Page 121 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

CARLO ROCCA *

THE 1859 CAMPAIGN

Foreign domination in the Italian peninsula and in the Lombardo-Veneto
region could not be reconciled for long with the sentiment of nationality that
was increasingly making is presence felt: it was therefore inevitable that the
struggle, stopped on the fields of Novara, would soon or later resume.
While the tension between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of
Sardinia, that had kept its distance from the reaction that followed the glori-
ous but ill fated events of 1848-49, the brilliant achievements of the
Sardinian army in Crimea and the ability of the Count of Cavour at the
Congress of Paris increased abroad the sympathies that the small State and its
great king had already acquired in the peninsula.
And it was then that Italians from all parties finally felt the necessity for
peace and the union with Piedmont in the name of Victor Emmanuel: and
from this arose that Societa’ Nazionale (National Society) wholly joined by
Giuseppe Garibaldi since July ‘56, “with a deep conviction of doing the right
thing, convinced that the amalgamation of all political colours could only
result in saving Italy from disaster”.
But, in order to get independence from the foreigner, it was necessary to
prepare public opinion and the armed forces for war, and secure a powerful
ally for the Kingdom of Sardinia. The Austrian government, that had broken

* Carlo Rocca (Oneglia, 1868 - Rome, 1966) was appointed as Second Lieutenant in the Bersaglieri
Corps, was in Eritrea during the 1895-96 campaign. After attending the War College, he was assigned
to the Historical Office of the General Staff Headquarters. Here, under the lead of Alberto
Cavaciocchi, he contributed to the drafting of the official report on the war of independence of 1959.
He then participated in the Libya campaign and in WWI. During the latter, always commanding com-
bat units, he achieved the rank of Brigadier General, under which he had at his orders, one after the
other, the Bologna and Salerno Brigades. After the end of the war, he obtained the rank of Major
General and carried out an intense activity as free-lance journalist and scholar, contributing also to
some encyclopaedias. In 1934 he published the volume Vittorio Veneto, edited by “Corbaccio”
Publishing House, in which he made a fine historical reconstruction of that battle.