President whose embrace of despots and attacks on the press has set a troubling tone. The question no longer seems strange, for the same reason a close look at where we get our news no longer sounds like civics-class homework. In normal times, the U.
Efforts to undermine factual truth, and those who honestly seek it out, call into doubt the functioning of democracy. Freedom of speech, after all, was purposefully placed first in the Bill of Rights. In , journalists took note of what people said, and of what people did.
When those two things differed, they took note of that too. The year brought no great change in what they do or how they do it. What changed was how much it matters. The man charged with their murders had been obsessed with the paper since it wrote about his harassment of a high school classmate—part of its routine coverage of local legal proceedings. He made the office a crime scene. To put the damn paper out, staffers set up laptops in the bed of a pickup in a parking garage across the street. When the next edition arrived—on schedule—the opinion page was blank but for the names of the dead.
Beneath their names was a coda that might have been written with a goose quill: This passing of valued information is a wholesome essential of self-government. But the information has to be trusted. It mostly still is, in places like Annapolis, where the Capital Gazette operates. At the local level, journalists and community remain mutually reinforcing. The national media enjoyed the same kind of connection not so long ago. But while most institutions rode a steady downslope in public confidence in the jaundiced aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, the national media traveled its own path.
There was a split—by party. The division coincides with the growth of partisan cable news networks. In , Fox News Channel was founded on the assumption that the national media reflected the liberal inclinations of journalists working for it. And surveys did show a lean to the left in their personal politics. Fox was not the first news outlet to thrive by offering news viewers the satisfaction of a shared view of the world—MSNBC, its liberal counterpart, premiered four months earlier—but it was the most strikingly partisan in a television landscape that historically tried not to be.
When TV arrived in homes via physically scarce airwaves, a license to broadcast was deemed a public trust, and the Federal Communications Commission enforced the Fairness Doctrine, which required stations to cover public controversies, and to include more than one side. The hundreds of channels brought by cable rendered the scarcity premise obsolete as justification for regulation the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in , and the fire hose that is the Internet has washed away the last traces.
So it was that TV news went from being a blandly unifying force, confined largely to half-hour nightly newscasts, to a constant companion nudging the country into partisan camps. Especially around presidential elections. On a fever chart of media trust, the downward slope makes sharp dips every four years, followed by upswings after the President is chosen. But the recovery after was partial. Republicans remain deeply distrustful of most news outlets.
Most journalists are under no illusions about their infallibility. They make mistakes, every day. Less discussed—and contrasting sharply with the lies of autocrats—is the speed with which any good news organization moves to publicly correct and acknowledge its mistakes. News organizations bear some responsibility for this. The ethos of remaining separate from the story has hindered journalists from explaining how they do their work, warts and all.
But some are finding these days that just communicating basic and obvious facts can be a struggle. The morning after dissident politician Boris Nemtsov was murdered on a Moscow bridge in , employees at a troll farm called the Internet Research Agency opened their work orders: The same Internet Research Agency was named in the federal indictment handed up to a U. By then, the U. The data was used to promote his candidacy without users knowing the source.
So that was my first instinct: My God, we have to stop this. This is turning into a totalitarian arrangement. Information on social media turns out to be hugely problematic. Facebook, like other social media, makes money by keeping people on the platform. To do so, its software—the algorithms that determine what shows up on your screen—frequently delivers content in a way that promotes political polarization. Two-thirds of American adults say they get news from social media.
Machines are not friends of civic engagement. Within the bubbles they help us build, the algorithms tend to promote negative messages. In real life, engagement can mean listening, exchanging opinions, reading faces. In tech, engagement means any activity on the platform, which maximizes profits for companies that sell your attention to advertisers. Print media and TV sell ads too, but their primary product was credibility. As established media companies struggled to adapt their business models to digital, they often lined up to partner with the social-media companies that now controlled the audience.
In some countries, social media essentially is the Internet. A Facebook-funded program makes the social-media site free in the Philippines, which means most people are unable to access anything beyond it, as other websites—including news sites—require more expensive data use. When the Internet started, the goal was empowerment through connection. Now, when Jourova sees senior executives from Google and Facebook, she says her first question is: Computational propaganda was the term Ressa picked up at a conference: Twenty-one percent of American adults get some of their news from YouTube, a Google company.
Its algorithm produces engagement by suggesting and often auto-playing videos endlessly, but not randomly. Nor does the site exhibit much evidence of journalistic rigor. I have just become numb to it.
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In a statement, a spokesperson for YouTube said it has worked to change its algorithms over the last year to promote credible news sources and provide more fact-checking resources. In groups convened by the Knight Foundation to talk about news and smartphones, teens and college-age Americans said they consider every source biased, except perhaps raw video from cell phones or surveillance cameras.
But their appetite for authentic information remains acute. And as they shift from one platform to another, comparing sources and sifting facts, they are basically acting as journalists. Which says something about the state of the news business in The Internet was supposed to make reporting more transparent. Since , the U. Half of the 3, counties in the U. Nearly counties have no newspaper. For a certain kind of politician, there is an almost liberating genius to framing independent journalists as the enemy.
A month after taking office, President Trump sat for an interview with Breitbart, the right-wing online news site that had been run by his then chief strategist, Steve Bannon. The President may not have known the history of the phrase. It was used in the Soviet Union, to condemn subordinates at the s show trials Joseph Stalin ordered before executing those who had fallen out of favor.
The Breitbart reporter was interested in defining fake news. Intent is difficult to assess from outside, but in writing the Constitution a President swears an oath to defend, the Founders made their intentions clear enough: In Hungary, ahead of elections in April, investigative reporter Andras Dezso embarrassed the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban , a democratically elected ultranationalist who had solidified power by vilifying immigrants. Police called the reporter in for questioning, taking his fingerprints and mug shot.
It showed the government here that they can become more aggressive, more bold in their own attacks against us. The people then saw us as a pillar of power, and there is a primal pleasure in watching such pillars burned. When you start defending the truth, you become the story itself. At least for some. Brazilians in October elected Bolsonaro, a populist reactionary who lambasts major media outlets.
For now, the most prominent U.
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In the first year of the Trump presidency, 25 top Administration officials and Cabinet members have resigned or been fired—more than triple the percentage of Obama, Clinton and both Bushes, and double that of Reagan—following revelations of conflicts of interest, corruption or other impropriety, many uncovered by reporters.
But those protections have started to crack even in the places where they used to be strongest. Four reporters have been murdered in the European Union since the start of last year. The couple, both 27 years old, had been shot at point-blank range inside the modest house they planned to make their family home. The attack on the Capital Gazette newsroom made the U. Dulcina Parra, a Sinaloa reporter who emerged alive from a kidnapping, still goes to work. In Kiev, Arkady Babchenko decided it was the only choice. At his old Moscow newspaper, Novaya Gazeta , at least five journalists have been killed since Babchenko says he knew most of them personally.
So when security officers in Ukraine warned him that he was targeted for assassination, he took the threat seriously. Then he says they told him the only way to expose the plot—and remove the threat to others on the hit list—was to fake his own death. The chief purpose was to defeat tyranny and to establish constitutional government. Though contributing some service to the cause of Italian unity, historians such as Cornelia Shiver doubt that their achievements were proportional to their pretensions.
Many leading Carbonari revolutionaries wanted a republic, [19] two of the most prominent being Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi. Mazzini's activity in revolutionary movements caused him to be imprisoned soon after he joined. Following his release in , he went to Marseille in France, where he organized a new political society called La Giovine Italia Young Italy , whose motto was " Dio e Popolo " God and People , which sought the unification of Italy. Garibaldi, a native of Nice then part of Piedmont , participated in an uprising in Piedmont in and was sentenced to death.
He escaped to South America , though, spending fourteen years in exile, taking part in several wars, and learning the art of guerrilla warfare before his return to Italy in Many of the key intellectual and political leaders operated from exile; most Risorgimento patriots lived and published their work abroad after successive failed revolutions. Exile became a central theme of the foundational legacy of the Risorgimento as the narrative of the Italian nation fighting for independence.
These negative stereotypes emerged from Enlightenment notions of national character that stressed the influence of the environment and history on a people's moral predisposition. Italian exiles both challenged and embraced the stereotypes and typically presented gendered interpretations of Italy's political "degeneration".
They called for a masculine response to feminine weaknesses as the basis of a national regeneration, and fashioned their image of the future Italian nation firmly in the standards of European nationalism. In , Spaniards successfully revolted over disputes about their Constitution, which influenced the development of a similar movement in Italy.
Inspired by the Spaniards who, in , had created their constitution , a regiment in the army of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies , commanded by Guglielmo Pepe , a Carbonaro member of the secret republican organization , [24] mutinied, conquering the peninsular part of Two Sicilies. The king, Ferdinand I , agreed to enact a new constitution. The revolutionaries, though, failed to court popular support and fell to Austrian troops of the Holy Alliance. Ferdinand abolished the constitution and began systematically persecuting known revolutionaries.
Many supporters of revolution in Sicily , including the scholar Michele Amari , were forced into exile during the decades that followed. The leader of the revolutionary movement in Piedmont was Santorre di Santarosa , who wanted to remove the Austrians and unify Italy under the House of Savoy. The Piedmont revolt started in Alessandria , where troops adopted the green, white, and red tricolore of the Cisalpine Republic.
The king's regent, prince Charles Albert , acting while the king Charles Felix was away, approved a new constitution to appease the revolutionaries, but when the king returned he disavowed the constitution and requested assistance from the Holy Alliance. Di Santarosa's troops were defeated, and the would-be Piedmontese revolutionary fled to Paris. In Milan , Silvio Pellico and Pietro Maroncelli organized several attempts to weaken the hold of the Austrian despotism by indirect educational means. In October , Pellico and Maroncelli were arrested on the charge of carbonarism and imprisoned.
Historian Denis Mack Smith argues that:. Few people in , believed that an Italian nation might exist. There were eight states in the peninsula, each with distinct laws and traditions. No one had had the desire or the resources to revive Napoleon's partial experiment in unification. The settlement of —15, had merely restored regional divisions, with the added disadvantage that the decisive victory of Austria over France temporarily hindered Italians in playing off their former oppressors against each other. Italians who, like Ugo Foscolo and Gabriele Rossetti , harboured patriotic sentiments, were driven into exile.
The largest Italian state, the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, with its 8 million inhabitants, seemed aloof and indifferent: Sicily and Naples had once formed part of Spain, and it had always been foreign to the rest of Italy. The common people in each region, and even the intellectual elite, spoke their mutually unintelligible dialects, and lacked the least vestiges of national consciousness.
They wanted good government, not self-government, and had welcomed Napoleon and the French as more equitable and efficient than their native dynasties. After , revolutionary sentiment in favor of a unified Italy began to experience a resurgence, and a series of insurrections laid the groundwork for the creation of one nation along the Italian peninsula.
In , Francis made it clear that he would not act against those who subverted opposition toward the unification of Italy. Encouraged by the declaration, revolutionaries in the region began to organize. During the July Revolution of in France, revolutionaries forced the king to abdicate and created the July Monarchy with encouragement from the new French king, Louis-Philippe. Louis-Philippe had promised revolutionaries such as Ciro Menotti that he would intervene if Austria tried to interfere in Italy with troops. Fearing he would lose his throne, Louis-Philippe did not, however, intervene in Menotti's planned uprising.
The Duke of Modena abandoned his Carbonari supporters, arrested Menotti and other conspirators in , and once again conquered his duchy with help from the Austrian troops. Menotti was executed, and the idea of a revolution centered in Modena faded. These successful revolutions, which adopted the tricolore in favour of the Papal flag, quickly spread to cover all the Papal Legations, and their newly installed local governments proclaimed the creation of a united Italian nation.
The revolts in Modena and the Papal Legations inspired similar activity in the Duchy of Parma , where the tricolore flag was adopted. The Parmese duchess Marie Louise left the city during the political upheaval. Austrian Chancellor Metternich warned Louis-Philippe that Austria had no intention of letting Italian matters be, and that French intervention would not be tolerated.
Louis-Philippe withheld any military help and even arrested Italian patriots living in France. In early , the Austrian army began its march across the Italian peninsula, slowly crushing resistance in each province that had revolted. This military action suppressed much of the fledgling revolutionary movement, and resulted in the arrest of many radical leaders. They assembled a band of about twenty men ready to sacrifice their lives, and set sail on their venture on 12 June Four days later they landed near Crotone , intending to go to Cosenza , liberate the political prisoners, and issue their proclamations.
Tragically for the Bandiera brothers, they did not find the insurgent band they were told awaited them, so they moved towards La Sila. They were ultimately betrayed by one of their party, the Corsican Pietro Boccheciampe, and by some peasants who believed them to be Turkish pirates. A detachment of gendarmes and volunteers were sent against them, and after a short fight the whole band was taken prisoner and escorted to Cosenza, where a number of Calabrians who had taken part in a previous rising were also under arrest.
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The moral effect was enormous throughout Italy, the action of the authorities was universally condemned, and the martyrdom of the Bandiera brothers bore fruit in the subsequent revolutions. On 5 January , the revolutionary disturbances began with a civil disobedience strike in Lombardy , as citizens stopped smoking cigars and playing the lottery , which denied Austria the associated tax revenue.
Shortly after this, revolts began on the island of Sicily and in Naples. In Sicily the revolt resulted in the proclamation of the Kingdom of Sicily with Ruggero Settimo as Chairman of the independent state until , when the Bourbon army took back full control of the island on 15 May by force. A breakaway republican provisional government formed in Tuscany during February shortly after this concession. On 21 February, Pope Pius IX granted a constitution to the Papal States, which was both unexpected and surprising considering the historical recalcitrance of the Papacy.
By the time the revolution in Paris occurred, three states of Italy had constitutions—four if one considers Sicily to be a separate state. Meanwhile, in Lombardy, tensions increased until the Milanese and Venetians rose in revolt on 18 March The insurrection in Milan succeeded in expelling the Austrian garrison after five days of street fights — 18—22 March Cinque giornate di Milano. An Austrian army under Marshal Josef Radetzky besieged Milan, but due to defection of many of his troops and the support of the Milanese for the revolt, they were forced to retreat.
After initial successes at Goito and Peschiera , he was decisively defeated by Radetzky at the Battle of Custoza on 24 July. An armistice was agreed to, and Radetzky regained control of all of Lombardy-Venetia save Venice itself, where the Republic of San Marco was proclaimed under Daniele Manin. While Radetzky consolidated control of Lombardy-Venetia and Charles Albert licked his wounds, matters took a more serious turn in other parts of Italy.
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The monarchs who had reluctantly agreed to constitutions in March came into conflict with their constitutional ministers. At first, the republics had the upper hand, forcing the monarchs to flee their capitals, including Pope Pius IX. Initially, Pius IX had been something of a reformer, but conflicts with the revolutionaries soured him on the idea of constitutional government. In early , elections were held for a Constituent Assembly, which proclaimed a Roman Republic on 9 February.
In the Constitution of the Roman Republic, [33] religious freedom was guaranteed by article 7, the independence of the pope as head of the Catholic Church was guaranteed by article 8 of the Principi fondamentali , while the death penalty was abolished by article 5, and free public education was provided by article 8 of the Titolo I. Before the powers could respond to the founding of the Roman Republic, Charles Albert, whose army had been trained by the exiled Polish general Albert Chrzanowski , renewed the war with Austria.
He was quickly defeated by Radetzky at Novara on 23 March Charles Albert abdicated in favour of his son, Victor Emmanuel II , and Piedmontese ambitions to unite Italy or conquer Lombardy were, for the moment, brought to an end. The war ended with a treaty signed on 9 August. A popular revolt broke out in Brescia on the same day as the defeat at Novara, but was suppressed by the Austrians ten days later. There remained the Roman and Venetian Republics.
Apparently, the French first wished to mediate between the Pope and his subjects, but soon the French were determined to restore the Pope. After a two-month siege, Rome capitulated on 29 June and the Pope was restored. Meanwhile, the Austrians besieged Venice, which was defended by a volunteer army led by Daniele Manin and Guglielmo Pepe , who were forced to surrender on 24 August. Pro-independence fighters were hanged en masse in Belfiore , while the Austrians moved to restore order in central Italy, restoring the princes who had been expelled and establishing their control over the Papal Legations.
The revolutions were thus completely crushed. Morale was of course badly weakened, but the dream of Risorgimento did not die. Instead, the Italian patriots learned some lessons that made them much more effective at the next opportunity in Military weakness was glaring, as the small Italian states were completely outmatched by France and Austria. France was a potential ally, and the patriots realized they had to focus all their attention on expelling Austria first, with a willingness to give the French whatever they wanted in return for essential military intervention. The French in fact received Savoy and Nice in Secondly, the patriots realized that the Pope was an enemy, and could never be the leader of a united Italy.
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Third they realized that republicanism was too weak a force. Count Cavour — provided critical leadership. He was a modernizer interested in agrarian improvements, banks, railways and free trade. He opened a newspaper as soon as censorship allowed it: Il Risorgimento called for the independence of Italy, a league of Italian princes, and moderate reforms. He had the ear of the king and in became prime minister.
He ran an efficient active government, promoting rapid economic modernization while upgrading the administration of the army and the financial and legal systems. He sought out support from patriots across Italy. In , the kingdom became an ally of Britain and France in the Crimean war , which gave Cavour's diplomacy legitimacy in the eyes of the great powers. In , Carlo Pisacane , an aristocrat from Naples who had embraced Mazzini's ideas, decided to provoke a rising in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. His small force landed on the island of Ponza. It overpowered guards and liberated hundreds of prisoners.
In sharp contrast to his hypothetical expectations, there was no local uprising and the invaders were quickly overpowered. Pisacane was killed by angry locals who suspected he was leading a gypsy band trying to steal their food. Napoleon III signed a secret alliance and Cavour provoked Austria with military maneuvers and eventually created the war in April Cavour called for volunteers to enlist in the Italian liberation. The Austrians planned to use their army to beat the Sardinians before the French could come to their aid. Austria had an army of , men, while the Sardinians had a mere 70, men by comparison.
However the Austrians' numerical strength was outweighed by an ineffectual leadership appointed by the Emperor on the basis of noble lineage, rather than military competency. By this time, the French had reinforced the Sardinians, so the Austrians retreated. The settlement, by which Lombardy was annexed to Sardinia, left Austria in control of Venice. Sardinia eventually won the Second War of Italian Unification due to statesmanship instead of armies or popular election. The final arrangement was ironed out by "back-room" deals instead of in the battlefield.
This was because neither France, Austria, nor Sardinia wanted to risk another battle and could not handle further fighting. All of the sides were eventually unhappy with the final outcome of the 2nd War of Italian Unification and expected another conflict in the future.
But his father's tyranny had inspired many secret societies, and the kingdom's Swiss mercenaries were unexpectedly recalled home under the terms of a new Swiss law that forbade Swiss citizens to serve as mercenaries. This left Francis with only his mostly-unreliable native troops. It was a critical opportunity for the unification movement.
In April , separate insurrections began in Messina and Palermo in Sicily, both of which had demonstrated a history of opposing Neapolitan rule. These rebellions were easily suppressed by loyal troops. In the meantime, Giuseppe Garibaldi , a native of Nice, was deeply resentful of the French annexation of his home city.
He hoped to use his supporters to regain the territory. Cavour, terrified of Garibaldi provoking a war with France, persuaded Garibaldi to instead use his forces in the Sicilian rebellions. On 6 May , Garibaldi and his cadre of about a thousand Italian volunteers called I Mille , steamed from Quarto near Genoa , and, after a stop in Talamone on 11 May, landed near Marsala on the west coast of Sicily.
Near Salemi , Garibaldi's army attracted scattered bands of rebels, and the combined forces defeated the opposing army at Calatafimi on 13 May. Within three days, the invading force had swelled to 4, men. After waging various successful but hard-fought battles, Garibaldi advanced upon the Sicilian capital of Palermo , announcing his arrival by beacon-fires kindled at night. On 27 May the force laid siege to the Porta Termini of Palermo, while a mass uprising of street and barricade fighting broke out within the city.
With Palermo deemed insurgent, Neapolitan general Ferdinando Lanza, arriving in Sicily with some 25, troops, furiously bombarded Palermo nearly to ruins.
With the intervention of a British admiral, an armistice was declared, leading to the Neapolitan troops' departure and surrender of the town to Garibaldi and his much smaller army. In Palermo was created the Dictatorship of Garibaldi. This resounding success demonstrated the weakness of the Neapolitan government. Garibaldi's fame spread and many Italians began to consider him a national hero. Doubt, confusion, and dismay overtook the Neapolitan court—the king hastily summoned his ministry and offered to restore an earlier constitution, but these efforts failed to rebuild the peoples' trust in Bourbon governance.
Six weeks after the surrender of Palermo, Garibaldi attacked Messina. Within a week, its citadel surrendered. Having conquered Sicily, Garibaldi proceeded to the mainland, crossing the Strait of Messina with the Neapolitan fleet at hand. The garrison at Reggio Calabria promptly surrendered. As he marched northward, the populace everywhere hailed him, and military resistance faded: Meanwhile, Naples had declared a state of siege, and on 6 September the king gathered the 4, troops still faithful to him and retreated over the Volturno river.
The next day, Garibaldi, with a few followers, entered by train into Naples, where the people openly welcomed him. Though Garibaldi had easily taken the capital, the Neapolitan army had not joined the rebellion en masse , holding firm along the Volturno River. Garibaldi's irregular bands of about 25, men could not drive away the king or take the fortresses of Capua and Gaeta without the help of the Sardinian army. The Sardinian army, however, could only arrive by traversing the Papal States, which extended across the entire center of the peninsula.
Seeing this as a threat to the domain of the Catholic Church, Pius threatened excommunication for those who supported such an effort. The settling of the peninsular standoff now rested with Napoleon III. If he let Garibaldi have his way, Garibaldi would likely end the temporal sovereignty of the Pope and make Rome the capital of Italy. Napoleon, however, may have arranged with Cavour to let the king of Sardinia free to take possession of Naples, Umbria and the other provinces, provided that Rome and the "Patrimony of St.
Peter " were left intact. It was in this situation that a Sardinian force of two army corps, under Fanti and Cialdini, marched to the frontier of the Papal States, its objective being not Rome but Naples. On 9 October, Victor Emmanuel arrived and took command. There was no longer a papal army to oppose him, and the march southward proceeded unopposed. Garibaldi distrusted the pragmatic Cavour since Cavour was the man ultimately responsible for orchestrating the French annexation of the city of Nice, which was his birthplace.
Nevertheless, he accepted the command of Victor Emmanuel. When the king entered Sessa Aurunca at the head of his army, Garibaldi willingly handed over his dictatorial power. Garibaldi then retired to the island of Caprera , while the remaining work of unifying the peninsula was left to Victor Emmanuel. The progress of the Sardinian army compelled Francis II to give up his line along the river, and he eventually took refuge with his best troops in the fortress of Gaeta.
His courage boosted by his resolute young wife, Queen Marie Sophie , Francis mounted a stubborn defence that lasted three months.
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But European allies refused to provide him with aid, and food and munitions became scarce, and disease set in, so the garrison was forced to surrender. Nonetheless, ragtag groups of Neapolitans loyal to Francis fought on against the Italian government for years to come. The fall of Gaeta brought the unification movement to the brink of fruition—only Rome and Venetia remained to be added. Three months later Cavour died, having seen his life's work nearly completed.
When he was given the last rites, Cavour purportedly said: Mazzini was discontent with the perpetuation of monarchical government and continued to agitate for a republic. With the motto "Free from the Alps to the Adriatic ", the unification movement set its gaze on Rome and Venice. There were obstacles, however. A challenge against the Pope's temporal dominion was viewed with profound distrust by Catholics around the world, and there were French troops stationed in Rome.
Victor Emmanuel was wary of the international repercussions of attacking the Papal States, and discouraged his subjects from participating in revolutionary ventures with such intentions. Nonetheless, Garibaldi believed that the government would support him if he attacked Rome. Frustrated at inaction by the king, and bristling over perceived snubs, he came out of retirement to organize a new venture.
In June , he sailed from Genoa and landed again at Palermo, where he gathered volunteers for the campaign, under the slogan o Roma o Morte "either Rome or Death". The garrison of Messina, loyal to the king's instructions, barred their passage to the mainland. Garibaldi's force, now numbering two thousand, turned south and set sail from Catania. Garibaldi declared that he would enter Rome as a victor or perish beneath its walls. He landed at Melito on 14 August and marched at once into the Calabrian mountains.
Far from supporting this endeavour, the Italian government was quite disapproving. General Cialdini dispatched a division of the regular army, under Colonel Pallavicino, against the volunteer bands. On 28 August the two forces met in the Aspromonte. One of the regulars fired a chance shot, and several volleys followed, but Garibaldi forbade his men to return fire on fellow subjects of the Kingdom of Italy. The volunteers suffered several casualties, and Garibaldi himself was wounded; many were taken prisoner.
Garibaldi was taken by steamer to Varignano , where he was honorably imprisoned for a time, but finally released. Meanwhile, Victor Emmanuel sought a safer means to the acquisition of the remaining Papal territory. He negotiated with the Emperor Napoleon for the removal of the French troops from Rome through a treaty.
They agreed to the September Convention in September , by which Napoleon agreed to withdraw the troops within two years. The Pope was to expand his own army during that time so as to be self-sufficient. In December , the last of the French troops departed from Rome, in spite of the efforts of the pope to retain them. By their withdrawal, Italy excluding Venetia and Savoy was freed from the presence of foreign soldiers. The seat of government was moved in from Turin , the old Sardinian capital, to Florence , where the first Italian parliament was summoned. This arrangement created such disturbances in Turin that the king was forced to leave that city hastily for his new capital.
In the Austro-Prussian War of , Austria contested with Prussia the position of leadership among the German states. The Kingdom of Italy seized the opportunity to capture Venetia from Austrian rule and allied itself with Prussia. However, on 8 April, Italy and Prussia signed an agreement that supported Italy's acquisition of Venetia, and on 20 June Italy issued a declaration of war on Austria. Victor Emmanuel hastened to lead an army across the Mincio to the invasion of Venetia, while Garibaldi was to invade the Tyrol with his Hunters of the Alps.
The enterprise ended in disaster. The Italian army encountered the Austrians at Custoza on 24 June and suffered a defeat. On 20 July the Regia Marina was defeated in the battle of Lissa. Italy's fortunes were not all so dismal, though. The following day, Garibaldi's volunteers defeated an Austrian force in the Battle of Bezzecca , and moved toward Trento. Meanwhile, Prussian Minister President Otto von Bismarck saw that his own ends in the war had been achieved, and signed an armistice with Austria on 27 July.
Italy officially laid down its arms on 12 August. Garibaldi was recalled from his successful march and resigned with a brief telegram reading only " Obbedisco " "I obey". In spite of Italy's poor showing, Prussia's success on the northern front obliged Austria to cede Venetia. In the peace treaty of Vienna, it was written that the annexation of Venetia would have become effective only after a referendum—taken on 21 and 22 October—to let the Venetian people express their will about being annexed or not to the Kingdom of Italy.
Historians suggest that the referendum in Venetia was held under military pressure, [53] as a mere 0. Austrian forces put up some opposition to the invading Italians, to little effect. The national party, with Garibaldi at its head, still aimed at the possession of Rome, as the historic capital of the peninsula. In Garibaldi made a second attempt to capture Rome, but the papal army, strengthened with a new French auxiliary force, defeated his poorly armed volunteers at Mentana.
Subsequently, a French garrison remained in Civitavecchia until August , when it was recalled following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. Before the defeat at Mentana, Enrico Cairoli, his brother Giovanni, and 70 companions had made a daring attempt to take Rome. The group had embarked in Terni and floated down the Tiber. Their arrival in Rome was to coincide with an uprising inside the city. Unfortunately for the Cairolis and their companions, by the time they arrived at Villa Glori, on the northern outskirts of Rome, the uprising had already been suppressed.
During the night of 22 October , the group was surrounded by Papal Zouaves , and Giovanni was severely wounded. Enrico was mortally wounded and bled to death in Giovanni's arms. With the Cairoli dead, command was assumed by Giovanni Tabacchi who had retreated with the remaining volunteers into the villa, where they continued to fire at the papal soldiers. These also retreated in the evening to Rome.
The survivors retreated to the positions of those led by Garibaldi on the Italian border. At the summit of Villa Glori, near the spot where Enrico died, there is a plain white column dedicated to the Cairoli brothers and their 70 companions. About meters to the left from the top of the Spanish Steps, there is a bronze monument of Giovanni holding the dying Enrico in his arm.
A plaque lists the names of their companions.