He declared to all that his only aim was to complete the splendid work of liberation so happily begun; questions of government would be reserved for the conclusion of the war. Joy was the order of the day, but the fatal mistakes of the campaign had already commenced; there had been inexcusable delay in declaring war; if it was pardonable to wait for the Milanese initiative, it was as inexpedient as it seemed ungenerous to wait till the issue of the struggle at Milan was decided. Then, after the declaration of war, considering that the Sardinian Government must have seen its imminence for weeks, and indeed for months, there was more time lost than ought to have been the case in getting the troops under weigh. Still, at the opening of the campaign, two grand possibilities were left. The first was obviously to cut Radetsky off in his painful retreat, largely performed along country by-roads, as he had to avoid the princ.i.p.al cities which were already free. Had Charles Albert caught him up while he was far from the Quadrilateral, the decisive blow would have been struck, and the only man who could save Austria in Italy would have been taken prisoner. Radetsky chose the route of Lodi and the lower Brescian plains to Montechiaro, where the encampments were ready for the Austrian spring manoeuvres: from this point an easy march carried him under the walls of Verona. Here he met General d"Aspre, who had just arrived with the garrison of Padua. D"Aspre, by skill and resolution, had brought his men from Padua without losing one, having refused the Paduans arms for a national guard, though ordered from Milan to grant them. "You come to tell me all is lost," said the Field-Marshal when they met "No," rejoined the younger general, "I come to tell you all is saved."
This great chance missed, there was another which could have been seized. Mantua, extraordinary to relate, was defended by only three hundred artillerymen and a handful of hussars. It would have fallen into the hands of its own citizens but for the presence of mind of its commandant, the Polish General Gorzhowsky, who told them that to no one on earth would he deliver the keys of the fortress except to his Emperor, and that the moment he could no longer defend it he would blow it into the air, with himself and half Mantua. He showed them the flint and the steel with which he intended to do the deed. Enemy though he was, that incident ought to be recorded in letters of gold on the gates of Mantua, as a perpetual lesson of that most difficult thing for a country founded in revolution to learn: the meaning of a soldier"s duty.
It is easy to see that, if Charles Albert had made an immediate dash on Mantua, the fortress, or its ruins, would have been his, to the enormous detriment of the Austrian position. But this chance too was missed. On the 31st of March, the 9000 men sent with all speed by Radetsky to the defenceless fortress arrived, and henceforth Mantua was safe. Charles Albert only got within fifteen or sixteen miles of it five days later, to find that all hope of its capture was gone.
The campaign began with political as well as with military mistakes.
At the same time that the King of Sardinia was declaring in the Proclamation addressed to the Lombards that, full of admiration of the glorious feats performed in their capital, he came to their aid as brother to brother, friend to friend, his amba.s.sadors were trying to persuade the foreign Powers, and especially Austria, Prussia and Russia, that the only object of the war was to avoid a revolution in Piedmont, and to prevent the establishment of a republic in Lombardy.
No one was convinced or placated by these a.s.surances; far better as policy than so ignominious an attempt at hedging would have been the acknowledgment to all the world of the n.o.ble crime of patriotism. But, as Ma.s.simo d"Azeglio once observed, Charles Albert had the incurable defect of thinking himself cunning. It was, moreover, only too true that, although in these diplomatic communications the King allowed the case against him to be stated with glaring exaggeration, yet they contained an element of fact. He _was_ afraid of revolution at home; he _was_ afraid of a Lombard republic; these were not the only, nor were they the strongest, motives which drove him into the war, but they were motives which, a.s.sociated with deeper causes, contributed to the disasters of the future.
The Piedmontese force was composed of two _corps d"armee,_ the first under General Bava and the second under General Sonnaz: each amounted to 24,000 men. The reserves, under the Duke of Savoy, numbered 12,000.
Radetsky, at first (after strengthening the garrisons in the fortresses), could not put into the field more than 40,000 men. As has been stated, the King a.s.sumed the supreme command, which led to a constant wavering between the original plan of General Bava, a capable officer, and the criticisms and suggestions of the staff. The greatest mistake of all, that of never bringing into the field at once more than about half the army, was not without connection with the supposed necessity, based on political reasons, of garrisoning places in the rear which might have been safely left to the care of their national guards.
Besides the royal army, there were in the field 17,000 Romans, 3000 Modenese and Parmese, and 6000 Tuscans. There were also several companies of Lombard volunteers, Free Corps, as they were called, which might have been increased to almost any extent had they not been discouraged by the King, who was believed to look coldly on all these extraneous allies, either from doubt of their efficiency, or from the wish to keep the whole glory of the campaign for his Piedmontese army.
The first engagements were on the line of the Mincio. On the 8th of April the Sardinians carried the bridge of Goito after a fight of four hours. The burning of the village of Castelnuovo on the 12th, as a punishment for its having received Manara"s band of volunteers, excited great exasperation; many of the unfortunate villagers perished in the flames, and this and other incidents of the same kind did much towards awakening a more vivid hatred of the Austrians among the peasants.
After easily gaining possession of the left (Venetian) bank of the Mincio, Charles Albert employed himself in losing time over chimerical operations with a view to taking the fortresses of Peschiera and Mantua, now strongly garrisoned, and impregnable while their provisions lasted. This object governed the conduct of the campaign, and caused the waste of precious months during every day of which General Nugent, with his 30,000 men, was approaching one step nearer from the mountains of Friuli, and General Welden, with his 10,000, down the pa.s.ses of Tyrol. If, instead of playing at sieges, Charles Albert had cut off these reinforcements, Radetsky would have been rendered powerless, and the campaign would have had another termination. Never was there a war in which the adoption of Napoleon"s system of crushing his opponents one by one, when he could not outnumber them if united, was more clearly indicated.
General Durando crossed the Po on the 21st of April with 17,000 men, partly Pontifical troops and partly volunteers, to which weak corps fell the task of opposing Nugent"s advance in Venetia. The colours of the Pontifical troops were solemnly blessed before they left Rome, but as the order was only given to go to the frontier, and nothing was said, though everything was understood, about crossing it, the Pope was technically able to a.s.sert that the war was none of his making.
His ministry ventured to suggest to him that the situation was peculiar. Now it was that Catholic Austria and Russia, herself schismatic, flourished in the face of the Pope the portentous scare of a new schism. It is said that the Pope"s confessor, a firm Liberal, died just at this time, not without suspicion of poison. Thoroughly alarmed in his spiritual capacity, the Pope issued his Encyclical Letter of the 29th of April--when his ministers and the whole country still hoped from day to day that he would formally declare war--in which he protested that his sacred office obliged him to embrace all nations in an equal paternal love. If his subjects, he added, followed the example of the other Italians, he could not help it: a half-hearted admission which could not mitigate the indignation which the doc.u.ment called forth. With regard to Durando"s corps, the Pope did what was the best thing under the altered circ.u.mstances; he sent L.C. Farini as envoy to the King of Sardinia, with the request that he would take the Roman troops under his supreme command, the Papal Government agreeing to continue the pay of such of them as belonged to the regular army. Pius IX. made one last effort to help his fellow-countrymen which people hardly noticed, so futile did it appear, but which was probably made in profound seriousness. He wrote a letter to the Emperor of Austria begging him to make all things right and pleasant by voluntarily withdrawing from his Italian dominions. Popes had dictated to sovereigns before now; was there not Canossa? Besides, if a miracle was sought, why should not a miracle happen? Pope and Emperor shaking hands over a free Italy and a world reconciled--how delightful the prospect! Who can doubt that when the Pope wrote that letter all the beautiful dreams of Cardinal Mastai carried him once more away (it was the last time) in an ecstasy of blissful hopes? "Let not your Majesty take offence," ran the appeal, "if we turn to your pity and religion, exhorting you with fatherly affection to desist from a war which, powerless to re-conquer the hearts of the Lombards and Venetians, can only lead to a dark series of calamities. Nor let the generous Germanic nation take offence if we invite it to abandon old hatreds, and convert into useful relations of friendly neighbourhood a dominion which can be neither n.o.ble nor happy if it depend only on the sword. Thus we trust in the nation itself, honestly proud of its own nationality, to no longer make a point of honour of sanguinary attempts against the Italian nation, but rather to perceive that its true honour lies in recognising Italy as a sister."
The Emperor received the bearer of the letter with coldness, and referred him to his ministers, who simply called his attention to the fact that the Pope owed the Temporal Power to the same treaties as those which gave Austria the possession of Lombardy and Venetia.
The day after the publication of the Encyclical, that is to say, the 30th of April, the Piedmontese obtained their first important success in the battle of Pastrengo, near Peschiera. Fighting from daybreak to sundown, they drove the enemy back into Verona, with a loss of 1200 killed and wounded. The Austrians were in rather inferior numbers; but the victory was highly creditable to the hitherto untried army of Piedmont, and showed that it contained excellent fighting material. It was not followed up, and might nearly as well have never been fought.
The Neapolitan troops, of whom 41,000 were promised, 17,000 being on the way already, were intended to reinforce Durando"s corps in Venetia. With the two or three battalions which Manin could spare from the little army of Venice, the Italian forces opposed to Nugent"s advance would have been brought up to 60,000 men; in which case not even Charles Albert"s "masterly inactivity" could have given Austria the victory.
The Neapolitan Parliament convoked under the new Const.i.tution was to meet on the 15th of May. A dispute had been going on for several days between the Sovereign and the deputies about the form of the parliamentary oath, the deputies wishing that the Chambers should be left free to amend or alter the Statute, while the King desired that they should be bound by oath to maintain it as it was presented to them. It was unwise to provoke a disagreement which was sure to irritate the King. However, late on the 14th, he appeared to yield, and consented that the wording of the oath should be referred to the discussion of Parliament itself. It seems that, at the same time, he ordered the troops of the garrison to take up certain positions in the city. A colonel of the National Guard raised the cry of royal treason, calling upon the people to rise, which a portion of them did, and barricades were constructed in the Toledo and other of the princ.i.p.al streets. A more insane and culpable thing than this attempt at revolution was never put in practice. It was worse even than that 20th of May at Milan, which threw Eugene into the arms of Austria. Its consequences were those which everyone could have foreseen--a two days" ma.s.sacre in the streets of Naples, begun by the troops and continued by the lazzaroni, who were allowed to pillage to their hearts" content; the deputies dispersed with threats of violence, Parliament dissolved before it had sat, the original Statute torn up, and (by far the most important) the Neapolitan troops, now at Bologna, recalled to Naples. This was the pretty work of the few hundred reckless rioters on the 15th of May.
Had not Pius IX. by this time repudiated all part in the war, the King of the Two Sicilies would have thought twice before he recalled his contingent, though the counsels of neutrality which he received from another quarter--from Lord Palmerston in the name of the English Government--strengthened his hand not a little in carrying out a defection which was the direct ruin of the Italian cause. When the order to return reached Bologna, the veteran patriot, General Pepe, who had been summoned from exile to take the chief command, resolved to disobey, and invited the rest to follow him. Nearly the whole of the troops were, however, faithful to their military oath. The situation was horrible. The choice lay between the country in danger and the King, who, false and perjured though he might be, was still the head of the State, to whom each soldier had sworn obedience. One gallant officer escaped from the dilemma by shooting himself. Pepe, with a single battalion of the line, a company of engineers, and two battalions of volunteers, went to Venice, where they fought like heroes to the end.
On the 27th of May, Radetsky, taking the offensive with about 40,000 men, marched towards Mantua, near which was stationed the small Tuscan corps, whose commander only received when too late General Bava"s order to retire from an untenable position. On the 29th the Austrians, in overwhelming numbers, bore down upon the 6000 Tuscans at Montanara and Curtatone, and defeated them after a resistance of six hours. The Tuscan professor, Giuseppe Montanelli, fell severely wounded while holding the dead body of his favourite pupil, but he recovered to show less discretion in politics than he had shown valour in the field.
Peschiera, where the supplies were exhausted, capitulated on the 30th, and the day after found 22,000 Piedmontese ready to give Radetsky battle at Goito, whence, after a severe contest, they drove him back to Mantua. The Austrians lost 3000 out of 25,000 men. The honours of the day fell to the Savoy brigade, which was worthy of its own fame and of the future King of Italy, who was slightly wounded while leading it. Outwardly this seemed the most fortunate period of the war for Charles Albert, but that had already happened which was to cause the turning of the tide. Nugent, with his 30,000 men, had joined Radetsky. His march across Venetia was hara.s.sed by the inhabitants, who left him no peace, especially in the mountain districts, but the poor little force of Romans and volunteers under Durando and Ferrari was unable to seriously check his progress in the open country, though he failed in the attempt to take the towns of Treviso and Vicenza in his pa.s.sage. The repulse of the Austrians, 18,000 strong, from Vicenza on the 23rd of May, did great credit to Durando, who only had 10,000 men, most of them _Crociati_, as the volunteers were called, whose ideas about fighting were original. It is hard to see how this General could have done more than he did with the materials at his disposal, or in what way he merited the abuse which was heaped upon him. The case would have been very different if his hybrid force had been supported by the Neapolitan army.
Nugent was ordered by Radetsky to let the intermediate places alone, and to come on to him as fast as circ.u.mstances would admit. The junction of their troops was, the Field-Marshal saw, of vital necessity, but when this was achieved, and when Welden had also brought his 15,000 fresh men from Tyrol, he turned his attention to Vicenza, since, as long as that town remained in Durando"s hands, Venetia would still be free. He conceived the bold plan of making an excursion to Vicenza with his complete army, while Charles Albert enjoyed the pleasant illusion that the Austrians were in full retreat owing to his success at Goito. The result of Radetsky"s attack was not doubtful, but the defence of the town on the 10th of June could not have been more gallant; the 3500 Swiss, the Pontifical Carabineers, and the few other troops belonging to the regular army of the Pope did wonders. Cialdini, the future general, and Ma.s.simo d"Azeglio, the future prime minister, fought in this action, and the latter was severely wounded. After several hours" resistance there was nothing to be done but to hoist the white flag; Radetsky"s object was accomplished, the Venetian _terra firma_ was practically once more in the power of Austria. On the 14th he was back again at Verona without the least harm having happened in his absence.
Only military genius of the first order could now have saved the Piedmontese, and what prevailed was the usual infatuation. Charles Albert"s lines were extended across forty miles of country, from Peschiera to Goito. On the 23rd of July the Austrians fell upon their weakest point, and obliged Sonnaz" division to cross over to the right bank of the Mincio. On the 24th, the King succeeded in dislodging the Austrians from Custozza after four hours" struggle; but next day, which was spent entirely in fighting, Radetsky retook Custozza, and obliged the King to fall back on Villafranca. Now began the terrible retreat on Milan, performed under the ceaseless fire of the pursuers, who attacked and defeated the retreating army for the last time, close to Milan, on the 4th of August. Radetsky had with him 45,000 men; Charles Albert"s forces were reduced to 25,000. He had lost 5000 since he recrossed the Mincio. He begged for a truce, and, defeated and undone, he entered the city which he had vowed should only receive him victorious.
To suppose that anything could have been gained by subjecting Milan to the horrors of a siege seems at this date the veriest madness; whatever Charles Albert"s sins were, the capitulation of Milan was not among them. The members of a wild faction, however, demanded resistance to the death, or the death of the King if he refused. It is their severest censure to say that their pitiless fury is not excused even by the tragic fate of a population which, having gained freedom unaided less than six months before, saw itself given back to its ancestral foe by the man in whom it had hoped as a saviour. They saw crimes where there were only blunders, which had brought the King to a pa.s.s only one degree less wretched than their own. Crushed, humiliated, his army half destroyed, his personal ambition--to rate no higher the motive of his actions--trodden in the dust; and now the name of traitor was hissed in his ears by those for whom he had made these sacrifices.
Stung to the heart, the King instructed General Bava to tell the Milanese that if they were ready to bury themselves under the ruins of the city, he and his sons were ready to do the same. But the Munic.i.p.ality, convinced of the desperateness of the situation, had already entered into negotiations with Radetsky, by which the capitulation was ratified. On this becoming known, the Palazzo Greppi, where Charles Albert lodged, was the object of a new display of rage; an attempt was even made to set it on fire. During the night, the King succeeded in leaving the palace on foot, guarded by a company of Bersaglieri and accompanied by his son, the Duke of Genoa, who, on hearing of his father"s critical position, disobeyed the order to stay with his regiment, and came into the city to share his danger.
The next day, the 6th of August, the Austrians reentered Milan. They themselves said that the Milanese seemed distraught. The Munic.i.p.ality was to blame for having concealed from the people the real state of things, by publishing reports of imaginary victories. Had the unthinking fury of the mob ended, as it so nearly ended, in an irreparable crime, the authors of these falsehoods would have been, more than anyone else, responsible for the catastrophe.
The campaign of 1848 was finished. From the frontier, Charles Albert issued a proclamation to his people, calling upon the Piedmontese to render the common misfortunes less difficult to bear by giving his army a brotherly reception. "In its ranks," he concluded, "are my sons and I, ready, as we all are, for new sacrifices, new hardships, or for death itself for our beloved fatherland."
The political and diplomatic transactions connected with the war in Lombardy were the subject after it closed of much discussion, and of some violent recriminations. Even from the short account given in these pages, it ought to be apparent that the supreme cause of disaster was simply bad generalship. Contemporaries, however, judged otherwise; if they were monarchists, they attributed the failure to the want of whole-hearted co-operation of the Provisional Governments of Lombardy with the liberating King; if they were republicans, they attributed it to the King"s want of trust in the popular element, and anxiety lest, instead of receiving an increase of territory, he should find himself confronted with a new republic at his door. Both parties were so far correct that the strain of double purposes, or, at least, of incompatible aspirations which ran through the conduct of affairs, militated against a fortunate ending. The Piedmontese Government, even had it wished, would have found it difficult to adhere strictly to the programme of leaving all political matters for discussion after the war. What actually happened was that the union, under the not altogether attractive form of Fusion with Piedmont (instead of in the shape of the formation of an Italian kingdom), was effected at the end of June and beginning of July over the whole of Lombardy and Venetia, including Venice, where, perhaps alone, the feeling against it was not that of a party, but of the bulk of the population. Manin shared that feeling, but his true patriotism induced him to push on the Fusion in order to avoid the risk of civil war. He retired into private life the day it was accomplished, only to become again by acclamation Head of the State when the reverses of Sardinia obliged the King"s Government to renounce the whole of his scarcely--acquired possessions, not excepting Modena, which had been the first, by a spontaneous plebiscite, to elect him Sovereign.
The diplomatic history of the war is chiefly the history of the efforts of the English Cabinet to pull up a runaway horse. Lord Minto had been sent to urge the Italian princes to grant those concessions which Austria always said (and she was perfectly right) would lead to a general attack upon her power, but when the attack began, the British Government strained every nerve to limit its extension and diminish its force. That Lord Palmerston in his own mind disliked Austria, and would have been glad to see North Italy free, does not alter the fact that he played the Austrian game, and played it with success. He strongly advised every Italian prince to abstain from the conflict, and it is further as certain as anything can well be, that his influence, exercised through Lord Normanby, alone averted French intervention in August 1848, when the desperate state of things made the Italians willing to accept foreign aid. What would have happened if the French had intervened it is interesting to speculate, but impossible to decide. Their help was not desired, except as a last resource, by any party in Italy, nor by any man of note except Manin.
The republicans wished Italy to owe her liberation to herself; Charles Albert wished her to owe it to him. The King also feared a republican propaganda, and was uneasy, not without reason, about Savoy and Nice.
Lamartine would probably have been satisfied with the former, but it is doubtful if Charles Albert, though capable of giving up his crown for Italy, would have been capable of renouncing the cradle of his race. When Lamartine was succeeded by Cavaignac, perhaps Nice would have been demanded as well as Savoy. That both the King and Mazzini were right in mistrusting the sentiments of the French Government, is amply testified by a letter written by Jules Bastide to the French representative at Turin, in which the Minister of Foreign Affairs speaks of the danger to France of the formation of a strong monarchy at the foot of the Alps, that would tend to a.s.similate the rest of Italy, adding the significant words: "We could admit the unity of Italy on the principle and in the form of a federation of independent states, each balancing the other, but never a unity which placed the whole of Italy under the dominion of one of these states."
Whether, in spite of all this, a political mistake was not made in not accepting French aid when it was first offered (in the spring of 1848) must remain an open question. When the French came eleven years later, they were actuated by no purer motives, but who would say that Cavour, instead of seeking, should have refused the French alliance?
One other point has still to be noticed: the proposal made by Austria in the month of May to give up Lombardy unconditionally if she might keep Venetia, which was promised a separate administration and a national army. Nothing shows the state of mind then prevailing in a more distinct light than the scorn with which this offer was everywhere treated. Lord Palmerston declined to mediate on such a basis "because there was no chance of the proposal being entertained,"
which proved correct, as when it was submitted to the Provisional Government of Milan, it was not even thought worth taking into consideration. No one would contemplate the sacrifice of Venice by a new Campo Formio.
Far, indeed, was Austria the victorious in August from Austria the humiliated in May. On the 9th of August, Hess and Salasco signed the armistice between the lately contending Powers. The next day the Emperor Ferdinand returned to his capital, from which he had been chased in the spring. He might well congratulate himself upon the marvellous recovery of his empire; but the revolution in Hungary was yet to be quelled, and another rising at Vienna in October tried his nerves, which were never of the strongest. On the 2nd of December he abdicated in favour of his young nephew, the Archduke Francis Joseph, who had been brought face to face more than once on the Mincio with the Duke of Savoy, whom he rivalled in personal courage.
On the 10th of December, another event occurred which placed a new piece on the European chess-board: Louis Napoleon was elected to the Presidency of the French Republic.
CHAPTER VII
THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES
1848-1849
Garibaldi Arrives--Venice under Manin--The Dissolution of the Temporal Power--Republics at Rome and Florence.
While the remnant of the Piedmontese army recrossed the bridge over the Ticino at Pavia, crushed, though not though want of valour, outraged in the person of its King, surely the saddest vanquished host that ever retraced in sorrow the path it had traced in the wildest joy, a few thousand volunteers in Lombardy still refused to lay down their arms or to recognise that, after the capitulation of Milan, all was lost. Valueless as a fact, their defiance of Austria had value as a prophecy, and its prophetic aspect comes more clearly into view when it is seen that the leader of the little band was Garibaldi, while its standard-bearer was Mazzini. These two had lately met for the first time since 1833, when Garibaldi, or "Borel," as he was called in the ranks of "Young Italy," went to Ma.r.s.eilles to make the acquaintance of the head and brain of the society which he had joined, as has been mentioned, on the banks of the Black Sea.
"When I was young and had only aspirations," said Garibaldi in London in April 1864, "I sought out a man who could give me counsel and guide my youthful years; I sought him as the thirsty man seeks water. This man I found; he alone kept alive the sacred fire, he alone watched while all the world slept; he has always remained my friend, full of love for his country, full of devotion for the cause of freedom: this man is Joseph Mazzini."
The words spoken then--when the younger patriot was the chosen hero of the greatest of free nations, while the elder, still misunderstood by almost all, was shunned and calumniated, and even called "the worst enemy of Italy"--gave one fresh proof, had one been wanting, that, though there have been more flawless characters than Garibaldi, never in a human breast beat a more generous heart. Politically, there was nearly as much divergence between Mazzini and Garibaldi as between Mazzini and Cavour; the master thought the pupil lacked ideality, the pupil thought the master lacked practicalness; but they were at one in the love of their land and in the desire to serve her.
On parting with Mazzini in 1833, Garibaldi, then captain of a sailing vessel, went to Genoa and enrolled himself as a common sailor in the Royal Piedmontese Navy. The step, strange in appearance, was certainly taken on Mazzini"s advice, and the immediate purpose was doubtless to make converts for "Young Italy" among the marines. Had Garibaldi been caught when the ruthless persecution of all connected with "Young Italy" set in, he would have been shot offhand, as were all those who were found dabbling with politics in the army and navy. He escaped just in time, and sailed for South America.
The _Gazzetta Piemontese_ of the 17th of June 1834 published the sentence of death pa.s.sed upon him, with the rider which declared him exposed to public vengeance "as an enemy of the State, and liable to all the penalties of a brigand of the first category." He saw the paper; and it was the first time that he or anyone else had seen the name of Giuseppe Garibaldi in print; a name of which Victor Emmanuel would one day say that "it filled the furthest ends of the earth."
Profitable to Italy, over nearly every page of whose recent history might be written "out of evil cometh forth good," was the banishment which threw Garibaldi into his romantic career of the next twelve years between the Amazon and the Plata. Soldier of fortune who did not seek to enrich himself; soldier of freedom who never aimed at power, he always meant to turn to account for his own country the experience gained in the art of war in that distant land, where he rapidly became the centre of a legend, almost the origin of a myth. Antique in simplicity, singleness, superabundance of life, and in a sort of naturalism which is not of to-day; unselfconscious, trustful in others, forgiving, incapable of fear, abounding in compa.s.sion, Garibaldi"s true place is not in the aggregation of facts which we call history, but in the apotheosis of character which we call the _Iliad_, the _Mahabharata_, the _Edda_, the cycles of Arthur and of Roland, and the _Romancero del Cid_.
In childhood he rescued a drowning washerwoman; in youth he nursed men dying of cholera; as a veteran soldier he pa.s.sed the night among the rocks of Caprera hunting for a lamb that was lost. No amount of habit could remove the repugnance he felt at uttering the word "fire." Yet this gentle warrior, when his career was closed and he lay chained to his bed of pain, endorsed his memoirs with the Spanish motto: "La guerra es la verdadera vida del hombre." War was the veritable life of Garibaldi; war, not conspiracy; war, not politics; war, not, alas!
model farming, for which the old chief fancied in his later years that he had discovered in himself a vocation.
Riding the wild horses and chasing the wild cattle of the Pampas, his eyes covering the immense s.p.a.ces untrodden by man, this corsair of five-and-twenty drank deep of the innocent pleasures of untamed nature, when not occupied in fighting by land or sea, with equal fortune; or rather, perhaps, with greater fortune and greater proof of inborn genius as commander of the naval campaign of the Paran[=a] than as defender of Monte Video. No adventures were wanting to him; he was even imprisoned and tortured. In South America he found the one woman worthy to bear his name, the lion-hearted Anita, whom he carried off, she consenting, from her father and the man to whom her father had betrothed her. Garibaldi in after years expressed such deep contrition for the act which bore Anita away from the quiet life in store for her, and plunged her into hardships which only ended when she died, that, misinterpreting his remorse, many supposed the man from whom he took her to have been already her husband. It was not so. Shortly before the Church of San Francisco at Monte Video was burnt down (some twenty years ago), the marriage register of Garibaldi and Anita was found in its archives, and a legal copy was made. In it she is described as "Dona Ana Maria de Jesus, unmarried daughter of Don Benito Rivevio de Silva, of Laguna, in Brazil." The bridegroom, who during all his American career had scarcely clothes to cover him, parted with his only possession, an old silver watch, to pay the priest"s fees. Head of the Italian Legion, he only took the rations of a common soldier, and as candles were not included in the rations, he sat in the dark. Someone reported this to the Government, who sent him a present of 20, half of which he gave to a poor widow.
When the first rumours that something was preparing in Italy reached Monte Video, Garibaldi wrote a letter offering his services to the Pope, still hailed as Champion of Freedom, and soon embarked himself for the Old World, with eighty-five of his best soldiers, among whom was his beloved friend, Francesco Anzani. Giacomo Medici had been despatched a little in advance to confer with Mazzini. At starting, the Legion knew nothing of the revolution in Milan and Venice, or of Charles Albert having taken the field. Great was their wonder, therefore, on reaching Gibraltar, to see hoisted on a Sardinian ship a perfectly new flag, never beheld by them out of dreams--the Italian tricolor.
So Garibaldi returned at forty-one years of age to the country where the sentence of death pa.s.sed upon him had never been revoked. Before the law he was still "a brigand of the first category." Nor was he quite sure that he would not be arrested, and, as a precaution, when he cast anchor in the harbour of his native Nice, he ran up the Monte Videan colours. It was needless. Throngs of people crowded the quays to welcome home the Ligurian captain, who had done great things over sea. Anita was there; she had preceded him to Europe with their three children, Teresita, Menotti and Ricciotti. There, also, was his old mother, who never ceased to be beautiful, the "Signora Rosa," as the Nizzards called her. She was almost a woman of the people, but the simple dignity of her life made all treat her as a superior being. To her prayers, while she lived, Garibaldi believed that he owed his safety in so many perils, and after her death the soldiers used to say that on the eve of battles he walked apart communing with her spirit.
From Nice, Garibaldi went to Genoa, where he took a last leave of his friend Anzani, who returned from exile not to fight, as he had hoped, but to die. The day before he expired, Medici arrived at Genoa; he was very angry with the Chief, in consequence of some disagreement as to the place of landing. Anzani said to him entreatingly: "Do not be hard, Medici, on Garibaldi; he is a predestined man: a great part of the future of Italy is in his hands." The counsel from dying lips sank deep into Medici"s heart; he often disagreed with Garibaldi, but to his last day he never quarrelled with him again. Long years after, if friction arose between Garibaldi and his King, it was Medici"s part to throw oil on the waters.