Giuseppe Garibaldi (4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian republican politician, general, and freedom fighter who is today considered one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland" for his contributions to Italian unification. His military adventures saw him fight for the Riograndense Republic in Brazil, for the Colorados in Uruguay, for the Roman Republic in Rome, as leader of the Redshirts during the Expedition of the Thousand in Sicily, and as a French general during the Franco-Prussian War. From 1861 to 1882, he also served as a Historical Far Left member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
Biography[]
Giuseppe Garibaldi was born into a seafaring family in Nice, a city disputed between France and the Italian kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. In the 1830s, he became involved with Italian revolutionaries seeking to create a united Italy under a republican government. After a failed uprising in Genoa in 1834, he fled to South America. There he became a guerrilla fighter among the gauchos of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, before joining in the defense of Uruguay's independence against Argentina from 1842. He led a band of followers known as the Italian Legion, as well as commanding the Uruguayan navy.
In 1848, when revolutionary uprisings spread through the Italian peninsula, Garibaldi returned to take part in the struggle. His presence attracted a large number of volunteers, whom he commanded first in support of King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia, fighting for the Italian cause against Austria. He then aided the revolutionary Roman Republic that had seized Rome from the Pope.
When the French intervened to restore Papal authority in June 1849, Garibaldi held their army at bay for several weeks before returning to exile. He was an international celebrity, lauded as a noble fighter for freedom, but he pragmatically accepted that Italian unification could only be achieved under Victor Emmanuel II. He fought alongside the royal army against the Austrians in 1859 and 1866, leading a volunteer force known as the Hunters of the Alps. His most famous exploit, however, was his invasion of Sicily with his Redshirts in May 1860. The largest battle of his career was fought against the army of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies at Volturno in October 1860, opening the way for sardinian forces to take over southern Italy. The creation of the Kingdom of Italy left Garibaldi unsatisfied because the Papal States and Venice were excluded. In 1862, he attempted to repeat his success of 1860, landing volunteers in southern Italy and marching on Rome, but the Italian monarchy blocked this initiative. In an encounter with royal forces at Aspromonte in August, Garibaldi was wounded, but stopped the clash from escalating, thus preventing civil war. Garibaldi despised French emperor Napoleon III, who had sent troops to protect papal rule in Rome. When Napoleon fell from power in 1870, Garibaldi welcomed the founding of the French Third Republic by leading international volunteers, dubbed the Army of the Vosges, to fight on its behalf against Prussian troops occupying eastern France. He expressed sympathy with the Paris Commune rebellion in 1871, claiming interest in an ethical socialism and seeing the struggle for liberty as an international affair. Despite being elected to the Italian parliament, he spent much of his late years in Caprera, and he died in 1882 at the age of 75.