Giuseppe Garibaldi Essay Example for Free

Giuseppe Garibaldi Essay Giuseppe Garibaldi was born in 1807 and lived until the year 1882. As an Italian revolutionary and irregular general, he began his long and varied livelihood as a revolutionary striving for the liberation as well as the unification of Italy by joining in Giuseppe Mazzini’s vain revolt at Genoa in 1834. Forced to leave Piedmont, he run away to South America where he spent the subsequent fourteen years, gaining knowledge and experience fighting in various battles. First, he grappled as a guerrilla general plus as a privateer for the province of Rio Grande Del Sol against Brazil, and then he served as a commander of an Italian legion in support of Uruguay against Argentina (Panero, 2005, 3). At the time when Italy rose in insurrection in 1848, he came back and raised 3,000 men to assist the king of Piedmont that is, Carlo Alberto. Obligated to flee the country yet again, subsequent to defeat at the first battle of Custoza, Garibaldi soon returned to manage the defense of the last remnants of the revolution that was-Mazzini’s Roman republic. He was able to hold off the collective armies of the French, Austrians, Spanish, along with the Neapolitans for a number of weeks. Nevertheless, the republic finally came down and Garibaldi runaway to America (Panero, 2005, 5). Despite the fact that Garibaldi fought for Piedmont for the duration of the Franco-Austrian war of 1859, he is perhaps greatly remembered for his role in conquering the monarchy of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In May of the year 1860, he set out to liberate southern Italy from the suppressive rule of King Francis II. On 11th May, he arrived with his so called Red shirts at Marsala, Sicily, and ruined the Neapolitan army in numerous battles. He then went on to cross the Stratits of Messina on 22nd August and moved up the peninsula, being greeted ardently by the people along the way. On 7th September, his forces took over Naples (George, 1911, 12). In March 1861, Garibaldi gave up his conquest to King Vittorio Emanuele of Piedmont in order to realize his lifetime dream of having a united and independent kingdom of Italy. Even though most of the Italian peninsula was under the decree of Vittorio Emanuele, the Papal States remained apart. In August 1862 as well as in January 1867, he endeavored to take Rome. These attempts failed due to French interference, and the Papal States were only integrated into the kingdom whilst the French withdrew their troops in 1870. Garibaldi had won a signal conquest. He gained worldwide fame and the praise of Italians. Faith in his prowess was so strong that uncertainty, perplexity, and dismay seized, sadly, even the Neapolitan court. Six weeks later, he marched alongside Messina in the east of the isle. There was a fierce and difficult battle at Milazzo, however Garibaldi won through. By the end of July, only the citadel refused to give in. Having finished the invasion of Sicily, he crossed the Strait of Messina, with the aid of the British Navy, and thus marched northward. Garibaldi’s progress was met with more festival than resistance, and on 7th September, he entered the capital city of Naples, via train. In spite of taking Naples, however, he had not to this point defeated the Neapolitan army (Riall, 2007, 9). Garibaldi’s volunteer army was not capable of defeating conclusively the reorganized Neapolitan militia at the Battle of Volturno. This was the biggest battle ever fought, but its outcome was in effect decided by the arrival of the Piedmontese Army. Following this, Garibaldi’s plans to protest on to Rome were jeopardized by the Piedmontese, technically his ally but unwilling to risk hostilities with the French, whose army sheltered the Pope. Garibaldi sustained his career as a general by ruling Italian troops, with some triumph, all through the Austo-Prussian war of 1866, which resulted in Austria surrendering Venetia to the kingdom of Italy (Farmer, 2006, 4). He again commanded an Italian volunteer force, this time in support of the new-fangled French republic during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 to 1871. After the war, Garibaldi led a political party that fought for the capture of Rome, the peninsula’s antique capital. In 1867, he again rallied on to the city, but the Papal militia, supported by a French supplementary force, proved a match for his ill-armed volunteers. He was shot and consequently wounded in the leg on the Aspromonte, taken captive, held prisoner for a time, and then again brought back to Caprera. When the Franco-Prussian battle broke out, Italian public outlook heavily favored the Prussians, and several Italians tried to sign up as volunteers at the Prussian embassy in Florence. After the French defense force was recalled from Rome, the Italian armed forces captured the Papal States without Garibaldi’s aid. Subsequent to the wartime collapse of the Second French Empire at the combat of Sedan, Garibaldi, undaunted as a result of the recent hostility shown to him by the men of Napoleon III, changed his support toward the newly-declared French Third Republic. Consequently, Garibaldi went to France and assumed authority of the Army of the Vosges, a militia of volunteers that was on no account ever defeated by the Prussians (Panero, 2005, 24). Despite being elected once more to the Italian parliament, Garibaldi spent a great deal of his late years in Caprera, a small island off the coastline of Sardnia. He nevertheless supported an ambitious project of land recovery in the marshy region of southern Lazio. In 1879 he founded the League of Democracy advocating worldwide suffrage, the closure of ecclesiastical property, and maintenance of the standing militia. Though confined to a bed by arthritis, he made several trips to Calabria and Sicily. In 1880 he married Francesca Armosino, with whom he had in the past born three children with (Riall, 2007, 13). After the finale, Garibaldi’s long career as a warrior came towards an end. After serving some years as a deputy for Rome in the Italian parliament, he spent his very last years on a farm in Caprera writing narratives. Significance and Influence of Giuseppe Garibaldi Giuseppe Garibaldi devoted most of his life to the cause of Italian harmony. His utmost triumph was the 1860 overthrow of the Kingdom of Naples, the incident which hastened Italian unification. In May of that year, Garibaldi arrived in Sicily with a volunteer force of one thousand and seventy men. Within two weeks this force had captured the city of Palermo, forcing the surrender of an army of 20,000 patrons. In August, Garibaldi crossed over to the Italian mainland, routing the Neapolitan militia in a series of conquests and capturing Naples itself within the same month. Garibaldi’s March turned out to be one of the grand legends of the nineteenth century mutually because of the genius with which Garibaldi prevailed over vast military odds, and, just as importantly, because of the powerful political symbolism of the occasion in an age in which ethnic and cultural groups more than ever responded to nationalism’s call in a Europe still dominated by the dynastic rule blocs of an earlier era. There can be no uncertainty that the March, whose progress was fervently followed in United States against the European dynastic oppression, was viewed in this nation as a great vindication of the right of the individual to political self-rule. It also encouraged Southern leaders to political leaders in their progress towards secession at exactly the time when accounts of Garibaldi’s exploits come out in the American press. Nor is it by chance that in 1876 Wade Hampton’s followers, in their opposition to the continued existence of Federal troops in South Carolina, appropriated the name of Garibaldi’s followers, the Red Shirts, for themselves (George, 1911, 67). Garibaldi’s fame, his skill at inspiring the common people, and his military exploits are all credited with making the amalgamation of Italy possible. He also served as a global exemplar during the mid-19th century revolutionary patriotism and liberalism. But following the deliverance of southern Italy from the Neapolitan monarchy, Garibaldi chose to forfeit his liberal republican values in favor of unification. Garibaldi subscribed to the anti-clericalism which was ordinary among Latin liberals and did a great deal to circumscribe the temporal supremacy of the Papacy. His personal religious beliefs are unclear to historians. In 1882 he wrote the book ‘Man created God, not God created Man’, however, this conflicted with what he wrote in his autobiography as there, he claimed to be a Christian. Nonetheless, an active freemason, Garibaldi had little use for practices, but thought of masonry as a system to connect progressive men as brothers both within nations and also as members of a global society. He was eventually elected the ostentatious master of the Grand Orient of Italy. When Giuseppe Garibaldi died at Caprera in 1882, five ships of the Italian Navy were named after him, among which a World War II cruiser, the existing flagship, and the aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi as well (Farmer, 2006, 17). Statues of his portrait, as well as the handshake of Teano, stand in many Italian squares, and furthermore in other countries around the world. There is also a statue of Garibaldi on horse-back on top of the Gianicolo hill in Rome. His face was initially turned in the direction of the Vatican. This was as a representation of the illusion to his aspiration to conquer the Papal States, but after the Lateran Treaty in 1929 the direction of the statue was altered upon the request of the Vatican (George, 1911, 106). Book reviewers have cited Garibaldi as being the only admirable figure in every respect in modern history. In its admiration for example, the Nottingham Forest which was a team of English football designed their sporting kit after the uniform worn by Garibaldi along with his men and have since worn a variation of this design since being established in 1865. The Garibaldi biscuit was also named after him, as was a distinct style of bread. The Giuseppe Garibaldi Trophy has been awarded per annum since 2007 within the Six Nations rugby union structure to the champion of the match between France and Italy, in remembrance of Garibaldi. Work Cited Farmer Allan. How was Italy Unified? Allan Farmer Examines the Processes which Led to the Unification of Italy. History Review, 2006, pp. 4, 17 George Trevelyan. Garibaldi and the Making of Italy. Rome, Longmans, Green, 1911, pp. 12, 67, 106 Panero James. Giuseppe Garibaldi: My Life, New Criterion, Vol. 23, 2005, pp. 3, 5, 24 Riall Lucy. Garibaldi: The First Celebrity. History Today, Vol. 57, 2007, pp. 9, 13