Page 331 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

PIETRO MARAVIGNA *

THE FRENCH CAMPAIGN
1870 - 1871

FROM CAPRERA TO DÔLE

«Whatever energy I have got left, I pledge it to France».
In that statement we find Giuseppe Garibaldi’ s entire personality!
He anxiously waited for many weeks before his generous offer received an
answer from the provisional government, and when at last the mysterious,
small ship brought him to France as a fugitive, after dodging the watch of the
Italian government, he, the Commander of the Mille, the General of the
King of Italy, the Dictator of Naples and Sicily, was offered by Gambetta the
command of some companies of volunteers garrisoned in Chambéry.
The Hero of the Two Words opposed a dignified refusal to that proposal,
unmistakably bringing Gambetta back to reality and the latter thought to
have found a suitable position for Garibaldi and offered him the command
«of all the Corps of snipers in the area of the Vosges from Strasbourg to Paris
(sic) and the command of a mobile brigade», an offer that hid its lack of sub-
stantial content in a overblown circumlocution.

* Pietro Maravigna (Catania, 1876 – Rome, 1964), infantry Second Lieutenant in 1896, had his first war
experience in Libya. After attending the War College, he started his activity as writer dealing with tacti-
cal problems. At the beginning of the Great War he was General Staff Major, in 1918 he was assigned to
the Supreme Command with the rank of Colonel. In the post-war period, he taught military history at
the War College. In those years he began an intense scientific activity that led to the publication of many
books. Among these, Studi critici sulla guerra mondiale, (Critical Studies on the World War) Rome, 1922;
Gli italiani nell’oriente balcanico, in Russia e in Palestina, (Italian in the Balkans, Russia and Palestine)
Rome 1923; Guerra e vittoria, (War and Vicotry) Turin, 1927, the latter will have several successive edi-
tions. Those years saw also the production of his most important volume, Storia dell’arte militare moder-
na, (History of Modern Military Art) Turin, 1923, republished many times. He then commanded an
infantry Brigade, then the Gravignana Division, which he led to battle in Ethiopia, and finally the 2 nd
Special Army Corps, with which he concluded this campaign. He then received high-level assignments
and achieved the rank of appointed Army Commander. In the second post-war period, after leaving
active service, he continued his activity as writer and produced several essays of military history and the
volume Come abbiamo perduto la Guerra in Africa, (How We Lost the War in Africa), Rome, 1949.