Francesco Crispi - On Sicily With Garibaldi

On Sicily With Garibaldi

In June 1859 Crispi returned to Italy after publishing a letter repudiating the aggrandizement of Piedmont in the Italian unification. He proclaimed himself a republican and a partisan of national unity. Twice in that year he went the round of the Sicilian cities in disguise preparing the insurrectionist movement of 1860.

He helped persuade Giuseppe Garibaldi to sail with his Expedition of the Thousand, which disembarked on Sicily on May 11, 1860. Two days later, on May 13, Crispi drew up the Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. After the fall of Palermo, Crispi was appointed Minister of the Interior and of Finance in the Sicilian provisional government, but was shortly afterwards obliged to resign on account of the struggle between Garibaldi and the emissaries of Count Camillo Benso di Cavour on the question of timing of the annexation of Sicily by Italy.

Appointed secretary to Garibaldi, Crispi secured the resignation of Agostino Depretis, whom Garibaldi had appointed pro-dictator, and would have continued his fierce opposition to Cavour at Naples, where he had been placed by Garibaldi in the foreign office, had not the advent of the Italian regular troops and the annexation of the Two Sicilies to Italy brought about Garibaldi’s withdrawal to Caprera and Crispi’s own resignation.