What if Garibaldi's Thousand had failed?
In 1860 about a thousand volunteers conquered Sicily and Naples for a united Italy. What if the Bourbon army had held at Calatafimi?
What actually happened
In 1859 Piedmont-Sardinia, allied with Napoleon III's France, defeated Austria at Magenta and Solferino and won Lombardy; the central Italian duchies soon voted to join it. Southern Italy remained the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and central Italy the Pope's.
In May 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi sailed from Quarto near Genoa with about a thousand volunteers, the Redshirts, and landed at Marsala in Sicily on 11 May. On 15 May at Calatafimi they attacked a larger Bourbon force on a hillside and drove it off. Palermo fell after street fighting at the end of May, and by summer the island was his.
Garibaldi crossed to the mainland in August and entered Naples on 7 September; King Francis II fell back to the fortress of Gaeta. Cavour sent the Piedmontese army through the Papal States, beating the papal forces at Castelfidardo, while Garibaldi won on the Volturno. Plebiscites approved union, Garibaldi handed his conquests to Victor Emmanuel II at Teano, and on 17 March 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in Turin.
The turning point
Calatafimi was the critical moment. The Bourbon troops held a strong position and were not decisively beaten, but their commander withdrew, and the victory gave the Thousand the prestige that brought Sicilian rebels flocking to them. Garibaldi himself later described it as the battle that decided the campaign.
Lucy Riall and Denis Mack Smith have shown how much the expedition depended on Bourbon weakness and indecision, on Sicilian unrest and on Cavour's ambiguous tolerance. A Bourbon army that stood firm at Calatafimi could have ended the expedition in its first week.
Luck played its part from the start. When the Thousand landed at Marsala, two British warships lay in the harbour, and the Bourbon navy's hesitation to open fire near them let the volunteers get ashore almost unopposed. Britain's sympathy for the national cause, and France's reluctance to intervene against it, meant the expedition faced only the Bourbon state's own forces.
The world that might have been
In Crown & Plough the alternative reads: on the hill of Calatafimi the Bourbon army did not give way; the Thousand scattered and Garibaldi fled by ship; Sardinia gained only Lombardy, and many crowns still remained on the Italian peninsula. The game then removes the scripted unification of Italy, the capture of Rome and the acquisition of Venetia as part of it; Venetia passes to Sardinia in 1866 instead.
Beyond the game, a failed expedition would not have ended the Italian national movement, but it might have produced a different Italy: perhaps a northern kingdom under Piedmont alongside a reformed Two Sicilies and a reduced Papal State, or a federation of the kind some moderates and Napoleon III had proposed.
Southern Italy's history would have been very different too. The unification of 1860–61 was followed by years of brigandage and repression in the south, and the 'Southern Question' of poverty and disaffection shaped the new kingdom. A surviving Bourbon state would have faced its own problems, but on its own terms.
Ripples through time
The Thousand are shaped by Waterloo: in a world where Napoleon's empire survived, a stronger Bonapartist France guards the old order in Italy and the expedition is more likely to fail.
- Shaped by What if Napoleon had won at Waterloo?
Play this turning point
Start in the Victorian Age, or take the scenario Redshirts, which begins in 1858 as young volunteers gather in Genoa. In the Currents of History story Italian unification the old order side pushes for the alternative and the unification side keeps history.
History leans fairly strongly toward Garibaldi's success, so you need a strong contribution on the Bourbon or papal side.
Play this turning point → Start the scenario “Redshirts” →
Questions and answers
Who were Garibaldi's Thousand?
About a thousand volunteers, mostly from northern Italy, who sailed with Garibaldi from near Genoa in May 1860 and conquered Sicily and southern Italy.
Why was the Battle of Calatafimi important?
It was the Thousand's first battle, on 15 May 1860; their success against a larger Bourbon force persuaded many Sicilians to join them and opened the road to Palermo.
When was Italy unified?
The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed on 17 March 1861. Venetia was added in 1866 and Rome in 1870.
Sources and further reading
Garibaldi's memoirs; Giuseppe Cesare Abba's diary of the expedition. Modern accounts: Lucy Riall, Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero; Denis Mack Smith, Cavour and Garibaldi 1860; Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny.
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