Page 154 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

152 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

snowy mountains of the Stelvio and the Tonale and mentioning that if there
was an operation deemed important to be carried out by a battalion it would
be given to him and added: “Garibaldi can do a great deal with a battalion”.
The particular geniality of the leader could not be better expressed.
On July 7 the Cialdini Division was called back to the Army and the
defence of the alpine valley was given to Garibaldi. But at this point the war
was suddenly approaching its end.
The morning of July 8, the armistice agreements were signed in
Villafranca, and later came the peace preliminaries that the King signed with
the famous clause: “J’accepte pour ce qui me concerne” that would allow in
a short time the annexation of Tuscany, the Dukedoms and Emilia to the
Kingdom of Sardinia.
Since the reason that led to the sudden interruption of the victorious
march of the allies was unknown at the time – but evident today – this caused
a burning pain to the Italians. If even the Count of Cavour had moments of
bewilderment in those days, Giuseppe Garibaldi, always sustained by a prodi-
gious faith in the future of Italy, maintained a strong equilibrium. He trans-
ferred his headquarters from Tirano to Lovere, after encouraging the Italians
in an orderly book not to show downheartedness but to increase the ranks
and manifest to Europe that, under the leadership of the brave Victor
Emmanuel, they were again ready to face the vicissitudes of war, however it
presented itself. In a proclamation of the 23 rd he stated explicitly that:
“When returning to your houses, and the love of your family, do not forget
the gratitude we owe Napoleon and the heroic French nation, whose many
brave sons are still lying on their bed of pain, wounded and mutilated for the
Italian cause”.
The words of gratitude for Napoleon III - that we can really say were
ahead of their time by tens of years – show how Garibaldi, used to never
despair and was gifted with an intuition that often seemed prophetic, was
really one of the very few who kept a clear vision, foreseeing how the fortune
of Italy would shortly come from that premature peace.
This mention of the Emperor greatly displeased the progressive parties of
the time so much so that quite a few written documents have mutilated that
very noble proclamation.
The peace preliminaries had left unsettled the questions of the Dukedoms,
the Legations and Tuscany from which the Sardinian Commissars had to be