Expedition of the Thousand (1860): Garibaldi Conquers Sicily

The Expedition of the Thousand was the campaign in which Giuseppe Garibaldi and roughly 1,000 volunteers sailed from near Genoa in May 1860 and, within five months, conquered Sicily and Naples. Their improbable success destroyed the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and made the south part of the new Kingdom of Italy. It remains the most celebrated episode of the Italian Risorgimento.

Background

After the Battle of Solferino in 1859, Piedmont-Sardinia gained Lombardy and, by early 1860, the central Italian states. The largest Italian state, however, was the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, ruled from Naples by the young Bourbon king Francis II, who had succeeded his father in 1859.

Sicily had a long history of resentment towards rule from Naples. On 4 April 1860 a revolt broke out at the Gancia convent in Palermo. It was quickly crushed in the city but sparked unrest in the countryside. Sicilian exiles, among them Francesco Crispi and Rosolino Pilo, urged Garibaldi to lead an expedition to support the rising.

Garibaldi, a veteran of wars in South America and of the defence of the Roman Republic in 1849, was the most famous soldier of Italian nationalism. He was also furious that his birthplace, Nice, had just been ceded to France.

Who were the Thousand?

Surviving lists show that the volunteers came overwhelmingly from northern Italy, especially from Lombardy, Liguria and the Veneto, with the city of Bergamo alone sending well over 150 men. Only a small minority were Sicilians or southerners. Most were in their twenties, and many were students, lawyers, doctors, artisans and clerks rather than professional soldiers, although some were veterans of the wars of 1848-1849 and 1859.

The group included a few foreigners and at least one woman, Rosalie Montmasson, the wife of Francesco Crispi, who sailed with the expedition. Many were followers of Giuseppe Mazzini’s republican ideas, but they accepted Garibaldi’s slogan of “Italy and Victor Emmanuel”, putting national unity ahead of the form of government.

Cavour’s dilemma

The expedition placed the Piedmontese prime minister, Count Cavour, in a difficult position. Officially the Kingdom of Sardinia was at peace with the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and an open attack would alarm France, Austria and the other powers. Cavour also distrusted Garibaldi as a radical who might fall under Mazzini’s influence or march on Rome, which was protected by a French garrison.

On the other hand, the expedition was hugely popular in Piedmont and the north, and stopping it by force would have been politically dangerous. Cavour therefore neither supported nor prevented the departure. The government made it hard for the volunteers to obtain good rifles, but did not block the ships from leaving Genoa. When Garibaldi succeeded, Cavour moved to take control of the result.

Departure and landing

On the night of 5-6 May 1860 the volunteers embarked at Quarto, near Genoa, on two steamers, the Piemonte and the Lombardo. They numbered about 1,089 men, mostly young, many students and professionals from northern Italian cities. They were poorly armed, with old muskets.

On 11 May the ships reached Marsala on the western tip of Sicily. Bourbon warships arrived too late to stop the landing, partly because British vessels in the harbour complicated their approach. On 14 May at Salemi, Garibaldi proclaimed himself dictator of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy.

Calatafimi and Palermo

On 15 May the volunteers attacked a larger Bourbon force under General Landi at Calatafimi. In a hard fight up terraced slopes, they drove the Neapolitans from the hill. The victory was small in military terms but huge for morale, and Sicilian irregulars began to join.

Garibaldi then outmanoeuvred the main Bourbon army and slipped into Palermo on 27 May. Street fighting and a heavy Bourbon bombardment followed, damaging much of the city. With the population rising against them, the royal commanders agreed an armistice, and by mid-June the Bourbon garrison of some 20,000 men had evacuated Palermo by sea.

Sicily and the crossing to the mainland

Reinforced by further expeditions from the north, Garibaldi defeated the Bourbon army at Milazzo on 20 July and took Messina, apart from its citadel. Sicily was effectively his.

His rule in Sicily also had a darker side. In August 1860 a peasant uprising at Bronte, where villagers attacked landowners, was harshly suppressed by Nino Bixio, and several people were shot after a summary trial. The episode is often cited as a sign that the new order did little for the southern poor.

On the night of 18-19 August Garibaldi crossed the Strait of Messina and landed in Calabria. Demoralised Bourbon units melted away or surrendered as he advanced north. Francis II left Naples on 6 September for the fortress of Gaeta, and Garibaldi entered the capital by train the next day, 7 September 1860, to an enthusiastic welcome.

The Volturno and Teano

The Bourbon army, regrouped along the Volturno river, still numbered tens of thousands. On 1-2 October 1860 it attacked Garibaldi’s lines. In the largest battle of the campaign, the Garibaldini, helped by Piedmontese reinforcements, held their positions.

Meanwhile Cavour, anxious that Garibaldi might march on Rome and provoke France, sent the Piedmontese army south through the Papal States, defeating the papal army at Castelfidardo on 18 September. Plebiscites on 21 October in Naples and Sicily voted overwhelmingly for union with Victor Emmanuel’s kingdom.

On 26 October 1860 Garibaldi met Victor Emmanuel II near Teano and hailed him as King of Italy. The handshake symbolised the transfer of the south to the monarchy. Garibaldi asked to govern the south for a year but was refused; declining honours and rewards, he left for his island home of Caprera in early November.

Key people

• Giuseppe Garibaldi, commander of the expedition and dictator of Sicily.
• Nino Bixio, his hard-driving second in command.
• Francesco Crispi, Sicilian revolutionary and political organiser, later prime minister of Italy.
• Francis II, the last king of the Two Sicilies.
• Count Cavour, prime minister of Piedmont, who watched the expedition with suspicion and then took control of its results.

Consequences and legacy

Gaeta surrendered on 13 February 1861, and the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed on 17 March 1861 with Victor Emmanuel II as king. The unification of Italy was not complete without Venice and Rome, but the south was now part of the new state.

The expedition made Garibaldi an international celebrity, admired across Europe and the Americas. Yet the south’s integration was troubled: years of rural rebellion and “brigandage” followed, put down by the army at great cost. Historians continue to debate whether 1860 was a popular liberation or a conquest that served northern and landowning interests.

Timeline

• 1860, 4 April: Gancia revolt in Palermo.
• 1860, 5-6 May: The Thousand sail from Quarto near Genoa.
• 1860, 11 May: Landing at Marsala.
• 1860, 15 May: Battle of Calatafimi.
• 1860, 27 May: Garibaldi enters Palermo.
• 1860, 20 July: Battle of Milazzo.
• 1860, 7 September: Garibaldi enters Naples.
• 1860, 1-2 October: Battle of the Volturno.
• 1860, 26 October: Meeting with Victor Emmanuel II near Teano.
• 1861, 17 March: Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy.

Why it matters

The Expedition of the Thousand turned the unification of northern and central Italy into the creation of a nation-state covering almost the whole peninsula. It also created the legend of Garibaldi as the people’s hero of the Risorgimento, while leaving a legacy of southern grievances that shaped Italian politics for generations.