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The Double Loss and Reconquest
of the Continental Kingdom
As everybody knows, in 1796 the young Napoleon Bonaparte
started his invasion and gradual conquest of most
territories belonging to pre-unification Italian States:
he met everywhere, as sole and ferocious resistance,
the spontaneous armed rebellion of the Italian populations,
- the counterrevolutionary risings
- who rose up to defend the Church and their Catholic
faith and lawful sovereigns and governments (in short,
they rose up against the revolutionary aggression
to protect their centuries-old civilisation, society
and traditional identity).
Ferdinand
of Bourbon
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In
February 1798, the revolutionary armies invaded
the Papal State, provoked the escape of pope
Pious VI, and set up the Roman Jacobin Republic.
In November, Ferdinand, aware that the Napoleonic
army was marching towards Naples to complete
the conquest of Italy, decided to declare war
against the French also to free Rome and let
the Pope come back to his State. The Austrian
General Mack received the command of the forces,
but his choice immediately turned to be a wrong
one. He entered Rome without striking a blow
(the Neapolitans were welcomed in triumph by
the Romans), but then, facing the attack of
the Napoleonic general Championnet, Mack miserably
fled the scene and the Bourbon army withdrew
in confusion. Championnet had finally an excuse
to march on Naples.
On 8 December 1798, Ferdinand issued a proclamation
to all his subjects and invited them to resist
in arms against the invaders. No other proclamation
was ever taken literally as this one. Thousands,
tenths of thousands of men from all social classes
and of all ages, including women and aged people,
took arms against the French and bravely fought
for six months to reconquer their kingdom. |
In
fact, on 22 January 1799, the French succeeded in
conquering Naples, even if with a huge number of casualties.
In Naples, to take real possession of the city and
set up the “Neapolitan Republic” , the
French had to massacre 10,000 “Lazzaroni”
who had risen up in the name of Ferdinand. In the
meanwhile, already on 22 December 1798, the Court
had moved to Palermo, and Ferdinand had left Naples
in the hands of a Council of Aristocrats and the Royal
Vicar Pignatelli.
Set up the Republic, the Jacobins tried to impose
it also to the provinces, but with poor results. In
fact, popular discontent was everywhere, and feelings
of loyalty to the dynasty were expressed everywhere
and everyday became more “threatening”.
At the end of January, Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo of
the Princes of Scilla went to Palermo and asked audience
to the King to present him a brave project: he asked
the king to give him ships, ,men and money to make
a military expedition to reconquer the Kingdom of
Naples with the help of the population, which would
be surely given.
The project was so brave that the sovereigns were
puzzled; at the end, after Ruffo’s insistence
and due to the fact that nothing better had been planned,
Ferdinand granted the Cardinal only one ship and seven
men (less than nothing), but he also gave the Cardinal
the official title of King’s Vicar for the kingdom
of Naples (which in practise meant everything!). Ruffo
felt satisfied with what he had been given, since
he was sure that the population of the continental
kingdom would follow him.
And he was absolutely right! Once landed in his territories
in Calabria, he just had to pass the word round about
his intentions and new powers. In just a few weeks
he had an army of tenths of thousands of volunteers
who had come from all across the kingdom to defend
the Bourbon cause and die to drive out the Jacobin
invaders.
Ruffo established "the Royal Catholic Army”
(Armata Cattolica e Reale) in the name of Ferdinand
IV (see the page dedicated to counterrevolutionary
uprising and Sanfedismo), who, in the span of three
months, came back to Naples in triumph and restored
the Bourbon monarchy on 13 June 1799, the day of St.
Anthony, official patron saint of the "Armata
della Santa Fede".
In the meanwhile, Ferdinand and Maria Carolina reached
Naples via sea, preceded by Nelson, who had the order
of making justice of Jacobin traitors resisting in
Castel S. Elmo and surrounded by the Sanfedist Army.
Ruffo, aware that Nelson would massacre them all,
offered them to escape via land; but they thought
to better trust a Protestant than a Catholic and surrendered
to the British Admiral, who hanged 99 of them with
the approval of Maria Carolina more than of Ferdinand.
These were remembered as the Jacobins of the Neapolitan
Republic, “victims of the Bourbon”, as
national historiography has always reported. We cannot
here engage a historiographical and ideological controversy.
But we make a consideration: of course, justice had
to be applied with mercifulness. But historians have
always wanted to forget the infeasible need for justice,
in a situation in which all terms were clear: the
subjects – many of which very close to the Crown
– had been found guilt of high treason since
they had driven out the King and set up a revolutionary
republic established not only on the arms of foreign
invaders but also and mainly deprived of all popular
support, as history has shown, and, even more than
that, the kingdom’s population bravely fought
against the invaders and remained loyal to the Bourbon.
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