Okay, so let's get into this. We're talking about
a man today who is, well, he's basically a global
phenomenon from the 19th century. He really is.
Usually when we do these deep dives, the figure
is famous in, you know, one country or maybe
one field. Right, like a scientist or a politician.
But this guy. His name is everywhere. I mean,
you walk through any Italian town, you're going
to find a Via Garibaldi or a Piazza Garibaldi.
Absolutely. And statues of him are in squares
from New York City to Buenos Aires. Yeah. It's
incredible. And for our listeners in the UK,
yes, there is that popular biscuit named after
him, which is, you know, a very specific kind
of fame. And let's not forget the Garibaldi fish,
bright orange state fish of California. Very
territorial, apparently. A biscuit and a fish.
We are, of course, talking about Giuseppe Garibaldi.
And the mission for this deep dive is, I think,
pretty clear. We've got this pile of sources,
biographies, letters, historical accounts. And
we really want to figure out how one man manages
to be a sailor, a candle maker on Staten Island.
Yeah, that part is wild. A guerrilla fighter
in Brazil. And then, almost like a side project,
unifies the entire nation of Italy with a volunteer
army. It is a staggering resume. I think the
real mystery we need to unpack is the gap between
the legend and the man. You know, you see a big
marble statue of a general on a horse and you
just assume he was part of the establishment.
You assume he was an aristocrat, went to all
the right military schools. Exactly. A rigid.
formal military guy. But Garibaldi was the complete
opposite of that. He was a revolutionary, an
outsider, a pirate in the eyes of some governments.
He was, in a way, a global citizen before that
was even really a concept. He's often called
the hero of the two worlds. That's the one. And
it's not just some clever marketing slogan. It's
literally true. He was a major figure in both
South America and Europe and the people who admired
him. I mean, you have Abraham Lincoln on one
side and Che Guevara on the other. Wow. That
is a very, very wide spectrum of admiration.
It's almost impossible to think of anyone else
who bridges that kind of gap. So let's go all
the way back. Where does a character like this
even come from? Because like you said, he just
doesn't fit the mold of a 19th century European
leader. He really doesn't. He was born in 1807
in Nice. And right there, from the very start,
you have this identity question that I think
explains a lot about him. How so? Well, when
he was born, Nice was under French control. Napoleon
was running Europe. But the people there, their
culture, their language, it was Italian, specifically
Ligurian from that coastal region. So he's born
on this cultural fault line between France and
Italy. Precisely. And he wasn't born into money
or power. His family was in the coastal trade.
His father was a merchant sailor. So the sea
was in his blood from day one. He didn't go to
a fancy military academy. His school was the
Mediterranean Sea. So his early 20s are spent
on... Yeah, sailing to places like Istanbul,
to Tunis, to Taganrog in Russia on the Sea of
Azov. He's a working class sea captain. It sounds
romantic, but I'm guessing the reality was pretty
gritty. Extremely. But it gave him a worldview
that was much bigger than just his small corner
of Europe. And the really pivotal moment happens
in 1833. He's in Taganrog, of all places, and
he meets this political exile who introduces
him to the ideas of Giuseppe Mazzini. And Mazzini
is the guy you can't avoid in this story. He's
sort of the intellectual engine of Italian unification.
He's the soul of it. Mazzini was the prophet,
the dreamer. He founded this secret society called
Young Italy. And his vision was for a unified
Republican Italy. No kings, no popes, no Austrian
emperors running the north. Just a single nation
of the people. And this must have been electrifying
for a young guy like Garibaldi who was looking
for a purpose. It was exactly what he was looking
for. A cause bigger than hauling cargo. He meets
Mazzini in person in Marseille. He takes the
oath, joins young Italy, and he just jumps in
with both feet. And by jumps in, we mean he immediately
gets involved in what the authorities would call
treason. I treason, yeah. A year later, in 1834,
he takes part in a Mazinian plot to start a mutiny
in the navy of Piedmont, Sardinia. And how did
that go? It was a complete disaster. The plot
was discovered before it even really got started.
Garibaldi had to flee for his life. He disguised
himself as a peasant, snuck out of the city,
and a court in Genoa sentenced him to death in
absentia. So he's 27 years old and he's a fugitive
with a death sentence. It's a tough start to
a revolutionary career. It is. It means you can't
go home. You are an outlaw. So he does what a
lot of desperate, idealistic Europeans with death
sentences did back then. He gets on a ship and
sails for South America. And this starts what
the outline calls his training round. It's his
14 -year exile. And I really want to stress this.
This wasn't him just... you know, lying low and
waiting for things to blow over. This was his
boot camp. This is where Giuseppe Garibaldi,
the sailor, becomes Garibaldi, the general. He
gets there and almost immediately finds a war
to join. Of course he does. He ends up in Brazil
and he gets involved in the Ragamuffin War. The
Ragamuffin War. That sounds like something from
a children's book. The name is deceptive. It
was a vicious 10 -year separatist war. The province
of Rio Grande do Sul. was trying to break away
from the Brazilian empire and form its own republic.
The rebels were called ragamuffins, basically
because they were poor ranchers and cowboys.
And Garibaldi joins them. Why? What's in it for
him? Because they were Republicans. They were
fighting an empire. For him, it was the same
fight as in Italy, just on a different continent.
And this is where he learns the very specific
style of fighting that will make him a legend.
Which is what exactly? Because he's not commanding
a traditional army with lines of infantry. It's
asymmetrical warfare. It's guerrilla tactics.
He's leading small bands of men on horseback
across the Pampas, the huge plains. He learns
how to fight when you're outnumbered and outgunned.
He learns how to use the terrain for ambushes,
how to move fast, how to strike, and then just
vanish. It's a completely different skill set
from European warfare at the time. A whole different
ballgame. Yeah. And maybe the most important
thing he learns is how to lead volunteers. These
men aren't paid soldiers. They aren't conscripts.
They follow him out of sheer loyalty. Because
he's charismatic. Partly, but it's more than
that. It's because he suffers with them. If they're
sleeping on the wet ground, so is he. If they're
hungry, he's hungry. He leads from the front,
always. That creates a bond that no amount of
money can buy. Now, during this time in Brazil,
he meets someone who becomes central to his entire
life story. We have to talk about Amida. We absolutely
do. Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro. Anita. In so
many historical biographies, the wife is just
sort of a background character. Anita Garibaldi
was a co -star. Okay, tell us about her. How
did they meet? He first saw her from his ship
in the Port of Laguna in 1839. According to his
memoirs, it was just, you know, love at first
sight. He saw her through his telescope and just
knew. She was a local woman, fierce, independent.
She was actually unhappily married to someone
else at the time, but she just left everything
to be with him and joined the cause. When I say
join, I mean it. She didn't just stay behind
and wait for him. The notes say she actually
fought. She fought. She was on his ship, the
Rio Pardo, during battles. She would carry ammunition
to the cannons while under fire. She was captured
once and escaped by stealing a horse and riding
through the wilderness for days to find him.
That's the stuff of movies. It really is. She
was an incredible horsewoman, and she actually
taught Garibaldi about the culture of the gauchos,
the South American cowboys. Wait a minute. So
the iconic image we have of Garibaldi, the poncho,
the loose -fitting shirt, the neckerchief, that
whole look? That's the gaucho look. That's pure
South America. Anita introduced him to that world,
to that way of life. He adopted that style of
dress and kept it for the rest of his life. That's
fascinating. So he's consciously creating an
image. Yes. It was his brand. It's a visual signal
to everyone that said, I am not one of those
stiff European generals in a tight uniform. I
am a man of the people, a man of action. So the
rebellion in Brazil eventually fails and they
have to move on. Right. They move to Uruguay,
to Montevideo. They finally get married there
in 1842. But of course. Peace doesn't last. Uruguay
was in the middle of a brutal civil war, fighting
against an Argentine dictator, Rosas, who was
trying to take over. And Garibaldi gets a new
job. He takes command of the tiny Uruguayan fleet.
And more importantly, he raises a new volunteer
force made up of Italian exiles living in Montevideo.
He calls it the Italian Legion. And this is the
origin story of the famous red shirts. I love
this detail because I always assumed it was something
deeply symbolic, red for the blood of martyrs,
that sort of thing. The reality is so much better.
It's just a story of supply chain logistics.
Garibaldi needed to find uniforms for his legion,
but he had no money. They were broke. So what
did they do? They found a textile factory in
Montevideo that had a massive unsold shipment
of red wool smocks. And who were these smocks
originally for? They were intended for the slaughterhouse
workers in Argentina. You're kidding. Nope. They
were dyed bright red to hide the bloodstains
from butchering cattle. That is unbelievably
grim and amazing. It is. But Garibaldi took them
because they were available and they were cheap.
And then, as so often happens with him, the practical
choice becomes this iconic symbol. Those slaughterhouse
shirts became the uniform of liberty. And they
were highly visible on the battlefield. Which
was part of their power. It was a bold statement.
It said, we are here. We are not hiding. Come
and get us. The Legion also had a flag, right?
A black flag. Yes, a black flag with a volcano
in the center. The symbolism there was that Italy
was in mourning. under oppression, but with this
dormant power, this volcano ready to erupt. So
his legend is growing in South America. There's
a great anecdote in the notes about an enemy
admiral, an Irishman named William Brown. Yes,
Admiral William Brown, who was commanding the
Argentine fleet. He was Garibaldi's opponent.
In one naval engagement, he had Garibaldi's ship
totally outgunned and cornered. So he could have
just destroyed him. Easily. But Garibaldi fought
with such insane bravery and skill that Brown,
instead of finishing him off, intentionally let
him slip away. Why on earth would he do that?
Professional respect. Brown reportedly told his
officers, let him escape. That gringo is a brave
man. When the enemy commander starts rooting
for you, you know you're doing something right.
OK, so by 1848, he's a living legend in South
America. But back in Europe, the political situation
is exploding. The whole continent is on fire.
Yeah. 1848 is the year of revolutions. There
are uprisings in France, Austria, Germany, Hungary
and all across Italy. It's the moment everyone
has been waiting for. And Garibaldi hears the
news. He hears the news and he knows it's time
to go home. He gathers about 60 veterans from
his Italian legion, packs up the red shirts,
puts Anita and their children on a boat, and
sails back to Nice. This brings us to part two,
the return and the romantic defeat. So he arrives
back in Italy. You would think the leaders of
the Italian independence movement would just
roll out the red carpet. You'd think they'd be
thrilled. Here he is, our experienced guerrilla
general. Please take command. But that's not
what happened. Not at all. Politics is never
that simple. The main force fighting the Austrians
in the north is the kingdom of Piedmont Sardinia,
led by King Charles Albert. And the king does
not trust Garibaldi. He's terrified of him. Garibaldi's
a radical. He's a known Republican. He's a friend
of Mazzini. The king isn't fighting for a democracy.
He's fighting to expand his own kingdom. So Garibaldi,
to him, is a dangerous loose cannon. So when
Garibaldi offers his services... The king treats
him with what's described as coolness and distrust.
He basically gives him a minor insignificant
command to keep him out of the way. Which for
a man like Garibaldi must have been infuriating.
Deeply. So he just ignores the king and goes
off to fight for the provisional government in
Milan. But the real, the main event of this period
happens the next year in 1849 in the city of
Rome. The Roman Republic. This is one of the
great tragic episodes of Italian history. It's
the defining moment of this whole revolutionary
wave. The Pope, Pius IX, is forced to flee Rome.
In his absence, a radical republic is declared.
Mazzini arrives and becomes one of its leaders.
And Garibaldi is asked to organize the city's
defense. But who are they defending against?
Not the Austrians this time. No, against the
French, which is deeply ironic. France was a
republic then too, right? It was. But its new
president, Louis Napoleon, the future emperor
Napoleon III, needed to win the support of French
Catholics. So, as a cynical political move, he
sends a massive French army to crush the Roman
Republic and restore the Pope to power. So it's
one republic sending an army to destroy another.
Exactly. And it sets up this epic showdown. You
have a professional, well -equipped French army
against Garibaldi's force, which is this motley
collection of volunteers, students, artists,
and veterans. But on April 30th, 1849, the impossible
happens. A miracle. The French army attacks the
walls of Rome at the Port of San Pancrazio, expecting
to just walk right in. And Garibaldi... using
his guerrilla instincts, launches a surprise
bayonet charge. He uses the terrain, flanks them,
and completely routes them. He drives a superior
French army back in humiliation. It was a stunning
victory. But the French are a major power. They're
not just going to pack up and go home. No, they
just send more troops, tens of thousands more.
They lay siege to the city. And for a month,
Garibaldi and his men hold them off in some of
the most brutal fighting in the century. It was
hand -to -hand combat in the villas and gardens
on the edge of the city. But they were just outnumbered
and outgunned. Overwhelmingly. By the end of
June, the French have breached the walls. The
city is about to fall. And this leads to this
incredible scene in the Roman assembly. The politicians
are all debating whether to surrender or fight
to the death in the streets. And in the middle
of this debate, the doors swing open and Garibaldi
walks in. Imagine the scene. He's covered in
blood and dust and sweat. His sword is bent.
His poncho is torn. He walks into the middle
of the chamber and he tells him there is a third
option. We do not surrender. We leave. And he
delivers this absolutely iconic line. He says,
wherever we will go, that will be Rome. Wow.
He's saying that Rome isn't a place, it's an
idea. It's the people who carry the flame of
the republic. Exactly. It's one of the most powerful
ideas in the history of nationalism. Yeah. But
the reality of that retreat was an absolute nightmare.
This is... The epic retreat. He leaves the city
with about 4 ,000 volunteers, heading north,
hoping to spark a rebellion elsewhere. But they
are being hunted, not by one army, but by four.
The French, the Austrians, the Spanish, and the
Neapolitans are all closing in on him. It's a
death march, basically. It is. They're crossing
the Apennine Mountains in the brutal summer heat.
They have no food, no water. Men are deserting
or dying every day. And this is where the personal
tragedy for Garibaldi becomes almost unbearable.
Anita was with him. Anita was with him. She was
pregnant with their fifth child. She was desperately
ill, probably with malaria, but she had refused
to leave his side. And the retreat was just too
much for her. It was too much. Near the coast,
around the Kamaki Lagoons, her condition worsened
catastrophically. She died in his arms in a farmhouse.
He couldn't even give her a proper burial. He
couldn't. The Austrian patrols were minutes away.
He and a friend had to hastily bury her in a
shallow grave in the sand and just keep running
to save the handful of men he had left. I can't
even imagine. He wrote later that he felt a part
of his soul died there. He eventually managed
to escape Italy on a fishing boat, but he was
a broken man. He'd lost Rome, he'd lost his army,
now he'd lost his wife. For most people, that
would be the end of the story. Disappear, give
up. Which is what makes what happens next so
remarkable. This brings us to part three of our
story, the blue -collar interlude. Because he
doesn't retire. He goes into exile again. But
he doesn't go live in a fancy villa in London.
He goes to Staten Island, New York. This is the
part of the story that always just blows my mind.
The hero of two worlds, the defender of Rome,
is living in New York City. Arrived in 1850.
And he needed a job. So he moved in with an Italian
inventor, Antonio Mucci. Mucci, the man who many
people say invented the telephone before Alexander
Graham Bell. That's the one. And Mucci owned
a candle factory on Staten Island. And Giuseppe
Garibaldi went to work for him. So if you were
a New Yorker in 1850 and you bought a candle,
it might have been hand -dipped by the most famous
revolutionary general in the world. It's entirely
possible. He lived very simply. He wore regular
work clothes. He'd go fishing. He took the ferry
over to Manhattan to meet with other exiles and
visit Masonic lodges, but he refused all charity.
He insisted on earning his own keep. That humility
is such a core part of his character, isn't it?
It's what makes him so different. He wasn't addicted
to the power or the fame. He was addicted to
the cause. And when the cause was on hold, he
was just Giuseppe, the candle maker. But he couldn't
sit still for long. The sea was calling him back.
He was too restless. In 1851, he leaves New York
and decides to go back to his first profession.
He travels to Central America using alias Giuseppe
Payne. Joseph Bread. I know. It's so humble.
It's amazing. And he gets a job as a merchant
captain. He takes command of a ship called the
Carmen in Peru and his cargo for this grand voyage,
guano, bird droppings for fertilizer. He sails
a ship full of bird droppings from Peru across
the Pacific to China. This is a man who had commanded
armies. Exactly. From China, he goes to Manila.
Then he sails around Australia and New Zealand.
He basically circumnavigates the globe as a cargo
ship captain. And there's a great story about
a stop he made in England, in Newcastle. Yes,
on Tyneside. On a later voyage, he sails a ship
called the Commonwealth, carrying coal into Newcastle.
By this point, his fame is spread and the reception
he gets is just wild. Who comes to greet him?
The working men of the city. the coal miners,
the shipbuilders. They saw him as one of them,
a working class hero. They collected money among
themselves and presented him with this beautiful
inscribed sword as a gift. But he shuns the official
welcome, right? Completely. The local dignitaries,
the mayor, the wealthy merchants, they invited
him to a grand banquet in his honor. And Garibaldi
politely declined. He said he would rather stay
and share a meal with the workers who had welcomed
him. That's just quintessential Garibaldi, class
solidarity. He knew who his people were. Always.
So after years of wandering, he finally returns
to Italy in 1854. He's saved up a bit of money,
and he buys half of a small, rocky, remote island
off the coast of Sardinia, the island of Caprera.
And he becomes a farmer. He thinks he's finally
done. But history has other plans for him. The
1850s are drawing to a close, and the stage is
being set for the main event. We are approaching
1860, the miracle year. But to really understand
what happens in 1860, we have to talk about a
deep political betrayal that happened a year
earlier in 1859. And this involves the prime
minister of Piedmont, Sardinia, Count Cavour.
Mila Benso, Count of Cavour, the political mastermind
of Italian unification. He's the pragmatist,
the schemer. While Garibaldi is the sword and
Mazzini is the soul, Cavour is the brain. And
Cavour makes a deal with the devil, so to speak.
He makes a deal with Napoleon III of France.
Cavour needs French military help to drive the
Austrians out of northern Italy. In a secret
deal, he promises that in exchange for that help,
he will give France two territories, Savoy and
Patas. Nice. Garibaldi's hometown. City where
he was born. Imagine fighting your whole life
for the unification of your country, only to
find out that the prime minister has traded your
hometown to a foreign power like a poker chip.
He must have been incandescent with rage. He
was beyond furious. He stood up in the parliament
and attacked Cavour, saying, you have made me
a foreigner in my own land. It created a lifelong
grudge. But ironically, this betrayal actually
freed Garibaldi to act. How so? Well, Cavour
and the king couldn't really give him orders
anymore. He wasn't technically their subject.
He was a man without a country, a free agent.
And that freedom is what allowed him to launch
the single most daring and famous exploit of
his entire life, the Expedition of the Thousand.
This is the big one, the climax of the action
movie. It's May 1860. Set the scene for us. A
revolt has broken out in Sicily. against the
Bourbon king of the two Sicilies, who rules the
entire south of Italy from Naples. Garibaldi
decides he has to go and help them. But Cavour
is against this, right? He thinks it's too risky.
Cavour is officially against it, but he kind
of unofficially lets it happen. It's very complicated.
Garibaldi gathers volunteers in Genoa. He gets
about a thousand of them. And who are these 1
,000? Are they elite soldiers? Not at all. It's
a real motley crew. They're students, doctors,
lawyers, artists, a few old veterans from 1849.
Most of them have never fired a gun in their
lives. They're wearing their red shirts. They
have old rusty muskets. And they need to get
to Sicily, so they need ships. So they basically
hijack with a lot of winking and nodding from
the shipping company. Two old paddle steamers,
the Piemonte and the Lombardo. And in the middle
of the night, they sail south. The odds here
just seem insane. He's got a thousand amateurs.
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies has a professional
army of over 100 ,000 men and a proper navy.
On paper, it is a suicide mission. It should
not have worked. They manage to dodge the Neapolitan
navy and land at Marsala on the western coast
of Sicily. They march inland and meet the enemy
army on a hill called Calatafimi. The Battle
of Calatafimi. This is the moment where everything
could have gone wrong. It's the turning point
of Italian history. Garibaldi has maybe 800 effective
fighters left. He is facing 1 ,500 Neapolitan
regular troops who are dug in on the high ground.
They are better armed, better trained. They have
cannons. And what does Garibaldi do? He orders
an uphill bayonet charge. That's madness. Seems
like it. But he knew their only chance was to
close the distance. Their old muskets were useless
in a firefight. And he used the terrain with
genius. The hill was terraced for farming with
these little stone walls. So his men would charge
up one terrace, duck behind the wall to catch
their breath and reload, and then charge up to
the next one. There's a famous quote from this
battle, isn't there? Yes. At one point, the fighting
is so intense, his second -in -command, Nino
Bixio, says they should retreat. And Garibaldi
looks at him and says, Here we either make Italy
or we die. And they made Italy. They took the
hill. Yeah. The Neapolitan troops, who weren't
expecting this kind of ferocious, almost suicidal
attack, just panicked and broke. And once Garibaldi
won that first battle, the psychological dam
just burst. Sicilians started to believe that
the king's army could actually be beaten. Exactly.
Volunteers started flocking to join him. His
army swelled. He captures the capital, Palermo.
After three days of street fighting, he crosses
the strait to the mainland. He marches north
towards Naples. And this is where the story becomes
almost unbelievable. He takes the enemy capital,
Naples, not with an army. but by taking a train.
It feels like something out of a myth, but it's
true. He was so confident he left his main army
behind and just got on a public train into the
city with a handful of his staff officers. And
the Neapolitan army didn't stop him. The forts
were still manned. The artillery was aimed at
the train station. They could have obliterated
him. But the soldiers and the population were
so completely awestruck by his legend and his
audacity that no one fired a shot. He got off
the train. walked into the city square, and the
entire city just erupted in celebration. The
king of Naples had already fled. So in just a
few months, he's done it. He has conquered the
entire southern half of Italy. He is, for all
intents and purposes, the dictator of the kingdom
of the two Sicilies. He is, and this creates
a massive philosophical crisis. Carabaldi is
a Republican. He hates monarchy. But he has just
conquered half a country in the name of King
Victor Emmanuel II. And now he has to decide
what to do next. This is the moment of truth.
Mazzini is begging him, declare a republic in
the south, march on Rome. But Cavour and the
king are marching down from the north with the
Piedmontese army because they are terrified that
Garibaldi is going to start a war with France
over Rome and bring all of Europe down on them.
So Garibaldi is caught in the middle. He has
a choice. He can fight the Piedmontese army and
start a civil war for his Republican ideals,
or he can surrender his conquests to a king he
doesn't like in the name of unity. And he chooses
unity. On October 26, 1860, he rides out to meet
the king near the town of Tiano. It's this famous
scene, the handshake at Tiano. Describe it for
us. It's a misty morning. Garibaldi and his red
-shirted volunteers ride up to the king and his
uniformed professional army. Garibaldi takes
off his hat and he shouts, Saluto il primo re
d 'Italia. I salute the first king of Italy.
In that one moment, he gives it all away. He
hands over half a country. It is one of the most
remarkable acts of selflessness in modern history.
Think of how many conquerors would have done
that. Caesar didn't. Napoleon didn't. Garibaldi
handed over absolute power. And how did the king
reward him? The king was polite, but cold. He
basically said, thank you very much. We'll take
it from here. He sidelined Garibaldi almost immediately.
He held a review of Garibaldi's volunteer army
and then just disbanded most of them without
incorporating them into the new Italian army.
That has to have been a slap in the face. It
was a deep, deep wound for Garibaldi and his
men. The establishment had used them and was
now discarding them. Garibaldi refused all rewards.
They offered him titles, estates, a huge pension.
He turned it all down. So what did he take? He
asked for a year's supply of macaroni and a bag
of seed corn for his farm. He got on a boat and
sailed back to his rocky island of Caprera. He
went home to plant his crops after creating a
nation. It's what cements the legend of Cincinnatus,
the Roman general who saved the Republic and
then went back to his plow. But, and this is
a recurring theme with him, he still wasn't done.
Which brings us to part five, post -unification.
Because Italy was unified, but the map still
had a big hole in the middle. Rome. The city
was still ruled by the Pope and protected by
a garrison of French troops. And for Garibaldi,
an Italy without Rome wasn't Italy. But before
he turns his attention back to Rome... There's
this fascinating detour involving the American
Civil War. Right, 1861. The Civil War breaks
out in the United States. The Union is desperate
for experienced military commanders. And Garibaldi
is the most famous freedom fighter in the world.
So President Lincoln, through his Secretary of
State William Seward, officially offers Garibaldi
a command in the Union Army, the rank of Major
General. An incredible offer. Why didn't he accept?
He had conditions. And they were pure Garibaldi.
First, he said he would only accept if he was
made commander in chief of the entire Union Army.
Wow. OK, that's bold opening did. I'll help you
out, but I have to be in charge of everything.
It's audacious. But the second condition is the
really important one, the one that tells you
everything about his ideology. He demanded that
Lincoln make the immediate and total abolition
of slavery the explicit primary war aim. And
in 1861, Lincoln wasn't ready to do that. Not
yet. Politically, he couldn't. At that point,
the war was officially about preserving the Union,
not ending slavery. So the negotiations fell
through. Garibaldi declined. And he kept watching.
He watched very closely. And when Lincoln did
issue the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863,
Garibaldi wrote him this beautiful letter praising
him and calling him the heir of the cause of
Christ. He saw the fight against slavery as the
exact same struggle as the fight for national
liberation in Italy. So back in Italy, he gets
restless again. He can't let the Roman question
go. He can't. He raises a new army of volunteers
with the terrifyingly simple slogan, Roma o morte,
Rome or death. And this leads to one of the most
tragic and ironic episodes of his life, Aspermonte
in 1862. He starts marching north towards Rome.
But the new Italian government, the very government
he created, is terrified of a war with France.
So they do the unthinkable. They send the new
Italian army to stop him. The king sends his
army to stop the man who gave him the kingdom.
It's a heartbreaking betrayal. The two armies
meet in the mountains of Aspermonte in the south.
The regular army opens fire on the volunteers.
And what does Garibaldi do? He stands up on a
rock in the line of fire and yells at his men,
Don't shoot! They are our brothers! He forbids
them from returning fire on other Italians. And
he gets shot. He takes a bullet in the foot.
Garibaldi fu ferito. Garibaldi was wounded. became
a famous nursery rhyme. He's arrested by the
government he founded and briefly imprisoned.
It was a national humiliation, but it also proved
his ultimate integrity. He would rather be shot
himself than be the cause of a civil war. He
eventually gets pardoned, goes back to his farm,
but he tries again for Rome, doesn't he? He does
in 1867, another failed attempt that stopped
by Papal and French troops at the Battle of Montana.
There's also his famous one -word telegram during
the Third War of Independence in 1866. He was
winning in the Trentino region, and the government
ordered him to stop his advance. He just replied
with a single word, I'll be disco. I obey. Loyalty
to the nation, even when he disagreed with its
leaders. Exactly. Yeah. But then we get to 1870,
the Franco -Prussian War. This one always confused
me. France has been the main antagonist in this
story for 20 years. They took Nice, they defended
the Pope in Rome. So why does he suddenly go
to fight for France? Because the situation changed.
In 1870, Napoleon III is defeated and captured
by the Prussians. His empire collapses and France
declares itself a republic. The Third Republic.
And for Garibaldi, principle always trumps a
personal grudge. Always. He saw a new sister
republic being attacked by the Prussian monarchy.
So the old man, he's in his 60s now, crippled
by arthritis and old wounds, he often has to
be carried on a stretcher. He goes to France
with his sons and volunteers. And he's still
an effective commander. Incredibly. He's given
command of a makeshift army called the Army of
the Vosges. And in a war that was a total disaster
for France, Garibaldi's army is one of the only
French forces to win any significant tactical
victories against the Prussians. Even in old
age, he was unstoppable. That's just an unbelievable
level of consistency in his character. It is.
And in his final years back on Caprera, his political
views just got more radical. He openly supported
the Paris Commune. He declared himself a socialist
and supported the First International. And he
was, throughout all this, intensely anti -clerical.
Fiercely. He called the papacy the most harmful
of all secret societies and the pope the genius
of evil for Italy. He was a deeply spiritual
man in his own way. He believed in a kind of
universal God, but he absolutely despised the
institution of the Catholic Church, which he
believed had kept Italy backward and divided
for centuries. Which brings us to his death in
1882. And even in death, there's a final sad
irony. He left very clear, very specific instructions
in his will. He wanted a simple cremation on
his farm on Caprera, on an open -air pyre built
of aromatic woods. He wanted his ashes to be
scattered. A very simple, almost pagan farewell.
And the Italian state had other ideas. The state
said, absolutely not. This man is a national
monument. We can't just burn him on a bonfire.
So they ignored his will. They gave him a massive
pompous state funeral. And they entombed him
in a heavy granite sarcophagus on Caprera. It
was the exact opposite of what he wanted. Exactly
what he would have hated. He wanted to be free
and return to nature, and they trapped him under
tons of stone to turn him into a tourist attraction.
A final, frustrating irony for a man who valued
simplicity so much. It really is. I suppose that's
the price you pay for becoming a father of the
fatherland. You don't really belong to yourself
anymore. You belong to the nation and its myths.
So, if we try to pull all these threads together...
The great British historian A .J .P. Taylor wrote
that Garibaldi was the only wholly admirable
figure in modern history. That is incredibly
high praise, especially from a cynical historian
like Taylor. It's astounding praise. And I think
it comes down to that unique combination of qualities.
In battle, he was a lion. He was brave. He was
tactically brilliant. He was terrifying to his
enemies. But in his personal life, he was a lamb.
He was humble. He was gentle. He was completely
uncorrupted by money or by power. And you almost
never see those two things in the same person.
Almost never. The person who is brilliant at
conquering things is usually also brilliant at
holding on to power for themselves. Garibaldi
just broke the mold. He was the essential bridge
between the intellectual dreamer, Mazzini, and
the cold pragmatic politician cavour without
him nothing happens without garibaldi to actually
get on a boat and lead a charge up a hill mavini's
ideas would have just stayed as essays and pamphlets
and cavour's clever diplomacy would have just
been notes in a file Garibaldi made it real.
Which leaves us with a really provocative final
thought, I think. We live in an age where we
often demand our heroes be completely pure. You
know, we scrutinize their every contradiction.
Garibaldi was a walking contradiction. Absolutely.
The man who hated kings created a king of Italy.
The man who late in life became a pacifist, spent
most of his life at war. The man who dreamed
of a republic settled for creating a monarchy.
So that's the question for you to think about.
Was that pragmatism his greatest strength? That
willingness to compromise to get the job done?
Or was it a tragedy? Did he sacrifice too much
of his own ideal world in order to create the
real one? Because the Italy he helped create
was deeply flawed. It was a monarchy. It was
poor. It was unequal. It was not the utopia he
and Mazzini had dreamed of, but it was united.
And maybe at the end of the day, for the sailor
from Nice, that was enough. It's a fascinating
lesson. Sometimes maybe being a hero means compromising
on almost everything except for the one single
thing that matters most. Well said. We will leave
you with that thought to mull over. Thanks for
diving deep with us into the wild, improbable,
and inspiring life of Giuseppe Garibaldi. We'll
catch you on the next deep dive. See you then.