Page 28 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

26 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

need to be lead. The original thought of a master such as the commander of
the Mille on these topics is obviously for us more precious than any other.
Garibaldi, from his own populist origin and the characteristic imprint of
improvised commander, must have felt an overwhelming satisfaction in lead-
ing irregular and randomly recruited forces. His own philosophical concept
of war in general, considered by him as an expression of strength exclusively
in the service of a noble and high human ideal, and his aversion to all that
had the flavour of a military profession or methodical and permanent profes-
sional training, make of him the more real and greater proponent of the ten-
dency to “voluntary service”, that emerges with insistent regularity in the
whole of the Italian military history, as one of the most singular features of
our national character. On the other hand, he was no doubt the most perfect
champion of that numerous band of commanders of irregulars that emerged
in Italy since the dawn of our Risorgimento and that, in the great patriotic
burst of ‘48-’49, shone brightly in the glorious names of (to mention only the
most important) Luciano Manara and Pietro Fortunato Calvi and in the large
group of braves who immortalised themselves on the Gianicolo, like shiny
satellites of the Garibaldi star.
The greatest merit of Garibaldi is that, its American war ventures (consist-
ing very much of action and little or nothing of talk or theories) put an
indelible mark of reliability and functionality on the conduct of irregular
troops, bravely freeing himself of all that rubbishy literature, half romanti-
cism and half doctrine, that spread in Italy and everywhere else at the begin-
ning of last century with the pretext of regulating the “war fought by populist
bands” that was the dream of the democracy of that time and that was the
cause of much disappointment for our Country in the tragic events of 1848
in northern Italy. Garibaldi, as a true born commander, while demonstrating
his ability to mark, as no one else, the power of his genius and the charm of
his personality with a special ability in the art of leading irregular and volun-
tary troops on the field, also placed at the basis of this ability from the start
of his first American ventures, as an absolutely necessity, the sense of subor-
dination and discipline and, most of all, the powerful moral incentive of a
diffuse consciousness to be fighting for a higher ideal.
With no discipline and ideals, the volunteer, this typical war tool in which
all moral strength should vibrate at the highest degree, becomes a common
mercenary, that is, a very bad soldier who will surrender at the first change of