On Saturday, October 21, 2017 at 7:56:03 AM UTC-4,
dr...@teikyopost.edu wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mentana
Today, November 3, is the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Mentana.
The French intervention would play a key role in the subsequent
debacle of the Second French Empire.
Louis Napoleon/Napoleon III was disliked for his various adventures--
e.g. Italians disliked him bitterly for having sent 40,000 French
troops to crush the Roman Republic in 1849, 2000 troops in 1867 to
defeat the volunteers who attempted to take Rome, and for restoring
and propping up the temporal power until 1870. When the Franco-
Prussian war broke out, European public opinion heavily favored the
Germans. For example, many Italians attempted to sign up as volunteers
at the Prussian embassy in Florence, and a Prussian diplomat visited
Giuseppe Garibaldi in Caprera. Bismarck's demand for the return of
Alsace caused a dramatic shift in that sentiment in Italy, which was
best exemplified by the reaction of Garibaldi soon after the debacle
of Sedan and the revolution in Paris. On 7 September 1870, in a letter
to the newspaper "Movimento" of Genoa, Garibaldi wrote: "Yesterday I
said to you: war to the death to Bonaparte. Today I say to you: rescue
the French Republic by every means." [Jasper Ridley, "Garibaldi,"
Viking Press, (1976) p. 602.]
Following the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Napoleon III had been trying
to form an alliance with Austria against the North German Confederation. Austria, which wanted to avenge the defeat of 1866, wanted to join
provided that Italy was also part of this alliance. Victor Emmanuel II,
who was a vassal of Napoleon III, wanted to be part of this alliance,
but the Italian government and public opinion would never permit it as
long as the French garrison remained in Rome.
The way in which the Roman Question proved to be the stumbling block is discussed at length in Raffaele De Cesare’s book, "The Last Days of Papal Rome," Archibald Constable & Co, London (1909) pp. 440-443.
https://books.google.com/books?id=0XcpAAAAYAAJ
De Cesare wrote:
"The Roman question was the stone tied to Napoleon's feet--that
dragged him into the abyss. He never forgot, even in August 1870, a
month before Sedan, that he was a sovereign of a Catholic country,
that he had been made emperor, and was supported by the votes of the conservatives and the influence of the clergy; and that it was his
supreme duty not to abandon the pontiff. [...] For twenty years
Napoleon III had been the true sovereign of Rome, where he had many
friends and relations [...] Without him the temporal power would never
have been reconstituted, nor, being reconstituted, would have endured."
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)