by Lucy Riall
Overall, these letters offer vivid confirmation of a huge popular response to Garibaldi, at least among the literate urban population of northern and central Italy, and they prove that the Thousand were a fraction of a much more substantial group. We know that at least 21,000 men eventually made it to fight with Garibaldi;119 Bertani's correspondence reveals that many more sought to go and were turned down. Offers continued to come in to his committees throughout July and August, and were still arriving as late as November and December.120 The first major expedition to follow Garibaldi to Sicily, which was led by Medici and took around 2,500 men to Sicily on 9 June, was already full by the end of May.121 On 23 May, after Garibaldi's calls for volunteers had been published in the northern papers but before the news of the victory at Calatafimi was known, a sympathiser in Milan wrote to Bertani asking him what to do with the ‘numerous young men’ wanting to join Garibaldi: ‘around two hundred of them and they besiege me every day … Until now I have been trying to calm them down by telling them to wait and that the moment will come and they will be told … [but] these brave boys are very impatient and … their only aim is: to join Garibaldi.’122 On 6 June, Giovanni Cadolini, who was helping in Cremona to organise the Medici expedition, told Bertani: ‘I am now tired of holding on to these young men, who are impatient with the uncertainty of leaving from one hour to the next’; indeed, if he had not treated with caution the official instructions to encourage volunteers, ‘I would have here several hundred men from the provinces without knowing where to send them’.123 In Tuscany too, the pressure of volunteers was so great that a Florentine activist telegraphed Garibaldi asking him to send ‘two or three steamships’ to Livorno in order to move them south.124 Later in June, doctors, pharmacists and other employees had to be told that all further expeditions were full: ‘that we already have lots of doctors’; ‘we don't need pharmacists’; or ‘you can be of use to the Fatherland where you are’.125 But many volunteers did not take no, or no reply, for an answer, and repeated their offers, sometimes more than once; and they wrote to Bertani of their disappointment – ‘We had everything ready’126 – or insisted on their patriotic zeal: ‘we are ready to leave at any moment … if I had to walk day and night … I am ready for that sacrifice’.127 Others blamed their local committee for their failure to be accepted.128 The strain on Bertani, who was already suffering from nervous exhaustion, was seemingly immense: he was ill with a cough for most of June, and unable to eat or speak properly. So, when a complaint came in from Mantua about the failure to take volunteers from this Austrian-held town, it is no surprise that he scribbled crossly on the back of the letter: ‘not everyone can go to Sicily: they should adapt themselves to the sacrifice which the fatherland requires’.129
The number and enthusiasm of volunteers in 1860 suggests that Garibaldi had succeeded in at least one of his political objectives in 1859–60. His speeches, appearances and actions from 1848 onwards had established a volunteer tradition in northern and central Italy; that is, he had created and publicised a national–military ethos and ideal to which (some) people now felt a passionate and practical commitment. That participation in the war in Sicily was perceived by many as an act of national belonging and political identification is confirmed by the language which they use. Writers don't just beg to join Garibaldi, they seek to put their familiarity with nationalist discourse on display. Thus, Sicilians are ‘unhappy’ and ‘our brothers’, whose cry for liberation must be answered (and by late June, Sicily is the ‘land of Heroes’); the Bourbons are ‘cowards’, the ‘tyrant oppressors, enemies of our nationality, and independence’; and Garibaldi is ‘our General’, ‘our Leonida’, ‘the brave’ and ‘illustrious’ ‘Hero of Varese’ and ‘of Italian freedom’. The writers, as we have seen, are ‘fervent’, seeking nothing less than to offer their lives for the ‘sacred’ or ‘holy’ cause of Italian freedom.130
One of the earliest letters, addressed to Garibaldi and written by someone who had already tried twice to join him (in Tuscany in 1859), spoke of the need to ‘help rise again to freedom’ the ‘sister … provinces’ (i.e. Sicily), and of his desire to fight, ‘even as a simple soldier to be worthy of the esteem of the greatest General, an esteem which I would jealously guard, and to be able to distinguish myself with great acts or to die’. All he wanted, he added, was to serve his country ‘and to have from you, illustrious General, a word which I seek above all others, a bravo!’131 The use here of Risorgimento tropes and symbols – the fight to recover liberty; the nation as family; the virtues of martyrdom; heroism as its own reward – may be crude, but it is also exemplary. ‘It is better to die than to see our brothers oppressed by the Bourbon yoke’, one volunteer told Bertani at the end of May;132 ‘if I was rich I would offer you gold, to amass firearms, and with that my life, but I am poor and for the fatherland I can offer only my arm and my blood’, another one wrote two weeks later.133 A philosophy student from Alessandria even quoted Garibaldi at Bertani: ‘every time that the saying of the Valiant Man of Como and Varese comes to mind, that is: that he who is capable of carrying arms, and does not do so, is a coward and a traitor, I feel myself going red, so for this reason I have a great desire to serve my Fatherland’.134 The language of these letters tells us that those writing had read the letters and propaganda put out by Bertani et al. The letters offer us clear proof of the circulation and use of nationalist discourse in northern and central Italy, and demonstrate a broad engagement with its symbols and ideals.
As ever, however, we must be careful about what we read into the evidence offered by the volunteers' letters. A degree of self-interest or just a simple desire to fight on the part of the volunteers in 1860 can never be entirely excluded. It is clear from the letters that many saw the war in Sicily as part selfless act of national heroism, part adventure with some violence thrown in, and part economic prospect. Some, indeed, openly requested a job in the administration, or in the work of fortification and reconstruction; most of the officers wanted to keep their grades; and as many asked for financial help in getting to Genoa as actually paid for their passage. And it may well be that this combination of emotional resonance and material opportunity best explains the appeal of the whole experience in Sicily. In this respect, the volunteers seemed able to embrace and repeat the propaganda put out by Garibaldi, who presented the war as an inclusive adventure which would glorify all those who participated in it, while ignoring his insistence that they should expect no reward for their actions.
Furthermore, while the volunteers' letters show passionate commitment to the nationalist cause, and a clear identification of the enemies of Italy, there are few hints in them that the volunteers saw Garibaldi as in any way a distinct symbol, different from the Italy represented by Vittorio Emanuele.135 Indeed, it is hard to see how they could have done, given that the expedition made persistent appeals to the idea of national integration, and had Italia e Vittorio Emanuele as its slogan. Moreover, these letters wrote repeatedly of ‘liberty’ and ‘independence’; but there are far fewer references to the need for political unification, even less mention of Rome and Venice, and none at all of the Republic. We can conclude then that the soldiers of 1860 heard the call, identified the enemy and even learnt the language of nationalism, but that they were plainly unable to grasp the details of the democratic message, as these were never made clear, or were never clearly distinguished from the ideals embodied by the king and Piedmont. With the benefit of hindsight, it is hard not to see in these letters also a significant slip in political communication. On a discursive level, and especially if we look at the reception of the nationalist discourse in 1860, we can still observe the reliance of Garibaldi on Piedmont, and foresee his eventual defeat at the hands of Cavour.
The enthusiasm of foreigners
After the expedition to southern Italy was over, the owner of The Illustrated London News wrote personally to Garibaldi. She sent him ‘two volumes containing pictorial representations of your wonderful progress from Melazzo t
o Naples’, and remarked that her late husband, the previous owner, had ‘never omitted an opportunity of despatching Artists to follow you and record in pictures your bold and patriotic deeds’. These pictures had been sent all over the world, she added, and she assured Garibaldi that ‘the Artists and Correspondents of this paper will be found wherever your sense of patriotism leads you in future’.136 Garibald's success with the press was discussed in the previous chapter, and we have also seen the extent to which press reports and illustrations were picked up and elaborated in poems, plays, histories and memoirs in the course of 1860 and afterwards. But the enthusiasm of foreigners for Garibaldi did not stop at plays and publications. Many also expressed their support for him through practical means – namely, the sending of men and money – and by writing directly to Garibaldi to state their admiration for his person and approval of his actions.
Figures suggest that the amount of money sent by the British to Garibaldi was substantial: between them, the Emancipation of Italy Fund and the Garibaldi Fund raised some £30,000 (just under £2 million in present-day figures) between 1856 and the end of 1860.137 That Garibaldi became a public cause for British liberals in 1860 is also suggested by various displays of gift-giving. Both Florence Nightingale and Charles Dickens gave money (along with the duke of Wellington's son; however, his donation was anonymous), and the Athenaeum, a gentleman's club in London, raised £300 (c. £19,000) in one night. In Darlington, a Garibaldi Fund Soirée was organised, with the profits from ticket sales going to the Garibaldi Fund; and in Glasgow, a special Working Men's Fund for Garibaldi was set up by John McAdam to consider ‘how we can best support the Middle Class Friends of the Cause, who have already remitted to Italy and are preparing for another still larger remittance’.138
In fact, Garibaldi's campaign provided the occasion for a host of associative activities. Meetings were held, money was collected and addresses composed in support of Garibaldi. In Staffordshire, some inhabitants of the potteries town of Burslem got together to open a shilling subscription for Garibaldi, and they raised £500 by the end of the year (which suggests that a possible 10,000 people contributed); they also wrote him a letter in which they expressed both their pleasure that the Italians were rejecting Roman Catholicism and ‘despotism’ and their ‘profound admiration’ of ‘the heroic and statesmanlike qualities displayed by the generous and gallant Garibaldi’.139 A group in Blackburn sent him £5, and a carefully composed address which described Garibaldi as:
the noblest of nature's Sons, and the greatest Prince among her Peoples … whose heart is set on ‘Liberty’ whose sympathies are even with the oppressed, whose sacred hand is never raised save in vindication of rights … ever ready to face danger and death for the overthrow of despotism, and the defence of the just liberation of the People.140
‘[T]he men of Sheffield assembled in the Town Hall’ on 11 June simply sent a letter to Garibaldi in which they told him of their ‘great interest’ in events in Italy, expressed their suspicion of ‘grasping ambition’ and diplomacy, and expressed their sympathy ‘with the oppressed people of Italy, who have shown themselves so patient, and so faithful, so prudent and so brave in this great crisis’:
we hail, with all humane and free-minded men, the success of the brave attempt that has, so far, made Sicily free: and we are anxious to tell you that hundreds of thousands of Englishmen think that the course that you have taken was as wise as it was brave, and that it will be as really useful as it was most truly great … and we pray that you may outlive the storm, and sit down at last, in the cool of the day, with a free and united Italy to teach the people the arts of a lasting peace as faithfully and as well as you have taught the arts of a just and manly war.141
William Johnson, the secretary of the Southampton Athenaeum, wrote on behalf of its members – ‘the loving and loyal subjects of our devoted and beloved Queen Victoria (under whose beneficient reign we enjoy perfect freedom)’ – to offer Garibaldi ‘their most hearty congratulations’ for his liberation of the people of Italy ‘from a cruel and oppressive tyranny’ (this latter phrase was underlined in red pen).142
There was similar activity in New York, from where an estimated $100,000 (c. $2.3 million in presentday figures) was sent to Italy between 1859 and 1860.143 Two Italian committees (one under Garibaldi's old colleague, General Avezzana) were set up there in late 1859 and successfully organised subscriptions and other fund-raising activities for the Million Rifles Fund; these were joined by a third committee of prominent Americans which convened with great publicity in the City Assembly Rooms in February 1860. During the summer, publicity for Garibaldi was widespread. There was a concert in aid of Garibaldi in New York in July, to which artists and musicians donated their services free, and mass meetings of support for ‘the immortal Garibaldi’ were held in Cincinnati, Ohio and Newport, Rhode Island. From Philadelphia, Henry Roney wrote directly to Garibaldi to tell him that he and his friends were members of a secret society and they wished to make a donation to his campaign, while Thomas Schaffer wrote to inform Garibaldi that he had been elected an ‘Honarary [sic] member of the Franklin Library Institute of Centenary College of Louisiana’.144 Money was sent from San Francisco, and from Italian groups in Montevideo and Valparaiso, Chile.145 A letter also reached Garibaldi from ‘The Committee of the Fraternity of all Nations’, signed by various exiles whose current location was not stated:
From the land of exile, we send to you, Dear General, our sentiment of respect and admiration, for your glorious achievements, and of those who have nobly shed their blood for the cause of humanity. We all look at you as the noble initiator of the emancipation of all the different peoples of Europe, and we fervently hope that you will fulfill to the last your heroic undertaking.146
Volunteers and other kinds of practical assistance also arrived from Britain and America. The Americans lent their particular support by providing ships to transport volunteers: the Charles and Jane, the Franklin, the Washington and the Oregon were American, or bought with American money, while the British supplied the Amazon.147 In July, the New York Herald led a public outcry after the Charles and Jane was briefly seized by the Bourbon navy; when the ship's first mate, Watson, refused to allow her to be boarded he became something of a hero, and was offered (and acccepted) a post in Garibaldi's navy. Other American volunteers, most of whom were attached to General Avezzana's staff and arrived with him in time to fight at the Volturno, included two surgeons studying in Paris, two generals who had fought in the Mexican war during the 1830s, and the nephew of Senator Jefferson Davis.148 John Litchfield offered himself and his men in the Volunteer Rifles – ‘strong hands with willing hearts’ – from Kingstown, Canada.149 Britain sent more than its share of colourful characters. Apart from ‘the gigantic Peard’, who had already fought with Garibaldi in 1859, and went with a small group of other British volunteers to Sicily with Medici's expedition in July, there was Colonel John Dunne, who arrived in late May on a secret mission from Cavour, formed a peasant squadre of his own with which he entered Palermo during the fighting, and stayed on to form an English ‘regiment’, which was made up mostly of adolescent street boys from the ‘Garibaldi foundling hospital’.150 In mid-October, a second group of British volunteers arrived in Naples: these so-called ‘excursionists’ were around 600 strong and they fought with the army at Capua.151 Finally, there is also evidence that British sympathisers, and notably the Glaswegian John McAdam, helped encourage and materially assist Hungarian volunteers for Garibaldi.152
In France, government restrictions prevented such open expressions of support. However, liberal newspapers like Le Siècle and L'Opinion Nationale did manage to receive and distribute funds for Garibaldi throughout the summer. A group in Marseille also sent a small sum to Garibaldi via Alexandre Dumas, and an attempt was made in September to circumvent political restraints by setting up a fund for a monument to Paul de Flotte, a Breton socialist and volunteer for Garibaldi killed in Calabria at the end of August. A list
of seventeen subscribers (who had each donated between two and ten francs) was published in Le Siècle and L'Opinion, but the fund was quickly suppressed by the police.153 Similar restrictions probably affected the formal organisation of a French volunteer legion for Garibaldi. Nevertheless, between 300 and 500 men made it to southern Italy via Genoa to fight with Garibaldi, and in July the French consul in Sicily was sent several complaints from parents whose young sons had run away to join Garibaldi (there was particular concern about boys from Nice, now under French control). The same Paul de Flotte organised a group of around fifty men who stayed with him from Genoa onwards, and after his death, towards the end of the campaign, Garibaldi ordered the formation of a French legion: the légion de Flotte.154 Also towards the end of the campaign in October, Johann Becker, a former member of Young Germany, arrived in Naples to form a corps of German volunteers to fight with Garibaldi.155
Alongside these more organised efforts, many individuals wrote privately to Garibaldi offering material support, their services, or simply their fervent admiration. At the beginning of August, Alexander Andrews wrote to Garibaldi from East Bengal of his longing ‘to join the banner of liberty under the heaven Conferred destroyer of Tyrants’, and offering his services as a subaltern. An American surgeon, William Holcome, wrote offering his and his wife's services (‘we will both come to any place you may mention and work heartily for your cause which is an immortal one’); while William Forster wrote from Newcastle that he had been training ‘for a soldier's life’ in the hope that ‘I might aid in the great work of Redemption’.156 Some writers sent Garibaldi their own music and poems. A woman signing herself ‘Violet’ wrote from High Wycombe to express her ‘deep and earnest admiration’; and she sent Garibaldi a bookmark: ‘although it is a very humble offering yet it comes from one who has a warm and patriotic heart’.157 ‘Although I am a stranger to you, I will not be happy unless I express in a letter the feelings of admiration which I feel for you, for the real nobility, and the pure generosity of your character’, another English woman, Fanny Blews from Birmingham, wrote to Garibaldi (in Italian). This sentiment, she claimed, was shared by all ‘English women’: ‘The eyes of women were full of tears on reading about the glorious and intrepid actions of Garibaldi and his devoted band; and many prayers were offered to almighty God to look after the head of the general on the field of battle and glory’. She had followed his progress since 1848: ‘your name was a guiding star for me … in this time it has become the symbol of a man who is more honourable and more loved than all the heroes of antiquity’.158 Others wrote with requests. Thomas Watson asked Garibaldi for his autobiography (‘it would gladden … [ my] heart to look on the lines traced by the gallant hand that has so often led to victory. Don't refuse me General’);159 a Swiss baroness sent Garibaldi a copy of his own portrait and asked him to sign it and return it to her;160 while George Barker (‘a plain Englishman’) asked Garibaldi for an autograph to add to his collection (which included those of Wellington and Nelson), as did a writer from Melbourne, Australia, on behalf of his seventy-five-year-old mother who had told him to ‘ask the General not to delay in sending it’.161