crimea

When, in 1854, Cavour resolved that Piedmont should join France and England in the coming war with Russia, it seemed to a large number of his countrymen that he had taken leave of his senses, but the firm support which in this instance he found in the King enabled him next year to equip and despatch the contingent, 15,000 strong, commanded by General La Marmora, which not only won the respect of friends and foes in the field, but offered an example of efficiency in all departments that compared favourably with the faulty organisation of the great armies beside which it fought.

   10 battalions of bersaglieri. They were  on the  16th of april   at Genoa for boarding ships to the war.

Their   gallant conduct at the battle of the Tchernaja flattered the native pride, and when, in due time, 12,000 returned of the 15,000 that had gone forth, the increased credit of Piedmont in Europe was already felt to compensate for the heavy cost of the expedition.

Among the Italians living abroad, Cavour's motives in taking part in the Crimean War were, from the first, better understood than they were at home. Piedmont, by qualifying for the part of Italian advocate in the Councils of Europe, gave a guarantee of good faith which patriots like Daniel Manin and Giorgio Pallavicini accepted as a happy promise for the future. It was then that a large section of the republican party frankly embraced the programme of Italian unity under Victor Emmanuel.
They foresaw that a repetition of the discordant action of 1848 would end in the same way. Manin wrote to Lorenzo Valerio in September 1855: 'I, who am a republican, plant the banner of unification; let all who desire that Italy should exist, rally round it, and Italy will exist.' The ex-dictator of Venice was eking out a scanty livelihood by giving lessons in Paris; he had only three years left to live, and was not destined to see his words verified. But, poor and sick and obscure though he was, his support was worth much.

The Bersaglieri begins in far 18 June 1836, when Alessandro Ferrero della Marmora, obtained the permission of King Carlo Alberto, for the first company bersaglieri, soldiers trained for distinct physical and moral attitudes.

dad

The baptism of fire was 8 April 1848 at Goito, with the assault on the bridge on the l Mincio. In 1855 in Crimea the bersaglieri  assaulted  Sevastopol but lost "Dad" on 7 June 1855.

The Crimean War and the Alliance with France had as a result the second war of independence in which the Bersaglieri demonstrated their value during the battles of Solferino and San Martino.



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