Page 201 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1860 CAMPAIGN IN SICILY 199

incompetence of the Bourbon Staff and the “human” initiatives of General
Letizia and Colonel Bonopane;
3° - The uprising of the Sicilians and the steady, enthusiastic and disinter-
ested support they gave to Garibaldi;
4° - Garibaldi’s expedition;
5° - The enlightened work of the Piedmontese diplomacy, that is, Cavour
and Victor Emmanuel, with the more or less manifest help they gave to the
expedition from the outside.
Pasquale Villari correctly wrote: “When the Mille set sail from Quarto,
there was a Kingdom in northern and central Italy. When they entered
Palermo with the Sicilian squad, the unification had been accomplished”.
Garibaldi’s masterpiece, the undertaking of the Mille, was in fact the deci-
sive event for the unification of Italy.

MILITARY CONSIDERATIONS

A) THE OPERATIONS OF THE ROYAL FORCES

The direction of the war by the Bourbon government and its generals and
admirals could not have been worse, from both the political and the military
point of view. They found a way, with a numerous and well armed fleet, to
allow Garibaldi to disembark his troops, he who had ventured at sea with only
two unarmed vessels; and on land, they found a way to almost annihilate an
Army Corps of 25,000 men, equipped with artillery, supported by fortresses
and with the sea available for their operations, from where reinforcements,
troops and all sorts of supplies could have arrived and indeed did arrive.
Among the vessels of the fleet in Stromboli, the Partenope and Capri ships
were not able to do anything definite and useful in the battle of Milazzo. All
the rest of the fleet remained in Naples, and was not used.
Among the land forces, perhaps just about two thousand men fought at
Calatafimi and about 4,000 in Milazzo; in Palermo, just isolated columns of
a few hundred men fought here and there.
Who conducted the Bourbon troops? It is difficult to say, since nobody
really did, they did not have a Supreme Commander.
The King, from Naples, gave some advice, perhaps suggested by Filangieri
or Nunziante, but always in a quiet and less than resolute way; sometimes his