The siege of Messina during the Sicilian Revolution of 1848 was the final moment in a series of events that, from January to September of that year, pitted the forces of the Sicilian insurgents and those of the Bourbon army against each other in Messina, which, after a series of defeats, recaptured the city at the end of a heavy bombardment. Rather than a siege in the classical sense of the term, it can be described as a very long military operational cycle, with an uninterrupted succession of clashes of varying magnitude and scope.
Context
The fortified system
The port of Messina consists of a peninsula that starting from the southern end of the city turns north and then west in the shape of a sickle. At the starting point of this small peninsula, a massive fortress, known as the Citadel of Messina, formed by a pentagonal construction protected by deep moats and ramparts, had been built after Messina's great insurrection of 1674–78 against the Spaniards. In addition, on the other end of the peninsula there was another, smaller fortress, Fort San Salvatore, flanked by Fort Real Basso, located in front on the city beach. This complex of fortifications entirely barred the entrance to the harbor. On the opposite side, the Citadel at the point where it connected with the mainland also had a fortified arsenal and another fort, Fort Don Blasco.
Three other forts still existed to guard the city of Messina, those of Gonzaga, Rocca Guelfonia and Castellaccio, but they did not constitute a system with those placed at the port. There were also military garrisons at the prisons and the civic hospital. Messina was thus guarded by as many as seven different fortresses of varying sizes, among which the massive Citadel stood out.
The anti-Bourbon uprisings
September 1847
The Sicilians' hostility to Bourbon rule was due to a variety of reasons, including the suppression of all forms of autonomy and the dominance of Neapolitan influences, the island's poverty-stricken condition, the harsh police regime, and the violations of commitments made by the governments in Naples.
In this context, Messina had become in Sicily one of the epicenters of the clandestine anti-Bourbon political network, along with Palermo and Catania, in connection with exiles residing on the neighboring island of Malta. Already on March 2, 1822, four liberals who had participated in an insurrectional attempt in Messina had been shot, namely the priest Giuseppe Brigandì, Salvatore Cesareo, Vincenzo Fucini, and Camillo Pisano. Many other Sicilians who had taken part in the movement were instead sentenced to prison or forced into exile.
Another insurrectionary attempt in Messina had taken place on September 1, 1847, but had been crushed by the Bourbon troops within hours. The insurgents, led by Giovanni Krymi, Antonio Pracanica and Paolo Restuccia, had gathered in front of the square in front of Messina Cathedral, with improvised weapons and a kind of uniform, consisting of a broad white smock and a wide-brimmed hat with a tricolor cockade on it. Bourbon troops came out of the Citadel and attacked the patriots, a violent clash that lasted many hours and ended with the defeat of the insurrection. A heavy repression by the Bourbon authorities then followed. Some insurgents were sentenced to death, many others forced to flee for their lives. The police also severely tortured the Abbot Giovanni Krymi, the priest Carmine Allegra and the chaplains Simone Gerardi and Francesco Impalà, but did not succeed in making them denounce others. Nevertheless, the Bourbon authorities ordered the closure of cultural clubs and associations and placed the university under control. All this, however, had strengthened the opposition to the regime, which now extended to all social classes and could rely on an extensive and ramified network of artisan associations, religious orders, monasteries, and academic circles.
The sudden insurrection that broke out in Palermo in early 1848 had freed almost all of Sicily from Bourbon rule, which was much hated on the island. However, the Bourbon army had taken care to retain the rule of the Citadel of Messina, which was large in size, powerfully fortified, and because of its location apt to constitute a real bridgehead for the reconquest of Sicily. The Citadel had about 300 cannons and a strong garrison, secure behind walls and moats.
January 29/February 21, 1848
The citizens of Messina thus did not resign themselves to the defeat of the 1847 uprising and reconstituted a revolutionary committee in early January, with the collaboration of patriot Giuseppe La Masa.
On January 12, Palermo had risen up under the leadership of La Masa and Rosolino Pilo, and on the 23rd the Bourbon monarchy in Sicily had been declared overthrown.
On January 28 a public security and war committee was also created in the city, chaired by lawyer Gaetano Pisano, which decided in favor of the insurrection for the following day. In the course of the night the uprising was prepared and at nine o'clock on the morning of January 29, the people of Messina took to the streets en masse, improvisedly armed with hunting rifles, old firearms such as muskets or even white weapons such as sabers, rapiers, and knives. The insurgent committee tried to negotiate with the commander in charge, General Cardamona, but he refused. The Bourbon command, which included Generals Cardamona, Busacca and Nunziante and the Duke of Bagnoli, had received orders from King Ferdinand II to hold Messina at all costs, as the city represented the indispensable bridgehead for the reconquest of insurgent Sicily. The Bourbon high officials therefore decided to have the city bombarded with the numerous cannons and mortars at their disposal in the many fortresses, to which were still added the mobile artillery placed in the so-called Terranova plain, in front of the Citadel, and those of the warship "Charles III." The first victims were a child, killed while in his mother's arms, and an elderly woman. Taking advantage of the massive bombardment, Bourbon troops came out of the fortresses and attacked the insurgents, in an attempt to regain possession of the city. Their action, however, met with compact resistance from the entire citizenry, which saw together men, women and even children fighting against the Neapolitans. Among others, Francesco Munafò, Antonio Lanzetta and Rosa Donato, later nicknamed "artillerywoman of the people," distinguished themselves. Among the many Sicilian fighters who had to distinguish themselves in the long battle, Stefano Crisafulli also stood out. The Bourbon forces, contained and then counterattacked, were forced to retreat inside the forts.
General Cardamono, furious, ordered the bombardment of the city to continue purely in retaliation, but this did not frighten the insurgents. On the contrary, Messina lit up festively, and the elderly Salvatore Bensaja walked the streets of the city at the head of a band playing warlike marches. In the meantime, the insurgents' forces were strengthened by the influx from the countryside and inland towns of groups of volunteers, with tricolor cockade on their heads and tricolor sashes slung over their shoulders, armed with firearms and white weapons. The Patriots' Public Security Committee assumed the organization of the struggle and together with the administration of the city and territory.
On January 30, General Cardamono attempted a counterattack to unite the Bourbon divisions scattered around the city, but it was decisively repelled. The attack by the Neapolitans, carried out with infantry and artillery, had moved from the entrenched camp known as Terranova, coming out of the Saracen gate, to try to break into the Pizzillari quarter. Sicilian squad leader Munafò, who was lightly wounded in the clash, pushed back the royals, also inflicting many casualties on them. However, on January 31 it was the insurgents who went on the offensive, targeting the smaller garrisons and weaker forts: the Neapolitan garrisons at the civic hospital and prisons and those placed at Rocca Guelfonia and Castellaccio surrendered practically without a fight. The following day, February 1, the Sicilians attacked Fort Gonzaga, which surrendered after almost no resistance. At this point only the Citadel and the forts attached to it remained in the hands of the Neapolitan royal troops. The Bourbon command attempted another counterattack and to do so ordered troops to raid the women's monastery of Santa Chiara. The Bourbons broke through a solid perimeter wall of the convent and raided it, to the dismay of the nuns. The monastery was then immediately used as a fortress by the Neapolitans, who attempted from this point to carry out a sortie against the insurgents. It was, however, energetically repelled by the Sicilians.
The military failures were compounded by political ones. The Archbishop of Messina, Monsignor Francesco di Paola Villadicani, outraged by the desecration of the sanctuary by the Bourbon army, issued an excommunication against those responsible. The English and French consuls, on the other hand, presented their protests to the Royal Military Command for the manner in which the repression had been carried out.
A truce phase began at that point. The insurgents received some aid from other parts of Sicily, while the Bourbon government attempted to detach Messina from the rest of the island, offering it a special status and its proclamation as the island's capital to replace Palermo. The insurrectionary committee responded, however, that the city preferred destruction to betrayal.
The insurgents controlled the entire city proper, but it could by no means be said to be safe as it was overlooked by the Citadel and the forts attached to it. Their goal therefore had to be the capture or neutralization of the massive fortified system in the hands of the Neapolitans. Such an intent seemed extremely difficult. The insurgents had about 4,000 men with improvised weaponry and little or no training, against an equivalent number of well-armed and trained Bourbons. There were 77 cannons on the Sicilian side, 50 of them from the fortress of Milazzo that had surrendered a short time earlier, against 300 on the royal side. To this already great disparity in resources was added the problem of breaking through the defensive walls of mighty fortresses. The Sicilian troops, on the other hand, had the moral and, if necessary, the physical support of the entire city of Messina. Moreover, the Bourbon troops had shown little will to fight in previous clashes and had often surrendered easily, as in the case of the Rocca Guelfonia, Castellaccio and Fort Gonzaga.
The commanders of the insurgents, who at the time were officers Porcelli, Longo, Scalia and Mangano, set as their first objective the conquest of Fort Real Basso. They therefore proceeded to build on the night of February 22 a parallel of barrels and sacks filled with earth, behind which the cannons were placed. At sunrise the Sicilian artillery opened fire on the enemy, who responded from all the forts. The duel was decidedly uneven, as the number of Bourbon pieces overwhelmed that of the Sicilians: 300 to 77. The insurgents, however, withstood the extremely intense fire and managed to open a breach in the walls of Fort Real Basso. It was then attacked en masse by the Sicilians, who filled the moat and then either broke through the breach or climbed the ramparts with escalators. The Neapolitan garrison surrendered immediately and the rebels seized about 30 large-caliber artillery pieces.
The determination of the Sicilian fighters was great, as some examples show. At the time of the attack on Fort Real Basso, the orphanage's band, which had gone there to encourage the fighters, was also present. Salvatore Bensaja's son, Giuseppe, fell during the final assault on Fort Real Basso, mortally wounded while raising the tricolor flag on the stands. The news of his death did not dismay his father, who declared that since his son had died gloriously for his country, he should not mourn his death.