the 24th, the insurgents of the Commune appeal to Garibaldi to take their lead, but the old hero declines the proposal.
It was not until 1876 that Garibaldi accepted a pension from the Italian state.
Garibaldi therefore remained one of the figures of Nice separatism. About the attachment of Nice to France by the Second Empire and the nascent Third Republic, he declared:I do not recognize in any power on earth the right to alienate the nationality of an independent people and I protest against the violence done to Nice with corruption and brute force by reserving for me and my fellow citizens the right to claim my native country, so that the rights of nations are not empty words. Having chosen to go into exile from Nice so as not to suffer from seeing the French occupation and annexation of his homeland, he refused to set foot there again until Nice had become a sovereign nation (the return of Nice to France was part of a secret agreement between Camillo Cavour and Napoleon III that would lead to the Treaty of Turin (1860).
He died on June 2, 1882 on the island of Caprera.
Symbolic testament of Joseph Garibaldi:“I bequeath:my love for Freedom and Truth; my hatred of lies and tyranny”.