A little background. In 1859 in the UK, there arose a volunteer movement of riflemen and artillery. Britain's army was spread round the world leaving very few men to defend against an invasion - and the French were getting uppity again. Piedmont, the other strong state at the time had very strong links to France. The last thing that the Bourbon admiral would want to see would be the royal navy.
Italians love conspiracy stories. Having said that, it’s already known that Britain wanted Italy to be unified as a buffer to France. However as you rightly said Garibaldi fought the battles himself. It s probably splitting hairs really. I don’t doubt that Britain offered this help but Garibaldi was nobody’s pawn, he wanted Italian unity and fought for it and he doesn’t deserve to be spoken of that way.
Yes, I don't see him as a pawn at all. Having made the film I now see him as having intelligently used every help available to achieve the end of Italian Unification. And that help included the British Navy at Marsala.
Excellent Conversation. When I learned about Garabaldi's landing in high school here in the US, I was always mystified, by how one man at the head of a thousand-strong force united Italy. I always figured the Italian nationalistic zeal was such that it simply swept the Italian city-states away. I had never given it more thought because I was more interested in Middle Eastern History in the wake of the Arab Spring. After doing a little research of my own I believe it to be plausible to say that Britain aided Italian unification, but had indeed engineered it. They may have engineered it with the help of Guisseppe Garabaldi the ’father of fatherlands’. As a merchant, Garibaldi became ‘radicalized’ delivering a shipment of oranges to Russia by a member of the Young Italians. Upon return to Genoa Garibaldi met Guisseppe Mazzini and began organizing with the republican movement. He was so dedicated to the cause he would eventually be captured and exiled for beginning an insurrection with Mazzini. From these facts we can surmise his desire for Italian Unification was genuine, but whether it was a marriage of convenience or a ‘radical’ recruited by the foremost global power of the period. After all, Mazzini had been exiled to Britain and was uncompromising in his desire to cast down the Monarchy and opt for a Republic. He would return in 1848 a year infamous for rebellion and revolution. While his name is spoken often in the same breath as Garibaldi the achievements of the two men are starkly different. While he was gifted at organizing and mobilizing his fellow Italians for the unification of the nation his ideological purity when it came to accepting a constitutional monarchy and his inexperience in military matters relegated him to the position as a figurehead tool of ideological idealism. A mere liberal figure of insignificance was used as a pawn to recruit the ‘radicals’ throughout the peninsula for the cause of Italian Unification. His unwillingness to compromise would largely be the reason he would not receive a position in Italy’s nascent government. It also may have been that he tried to organize insurrections against the constitutional monarchy in Sciliy as Italy was on the verge of unification. He opted to double down on his desire for a republican Italy and then to see it unified under a king. A laudable goal if there ever was one, but an outlandish one at the time. Today Italy is a republic, but I have an inkling if Mazzini were to see it he may have killed himself. A republic, that has produced 68 governments in 76 years. I’m sure the sight of Berlesconi or learning what a Bunga Bunga party was alone would have driven him mad. He was roughly aligned with Garibaldi and the two knew each other well. Garabldi was exiled but chose not to go to Britain, but elected to go to South America and aided revolutions and secession of many states namely Uruguay. I'm convinced their had to be some organized effort on part of Britian to foster Italian Unification and figure like Garibaldi Ill explain in the comments.
Now a moment for a little background on the region Garibaldi is voyaging off to. Uruguay is an interesting choice because Montevideo is a hub for British commercial interest and several prominent British families settled in Montevideo. Moreover, Uruguay provided Britain with an opportunity any empire simply can turn down. For centuries the Spanish Colonial governments were barred from trade with any other nation, but its colonial master Spain. This relegates most of South and Meso-America under Spanish vassalage out of reach for Britain and her commercial interests. The British long held the desire to spark rebellion amongst their colonies and treat their old rivals to the same experience they had endured in the US almost a century earlier. This opportunity finally arrived in the 19th century as Spain's continual decline from the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars, archaic institutions, and entangling foreign policy. For the first time, a seismic shift would transform two continents as South American markets would be unlocked for the first time since colonization. Uruguay and its prominent Montevidean commercial magnates elected to stay with Independent Argentina as they were originally part of the Spanish Colony Rio Del Plata governed from Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, these European elites in Montevideo regretted this course of action when Argentina began to pursue a centralized government supplanting the regional autonomy they desired for Uruguay so in 1815 they declared independence from Argentina and captured Montevideo with ease. In the chaos, the Portuguese saw an opportunity and invaded with 10,000 troops capturing Uruguay and adding it to their Brazilian colony. Seven years later in 1822 independence would come to the Portuguese colony of Brazil and the Uruguayans declared their independence from Brazil. They did so with the support of the young Argentine state. The result was the Cisplantia War. For 500 days these newly independent nations waged a war of stalemate, It ended in 1828 with the signing of the Treaty of Montevideo. A treaty, mind you, that was brokered by the British under Viscount John Ponsonby. The Treaty negotiated the borderlands and Uruguay's independence as a buffer between the two nations. It's not a stretch to say that the nation of Uruguay is a British machination. In the wake of independence, a new war was brewing between the protectionist Blancos led by Manuel Oribe and commercial Colorados led by Fructuoso Rivera centered in Montevideo. The two men had a personal rivalry going back to Independence from Spain. The Blancos successfully won the election with Manuel Oribe and the additional loss of the Unitarios in Argentine elections saw Rivera forcibly capture Montevideo in 1838. Oribe fled to Argentina where his ally Manuel de Rosas received him. In 1839 Rivera declares war against Argentina and set off the Guerra Grande (Great War). Argentina slowly advanced on the Uruguayan border after initial Uruguayan advances. It is in this context that Garibaldi continues his exile in Montevideo arriving there in 1841 after a relatively successful republican insurrection he had fought on behalf of the Riograndese Republic which had ended in negotiation and increased regional autonomy. Rather than settling in the territory he fought on behalf either out of disappointment that the endeavor didn't result in Independence. It is more likely that the recruited him on account of his string of military successes against the Portuguese, a colonial power that had controlled Brazil for some three centuries. He was a gifted military commander considering it was his first real war excluding any insurrections he participated in. It is plausible a British Montevidean having been enamored with his military exploits, as men of that era often are, and sought such a man. This magnate may have hired him to organize a defense among the ⅙ of the city population that was Italian. It could very well be an agent of the British state either from the military or diplomatic core who took the steps to acquire Garabaldi’s services. Perhaps the Italians of the city appealed to him for help as the Argentinians seem poised to pounce. And In serving in the conflict he establishes ties with members of the British elite and or military. I would be remiss without mentioning according to some literature he spent time as a schoolmaster and merchant in Montevideo, but there seems to be a lack of first-person accounts something generally expected from a man who dealt in receipts and taught people to read. Though my research was limited to online searches and it would require further investigation to be conclusive. Without any such evidence, it is extremely safe to presume that Guiseppe was there to take part in the conflict despite moving there with his wife Anita. In the next few years, the Argentinians managed to sweep through the smaller nation. In 1842 Garibaldi was one of the few who had military experience from his successful military exploits in Brazil and was appointed as commander of Uruguay's small Navy. Argentina finally reached the capitol in 1843 and played what would be a 9-year siege. As the siege broke out and call for military organization was made to all the Europeans living in Montevideo. Additionally, he organized the Italian migrants who comprised ⅙ of the city's population into the Italian Legion also called the Red Shirts for their support of the Colorados and Rivera. For the next six years, He would lead a brilliant defense of Montevideo and lead even more ingenious Amphibious invasions. In 1845 hoping to secure supply lines Garibaldi managed to occupy Colonia del Sacramento and Martín García Island, and led the infamous sacks of Martín García Island and Gualeguaychú during the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata. Garibaldi escaped with his life after being defeated at Costa Brava, in August of 1842, thanks to the mercy of Irish-born Argentine Admiral William Brown. The Argentines, wanting to pursue him to finish him off, were stopped by their commander who admired Garibaldi's enormous balls and was satisfied with defeating his forces. Garibaldi later achieved two victories in 1846, at the Battle of Cerro and the Battle of San Antonio del Santo. Having heard of the wave of revolution spreading in Europe he decided to return home in 1848 to foment the republic he had bravely fought on behalf in Latin America. Ignoring obviously that he fought on a side aligned with the European commercial interests of Britain and to a lesser degree France which also had a unique history in this region. Keep in mind, the only nation unaffected by the continental revolts of 1848 was Britain having dealt with the question of absolutism following a bloody civil war almost two centuries earlier. Moreover, the British were extraordinarily more economically successful than any of their counterparts. It wouldn't be a stretch to believe the alliances would be foraged then. Garibaldi could have very well made a common cause with a number of British magnates keen to establish a constitutional monarchy in the same image of the government they have at home. Molding a nation's formation to better protect the considerable assets they owned throughout Italy. Moreover, I never believed it to be coincidental that Italian Unification took place almost simultaneously with German Unification. No doubt, British policy-makers were pleased to see another continental great power emerge to compete with the newly forming German Empire as opposed to a region where great powers garner power and wage proxy wars as had been the case in Italy since the Lombards last unified it and more accurately the fall of Rome. It is my opinion that there had to be a clandestine connection of some kind that would reveal Britain to have played a larger role than history gives it credit for. And considering all it cost was stationed the HMS Argus and Intrepid to protect ‘local British commercial interests’, but was a veiled threat the Sicilian naval vessel steered clear of. The Sicilian was halted from intercepting Garibaldi before his forces could disembark in Marsala. Once ashore his military competence and his mythic revolutionary status made him unstoppable in the ‘Spedizione dei Mille’. If you think this is all outlandish. I will leave you with one of my favorite facts directly correlated with Post-Napoleonic Europe. By 1815 with the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Britain had a GDP per capita 50% greater than any of its other counterparts in Europe and by the 19th century it would be about 2x greater than all the other European 'great powers'. Britain for a time was in a league of its own having been the only nation to defeat Napolean that had relatively been undamaged by the war with the only industrialized economy and the unquestioned naval power in the world. Moreover, The colonial empire it accumulated gave it an unparalleled strategic positioning worldwide. An early milestone in global British hegemony. So Britain certainly would have the perceived capability, and the confidence to engineer the world to its liking in much of the same way we are familiar with the US meddling in the affairs of other nations through the CIA following American ascension to hegemonic status following the Second World War. A seemingly evident pattern of hegemony.
@@moistnuggetjr.3198Thank you for sharing your findings and tremendous time that you've researched this. Very glad to have read it, and to have learned what was shared in this video. Thank you.
I grandfather told me we are descendents of General Garibaldi, I respect your defending him, he was a great person who wanted Italy to be united because Italy stronger together then not, even if the Brits helped it was probably miniscule that it need not be said because ultimately everyone knew the Brits opinion on Italy's unity
Spedizione dei mille? Si trattò piuttosto di una brutale e immotivata invasione del Regno delle Due Sicilie da parte di insorti piemontesi. English: Expedition of the thousand? Rather, it was a brutal and unprovoked invasion of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by Piedmontese insurgents.
The red shirted officer, after asking the admiral about the other two ships, didn't reply to the admiral. He was saying to his OWN ship: "If they only give me another hour, I do not care for all the Neapolitan ships". That is why they all started chanting-as a reply to the red shirted officer. The eye witness thought "they" referred to the other two ships whereas "they" actually referred to the British Admiral. It is not a coincidence the British ship arrived when they did. Garibaldi was waiting for them. Great job on this video.
Thanks for your comment. I agree completely. My research convinces me that there was a prior agreement that ships of the Royal Navy would protect the landing by their presence.
Excellent piece of amateur history - well done. Very well structured approach to the questions surrounding Garibaldi and the birth of the modern Italian nation.
Thanks Steve for a well researched and put together film. I have some vague recollections of the story but certainly did not remember the Royal Navy having such a key role in ensuring an unopposed landing. The question as to whether this was deliberate and premeditated or as a result of the RN just fulfilling its duty of protecting British live and interests remains open I think and perhaps the subject for a sequel!
Very interesting and surely true. Can you contact me? My great grand father was one of the 1000 (yes, for a sequence of late births) and there are facts that I wish to uncover
Italian Hero (and arguably the greatest revolutionary ever lived). Ot wasn't a British Pawn, also cause he din't liked at all at the British Queen in that time. It was indeed well seen and acclaimed by the British working class, overall, but it wasn't a British pawn at all.
I agree. He was an Italian Hero. You could say he used the British Navy as his pawn. Queen Vistoria disliked him because she was jealous of his popularity with the British people.
@@history_detectives_italia Exactely, other than Queen Victoria dislike for him, there was also a workers conglomerate (miners and artisans of Glasgow if i remember it well) that was dooing extra work on weekend to supply Garibaldi with iron and weapons to help his Italian Campaign.
Lenin created a terms for describing person like Garibaldi; the useful idiots. Such term indicates someone who appears to be manipulated without realizing it. Unfolding an agenda by means of useful idiot is even preferable than by means of pawns.
It was in their interests to have Garibaldi land, so technically both correct. But it was a lie that the British were there simply to protect British private property, they there to protect British political interests. That is, of having a strong nation in central Europe and the Mediterranean region that could counterbalance the big powers of France and Austria.
The real story it is narrated in the video:"Regno delle due Sicilie Ass.Sentimento Meridiano Dott.A.Romano da Stato Avanzato a colonia",with proves from the milit.,univers.,and other archives,interesting also the video:"L'Inghilterra contro il Regno delle due Sicilie--unita'd'Italia made in London",the video:"I Primati del Regno delle due Sicilie",the video:"Ruberie dei Mille,Ippolito Nievo e la prima strage di stato",the book:"Cronaca civile e militare delle due Sicilie sotto la Dinastia borbonica",del prof.Luigi Del Pozzo,the book:"La storia proibita.Quando i piemontesi invasero il sud",of the Prof.Romano,the book:"Il Regno delle due Sicilie.Tutta la verita'",of the Prof.Gustavo Rinaldi,the video:"La piu'grande rapina della storia 3",the video:"L'attacco dello stato all'industria meridionale",the video:"Regno delle due Sicilie--citazioni illustri",parte 1,2 e 3,the video:"La storia oscura di Garibaldi,uomo spregiudicato che la storia ce lo presenta come eroe,ma........",the book:"Garibaldi.L'invenzione di un eroe",of the historian Lucy Riall,the book:"Garibaldi,Fauche'ed i predatori del Regno del sud",the video:"Le condizioni del Mezzogiorno negli atti ufficiali del primo Parlamento italiano",the video:"034 Le pillole di Angela/Garibaldi libertador",etc.etc.
Great film, thanks. I'd no idea who Garibaldi was! The actions of the British Captain, putting himself between the tender and the landing invaders seems extreme. Clever, certainly. A passive act that helped Garibaldi, but why would he have done this otherwise? If he was there to protect British interests he'd have stood back at that point surely? Did the British get any obvious payback? After the event? If this theory is true, Garibaldi would have been inclined to thank the British somehow, is there any evidence of that?
Britain was working strategically and long term. Garibaldi was soon irrelevant. A recent academic paper describes the strategic, rather than cultural, dimensions of British sympathy and how they intended to mould the newly unified Italian state in the image of Victorian Britain with a view to a future alliance OJ Wright 2019
Garibaldi has never obtained any triumph rally being tributed by italian people. Garibaldi walk of celebrity as been tributed by adoring people in London. That speaks volume
@@history_detectives_italia Garibaldi was the disposable useful idiot. he was pursuing exactly what the british were looking for without exposing too much the british involvments and interest. Just perfect and in fact most of the italians are still unaware of it. In a sense you can see that also Adolf Hitler followed the same line. The disposable useful idiot to pursue a bloody war between the 2 biggest land powers. Music to the ears of the biggest sea power (UK)
@@history_detectives_italiaAs you won't find any evidence of Lenin being a German pawn etc. As you won't find about most of the propaganda against Che, or Robespierre. These are the kind of people that Imperialist Anglo-Saxon propaganda fears the most. But times change and these types of MEN will hopefully one day return..
La storia reale e'stata desecretata dagli archivi di stato di Londra,Firenze,Palermo,Cosenza,ed altri.Libro:"L'altra storia d'Italia",vol.1 e 2,di Lamberto Rimondini,video:"27 L'altra storia d'Italia vol 1 Lamberto Rimondini",video:"40 L'altra storia 1802--2022 1 Chi e perche'ha voluto il Risorgimento?Lamberto Rimondini",ed altri.
Frankly, while I appreciate the amateur approach and the interesting sources, I find this video a bit insulting. The whole premise is "British ships didn't shoot therefore Garibaldi was a pawn". A few omitted facts. 1. The British were heavily present within the Neapolitan political and economic structure and had indeed huge investments in Sicily from sulfur mining to agriculture. Good ol' Nelson spent a ton of time at the court of Naples too. Sending Garibaldi there, as it is implied, to bring upon their destruction is just silly and anti productive. Insuring their own foreign investments were protected, now that sounds proper rational logic. Especially from a colonial power as Britain which routinely used its navy on behalf of private companies. Furthermore British elites considered Garibaldi a dangerous rebel, the British people loved him for that. Sponsoring him sounds like a very bad strategic decision. 2. No mention of "undercover" support Garibaldi received from the government of Piedmont-Sardinia. Cavour, not mentioned once I believe, sent weapons, armaments and most importantly, managed to bribe every other Neapolitan and Sicilian officer on Garibaldi's way. If the people of Sicily saw Garibaldi favourably and the officers looked the other way, a relatively peaceful landing and conquest would have been possible. Let's not forget the hold of Sicily by the Neapolitan court was tenuous at best. Was there a British involvement of some sort? Sure, it's possible. Cavour was close to the British establishment and I wouldn't be surprised if some arrangements were made. The whole campaign was a covert operation of sorts. Nonetheless, claiming one of the most successful generals of the modern era was a pawn of the British, now, that's either an inclination towards conspiracy theories or maybe just click bait. You mention due to nationalist pride Italians might not want to admit to it. Could it not be that due to a good dose of British Imperial exceptionalism a Brit just sees union jacks everywhere?
If in making this video we insulted someone, I presume you mean Garibaldi, I can assure you this was not our intention. In my view he remains the perfect hero. Our purpose was to examine the commonly held belief in Sicily that he was a pawn of the British. We chose to concentrate on the Marsala landing as a test of this theory. In my view it is clear that he landed with the support of the British. My answer to our own question is that he was an Italian hero who used/collaborated with the British and Cavour to achieve his end of Italian Unification. And that he succeeded. He wasn't a British pawn. But, I do believe that the British government supported the invasion. For their own commercial ends. On previous occasions they had attempted to replace the Bourbon monarchy with a more democratic regime more amenable to the development of trade and industry in Sicily. And yes, the title is somewhat click bait.
There are many things that aren't true in this video. Most of the Italians in the south at that time didn't care less of the so called unification of italy That in fact was an aggression of the savoy to the kingdom of Napoli. The bourbons weren't dispotic ike the history written by the winner describes. The southern kingdom wasn't poorer of the other Italian states as a fact the kingdom had 550 millions liras while all the other little states together had 220 millions. The repression of the savoy was brutal, thousands of people were killed or deported, women and young girls raped. British had many interests in contrast with Naples the first was the competition of the mercantile navy of Naples, the second in Europe, to the British mercantile navy also considering the imminent opening of the Suez canal. Last but not least important, do you really think that a thousand men bad equipped could defeated an army of 170.000 professional soldiers well equipped if previously the high level of the soldiers of the kingdom of Naples hadn't been corrupted? Also guess who were the corrupters.
To answer your question of how Garibaldi was able to defeat the Bourbon army after landing safely is that the issue went deeper, they were outnumbered and the Bourbons were familiar with the terrain. So how'd they do it? Easy the Bourbons were bribed to lose the battles, otherwise, they'd never won against such an overwhelming force. What do you think we're stupid? In the countryside the British could not have helped, so you prove to me that a seriously underwhelmed force was able to defeat the superior force with home-field adavantage a more much more weapons than the invaders, you said it yourselves the trekked through a mountainous region to meet a superior for that was already entenched. Sorry, that doesn't jive with me. Why didn't they reach Palermo via the coast which would have been easier to traverse? And the British Navy would have been able to protect them. It stinks to high heaven. Maybe crossing the coast was easier but less heroic? Or the Sicilian Navy would have been able to pick them off?
The Bourbon admirals were in favor of unification. Tens of thousand of soldiers and militiamen joined Garibaldi, Sicily and southern Italy hated the Bourbons, the violence and mass murders perpetrated by the Sanfedisti and the brigands were still vivid.
Garibaldi had the wrong idea fed to him. His actions didnt liberate southern italy but enslaved it to the damned home of savoy. May they rot in their graves
So, my question is, do you think he was a hero? Her an English pawn?
A little background. In 1859 in the UK, there arose a volunteer movement of riflemen and artillery. Britain's army was spread round the world leaving very few men to defend against an invasion - and the French were getting uppity again. Piedmont, the other strong state at the time had very strong links to France. The last thing that the Bourbon admiral would want to see would be the royal navy.
How true.
Italians love conspiracy stories. Having said that, it’s already known that Britain wanted Italy to be unified as a buffer to France. However as you rightly said Garibaldi fought the battles himself. It s probably splitting hairs really. I don’t doubt that Britain offered this help but Garibaldi was nobody’s pawn, he wanted Italian unity and fought for it and he doesn’t deserve to be spoken of that way.
Yes, I don't see him as a pawn at all. Having made the film I now see him as having intelligently used every help available to achieve the end of Italian Unification. And that help included the British Navy at Marsala.
Excellent Conversation.
When I learned about Garabaldi's landing in high school here in the US, I was always mystified, by how one man at the head of a thousand-strong force united Italy. I always figured the Italian nationalistic zeal was such that it simply swept the Italian city-states away. I had never given it more thought because I was more interested in Middle Eastern History in the wake of the Arab Spring. After doing a little research of my own I believe it to be plausible to say that Britain aided Italian unification, but had indeed engineered it. They may have engineered it with the help of Guisseppe Garabaldi the ’father of fatherlands’.
As a merchant, Garibaldi became ‘radicalized’ delivering a shipment of oranges to Russia by a member of the Young Italians. Upon return to Genoa Garibaldi met Guisseppe Mazzini and began organizing with the republican movement. He was so dedicated to the cause he would eventually be captured and exiled for beginning an insurrection with Mazzini. From these facts we can surmise his desire for Italian Unification was genuine, but whether it was a marriage of convenience or a ‘radical’ recruited by the foremost global power of the period.
After all, Mazzini had been exiled to Britain and was uncompromising in his desire to cast down the Monarchy and opt for a Republic. He would return in 1848 a year infamous for rebellion and revolution. While his name is spoken often in the same breath as Garibaldi the achievements of the two men are starkly different. While he was gifted at organizing and mobilizing his fellow Italians for the unification of the nation his ideological purity when it came to accepting a constitutional monarchy and his inexperience in military matters relegated him to the position as a figurehead tool of ideological idealism. A mere liberal figure of insignificance was used as a pawn to recruit the ‘radicals’ throughout the peninsula for the cause of Italian Unification. His unwillingness to compromise would largely be the reason he would not receive a position in Italy’s nascent government. It also may have been that he tried to organize insurrections against the constitutional monarchy in Sciliy as Italy was on the verge of unification. He opted to double down on his desire for a republican Italy and then to see it unified under a king. A laudable goal if there ever was one, but an outlandish one at the time. Today Italy is a republic, but I have an inkling if Mazzini were to see it he may have killed himself. A republic, that has produced 68 governments in 76 years. I’m sure the sight of Berlesconi or learning what a Bunga Bunga party was alone would have driven him mad. He was roughly aligned with Garibaldi and the two knew each other well. Garabldi was exiled but chose not to go to Britain, but elected to go to South America and aided revolutions and secession of many states namely Uruguay.
I'm convinced their had to be some organized effort on part of Britian to foster Italian Unification and figure like Garibaldi Ill explain in the comments.
Now a moment for a little background on the region Garibaldi is voyaging off to.
Uruguay is an interesting choice because Montevideo is a hub for British commercial interest and several prominent British families settled in Montevideo. Moreover, Uruguay provided Britain with an opportunity any empire simply can turn down. For centuries the Spanish Colonial governments were barred from trade with any other nation, but its colonial master Spain. This relegates most of South and Meso-America under Spanish vassalage out of reach for Britain and her commercial interests. The British long held the desire to spark rebellion amongst their colonies and treat their old rivals to the same experience they had endured in the US almost a century earlier. This opportunity finally arrived in the 19th century as Spain's continual decline from the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars, archaic institutions, and entangling foreign policy. For the first time, a seismic shift would transform two continents as South American markets would be unlocked for the first time since colonization. Uruguay and its prominent Montevidean commercial magnates elected to stay with Independent Argentina as they were originally part of the Spanish Colony Rio Del Plata governed from Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, these European elites in Montevideo regretted this course of action when Argentina began to pursue a centralized government supplanting the regional autonomy they desired for Uruguay so in 1815 they declared independence from Argentina and captured Montevideo with ease. In the chaos, the Portuguese saw an opportunity and invaded with 10,000 troops capturing Uruguay and adding it to their Brazilian colony. Seven years later in 1822 independence would come to the Portuguese colony of Brazil and the Uruguayans declared their independence from Brazil. They did so with the support of the young Argentine state. The result was the Cisplantia War. For 500 days these newly independent nations waged a war of stalemate, It ended in 1828 with the signing of the Treaty of Montevideo. A treaty, mind you, that was brokered by the British under Viscount John Ponsonby. The Treaty negotiated the borderlands and
Uruguay's independence as a buffer between the two nations. It's not a stretch to say that the nation of Uruguay is a British machination.
In the wake of independence, a new war was brewing between the protectionist Blancos led by Manuel Oribe and commercial Colorados led by Fructuoso Rivera centered in Montevideo. The two men had a personal rivalry going back to Independence from Spain. The Blancos successfully won the election with Manuel Oribe and the additional loss of the Unitarios in Argentine elections saw Rivera forcibly capture Montevideo in 1838. Oribe fled to Argentina where his ally Manuel de Rosas received him. In 1839 Rivera declares war against Argentina and set off the Guerra Grande (Great War). Argentina slowly advanced on the Uruguayan border after initial Uruguayan advances.
It is in this context that Garibaldi continues his exile in Montevideo arriving there in 1841 after a relatively successful republican insurrection he had fought on behalf of the Riograndese Republic which had ended in negotiation and increased regional autonomy. Rather than settling in the territory he fought on behalf either out of disappointment that the endeavor didn't result in Independence. It is more likely that the recruited him on account of his string of military successes against the Portuguese, a colonial power that had controlled Brazil for some three centuries. He was a gifted military commander considering it was his first real war excluding any insurrections he participated in. It is plausible a British Montevidean having been enamored with his military exploits, as men of that era often are, and sought such a man. This magnate may have hired him to organize a defense among the ⅙ of the city population that was Italian. It could very well be an agent of the British state either from the military or diplomatic core who took the steps to acquire Garabaldi’s services. Perhaps the Italians of the city appealed to him for help as the Argentinians seem poised to pounce. And In serving in the conflict he establishes ties with members of the British elite and or military. I would be remiss without mentioning according to some literature he spent time as a schoolmaster and merchant in Montevideo, but there seems to be a lack of first-person accounts something generally expected from a man who dealt in receipts and taught people to read. Though my research was limited to online searches and it would require further investigation to be conclusive. Without any such evidence, it is extremely safe to presume that Guiseppe was there to take part in the conflict despite moving there with his wife Anita. In the next few years, the Argentinians managed to sweep through the smaller nation. In 1842 Garibaldi was one of the few who had military experience from his successful military exploits in Brazil and was appointed as commander of Uruguay's small Navy. Argentina finally reached the capitol in 1843 and played what would be a 9-year siege. As the siege broke out and call for military organization was made to all the Europeans living in Montevideo. Additionally, he organized the Italian migrants who comprised ⅙ of the city's population into the Italian Legion also called the Red Shirts for their support of the Colorados and Rivera. For the next six years, He would lead a brilliant defense of Montevideo and lead even more ingenious Amphibious invasions. In 1845 hoping to secure supply lines Garibaldi managed to occupy Colonia del Sacramento and Martín García Island, and led the infamous sacks of Martín García Island and Gualeguaychú during the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata. Garibaldi escaped with his life after being defeated at Costa Brava, in August of 1842, thanks to the mercy of Irish-born Argentine Admiral William Brown. The Argentines, wanting to pursue him to finish him off, were stopped by their commander who admired Garibaldi's enormous balls and was satisfied with defeating his forces. Garibaldi later achieved two victories in 1846, at the Battle of Cerro and the Battle of San Antonio del Santo. Having heard of the wave of revolution spreading in Europe he decided to return home in 1848 to foment the republic he had bravely fought on behalf in Latin America. Ignoring obviously that he fought on a side aligned with the European commercial interests of Britain and to a lesser degree France which also had a unique history in this region.
Keep in mind, the only nation unaffected by the continental revolts of 1848 was Britain having dealt with the question of absolutism following a bloody civil war almost two centuries earlier. Moreover, the British were extraordinarily more economically successful than any of their counterparts. It wouldn't be a stretch to believe the alliances would be foraged then. Garibaldi could have very well made a common cause with a number of British magnates keen to establish a constitutional monarchy in the same image of the government they have at home. Molding a nation's formation to better protect the considerable assets they owned throughout Italy. Moreover, I never believed it to be coincidental that Italian Unification took place almost simultaneously with German Unification. No doubt, British policy-makers were pleased to see another continental great power emerge to compete with the newly forming German Empire as opposed to a region where great powers garner power and wage proxy wars as had been the case in Italy since the Lombards last unified it and more accurately the fall of Rome. It is my opinion that there had to be a clandestine connection of some kind that would reveal Britain to have played a larger role than history gives it credit for.
And considering all it cost was stationed the HMS Argus and Intrepid to protect ‘local British commercial interests’, but was a veiled threat the Sicilian naval vessel steered clear of. The Sicilian was halted from intercepting Garibaldi before his forces could disembark in Marsala. Once ashore his military competence and his mythic revolutionary status made him unstoppable in the ‘Spedizione dei Mille’.
If you think this is all outlandish. I will leave you with one of my favorite facts directly correlated with Post-Napoleonic Europe. By 1815 with the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Britain had a GDP per capita 50% greater than any of its other counterparts in Europe and by the 19th century it would be about 2x greater than all the other European 'great powers'. Britain for a time was in a league of its own having been the only nation to defeat Napolean that had relatively been undamaged by the war with the only industrialized economy and the unquestioned naval power in the world. Moreover, The colonial empire it accumulated gave it an unparalleled strategic positioning worldwide. An early milestone in global British hegemony. So Britain certainly would have the perceived capability, and the confidence to engineer the world to its liking in much of the same way we are familiar with the US meddling in the affairs of other nations through the CIA following American ascension to hegemonic status following the Second World War. A seemingly evident pattern of hegemony.
Thanks so much for this contribution to the conversation. It’s very enlightening
Yes. The whole operation puts me in mind of the CIA engineering regime changes deemed to be in the US’s interests
@@moistnuggetjr.3198Thank you for sharing your findings and tremendous time that you've researched this. Very glad to have read it, and to have learned what was shared in this video. Thank you.
I grandfather told me we are descendents of General Garibaldi, I respect your defending him, he was a great person who wanted Italy to be united because Italy stronger together then not, even if the Brits helped it was probably miniscule that it need not be said because ultimately everyone knew the Brits opinion on Italy's unity
Thanks for your comment. Garibaldi was indeed an amazing guy.
Spedizione dei mille? Si trattò piuttosto di una brutale e immotivata invasione del Regno delle Due Sicilie da parte di insorti piemontesi.
English: Expedition of the thousand? Rather, it was a brutal and unprovoked invasion of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by Piedmontese insurgents.
The red shirted officer, after asking the admiral about the other two ships, didn't reply to the admiral. He was saying to his OWN ship: "If they only give me another hour, I do not care for all the Neapolitan ships". That is why they all started chanting-as a reply to the red shirted officer. The eye witness thought "they" referred to the other two ships whereas "they" actually referred to the British Admiral.
It is not a coincidence the British ship arrived when they did. Garibaldi was waiting for them.
Great job on this video.
Thanks for your comment. I agree completely. My research convinces me that there was a prior agreement that ships of the Royal Navy would protect the landing by their presence.
Excellent piece of amateur history - well done. Very well structured approach to the questions surrounding Garibaldi and the birth of the modern Italian nation.
Cheers Steve, glad you appreciated the film.
Great piece ..thanks for it 👍
Thanks so much
Excellent work. Very interesting and informative alhora 🙂👍👍thanks for the work
Glad you enjoyed the video!
awesome video
Cheers, Douggie
Thanks Steve for a well researched and put together film. I have some vague recollections of the story but certainly did not remember the Royal Navy having such a key role in ensuring an unopposed landing. The question as to whether this was deliberate and premeditated or as a result of the RN just fulfilling its duty of protecting British live and interests remains open I think and perhaps the subject for a sequel!
Not open, it's written in the memories of Sir Acton, an English head of government of the kingdom
Super interesting, congrats!! Molto interessante :)
Grazie Sabrina. Sono contento che mio film ti a piaciuto
Intriguing documentary enquiring into the question - were Garibaldi and his supporters acting alone or did they receive covert international support?
Thanks Mark, glad you found it thought provoking. That was the plan.
Very interesting and surely true. Can you contact me? My great grand father was one of the 1000 (yes, for a sequence of late births) and there are facts that I wish to uncover
Hi Gianni, you can email me at stephen@italian-stories.com
Italian Hero (and arguably the greatest revolutionary ever lived). Ot wasn't a British Pawn, also cause he din't liked at all at the British Queen in that time. It was indeed well seen and acclaimed by the British working class, overall, but it wasn't a British pawn at all.
I agree. He was an Italian Hero. You could say he used the British Navy as his pawn. Queen Vistoria disliked him because she was jealous of his popularity with the British people.
@@history_detectives_italia Exactely, other than Queen Victoria dislike for him, there was also a workers conglomerate (miners and artisans of Glasgow if i remember it well) that was dooing extra work on weekend to supply Garibaldi with iron and weapons to help his Italian Campaign.
Lenin created a terms for describing person like Garibaldi; the useful idiots. Such term indicates someone who appears to be manipulated without realizing it. Unfolding an agenda by means of useful idiot is even preferable than by means of pawns.
It was in their interests to have Garibaldi land, so technically both correct. But it was a lie that the British were there simply to protect British private property, they there to protect British political interests. That is, of having a strong nation in central Europe and the Mediterranean region that could counterbalance the big powers of France and Austria.
Absolutely agree.
The real story it is narrated in the video:"Regno delle due Sicilie Ass.Sentimento Meridiano Dott.A.Romano da Stato Avanzato a colonia",with proves from the milit.,univers.,and other archives,interesting also the video:"L'Inghilterra contro il Regno delle due Sicilie--unita'd'Italia made in London",the video:"I Primati del Regno delle due Sicilie",the video:"Ruberie dei Mille,Ippolito Nievo e la prima strage di stato",the book:"Cronaca civile e militare delle due Sicilie sotto la Dinastia borbonica",del prof.Luigi Del Pozzo,the book:"La storia proibita.Quando i piemontesi invasero il sud",of the Prof.Romano,the book:"Il Regno delle due Sicilie.Tutta la verita'",of the Prof.Gustavo Rinaldi,the video:"La piu'grande rapina della storia 3",the video:"L'attacco dello stato all'industria meridionale",the video:"Regno delle due Sicilie--citazioni illustri",parte 1,2 e 3,the video:"La storia oscura di Garibaldi,uomo spregiudicato che la storia ce lo presenta come eroe,ma........",the book:"Garibaldi.L'invenzione di un eroe",of the historian Lucy Riall,the book:"Garibaldi,Fauche'ed i predatori del Regno del sud",the video:"Le condizioni del Mezzogiorno negli atti ufficiali del primo Parlamento italiano",the video:"034 Le pillole di Angela/Garibaldi libertador",etc.etc.
Thanks for your recommendations
Great film, thanks. I'd no idea who Garibaldi was! The actions of the British Captain, putting himself between the tender and the landing invaders seems extreme. Clever, certainly. A passive act that helped Garibaldi, but why would he have done this otherwise? If he was there to protect British interests he'd have stood back at that point surely? Did the British get any obvious payback? After the event? If this theory is true, Garibaldi would have been inclined to thank the British somehow, is there any evidence of that?
Britain was working strategically and long term. Garibaldi was soon irrelevant.
A recent academic paper describes the strategic, rather than cultural, dimensions of British sympathy and how they intended to mould the newly unified Italian state in the image of Victorian Britain with a view to a future alliance
OJ Wright 2019
Garibaldi has never obtained any triumph rally being tributed by italian people. Garibaldi walk of celebrity as been tributed by adoring people in London. That speaks volume
I have often suspected that he was funded by the British Empire. A manufactured hero.
I agree he was possibly funded by the British Empire. I wouldn’t call him manufactured. He was a true hero for me
@@history_detectives_italia Garibaldi was the disposable useful idiot. he was pursuing exactly what the british were looking for without exposing too much the british involvments and interest. Just perfect and in fact most of the italians are still unaware of it. In a sense you can see that also Adolf Hitler followed the same line. The disposable useful idiot to pursue a bloody war between the 2 biggest land powers. Music to the ears of the biggest sea power (UK)
He was also a warrior in South America revolution in 1830 to 1840. Was this a British plot too ??
That something I haven’t investigated. Could be true but I just don’t know.
It’s well known that the British paid off military leaders of the kingdom of two Sicilys if they would surrender to garibaldi
It’s a possibility for sure. But I was unable to find factual evidence of this.
@@history_detectives_italiaAs you won't find any evidence of Lenin being a German pawn etc. As you won't find about most of the propaganda against Che, or Robespierre. These are the kind of people that Imperialist Anglo-Saxon propaganda fears the most. But times change and these types of MEN will hopefully one day return..
La storia reale e'stata desecretata dagli archivi di stato di Londra,Firenze,Palermo,Cosenza,ed altri.Libro:"L'altra storia d'Italia",vol.1 e 2,di Lamberto Rimondini,video:"27 L'altra storia d'Italia vol 1 Lamberto Rimondini",video:"40 L'altra storia 1802--2022 1 Chi e perche'ha voluto il Risorgimento?Lamberto Rimondini",ed altri.
Grazie per la sua risposta 😊
@@history_detectives_italia Di niente,si figuri.
Frankly, while I appreciate the amateur approach and the interesting sources, I find this video a bit insulting. The whole premise is "British ships didn't shoot therefore Garibaldi was a pawn".
A few omitted facts.
1. The British were heavily present within the Neapolitan political and economic structure and had indeed huge investments in Sicily from sulfur mining to agriculture. Good ol' Nelson spent a ton of time at the court of Naples too.
Sending Garibaldi there, as it is implied, to bring upon their destruction is just silly and anti productive. Insuring their own foreign investments were protected, now that sounds proper rational logic. Especially from a colonial power as Britain which routinely used its navy on behalf of private companies.
Furthermore British elites considered Garibaldi a dangerous rebel, the British people loved him for that. Sponsoring him sounds like a very bad strategic decision.
2. No mention of "undercover" support Garibaldi received from the government of Piedmont-Sardinia. Cavour, not mentioned once I believe, sent weapons, armaments and most importantly, managed to bribe every other Neapolitan and Sicilian officer on Garibaldi's way. If the people of Sicily saw Garibaldi favourably and the officers looked the other way, a relatively peaceful landing and conquest would have been possible. Let's not forget the hold of Sicily by the Neapolitan court was tenuous at best.
Was there a British involvement of some sort? Sure, it's possible. Cavour was close to the British establishment and I wouldn't be surprised if some arrangements were made. The whole campaign was a covert operation of sorts.
Nonetheless, claiming one of the most successful generals of the modern era was a pawn of the British, now, that's either an inclination towards conspiracy theories or maybe just click bait.
You mention due to nationalist pride Italians might not want to admit to it. Could it not be that due to a good dose of British Imperial exceptionalism a Brit just sees union jacks everywhere?
If in making this video we insulted someone, I presume you mean Garibaldi, I can assure you this was not our intention. In my view he remains the perfect hero. Our purpose was to examine the commonly held belief in Sicily that he was a pawn of the British. We chose to concentrate on the Marsala landing as a test of this theory. In my view it is clear that he landed with the support of the British.
My answer to our own question is that he was an Italian hero who used/collaborated with the British and Cavour to achieve his end of Italian Unification. And that he succeeded. He wasn't a British pawn.
But, I do believe that the British government supported the invasion. For their own commercial ends. On previous occasions they had attempted to replace the Bourbon monarchy with a more democratic regime more amenable to the development of trade and industry in Sicily.
And yes, the title is somewhat click bait.
Héroe de la izquierda
There are many things that aren't true in this video. Most of the Italians in the south at that time didn't care less of the so called unification of italy That in fact was an aggression of the savoy to the kingdom of Napoli. The bourbons weren't dispotic ike the history written by the winner describes. The southern kingdom wasn't poorer of the other Italian states as a fact the kingdom had 550 millions liras while all the other little states together had
220 millions. The repression of the savoy was brutal, thousands of people were killed or deported, women and young girls raped. British had many interests in contrast with Naples the first was the competition of the mercantile navy of Naples, the second in Europe, to the British mercantile navy also considering the imminent opening of the Suez canal. Last but not least important, do you really think that a thousand men bad equipped could defeated an army of 170.000 professional soldiers well equipped if previously the high level of the soldiers of the kingdom of Naples hadn't been corrupted? Also guess who were the corrupters.
You make some good points. I have always found it unbelievable that the thousand could win. That’s why I did the research and made the film
To answer your question of how Garibaldi was able to defeat the Bourbon army after landing safely is that the issue went deeper, they were outnumbered and the Bourbons were familiar with the terrain. So how'd they do it? Easy the Bourbons were bribed to lose the battles, otherwise, they'd never won against such an overwhelming force. What do you think we're stupid? In the countryside the British could not have helped, so you prove to me that a seriously underwhelmed force was able to defeat the superior force with home-field adavantage a more much more weapons than the invaders, you said it yourselves the trekked through a mountainous region to meet a superior for that was already entenched. Sorry, that doesn't jive with me. Why didn't they reach Palermo via the coast which would have been easier to traverse? And the British Navy would have been able to protect them. It stinks to high heaven. Maybe crossing the coast was easier but less heroic? Or the Sicilian Navy would have been able to pick them off?
I’m afraid I’m not convinced of this. I believe Garibaldi was able to defeat the Bourbon Army mainly because of the incompetence of its generals
The Bourbon admirals were in favor of unification.
Tens of thousand of soldiers and militiamen joined Garibaldi, Sicily and southern Italy hated the Bourbons, the violence and mass murders perpetrated by the Sanfedisti and the brigands were still vivid.
@@history_detectives_italia not incompetence but dishonesty. Generals have been bribed
Garibaldi had the wrong idea fed to him. His actions didnt liberate southern italy but enslaved it to the damned home of savoy. May they rot in their graves
Ma falla finita tu e I Borboni.. saremmo diventati un paese da terzo mondo sotto di loro.. e lo dico da meridionale
This is not very convincing
I’m sorry to hear you weren’t convinced by my research and presentation. It’s hard to establish the truth many years after the event
Steve