|
The Expedition of the Thousand (Italian ''Spedizione dei Mille'') was an event of the Italian Risorgimento that took place in 1860. A corps of volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi landed in Sicily in order to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, ruled by the Bourbons. The project was an ambitious and risky venture aiming to conquer, with a thousand men, a kingdom with a larger regular army and a more powerful navy. The expedition was a success and concluded with a plebiscite that brought Naples and Sicily into the Kingdom of Sardinia, the last territorial conquest before the creation of the Kingdom of Italy on 17 March 1861. The sea venture was the only desired action that was jointly decided by the "four fathers of the nation" Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Victor Emmanuel II, and Camillo Cavour, pursuing divergent goals. However, the Expedition was instigated by Francesco Crispi, that utilized his political influences to succeeded the Italian unification's project. The expedition also brings new large collective ambiguity and misunderstanding: for Garibaldi, it is to achieve a united Italy; to the Sicilian bourgeoisie, an independent Sicily as part of the kingdom of Italy, and for the mass farmers, the end of oppression and land distribution. ==Background== The events of the Expedition took place within the overall process of the unification of Italy, which was largely orchestrated by Camillo Cavour, Prime Minister of Sardinia-Piedmont, as his life's work. After the annexation of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchies of Modena and Parma and the Romagna to Piedmont in March 1860, Italian nationalists set their sights on the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which comprised all of southern mainland Italy and Sicily, as the next step toward their dream of unification of all Italian lands. In 1860 Garibaldi, already the most famous Italian revolutionary leader, was in Genoa planning an expedition against Sicily and Naples, with the covert support of the United Kingdom.〔Del Boca, ''Maledetti Savoia''〕 Sicilian leaders, among them Francesco Crispi, were discontented with Neapolitan rule over the island.. Moreover, Britain was worried by the approaches of the Neapolitans towards the Russian Empire in the latter's attempt to open its way to the Mediterranean Sea; the strategic importance of the Sicilian ports was also to be dramatically increased by the opening of the Suez Canal. It has been also suggested (by Lorenzo del Boca, among the others) that British support for Garibaldi's expedition was spurred by the necessity to obtain more favourable economic conditions for Sicilian sulfur, which was needed in great quantities for the new steamers.〔Lorenzo Del Boca, ''Maledetti Savoia'', see chapter ''Il copyright inglese''〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Expedition of the Thousand」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|