Page 161 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1860 CAMPAIGN IN SICILY 159

the revolution in Sicily had failed; on the other hand, Governor d’Azeglio,
who in his exaggerated righteousness did not approve such operations, seized
the 15,000 rifles obtained from the subscription raised by the Committee of
the million and deposited by them in Milan in the military depots of the bar-
racks of Via Moscova; all this preoccupied Garibaldi. He received new
encouragement from a letter written by Pilo to Bertani, and delivered by
Raffaele Motta. But when on the 28 th a telegram by Nicola Fabrizi arrived
from Malta (that was later said to have been wrongly deciphered): « a com-
plete failure in the provinces and in the city of Palermo. Many refugees taken
by the English ships arrived in Malta», Garibaldi decided to go back to
Caprera, holding out against Bertani’s insistence and Bixio’s wrath, the latter
threatening to take the command of the expedition. But then a providential
telegram arrived from Malta, that later rumours said Crispi had requested:
«uprising successful in Palermo, still underway in the province. News
obtained from the refugees arrived in Malta on English vessels». And
Garibaldi changed his mind again.
«Then – he said on April 30 th to La Masa in Villa Spinola - we can go
even if we are twenty, provided we go immediately». Only Sirtori warned: «I
disagree, I do not believe we can be successful».
What means did Garibaldi have available to him?
By means of Fauché, managing director of the Rubattino Company, he
had secretly obtained two of its steamboats. La Farina sent him roughly one
thousand rifles of different models, some of them flintlock rifles, real scrap
rifles, as Garibaldi defined them. The volunteers who had come were 1089,
mostly from Lombardy, Liguria, Veneto, Tuscany, Emilia and forty-two
Sicilian exiles, among whom Francesco Crispi. There were professionals and
artists of all sorts; middle-aged men coming from the Austrian or Bourbon
prisons, or former combatants of America, Venice, Sicily, Rome and
Lombardy, and very young people, with the burning desire to give their young
lives for their homeland; thirty three were foreigners, twelve had an unknown
origin; there was even a woman, Rosalia Montmasson, Crispi’s wife.
People and resources were really inadequate to cross the sea, land on an
island and escape the enemy fleet and to fight 25,000 well-equipped soldiers,
with powerful artillery and supported by strongholds. Sirtori’s worries and
Medici’s doubts were therefore justified. But if resources were poor, morale
was high. Garibaldi had the blessing of the whole peninsula. Sicily, the land
of the Vespers, was feverishly waiting for him. It could be said of that expe-