Page 81 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1849 CAMPAIGN 79

and they were ordered to march along a difficult and hard route, through the
mountains of the Sabina region, Arsoli and Subiaco. And to think that some
weeks later, the Republic would be saved precisely by that despised legion!
After a long march, with a stop in the open on the high grounds of
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Arcinazzo, the legionnaires reached Anagni on April 20 . Five days later, a
dispatch by Giuseppe Avezzana, the newly elected Minister of War now
replacing the Committee, informed Garibaldi that the French were about to
disembark at Civitavecchia and that his presence was immediately requested
in Rome. At the same time, the commander received the rank of Brigadier
General, in command of the emigrant’s corps.
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On the eve of April 27 , Garibaldi’s legion, led by his general, entered
Rome through Porta Maggiore, between two lines of enthusiastic people, to
whom Garibaldi’s name meant hope and promise.

THE ROMAN REPUBLIC

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Since March 5 , Giuseppe Mazzini had reached Rome and the Assembly
had granted him the citizenship and appointed him as member of the
Assembly on the grounds of one of its first deeds; in fact, from the day of his
arrival, this eminent exile became the first citizen and the real political head
of the newly established State. And also when, at the end of March, the
Assembly entrusted the government and defence of the Republic to a
Triumvirate formed by Mazzini, Saffi and Armellini, Mazzini always direct-
ed the actions of his two colleagues, as the first Consul Bonaparte had direct-
ed the politics of Sieyès and Ducos.
The triumvirate had been established under events that had followed one
another swiftly, one more threatening than the other for the existence of the
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young Republic. Already on February 18 , Cardinal Antonelli, the Pope’s
Secretary of State, had addressed a note to the Catholic powers – Austria,
France, Spain and Naples (Piedmont had been excluded on purpose) - in
which he openly asked for immediate armed aid to restore the temporal
power of the Pope. King Ferdinand of Naples, proud of his new moral posi-
tion as the Pope’s protector, could not believe that he would precede Austria
and France in serving the Holy See with his armed forces. Austria, engaged
in the new war against Piedmont, waited for some weeks to pledge its inter-