Garibaldi's popularity, his skill at rousing the common people, and his military exploits are all credited with making the unification of Italy possible. He also served as a global exemplar of mid-19th century revolutionary nationalism and liberalism. But following the liberation of southern Italy from the Neapolitan monarchy, Garibaldi chose to …show more content…
Garibaldi's family was involved in coastal trade, and he was reared to a life on the sea.
A very influential day in Garibaldi's life came while visiting Russia, in April of 1833, In a seaport inn, he met Giovanni Battista Cuneo, a political immigrant from Italy and member of the secret movement La Giovine Italia ("Young Italy"), founded by Giuseppe Mazzini, an impassioned proponent of Italian unification as a liberal republic through political and social reforms. Garibaldi joined the society, and took an oath of dedicating his life to struggle for liberation of his homeland from Austrian dominance.
During this time Giuseppe Mazzini was one of the most popular patriots, philosophers & politicians of Italy. And in Italy, on November 5th, 1833, Garibaldi met Mazzini himself, starting a relationship which later would become rather troublesome. He joined the (CRA) Carbonari Revolutionary Association. In February 1834 he participated in a failed Mazzinian insurrection in Piedmont, Italy, and Giuseppe Garibaldi was sentenced to death by an Italian court b/c of his revolt against the government. Fearing for his life, Garibaldi fled to …show more content…
Garibaldi eventually returned to Italy amongst the turmoil of the revolutions of 1848 going on in Italy during this time. He offered his services to the Italian military, but the military leaders treated Garibaldi with distrust. Although looked down upon by military leaders in Italy, he and his followers, known as the “Red Shirts”, which whom he had brought with him from South America, crossed into Lombardy where they offered assistance to the government of Milan, which had rebelled against the Austria.
After two small battles against Austria, Garibaldi and his followers, moved to Rome to support the Papal States, which was being attacked by France in which Garibaldi took up the command of the defense of Rome. Despite Garibaldi’s resistance of Rome, the French prevailed in the war. After the war was over, France & Italy made a truce in which called for France to withdraw their troops from