In spite of this, however, and in spite of the difficulty of judging an act, all the reasons for which may not, even now, be in possession of the world, it is very hard indeed to pardon Cavour for having yielded Nice as well as Savoy to France. The Nizzards were Italians as the lower class of the population is Italian still; they had always shown warm sympathy with the hopes of Italy, which could not be said of the Savoyards; and Nice was the birthplace of Garibaldi!

England would have supported and applauded resistance to the claim for Nice on general grounds, though her particular interest was in Savoy, or rather in that part of the Savoy Alps which was neutralised by treaty in 1814. It was the refusal of Napoleon to adopt the compromise of ceding this district to Switzerland which caused the breach between him and the British ministry. From that moment, also, Prussia began to increase her army, and resolved, when she was ready, to check the imperial ambition by force of arms. 'The loss of Alsace and Lorraine,' writes an able publicist, M.E. Tallichet, 'was the direct consequence of the annexation of Nice and Savoy.'

If anything could have rendered more galling to Italy the deprivation of these two provinces, it was the tone adopted in France when speaking of the transaction. What were Savoy and Nice? A barren rock and an insignificant strip of coast! The French of thirty-four years ago travelled so little that they may have believed in the description. The vast military importance of the ceded districts has been already referred to. Some scraps on the Nice frontier were saved in a curious way: They were spots which formed part of the favourite playground of the Royal Hunter of the Alps, and it was pointed out to Napoleon that it would be a graceful act to leave these particular 'barren rocks' to his Sardinian Majesty. The zig-zags in the line of demarcation which were thus introduced are said to be of great strategic advantage to Italy. So far, so good; but it remains true that France is inside the Italian front-door.

At the elections for the new Chamber in March 1860, the Nizzards chose Garibaldi; and this was their real plebiscite—not that which followed at a short interval, and presented the phenomenon of a population which appeared to change its mind as to its nationality in the course of a few weeks. In voting for Garibaldi, they voted for Italy.

The Nizzard hero made some desperate efforts on behalf of his fellow-citizens in the Chamber, not his natural sphere, and was on the brink of making other efforts in a sphere in which he might have succeeded better. He had the idea of going to Nice with about 200 followers, and exciting just enough of a revolution to let the real will of the people be known, and to frustrate the wiles of French emissaries and the pressure of government in the official plebiscite of the 15th of April. The story of the conspiracy, which is unknown in Italy, has been told by one of the conspirators, the late Lawrence Oliphant. The English writer, who reached Turin full of wrath at the proposed cession, was introduced to Garibaldi, from whom he received the news of the proposed enterprise. Oliphant offered his services, which were accepted, and he accompanied the general to Genoa, where he engaged a diligence which was to carry the vanguard to Nice. But, on going to Garibaldi for the last orders, he found him supping with twenty or thirty young men; 'All Sicilians!' said the chief. 'We must give up the Nice programme; the general opinion is that we shall lose all if we try for too much.' He added that he had hoped to carry out the Nice plan first, but now everything must be sacrificed to freeing Sicily. And he asked Oliphant to join the Thousand, an offer which the adventurous Englishman never ceased to regret that he did not accept. As it was, he elected to go all the same to Nice, where he was the spectator and became the historian of the arts which brought about the semblance of an unanimous vote in favour of annexation to France.

The ratification of the treaty—which, by straining the constitution, was concluded without consulting Parliament—was reluctantly given by the Piedmontese Chambers, the majority of members fearing the responsibility of upsetting an accomplished fact. Cavour, when he laid down the pen after signing the deed of cession, turned to Baron de Talleyrand with the remark: 'Now we are accomplices!' His face, which had been depressed, resumed its cheerful air. In fact, though Napoleon's dislike of the central annexations was unabated, he could no longer oppose them. Victor Emmanuel accepted the four crowns of Central Italy, the people of which, during the long months of waiting, and under circumstances that applied the most crucial test to their resolution, had never swerved from the desire to form part of the Italian monarchy under the sceptre of the Re Galantuomo. The King of Sardinia, as he was still called, had eleven million subjects, and on his head rested one excommunication the more. The Bull fulminated against all who had, directly or indirectly, participated in the events which caused Romagna to change hands, was published a day or two before the opening of the new Parliament at Turin.

Addressing for the first time the representatives of his widened realm, Victor Emmanuel said: 'True to the creed of my fathers, and, like them, constant in my homage to the Supreme Head of the Church, whenever it happens that the ecclesiastical authority employs spiritual arms in support of temporal interests, I shall find in my steadfast conscience and in the very traditions of my ancestors, the power to maintain civil liberty in its integrity, and my own authority, for which I hold myself accountable to God alone and to my people.'

The words: 'Della quale debbo ragione a Dio solo ed ai miei popoli,' were added by the King to the speech prepared by his ministers; it was noticed that he pronounced them with remarkable energy. The speech concluded: 'Our country is no more the Italy of the Romans, nor the Italy of the Middle Ages; no longer the field for every foreign ambition, it becomes, henceforth, the Italy of the Italians.'



CHAPTER XIV

THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND

1860

Origin of the Expedition—Garibaldi at Marsala—Calatafimi—The Taking of Palermo—Milazzo—The Bourbons evacuate Sicily.

During the journey from Turin to Genoa, Garibaldi was occupied in opening, reading and tearing up into small pieces an enormous mass of letters, while his English companion spent the time in vainly speculating as to what this vast correspondence was about. When they approached Genoa, the floor of the railway carriage resembled a gigantic wastepaper basket. It was only afterwards that Lawrence Oliphant guessed the letters to be responses to a call for volunteers for Sicily.

The origin of the Sicilian expedition has been related in various ways; there is the version which attributes it entirely to Cavour, and the version which attributes it to not irresponsible personages in England. The former was the French and Clerical official account; the latter has always obtained credence in Germany and Russia. For instance, the late Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg said that 'the mystery of how 150,000 men were vanquished by a thousand Red-shirts was wrapped in English bank-notes!' Of this theory, it need only be said that the notion of Lord Palmerston (for it comes to that) supporting a foreign revolution out of the British exchequer is not one that commends itself to the belief of the average Englishman. With regard to the other theory—namely, that Cavour 'got up' the Sicilian expedition, it has been favoured to a certain degree, both by his friends and foes; but it will not bear careful examination. As far as Sicily goes (Naples is another thing), the most that can be brought home to Cavour is a complicity of toleration; and even this statement should be qualified by the addition, 'after the act.' It is true that, in the early days after Villafranca, he had exclaimed: 'They have cut me off from making Italy from the north, by diplomacy; very well, I will make her from the south, by revolution!' True, also, that earlier still, in 1856, he expressed the opinion, shared by every man of common sense, that while the Bourbons ruled over the Two Sicilies there would be no real peace for Italy. Nevertheless, in April 1860, he neither thought the time ripe for the venture nor the means employed adequate for its accomplishment. He was afraid that Garibaldi would meet with the death of the Bandieras and Pisacane. No one was more convinced than Cavour of the importance of Garibaldi's life to Italy; and it is a sign of his true superiority of mind that this conviction was never entertained more strongly than at the moment when the general was passionately inveighing against him for the cession of Nice. To Cavour such invectives seemed natural, and even justified from one point of view; they excited in him no bitterness, and he was only too happy that they fell upon himself and not upon the King, since it was his fixed idea that, without the maintenance of a good understanding between Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi, Italy would not be made. Few men under the sting of personal attacks have shown such complete self-control.

As has been stated, when Francis II. ascended the Neapolitan throne, he was invited to join in the war with Austria, and he refused. Since then, the same negative result had attended the reiterated counsels of reform which the Piedmontese Government sent to that of Naples—the young King showing, by repeated acts, that not Sardinia but Rome was his monitress and chosen ally in Italy. The Pope had lately induced the French General Lamoriciere to take the command of the Pontifical troops, and he and the King of Naples were organising their armies, with a view to co-operating at an early date against the common enemy at Turin. In January 1860, Lord Russell wrote to Mr Elliot, the English Minister at Naples: 'You will tell the King and his Ministers that the Government of her Majesty the Queen does not intend to accept any part in the responsibility nor to guarantee the certain consequences of a misgovernment which has scarcely a parallel in Europe.' Mr Elliot replied, early in March: 'I have used all imaginable arguments to convince this Government of the necessity of stopping short on the fatal path which it has entered. I finished by saying that I was persuaded of the inevitable fall of his Majesty and the dynasty if wiser counsels did not obtain a hearing, and requested an audience with the King; since, when the catastrophe occurs, I do not wish my conscience to reproach me with not having tried all means of saving an inexperienced Sovereign from the ruin which threatens him. The Ministers of France and Spain have spoken to the same effect.' Even Russia advised Francis to make common cause with Piedmont. In April, Victor Emmanuel wrote to his cousin, 'as a near relative and an Italian Prince,' urging him to listen while there was yet time to save something, if not everything. 'If you will not hear me,' he said, 'the day may come when I shall be obliged to be the instrument of your ruin!'

It has been said that the Sardinian Government, in tendering similar advice, hoped for its refusal and contemplated the eventuality hinted at with the reverse of apprehension. Of course this is true. Yet the responsibility of declining to take the only course which might by any possibility have saved him must rest with the King of Naples and not with Victor Emmanuel and his Ministers. The attempt to make Francis appear the innocent victim of a diabolical conspiracy will never succeed, however ingenious are the writers who devote their abilities to so unfruitful a task.

To trace the real beginning of the expedition we must go back to the summer of 1859. When the war ended in the manner which he alone had foreseen, Mazzini projected a revolutionary enterprise in the south which should restore to the Italian movement its purely national character and defeat in advance Napoleon's plans for gathering the Bourbon succession for his cousin, Prince Murat. He sent agents to Sicily, and notably Francesco Crispi, who, as a native of the island and a man of resource and quick intelligence, was well qualified to execute the work of propaganda and to elude the Bourbon police. Crispi travelled in all parts of Sicily for several months, and in September he was able to report to Mazzini that the insurrection might be expected in a few weeks—which proved incorrect, but only as to date. Mazzini forbade his agents to agitate in favour of a republic; unity was the sole object to be aimed at; unity in whatever form and at whatever cost.

In March 1860 he had an interview in London with the man who was to become the actual initiator of the revolutionary movement in South Italy. This was Rosalino Pilo, son of the Count di Capaci, and descended through his mother from the royal house of Anjou, whose name, Italianised into Gioeni, is still borne by several noble families in Sicily. Rosalino Pilo, who was now in his fortieth year, had devoted all his life to his country's liberties. After 1849, when he was obliged to leave Sicily, he sold his ancestral acres to supply the wants of his fellow exiles, and help the work of revolutionary propaganda. Handsome in person, cultivated in mind, ready to give his life, as he had already given most of what makes life tolerable, to the Italian cause, he won the affection of all with whom he was brought in contact, and especially of Mazzini, from whom he parted after that last interview radiant with hope, and yet with a touch of sadness in his smile, as if in prevision that the place allotted to him in the ranks of men was among the sowers, not among the reapers.

Rosalino Pilo believed, as Mazzini believed, that Sicily was ripe for revolution, but he realised the fact that under existing circumstances there was an exceeding probability of a Sicilian revolution being rapidly crushed. It was the tendency of Mazzini's mind to think the contrary; to put more faith in the people themselves than in any leader or leaders; to imagine that the blast of the trumpet of an angered population was sufficient to bring down the walls of all the citadels of despotism, however well furnished with heavy artillery. Pilo saw that there was only one man who could give a real chance of success to a rising in his native island, and that man was Garibaldi. As early as February he began to write to Caprera, urging the general to give his co-operation to the projected movement. It is notorious that the scheme, until almost the last moment, did not find favour with Garibaldi. In spite of his perilous enterprises, the chief had never been a courtier of failure, and he understood more clearly than his correspondent what failure at that particular juncture would have meant. The ventures of the Bandieras and of Pisacane, similar in their general plan to the one now in view (though on a smaller scale). ended in disasters, but disasters that were useful to Italy. A disaster now would have been ruinous to Italy. Garibaldi's hesitations do not, as some writers of the extreme party have foolishly assumed, detract from his merit as victorious leader of the expedition; they only show him to have been more amenable to political prudence than most people have supposed.

Rosalino Pilo wrote, finally, that in any case he was determined to go to Sicily himself to complete the preparations, and he added: 'The insurrection in Sicily, consider it well, will carry with it that of the whole south of the peninsula,' by which means not only would the Muratist plots be frustrated, but also a new army and fleet would become available for the conquest of independence and the liberation of Venetia. The writer concluded by wishing the general 'new glories in Sicily in the accomplishment of our country's redemption.'

True to his word Rosalino Pilo embarked at Genoa on the 24th of March, on a crazy old coasting vessel, manned by five friendly sailors. He had with him a single companion, and carried such arms and ammunition as he had been able to get together. Terrible weather and the deplorable condition of their craft kept them at sea for fifteen days, during which time something of great importance happened at Palermo. On the 4th of April the authorities became aware that arms and conspirators were concealed in the convent of La Gancia, which was to have been the focus of the revolution. Troops were sent to besiege the convent, which they only succeeded in taking after four hours' resistance; its fall was the signal for a general slaughter of the inmates, both monks and laymen. The insurrection was thus stifled in its birth in the capital, but from this time it began to spread in the country, and when, at last, Rosalino Pilo landed near Messina on the 10th of April, he found that several armed bands were already roving the mountains, as yet almost unperceived by the Government, which had gone to sleep again after its exhibition of energy on the 4th. Events were, however, to awake it from its slumbers, and to cause it to renew its vigilance. It required all Rosalino Pilo's skill and courage to sustain the revolution of which he became henceforth the responsible head, till the fated deliverer arrived.

Pilo's letters, brought back to Genoa by the pilot who guided him to Sicilian waters, were what decided Garibaldi to go to the rescue. Some, like Bixio and Bertani, warmly and persistently urged him to accept the charge; others, like Sirtori, were convinced that the undertaking was foredoomed, and that its only result would be the death of their beloved captain: but this conviction did not lessen their eagerness to share his perils when once he was resolved to go.

Like all born men of action, Garibaldi did not know what doubt was after he came to a decision. From that moment his mental atmosphere cleared; he saw the goal and went straight for it. In a surprisingly short time the expedition was organised and ready to leave. 'Few and good,' had been the rule laid down by Garibaldi for the enrolments; if he had chosen he could have taken with him a much more numerous host. When it was the day to start few they were (according to the most recent computation the exact number was 1072 men), and they were certainly good. The force was divided into seven companies, the first entrusted to the ardent Nino Bixio, who acted in a general way as second-in-command through both the Sicilian and Neapolitan campaigns, and the seventh to Benedetto Cairoli, whose mother contributed a large sum of money as well as three of her sons to the freeing of Southern Italy. Sirtori, about whom there always clung something of the priestly vocation for which he had been designed, was the head of the staff; Tuerr (the Hungarian) was adjutant-general. The organisation was identical with that of the Italian army 'to which we belong,' said Garibaldi in his first order of the day.

One name is missing, that of Medici, who was left behind to take the command of a projected movement in the Papal States. By whom this plan was invented is not clear, but simultaneous operations in different parts of the peninsula had been always a favourite design of the more extreme members of the Party of Action, and Garibaldi probably yielded to their advice. All that came of it was the entry into Umbria of Zambianchi's small band of volunteers, which was promptly repulsed over the frontier. Medici, therefore, remained inactive till after the fall of Palermo; he headed the second expedition of 4,000 volunteers which arrived in time to take part in the final Sicilian battles.

Garibaldi's political programme was the cry of the Hunters of the Alps in 1859: Italy and Victor Emmanuel. Those who were strict republicans at heart, while abstaining from preaching the republic till the struggle was over, would have stopped short at the first word Italy. But Garibaldi told Rosalino Pilo, who was of this way of thinking, that either he marched in the King's name or he did not march at all. This was the condition of his acceptance, because he esteemed it the condition on which hung the success of the enterprise, nay more, the existence of an united Italy.

The Thousand embarked at Quarto, near Genoa, during the night of the 5th of May on the two merchant vessels, the Piemonte and Lombardo, which, with the complicity of their patriotic owner, R. Rubattino, had been sequestered for the use of the expedition. On hearing of Garibaldi's departure, Cavour ordered Admiral Persano, whose squadron lay in the gulf of Cagliari, to arrest the expedition if the steamers entered any Sardinian port, but to let it go free if they were encountered on the high seas. Persano asked Cavour what he was to do if by stress of storms Garibaldi were forced to come into port? The answer was that 'the Ministry' decided for his arrest, which Persano rightly interpreted to mean that Cavour had decided the contrary. He resolved, therefore, not to stop him under any circumstances, but the case did not occur, for the fairest of May weather favoured the voyage, and six days after the start the men were quietly landed at Marsala without let or hindrance from the two Neapolitan warships which arrived almost at the same time as the Piemonte and Lombardo, an inconceivable stroke of good fortune which, like the eventful march that was to follow, seems to belong far more to romance than to history.

On the day before, the British gunboat Intrepid (Captain Marryat), and the steam vessel Argus, had cast anchor in the harbour of Marsala. Their presence was again and again spoken of by Garibaldi as the key to the mystery of why he was not attacked. No matter how it was done—it may have been a mere accident—but it can hardly be doubted that the English men-of-war did practically cover the landing of the Thousand. Lord John Russell denied emphatically to the House of Commons that they were sent there for the purpose, as to this day is believed by some grateful Italians, and by every Clerical writer who handles the subject. The British Government had early information of Italian revolutionary doings, just then, through Sir James Hudson, who was in communication with men of all shades of opinion, and it is credible that orders which must necessarily have been secret, were given to afford a refuge on board English ships to the flying patriots in the anticipated catastrophe. More than this is not credible, but the energy shown by Captain Marryat in safeguarding the interests of the British residents at Marsala caused the Neapolitan ships to delay opening fire till the very last Red-shirt was out of harm's way on dry land. Then and then only did they direct their guns on the Piemonte and Lombardo, and fire a few shots into the city, which caused no other damage than the destruction of two casks of wine.

On the 12th, Garibaldi left Marsala for Salemi, a mountain city approached by a steep, winding ascent, where he was sure of a warm reception, as it had already taken arms against the Bourbon king. Hence he promulgated the decree by which he assumed the dictatorship of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel.

The Neapolitan army numbered from 120,000 to 130,000 men; of these 30,000 were actually in Sicily at the time the Thousand landed at Marsala, 18,000 being in and about Palermo, and the rest distributed over the island. At Salemi, Garibaldi reviewed his united forces: he had been joined by 200 fresh volunteers, and by a fluctuating mass of Sicilian irregulars, which might be estimated to consist of 2,000 men, but it increased or decreased along the road, because it was formed of peasants of the districts traversed, who did not go far from their homes. These undisciplined bands were not useless, as they gave the Bourbon generals the idea that Garibaldi had more men than he could ever really count upon, and also the peasants knew the country well. When they came under fire they behaved better than anyone would have expected. The first batch joined the Thousand half-way between Marsala and Salemi. There might have been fifty of them, dressed in goat-skins, and armed with the old flint muskets and rusty pistols dear to the Sicilian heart, which he would not for the world leave behind were he going no farther than to buy a lamb at the fair. The feudal lord marched at the head of his uncouth retainers—a company of bandits in an opera—yet, to Garibaldi, they seemed the blessed assurance that this people whom he was come to save was ready and willing to be saved. He received the poor little band with as much rapture as if it had been a powerful army, and, in their turn, the impressionable islanders were enraptured by the affability of the man whom the population of Sicily soon came seriously to consider as a new Messiah. It is a fact that the people of Southern Italy did believe that Garibaldi had in him something superhuman, only the Bourbon troops looked rather below than above for the source of it. The picturesque incidents of the historic march were many; one other may be mentioned. While the chief watered his horse at a spring a Franciscan friar threw himself on his knees, and implored to be allowed to follow him. Some of the volunteers thought the friar a traitor in disguise, but larger in faith, Garibaldi said: 'Come with us, you will be our Ugo Bassi.' Fra Pantaleo proved of no small use to the expedition.

A glance at the map makes clear the military situation. Garibaldi's objective was Palermo, and if anything shows his genius as a Condottiere it is this immediate determination to make straight for the capital where the largest number of the enemy's troops was massed, instead of seeking an illusionary safety for his weak army in the open country. As the crow flies the distance from Marsala to Palermo is not more than sixty or seventy miles, but the routes being mountainous, the actual ground to be covered is much longer. About midway lies Calatafimi, where all the roads leading from the eastern coast to Palermo converge, and above it towers the immensely strong position called Pianto dei Romani, from a battle in which the Romans were defeated. These heights command a vast prospect, and here General Landi, with 3,000 men and four pieces of artillery, prepared to intercept the Garibaldians with every probability of driving them back into the sea.

The royal troops took the offensive towards ten o'clock on the 15th of May. They met the Red-shirts half way down the mountain, but were driven up it again, inch by inch, till, at about three o'clock, they were back at Pianto dei Romani. A final vigorous assault dislodged them from this position, and they retreated in disorder to Calatafimi. Not wishing to tempt fortune further for that day, Garibaldi bivouacqued on the field of battle. In a letter written to Bertani, on the spur of the moment, he bore witness with a sort of fatherly pride to the courage displayed by the Neapolitans: 'It was the old misfortune,' he said, 'a fight between Italians; but it proved to me what can be done with this family when united. The Neapolitan soldiers, when their cartridges were exhausted, threw stones at us in desperation.' How then, with much superior numbers and a seemingly impregnable position, did they end in ignominious flight? The answer may be found in the reply given to Bixio, bravest of the brave, who yet feared, at one hotly-contested point, that retreat was inevitable. 'Here,' retorted the chief,'we die.' Men who really mean to conquer or die can do miracles.

The moral effect of the victory was tremendous. The world at large had made absolutely sure of the destruction of the expedition. 'Garibaldi has chosen to go his own way,' said Victor Emmanuel; 'but if you only knew the fright I was in about him and the brave lads with him!' In Sicily, where the insurrectionary activity of April was almost totally spent, the news sent an electric shock of revolution through the whole island. In the mountains Rosalino Pilo still resisted, weary of waiting for the help that came not, discouraged or hopeless, but unyielding. Food and ammunition were almost gone; his ragged band, held together only by the magnetism of his personal influence, began to feel the pangs of hunger. A price was set on his head, and he was harassed on all sides by the Neapolitan troops, whose attacks became more frequent now that the Government realised that there was danger. He knew nothing of Garibaldi's movements; but he was resolved to keep his promise as long as he could: to hold out till the chief came. At the hour when everything looked most desperate, a messenger arrived in his camp with a letter in Garibaldi's handwriting, which bore the date of the 16th of May. 'Yesterday,' it ran, we fought and conquered.' Never was unexpected news more welcome. Filled with a joy such as few men have tasted, Rosalino read the glad tidings to his men. 'The cause is won,' he said. 'In a few days, if the enemy's balls respect me, we shall be in Palermo.'

Meanwhile Garibaldi had occupied Calatafimi, and was proceeding towards Monreale, from which side he contemplated a descent on the capital. On the high tableland of Renda he met Rosalino Pilo with his reanimated band. That day the Garibaldian army, all told, amounted to 5,000 men. On the 21st of May, Rosalino was ordered to make a reconnaissance in the direction of Monreale; while carrying out this order a Neapolitan bullet struck his forehead, causing almost instantaneous death. 'I am happy to be able to give my blood to Italy, but may heaven be propitious once for all,' he had written when he first landed, words realised to the letter.

The Neapolitans were put in high spirits by Rosalino Pilo's death; the discomfiture of Calatafimi was forgotten; they represented Garibaldi as a mouse that was obligingly walking into a well-laid trap. In fact, his position could not have been more critical, but he had recourse to a stratagem which saved him. He succeeded in placing the enemy upon a completely false scent. Abandoning the idea of reaching Palermo from the east (Monreale), he decided to attempt the assault from the south (Piana de' Greci and Misilmeri), but, all the while, he continued to throw the Sicilian Picciotti on the Monreale route, and gave them orders to fire stray shots in every direction and to light innumerable camp-fires. These troops frequently came in contact with the Neapolitans in trifling skirmishes, and kept their attention so well occupied that General Colonna, in command of the force sent in search of the 'Filibuster,' did not doubt that the whole Garibaldian army was concentrated over Monreale. Garibaldi rapidly moved his own column by night to its new base of operations. The ground was steep and difficult, and a storm raged all the night; fifteen years later he declared that none of his marches in the virgin forests of America was so arduous as this. While the Neapolitans remained in ignorance of these changes, three English naval officers, guided by a sort of sporting dog's instinct, happened to be driving through the village of Misilmeri just after Garibaldi established his headquarters in that neighbourhood. Of course it was by chance; still, Misilmeri is an odd place to go for an afternoon drive, and the escapade ended in the issue of a severe warning to Her Majesty's officers and marines to keep in future 'within the bounds of the sentinels of the royal troops.' Luckily record exists of the experiences of Lieutenant Wilmot and his two companions at Misilmeri. Garibaldi, on hearing that three English naval officers were in the village, sent to invite them to the vineyard where he was taking his dinner. They found him standing in a large enclosure in the midst of a group of followers who all, like himself, wore the legendary red flannel shirt and grey trousers. Fra Pantaleo's brown habit formed the only exception. Several Hungarian officers were present, and by his father stood Menotti, then a stout youth of nineteen, with his arm in a sling from the severe wound he received at Calatafimi. Around were soldiers who looked like mere boys. They gazed with delight on the English uniforms. Garibaldi requested his guests to be seated and to partake of some freshly-gathered strawberries. He spoke of his affection and respect for England, and said it was his hope soon to make the acquaintance of the British admiral. He mentioned how he had seen and admired from the heights the beautiful effect of the salutes fired in honour of the Queen's birthday, two days before. He then retired into his tent, made of an old blanket stretched over pikes; a child, under the name of a sentry, paced before it to keep off the crowd.

To complete the deception of the enemy the Garibaldian artillery, under Colonel Orsini, was ordered to make a retrograde march on Corleone previous to joining the main force at Misilmeri. Orsini narrowly escaped getting caught while executing this movement, and for the sake of celerity was obliged to throw his five cannon (including one taken at Calatafimi) down deep water courses. He returned to pull them out again when the immediate danger was past. General Colonna, who followed him closely, was convinced that the whole of the Garibaldians were in disorderly retreat as witnessed by the mules and waggons purposely abandoned by Orsini along the route. For four days Colonna believed that he had Garibaldi flying before him, and sent intelligence to that effect to Naples, whence it was published through the world. On the fifth day he was immeasurably surprised by hearing that Garibaldi had entered Palermo!

It was at early dawn on Whitsunday, the 27th of May, that Garibaldi reached the threshold of the capital, and after overcoming the guard at Ponte dell' Ammiraglio, pushed on to Porta Termini, the strategic key to the city. The royalists, though taken by surprise in the first instance, had time to dispose a strong force behind walls and barricades before Garibaldi could reach the gate, and it required two hours of severe fighting to take the position. Many Red-shirts were killed, and Benedetto Cairoli received the severe wound from which he never wholly recovered. Success, however, was complete, and the Palermitans got up to find, to their frantic joy, the Liberator within their gates. According to the old usage their first impulse was to run to the belfries in order to sound the tocsin, but they found that the royalists had removed the clappers of the bells. Nothing daunted, they beat the bells all day with hammers and other implements, and so produced an indescribable noise which had a material influence on the nerves of the terrified Neapolitan troops. Being disarmed, the only other help which the inhabitants could render to their deliverers was the erection of barricades.

Even after Garibaldi's entry, it is thought that General Lanza could have crushed him in the streets by sheer force of superiority in numbers and artillery had he made proper use of his means. However, at about three p.m., he chose the less heroic plan of ordering the castle and the Neapolitan fleet to bombard the city. Most of his staff opposed the decision, and one officer broke his sword, but Lanza was inexorable. The measure so exasperated the Palermitans that even had it achieved its end for the moment, never after would they have proved governable from Naples. Thirteen hundred shells were thrown into the city. Lord Palmerston denounced the bombardment and its attendant horrors as 'unworthy of our time and of our civilisation.' The soldiers helped the work by setting fire to some quarters of the city. Among the spots where the shells fell in most abundance was the convent of the Sette Angeli. The Garibaldians escorted the nuns to a place of safety and carried their more valuable possessions after them. The good sisters were charmed by the courtesy with which the young Italians performed these duties.

Fighting in the streets went on more or less continuously, and the liberators kept their ground, but every hour brought fresh perils. A Bavarian regiment arrived to reinforce General Lanza, and the return of the Neapolitan column from Corleone was momentarily expected. The Garibaldians, and this was the gravest fact of all, had used almost their last cartridge. The issue of the struggle was awaited with varying sentiments on board the English, French, Austrian, Spanish and Sardinian warships at anchor in the bay. Admiral Mundy had placed his squadron so close to the land that the ships were in danger of suffering from the bombardment, a course attributed to the humane desire to afford a refuge for non-combatants, and in fact, the officers were soon engaged in entertaining a frightened crowd of ladies and children. The Intrepid in particular, was so near the Marina that a fair swimmer could have reached it in a few minutes; nobody guessed, least of all Garibaldi, that her mission in the mind of the British admiral was to save the chiefs own life in what seemed the likely case of its being placed in peril.

Admiral Mundy begged the authorities to stop the bombardment before the city was destroyed, but Lanza appeared to have no intention of yielding to his counsels, and it is still uncertain what at last induced him on the 30th of May to sue the Filibuster, hastily transformed into his Excellency, for an armistice of twenty-four hours. 'God knows,' writes Garibaldi, 'if we had want of it!' The royalists had lost nearly the whole city except the palace and its surroundings, and, cut off from the sea, they began to feel a scarcity of food, but not to a severe extent. It seems most probable that with his men panic-stricken and constantly driven back in spite of the bombardment, Lanza looked upon the game as lost, when had he known the straits to which the Garibaldians were reduced for ammunition, he might have considered it as won.

An unforeseen incident now occurred; the royalist column, recalled from Corleone, which was largely composed of Bavarians, reached Porta Termini and opened a furious fire on the weak Garibaldian detachment stationed there. Was it ignorance or bad faith? Lieutenant Wilmot, who happened to be passing by, energetically waved his handkerchief and shouted that a truce was concluded; the assailants continued the attack till an officer of the Neapolitan staff who was in conference with Garibaldi at the time hurried to the spot, at his indignant request, and ordered them to desist. A few minutes later, Garibaldi himself rode up in a wrathful mood, and while he was renewing his protests, a shell fell close by him, thrown from a ship which re-opened the bombardment on its own account. Lieutenant Wilmot, who witnessed the whole affair, was convinced that there was a deliberate plan to surprise and capture the Italian chief after he had granted the armistice.

At a quarter past two on this eventful day, the 30th of May 1860, Garibaldi and the Neapolitan generals, Letizia and Chretien, stepped on board the flag-ship Hannibal which Admiral Mundy offered as neutral ground for their meeting. Curiously enough, both parties, reaching the mole simultaneously, were rowed out in the same ship's boat, which was waiting in readiness. The Neapolitans insisted that Garibaldi should go on board first, either from courtesy or, as the admiral suspected, out of desire to find out whether he would be received with military honours. With instinctive tact he had donned his old and rather shabby uniform of a major-general in the Sardinian army; the admiral's course was, therefore, marked out, and Garibaldi received the same salute as the two generals who followed him. After a foolish attempt on the part of the Neapolitan officers to make themselves disagreeable, which was repressed with dignified decision by Admiral Mundy, business began, and things went smoothly till the fifth article of the proposed convention came under discussion: 'That the municipality should direct a humble petition to his Majesty the King expressing the real wants of the city.' 'No,' cried Garibaldi, starting to his feet, 'the time for humble petitions to the King, or to anyone else, is past; I am the municipality, and I refuse.' General Letizia grew excited at this declaration, but afterwards he agreed to submit the question of quashing the fifth article to his chief, General Lanza. The armistice was prolonged till nine the next morning.

As soon as he was back on shore, Garibaldi issued a manifesto, in which he announced that he had refused a proposal dishonouring the city, and that to-morrow, at the close of the armistice, he should renew hostilities. There was a splendid audacity in the threat; his powder was literally exhausted; nothing was left for him to do but to die with all his men, and to do this he and they were unquestionably ready. The conduct of the citizens was on a level with the occasion. As soon as the manifesto came to be known, the inhabitants rushed to the Palazzo Pretorio, where the man who had so proudly answered in their name, addressed them in these terms: 'People of Palermo; the enemy has made me propositions which I judged humiliating to you, and knowing that you are ready to bury yourselves under the ruins of your city, I refused.' Those who were present say that never did Garibaldi seem so great as at that moment. The answer was one deafening shout, in which the women and children joined, of 'War! war!' In the evening the city was illuminated as on a feast-day.

Once more in history, the game of greatly daring succeeded. Appalled by the reports of the dreadful threats emanating from a population without arms, and a handful of volunteers without powder, distrustful henceforth of the courage of his soldiers, and, if the truth must be told, of the fidelity of his fleet, Lanza sent General Letizia to Garibaldi betimes, on the 31st of May, with an unconditional demand for the continuance of the armistice. A convention was drawn up, which conceded the fullest liberty to the royalists to supply their material wants, succour the wounded, and, if they desired, embark them on board ships with their families for Naples. Garibaldi, always humane, had a special tenderness for the victims of that civil strife which his soul abhorred, and he never forgot that the enemy was his fellow-countryman. His influence sufficed to secure to the royal troops an immunity from reprisals which was the more creditable because some horrid crimes had been done by miscreants in their ranks when they found that they were getting the worst of it in the street-fighting. Unfortunately the same mercy was not extended to some of the secret agents of Maniscalco, head of the Sicilian police, who, discovered in hiding-places by the mob, were murdered before any protection could be given them. At the time the act of barbarity was judged, even by English observers, with more leniency than it deserved (because cruelty can have no excuse), so great was the disgust excited by the most odious system of espionage ever put in practice.

The convention bore the signatures of 'Ferdinando Lanza, General-in-Chief,' and of 'Francesco Crispi, Secretary of State to the Provisional Government of Sicily.' One article provided for the consignment of the Royal Mint to the victors; a large sum was stored in its coffers, and Garibaldi found himself in the novel position of being able to pay his men and the Sicilian squadre, and to send large orders for arms and ammunition to the Continent.

General Letizia made two journeys to Naples, and on his return from the second he came invested with full powers to treat with Garibaldi for the evacuation of the city. On the 7th of June, 15,000 royal troops marched down to the Marina to the ships that were to take them away. At the entrance of the Toledo, the great main street of Palermo, Menotti Garibaldi was on guard, on a prancing black charger, with a few other Red-shirts of his own age around him, and before this group of boys defiled the might and pomp of the disciplined army to which King Bomba had given the thoughtful care of a life-time.

The closing formalities which wound up these events at Palermo formed a fitting ending to the dramatic scenes which have been briefly narrated. On the 19th, General Lanza went on board the Hannibal to take leave of the British admiral. He was covered with decorations and attended by his brilliant personal staff. There, in the beautiful bay, lay the ship on board which he was to sail at sunset, and twenty-four steam transports were also there, each filled with Neapolitan troops. The defeated general was deeply moved as he walked on to the quarter-deck. 'We have been unfortunate,' he said—words never spoken by one officer of unquestioned personal courage to another without striking a responsive chord. When he quitted the Hannibal, the English admiral ordered the White Flag of the King of the Two Sicilies to be hoisted at the foretop-gallant masthead for the last time in Sicilian waters; and a salute of nineteen guns, the salute due to the direct representative or alter ego of a sovereign, speeded the parting guest. Thus, wrapped in the dignity of misfortune, vanished the last semblance of the graceless and treacherous thraldom of the Spanish Bourbons in the capital of Sicily. The flag of Italy was run up on the tower of the Semaphore. Everywhere the revolution triumphed except at Messina, Milazzo and Syracuse. Even Catania, where a rising had been put down after a sanguinary struggle, was now evacuated and left to itself.

So the 20th of June dawned, and the Queen's ships in the harbour put forth all their bravery of flags in commemoration of her accession, which display was naturally interpreted by the Palermitans as a compliment to the Dictator, who had fixed that day for calling on the British, French and Sardinian admirals and on the captain of the United States frigate Iroquois. With what honours the American captain received him is not recorded; for certain it was with cordial goodwill; of the others, Admiral Mundy treated him as on the previous occasion; the French admiral affected to consider him a 'simple monsieur' who had unexpectedly come to call, whilst Admiral Persano, on board the Maria Adelaide, gave him a salute of nineteen guns, which formed a virtual recognition on the part of Piedmont of his assumption of the dictatorship. Cavour had ordered Persano to act on his own responsibility as the exigencies of the hour demanded, and the admiral knew that these vague instructions assigned him a more vigorous policy than the other ministers would have agreed to officially. His bold initiative was therefore justified. As some severe words will have to be said of Persano in a later chapter, it is well to remark here that during his Sicilian command he behaved like a thorough patriot, although it was not in his power to render such great moral services to freedom as were undoubtedly rendered by Admiral Mundy, who at the same time acted with so much tact that his neutrality was not impugned, and he even won the equal personal gratitude of both parties. On the other hand, the Austrian commodore, Baron von Wuellersdorf, succeeded in pleasing no one and no one pleased him. He did not expect that the Garibaldians would lose much love to him, but he took it unkindly that the royalists fired at his boat with himself in it, and the Austrian flag at the stern. In high dudgeon he related this grievance to his British colleague, who gently suggested that since Austria had always supported the Bourbon system of Government, it was hardly strange if the royalists were hurt at receiving neither assistance nor even sympathy from the Austrian squadron which witnessed their destruction. The remark was acute; even Austria was, in fact, tired of the Bourbons of Naples; a portent of their not distant doom. But it was not likely that the royalists should appreciate the phlegmatic attitude of their erewhile protectors.

The concluding military operations in Sicily presented a more arduous task than, in the first flush of success, might have been anticipated. In the general panic, one, if one only, royalist officer, Colonel Del Bosco, turned round and stood at bay. His spirited course was not far from undoing all that had been done. Fortunately Garibaldi had received important reinforcements. General Medici touched the Sicilian shores three days after the evacuation of Palermo with 3500 volunteers, well-armed and equipped out of the so-called 'Million Rifle Fund,' which was formed by popular subscription in the north of Italy. The Dictator went as far as Alcamo to meet the hero of the last glorious fight of Rome, whom he greeted with delight and affection. Later, arrived the third and last expedition, consisting of 1500 men under Cosenz, till recently commander-in-chief of the Italian army. The Sicilian squadre had been brought into something like military organisation; and an Englishman, Colonel Dunne, had raised a picked corps of 400 Palermitans which contained, besides its commander, between thirty and forty of his countrymen, and was hence called the English Regiment. This battalion was ready to do anything and go anywhere; it performed excellent work both in Sicily and on the mainland.[5]

Garibaldi arranged his forces in three divisions; one, under Tuerr, was sent to Catania; the second, under Bixio, to Girgenti; the third, under Medici, was to follow the northern sea-coast towards Messina, the strongest position still in the enemy's hands. All three were ultimately to converge with a view to the grand object of crossing over to the mainland. Medici had 2500 men; the royalists in and about Messina could dispose of 15,000. The Garibaldians did not expect much opposition till they got near Messina, but when they reached Barcelona they heard that the garrison of Milazzo had been reinforced by Del Bosco with 4000 men, with the evident design of cutting off their passage to Messina. It is said that this move was made in consequence of direct communications between that officer and Francis II., whose ministers had already decided to abandon the whole island. But Del Bosco secretly assured his King that such a measure was not necessary, and that he would undertake not only to bar Medici's advance, but to march over the dead bodies of the Garibaldians to Palermo. Milazzo is a small hilly peninsula, on which stands a fort and a little walled city. The spot was well chosen. On the 17th of July, Del Bosco attacked the Garibaldian right, and it was not without difficulty that Medici retained his positions. Some further reinforcements were sent to Del Bosco from Messina, though not so numerous as they ought to have been, but they would have almost ensured him the victory had not Medici also received help; Cosenz' column, and, yet more important, Garibaldi himself with the 1000 men he had kept in Palermo, hastening at full speed to the rescue. The belligerents were, for once, about equally balanced in numbers when on the 20th of July Garibaldi attacked Del Bosco with the purpose of driving him on to the tongue of the peninsula, thus cutting him off from Messina and leaving the road open. A desperate engagement followed. The Neapolitans showed that they could fight if they were properly led, and inflicted a loss of 800 in killed and wounded (heavy out of a total of 5000) on their gallant opponents. Garibaldi's own life was nearly sacrificed. He was standing in a field of prickly pears in conversation with Major Missori when a party of the enemy's cavalry rode up, the captain of which dealt a violent blow at him with his sword, without knowing who it was. Garibaldi coolly parried the blow, and struck down his assailant, while Missori shot the three nearest dragoons with his revolver. Hearing the noise, other Garibaldians hurried up, and the chief was saved. For a long time the issue of the battle remained uncertain, and it was only after hours of severe fighting that Del Bosco was compelled to recognise his defeat, and to take refuge on the projecting strip of land as Garibaldi had meant that he should do.

A few days later, four transports arrived in the bay of Milazzo to carry Del Bosco and his men to Naples. The ministry had prevailed, and the complete abandonment of the island was decreed. General Clary, commandant of Messina, informed Garibaldi that he had orders to evacuate the town and its outlying forts; the citadel would be also handed over if the Dictator would engage not to cross to the mainland, but this conditional offer was declined. The citadel of Messina therefore remained in the power of the royalists, but on agreement that it should not resume hostilities unless attacked. It only capitulated in March 1861. Garibaldi reigned over the rest of the island. The convention was signed on the 28th of July by Marshal Tommaso de Clary for the King of Naples, and Major-General Giacomo Medici for the Dictator.

Before following Garibaldi across the Straits, some allusion is called for to the general political situation both in Sicily and in Italy. And first as regards Sicily. When a government is pulled down another must be set up, and the last task is often not the easiest. Garibaldi appointed a ministry in which the ruling spirit was Francesco Crispi. A Sicilian patriot from his youth, and one of the Thousand, he has been judged the man best fitted to direct the helm of United Italy in days of unexampled difficulty. This is enough to prove that he was not the first-come ignoramus or madman that some people then liked to think him. But Crispi had the art of making enemies, nor has he lost it. Though volumes have been written on the civil administration under the dictatorship, the writers' judgments are so warped by their political leanings that it is not easy to get at the truth. It would have been strange had no confusion existed, had no false steps been made; yet some of the old English residents in Sicily say that the island made more real progress during the few months of Garibaldi's reign than in all the years that have followed. Towards the end of June, Garibaldi appointed Agostino Depretis as Pro-Dictator. Of the many decrees formulated and measures adopted at this period, Garibaldi, who had many other things to think of, was personally responsible only for those of a philanthropic nature. Busy as he was, he found time to inquire minutely into the State of the population of Palermo, and he was horrified at the ignorance and misery in which the poorer classes were plunged. Forthwith, out came a bushel-basket of edicts and appeals on behalf of these poor children of the sun. He visited the orphan asylum and found that eighty per cent. of the inmates died of starvation. One nurse had to provide for the wants of four infants. Garibaldi wrote off an address to the ladies of Palermo, in which he implored them to interest themselves in the wretched little beings created in the image of God, at the sight of whose wasted and puny bodies he, an old soldier, had wept. He had money and food distributed every morning to the most destitute, at the gates of the royal palace, where he lived with a frugality that scandalised the aged servants of royalty whom he kept, out of kindness, at their posts. Theoretically, he disapproved of indiscriminate almsgiving, but in the misery caused by the recent bombardment, such theories could not be strictly applied, or, at any rate, Garibaldi was not the man to so apply them; whence it happened that though, as de facto head of the State, he allowed himself a civil list of eight francs a day, the morning had never far advanced before his pockets were empty, and he had to borrow small sums from his friends, which next morning were faithfully repaid.

When he walked about the town, the women pressed forward to touch the hem of his poncho, and made their children kneel to receive his blessing. On one occasion a convent of nuns, from the youngest novice to the elderly abbess, insisted on giving him the kiss of peace. An idolatry which would have made anyone else ridiculous; but Garibaldi, being altogether simple and unselfconscious, was above ridicule. One of the good works that he initiated was the transformation of the Foundling Hospital, of which the large funds were turned to little account, into a Military School under the direction of his best officers. In less than a month the school could turn out two smart battalions, and there were few mornings that the Dictator did not go to watch the boys at their drill. He encouraged them with the promise that before long he would lead them himself to the wars.

Such actions smell sweeter from the dust, than the old story of the antagonism that sprang up in those days between Garibaldi and Cavour, between Crispi and La Farina. This dualism, as it was called, was the fruit of a mutual distrust, which, however much to be deplored, was not to be avoided. Although Cavour had a far juster idea of Garibaldi than that entertained by his entourage, he was nevertheless haunted by the fear that the general's revolutionary friends would persuade him to depart from his programme of 'Italy and Victor Emmanuel,' and embark upon some adventure of a republican complexion. He was also afraid that the Government of the Dictator would, by its unconventional methods, discredit the Italian cause in the eyes of European statesmen. These reasons caused him to desire and to endeavour to bring about the immediate annexation of Sicily to the Sardinian kingdom. On the other hand, Garibaldi's faith in Cavour had ceased with the cession of Nice, and he believed him to be even now contemplating the cession of the island of Sardinia as a further sop to Cerberus—a project which, if it existed nowhere else, did exist in the mind of Napoleon III. With regard to immediate annexation, he had no intention of agreeing to it, and for one sufficing reason: had he consented he could not have carried the war of liberation across the Straits of Messina. His Sicilian army must have laid down their arms at a command from Turin were it given. And it would have been given.

La Farina, like Crispi, a Sicilian by birth, arrived suddenly at Palermo, representing Cavour, as everyone thought, but in reality he represented himself. Strong-willed and prejudiced, he was, in his own way, a perfectly good patriot, and he had done all that was in his power (though not quite so much as in later years he fancied that he had done) to aid and further the expedition of the Thousand. But he tried to force the annexation scheme by means so openly hostile to the government of the day, that Garibaldi at length sent him on board Persano's flag-ship with a request that the admiral would forward him to Turin.

After the evacuation of Messina by the royal troops, Garibaldi received persuasions of all sorts to let the kingdom of Naples alone. On the part of King Francis an offer was made to him of 50,000,000 francs and the Neapolitan navy in aid of a war for the liberation of Venice. Almost simultaneously he received a letter from Victor Emmanuel sent by the hand of Count Giulio Litta, in which the writer said that in the event of the King of Naples giving up Sicily 'I think that our most reasonable course would be to renounce all ulterior undertakings against the Neapolitan kingdom.' This was the first direct communication between the King and Garibaldi since the latter's landing at Marsala; it is to be surmised that of indirect communications there had been several, and that they took the form of substantial assistance, sent, probably without Cavour being aware of it, for Victor Emmanuel carried on his own little conspiracies with a remarkable amount of secrecy. What induced him now to address words of restraint to Garibaldi in the midway of his work, was the arrival of a letter from Napoleon III. in which the Emperor urged him in the strongest manner to use his well-known personal influence with the general to hold him back. It was not easy for Victor Emmanuel to refuse point blank to make the last effort on behalf of his cousin. Francis had appointed a constitutional ministry, promised a statute, granted an amnesty and engaged to place himself in accord with the King of Sardinia, adopted even the tricolor flag with the royal arms of Bourbon in the centre. Concessions idle as desperate on the 25th of June 1860, the date which they bore. Their only consequence then was to facilitate the fall of the dynasty, the usual result of similar inspirations of the eleventh hour. Had all this been done on the day of the King's accession it might have imperilled Italian unity—not now. But the fatal words, 'Too late,' would have fallen with ill grace from Victor Emmanuel's lips. Garibaldi answered his royal correspondent that when he had made him King of Italy he would be only too happy to obey him for the rest of his life.

The King's letter, though delivered after the battle of Milazzo, was written before it. That event convinced Cavour, and doubtless the King with him, that it was utterly impossible to arrest the tide at Cape Faro. It convinced him of a great deal more. He saw that if Piedmont continued much longer a passive spectator of the march of events, she would lose the lead forever And he prepared to act.

Meanwhile counsels reached Garibaldi from quite a different quarter not to abandon Naples, but to go there from Rome instead of by Calabria. This daring scheme was favoured by Mazzini, Nicotera, Bertani; indeed, by all the republicans. A corps of about 8000 volunteers was ready to start for a descent on the coast of the Papal States. At present it was in the island of Sardinia, awaiting the arrival of Garibaldi to assume the command. And now occurred Garibaldi's mysterious disappearance from Cape Faro, which at the time excited endless curiosity. The truth was, that he actually went to Sardinia, but instead of taking command of the volunteers bound for Rome, he induced them to alter their plans and to join his Sicilian army in the arduous undertaking before it of overthrowing the Bourbons in the Neapolitan kingdom. Thus he gained a reinforcement of which he knew the enormous need, for though he was willing to face difficulties, he was not blind to them, as were many men of the extreme party. He also prevented what would have been a step of exceeding danger to the national cause, as it would have obliged the Sardinian Government to break off all relations with Garibaldi and to use force against the patriots in suppressing a movement which, if successful, would have brought a hostile French army into Italy.



CHAPTER XV

THE MEETING OF THE WATERS

1860

Garibaldi's March on Naples—The Piedmontese in Umbria and the Marches—The Volturno—Victor Emmanuel enters Naples.

The Italian kingdom is the fruit of the alliance between the strong monarchical principles of Piedmont and the dissolvent forces of revolution. Whenever either one side or the other, yielding to the influence of its individual sympathies or prejudices, failed to recognise that thus only, by the essential logic of events, could the unity of the country be achieved, the entire edifice was placed in danger of falling to the ground before it was completed.

When Garibaldi stood on Cape Faro, conqueror and liberator, clothed in a glory not that of Wellington or Moltke, but that of Arthur or Roland or the Cid Campeador; the subject of the gossip of the Arabs in their tents, of the wild horsemen of the Pampas, of the fishers in ice-bound seas; a solar myth, nevertheless certified to be alive in the nineteenth century—Cavour understood that if he were left much longer single occupant of the field, either he would rush to disaster, which would be fatal to Italy, or he would become so powerful that, in the event of his being plunged, willingly or unwillingly, by the more ardent apostles of revolution into opposition with the King of Sardinia, the issue of the contest would be by no means sure. To guard against both possibilities, Cavour decided to act, and to act at once. He said of the conjuncture in which he was placed that it was not one of the most difficult, but the most difficult of his political life. But he proved equal to the task, which does the more honour to his statesmanship because his first plan failed completely. This plan was, that the Neapolitan population should overthrow Francis II., and proclaim Victor Emmanuel their King before Garibaldi crossed the Straits. But the Neapolitans would not move hand or foot till Garibaldi was among them. The fact that when Cavour was convinced that the Bourbon dynasty at Naples was about to fall, he tried to hasten its collapse by a few weeks or days, was made the most of by his enemies as an example of base duplicity. At this distance of time, it need only be said that whether his conduct of affairs was scrupulous or unscrupulous, it deceived no one, for the Neapolitan King and his friends were well convinced that the Filibuster of Caprera was their less deadly foe than the Prime Minister of Piedmont.

But of all the foes of Franceschiello, to use the diminutive by which, half in pity, half in contempt, the people of Naples remember him, the most irrevocably fatal was himself. Two courses were open to him when, after losing Sicily, he saw the loss of his other kingdom and of his throne staring him in the face. One was to go forth like a man at the head of his troops to meet the storm. There had been such a thing as loyalty in the Kingdom of Naples; not loyalty of the highest sort, but still the sentiment had existed. Who knows what might not have been the effect of the presence of their young Sovereign on the broken moral of the Neapolitan soldiers? 'Sire, place yourself at the head of the 40,000 who remain, and risk a last stake, or, at least, fall gloriously after an honourable battle,' was the advice given him by his minister of war, Pianell. But his stepmother or somebody (certainly not his wife) said that the sacred life of a king ought to be kept in cotton wool, like other curiosities. Meanwhile his uncle, the Count of Syracuse, proposed the other course which, though not heroic, would have been intelligible and even patriotic. This was to absolve his subjects from their obedience, and embark on the first available ship for foreign parts. Fitting the action to the word, the Count himself started for Turin. Francis awaited the doom of those who only know how to take half measures.

The demoralisation, not only of the troops but of every branch of the public administration in the kingdom of Naples, was not yet a certified fact; and the enterprise which Garibaldi at Cape Faro had before him, of invading the dominions of a monarch who still had a large army, and whose subjects showed not the slightest visible sign of being disposed to strike a blow for their own freedom, looked rather fabulous than difficult. The only part of the Regno where the people were taking action was in the furthermost region of Calabria; a fortunate circumstance, since it was the first point to be attacked. Calabria, which had contributed its quota to the Thousand, contained more patriotic energy than the rest of the Regno put together. On the 8th of August, Garibaldi sent over a small vanguard of 200 men under a Calabrian officer, with the order to join the Calabrian band of insurgents which was hiding in the woods and gorges of Aspromonte, and to spread the news that his own coming would not be long delayed. The Neapolitan generals had acquired the idea that, instead of these few men, a large force had already disembarked, and so turned their attention to the mountains; while Garibaldi, after throwing the war-ships in the Straits on an equally false scent by various intentionally abortive operations, crossed in the night of the 19th and effected a landing not far from Reggio, of which, for both moral and strategic reasons, it was of vital importance to gain possession as soon as possible. He took with him 4500 men, and had between 14,000 and 15,000 more in readiness to follow. The royalist army in Calabria numbered about 27,000, including the garrison of Reggio, 2000 men, under the command of General Galotti. On the 20th, Bixio attacked the outposts; and on the 21st, Garibaldi fought his way into the city—not, however, without meeting a strong resistance on the part of the garrison, which might have been continued longer, and even with a different result, had not the Calabrian insurgents hurried down from Aspromonte on hearing the sound of guns, their sudden appearance making the Royalists think that they were being attacked on all sides. Next day the castle surrendered, and thus a quantity of valuable war material fell into Garibaldi's hands. His luck had not deserted him.

Cosenz and Medici landed their divisions in the night of the 21st of August, near Scilla, in the neighbourhood of which General Briganti had massed his Neapolitans, 7000 strong. On the 23rd, Briganti found himself attacked on the south and north—from Scilla by Cosenz, and from Reggio by Garibaldi. His position was critical but not desperate had he been able to depend upon his men, who were more numerous than their combined opponents; but he saw at once that fighting was the last thing they meant to do, and he had no choice but to surrender at discretion, almost without firing a shot. Unfortunately, Garibaldi had no power to keep prisoners of war, even if he wished to do so. Who was to feed and guard them? Now, as subsequently, he bade the disbanded troops go where they listed, undertaking to send to Naples by sea as many as desired to go there. About a thousand accepted; the rest dispersed, forming the first nucleus of the semi-political and wholly dastardly brigandage which was later to become the scourge of Southern Italy. Their earliest exploit was the savage murder of General Briganti, whom they called a traitor, after the fashion of cowards. This happened at Mileto on the 25th of August, when Briganti was on his way to join General Ghio, who had concentrated 12,000 men on the town of Monteleone. Garibaldi, whose sound principle it was to dispose of his enemies one by one as they cropped up, prepared to attack Ghio with his whole available forces, but he was spared the trouble. He came, he saw, and he had no need of conquering, for the soldiers of that bad thing that had been Bourbon despotism in the Italian south vanished before his path more quickly than the mists of the morning before the sun. No grounds that will bear scrutiny have ever been adduced for the reactionary explanation of the marvel: to wit, that the Neapolitan generals were bribed. By Cavour? The game would have been too risky. By 'English bank-notes,' that useful factor in European politics that has every pleasing quality except reality? It is not apparent how the corruptibility of the generals gives a better complexion to the matter, but the writers on the subject who are favourable to Francis II. seem to think that it does. Panic-stricken these helpless Neapolitan officers may deserve to be called, but they were not bought. And they had cause for panic with troops of whose untrustworthiness they held the clearest proofs, and with the country up in arms against them; for a few days after the taking of Reggio this was the case, and this was by far the greatest miracle operated by Garibaldi. The populations shook off their apathy, and not in Calabria only but in the Puglie, the Basilicata, the Abruzzi, there was a sudden awakening as from a too long sleep. When Garibaldi got to Monteleone he found that Ghio had evacuated the town. He pursued him to Soveria, where, on the 30th of August, the 12,000 men laid down their arms. A few days later, another officer, General Caldarelli, capitulated with 4000 men. Garibaldi's onward march was a perpetual fete; everywhere he was received with frantic demonstrations of delight. Still there was one point between himself and the capital which might reasonably cause him some anxiety. There were 30,000 men massed near Salerno, in positions of immense natural strength, where they ought to have been able to stop the advance of an army twice the size of Garibaldi's. How this obstacle was removed is far more suggestive of a scene in a comic opera than of a page in history. Colonel Peard, 'Garibaldi's Englishman,' went in advance of the army to Eboli, where he was mistaken, as commonly happened, for his chief. He was past middle age; very tall, with a magnificent beard and a stern, dictatorial air, which answered admirably to the popular idea of what the conqueror of Sicily ought to be like, although there was no resemblance to the real person. It happened that Eboli was a royalist town and beyond the pale of declared revolution—a placid and antiquated little city with a forgotten air, where life had been probably too easy for its inhabitants to wish for a change. But the supposed arrival of the Terrible Man turned everything upside-down. Peard, with Commander Forbes, who was following the campaign as a non-combatant, rode up to the house of the old Syndic, who instantly became their devoted servant. Like wildfire spread the news—the whole population besieged the house, brass bands resounded, chinese lanterns were hung out; the Church, led by the bishop, hurried to the spot, the Law, headed by a judge, closely following, while the wives of the local officials appeared in perfectly new bonnets. They all craved an audience, and the same answer was given to all: that General Garibaldi was much fatigued and was asleep—so he was, but ninety miles away. He would be pleased to receive the deputations if they would return punctually at half-past three a.m. In the meantime, Peard was in an inner room, engaged in cannonading Naples with telegrams. He had sent for the telegraph master, who came trembling like an aspen, and from whom it was elicited that he had already telegraphed to the Home Office at Naples, and to the general commanding at Salerno, that Garibaldi was in the town. Peard remarked casually that he supposed he knew his life was in jeopardy, and then handed him the following message: 'Eboli, 11.30 p.m.—Garibaldi has arrived with 5000 of his own men, and 5000 Calabrese are momentarily expected. Disembarkations are expected in the bay of Naples and the gulf of Salerno to-night. I strongly advise your withdrawing the garrison from the latter place without delay, or they will be cut off.' This was despatched to General Ulloa, whom rumour reported to have been just made minister of war, and was signed in the name of one of his personal friends. The rumour was false; but the telegram, of course, reached the desired quarter, and the name attached removed all doubt of its genuineness. It was hardly sent off when a despatch came from the real war minister, asking the telegraph clerk if news had been received of the division Caldarelli? To this Peard answered that General Caldarelli and his division had gone over to Garibaldi yesterday, and now formed part of the national army. Similar information was sent to General Scotti at Salerno. Finally, the Syndic of Salerno was asked if he had seen anything of the Garibaldian expeditions by sea?

Satisfied with his work, Colonel Peard, who knew that there were Neapolitan troops within four miles of Eboli, and who did not think that things looked entirely reassuring, decided to beat a somewhat precipitous retreat. He told the Syndic that he was going to reconnoitre in the direction of Salerno, and that his departure must be kept a dead secret, but as soon as he was out of the town he turned the horses' heads backwards towards the Garibaldian lines. He was still accompanied by Commander Forbes, to whom, during their midnight drive, he related his performance on the telegraph wires. 'What on earth is the good of all this?' said Forbes; 'you don't imagine they will be fools enough to believe it?' 'You will see,' answered the colonel, 'it will frighten them to death, and to-morrow they will evacuate Salerno.' And, in fact, at four o'clock in the morning the evacuation was begun in obedience to telegraphic orders from Naples.

The 30,000 men recalled from Salerno and the adjacent districts marched towards Capua. The river Volturno, which runs by that fortified town, was now chosen as the line of defence of the Bourbon monarchy.

On the 5th of September the King and Queen with the Austrian, Prussian, Bavarian and Spanish ministers, left Naples for Gaeta on board a Spanish man-of-war. The King issued a proclamation of which the language was dignified and even pathetic: it is believed to have been written by Liborio Romano, the Prime Minister, who was at the same moment betraying his master. Be that as it may, the King's farewell to his subjects and fellow-citizens might have touched hearts of stone could they but have forgotten the record of the hundred and twenty-six years of rule to which he fondly alluded. As it was, in the vast crowds that watched him go, there was not found a man who said, 'God bless him;' not a woman who shed a tear. Had any one of the bullets aimed at Ferdinand II. taken fatal effect, it would have been a less striking punishment for his political sins than this leaden weight of indifference which descended on his son.

In the Royal Proclamation Francis II. stated that he had adhered to the great principles of Italian nationality, and had irrevocably surrounded his throne with free institutions; nevertheless it is alleged on what seems good authority that in those last days he veered round to the party of the Queen Dowager, who was doing all she could to provoke the lazzaroni to reaction. It was also believed at Naples that he left orders for Castel Sant' Elmo to bombard the town if Garibaldi entered.

The Dictator was so much pleased with Colonel Peard's telegraphic feats at Eboli, that he sent him on to Salerno to repeat the farce. Peard's despatches determined the departure of the Court, and it was to him (in the belief that he was Garibaldi) that Liborio Romano, three hours before the King embarked, addressed the celebrated telegram invoking the 'most desired presence' of the Dictator in Naples. With this document in his hand, Peard went out with the National Guard to meet the real Garibaldi who was on his way from Auletta. The Dictator hailed his double with the cry of 'Viva Garibaldi,' in which Cosenz and the other officers cordially joined. The entry of the Liberator into Salerno was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm, the wonderful beauty of the surroundings seeming a fitting setting for a scene like the vision of some freedom-loving poet.

Next morning at half-past nine, Garibaldi, with thirteen of his staff, started by special train for the capital.

It must be remembered that though the army of Salerno was recalled to the Volturno, no troops had been withdrawn from Naples. The sentries still paced before the palaces and public offices, the barracks held their full complement, Castel Sant' Elmo had all its guns in position. These troops quartered in the capital, where everything contributed to stimulate their fidelity, were of different stuff from Ghio's or Caldarelli's frightened sheep; a White Terror, a repetition of the 15th of May 1848, would have been much to their mind. There had been no actual revolution; nothing officially proved that Naples had thrown off the royal allegiance. Such were the strange circumstances under which Garibaldi, without a single battalion, came to take possession of a city of 300,000 inhabitants.

Courage of this sort either does not exist, or it is supremely unconscious. It is likely, therefore, that the Dictator gave no thought to the enormous risk he ran, but his passage from the station to the palace of the Foresteria, where he descended, was a bad quarter-of-an-hour to the friends who followed him, and to whom his life seemed the point on which Italian regeneration yet hung. A chance shot fired by some Royalist fanatic, and who could measure the result? As he passed under the muzzle of the guns at the opening of the Toledo, he gave the order: 'Drive slower, slower—more slowly still.' And he rose and stood up for a moment in the carriage with his arms crossed. The artillerymen, who had begun to make a kind of hostile demonstration, changed their minds and saluted. The sullen looks of the royal soldiers was the only jarring note in the display of intoxicating joy with which the Neapolitans welcomed the bringer of their freedom; freedom all too easily had, for if anything could have purified the Neapolitans from the evil influences of servitude, it would have been the necessity of paying dearly for their liberties. The delirium in the streets lasted for several days and nights; what the consequences would have been of such a state of madness under a paler sky, it is not pleasant to reflect; here, at least, there were no robberies, no drunken person was seen; if there were some murders, a careful inquiry made by an Englishman showed that the number was the same as the average number of street-murders through the year. At night, when the word passed 'Il Dittatore dorme,' it was enough to clear the streets as if by magic near the palace (a private one) where in a sixth floor room the idol of the hour slept. The National Guard, who were the sole guardians of order, behaved admirably.

For a few days such of the townsfolk as had not completely lost their heads, underwent acute anxiety as they gazed at the frowning pile of Sant' Elmo; but finally the officers in command of the garrison decided to capitulate, contrary, in this instance, to the wishes of the soldiery. The royal troops marched out of the city towards Capua on the 11th of September.

Garibaldi's first act had been to hand over the Neapolitan fleet in the bay to Admiral Persano, a solemn reassertion of his loyalty to Victor Emmanuel, whom, in his every utterance, he held up to the people as the best of kings and the father of his country. He instructed his Neapolitan officer, Cosenz, to form a ministry, and wrote to the Marquis Pallavicini, the prisoner of Spielberg, inviting him to become Pro-Dictator. Had a man of authority like Pallavicini, who also entirely possessed the Dictator's confidence, at once assumed that office, much of the friction which followed might have been spared. But he did not enter into his functions till October, and in the meanwhile the 'dualism' of Sicily broke out in an exaggerated form, each side sincerely believing the other to be on the verge of ruining the country to which they were both sincerely attached. The appointment of Dr Bertani as Secretary of the Dictatorship gave rise to controversies which even now, when the grave has closed over the actors, are hardly at rest. It is time that they should be. Apart from the war about persons, some of them not very wise persons, and apart from the fears entertained at Turin, that the freeing of the Two Sicilies would drift into a republican movement: fears which were invincible, though, as far as they regarded Garibaldi, they were neither just nor generous, the question resolved itself, as was the case in Sicily, into whether the unification of Italy was to go on or whether it was to halt? Garibaldi refused to give up Sicily to the King's government because he intended making it the base for the liberation of Naples. Events had justified him. He now refused to hand over Naples because he intended making it the base for the liberation of Rome. It has been seen that he and he alone prevented an attempt at a landing in the Papal states from being made in the month of August. In deciding, however, that it was expedient to finish one enterprise before beginning another, he did not give up Rome: he merely chose what he thought a safer road to go there. And he now declared without the least concealment that he intended to proclaim Victor Emmanuel King of Italy from the Quirinal.

Would events have justified him again? There was a French garrison in Rome; this, to Cavour, seemed a conclusive answer.

Cavour was engaged on a series of measures, unscrupulous manoeuvres as some have called them, masterpieces of statesmanship as they have been described by others, by which he got back the reins of the Italian team into his own hands. The plan of an annexionist revolution in Naples before Garibaldi arrived had failed. So much discontent was felt at the apparent indifference, or, at least, 'masterly inactivity' of the Sardinian government in presence of the great struggle in the south that Cavour began to be afraid of a revolution breaking out in quite a different quarter, in Victor Emmanuel's own kingdom. It was at this critical juncture that he resolved to invade the Papal states, and take possession of the Province of Umbria and the Marches of Ancona.

The decision was one of extreme boldness. For three months Cavour had been stormed at by all the Foreign Ministers in Turin, excepting Sir James Hudson, but, as he wrote to the Marquis E. D'Azeglio: 'I shall not draw back save before fleets and armies.'

Austria, France, Spain, Russia and Prussia now broke off diplomatic relations with Sardinia. What would be their next act? The danger of Austria intervening was smaller than it then appeared; Austria was too much embarrassed in her own house, and especially in Hungary, for her to covet adventures in Italy. But the French Government did, in the plainest terms, threaten to intervene, and this notwithstanding that the Emperor himself appeared to be convinced by Cavour's argument, that the proposed scheme was the only means of checking the march of revolution, which from Rome might spread to Paris. By announcing one line of policy in public and another in private, Napoleon left the door open to adopt either one or the other, according to the development of events. In the sequel, the Papal party had a right to say that he lured them to their destruction, as their plan of operations, and in particular the defence of Ancona, was undertaken in the distinct expectation of being supported by the French fleet.

As early as April 1860, the Pope invited the Orleanist General Lamoriciere to organise and command the forces for the defence of the Temporal Power, which he had summoned from the four quarters of the Catholic world. 5000 men, more or less, answered the call; they came chiefly from France, Belgium and Ireland. Of his own subjects the Pope had 10,000 under arms. In a proclamation, issued on assuming the command, Lamoriciere compared the Italian movement with Islamism, a comparison which aroused intense exasperation in Italy, where the rally of a foreign crusade against the object which was nearest to Italian hearts, and for which so many of the best Italians had suffered and died, could not but call up feelings which in their turn were expressed in no moderate language. It was a fresh illustration of the old truth—that the Papal throne existed only by force of foreign arms, foreign influence. Lamoriciere's 'mercenaries' did much harm to the Pope's cause by bringing home this truth once more to the minds of all. That the corps contained some of the bluest blood of France, that there were good young men in it, who thought heaven the sure reward for death in defence of dominions painfully added in the course of centuries by devices not heavenly to the original patrimony of Peter, did not and could not reconcile the Italians to the defiance thrown down to them by a band of strangers in their own country.

Before the opening of hostilities, Victor Emmanuel offered Pius IX. to assume the administration of the Papal states (barring Rome) while leaving the nominal sovereignty to the Pope. Nothing came of the proposal, which was followed by a formal demand for the dissolution of Lamoriciere's army, and an intimation that the Sardinian troops would intervene were force used to put down risings within the Papal border. On the 11th of September, symptoms of revolution having meanwhile broken out in the Marches, General Fanti in command of 35,000 men crossed the frontier. Half these forces under Fanti himself were directed on Perugia; the other half under Cialdini marched towards Ancona. The garrisons of Perugia and Spoleto were compelled to surrender, and Lamoriciere found his communications cut off, so that he could only reach the last fortress in the power of the Papal troops, Ancona, by fighting his way through Cialdini's division, which by rapid marches had reached the heights of Castelfidardo. His men passed the day of the 17th in religious exercises, and in going to confession; the vicinity of the Holy House of Loreto, brought hither by angels from Bethlehem, filled the young Breton soldiers with transports of religious fervour. Lamoriciere had taken from the Santa Casa some of the flags of the victors of Lepanto to wave over his columns. In the battle of the next day the French fought with the gallantry of the Vendeans whose descendants they were, and the Irish behaved as Irishmen generally behave under fire, but the Swiss and Romans mostly fought ill or not at all. Lamoriciere excused the conduct of the latter on the ground that they were young troops; it is likely that they had but little eagerness to fire on their fellow-countrymen. Being Italians, and above all being Romans, they assuredly were not sustained by one scrap of the mystical enthusiasm of the French: such a state of mind would have been incomprehensible to them. They knew that so far as dogmas went Victor Emmanuel was as good a Catholic as the Pope. It is surprising that with part of his force demoralised Lamoriciere was still able to hold his own for three or four hours. General Pimodan and many of the French officers were killed; Lamoriciere could say truly: 'All the best names of France are left on the battlefield.'

After the victory of Castelfidardo, the Sardinian attack was concentrated on Ancona. Admiral Persano brought the squadron from Naples to co-operate with Fanti's land forces, and the fortress capitulated on the 29th of September. The campaign had lasted eighteen days. The Piedmontese held Umbria and the Marches, and a road was thus opened for the army of Victor Emmanuel to march to Naples. During the progress of these events Garibaldi was preparing for the final struggle on the Volturno. He had not yet given up the hope of carrying his victorious arms to the Capitol, and from the Capitol to the Square of St Mark. The whole republican party, and Mazzini himself, who had arrived in Naples, ardently adhered to this programme. Their argument was not without force, risk or no risk, when would there be another opportunity as good as the present? It was very well for Cavour to look forward, as he did to the day of his death, to a pacific solution of the Roman question; Mazzini saw—in which he was far more clear-sighted than Cavour—that such a solution would never take place. His arrival at Naples caused alarm at Turin, both on account of his presumed influence over Garibaldi, the extent of which was much exaggerated, and from the terror his name spread among European diplomatists. The Dictator was asked to proscribe the man whose latest act had been to give the last 30,000 francs he possessed in the world to the expenses of the Calabrian campaign. He refused to do this. 'How could I have insisted upon sending Mazzini into exile when he has done so much for Italian unity?' he said afterwards to Victor Emmanuel, who agreed that he was right. However, he allowed the Pro-Dictator Pallavicini to write a letter to Mazzini, inviting him to show his generosity by spontaneously leaving Naples in order to remove the unjust fears occasioned by his presence. Mazzini replied, as he had a perfect right to do, that every citizen is entitled to remain in a free country as long as he does not break the laws. And so the incident closed.

While the Party of Action urged Garibaldi not to give up Rome, other influences were brought to bear on him in the opposite sense, and especially that of the English Government, which instructed Admiral Mundy to arrange a 'chance' meeting between the Dictator and the English Minister at Naples, Mr. Elliot, on board the flagship Hannibal. Mr. Elliot pointed out the likelihood of a European war arising from an attack on Venice, and the certainty of French intervention in case of a revolutionary dash on Rome. Garibaldi replied that Rome was an Italian city, and that neither the Emperor nor anyone else had a right to keep him out of it. 'He was evidently,' writes Admiral Mundy in reporting the interview, 'not to be swayed by any dictates of prudence.'

In Sicily, the rival factions were bringing about a state approaching anarchy, but a flying visit from Garibaldi in the middle of September averted the storm. At this time, Garibaldi's headquarters were at Caserta, in the vast palace where Ferdinand II. breathed his last. The Garibaldian and the Royal armies lay face to face with one another, and each was engaged in completing its preparations. It might have been expected, and for a moment it seems that Garibaldi did expect, that after the solemn collapse of the Neapolitan army south of Naples, the comedy was now only awaiting its final act and the fall of the curtain. But it soon became apparent that, instead of the last act of a comedy, the next might be the first of a tragedy. The troops concentrated on the right bank of the Volturno amounted to 35,000, with 6000 garrisoning Capua. About 15,000 more formed the reserves and the garrison of Gaeta. The position on the Volturno was favourable to the Royalists; the fortress of Capua on the left bank gave them a free passage to and fro, while the Volturno, which is rather wide and very deep, formed a grave impediment to the advance of their opponents. But the chief reason why there was a serious possibility of the fortunes of war being reversed, lay in the fact that the moral of these troops was good. All the picked regiments of the army were here, including 2500 cavalry. The men were ashamed of the stampede from the south, and were sincerely anxious to take their revenge. Thus the Neapolitan plan of a pitched battle and a victorious march on Naples was by no means foredoomed, on the face of things, to failure.