The Expedition of the Thousand (Italian Spedizione dei Mille) was an event of the Italian Risorgimento 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 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 March 17, 1861.
The sea venture was the only desired action that was jointly decided by the "four fathers of the nation" Italian Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Victor Emmanuel II and Camillo Cavour, pursuing divergent goals. It is difficult to determine the true instigator: Mazzini desired to release the Mezzogiorno and Rome while Garibaldi wants to conquer in the name of Victor Emmanuel II, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and continue to Rome to complete the unity of Italy, Cavour that wants to prevent at all costs to avoid a conflict with his French ally, Napoleon III, which protects Rome.
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.
Read more about Expedition Of The Thousand: Background, Evaluation
Famous quotes containing the words expedition and/or thousand:
“Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination.”
—Janet Frame (b. 1924)
“My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)