by Lucy Riall
It is just as clear that Aspromonte did not lead to the loss of Garibaldi's popular support. From the moment that the news came out, men and women wrote to Garibaldi with money, messages of support and poems, and, as well as from Italy, they wrote from Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Greece, Latvia and Russia (and often received replies).120 If anything, Aspromonte served to increase religious fervour among Garibaldi's supporters. ‘The people of Italy’, according to the 1863 journal of a British tourist, ‘idolize Garibaldi, they have tabooed him, and no one ventures to touch him.’121 Emilio Ferrari sent him a poem, written for the ‘wounded of the Italian Calvary’, and added: ‘I kiss your holy hand tortured in the new world [a reference to his torture while a prisoner in Brazil], and your holy foot tortured in the old world.’122 An anonymous poem in French, sent to ‘Joseph Garibaldi. Prisonnier’, assured him that he was not defeated because through his rejection of glory ‘[y]ou have taken on the Man God's fatal inheritance’.123 A group of men and women wrote passionately if falteringly from Rovigo, in Austrian Venetia, to tell him that ‘We cannot describe to You, oh General, our feelings of supreme hope, of unexpressible anxiety, then of profound heartache, which agitated our hearts, during the days in which you carried out your glorious attempt, which from the place, which witnessed your sublime sacrifice, took the name of Aspromonte’. ‘Oh!’ they went on: ‘You are so great, that every expression towards you falls short: so great, as to form the pride, not just of your brothers in the fatherland, but of an entire generation.’124
Moreover, for many, Aspromonte added another element – namely, concern about his health and comfort – to their sense of personal intimacy with Garibaldi. Public subscriptions paid for surgeons to come from France, Germany and Britain to visit Garibaldi in Varignano (although the twelve doctors that attended him could not agree about the correct treatment).125 George Burney wrote on behalf of a meeting in Tower Hamlets (London) to tell him with ‘how much pain [I] have followed the accounts of your serious illness; which pain is shared by every truly English heart’.126 Thomas Stevens sent Garibaldi a portrait he had painted of him, with wishes for a speedy recovery.127 On a single day, 10 November, Carl Weidlich wrote from Neu Rappen near Berlin to ask about his health and to tell him that the 11,000 people of Neu Rappen loved him and his son Menotti; a fifteen-year-old girl from Switzerland wrote in great concern about his health; and a set of enthusiasts in Lake Constance, who had built a club house in their village and called it Garibaldiburg, told him they were feeling his pain and a great ‘contempt’ for his ‘persecutors’.128 As Garibaldi recovered, huge interest was taken in his convalescence. The ‘Fratelli Hauser’ wrote to invite him for a cure at their Swiss spa: ‘You will find our spot to be a calm and alpine village which will certainly not displease you’, and one man wrote from Brussels to invite him to a performance of Les Misérables.129
One of the most widely distributed and copied images of Garibaldi in this period is of him in bed, writing letters with a studious expression.130 In fact, Garibaldi's correspondence shows that Aspromonte did little to diminish his political energy. While he was still in prison at Varignano, workers' clubs and other political associations from all over Italy sent money to him for those wounded at Aspromonte, and they continued to do so after he was transferred to La Spezia and Pisa and operated on; they all received signed replies from Garibaldi and sometimes personalised notes of thanks.131 In Palermo, a new pro-Garibaldi paper was published, called L'Aspromonte, and Garibaldi wrote a letter to the editor, saying that ‘[t]he cry of Rome or Death which they tried to destroy, has risen like a giant after Aspromonte’.132 Although poor health did oblige Garibaldi to remain in Caprera for the whole of 1863, he continued to maintain a huge correspondence. He wrote to the group from Rovigo, assuring them that ‘[i]f the foreigner continues to trample over our fatherland, thousands of brothers will keep their arms at the ready for the complete liberation of Italy … And I am confident of being among you before too long’ (the letter was published in L'Unità Italiana).133 He revived his project for a Million Rifles Fund, and sent out a circular letter calling for donations.134 He sent messages of support to Poland, and attempted to link the Polish revolt to the struggle in Hungary;135 and he took a particular interest in Sicilian politics, and seemed for a time to see in Sicily a real hope for revolutionary action. Indeed, some of his letters to Sicilian revolutionaries show clear signs of the shift to the left and towards sympathy with socialism which was to mark the latter stages of his political career (it was over Sicily that he resigned his seat in parliament in December 1863).136
London
In the spring of 1864 Garibaldi left Caprera. His departure caused consternation among Italian governing circles, or, as one British representative in Turin put it:
The activity with which the party of action had been labouring in conjunction with the Hungarian refugees to bring about a combined movement in Hungary and Venetia, and Garibaldi's own addresses to the Italians calling upon them to be ready for action, sufficed to render his sudden departure for Caprera the occasion for innumerable conjectures.137
To the ‘evident relief’ of the government, Garibaldi went instead to England. Still, there were concerns about this visit. Emanuele d'Azeglio, the minister in London, argued that Garibaldi's visit could be used to encourage British public opinion in Italy's favour, and that he could be presented as ‘the most distinguished Italian who has however spoken and committed the most distinguished nonsense’. The king, however, was less convinced, instructing D'Azeglio ‘not to become involved in Garibaldi-type [Garibaldesche] banquets and grand demonstrations to make the British government aware that those kinds of great parties don't amuse me nothing myself personally [sic]’.138
Garibaldi's reasons for travelling were not entirely clear. He may have hoped to put pressure on the British government in the war between Prussia and Denmark, or to establish closer links with the National League for the Independence of Poland, whose members were also supporters of Italian nationalism.139 We know that since 1860 he had been subjected to a relentless round of invitations from his British admirers.140 He may even have seen his visit as a mostly private affair, or at least as an opportunity simply to thank his supporters on the various Garibaldi committees, and to visit his many old and new friends in Britain. Indeed, on arrival in England he issued a press release calling for calm: ‘Dear Friends, I do not want political demonstrations. PS. – Above all, don't incite riots.’141
In fact, the idea for the visit seems not to have come from Garibaldi at all, but from the Mazzinians Aurelio Saffi and Agostino Bertani. They were in no doubt at all about its purpose. ‘I am ever more convinced that Garibaldi's visit to England would help to sway English public opinion in our favour and so push the Government to support public opinion’, Bertani wrote as they hatched this plan. He had very specific ideas about how Garibaldi should be used, and this purpose realised: ‘Garibaldi must not hold meetings – he must not shake money boxes – He must place in the papers a few words which explain the aim of his journey … say a couple of words in a public place to the people, get them published in the papers – create a committee and leave having seen no more than 3 or 4 cities.’ The precise message of Garibaldi was also to be clear. ‘From his mouth the cry of Rome will be a bolt of lightning amongst those Protestants and Francophobes … Garibaldi should appear twice at the most – say little and appeal to the English people as the embodiment of a young nation, resolved to take up its place in the world and finish its achievements …’142 Much as Mazzini had done twenty years earlier, Bertani saw in Garibaldi the silent symbol of a political idea which had itself changed little in those twenty years. Garibaldi was to represent, promote and encourage a distinct vision of Italy, but he was not himself to become involved in any separate political activity.
What happened thereafter confounded all their expectations. Far from being either a private visit or an orchestrated propaganda exercise, Garibal
di's stay in England became a political ‘moment’, an extraordinary demonstration of ‘radical chic’,143 trade union pageantry, popular Protestantism and private passion, ‘given’, in the words of a Times correspondent, ‘with such an earnestness and goodwill as has seldom been equalled, and probably never excelled’.144 From the moment his ship arrived in Southampton on 3 April, Garibaldi was mobbed by journalists, fans, politicians and other official representatives, many of them wearing red shirts or jackets, and tricolour ribbons. He was taken off to a civic reception and a huge parade (‘such a sight’, one reporter wrote, ‘has never been witnessed here before’).145 From there, Garibaldi went to the Isle of Wight, where he stayed for eight days at the home of Charles Seely, a radical MP. He paid a visit to the poet laureate, Alfred Tennyson, and planted a tree in his garden (they recited Italian romantic poetry to each other and Tennyson advised Garibaldi not to discuss politics in England). Tennyson's wife and sons were greatly taken by Garibaldi; in her diary Mrs Tennyson described him as ‘a most striking figure … His face very noble powerful & sweet, his forehead high & square. Altogether he looks one of the great men of our Elizabethan age.’146
After the Isle of Wight, Garibaldi and Seely, along with a small entourage, travelled by train to London on 11 April, where a reception had been arranged to welcome him. The organisers were very lucky with the weather: ‘The day was magnificent,’ D'Azeglio commented, ‘as hot as a summer's day’.147 Huge crowds greeted Garibaldi's arrival at Nine Elms station in Vauxhall. After a series of welcoming addresses, he got into a carriage with the duke of Sutherland, and they tried to drive through the vast crowd filling central London in order to reach the duke's home in St James's. The writer and parliamentarian, John Morley, wrote that London had ‘seldom beheld a spectacle more extraordinary or more moving … vast continuous multitudes, blocking roadways, filling windows, lining every parapet and roof with eager gazers. For five hours Garibaldi passed on amid tumultuous waves of passionate curiosity, delight, enthusiasm.’148 ‘Call it bad management, or call it the irrepressible excitement of the people,’ commented The Times, ‘the fact is that the General's carriage could hardly make any progress at all … the multitude … closed round the General, holding out their hands to be shaken, and testifying with rude cordiality their admiration for the hero of the day.’149
An estimated 500,000 people had turned out to greet Garibaldi. They formed an ‘impassably dense’ crowd mostly from ‘the lowest classes’, in the words of the government clerk, Arthur Munby, who stood happily among them: ‘a very shabby and foul smelling crowd; and the women of it, young and old, were painfully ugly and dirty and tawdry’. Garibaldi's carriage was preceded by a long trade union procession, and when he came in view, the crowd, which had until then ‘behaved with the utmost good humour and peacefulness’, erupted with excitement:
when this supreme moment came, it resulted in such a scene as can hardly be witnessed twice in a lifetime. That vast multitude rose as one man from their level attitude of expectation: they leapt into the air, they waved their arms and hats aloft, they surged and struggled round the carriage, they shouted with a mighty shout of enthusiasm that took one's breath away to hear it: and above them on both sides thousands of white kerchiefs were waving from every window and housetop … And He … sat aloft … sitting quiet and gazing around and upwards as if he could scarcely believe that this great greeting was meant only for him.150
People climbed on railings, lampposts, signs and trees to get a view of Garibaldi; and at Trafalgar Square they hung from the plinth of Nelson's column and the equestrian statue of Charles I. As The Times put it:
For five hours did the acclamations of the people last and the acknowledgements of Garibaldi answer them. It was half-past 2 when the first cheers greeted his ears on the arrival of the train, and it must have been nearly 8 o'clock when he reached the hospitable shelter of Stafford House [the duke of Sutherland's London residence].151
Lord Palmerston wrote that ‘Garibaldi met with such a reception as no one ever had before’.152 ‘This’, according to Alexander Herzen, ‘is Carlyle's hero-worship in real life.’153
Garibaldi stayed for twelve more days in London. He attended a reception at St Pancras, and two receptions in his honour at the Crystal Palace. Around 25–30,000 people came to the first Crystal Palace reception, which was organised by the social and political elite and was a celebration of all things Italian (Italian music, flags and speeches in favour of Rome and Venice). The second was equally well attended, and was billed as ‘the people's reception’, designed, in the words of the Annual Register, ‘to give the humbler classes in various parts of the country an opportunity of enjoying the presence of the great object of their admiration’. The price of admission to the reception was fixed at one shilling, special trains were laid on from all over Britain, and Garibaldi was presented with ceremonial addresses from organisations like the Temperance Society, the Emancipation Society, the Young Men's Christian Association, and the ‘Garibaldi reception Testimonial Fund and Working Men's committees’. The duke and duchess of Sutherland put on an elegant social gathering for him at Stafford House (depicted in The Illustrated London News); he went to the opera at Covent Garden (where he heard Norma and Masaniello and was mobbed by women ‘delirious with excitement’);154 he attended a banquet at the Reform Club; he was given the Freedom of the City of London, followed by a banquet and reception; and he visited Ugo Foscolo's tomb in Chiswick. In addition to these public occasions, Garibaldi went to smaller private functions in his honour and received guests who called on him at Stafford House. He met Lord Palmerston, Lord Russell, Lord Derby and Gladstone (‘[t]hey have all lost their heads’, commented Emanuele d'Azeglio; ‘both Whigs and Tories are disgraced for ever’, wrote the Catholic archbishop of Dublin, Paul Cullen).155 He also met ‘stars’ like Florence Nightingale, Lord Shaftesbury and the prince of Wales, and old friends, including Colonel and Mrs Chambers, Alexander Herzen and Mazzini.156
29 This full-page cartoon in Punch is a sign of the media excitement surrounding Garibaldi's arrival in England. His casting as a ‘noble Roman’ is typical of the eclectic response to him, and may reflect concurrent celebrations for Shakespeare's tercentary and/or be an antipapal comment.
30 This brightly coloured Staffordshire figure of ‘Garibaldi at home’ in his red shirt was one of a series, and it points to the enduring fascination with his life at Caprera. Note the presence of his spade (see also figure 24 on page 310).
Garibaldi's visit to England in 1864 is one of the most closely documented and studied episodes in his political career, and it is justifiably famous. Above all perhaps, it is significant as an unusually successful example of ‘spectacular politics’:157 hugely well attended, seemingly spontaneous and with a visible impact on elite and popular culture. Coverage of Garibaldi saturated a wide section of the press. The Times, The Illustrated London News, The Scotsman, Reynolds's Newspaper and The Bee-Hive gave huge amounts of column space to his arrival and welcome. Punch proclaimed him the ‘noblest Roman of them all’ on 9 April (see figure 29 on page 333); and before his arrival The Operative Bricklayers' Trade Circular instructed its readers to give ‘a working man's welcome’ to this ‘great, good and honest patriot’.158 Staffordshire figures, Wedgwood china and decorative biscuit tins were produced to commemorate his visit (although the famous ‘Garibaldi biscuit’ probably dates from 1860–1); in 1865 a new football club, Nottingham Forest, adopted red as its colour in honour of Garibaldi and, dressing its players in red-tasselled caps, won fame as the ‘Garibaldi reds’. Streets and pubs were named after him; and both men and women went about wearing red shirts, red jackets and Garibaldi ‘aprons’. The number of Staffordshire figures of Garibaldi – at least fifteen were produced in the early 1860s – is especially interesting. These brightly coloured earthenware ornaments, which were usually collected and placed on Victorian mantelpieces, represent Garibaldi in various movements and activities: Garibaldi and his horse (in three
sizes, a copy of an 1861 Illustrated London News engraving); Garibaldi and Vittorio Emanuele at Teano (also from The Illustrated London News); Garibaldi paired with his ‘Englishman’, John Peard, with General Napier and with William Shakespeare (whose tercentenary was in 1864); and Garibaldi at home. The latter showed him sittting bareheaded in shirt and trousers, holding a spade between his legs with his left hand (see figure 30 opposite).159 Hyam & Co. of Leeds advertised ‘The Garibaldi, a new over-coat’ as part of its ‘leading styles for the present season’.160
Garibaldi's visit also prompted the proliferation of Garibaldi sheet music for piano: tunes included ‘Garibaldi's hymn arranged as a march’, ‘Garibaldi's popular march’ and ‘The Garibaldi polka’. One tune, ‘Garibaldi's hymn’, had a solo piece (‘He fought not for self, all his thought was for others, All earth was his country, Th'oppresst were his brothers, yet dear to his heart was the land of his father, And freely his life for his country he gave’) as well as a final chorus (‘Come forth sons of freedom Come join in our welcome! The cry's “Garibaldi” who lives but to save’). Popular verse published in 1864 ranged from ‘London's latest citizen’ to ‘Garibaldi: why we welcome him’, and a collection of songs entitled ‘A wreath for Garibaldi’. These songs contained no surprises. The first line of one 1864 song, ‘The red shirt’, is ‘Garibaldi, Italia's saviour, for ever’, and its chorus goes
The red shirt, the red shirt, the red shirt, for ever,
The red shirt henceforth will be famous in story,