Page 159 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1860 CAMPAIGN IN SICILY 157

Flores (Filippo) brigade: 1 line regiment, 2 batteries, 2 pioneer companies;
Rodriguez brigade: 1 line regiment, 2 artillery companies.
Supplementary Division: Field Marshal Clary.
Grand total of forces: 21,000 men and 64 pieces.

The Navy was large and well equipped. But young officers were all in
favour of liberal ideas, and senior officers were incompetent and with just a
few followers. Little or nothing was done to strengthen order and discipline
and to increase professional education. However, it was a serious and fearful
obstacle for the Sardinian army: a very serious one for those who, like
Garibaldi, ventured with just two ships from Quarto to Marsala.
It was formed as follows: steamboats: 11 frigates, 5 corvettes, 6 brigan-
tines; sailing boats: 2 warships with 60 cannons, 3 warships with 44 cannons,
1 corvette with 44 cannons, 2 brigantines with 18 cannons and about anoth-
er 60 different ships.
The dregs of society mostly formed the police, on whom the monarchy
relied, and therefore they were overbearing, arrogant, and brutal and at the
same time wicked.
They were so hated that even seventy years later the old folk in Sicily still
remembered the cops and the “taschittara” (spies or informers).
Their leader was the Marshal, whose name the Sicilians still remember
very well. Although loathed, De Cesare’s critical opinion about him is cor-
rect: «He exerted his office for 11 consecutive years, without any interrup-
tion. He was the only official that did his duty to the very end, barricading
himself in the royal palace with General Lanza when Garibaldi arrived, and
leaving the palace only after the capitulation...
A rigorous absolutist, sincerely devoted to the Bourbons, convinced that
any revolutionary attempt had to be put down without mercy, and convinced
that, apart from a few turbulent people, the populations of Sicily wanted
only public order, low taxation, religious festivals and an easy and inexpen-
sive life, he did his duty to the last. He could not see the political problem.»
He died in Marseilles, in May 1864. Crispi defined him: “a man of rare
intelligence, but with limited education”.
These resources could be used by the Bourbon monarchy in the great
tragedy that took place in Sicily in 1860, and that then had its direct contin-
uation in the continental part of the kingdom.