The Expedition of the Thousand (Italian: Spedizione dei Mille) was an event of the unification of Italy that took place in 1860. A corps of volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi sailed from Quarto al Mare near Genoa and landed in Marsala, Sicily, in order to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, ruled by the Spanish House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. The name of the expedition derives from the initial number of participants, which was around 1,000 people.
The Garibaldians, with the contribution of southern volunteers and reinforcements to the expedition, increased in number, creating the Southern Army. After a campaign of a few months with some victorious battles against the Bourbon army, the Thousand and the newborn southern army managed to conquer the entire Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The expedition was a success and concluded with a plebiscite that brought Naples and Sicily into the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, the last territorial conquest before the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy on 17 March 1861.
The Expedition of the Thousand was the only desired action that was jointly decided by the four "Fathers of the Fatherland": Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Victor Emmanuel II, and Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, pursuing divergent goals. Mazzini, of republican political belief, wanted to liberate Southern Italy and Rome, while Garibaldi wanted to conquer, in the name of Victor Emmanuel II, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and continue towards Rome to complete the Italian unification, while Cavour wanted to prevent the conquest of Rome to avoid a conflict with his French ally, Napoleon III, who protected the Papal States.
The project was an ambitious and risky venture aiming to conquer, with one thousand men, a kingdom with a larger regular army and a more powerful navy. The various groups participated in the expedition for a variety of reasons: for Garibaldi, it was to achieve a united Italy; for the Sicilian bourgeoisie, an independent Sicily as part of the Kingdom of Italy, and for common people, land distribution and the end of oppression. The Expedition was instigated by Francesco Crispi, who utilized his political influence to bolster the Italian unification project.
Background
Political context
Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Italian Peninsula was divided into a multitude of small independent states. The French Revolution and the constitution of the Cisalpine Republic and of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy gave birth to a political movement aimed at national reunification. Insurrectional movements aimed at national self-determination were therefore born. Some of them were viewed favorably by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia which took the lead in the movement for the political unification of the peninsula.
The Expedition took place within the overall process of the unification of Italy, which was largely orchestrated by Cavour, Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, as his life's work. The Second Italian War of Independence ended on 11 July 1859; the terms of the armistice of Villafranca, wanted by Napoleon III, which recognized Lombardy (with the exclusion of Mantua) to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, but left Venice and all of Veneto in Austrian hands, had created discontent among a large part of the Italian patriots.
Already since May 1859 the populations of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, of the Delegation of Romagna (Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna and Forlì), of the Duchy of Modena and of the Duchy of Parma had expelled their sovereigns and requested annexation to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, while the papal government had regained full possession of Umbria and the Marche, whose populations suffered harsh repression, culminating on 20 June 1859 in the bloody massacres of Perugia by the papal Swiss troops in the service of Pope Pius IX.
Napoleon III and Cavour were mutually indebted because he had withdrawn from the Second Italian War of Independence before the expected conquest of Veneto, and because he had allowed the uprisings to spread to the territories of central-northern Italy, thus going beyond what was agreed with the Plombières Agreement.
The political stalemate was resolved on 24 March 1860, when Cavour signed the cession of the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice to France with the Treaty of Turin (1860), obtaining in exchange the consent of the French emperor to the annexation of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. After the annexation of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchies of Modena and Parma and the Romagna to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in March 1860, Italian patriots set their sights on the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which comprised all of southern mainland Italy and Sicily, as the next step toward their dream of unification of all Italian lands.
As regard to the interests of foreign powers, the United Kingdom supported the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia to counter French policy in the Italian peninsula. In fact, the United Kingdom, which together with France dominated North Africa, did not want Napoleon III to extend his influence on the Italian peninsula to have greater control of the Mediterranean Sea. Instead, the other more reactionary European powers such as Spain, the Austrian Empire and Russian Empire took the side of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but maintained a wait-and-see attitude. In such a divided Europe, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies found itself rather isolated and could only count on its own forces.
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was led by a young and inexperienced monarch (Francis II of the Two Sicilies, who succeeded his father Ferdinand II only on 22 May 1859, less than one year before the expedition). In 1836, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had worsened relations with the United Kingdom, to which it had owed its survival during the Napoleonic period, with the "sulphur question". Finally, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had fallen into a sort of diplomatic isolation as it had in fact refused to participate in the Crimean War alongside France and the United Kingdom, alongside which the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia had instead participated.
When the idea of a conference regarding the reorganization of Italy following recent events circulated in European diplomatic circles in late 1859, Francis II proved indifferent, not taking the opportunity to show an active presence internationally. In 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi, already the most famous Italian revolutionary leader, was in Genoa planning an expedition against Sicily and Naples, with the covert support of the United Kingdom. Lorenzo del Boca suggested that British support for Garibaldi's expedition was spurred by the necessity to obtain more favourable economic conditions for Sicilian sulfur, which was needed in great quantities for munitions.
Garibaldi, although close to republican and revolutionary circles, had already been in contact with King Victor Emmanuel II for some time to organize the Expedition of the Thousand. Despite his republican ideas, he agreed to collaborate with the House of Savoy until national unity was achieved; the contingencies are such that even the republican Giuseppe Mazzini wrote: "It is no longer a question of republic or monarchy: it is a question of national unity... to be or not to be".
Sicilian independentism
In 1860 the only force opposed to the Bourbons that proved willing to take up arms was Sicilian independentism. The memory of the long revolution of 1848 was still alive on the island, where the repression by the Bourbons was particularly harsh. Subsequently, the Bourbon government's attempts to reach a political solution were unsuccessful. Intolerance, even in urban and rural populations that associated with the Risorgimento was common, as evidenced by their belonging to the ranks of Giuseppe Garibaldi volunteers from Marsala to Messina, up until the Battle of the Volturno.
Many leading cadres of the 1848 revolution (including Rosolino Pilo and Francesco Crispi) fled to Turin. They participated in the Second Italian War of Independence and adopted a decidedly liberal and unitary political position. It is these follower of Giuseppe Mazzini who see, in insurrectional Sicily, in Garibaldi's intervention and in the House of Savoy, the fundamental elements for the success of the unification cause. On 2 March 1860, Giuseppe Mazzini wrote a letter inciting the Sicilians to rebel, declaring: "Garibaldi must come".
At the beginning of March, Rosolino Pilo turned to Garibaldi, first asking him for weapons, then inviting him to intervene directly. Garibaldi considered any revolutionary movement that did not have a good chance of success to be inappropriate. He wanted to lead the revolution if the people asked him to, and in the name of King Victor Emmanuel II. With the help of the local populations and the support of Piedmont, Garibaldi managed to avoid failures similar to those of the previous actions of the Bandiera brothers and Carlo Pisacane.
Despite not receiving Garibaldi's support, Pilo traveled to Sicily on 25 March with the intention of preparing the ground for a future expedition. Accompanied by Giovanni Corrao, also a follower of Mazzini, Pilo arrived in Messina and immediately made contact with representatives of the most important families. In this way he obtained the support of the landowners. In fact, once the expeditionary force had landed, the barons made their gangs (the picciotti) available. Pilo was killed in a clash on 21 May 1860.
Internal situation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
In the first half of the 19th century, several revolts broke out in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, all repressed by the Bourbons. There was the insurrection of 1820–24, the Calabrian revolution of 1847, the Sicilian independence revolution of 1848, the Calabrian insurrection of the same year, and the constitutional movement of Naples, also in 1848.
From a military point of view, it is essential for the Two Sicilies to maintain close ties with the Austrian Empire. Twice the Bourbons regained the throne due to the intervention of the Austrian armies. In 1815, the Austrian Frederick Bianchi, Duke of Casalanza, defeated the army of Gioacchino Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, during the battle of Tolentino and, in 1821, the Austrian Johann Maria Philipp Frimont defeated Guglielmo Pepe's troops during the battles of Rieti and the battle of Rieti-Antrodoco.
In 1860, however, the situation seemed much more favorable to the Bourbons. From 1821, the army received constant funding from the regime and was reinforced by units made up of foreigners (especially Swiss) who appeared loyal to the ruling house.
The populations of the provinces of the peninsular part are generally close to the Bourbon dynasty, as demonstrated by the success of the Sanfedist movement which overthrew the Parthenopean Republic in 1799 by massacring the Jacobins of the Kingdom of Naples, as well as the anti-French of the period 1806–15.
Gancia revolt
The revolt began on 4 April in Palermo with an episode that was immediately repressed whose protagonists, on the field, were Francesco Riso and, far from the theater of the operation, Francesco Crispi, who coordinated the action of the Genoese rebels. Despite the failure, the action gave rise to a series of demonstrations and insurrections, including Rosolino Pilo's march from Messina to Piana dei Greci from 10 to 20 April. To those, Rosolino Pilo met along the way he announced that they would have to be ready "for Garibaldi's arrival".
The news of the revolt was confirmed on the continent by an encrypted telegram sent by Nicola Fabrizi on 27 April. The content of the message was not at all encouraging and increased Giuseppe Garibaldi's uncertainty to the point that he initially gave up on the idea of an expedition. Francesco Crispi, who had decoded the telegram, claimed to have been wrong and provided a new version, probably falsified, which convinced Garibaldi to undertake the expedition.
Role of Cavour
Cavour considered the expedition risky. He feared that it would damage relations with France, especially because he suspected that Giuseppe Garibaldi was targeting Rome. However, since his prestige was undermined by the transfer of Savoy and Nice, he did not consider himself in a position to express his dissent.
For Cavour Garibaldi represented an "opportunity", because through him it was possible to trigger an internal revolt in the Two Sicilies which would have forced the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia to take measures to guarantee public order. Cavour therefore decided to wait and observe the evolution of events, to grasp any favorable developments in Piedmont; it was only when the chances of success of the expedition were significant that Cavour openly supported the initiative.
With this in mind, on 18 April Cavour sent two warships to Sicily; the Governolo and the Authion. Officially their presence aimed to guarantee the protection of the Piedmontese citizens present on the island but, in reality, they had to accurately evaluate the forces at play. At the same time, Cavour managed, through Giuseppe La Farina (sent after the landing in Sicily to monitor and maintain contact with Garibaldi), to follow all the preparatory phases of the expedition. The definitive agreements between Cavour and King Victor Emmanuel II were concluded during a meeting in Bologna on 2 May. Cavour accepted that the government, with caution, would help Garibaldi in the expedition.