Battle of Mentana, 1867: Garibaldi's last march on Rome

Mentana was a small battle with a long shadow. In military terms it was, as the Enciclopedia Italiana puts it, of modest importance. Politically it was a disaster for France. It ended Garibaldi's last attempt to take Rome by force, it turned Italian opinion against Napoleon III, and three years later it helped leave the French emperor without allies when he went to war with Prussia.²

Rome, the missing capital

Once the question of Venetia was settled in 1866, Italian hopes turned to Rome, still ruled by Pope Pius IX. The French garrison that had protected the Pope left the Papal States in December 1866, and the Enciclopedia Italiana notes that the uncertain stance of Urbano Rattazzi's government encouraged the volunteers who wanted to finish the work. King Victor Emmanuel II, according to Herodote.net, thought the venture premature and disapproved of it.³ › Battle of Custoza, 1866

In early October 1867 bands of Garibaldini crossed into papal territory from the north near Viterbo and from the south near Frosinone, and fought several small actions. Plotters inside Rome hoped for a rising in the city, but it never came. Garibaldi himself slipped past the Italian warships watching his island of Caprera and reached Florence on 22 October. On 25 October his volunteers took the town of Monterotondo after a bloody fight.⁴

The French come back

Napoleon III answered by sending an expeditionary corps back to Rome. Herodote.net says the first contingent left Toulon on 26 October and reached Civitavecchia three days later, when the volunteers were only some 25 kilometers from Rome; on 30 October a vanguard under General de Polhès entered the city. The Enciclopedia Italiana puts the French force landed at Civitavecchia at 22,000 men in two brigades, under Generals Polhès and Duplessis.⁵

A reconnaissance toward Rome on the evening of 29 October was met by rifle fire at the Nomentana bridge and fell back. The news of the French did not change Garibaldi's mind. He ordered his men to march on 3 November toward Tivoli, to come down on Rome from the hills. His force had shrunk. Of some 8,000 men gathered on 25 October, part had gone home after the clash at the bridge and others were scattered on detachments; the Enciclopedia Italiana counts 4,700 present on the morning of the battle. Herodote.net, describing the camp around Mentana, still speaks of eight thousand volunteers, poorly equipped, undisciplined and without artillery.⁶

Rain on the hill of Mentana

3 November was a rainy day. Garibaldi's column marched with the bersaglieri of Missori and Burlando in front, a battalion on the right, carabinieri on the left, the main body with a few guns behind and a rearguard at the tail. After an hour on the road, on the hill of Mentana, the vanguard ran into rifle fire. Papal zouaves held the Villa Santucci, reinforced by the foreign carabinieri and the legionaries of Antibes. Herodote.net says about 3,000 papal soldiers had marched out of Rome that morning and joined the French.⁷

A furious charge by the battalions of Garibaldi's son Menotti at first drove the zouaves from their position. Then the French brigade came up. Its infantry carried the chassepot, a new French service rifle, and its fire, effective and accurate in the words of Herodote.net, turned the fight. The Garibaldini fell back toward Monterotondo but could not even reach it, because other enemy troops had worked around the flank and cut the road.⁸

When night came, the firing stopped on both sides. In the dark the volunteers made for Passo Corese on the frontier, and at dawn on 4 November they handed over their weapons to the Italian troops guarding the border. Garibaldi was arrested at Figline station and taken to the fort of Varignano. The French, Herodote.net adds, were careful not to pursue a man so popular around the world.⁹

Counting the cost

The two sources differ sharply on the losses. The Enciclopedia Italiana gives 150 killed and 220 wounded among the volunteers, 30 killed and 103 wounded among the papal troops and 2 killed and 38 wounded among the French. Herodote.net puts the volunteers' loss at nearly a thousand killed and wounded, with 1,500 taken prisoner and 2,000 rifles left behind, and the papal loss at about a hundred killed and wounded.¹⁰

The chassepots did wonders

For the French army the day was a success. Its staff, wrote Herodote.net, said that the chassepots had done wonders, a verdict on a new rifle about which some officers had worried. The Enciclopedia Italiana calls the same remark by General de Failly cynical, and says it deeply offended Italian national feeling: France lost at Mentana the gratitude it had won by fighting for Italy against Austria in 1859.¹¹

That loss mattered three years later. In 1870, according to the Enciclopedia Italiana, the memory of Mentana was the main obstacle to an alliance of France, Italy and Austria, and Napoleon III faced Prussia alone. When his armies were beaten, Italian troops took the city and made it the capital. Garibaldi lost at Mentana, but the cause he fought for won within three years. In that war, on 9 November 1870, the French won a rare victory at Coulmiers.¹²