The Roman Republic of 1849. We Are Again Romans
Second of a 4-part series

The first test came quickly, on April 30. Rome’s defenders numbered around 7,000 men: 2500 defecting Papal troops and Carabinieri; Garibaldi’s First Italian Legion, about 1300 men; some 1400 men from Roman volunteer regiments; and an assortment of inexperienced National Guards, citizens and students, armed with whatever they could find. Garibaldi had been put in charge of defending the Janiculum—Rome’s ‘eighth’ hill and its highest, most crucial point, being west of the Tiber bordering the Trastevere district, but inside the city walls. Should it fall, the French attackers could bombard the city below at their leisure. Finally, unarmed citizens built ramparts and aided the wounded, particularly the revolutionary Princess Cristina Belgioioso, who took charge of the hospitals. One of her first acts was to put Margaret Fuller, whom she had met previously, in charge of the Fate Bene Fratelli hospital sited on an island in the Tiber River.

On the other side were the French—also with about 7,000 fully-equipped troops, confident that with their first cannonade, Rome’s defenses would melt like so much butter. So cocky were the invaders that they brought field artillery but no siege-guns or scaling ladders. Their plan was to enter by the Porta Pertusa, unaware that that gate no longer existed. Garibaldi, meantime, saw that, due to the high ground outside the walls, batteries there could easily bombard defenders below, so he set his defenders outside the critical San Pancrazio gate, on the high ground of the Villa Corsini and the Pamfili Villa behind it. Thus, when General Oudinot’s forces reached the non-existent Pertusa gate, they had to change plans and attack the Porta Cavalleggieri farther south. This meant they had to move downhill and over a thousand yards of open country—easily fired upon by troops on the wall and batteries near St. Peter’s. By around noon, the ini- tial French attack was stalled, though not driven away.

Now it was Garibaldi’s turn. Watching from the Corsini Villa, he never hesitated, but ordered an offensive to turn the initial stall of the French into a defeat in the open field. To do so, his soldiers had to charge down from the Pamfili Gardens and cross a walled lane connecting the Porta San Pancrazio with the main road to Civitavecchia. Up this lane marched about 1,000 French infantry. Garibaldi’s students and artists suddenly found themselves combating an army of veterans, and soon had to retreat. The situation quickly grew perilous: both Corsini and Pamfili were being overrun, and their loss would be devastating. Garibaldi sent for reinforcements—about 800 volunteers under Colonel Galletti, who, alongside Garibaldi, led the Italian Legion’s charge to recap- ture the two villas. Here is how Trevelyan describes it:

Swarming over the Corsini hill, and across the little stream and valley that divide it from the Pamfili grounds, the Legionaries came crashing through the groves. The Garibaldian officers, ‘the tigers of Montevideo,’ with long beards, and hair that curled over their shoulders, were singled out to the enemy’s marks- men by red blouses, falling almost to the knees. This was the day that they had waited for so long in exile, this the place towards which they had sailed so far across the ocean. Behind them Italy came following on. And above the tide of shouting youths, drunk with their first hot draught of war, rose Garibaldi on his horse, majestic and calm as he always looked, but most of all in the fury of battle, the folds of his white American poncho floating off his shoulders for a flag of onset. (132)

The Italians dislodged the French from Corsini and pursued them down into nearby vineyards, where “after fierce struggling, body to body, with guns, and hands, and bayonets” they put the French to flight. Nor was that all. The main body of the French was so slow in retreating that nearly 400 were taken prisoner. Coupled with the 500 French soldiers killed that day, this capture of prisoners made the rout—Oudinot and his ‘invincible’ army were fleeing towards Civitavecchia—both complete and sweet. And the people of Rome knew it:

That night the city was illuminated, the streets were filled with shouting and triumphant crowds, and there was scarcely a window in the poorest and narrowest alley of the mediaeval slums that did not show its candle. It was no vulgar conquest which they celebrated. After long centuries of disgrace, this people had recovered its self-respect, and from the highest to the lowest ranks men felt, “We are again Romans.” (Trevelyan, 134)

Sadly, Garibaldi’s superiors did not understand, or did not wish to understand the situation he had presented them. Retreating on unfamiliar ground, the French should be pursued, he argued, and driven into the sea; the whole of Italy could be aroused. But Mazzini gave greater weight to two considerations. First, imposing total defeat on the French might be satisfying, but it would further alienate Louis Napoleon, and Mazzini still hoped the French would come to their senses and aid a fellow republic fighting for liberty. Second, Rome’s leaders worried about the other armies closing in on them—King Ferdinand’s Neapolitan army advancing from the south, and Austrian forces driving down from the north. If Garibaldi were to march forty miles to Civitavecchia, Rome would be left without her most capable defender. It was the first, but not the last quarrel that would divide the two titans of Italian unification. In the end, the soldier had to yield to the statesman.

Now the Roman forces had to face the threat from the south. King Ferdinand, with an army of 10,000 men, was camped a mere 20 miles from Rome near two cities in the Alban Hills, Frascati and Albano. Still worried about another French attack, Rome’s military leadership under General Avezzana decided it could spare only 2300 soldiers, mostly Garibaldi’s Legion, some students, and one experienced troop, Luciano Manara’s Lombard Bersaglieri. The latter had fought the previous year in the famous “five days” of Milan, suffered the loss to the Austrians, and then headed to Rome. Blocked at Civitavecchia by the French, they were only able to gain passage by promising not to fight. Though they honored their pledge by staying out of the April 30 battle, they were now eager to show what they were made of.

Garibaldi saw that it was fool- hardy to make a frontal attack on such a large force, so he chose to employ his guerrilla tactics—to harass Ferdinand’s army so it could not move on Rome. Marching at night, Garibaldi feinted north from Tivoli before he turned south to his real target, Palestrina, where he set up headquarters on May 7. When they saw what they faced, the Neapolitans sent General Lanza and Colonel Novi to dislodge this “bandit” hampering their advance. But Garibaldi did not wait to be attacked, sending Manara’s Bersaglieri to attack first. So shocked were the Neapolitans by Garibaldi’s offensive that the battle was over in three hours, with the enemy in full flight—Lanza’s right wing abandoning towns right and left and not stopping till they reached Ferdinand’s headquarters on the Alban lake; Novi’s left wing retreating first to Colonna and then to Frascati.

Once again, however, Rome’s leaders stopped Garibaldi’s advance and recalled him, fearing a new move by General Oudinot. They were mistaken. Oudinot was awaiting reinforcements. To disguise this, Louis Napoleon sent Ferdinand de Lesseps (of later Suez Canal fame) as an envoy, allegedly to try to arrange a peace between Roman leaders and Pius IX. On May 17, the Assembly and the Triumvirate agreed to halt hostilities to give de Lesseps time; but what they really did was give the French time—first for Oudinot to be reinforced; then for elections that would increase the power of French Catholics in Paris favoring the invasion. Both would prove fatal to Rome’s survival.

For the moment, though, a truce reigned and Garibaldi took advantage of it by having red shirts—to become a sacred symbol of Italian unification—made for all of his legionnaires (previ- ously, only his officers had them). The triumvirate also took advantage of the truce to again try to drive Ferdinand’s army out of Roman territory. They pro- moted Garibaldi to Division General, but still kept him under General Roselli, the Commander- in-Chief. This, too, would have disastrous consequences because Roselli, though decent, was a conventional, timid commander. Thus the Roman army moving south now combined mismatched elements. As Trevelyan notes:

The army moved with the uncomfortable and jerky motion of a man with an excitable dog on a leash; Garibaldi dashed about in front locating and engaging the enemy, and then was forced to wait till Roselli came sulkily lumbering up with the bulk of the troops. (153)

So though he had a force five times the one Garibaldi had led earlier, Roselli still chose to avoid a direct attack, harassing the enemy’s flank instead. Impatient with the lumbering army’s pace, Garibaldi raced ahead to see what the enemy were up to. It turned out that, intimidated, “King Bomba” was in full retreat. To Garibaldi, the only danger was that the enemy would escape, so he moved to cut them off by attacking with an advance guard, simultaneously calling for Roselli to rush up to finish the job. It was a breach of discipline, but absolutely justified in his mind: by disrupting the Neapolitan retreat, he could, once joined by Roselli, strike a decisive blow for Rome, and, possibly, all of Italy.

Garibaldi placed his advanced force outside Velletri where an engagement demonstrated his inflexible will. A troop of Angelo Masina’s mounted lancers, pursuing enemy soldiers, met a large column of cavalry. With Masina absent at another post, his untested cavaliers fled back towards where Garibaldi was watching, with the enemy in hot pursuit. So angered was the General by this that he, along- side his giant companion Aguiar, sat on horseback like a statue, blocking the road. Unable to halt or turn, the cavaliers smashed into the two immovable objects, and went tumbling down, Garibaldi at the bottom. Fortunately, some young Legionnaires fighting nearby raced to the rescue. When the Neapolitan troops realized that they were in the middle of the “red devil’s” troops, they fled, leaving thirty prisoners, and, with Masina’s lancers pursuing, were driven up into the town of Velletri. Before even the first of Roselli’s reinforcements began to show up, Garibaldi’s men were laying siege to the town.

When the Commander-in-Chief arrived, however, far from rejoicing in Garibaldi’s gains, he focused on the disciplinary breach in initiating battle without orders. Sulking, he refused to attack that evening, or position troops, as Garibaldi suggested, to halt the enemy retreat. Unhindered, Ferdinand’s army stole out of the southern gate of Velletri at night, and fled to safety.

Garibaldi now sensed that King Ferdinand’s rule would not survive an invasion, and urged an all-out attack. It was a repeat of the French situation. Mazzini, worried about the Austrians who had just seized Bologna and were advancing towards Rome, recalled Roselli and half the army, allowing Garibaldi, under-manned, to pursue Ferdinand for the time being. Garibaldi’s troops were welcomed in town after town as deliverers, crossing into Neapolitan territory at a town called Rocca d’Arce. Instead of allowing their Achilles to pursue his advantage and bring the whole of southern Italy into the uprising (Garibaldi always believed this would have happened), however, the Triumvirs, fearing the Austrians, once again recalled him to Rome.

With no choice but to obey, Garibaldi re-entered Rome at the end of May, followed by his exhausted troops between May 30 and June 2. With Rome secure, all anticipated a long- deserved rest, but it was not to be. Neither was the strategy Garibaldi favored: guerrilla war in the mountains. As Trevelyan puts it:

Mazzini’s dream was to be realized instead—the fiery martyrdom of the Republic in one supreme scene of defiance and death. (160)

For General Oudinot’s reinforcements had arrived, and the treacherous siege of Rome by 30,000 French regulars was about to begin (treacherous, because on the very day de Lesseps had signed a treaty with the Triumvirs agreeing that the French would protect Rome from Austria and Naples, Oudinot was outside Rome beginning his siege.)

Continue to The Third Part

Lawrence DiStasi
copyright © 2011

Lawrence DiStasi is the author of Mal Occhio: The Underside of Vision, The Big Book of Italian American Culture, and Una Storia Segreta: The Secret History of Italian American Evacuation and Internment During World War II. DiStasi and novelist Dorothy Bryant will be speaking at the Museo Italo Americano in San Francisco on March 6, 2011, 2 pm in a program called “Two American Women of the Risorgimento.” Bryant, author of Anita Anita!, will speak on Anita Garibaldi; DiStasi will speak on Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Both women were in Rome in 1849.

Please RSVP to the Museo at (415) 673-2200. Space is limited.