Page 192 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

190 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

June 2 nd th - General Letizia and Colonel Bonopane went to Naples.
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After coming back to Palermo, Bonopane gave Landi a letter that he had
signed that ordered, once the extension truce expired, to promptly leave the
royal palace and the internal part of the city and to gather at the Quattro
Venti in the evening, from 20:30 to 21:30. Moreover, Letizia and Bonopane
informed Lanza that after the agreement between the King and Garibaldi, the
truce was “extended indefinitely, and that it was their duty to establish the
conditions of this truce between the two fighting Parties”.
In short, Letizia and Bonopane, and the latter in particular, had taken the
initiative to portray the situation of Palermo to King Francis as very danger-
ous for the royal forces, and they persuaded him to abandon the city, to save
the army, since the army would have been probably necessary for possible
military actions on the continent. Lanza had been cut out from these nego-
tiations; the King, who was a meek person, had agreed to meet the above-
mentioned possibility and also to avoid an «immensely bloody» reconquest of
Palermo, as Lanza wrote. He however hoped that, by keeping Messina, the
island could be reconquered at a more opportune time, as had already been
the case in 1849, thanks to Filangieri.
th
With the convention of June 6 , after 32 days, the first phase of the
Mille’s expedition was concluded.
th
On the 5 , the Agnetta column, after disembarking in Marsala with about
one thousand rifles and 56 volunteers, and the Orsini column, coming from
Corleone, had arrived in Palermo.
Admiral Persano, too, dropped the anchor of his ships in the waters of
Palermo on the 5 th and officially communicated with Garibaldi. He had with
him La Farina, the president of the National Company and Cavour’s emissary.

th
June 7 -19 th - Garibaldi proclaimed himself as dictator, established a
State Department, issued a decree for the conscription, deliberated to organ-
ize his forces as an appendix of the Sardinian army, and formed the 15 th
division, Türr, of 4 battalions, with the surviving Mille and the Sicilians.
He also organized the National Guard, with five legions, for the public
order service in the capital, and on the 13 th he disbanded the Sicilian squads,
that were becoming too dangerous for public order.
From the 8 th to the 19 th the Bourbon troops boarded their ships; they
had lost 4 officers and 205 soldiers who had died, 33 officers and 529 sol-
diers who had been wounded.