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The explosion of the powder magazine
of Gaeta |
Here
we just quote the following moving words used
by Roberto Martucci in his description of the
atmosphere in which the siege occurred, and
especially the last days of the siege and the
feelings of the losers – devastated by
hunger and plague - who knew they were inculpable
victims of an aggression that none of them had
wanted and heroic defenders not of a Kingdom,
but of a centuries-old civilisation. He also
wrote about the laughs of the winners, bitter
laughs anyway: «On
5 February 1861, a bullet hit Sant’Antonio
powder magazine and caused about hundred casualties
and buried alive hundreds of soldiers under
its ruins. "The enemy - Pietro Calà
d'Ulloa wrote- made a human sacrifice to the
infernal gods; the last explosion flung soldiers
and officers up in the air and then down in
the sea; the besiegers, in Mola, applauded as
they were watching a show" .
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After
a short truce to extract the wounded from the ruins,
Cialdini refused to grant a respite that would have
consented the rescue of other victims still alive;
the Sardinian General resumed the bombing and at the
same time offered the exhausted Neapolitan garrison
an unconditional surrender. Facing the uselessness
of further resistance, Francis II authorised the Governor
of Gaeta – the very General Giosué Ritucci
who had led the unlucky counteroffensive at Volturno
River – to negotiate the surrender. It was 11
February, the negotiations went on for two days and
general Cialdini never stopped bombing the unlucky
fortress with all his artillery; on the contrary,
he took advantage of the negotiations to make operative
other two deadly batteries of cannons. Since the surrender
was certain, that further deployment of artillery
was deadly useless. Provided he was not victim of
that syndrome that the French novelist Jules Verne
has brilliantly described in his novel “From
Earth to the Moon”, when the prostrated engineers
and ballistic experts of Baltimore “Gun club”
learnt with sorrow that the end of the War of Secession
prevented them from experimenting the efficacy of
the bullets of their cannons on the confederated army.
And so, in Gaeta, at 3pm of 13 February, while Neapolitan
and Sardinian negotiators were discussing the last
details of the surrender, the Transylvania powder
magazine and its 18 tons of explosives exploded. The
Piedmont artillery immediately concentrated their
fire on the ruins to prevent any rescue, and machine-gunned
the stretcher-bearers. Two officers, 50 soldiers and
the whole family of the guardian died uselessly. The
Bourbon plenipotentiaries negotiating the surrender
at Cialdini’s Headquarters hardly held back
their tears while their hosts loudly applauded, infringing
the rules of hospitality and the unwritten laws of
military honour» .
The battle of 1 October at the Volturno
(Francesco Mancini) |
Cialdini,
not yet satisfied, wanted to be sarcastic to
humiliate those who had bravely and dignifiedly
resisted him, and generously offered the royal
couple a ship to go to Rome: he chose a ship
called "Garibaldi"!
Among the tears of soldiers and officers kneeling
in front of them and the tears of the population,
Francis II and Maria Sofia shook hands with
everybody, smiling yet with tears in their eyes,
and then set sail to Rome. |
«At
that time Francis of Bourbon was only 25, Maria Sofia
was 19, yet in their misfortune they were able to
show dignity and strength of character that older
and more toughened sovereigns would hardly possess».
Sergio Romano commented: «If
these were the new battalions of the unified Italy,
once assuming the government of the new State, the
new ruling class had to feel at least the need to
pay respectful homage to the stubborn Bourbon defenders
of Messina, Civitella del Tronto, Gaeta, and at least
add their names to the “list of heroes”
whose memory had to be revered. Like the Swiss at
the Tuileries in 1792, those men fought because they
had sworn loyalty to their king and did not deserve
the oblivion to which they were condemned by the Risorgimento
tale» .
The Royal couple leave the harbour of Gaeta on
board of the Mouette |
The
Royal couple left the harbour of Gaeta to the
sound of Paisiello’ s royal march and
saluted by 21 cannon salvos, while the whole
population cried and waived hands. In this way,
the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies came to an end,
leaving millions of southern peasants stupefied
and without a homeland, whereas most of the
notables planned to ask a new position suitable
to their class and needs in the new political
and administrative system of the unified Italy
and were already putting aside the little money
by which they would take possess of the lands
of aristocrats loyal to the king and of the
Church and then financially ruin millions of
peasants who would never know again piety and
humanity and for whom the sole means of escape
became emigration. |
We
cannot relate here the misfortunes that fell on Southern
Italy after 1861 and for which it exists still today
an unresolved explanatory definition that hangs over
the history of Italian unification like Damocles’
sword: "southern issue".
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