Italy’s Unification Greatest Commander: Giuseppe Garibaldi two worlds hero

Garibaldi is considered a true hero of the Italian Risorgimento (ie: the fight and struggle for liberation and unification of Italy), recognized internationally. No one better than him embodies, between lights and shadows, the values of pre-unification Italian patriotism.

In 1824, at the age of 16, he enlisted on a merchant ship in Nice, his hometown, and for a decade traveled the Mediterranean and Black Seas, trading and dodging pirate attacks.

In 1832, at the age of 25, Giuseppe Garibaldi, already captain of a merchant ship, comes into contact with the republican and patriotic ideas of Giuseppe Mazzini (one of the fathers of the unification of Italy), the following year he attempts to ignite a revolution republican in Genoa but fails and is forced into exile with a death sentence on his shoulders. 

In September 1835 he embarks for Rio de Janeiro: he remains in South America for 12 years, from 1836 to 1848. In these years, the American continent is going through an intense period of revolts, which has a strong impact on the career of Giuseppe Garibaldi. 

Garibaldi decides to participate in the political events of Brazil, enlisting as a volunteer captain of a vessel of the Republic of Rio Grande do Sul, in which a democratic and secessionist revolt is underway.

In Brazil he meets eighteen-year-old Anita Maria Ribeiro da Silva who, although married, decides to flee with the leader and will remain his wife and fighting companion until her death.

First in Brazil and then in Uruguay, Garibaldi learns a series of guerrilla tactics that would come in handy later, against armies totally unprepared to face them such as the French and Austrian ones.
Giuseppe Garibaldi becomes a professional rebel: an individualist who will continue to wear the gaucho costume of the Pampas throughout his life, considering his life as a continuous battle for freedom.

At the end of 1848, when Pope Pius IX flees from Rome, threatened by the liberal forces of the papal states who are giving life to the Roman Republic, Garibaldi is in Rome with his Legion: on 30 April he defends Rome near the Gianicolo in a particularly memorable clash with the French troops, there to support the Pope.
Garibaldi, thanks to the reinforcements received, reconquered positions lost in the previous days: Villa Corsini and Villa Pamphili.
Oudinot, commander of the French expedition, threatened with encirclement, retreats towards Civitavecchia, chased for a short distance by Roman patriots.
In the evening, the people of Rome is rejoicing and cheering under countless lights. 

In July, after a truce of a few weeks, the French defeated the forces defending the Roman Republic, weakened by a long siege, entered Rome and Garibaldi fled towards San Marino together with his wife Anita.

Pursued by the Austrians he heads towards the Apennines but in the escape Anita is mortally wounded and Garibaldi loses his beloved companion of a thousand battles and mother of his four children on 4 August 1849: her mortal remains now rest in Rome on the Gianicolo hill in the basement of her equestrial monument.

Garibaldi’s fame as a patriot runs throughout the country and his supporters multiply.

Traveling around the world following his rebellious spirit, Garibaldi discovers that he is admired and respected in distant and different countries and continents.
He returns to Italy and decides that the Savoy Monarchy is the best candidate for the reunification of the country.

In 1860 he began the most spectacular undertaking of his adventurous life: the conquest of Naples and Sicily.
The expedition of the Thousand begins on May 6th in Genoa, from where Garibaldi’s men reach Marsala on May 11th. In the name of Vittorio Emanuele II, Giuseppe Garibaldi proclaimed himself dictator of Sicily on 14 May in Salemi.
He goes up the island towards the north, crosses the Strait of Messina and without finding much resistance on 7 September, after a real lightning campaign, Giuseppe Garibaldi enters Naples as a triumphant, proclaiming himself “Dictator of the Two Sicilies”: the spanish monarchy of the Borboni definitively defeated.

Giuseppe Garibaldi remains one of the most effective masters of military guerrilla tactics in history, responsible for many of the military victories of the Risorgimento: a patriot and a nationalist, who nevertheless sees patriotism as a means to liberate the masses, not to dominate other peoples.