In August 1860, the British press announced a call to arms for a brigade of armed volunteers who would join Garibaldi. In order to bypass the ban to enlist soldiers for a foreign army, the advertisement talked about ‘excursionists’ visiting southern Italy ‘furnished with means of self-defence, and…attired in a picturesque and uniform costume’.Footnote 1
Following Byron's and Santarosa's philhellenism, which marked ‘a turning point in the history of political and military travel’, throughout the nineteenth century the international military volunteer movement caused thousands of people to travel around Europe.Footnote 2 While dying for one's country was central to Italian national-patriotic discourse – and more generally to modern nation-building – and political rights were linked to the sacrifice for one's mother country to the extent of engendering a sacralization of the nation through her children's death, the idea of a unity of sister nations also legitimized sacrificing one's life for other nations.Footnote 3
Recent historiography has steered towards a transnational approach to the study of the Italian nationalist movement by stressing the role of exiles within European networks of liberal intellectuals, the mobilizing force of the Garibaldi myth well beyond national borders, and a discourse based on shared emotions and on transnational values.Footnote 4 The experience of the British Legion has been analysed in light of the romantic appeal of the Risorgimento and of the universal role of certain ‘emotions’ such as the admiration for Garibaldi and the willingness to support him.Footnote 5
This article aims to contribute further to a better understanding of the Italian nationalist propaganda abroad by focusing on the national connotation of values and narratives used to mobilize men for a foreign cause. The case of the British Legion allows one not only to analyse the national-patriotic discourse of the Risorgimento within a transnational framework, but it also brings to the fore the political and representational strategies that marked the British context. As well as the shared values of freedom, justice, and fraternity among nations, joining foreign causes strengthened a sentiment of British national pride and identity. British volunteers were not only enticed by the exoticism of Italy's beauty but also by a strong and leading sense of British national pride founded upon the notion of freedom.
The first part of the article analyses the narrative strategies used to promote the enlistment of the ‘excursionists’ and the images of the brigade that circulated in both Great Britain and Italy. The second part will focus on the Legion and its organizational and disciplinary issues, on the tensions among the officers and with the Italians, thus shedding light on the biases and difficulties that troubled the expedition and which also influenced subsequent reconstructions.
I
At the beginning of August 1860, Captain Edward Styles arrived in London carrying a letter of introduction by Giuseppe Garibaldi ‘to render advice and guidance to volunteers who may wish to come here to fight for the liberty of this country’.Footnote 6 According to the press, after distinguishing himself in the Crimean War, Styles fought with Garibaldi at Calatafimi, Palermo, and Milazzo. British officers joined Garibaldi early on in the Sicilian expedition. Among the better-known ones were Colonel Dunne, who led a contingent made up of both British and Sicilian men; Colonel Peard, who became known as Garibaldi's Englishman and who was later appointed commander; Peter Cunningham; and Colonel Forbes.Footnote 7 At the end of July, due to the limited number of Italians in Garibaldi's troops, which were increasingly made up of foreigners, these volunteers set up a depot in Milazzo for the arrival of new troops and encouraged their fellow countrymen to join the expedition.Footnote 8 According to later versions, it was Colonel Peard – already famous in Great Britain for his Garibaldian deeds – who told Styles that he should go to London, or it may have been Garibaldi himself who urged the British to intervene and provide the expedition with the legitimacy it needed.Footnote 9
Since the summer of 1859, the British had been following Italian affairs with excitement, while Garibaldi's fame cut across various sectors of British society. Fund-raising committees were established; meetings and conferences were held about Italy all over the country; biscuits, candies, perfumes, clothes, and hairstyles were dedicated to Garibaldi; chants and theatre shows were inspired by Italian current affairs.Footnote 10 The decision to send volunteers to help the Italian patriots was met with great enthusiasm by the British public, who was already interested in the Italian cause. Within only three days, 500 people had enlisted while numbers seemed to be on the increase, causing surprise among the pro-Italian groups working in Britain: ‘it was expected that more than one hundred or two hundreds persons could be collected. It was soon evident, however, that six hundreds might be had’, The Daily News reported.Footnote 11
It was therefore necessary to create an organization that would manage enlistment and departure logistics. On 27 August 1860, the Garibaldi Special Fund Committee met in London to this end. According to the press, the committee ‘consist[ed] of a few friends of Garibaldi only, but consist[ed] chiefly of attached friends of Mazzini, and who, above all, were friends of Italy for its own’.Footnote 12 The group of radicals that followed Giuseppe Mazzini and which had been active in London as well as in other British cities for a few years, took on both the onus and the honour of organizing the Legion by turning the committee into the legal stronghold of the expedition and into the network's centre. However, the expedition was not, at least potentially, only a prerogative of the democrats within Mazzini's cohort, due to the fact that their republican ideals were concealed. Rifle corps members also took part, and above all Italian liberals were involved in the enrollment, but chose to not participate. In August 1860, Agostino Bertani, who had been given the task by Garibaldi to manage both the volunteers and the fund-raising from Genoa, recommended Captain Styles and his mission to Antonio Panizzi, director of the British Museum, while a Garibaldian agent went to see Emanuele d'Azeglio, Piedmontese minister in London, to ask for the government's help with recruiting 2,000–3,000 men.Footnote 13 In June of the same year, the minister's father, Roberto d'Azeglio, have attempted to organize a contingent of English volunteers from Turin, but he had to abandon the project due to economic difficulties and to fears of abuse by the troops (problems that would also arise with the ‘excursionists’).Footnote 14 A collaboration across the pro-Italian front based in England would have been therefore both desirable and possible. Indeed, this was already happening in the case of fund-raising for Garibaldi even though, at least on the Italian side, Mazzini's followers tried to get all the credit for the expedition so as to counterbalance the marginal role they played in the peninsula. In the words of the Mazzinian paper Il Popolo d'Italia, the success in gathering support was to be attributed to ‘those who are constantly mistreated by ministers…and who belong to the hated party of disorder’.Footnote 15
The organization of the expedition was poor and patchy from the start. In early September, while the London recruitment lists for the ‘excursion’ were closed due to the high number of applications, Peard wrote to Garibaldi about the ‘prospect of enrolling more men in England’Footnote 16 and the treasurer's brother suggested to the general that a legion of 4,000–5,000 Englishmen be assembled.Footnote 17
When Styles returned to Italy, the committee assigned the task to buy supplies, gather further funds, and enlist more men to William de Rohan, an American who had met Garibaldi in Montevideo and who had joined him when he landed in Sicily as his aid-de-camp. The money available was not enough and the volunteers were not notified for several weeks. The delay in the departure plans and the excessive costs weighed down on the initial enthusiasm and put off many potential enlistees.Footnote 18
On 16 September, 262 ‘excursionists’ interested ‘in the volcanic performances of Mount Etna’, as Lord Palmerston put it to justify the failed enforcement of the Enlistment Act, left the country on the Milazzo.Footnote 19 The second ship, the Emperor, set out on 26 September from Harwich harbour among jubilant crowds.Footnote 20 British sources gave contradictory accounts about the number of volunteers on the second ship while no accurate information was ever provided by the historiography about the total number of men in the Legion. The documents preserved at the southern Italy army archive show detailed lists of volunteers: 666 men landed in Naples of whom 76 were officers.Footnote 21 Taking into account the information regarding the enrollment lists that were opened in several British towns, it seems that initially around 2,000 men were willing to volunteer.
II
Recent historiography has debated the reasons that led these young men to enlist in Garibaldi's army: it was a combination of political ideals, thirst for adventure, admiration for Garibaldi, fascination with an exotic and extravagant destination, as well as economic motives and hopes for social mobility.Footnote 22
The rhetoric behind the enlistment, the representations of the Legion in the press, and the ways in which the volunteers justified their decision to join in has not been investigated deeply, but I argue that these are key features in understanding the transnational commitment for a foreign cause, such as Italian nationalism. This rhetoric revolved around the notion that the British people could bring freedom to Italy. The ideal of freedom seemed to prevail over the patriotic cause.Footnote 23 The volunteers were described as carriers of freedom: ‘young soldiers of freedom’,Footnote 24 ‘pioneers of freedom to an enslaved people’,Footnote 25 ‘men who had left friends and family and had walked thousands of miles to fight for another nation's freedom’.Footnote 26
The notion of freedom was used both in its negative meaning, as freedom from despotism, from absolutism, from a backward religion, and from the obstacles to economic progress, and in its positive sense of aspiring to achieve constitutional and civil rights.Footnote 27 It had a strong symbolic and emotional value for the British people: the close link between the concept of freedom and British identity was central to the public discourse about the ‘excursionists’, although it was never really explored in the sources. As representatives of a people that showed its love for freedom in everyday actions, these volunteers had a duty to enlist; according to The Daily News, ‘to fight for the cause of freedom anywhere is to fight for the cause of England’.Footnote 28 Before departure, the committee asked the participants to respect all rules of good conduct since ‘each man remember that he represents the sacred cause of Liberty, and that cause will be judged by his conduct’.Footnote 29 Garibaldi himself used a similar narrative to attract support: when inspecting the troops, he is said to have called them ‘free children of England’,Footnote 30 while in a letter to the Glasgow committee he stressed the fact that the British, ‘strong in the consciousness of their own freedom, have dared to speak out boldly in the hour of contest between the oppressor and oppressed’.Footnote 31 Even a local Neapolitian paper such Lo Cuorpo de Napole e lo Sebbeto wrote that the volunteers ‘fought as if for their own cause’.Footnote 32 This shows a clear attempt to represent Britishness, both from within and from without, based on values that created interest and led to action.
Since 1848, defending and honouring both the law and constitutional liberties had been considered to be basic elements of British identity. In addition, patriotism was still associated to liberalism and to a need to spread British achievements to the less fortunate nations, while the idea that Great Britain replaced the Roman empire as a bastion of civilization and progress was also starting to become accepted.Footnote 33 The Italian exploit was therefore approached from an Anglocentric perspective. Through the notion of freedom, Britishness was turned into an ‘easily identifiable ideal’ and a ‘model of conduct’ as well as a political responsibility towards those nations that were struggling to achieve those same objectives.Footnote 34 Through pride and self-awareness, the British people's exaltation of freedom also entailed the notions of responsibility and humanitarianism. Indeed, a strong national pride, closely linked to patriotism, was necessary to produce a sentiment of solidarity.Footnote 35 In response to a message sent by the people of Salerno before their departure, the volunteers affirmed that ‘so great is the cause of freedom that every Englishman considers himself honoured to give his own life’.Footnote 36 According to a member of the committee, the legionaries ‘excite the hopes and enlist the pride of the English people’.Footnote 37 When asking for donations to support the volunteers, De Rohan affirmed that each individual contribution was ‘one little act of what really is nothing but duty’.Footnote 38 As British citizens, these volunteers chose to bear the burden of helping Italy to conquer freedom as well as showing a specific model of conduct and behaviour. However, it was not about looking for a politically pristine land where they could express their political ideals, but rather about reproducing the British national struggle and affirming their core values.Footnote 39
Although there were also other foreign troops among the Garibaldians, the British Legion seems to have been the only clear case in which a whole battalion was enlisted abroad. There were undoubtedly political reasons for this – indeed, the British volunteers defined themselves as ‘excursionists’ – but the power of the rhetoric and propaganda was equally important. The French and Hungarian troops were assembled into national battalions only after arriving in the peninsula in small groups, since neither country allowed open manifestations in support of the Italian national movement.Footnote 40 In the case of Germany, on the other hand, the attempts to organize a contingent of volunteers were comparatively unsuccessful.Footnote 41
The rhetorical discourses that linked the notion of freedom to British identity and to the duty to act were popular and had been internalized by public opinion. In the letters that potential volunteers wrote to Garibaldi to be enlisted, they explained that they wished to fight ‘purely from my sense of freedom that I should like every man to enjoy’,Footnote 42 and that they wanted to give their contribution ‘to free a noble people from the sway of a tyrant’.Footnote 43 Another aspiring volunteer wrote that ‘being born and brought up in such a free and enlightened country as this is, the spirit of liberty and Religious freedom seems to be inherent and innate to me’.Footnote 44
Such declarations emphasized the power of a humanitarian rhetoric based upon a concurrence between the love for one's country and the love of freedom as a common good.Footnote 45 It is worth stressing the fact that this propaganda omitted any detailed analysis of British political culture and of the reality of this claimed liberal identity. In her work on the Scottish volunteers, Janet Fyfe states that these made up a small group that had sprung out of large pro-Italian groups.Footnote 46 It is not possible to prove in this context how close the volunteers were to the pro-Italian circles as this would require an in-depth survey of the geographical origin of the volunteers as well as of the pro-Italian associations. However, the role played by earlier mobilization cannot be underestimated even though one cannot conclude that all the ‘excursionists’ were already close to the supporters of Italian independence. Moreover, the pro-Italian propaganda had lost its republican core when Garibaldi had started to replace Mazzini, thus going beyond the small radical circles, becoming ‘uncontroversial’ and involving romantic narratives of the Italian peninsula and her patriots.Footnote 47
In addition, I argue that a key feature was the narrative around the notion of freedom. Historian Maurizio Isabella's reconstruction of the liberal groups during the first few decades of the century also seems to work for this period, while it can be further expanded by looking at the notion of freedom in relation to British identity. International solidarity and national identity were not mutually exclusive. In fact, ‘a “cosmopolitanism of the nations” [existed] which was based on the idea of freedom as the foundation of national and international life, and of a national emancipation which would help to create a permanent peace’ and, in the British case, was accompanied by a kind of patriotism that looked abroad through national pride.Footnote 48 The foundations laid by the liberal exiles from the revolutions of 1820–1 and 1830 were useful during these years not only for the Italian exiles and the intellectual circles, but also for wide sectors of society beyond national borders.
III
The 1848 concept of fraternity among nations and individuals was a dominant category in nineteenth-century political discourse.Footnote 49 Similarly, in the case of the ‘excursionists’, the family metaphor was not based upon cultural, historical, climatic, or geographical elements – as in the cases of France and Greece – or religious ones – as for the Irish who fought for the pope – but upon values and ideals: it was a fraternity founded on freedom.Footnote 50 The Neapolitan paper Il Pungolo described the expedition as ‘an act of sacrifice and fraternity for our sake’;Footnote 51 the message sent to the Legion by the people of Salerno defined the volunteers as ‘noble friends’, ‘brothers who have come from overseas’,Footnote 52 while according to The Times correspondent the brigade entered Naples among children shouting ‘long live our English brothers’.Footnote 53 In a letter to Luigi Carlo Farini, lieutenant of the Neapolitan provinces, T. D. P. Hodge, who was secretary of one of the committees that collected funds for Garibaldi in London and a member of the Special Fund, described the relationship between Italy and Great Britain using the language of friendship and intimacy and rooting his narrative into the values of freedom. According to a journalist who commented on the letter in Il Popolo d'Italia, the Legion's objective was to
continue to strengthen the deep relationship of friendship between the two nations and pursue common goals for the sake of civilization on the basis of a natural affinity that free institutions establish among those people that share it and of common sentiments about the key values of European culture.
Hodge aimed to establish a British supremacy in international relations with Italy vis-à-vis France, stating that Great Britain was Italy's ‘only honest and sincere friend’.Footnote 54 This value-loaded language was also used in the British context: in a letter to Garibaldi, one of the aspiring volunteers wrote about ‘a Brotherly and sympathetic feeling towards you and your fair country’.Footnote 55 Before the emperor weighed anchor, the mayor of Harwich once again confirmed that it was the duty of the ‘excursionists’ ‘to assist your Italian brethren to shake off the galling yoke of tyranny, such as our fathers nearly 200 years ago combated and overthrew in this country’.Footnote 56 The volunteers' task was set against the backdrop of British history, hence the need to ‘show itself worthy of the glorious memories of the past’, in the words of The Daily News. Footnote 57 Since freedom was the ultimate goal for which the nations that looked up to Great Britain fought, British identity was in turn further legitimized and enhanced.
These concepts were expressed clearly in two poems composed by William H. Embling, from University College London, titled The British Garibaldians and The English excursionists.Footnote 58 The volunteers were described as heirs of British history (‘heroes, sons of heroes’; ‘sons of England’), fearless soldiers (‘bravest of the brave’) who, in the name of their national pride (‘For our country's pride demands / Freedom for all!’), answered Italy's sorrowful and disconsolate cry for help (‘You, poor prisoned nation, / Long time called in vain’; ‘Naples, Rome and Venice call / for your arms, to free them all’) and offered her the support she needed to stand tall again (‘England's sons will stand by you’; ‘From the field, the desk, the Loom, / England's youth and manhood come’; ‘England comes again. / Youth and age uniting, / Strive to set you free’; ‘Her sons bring Victory’). The battle cry that made these volunteers take up arms was about freedom (‘Italia fair, and Liberty!’; ‘Freedom for all’) and sounded like Garibaldi's plea to guide his own people (‘Wave your swords on high: / Garibaldi leads you / On to Liberty!’). The Italian general was incorporated into British identity (‘Since great garibaldi said / Freedom for all! / What though despots sneer and frown, / England's sons His deed shall crown, / Write the words on every throne / Freedom for all!’).
Hodge stated that the British contribution ‘to the cause of Italian independence was invaluable’ and that therefore the volunteers would be precious even without fighting on the battleground.Footnote 59 Mr Hastings, one of the ‘excursionists’ who was already in his sixties, wrote:
we went out of pure patriotism and had no idea of pay; we even found our own uniforms. We wanted to do something for a country, that could do nothing for itself without help…We were enthusiastic for the cause of a free and united Italy. We had feelings on the subject of liberty which do not seem to animate Englishmen now.Footnote 60
The events of 1848 had reinforced Britain's claim to spiritual and historical superiority as well as its detachment from the main continent. This boosted a sense of pride for having achieved a level of progress and civilization to which Italy now aspired. There was also a deep-rooted prejudice against the Italians' ability to conquer freedom on their own due to the country's current state of backwardness as well as to the idea that it was necessary to instil a new virility into the Italian people.Footnote 61 In the words of Captain De Rohan, the campaign would show that ‘the ancient Roman blood was still flowing in their veins'. The new epitome of the Roman vir was Garibaldi, who in 1859 had overcome the ‘proud and experienced French’ by throwing himself against the enemy ‘with only a handful of Italians’ in the presence of Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II.Footnote 62
As if to confirm the importance of masculine strength, the press stressed the physical prowess, the combative character, and the courage that would distinguish the British volunteers. The Times correspondent stated that they were ‘as brave as lions’;Footnote 63L'Unità italiana described them as ‘handsome and well-built young men with solid military skills’;Footnote 64Il Popolo d'Italia talked about ‘the warrior's virtues that make the British soldier stand out’.Footnote 65 The Legion was part of a more general plan to ‘militarize’ society's male half; in the British context, this stemmed from a fear of a French invasion and was linked to the Rifle Volunteers movement to which many of the Garibaldians belonged.Footnote 66
The British presence in Italy would both guarantee and consolidate the country's path towards independence.Footnote 67 In describing the volunteers as a ‘sincere gift of a true alliance between the English and the Italian nations’, newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia added that ‘in it one can see a strong guarantee to our freedom’.Footnote 68 The message of the people of Salerno to the Legion stated that Italy was ‘not unworthy of your strong nation, which was the first in Europe to conquer the warranties of liberty’.Footnote 69
The cause of freedom was therefore the British cause par excellence. However, thanks to the support of the Legion and to Garibaldi's stature, Italy was now able to join in the struggle for freedom. While I will not focus on the Italian general's popularity in Great Britain, which has been looked at elsewhere, it is worth stressing how in this context Garibaldi epitomized a political model based upon the concept of freedom.Footnote 70 In describing the arrival of the ‘excursionists’, Il Popolo d'Italia said that they stood under ‘the flame of liberty, which was held by Garibaldi's fist’.Footnote 71 In a letter to the Daily Mail, De Rohan portrayed Garibaldi as a British hero devoted to promoting ‘the freedom, peace and happiness of all mankind, without reference to nation, caste, or religion’. It is no coincidence that in the aftermath of 1848 Garibaldi built his own image according to Anglo-Saxon expectations.Footnote 72
During this period, not only was a heroic and popular image of Garibaldi created, as Lucy Riall has shown in her work, but equally influential representations of Italy and Great Britain in terms of their mobilizing force were also put forward.Footnote 73 The exiles and the pro-Italian propaganda more in general succeeded in translating and adapting the national-patriotic discourse according to specific contexts. A clear political and rhetorical strategy was created for the British public that could be used by leaders like Garibaldi himself, by the radical groups that set up the Legion and by both the Italian and the British press, and which would at the same time appeal to the volunteers and to public opinion. The Italian events needed to be set within the context of British history through the figure of Garibaldi, their current hero, and by appealing to national pride.
IV
On the national front, this kind of liberal rhetoric was useful on two levels. It offered a positive and virtuous image of both domestic politics, thus strengthening Palmerston's government and celebrating British constitutional liberties, and of international politics, since it was said to guarantee European stability under the aegis of British supremacy.Footnote 74 Moreover, in a complex context such as the British one, any common elements that could overcome separate identities and create a sense of belonging needed to be founded on spiritual values, such as freedom. British identity was a construct based on a few traits such as loyalty to the crown, parliamentarism, English as national language and religious freedom. Symbols and institutions co-existed alongside a multiplicity of local and national identities, while the pride in the level of freedom and civilization achieved was a unifying element.Footnote 75
What was central to the public discourse analysed so far was British identity. While in some cases there were also references to an English identity (sometimes, they were called English volunteers), this broadly referred to England's political and cultural supremacy with respect to the rest of the country. At the same time, in the discourse about freedom, ‘parochial attitudes and local identities’ were also present.Footnote 76 Local newspapers proudly published stories about their fellow citizens who had been enlisted. In Liverpool, Birmingham, and Newcastle, people took part enthusiastically in the enlistment process, almost creating a competitive atmosphere between the cities involved.
The case of the Scottish Garibaldians, I argue, shows not only ‘localisms, pride and loyalty’ towards one's regions of origin,Footnote 77 but also resistance groups within British identity. Several Scottish cities had an Acting Committee that managed the enlistment of volunteers. The press mentioned 200 ‘excursionists’ coming from Glasgow, whose number would go up to 400, and 100 from Edinburgh.Footnote 78 Although numbers had to be reduced due to a lack of funds, Styles promised that the ‘excursionists’ would form a ‘separate company’ called the Scotch Company, thus going along with the organizers' intention to promote Scottish identity. According to the press, ‘their movements and conduct may be watched with interest by their friends of Scotland’.Footnote 79 In order to make their ‘excursionists’ stand out, the Garibaldi Fund in Glasgow ordered ‘a Royal Stuart tartan uniform bluse shirt’ and a scarf with a similar pattern; money was raised for the Scotch Company of Volunteers and the volunteers were said to be protected by St Mungo, patron saint of the city of Glasgow.Footnote 80 There was a clear will to express a separate national identity. Fighting for a foreign cause did not conceal either internal issues or the intention to dominate, but it did reveal a more complex and multi-faceted reality.Footnote 81
There were also rumours about a company of Irish Garibaldians that should counterbalance the volunteers who had joined the pope's army. Due to the high number of enlistment requests, a committee was set up which decided to promote enlistment in Belfast and to use the old Irish banner showing the rising sun as a flag.Footnote 82 The designated leader was Lieutenant Patterson, who was already on the battlefield next to Garibaldi. However, despite the people of Belfast's enthusiasm, the end of the military campaign in Italy caused the plan to be dropped.Footnote 83
Internal issues had an impact on foreign policy: in the Irish case, they played out on both the national and the religious level as a counterweight to the troops sent in support of the pope.Footnote 84 On the one hand, the papal cause was identified with the Irish cause and the papal brigade, which gathered about 1,000 volunteers and rushed to Rome in response to Pius IX's appeals, was represented as the expression of patriotism opposed to the pro-Italian British identity.Footnote 85 On the other hand, it is important to stress that religious freedom was considered to be an aspect of Protestantism while the Pontifical State was seen as the antithesis of the British system. The condemnation of political despotism went, therefore, hand in hand with the anti-Catholic sentiment that was especially strong during this period.Footnote 86 It is no coincidence that among the ‘excursionists’ was the son of evangelical leader Lord Shaftesbury, while the Reynolds's Newspaper stated that at the core of British volunteering was a ‘heartfelt and unconquerable hatred of threatened tyranny and priestly imposture’.Footnote 87 Several appeals were published that invited the English to counterbalance the Irish papal campaign: ‘can't we Britons put a few sturdy combatants into line on the other side; on the side of freedom, justice and humanity?’Footnote 88 The comparison was clear: in an open letter Dr John Epps, who had long supported Italian independence, compared the ‘excursionists’ to the Irish who, ‘proceeding from this land of liberty, went to fight for the Papal despotism, which recognizes as its means the massacre of Perugia, and the threatened villany of the Algerine warfare of burning men, women, and children’.Footnote 89
The propaganda and the idealism prevailed over the military victories and failures as well as over the reputation of the two Legions. Fighting for the pope involved affirming the Irish identity, while fighting for Italy meant contributing to the Protestant cause and making a clear statement: anti-Catholicism, anti-clericalism, religious freedom, and opposing the papacy were key traits of being Britons.Footnote 90
V
George M. Trevelyan expressed strong opinions about the conduct of some of the volunteers on the basis of their social and geographical origin:
One part of the excursionists consisted of roughs principally from Glasgow and London, who considered that they were out for holiday at other people's expense, and though they did not object to the fighting, expected a maximum of food and good quarters and a minimum of discipline. The other half, old soldiers, ‘volunteers’, and generous enthusiasts of all classes from a Duke's son downwards, could not, by their own better conduct, save the Legion from acquiring a name for disorder similar to that which the pope's Irish had acquired in Rome.Footnote 91
Fights and riots, duels, arrests, imprisonments, and complaints about having to endure cold and hunger defined the Italian experience of the Legion and informed later interpretations, although this has not been looked at closely. A first and almost self-evident consideration concerns the opposition between the propaganda's liberal ideals based upon the image of the young heroes who had come to bring freedom and the practical issues of discipline and organization that emerged in Italy. In other words, it was the poetry of the discourse against the prose of the reality.
The first ship waited twelve days for the arrival of the second ship in Cagliari. The volunteers finally landed in Naples on 15 October among enthusiastic celebrations: according to the press, the National Guard marched in the streets, flags were flaunting from the windows, the crowd threw flowers. In Hodge's words, it was ‘such an enthusiastic reception as no monarch ever received’.Footnote 92 However, military operations were almost over and their impact was limited. On 19 October, the volunteers took part in the Capua battle. According to the more favourable accounts, the Legion fought back against the Bourbons from the S. Angiolo outposts, near Capua, engaging in combat until the fortress was taken. It then marched at the head of the column that crossed the Volturno river and once in Salerno it put an end to the uprisings of the ‘nation in the nearby towns’.Footnote 93 The accounts that were sent to England described a ‘magnificent’ battle in which the legionaries showed their bravery: ‘had no sooner fired their rifles from the trenches than they leaped up; and, to the astonishment of the Neapolitans, rushed after them with the bayonet’.Footnote 94 Similarly, the Italian press also wrote that ‘they fought in cold blood and with the perseverance that distinguishes their nation’.Footnote 95
Apart from these limited military tasks, the Legion did not engage in other activities during its almost two-month long sojourn first in Caserta and later in Salerno. From the very beginning, however, the British press published volunteers' letters and testimonies lamenting the poor treatment of the troops. The letters usually dealt with two interrelated types of issues: on the one hand, organizational problems and the hard living conditions and, on the other hand, the conflicts among the officers. While the volunteers' letters and accounts had previously been used to exalt Garibaldi's deeds, they were now used to amplify the Legion's negative reputation.Footnote 96
The majority of the complaints revolved around the soldiers' poor living conditions. The men did not have shoes and used rags around their feet; food rations were in short supply; they did not get paid and when they did it was not enough to buy food; there were neither ambulances nor drugs for the injured; accommodation was miserable: the barracks were full of bugs, the straw mattresses were never replaced, blankets and underwear were insufficient.Footnote 97 The complaints were made by a small group of volunteers, while an ‘excursionist’ from Edinburgh asked ‘what can we expect when the country is in the midst of a revolutionary war?’ and confirmed that Garibaldi had apologized for not being able to provide ‘more comfortable quarters’.Footnote 98
The letters also criticized the lack of organization in the preparation for battle: failure to provide health assistance and food during the 19 October attack; non-stop forty-eight-hour shifts without any instructions in ‘the most dangerous and most important post’; twenty-four-hour marches without restocking.Footnote 99 More specifically, Captain Peard was accused of attempting to lead an attack in Capua during the night of 24 October with no chance of success. Most of the troops refused to follow orders and there were rumours that Peard had tried to send his troops to a hopeless massacre while he was ‘beastly drunk’ or ‘in a state of intoxication’.Footnote 100
One of the most frequently told anecdotes regarded the imprisonment of five ‘excursionists’ accused of theft. During one of the marches, having no food, some of the volunteers had allegedly gone into a farmstead and had taken a pig, a few chickens, some blankets, and some kitchen utensils. After they were caught by Garibaldi's troops and accused of looting, Peard allegedly condemned them to death by firing squad. The Legion refused to execute the order threatening mutiny and the accused were pardoned by Garibaldi (they were later condemned to five years in prison by civil authorities).Footnote 101 Several sources confirm the lack of food supplies and seem to concur on the means used to deal with widespread hunger: according to some, the ‘excursionists’ killed pigs while according to others they made requisitions.Footnote 102 The imprisoned soldiers in turn reported that half of the brigade was guilty of theft,Footnote 103 while a Scottish volunteer, speaking about soldiers who had been accused of eating in a cafe without paying, stated that due to the Legion's poor living conditions this kind of behaviour should not be condemned.Footnote 104
Lack of organization and daily hardships were, according to the press, common to all Garibaldian troops during the last few months. In his letters to the Italian authorities, Captain Peard acknowledged the fact that the officers had no money or equipment.Footnote 105 Disillusionment and discontent also started to spread among the Italian Garibaldians: the straw mattresses were not replaced due to scarcity of resources while a government's directive prohibited the distribution of items of clothing to the soldiers.Footnote 106 However, the British accounts seem to attribute all responsibility to the brigade's Captain, John Peard. According to Mason Jones, a pro-Italian and a friend of Mazzini's who visited the troops’ quarters in Caserta, the volunteers were ‘badly treated and all the affairs of the corps were mismanaged in the grossest manner’.Footnote 107 A Scottish volunteer talked about a ‘mad colonel, a tyrannical major and a despotic captain’.Footnote 108 Hodge attributed this situation to the leadership of a man ‘whose military growth certainly appears to have been of great rapidity’.Footnote 109 According to William Coningham, Peard was ‘not a soldier, but a lawyer by profession, and totally inexperienced and therefore unqualified for the post, and as violent and arbitrary in his conduct as he was ignorant of the organization necessary for the movement of troops in the field’.Footnote 110
VI
The accusations made against Captain Peard about the brigade's poor conditions did not only come from the volunteers or from those who were involved in the organization of the Legion. On 13 November 1860, twenty-five officers wrote to their commander threatening to report ‘our situation’ to the war minister and requesting an independent enquiry about the state of the brigade.Footnote 111 Three days before, the same officers had asked for Peard's resignation, saying that ‘there is no trust between the brigade and its leader’ and asking that he be replaced by someone ‘more practical in terms of both managing internal resources and of active leadership’.Footnote 112 Peard defined these pleas as the result of ‘widespread insubordination’, and after requesting that the soldiers involved should resign he had them arrested on charges of sedition.Footnote 113
Some of the issues seem to have originated from the appointment of the officers. The ones that had been made in London prior to departure were ignored by Peard who, as soon as he was in charge of the Legion, reassembled the ranks. He was accused of discharging officers and having them arrested or downgraded at his whim, but his decisions were allowed by Garibaldi and supported by the London committee.Footnote 114 Upon departure, George J. Holyoake, one of the expedition's organizers, asked Peard ‘to revise the appointment of Officers and to assume the responsibility involved’, criticizing Styles's impulsiveness in choosing the officers and admitting that the committee later requested that more competent men should be selected.Footnote 115 According to the Morning Chronicle, the new appointments were perceived as an insult by the officers who had prepared the expedition and who had gained the men's trust, thus causing internal tensions and a number of discharges and resignations.Footnote 116 For example, the Scottish company wrote directly to Garibaldi in defence of Lieutenant Gabriel Cueto, who, having been downgraded to the rank of cadet after being appointed by Styles to the company's command, was discharged by Peard following some complaints and arrested on charges of desertion. Once these charges were dropped, he was accused of wearing his Garibaldian uniform after he was discharged.Footnote 117 Having been sentenced to a few months in prison, he said that his dismissal had been a consequence of Peard's personal bias, while the latter tried to explain that the ranks assigned by Styles were only provisional and that Garibaldi had decreed that nobody was allowed to have higher ranks than those they had in previous military campaigns.Footnote 118
In response to these complaints and accusations, Peard denounced ‘the false information that is being circulated in Naples to cause disagreements among the ranks’.Footnote 119 He arrested the officers who had reported him and made specific accusations against other commanders. However, the disciplinary problems were not so much linked to the reality of the accusations or to the attributions of guilt, but rather to the trust among the troops. The news of Styles's arrest on charges of theft caused strong reactions in Naples both from the volunteers and in the press in spite of the fact that rumours about big sums of money unaccounted for had been circulating for days.Footnote 120 Although after three days the accusation was dropped and Styles was released, The Times correspondent declared that the issue should have been dealt with privately in order not to create alarm among the troops,Footnote 121 while the ‘excursionists’ criticized the way in which the captain had been treated and his replacement with De Rohan (‘a man universally hated by the men because of his imperious manners and clustering disposition’).Footnote 122
In spite of the troops' support, Styles's behaviour was fraudulent and deceitful. The Special Fund openly showed its lack of trust towards him as soon as he left London: in mid-September, Holyoake told Garibaldi that the captain had ‘made many ill considered appointments and gone to expenses which this committee cannot as yet provide’.Footnote 123 The accusation of theft, which had been dropped in October, was revived in December together with other counts that led to his arrest.Footnote 124 Edward Styles was allegedly either Danish or German – his real name was Styegel – and he had committed several acts of fraud against the authorities.Footnote 125 According to a special enquiry committee's report, he had passed as an officer in the Fusilier Guards and had pinned the Turkish and Crimean medals on himself. Apparently, he had also falsely declared to have taken part in the battles of Calatafimi and Palermo and to be an officer in Garibaldi's General Staff. In addition, as regards his role within the Legion, he concluded agreements without authorization, committed frauds in patent sales, lied about the troops' living conditions, the committee, and Captain De Rohan, and stole about £400.Footnote 126 Finally, in mid-November, he also attempted to create a new brigade to replace the Legion, which he declared on the verge of being dismantled.Footnote 127
Others were also accused of attempted mutiny. At the end of October, with help from Captain Scott and from some officers who had been expelled from the brigade, Colonel Forbes is said to have suggested that both the ‘excursionists’ and the British marines should join the company that he had the task to form in Resina, while Colonel Dunne intended to set up a cavalry corps.Footnote 128
Beside Styles's fraudulent conduct, there was a basic lack of trust and competence: the ranks assigned in London and never acknowledged by Peard; the troops' respect towards their officers; the volunteers' living conditions and the opportunity to change regiment. Tensions were running high: when reporting the enlistment attempts, Sergeant Major Moore, who was in charge in Caserta, confessed that he was not able to trust anyone among the officers and that if he had Styles arrested the soldiers would set him free.Footnote 129 Many of the men left the battalion to join other corps.Footnote 130 These tensions were reiterated in the local press: in a public letter, Captain Scott accused both Peard and Captain Sarffield, who was the brigade's secretary, of ‘stirring things up, making things up and slandering’. This caused riots and police mobilization in the centre of Naples.Footnote 131
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There were also several accusations of wasting money, deceiving both Garibaldi and the committee and using the funds gathered for the Legion either to different ends or for personal needs. Anthony Campanella argues that some of the money was used by Mazzini.Footnote 132 It is, however, difficult to calculate the total revenues coming from the donations.
The Special Fund became ‘a Committee to whom all funds subscribed for the cause of General Garibaldi should be paid’.Footnote 133 However, some of its members had previously set up a fund to collect money for Garibaldi; these dual appointments, as well as the members' closeness to Mazzini, produced a lot of speculation. Overlapping interests and the resulting chaos in managing the funds became so apparent that already before the Legion's departure some started to hope for nothing more than moral support from Great Britain.Footnote 134
Beside Styles's untrustworthy personality, De Rohan reported that some treated any Legion-related issues as ‘business matters’ and without ‘rectitude’.Footnote 135 William H. Ashurst, treasurer of the Garibaldi Special Fund, complained about the fact that Styles had fallen victim to ‘certain gentlemen who, despite their enthusiasm, never proved to be very scrupulous and whose names do not inspire a great deal of trust’.Footnote 136 After asking Garibaldi for permission to buy equipment with the provisional government acting as guarantor, Major Hicks allegedly took the money.Footnote 137 These problems caused tensions between De Rohan, who would be in charge of the volunteers after Styles's departure, and Peard.Footnote 138 The latter threatened an enquiry into the costs of the campaign and blocked all payments. Richard Sansfield, Peard's secretary, accused the committee of having spent almost double the amount needed to cover the expedition and of taking money from the donations. In London, ‘Peard's men’ were in turn accused of having squandered money while the expenses incurred were said to be due to the rapidity of the enlistment, to the scarcity of funds, and to the illegal nature of the expedition.Footnote 139
At the end of September, the Garibaldi Committee still hoped to be able to cover the Legion's expenses and offer a ‘free gift to the service of Italian Independence’. However, the costs were met almost completely by the Italian Treasury Department.Footnote 140 According to the Fund's president, Edward Craufurd, the Garibaldi Special Fund Committee contributed about one third of the costs of the expedition, which amounted to about £15,000.Footnote 141 The remaining costs were met by the Italian government. Additional expenses included six months of leave for the troops, the return journey to England, and the Legion's living costs in Italy (just the rewards and the pay during the sojourn amounted to 202,190 Italian lira – or around £8,000).Footnote 142 The Italian government did not question the cost of the expedition, but it made sure to declare that any future expedition of volunteers directed to Italy would take place without its approval.Footnote 143
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On 27 November, the British troops in Caserta engaged in a fight with the Italian troops stationed in the town. The riots, which started in the evening in a cafe, spread in the streets and reached the Legion's barracks. The press reported that they involved several hundred people, causing the British to leave the town in a hurry. It seems that after the confrontations the Italian Garibaldians, who were supported by a few civilians, went to the English quarter armed with clubs, sticks, and sabres and shouting ‘down with the English’. Both the commanders and the National Guard had to intervene to restore peace. According to a report, an Italian Garibaldian tried to steal a British volunteer's coat, but the sudden escalation of violence shows the difficult relationship between the two nations and the extent to which mutual prejudices were deeply rooted.Footnote 144 Garibaldian Giulio Adamoli recounts that the British troops' misbehaviour was no secret: ‘they stole without shame, mistreated the local people, drank like thugs, got into fights all the time causing a lot of complaints; and often, to top it all up, they took us for the enemy and started shooting us'.Footnote 145 Other Italians said that the British were not used to a country where buying wine was so cheap.Footnote 146 Preconceptions were indeed mutual: De Rohan was said to categorize Italians on the basis of specific regional features: ‘the savage from Calabria’, ‘the arty Florentine’, ‘the energetic and entrepreneurial Ligurian’, ‘the moody Venetian’, ‘the hard and strong men from Valtellina’, and the Romans, who were now ‘debauched and decadent’ compared to their ancient grandeur.Footnote 147
The brigade's bad reputation had emerged back in Great Britain. Problems started to arise during the sea journey towards Italy; in Gibraltar, some attempted to escape and others were arrested. Several incidents of desertion occurred on the Melazzo and, when they stopped in Plymouth to restock water and coal supplies, some ‘excursionists’ abandoned the expedition.Footnote 148 Three more incidents of rebellion that almost turned into mutiny happened during the night operations in Capua, when five volunteers had been taken in on theft charges and when rumours spread of a two-year period of compulsory service.Footnote 149
The main accusations against the volunteers regarded their drinking habits, stealing, and getting easily into fights. At the beginning of November, The Times correspondent reported that many men from the Legion were ‘lurking about the city’ and were ‘a disgrace to our country’,Footnote 150 while the following month he defined them as an ‘intolerable nuisance as they are unable to resist the temptations of cheap Italian wine and are apt to get abusive and quarrel some over their cups’.Footnote 151 In analysing these charges one should not underestimate the Victorian elites' bias against what they considered to be the social plagues affecting the popular culture, such as criminality, alcoholism, and poor education.Footnote 152 The various descriptions of the first night that the volunteers spent in Naples are especially illuminating. Despite his pervious enthusiastic speech about ‘monstrous fine, business-like looking fellows', the British consul criticized the fact that as soon as they landed they started drinking in the town's cafes. In Henry Elliot's words, they distinguished themselves ‘in a truly national manner by getting drunk and disorderly, and in sleeping on and under the tables in the principal café of Naples'.Footnote 153 The Caledonian Mercury correspondent, however, while saying that those cafes had never served so much rum and brandy before, did not describe specific negative incidents that took place during the first night spent in Naples by the volunteers and rather praised the men's ability to start marching for battle that very night.Footnote 154 On the other hand, The Times correspondent wrote that ‘many of them were entertained most liberally and generously by Donzelli, the proprietor of the Caffè d'Europa and the Hotel d'Angelterre’,Footnote 155 and one of the volunteers said that the local people had invited them all for drinks and that they had been ‘spending a very happy night’.Footnote 156
Such views about the volunteers were clearly biased. On the one hand, they were represented like childish drunkards who saw the expedition as a holiday (some allegedly told the consul that they did not want to fight and did not know how to use firearms).Footnote 157 On the other hand, the troops were praised and any shortcomings were attributed to Peard. In a letter to the press, Mason Jones stated that ‘the men are not so much to blame;…although a few roughs had got amongst them, the great majority of the men in the legion were gentlemen’.Footnote 158 If the aim was to discredit Peard, these volunteers were described almost as heroes: ‘if they had not been a corp d’élite composed in a great measure of gentlemen and men of superior intelligence, there must have been a violent meeting of the whole legion’.Footnote 159 Similarly, Il Popolo d'Italia affirmed that ‘one could hardly find a more select group of soldiers’ and that with suitable leaders they ‘would be able to match any reputable army’.Footnote 160
These accounts should be considered in relation to the organization of the expedition and the problems that resulted from it as well as to the number of people involved in these events and the observers' personal leanings and biases.Footnote 161 The reasons and origin of both the critiques and the praises should also be taken into account. The views on the Legion were often a result of one's role within the expedition, of internal tensions as well as of personal relationships and rivalries. For example, in his reports Peard made several distinctions: upon the Legion's departure he told Garibaldi that ‘the majority was very good. Most of the officers were also good and well-disciplined soldiers but as for some of them, for goodness' sake, it was unfortunate to have them under my orders.’Footnote 162 In another letter, he wrote that ‘the honour of having a command is all very well but the trouble and worry are unspeakable. Besides I had such a set under me that it was enough to rile the sweetest tempered.’Footnote 163
Moreover, some press reports seem to suggest that disillusionment, discontent, and problems were also widespread among the Italian Garibaldians, but an in-depth study is yet to be done.Footnote 164 A thirst for adventure and a tendency towards looting were common in this kind of campaign, while disciplinary issues were far from being exceptional.Footnote 165 Among the French Garibaldians led by De Flotte, it was common to experience rivalries, tensions with their Italian counterparts, military issues, and management difficulties; some spoke to the consul asking to be sent back due to tiredness and poverty.Footnote 166 The Irish papal brigade could not boast a better reputation. After all, the reasons for enlisting included economic motives, hopes of social mobility, and a desire to escape. William Linton, one of the committee organizers, described them as ‘a gathering of a strange crowd, earnest men, men with selfish ends, men of good repute and not so good, the sort of mixture in all such enterprises’.Footnote 167 According to The Daily News, the volunteers' social background was also very diverse: ‘in railway language, they consisted of second and first class passengers’.Footnote 168 The entrepreneurial middle sector was the most widely represented: according to police informants, on the Emperor ‘at least one half appeared to be volunteers from the educated classes; two, or three, sons of noblemen; about 18 clerks from the War Office and Somerset House; several half-pay army officers'.Footnote 169 A list found among the Legion's documents and containing information on twenty-three volunteers includes people engaged in commercial activities (a breadmaker, two salesmen, two tailors) and in publishing (a printer, a bounder, and a bookseller), three clerks, a teacher, an artist, a former officer, a mason, two engineers, and two ‘gents’.Footnote 170 Economic security and young age were key factors: the energy, the lack of family ties, a greater openness towards idealism, and a spirit of adventure were all closely linked.Footnote 171
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Although the expedition was neither positive in terms of conduct and organization nor useful, Garibaldi declared:
They came late. But they made ample amends for this defect, not their own, but the brilliant courage they displayed in the slight engagement they shared with us near the Volturno, which enabled me to judge how precious an assistance they would have rendered us had the war of liberation remained longer in my hands. In every way the English volunteers were a proof of the goodwill borne by your noble nation towards the liberty and independence of Italy.Footnote 172
Such statement had a clear symbolic value: the British enthusiasm about Italy was more memorable than the military strength of the Legion.
In the accounts about the problems related to the Legion, honour was often an issue. When asking for Peard's resignation, the officers described the issue in terms of ‘honour and integrity’, while the commander's response was that the officers ‘dishonoured their own country’.Footnote 173 It is no coincidence that pride and honour are strictly linked and some testimonies also point to a feeling of resentment towards Italy. The enlistment agent in Birmingham described the way the volunteers had been treated as ‘a stain upon the Italians and their Government’ and ‘an indelible blot on their tricolour’.Footnote 174 The city wished to organize a public celebration upon their return to counterbalance the treatment they had received in Italy (‘badly as they have been treated by a people who are perhaps scarce worth fighting for’).Footnote 175 The father of one of the volunteers said: ‘this is not the treatment these young men ought to receive after their disinterested conduct’.Footnote 176 Ingratitude and resentment were the dominant feelings. The problems that marked the expedition made it impossible to create a mythology around these events: a subsequent emergence of myths and symbols never happened.Footnote 177 The will to forget prevailed. The project to build a monument to honour the ‘excursionists’ was never seriously considered.Footnote 178 However, some volunteers continued to write to Garibaldi asking him to be given a medal as proof of their role in the campaignFootnote 179 and during the same period several plays made explicit reference to the volunteers. In November 1860, only one month after the Legion's departure, at the Princess Theatre in London, H. J. Byron's Garibaldi's excursionists was set up. Through the representation of shy and scared men sided by strong and passionate Italian women, the play told the story of three young men who took up arms for Italy to marry their beloved ones.Footnote 180
The case of the British Legion sheds light on the success and popularity of the pro-Italian propaganda aimed at bending British public opinion towards the Italian independence cause. This is what Paul Ginsborg has defined as ‘the dynamic myth of the Risorgimento’ across the Channel, which led many to take action, captured the imagination, and encouraged initiative,Footnote 181 and which, most of all, could be adapted and rearticulated in relation to the specific target audience. The British ‘excursionists’ are the result of a kind of nationalism that went beyond national boundaries, involving other countries as well as transnational centres that favoured the circulation, exchange, and rearticulation of ideas, values, and narrative practices, and which was not limited to intellectual circles. Direct participation in foreign national issues resulted from the features that came to characterize the public sphere, which was both popular and transnational at once. The case of the British Legion thus implied aspects of democratization and political participation such as the emergence and development of a globalized public opinion.
While, as Alberto Banti has shown, internally Italian national consciousness revolved around concepts of blood and inheritance, abroad it was supported by transnational values. Outside national borders, the concepts that were invoked were not discriminating and context-specific: they revolved around co-operation among nations and principles such as justice and freedom. The representation of the Risorgimento as a British cause taken up in the name of freedom shows the power of rhetoric and ideology within the Italian national-patriotic discourse, which has often been underestimated by recent historiography, as Maurizio Isabella has emphasized.Footnote 182 It was the idea of freedom that led British citizens to take up arms for Italy; at the same time, this military help also involved a value judgement on the country. At its core lay a plan of supremacy and control with the aim to create a society that followed the British model. A sentiment of communion among people and nations therefore went hand in hand with an imperialist culture which was nonetheless expressed in terms of authoritative brotherhood.
Finally, the Italian experience of the British Legion sheds new light on the latent contradictions between, on one hand, a sense of patriotic duty and the transnational ideals that dominated the rhetoric surrounding these kind of issues and, on the other hand, the underlying disillusionment and frustration of the daily routine of this kind of campaign, thus stressing the need for a more careful approach towards international volunteer movements and the reasons given to explain them.
