Origins of The Republic
On the outbreak of the French Revolution King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Queen Maria Carolina did not at first actively oppose reform; but after the fall of the French monarchy they became violently opposed to it, and in 1793 joined the first coalition against France, instituting severe persecutions against all who were remotely suspected of French sympathies. Republicanism, however, gained ground, especially among the aristocracy.
In 1796 peace with France was concluded, but in 1798, during Napoleon's absence in Egypt and after Nelson's victory at the Battle of the Nile, Maria Carolina induced Ferdinand to go to war with France once more. Nelson himself arrived in Naples in September 1798, where he was enthusiastically received. The Neapolitan army had 70,000 men hastily summoned under the command of the Austrian general Karl von Mack: on October 29 it entered Rome, which had been evacuated by the French, to restore the Papal authority. But after a sudden French counterattack his troops were forced to retreat, and eventually routed. A contemporary satirist said of the king's conquest of Rome: He came, he saw, he fled.
The king hurried back to Naples. Although the lazzaroni (the lowest class of the people) were devoted to the Bourbon dynasty and ready to defend it, he embarked on Nelson's Vanguard and fled with his court to Palermo in a panic. The prince Francesco Pignatelli Strongoli took over the city and the fleet was burned.
The wildest confusion prevailed, and the lazzaroni massacred numbers of persons suspected of republican sympathies, while the nobility and the educated classes, finding themselves abandoned by their king, began to contemplate a republic under French auspices to avoid anarchy. On January 12, 1799, Pignatelli signed in Sparanise the surrender to the French general Championnet. Pignatelli also fled to Palermo in January 16, 1799.
When the news of the treaty with the French reached Naples and the provinces, the lazzaroni rebelled. Those, though ill-armed and ill-disciplined, resisted the enemy with desperate courage. In the meantime the Jacobin and Republican parties of Naples surged, and civil war broke out. On 20 January 1799 the Republicans conquered the fortress of Castel Sant'Elmo, and therefore the French could enter the city. The casualties were 8,000 Neapolitans and 1,000 French.
Read more about this topic: Parthenopean Republic
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