Part 26

The theatre of the exploits of the hero of Montevideo was soon changed. All who had a heart and soul in Italy were up and doing, and could Italy's greatest heart and soul remain beyond the seas? Garibaldi, on the first reports of the Pope's liberal leanings, wrote to the Nuncio Bedini at Montevideo, October 17, 1847, offering the services of the Italian Legion to his Holiness, who was now almost on the eve of a war with Austria, "although," the letter said, "the writer was well aware that St. Peter's throne rests on a solid basis, proof against all human attacks and needing no mortal defenders." The Nuncio returned thanks and praises and referred Garibaldi's tender to the Pontifical Government at Rome. But Garibaldi, never well disposed to losing time, after vainly waiting for further communication from Pope or Nuncio, brooked no longer delay. With incredible difficulty he scraped together money and means, and embarked with his brave friend, Anzani (who died at Genoa soon after landing), having with him only 85 men and two cannon, and leaving the remainder of his legion to follow when and how it could.

He crossed the ocean, landed at Nice, proceeded to Genoa and Milan, and when Charles Albert, defeated at Custozza, withdrew from the Lombard city and accepted an armistice, which saved Piedmont from invasion, August, 1848, Garibaldi passed over to Mazzini, and at the head of a volunteer force, of which Mazzini was the standard-bearer, issued a manifesto in which he proclaimed the Sardinian king a traitor, and declared that "the royal war was at an end, and that of the people was now to begin." That proclamation was, however, only an idle bravado. Mazzini, even if he had the spirit, lacked the physical strength of a fighting man. The Garibaldians, on hearing the news of the fall of Milan, lost heart, and many crossed over the frontier to Switzerland. With thinned and dispirited bands, Garibaldi, aided by his friend Medici, ventured on a few desultory fights near Luino, on Lake Maggiore, but soon fell back and withdrew to Lugano in the Canton Ticino, his health, it is said, breaking down, and his immediate followers being reduced to some three hundred.

A few months later Pius IX., fallen from his popularity and pressed hard by his disaffected subjects, who murdered his minister and almost stormed him in his palace at the Quirinal, ran away to Gaeta, and a Roman Republic was proclaimed, of which Mazzini, in a triumvirate with two others, mere men of straw, became the head. Attacked by the French in flagrant violation of all rights of nations, Rome undertook to defend itself, and whatever Italy could boast of generous hearts, regardless of party differences, rallied round Garibaldi, who drove back the French from Porta Pancrazia, April 29 and 30, 1849, defeated the Neapolitans in that campaign of Velletri, which was like the farce contrasting with the tragic drama soon to be acted at Rome, and withstood a three months' siege, in which many of the noblest champions of the Italian cause lavished their lives in a hopeless, yet, as it proved, not a fruitless struggle.

The French having gained possession of the city July 13, 1849, Garibaldi left it with a band of devoted volunteers, retired via Terni and Orvieto, gathering together about 2,000 men in his progress, crossed the Apennines, and pressed by the Austrians with overwhelming forces, sought a refuge at San Marino, gave the enemy the slip in the night, embarked at Cesenatico for Venice, which was still withstanding the Austrian siege, was met by four Austrian men-of-war, which compelled him to put back and land on the coast near Ravenna, and wandered ashore in the woods, where Anita, his inseparable companion in this disastrous march, succumbed to the fatigues of the journey, and expired in the hero's arms. Garibaldi's devoted friends Ugo Bassi and Ciceruacchio, falling into the hands of the Austrians, were shot by them without any forms of trial and by an act of barbarism which no human or divine law could justify. The heart-broken hero, with a few trusty men, made his way from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean, was arrested by the Sardinian Carabinieri at Chiaveri, conveyed to Genoa, where La Marmora was in command, and there embarked for Tunis; hence, finding nowhere a refuge, he proceeded to the Island of La Maddalena, off the shore of Sardinia, and hence again to Gibraltar and Tangier.

La Marmora received the heart-broken fugitive as a brother, supplied him with ample means for his journey to Tunis, and obtained for him from the Turin Government the assignment of an honorable pension, which Garibaldi did not in his straits disdain to accept. But, in his opinion, all seemed now over for Italy; Charles Albert's son, Victor Emmanuel, after the defeat of Navara, had made his peace with Austria in March, 1849. Venice had succumbed after heroic sufferings in August, and Garibaldi, again crossing the ocean, settled at New York as a tallow chandler, and only came back to Europe in 1855.

When Garibaldi returned from America he did not look out for Mazzini or his Republicans in England or Switzerland, but sought a home in Piedmont, a Constitutional State, which allowed him an obscure but peaceful retreat in his hermitage at Caprera, an island rock on the Sardinian coast near the Maddalena, and conveyed to him a hint that the time might soon come in which his country's cause would summon him from retirement. And, truly, four years later (1859) the destinies of Italy were nearing their fulfilment. France and Piedmont took the field against Austria. Garibaldi, leaving his island home, was met and highly welcomed by Victor Emmanuel, to whom he swore fealty as the only hope of Italy. He now took the command of the Chasseurs des Alpes, aided the royal army in its defence of the territory previous to the arrival of its great French auxiliary, and, following in the upper region a line parallel to that kept in the plain by the conquest of Palestro, Magenta, and Solferino, beat the Austrians at Varese and San Fermo, bewildered his adversary Urban, by the rashness of his movements on the mountains above Como, advanced upon Bergamo and Brescia, and pushed on to the Valtellina up to the very summit of the Stelvia Pass. Here the peace of Villafranca put an end to the struggle, and Garibaldi, afflicted by the arthritic pains to which he was a martyr all his life, travelled for a few days' rest to Tuscany and Genoa.

At Genoa, during the autumn and winter, Garibaldi, hospitably entertained by his friend Augusto Vecchi outside the city, busied himself with that expedition of "the Thousand" which made one state of the south and north of Italy. He embarked on May 11, 1860, at Genoa, landed in Sicily, at Marsala, beat the Neapolitans at Calatafimi, followed up his success to Palermo, and, aided by the insurgent city, compelled the garrison to surrender. He again routed the Bourbon troops at Milazzo, and had soon the whole island at his discretion with the exception of the citadel of Messina. He then crossed over into Calabria, and, almost without firing a shot, drove the Neapolitan king's troops before him all over the mainland, compelled the king to abandon the strong pass of La Cava and to withdraw his forces from his capital, where Garibaldi, with only a few of his staff, made his triumphal entry on September 7, 1860.

After a few days' rest Garibaldi followed the disheartened king to Capua, obtained new signal successes on the Volturno, at Santa Maria, and Caserta; but would probably have been unable to accomplish the enterprise had not the Piedmontese, whose government had aided Garibaldi's expedition while pretending to oppose it, overrun the Marches, beaten Lamoriciere and the Papal forces at Castel Fidardo, and, crossing the frontier and the Apennines, besieged and reduced the strong places of Capua and Gaeta. Garibaldi, who, as a dictator, had with doubtful success endeavored to establish something like rule in the Two Sicilies, aware of the arduousness of a task which would have exceeded many wiser men's powers, met Victor Emmanuel at Naples, delivered the two kingdoms into his hands, and, declining all the proffered honors and emoluments for himself, took leave of his sovereign and embarked for the solitude of his rock-farm at Caprera.

Rome alone now remained outside of the United Italian Kingdom, and Garibaldi, raising bands of adventurers, made two or three attempts to capture it, but was repulsed by its French garrison, and it was not until 1870 that, the French troops being recalled to their own sorely distressed country, the union of Italy under Victor Emmanuel became an accomplished fact, though in the great liberator's absence. Garibaldi once more was seen in Rome, April, 1879. He was supposed to be proposing great purchases of arms, to be enlisting hosts of volunteers, to be planning thorough reforms and preparing formidable expeditions against Austria. But Garibaldi, away from Caprera, could not fail to have his good as well as his evil angels about him. He saw the king; he listened to General Medici, his own right arm in so many campaigns, and now first aide-de-camp to King Humbert, as he had before been to King Victor Emmanuel. He listened, while they showed him the folly of further war, and, though not convinced, he was silenced. Although too proud to acknowledge the absurdity of his schemes in words, he was too wise not to give them up in deeds. He withdrew from the vain popular acclamation; shut his door against the crowd of his visitors, and although he announced his intention to take up his domicile in Rome, he pleaded indisposition as an excuse for inaction and retirement. Unfortunately there was only too much ground in the plea. The arthritic pains, of which symptoms had manifested themselves as early as during the Lombard campaign of 1849, had been seriously aggravated by his toils, and the sight of his helplessness in Rome as he hobbled up the steps of Montecitorio in 1874, was saddening to all beholders, and prepared his friends for that end which, however, was to be put off for several years. The fatigue of the voyage from Caprera in 1879, and still more the excitement of incessant calls, objectless conferences, and endless exhibitions soon entirely prostrated the hero, and before the backward spring had fully set in it became evident that Garibaldi's life could only be a lingering agony.

His life, if life it may be called, and at all events his sufferings, were prolonged yet a few years. He left home in the spring of 1881 on a mad scheme of liberating, "by force if necessary," his son-in-law, Canzio, who had been arrested as a plotter for the republic. But having obtained the man's release from the king's government as a favor, he once more sought the peace of his hermitage where he died, June 2, 1882.

FIELD-MARSHAL COUNT VON MOLTKE

(1800-1891)

Suddenly, but quietly and painlessly, on the evening of April 24, 1891, passed away one of the most remarkable men of the present century. Hellmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke was born, October 26, 1800, at Parshim, in Mecklenburg, where his father, previously a captain in the Prussian army, had retired, impoverished in circumstances, to an estate which he inherited. When little Hellmuth was three years old, his father, Baron Moltke, settled at the free town of Lubeck, the once famous head of the Hanseatic League. Here, in 1806, on the retreat from the disastrous battle of Jena, Marshal Bluecher, who like Von Moltke was of Mecklenburg origin, sought refuge with his shattered troops; and little Moltke was a witness of the sack and plunder of the town by the troops of Napoleon, his father's house being one of those that suffered most severely. It is said that the incidents of this event made a lasting impression upon the mind of the boy. At the age of nine, with his elder brother Fritz, young Hellmuth was placed under the care of Pastor Knickbein, at Hohenfelde, near Horst, a scholarly man of a kindly and genial disposition, for whom he always retained a deep regard. His sense of indebtedness appears in the inscription which he wrote on the title-page when forwarding to him a copy of his first work, his "Letters from Turkey;" "To my dear teacher and fatherly friend to whom I owe so much, I send this, my first work, as a slight testimony of respect."

The favorite recreation of the two brothers while here at school was playing at war, as perhaps was natural at such a period. They were accustomed to collect the peasant boys of the village and divide them into two rival armies, Fritz commanding the one, and Hellmuth the other. Once, when the mimic warfare was at its height, the weaker force of Hellmuth was routed, and some were taken prisoners. Called upon to surrender, Hellmuth cried out, "All is not lost!" and hastily rallying his men he marched them straight to a pond in Pastor Knickbein's garden, and hurried them to a little island which the boy himself had constructed with great labor, and accessible only by a single plank. Facing the enemy with a few of his strongest men, he kept them at bay until all his troops had passed into the fortress, he himself being the last to enter. Then the drawbridge was raised and the victory won. The island, preserved by the good pastor, long since gone to his rest, still exists, and is pointed out with great pride by the villagers to curious visitors as the scene of one of the early exploits of Germany's greatest strategist.

His experiences at the Royal Academy at Copenhagen, to which he was sent at the age of twelve, were not of the happiest. Relating his reminiscences of that period, in reply to the question, "Do you retain pleasant recollections of cadet life?" he remarked, "I have little reason to do so. Without relations or acquaintances in a strange city, we spent a joyless youth. The discipline was strict, even hard, and now, when my judgment of it is unprejudiced, I must say that it was too strict, too hard. The only benefit we received from this treatment was that we became accustomed to deprivations."

Passing over the period of his service in the Danish army, and his entrance into that of Prussia, we find him, after making heroic efforts on his scanty pay to acquire foreign languages, in which he attained in after-life so remarkable a proficiency, attached to a commission for topographical surveys in Silesia and the Grand Duchy of Posen.

Consolidating and extending his knowledge of military science and of foreign peoples, as in the case of his visits to the East, Russia, Rome, and elsewhere, Moltke rose steadily in his profession. In 1845, he became aide-de-camp to the invalid Prince Henry of Prussia, uncle of the king; and subsequently, after holding commands of increasing importance, he was made first aide-de-camp to the Crown Prince Frederick. Ultimately, in 1859, he was appointed permanent chief of the staff. His later military career, and brilliant successes against the Danes, Austrians, and the French, and the various honors accorded him, are so well known and have been so often and so recently narrated, that any further reference to them in this present sketch is unnecessary, the purpose of our notice being to briefly indicate some of the leading points of the great field-marshal's character. One fact is memorable, that he had passed the age when men frequently retire from the public service before the time of his greater achievements. His splendid career began to the eye of the world at sixty-five.

The guiding principle of his life is well illustrated by the ancient motto of his family, _Caute et candide_ (warily and gently), and by his own favorite maxim, _Erst waegen, dann wagen_ (first weigh, then venture). He was slow, cautious, and careful in laying his plans, but having formed his design, he was bold, daring even to the verge of apparent recklessness in its execution. The same calm, immovable spirit characterized him even in moments when most ordinary mortals--he was a man _sui generis_--might, with some show of reason, be perturbed or excited. Even in the most critical period of the Franco-German war his unruffled quietness remained the same, sterner perhaps in look, more silent than ever. Though the warrior king, amidst the carnage of the battle-field might feel depressed; though Bismarck, man of "iron and blood," might be anxious at the progress of events, Moltke, seated on his great black horse, calmly surveyed, telescope in hand, the movements of the troops, or later, resting quietly in his room at Versailles, awaited the result undismayed. When war was declared, a friend met him with the remark: "You must indeed be overworked at present." "No," replied the General, "the work was done beforehand; all orders are gone out; I really have nothing to do."

Married in 1842, shortly after his return home from the East, to Miss Burt, an English lady, he lived with her in the bonds of a rare union of happiness, concord, and mutual sympathy. On the occasion of her death, which took place Christmas Eve, 1868, he withdrew still more from public life, and found in quiet, studious, and laborious life some slight relief for his grief. Very touching was his devotion to the memory of his wife. Upon his estate at Kreisau he built a little mausoleum, situated on a beautiful eminence, embowered in foliage. This little chapel, constructed of red brick and sandstone, was lined inside with black and white marble, and in front of the altar was placed the simple oak coffin in which the remains of his wife reposed, covered at all seasons of the year with wreaths. Sculptured in the apse was a finely carved figure of our Lord in an attitude of blessing, copied from Thorwaldsen. Above were inscribed the words of St. Paul, "Love is the fulfilment of the Law." When at his country-seat the aged warrior visited the tomb morning and evening. Now at her side slumbers the veteran, awaiting with her the signal of the resurrection.

Of his bearing in the time of his bereavement, the following incident was related by the late Mr. George Bancroft, the distinguished historian, at that period United States Minister at Berlin. Mr. Bancroft was one of the favored few who were accustomed to accompany Von Moltke in his daily rides in the Thiergarten or to the Grunewald. Seeing the general on horseback, "my first impulse," said Mr. Bancroft, "was to trot into another lane. On second thoughts, however, I turned my horse alongside his, remembering that it was for him to talk or be silent. To my surprise, he forthwith began a lively conversation, describing the happiness with which Miss Burt had blessed her husband, and expatiating upon her manifold virtues as one crushed by an overwhelming, irreparable loss. Then of a sudden he grew silent, as if a new current of thought had carried him sheer away. 'Do you know,' he said, when his lips were again opened, 'it has just been brought home to me that, after all, perhaps it was better that this happened now than at another time? You see, I am convinced that a French invasion is impending; it will burst upon us sooner or later, whatever the plea may eventually be. Now think if the fortune of war was to be adverse to our arms! Why, her grief over the country's adversities must have cut her life short. No, no; that would have been worse!'"

Von Moltke was a passionate lover of children, and is said to have been quite the slave to the caprices of his little grandnephew, the son of Major Hellmuth von Moltke, the aide-de-camp of the count, whom the emperor, as a special mark of his royal favor, immediately after the funeral of his chief, made one of his own aides-de-camp.

As far as Count von Moltke's religious views could be ascertained, they were of a simple type, and characterized by a strict adherence to the path of duty and virtue. Daily was he accustomed to read his Bible, one of ancient date, its well-marked pages indicating how frequently its owner was in the habit of consulting its inspired pages. An extract from a letter the aged field-marshal wrote on the eve of his eightieth birthday is peculiarly interesting. "I stand," said he, "close upon the end of my life; but how different from that here will be the measure in a future world according to which our earthly actions will be judged! Not the brilliancy of success, but the purity of our endeavors and faithful perseverance in duty, even when the result was scarcely visible, will decide as to the value of a man's life. What a wonderful displacement of high and low will be witnessed at that great review! We do not even know ourselves what we have to ascribe to ourselves, to others, or to a higher will. It will be well not to set too great a value on externals." In a passage in one of his books, referring to our Lord's life here upon earth, he remarks: "His life was humble. He was the descendant of a people in bondage, and He had not a place where to lay His head. To the fishermen He talked in parables about God; He healed the sick, and died the death of an evil-doer. And yet there has never been anything on this earth that could be purer, more elevated, and also--even seen from the worldly point of view--more successful than His conduct, His teaching, and His death."

The old soldier's habits of life were, like those of the majority of really great men, extremely simple and singularly free from ostentation of any kind. Very characteristic of the late field-marshal are the following data of his life, written by himself on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday. An Austrian Association for the Promotion of Popular Knowledge addressed a number of interrogatories to various European celebrities of great age, which were to explain the circumstances and conditions under which an exceptionally long life might be attained. The answers received were collected in a book and subsequently published.

Field-Marshal von Moltke answered the questions submitted to him in his own peculiarly laconic manner, as follows:

_Q._ In which year of your life and on which date did you begin to learn, and for how many hours a day?--_A._ 1808, in my eighth year, with four; after 1810, with ten hours a day.

_Q._ Was your health in your youth delicate or robust?--_A._ Tough nature.

_Q._ Did you grow up in the country or in town?--_A._ Up to my tenth year in the country.

_Q._ How many hours did you spend in the open air? Regularly?--_A._ Irregularly, and but few hours.

_Q._ Did you cultivate hardening games and other exercises?--_A._ Not methodically.

_Q._ How many hours did you sleep in childhood?--_A._ Ten hours.

_Q._ Special remarks?--_A._ Joyless youth, scanty nourishment, absence from the paternal home.

_Q._ Where did you complete your studies--in town or in the country?--_A._ In town.

_Q._ How many hours a day do you devote to mental work?--_A._ Very different.

_Q._ Do you attribute to any particular habit of your life a favorable influence upon your health?--_A._ Moderation in all habits of life. In all weathers exercise in the open air. No day altogether at home.

_Q._ How long did you sleep at a mature age?--_A._ From eight to nine hours on an average.

_Q._ What alterations have you made at an advanced age in your mode of life?--_A._ None.

_Q._ How long did you work daily in your fiftieth, sixtieth, seventieth, eightieth years?--_A._ Quite as circumstances required it; often, therefore, very long.

_Q._ What were your recreations?--_A._ Riding on horseback up to my eighty-sixth year.

_Q._ How many hours do you spend in the open air?--_A._ Now, in summer on my estate, half the day.

_Q._ How long do you sleep at present?--_A._ Always eight hours still.

_Q._ What are your habits with regard to eating, etc.?--_A._ I eat very little, and take concentrated food.