Battle of Rome (1849)

When Napoleon Bonaparte established French domination in Italy in the 1790s, he brought with him the principles of the French Rev- olution and thus the seeds of his own destruction. Nationalism and republican government became the catchwords of post-Napoleonic Europe, even while monarchs scrambled to reestablish their own authority. In Italy, revolts in 1820 and 1830 attempted to set up an Italian Republic by overthrowing the Austrians and Spanish, to which the Concert of Europe had granted authority in the northern and southern parts of the peninsula after 1815. The difficulty of establishing a republic was compounded by the fact that the Italian peninsula was divided into a number of smaller states, each vying for either independence or hegemony.

One of those entities was the Vatican, which ruled what were called the Papal States in the region immediately around Rome. To further complicate the international interest in Italy, Pope Pius IX was able to secure a guarantee from France that her soldiers would maintain his authority. All of this came to a boil in 1848, when nationalist movements rose up around the Continent. Many European monarchies were threatened, and in France the Second Republic came into being. Italian nationalists seized the opportunity to break away from Austria, for Vienna had its hands full with revolutionary movements at home. On 22 November 1848, Pope Pius, disguised as a common priest, stole out of the Vatican and fled to the coastal city of Gaeta, from where he appealed for French aid to restore him to power. In February 1849 a newly elected parliament announced the formation of the Roman Republic with Giuseppe Mazzini as chief minister.

The republican movements had a short life in Italy, however, for the Austrians reasserted their power after defeating a Lombard then a Piedmontese army in the summer of 1848. Venice in the spring of 1849 found itself surrounded by both Austrian army and navy forces and its republican days were numbered. Thus the Roman Republic remained the last bastion of democratic ideals, and it faced Austrian forces in the north, Bourbon Neapolitan forces to the south, and French troops that landed at Civitavecchia on 28 April.

General Charles Oudinot led 9,000 soldiers ashore at Civitavecchia, where the populace informed him that he would find no resistance at all. Indeed, he was told, the soldiers and citizens of Rome would view him as a liberator from the revolutionary elements. He was misinformed. In Rome, both soldiers and citizens had been working on strengthening the city walls, especially near the St. Pancras Gate, through which the most direct route to the Vatican led. Within Rome were some 4,500 troops under the overall command of Colonel Pietro Roselli. The key to the defense, however, was Giuseppi Garibaldi, whose 1,000 Red Shirt followers had an almost mythical reputation among international revolutionaries. Garibaldi’s men were stationed outside the walls in Rome’s Janiculum quarter, and they controlled three villas (Pamphili, Corsini, and Vascello) as strongpoints covering the St. Pancras Gate.

French troops marched lackadaisically up to Rome’s suburbs on 30 April, assured by the reports of an easy entrance into the city. Indeed, as artillery on the walls fired they assumed it to be merely the marking of the noon hour. Shells landing among them convinced them otherwise. Oudinot ordered his artillery unlimbered to return fire, but he had no siege guns and his cannon had little effect. His infantry had no scaling ladders, and their assault against the city walls was easily beaten back. As they were withdrawing, Garibaldi ordered a sally by 300 young National Guard volunteers. Their enthusiasm at first disconcerted the French, but a counterattack quickly began driving the young men back toward the villas. Garibaldi’s commitment of his Red Shirts, along with reinforcements from the city, succeeded in driving French forces well away from the city.

Inside Rome, Chief Minister Mazzini, hoping to impress the French with the blessings of republicanism, wined and dined his prisoners and then sent them back to the French army to tell of their experiences. He also sent with them tracts for distribution, reminding the soldiers that France’s newly established republican constitution promised that French power “will never be employed against the liberty of any people.” Oudinot’s setback did not play well in Paris, where President Louis Napoleon (before long Napoleon III) promised reinforcements. A French representative negotiated a cease-fire with the French army to remain on site as a shield against invading Austrians, or so the Romans were told.

Taking advantage of the seeming success of their defense, Garibaldi on 4 May led 2,300 men north to fight the approaching Austrians. A stunning victory ensued over a larger Neapolitan force at Palestrina, then the Red Shirts returned to Rome. They soon were on the march again: 11,000 men under Roselli and Garibaldi marched out to attack another Neapolitan force allied with Austria. Again Garibaldi’s aggressive tactics won the day and the troops of Naples returned to their homeland. Mazzini ordered Roselli’s expedition back to Rome, for Austrian troops were beginning to enter the Papal States from the north. To further complicate matters, 11,000 reinforcements had arrived to join Oudinot, who had terminated the cease-fire. A surprise attack on Italian troops in the Janiculum villas at 0300 on 3 June resulted in the capture of two of them, with the third partially surrounded. With the villas in hand, they could begin to let their engineers go to work on the Roman walls.

Garibaldi realized that recovery of the villas was vital for Rome’s defense, and he threw his men into the attack at first light. The French had quickly manned the villas, however, and to attack them was suicidal. Throughout the morning Italian soldiers crossed 300 yards of open ground to try to enter the gate of the Villa Corsini, but intense French fire repulsed them repeatedly. Roselli was blamed for not sending in reinforcements, but most inside the city knew the tide had turned. The French were free to dig their siege lines and pound the city; the Roman defenders could do little more than launch occasional raids. For almost a month French heavy guns weakened Italian positions on the walls. After a bitter fight on 29 June, the French managed to take the St. Pancras Gate and the Italian defense was split. On 2 July Garibaldi and a number of his followers slipped out of Rome and escaped northward to the Piedmont region. French troops entered Rome the following day.

Pope Pius IX returned to Rome and again took direct control of the Vatican City and the Papal States. He did so, however, only with the support of French troops that stayed on site. Garibaldi fled to the United States; he returned to Italy in 1870 to involve himself in the final victorious actions that brought about Italian unification. When Prussian expansionism led to the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Napoleon III brought all his forces home to defend France. Pope Pius almost immediately found himself with only religious power, as both Garibaldi and Mazzini played key roles in turning the Italian peninsula, so long a region of squabbling city-states, into a single nation. Garibaldi, after such a long struggle against the French, actually joined them in their struggle against Prussian militarism in 1870.