The World War and What was Behind It; Or, The Story of the Map of EuropeBénézet, Louis Paul
History
The World War and What was Behind It; Or, The Story of the Map of Europe
Bénézet, Louis Paul
Europe -- History; World War, 1914-1918 -- Causes
But the compromising terms of peace galled him, and he was not
satisfied with a country only half free. In the region around
Genoa, he enrolled a thousand men to go on what looked like a
desperate enterprise. Garibaldi had talked with Cavour, and
between them, they had schemed to overthrow the kingdom of the
Two Sicilies and join this land to the northern country. Of
course, Cavour pretended not to know anything about Garibaldi,
for the king of Naples and Sicily was supposed to be a friend of
the king of Sardinia. Nevertheless, he secretly gave Garibaldi
all the help that he dared, and urged men to enroll with him.
[Illustration: The First Meeting of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel]
With his thousand “red-shirts,” as they were called, Garibaldi
landed on the island of Sicily, at Marsala. The inhabitants rose
to welcome him, and everywhere they drove out the officers who
had been appointed by their king to rule them. In a short time,
all Sicily had risen in rebellion against the king. (You will
remember that this family of kings had been driven out by
Napoleon and restored by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. They
were Bourbons, the same family that furnished the kings of Spain
and the last kings of France. They stood for “the divine right of
kings,” and had no sympathy with the common people.) Crossing
over to the mainland, Garibaldi, with his little army now swollen
to ten times its former size, swept everything before him as he
marched toward Naples. Everywhere, the people rose against their
former masters, and welcomed the liberator. The king fled in
haste from Naples, never to return. A vote was taken all over the
southern half of Italy and Sicily, to decide whether the people
wanted to join their brothers of the north to make a new kingdom
of Italy. It was so voted almost unanimously. Victor Emmanuel,
king of Sardinia, thus became the first king of United Italy. He
made Florence his capital at first, as the country around Rome
still belonged to the pope. The pope had few soldiers, but was
protected by a guard of French troops. However, ten years later,
in 1870, when war broke out between France and Prussia, the
French troops left Rome, and the troops of Italy marched quietly
in and took possession of the city. Rome, for so many years the
capital, not only of Italy but of the whole Mediterranean world,
became once more the chief city of the peninsula. The pope was
granted a liberal pension by the Italian government in order to
make up to him for the loss of the money from his former lands.
The dream of Italians for the last 600 years had finally come to
pass. Italy was again one country, ruled by the popular Victor
Emmanuel, with a constitution which gave the people the right to
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