Saturday 12 June 2010

THE STATE OF NAPLES

The Bomb King Ferdinand the Second

Royal Palace at Portici
3rd line Prince's regiment
Corps of Guides
On 22 May 1859  there died Ferdinand II, the newspapers of the era called him  "The King of Bombs". The inheritor Francesco II was left a rich modern Kingdom .
The Bomb King  had married  of course.In 1832, he married Princess Maria Cristina of Savoy, fourth daughter of Vittorio Emanuele I, a woman of exceptional charity and religious clarity who did not come easy to Naples but was forced into the marraige, but bore all with great Christian resignation.

Lancer Trumpeters



her virtues were such as to make her loved by all subjects who claimed her as their Saint, . she died early in 1836, a fortnight after childbirth,but was strengthened by the relief of religion.
General staff of Re Bomba (the Bomb King)



On 26 December of the same year he married Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, and had nine children, including Alfonso Maria, head of the Royal House after the death without heirs of Francesco II in 1894, and several daughters, who went to be married off European monarchs



lancer
 Naples has been derided as a Kingdom of absolute ignorance but this is maybe not the whole truth.As they were also innovative.More research needs to be done
officer
The Hospice for the Poor was ordered built in 1751 by Charles III, the first Bourbon King of the Kingdom of Naples.
It was designed and started by Ferdinando Fuga and then continued by Luigi Vanvitelli, the great architect of the Bourbon Royal Palace in Caserta (the so-called “Versailles of Italy”).
The idea, in those days, of constructing a mammoth poor house along via Foria, one of the principle entrances to the city of the eighteenth century, was in keeping with promoting the image of Charles III as an enlightened monarch and the image of his kingdom as one of compassion.
 It was also in keeping with a wave of such “social construction” throughout Italy in that century in the form of poor houses, hospitals and communal granaries. (Indeed, in Naples, there was even a grotesquely efficient paupers’ graveyard with a numbered communal plot for each day of the year.)




Royal Grenadier Guards
Naples in the days of the Bourbons was a place that had looked towards  social welfare but with hungry scavengers and useless politicians incapable of putting their trousers on in the morning (it seems).
The political climate of today with its mix of Berlusconi mafia inspired ideals combined with total cretinous inefficency had some similarity to the Bourbon court under Ferdinand in his later life, as far as favour seems to have been shown in what was then and now a false meritocracy.

cuoco
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 By all accounts.much of the philosophy underlying Italian unity comes from the south, from the members of the so-called Neapolitan Enlightenment such as Vincenzo Cuoco.
Indeed, the first secret societies agitating for unity were the "carbonari", a southern invention. Thus, the drive to unity was broadbased. Could it have been achieved in any other way than by an invasion of the south? (The what-if school of history is always fun!) .

cavalry of the guard
On two occasions, Victor Emmanuel proposed an alliance with the Kingdom of Naples. He and the Neapolitans would divvy up the peninsula.
 Since this would entail taking over the Papal States (except for the city of Rome, itself), the King of Naples turned down the proposal as blasphemous.
 And, thus, Garibaldi did what he did—invaded Sicily and then the Italian mainland. He disobeyed Victor Emmanuel, by the way. "Don't invade the mainland," was the order. Garibaldi wrote a nice note, asking for permission to "disobey".

dragoon
Thus—according to some books I am looking at, there began a ten-year period of intense suffering for the south: looted treasury, industrial plants carried off, unjust imprisonment and even execution of Neapolitan citizens after the invasion of Savoy.
But lets remember that Napoli prisons were the worst in Western Europe and Ferdinand had to crush uprisings in Reggio and Messina. In September 1847 he bombed them to hell even after they surrended hence Re Bomba the bomb king.
 He remained convinced that his state already possessed the laws an d institutions that other peoples wanted, but he grew apprehensive, more so after soundings revealed that Austria would not commit itself to help in case of revolution.
Re Bomba




Between 1848 and 1851, the policies of King Ferdinand caused many to go into exile. Meanwhile, an estimated 2,000 suspected revolutionaries or dissidents were jailed. The King panicked, he walled himself up with the help of Swiss  mercenaries.
He was, however, totally allergic to the ideas of a united Italy and political reform that drove the Risorgimento, the move to unify the Italian peninsula and, above all else, the idea that defined what it meant to be "Italian" in the 19th century.




sharpshooter of the royal guard of naples 54mm
m and  m
The Swiss were very active in Naples from the beginning of the Bourbon rule in the 1730s right up until the final defence of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies at the siege of Gaeta in 1860.
 Their first contract with Naples was in 1731 with Charles III of Bourbon and by the mid-1800s there were four regiments (about 7,500 men) of Swiss on constant service in the Kingdom of Naples. The idea that the Swiss are a peaceful race of bankers, yodellers, and clock makers is wrong.
Re-enators of Naples army through the ages



In modern-day Switzerland, every male who is upright and breathing is in the army until the age of 50. They all keep their military-issue weapons at home, and, I suspect, rank high in the world on the firearm-per-square-person index.
Gendarmes



True, when one thinks of Swiss soldiers and Italy, the colourful Swiss guards in the Vatican in their 16th–century uniforms pop to mind.
Honour guard



Yet, behind today's quaint picture of comic-opera irrelevance is a very long and violent history of Switzerland as the single greatest provider of mercenary soldiers in Europe.
Grenadirs



Lancer in duster
Between the Battle of Nancy in 1477 and 1874, regiment after regiment of Swiss soldiers fought on battlefields elsewhere in Europe.These were not individual "hired guns," but entire regular Swiss regiments contracted out by their respective cantonal governments to serve abroad in return for large sums of money, a substantial part of the income in a canton in any given year.





Swiss Riflemen putting down an issurection
In 400 years of mercenary service, Switzerland hired out some two million soldiers and 70,000 officers. The contracts were typically between a canton and a particular monarch, whom the Swiss were then expected to serve faithfully, no matter what.



For that reason, you always have Swiss Guards on the side of established order and never on the side of revolution.



One famous episode was during the defence (Aug. 10, 1792) of the Tuileries palace in Paris during the French Revolution. Louis XVI ordered the Swiss Guard not to fire on the crowd, which, at the goading of George Danton, stormed the palace and massacred 600 of them, anyway.



The Swiss were important in the Kingdom of Naples in the turbulent year of 1848, when calls for reform and revolution swept virtually all of Europe.In January of that year, there was an uprising in Sicily, and a call for the restitution of their constitution of 1812. (In that year, the mainland portion of the Kingdom of Naples was in French hands, under Murat, while the Bourbon monarchy with their royalist troops and Swiss Guard were holed up on Sicily, protected by the British fleet




The Bourbons granted, with British encouragement, a constitution to their subjects on Sicily. That constitution extended to the rest of the Kingdom when it was retaken in 1814, but it was revoked by Ferdinand I after the riots of 1821.)



In 1848, Sicily also declared its independence from the Kingdom of Naples. Ferdinand II of Naples—by any account an absolutist wasn't interested in democracy but he did feel compelled to grant another constitution of sorts. At the table he gave great proportions to everyone, but the food that he liked was not the one most suited to a court: macaroni, pizza, caponata and onion. He loved onions. Was so luscious his breath that the smell of re bomba was everywhere, that whoever encountered him was warned of the unmistakable aroma of onion yards away.






Pasta A Napoli   .This pasta has a delicate lemon flavor that is delicious topped with grilled seafood such as shrimp as shown in the photo. It is also a perfect first course without the shrimp, served before a second course of seafood. I have used lemon thyme as my fresh herb of choice in this recipe, but fresh parsley or basil would work in place of the thyme as well. What is best about this pasta is that it can easily be prepared in just 30 minutes! Recipe on the World blog my other blog












Pasta Napoli .I first tasted this pasta dish at a small trattoria just outside of Cortona and found it delicious. I knew as soon as I tasted it that I would have to go home and make it in my own kitchen because it is exactly the type of recipe I love...... simple and quick to make with just a few ingredients. Smoked pancetta may be difficult to find, but you could substitute any similar product such as smoked prosciutto, or even smoked bacon. The smokey flavor is really what gives this pasta it's delicious, unique flavor so try and find a smoked product if possible. I used an artisan made pasta in this recipe but penne or rigatoni pasta would both work well.








see naples its worth it












via toledo
It seems that Ferdinand II loved to go to the market and buy where prepared foods were to be found.Well known were his visits incognito at Christmas to via Toledo where he disappeared between stalls in search of puppets figs and little lambs made of sugar.





There is also a famous episode on an excursion made to Gragnano in July 1842. Escorted by forty bodyguards, and accompanied by the Queen, by his children and by the court, the King visited the factories of long strand pastas.
The famous Catel D'Ovo (the aragon Castle)



Received as a gift from the maccheronari loads of macaroni and, for the delicacy of the product he granted to those noodle makers the high privilege of being suppliers of court. The maccheronari of Gragnano then reserved special care to the production of "macaroni of the King".
Sicily, by that time, was in full revolt, and later in the year, the Swiss sent their Neapolitan regiments as an expeditionary force to help quell the revolt on the island.




That took until early 1849. The Sicilian episode included the infamous bombardment of Messina, an act that earned Ferdinand II of Naples the nickname of "la bomba" for the rest of his life.




Throughout the 1850s, the Swiss Guards helped to prop up the Bourbon monarchy.Even at the last stand of the King in Gaeta it is said that the Swiss stood by him but..........

naples



.At Gaeta there were no Swiss regiments as they had all been dissolved for the reason that one regiment had mutinied in Naples.They may well have stood by their contract even at the end—the hopeless defence of Gaeta in late 1860 and early 1861 in the face of the overwhelming forces of Victor Emmanuel II. Some of the Swiss that survived accompanied the defeated Bourbon king, Francis II, into exile.



A curious incident




the field of mars is the football field bit next to capodichino. it is the airport today



On 8 December 1856, day of the Immaculate Conception, Ferdinand II, attended in Naples in the Holy Mass with the whole family, senior government officials and many nobles of his entourage.



Corps of guides 1855 the inspiration for the model below
After the celebration, the sovereign spent time browsing horse troops on the field of Mars.
the model from this print above from
Il Blog della Compagnia Modellisti Valdemone









At that time, the calabrese soldier Agesilaus Milan, lunged at the King and managed to scabbard him with a bayonet.

the conversion above came from a metal models captain of Spahis 1855

Ferdinand II was shaken by the assassination attempt and was worried that the bomber's bayonet was poisoned.

original kit


old Naples from the time of Ferdinand is still easy to spot
During his hospital stay , the King asked the surgeon Dr. Capone to check if the wound to the chest from Milan had inflamed.



The surgeon the reassured him that the scar was intact and without signs of inflammation and suppuration, According to some Ferdinand failed to ever get well again and  never recovered,  his death just under three years later (on 22 May 1859 died at Caserta), would be caused by septicaemia
According to other sources, the disease of Ferdinand II began during the trip that took in Puglia and that started from Caserta on 8 January 1859 and was completed on 7 March 1859 in Bari.




In Bari he would have to celebrate a religious marriage of his son and heir to the throne Francis II of the two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria with Maria Sofia of Bavaria, sister of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, known as the "Sissi", marriage already happened by proxy, without which the bride and groom had ever known each other before.



the worsening of the disease of the King started during the journey, and worsened in Bari, . The physician Cav. Brushwood had understood very little of the gravity , and the condition of Ferdinand II deteriorated continually.




Therefore, he was seen by the the best doctor in the province, Nicholas Longo di Modugno (Ba), pupil of Prof. Domenico Cotugno, . These, after examining Ferdinand II, diagnosed an abscess, full of gray matter-infected wound, and proposed, after trying unsuccessfully a cure it with the use of mercury-based solvent decided to try, surgery to remove it manually.



All bystanders, Queen Maria Theresa of Austria, Duke of Calabria, the Cav. Mandarins, the doctor Brushwood, were horrified to think of the task . Nicholas Longo warned Ferdinand and those present that, if it had not been made the thing would have got worse



Caserta







"Majesty" said Longo " if you had been a poor unfortunate thrown into a hospital bed at this time you would be healed". Ferdinand replied "Don Nicholas, now I find myself in, this predicament do what you want, but sav my life!". After dubiousness set in and the doctor had to postpone the operation for nearly a month, Ferdinand II and the Royals decided ,suddenly, leaving Bari for Caserta on 7 March 1859, despite the fact Longo was contrary to that choice.




Ferdinand II in dire condition was now in Caserta, all the physicians at the Court, having recognized the right diagnosis and treatment of medical Nicholas Longo, and especially that the operation was needed from the first moment but not now as it was too far gone, attempted it unnecessarily, that same operation proposed by Longo two months before.
 Ferdinand II died on 22 May 1859Though he was groomed to be king, Francesco seemed more in his element when undertaking Christian works of charity and following a spiritual way of life as defined by the Catholic Church.




Giuseppe di Lampedusa's description of the young king (in The Leopard) as a "seminarian" is not very far of the mark.



Unfortunately, Francesco's noble-minded faith, and his unwavering loyalty to Pope Pius IX, justified such a characterisation. The simple reality is that kings must know when to be firm, and Francesco rarely did.In 1859 he wed the young Maria Sofia of Bavaria (their only child, a daughter born in 1869, died in infancy)Francesco ascended the throne upon the death of his father in May 1859.

Naples 1860



Carlo Filangieri, his prime minister, strongly urged him to accept the proposal of the King of Sardinia, Vittorio Emmanuel II of Savoy (a cousin and later King of Italy), to join a confederation of Italian states (similar to what was eventually formed in Germany), perhaps with Francesco as its sovereign.



Chasseurs
Ferdinando II had already refused such an offer. The impediment was Francesco's reluctance to occupy the Papal States or permit his Piedmontese counterpart, Vittorio Emanuele, to do so.Meanwhile, a number of disloyal military officers and political figures plotted an overthrow of the House of Bourbon with various Piedmontese agents.




Foreign influence was also involved; when a force arrived at Marsala (western Sicily) led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, troops of Britain's Royal Navy, acting on orders, refused to intervene to stop him.Back in Turin (capital of the Savoys' Kingdom of Sardinia), Rosalino Pilo and Francesco Crispi, exiled Sicilian plotters of former conspiracies, supported Garibaldi's Sicilian invasion even as King Vittorio Emanuele II, at least officially, was at peace with Francesco II.

Tirraleurs



The disloyalty of Sicilian officers sworn to defend the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies added to the debacle.Nevertheless, at this crucial point Francesco II could have intervened directly at the head of an expedition to Sicily and handily defeated Garibaldi's forces through use of what was, at that time, Italy's largest standing army.That he refused to do so spelled the end of his reign and wrote the destiny of Naples and Palermo as "secondary" cities of a nation to be ruled from Turin and then Rome. Instead, Francesco granted a belated constitution.


Southern dead. See below ."in Torino there was, and there is a museum dedicated to Cesare Lombroso, ideologist of Northern superiority against the inhabitants of the South. And if the Museum Lombroso were exposed,  the remains of Patriots  called brigands who were  killed in their  tens of thousands during the Piedmontese occupation of the Kingdom of the two Sicilies would be sent home. Their skeletons, their skulls cut to demonstrate the inferiority encloses  Myriad hundreds: instead of being buried in their land as  would require at least the pity. , racist savoy , unaware of her history celebrates her 150th anniversary. The Piedmont regional authority should close the Museum or at least send the remains of the South in their places of origin". Grillo Blog


The Brigands fought against the Savoyards and Italians who invaded



















With Garibaldi's crossing of the Strait of Messina into Calabria, Piedmontese regular troops entered the invasion campaign directly.
Many Southerners say that Savoys invasion of the South was akin to Hitler in russia with many civilian victims. I have no idea if this is really true.I know that in Italy today there are many people rewriting history for there own racial hatreds such as the Lombard League who are in government with Berlusconi.



Francesco still could have acted decisively but failed to do anything. In early September 1860, in an event that strangly foreshadowed the Savoys' abandonment of Rome in September 1943, Francesco, his consort and household, accompanied by a few loyalists, left Naples.
At Gaeta, a fortress overlooking the sea north of Naples near the border with the Papal States, Francesco held out as long as he could.
At the Battle of Volturno in early October Neapolitan cavalry were overrun by Piedmontese troops, which were now invading the Papal States.
A month later, in early November, the Siege of Gaeta began. Francesco surrendered the city on 12 February 1861 and the deposed king and queen departed for Rome.
when the he invasion by the Piedmontese had began on November 6, 1860. Both Francis II and his wife behaved with great coolness and courage. Even when the French fleet, whose presence had hitherto prevented an attack by sea, was withdrawn, they still resisted. It was not until February 12, 1861 that the fortress capitulated.
Alone among the "Thousand Cities" of the Two Sicilies, Messina had held out until the end of 1860, when the soldiers of its fort capitulated following heavy shelling.
The royal couple lived in Austria, France, and Bavaria, and in Rome where their daughter was born and died. In 1894, Francis died at Arco in Trent (then Austrian but now northern Italy).
 Upon the death of Francis II, his half-brother, Prince Alfonso, became the Head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies and de jure pretender to the throne of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
History is written by the victors. In defeat, Francesco II and his dynasty became the object of caricature and defamation by Italy's unificationists.
 Recent decades have witnessed a resurgence of interest in the culture and times of the Bourbon rule of Sicily (1734-1860), and Italian school history texts are beginning to correct the revisionist history of the "Risorgimento" (unification movement) to reflect more accurately Italy's pre-unitary history.firemen 1850.


as a young man Ferdinand the second
all soldiers by antonini . cost is from 55 euro upwards

Genral Staff guard


seamen


Horse Artillery

Navy Infantry

Officer
Rifleman

Chasseurs attacking in Sicily
Honour Guard

the kingdom


a regimental flag


the so called wall of China in Europe. Thousands of Southern soldiers were consigned as prisoners to this fort and then left to rot by the Italian government after Gaeta.

The king surrenders at Gaeta

the South thanks to the new racial hatred from Berlusconi's government is returning to the state of abject poverty that was found during and after the Bourbons

Woman who fought against the Savoy invasion



the entrance to the finestrelle fort which is one of the most amazing fortresses in all Europe. It was the Concentration camp of the Sothernern soldiers sent here by the italian government namely the house of Savoy
LAST ROUND LAST MAN
In early 1861  Piedmont, with the support of England and the active complicity of the French had already conquered the Kingdom of Two Sicilies: a few places still, Gaeta, Messina and Civitella del Tronto and wherever they organised the guerrilla rebels.


If the guerrillas were bandits then the  given  form of  resistance,  could not justify this designation, knowing that they were considered brigands the soldiers of Civitella del Tronto fought on.

The fortress of Civitella was built in 1300, then restored and expanded, as we see it today.

It was, in short, a fortress  Museum, good for a country such as the two Sicilies that didnt really want war .


Convinced of an easy victory, Piedmont, with the most modern weapons provided by the French, including long-range guns, assaulted Civitella, just after having been employed in Teramo and having shot  around 500 people in the first week of employment.

The first head-on collision came the first of December and the ball  rested with the assailants who retreated into the Valley.

Around the invaders was waged guerilla warfare, captained by Dadda ' Fox, a captain of noble origins also classified as a brigand and as such "pushed to revolt by  hunger".

At this point he was sent to direct the operations of the siege of one of the most infamous war criminals, General f. Pinelli that beginning with this letter to his soldiers:

Officers and soldiers! You have  operated well, but nothing is finished when there remains something to do. A pack of this offspring of robbers still lie between the mountains, rush them and  be unyielding as destiny.  crush the  head vampire that with greedy lips sucks blood from centuries of Italy, our will is to purify them with iron and with fire ."

Here's how he considered the heroic soldiers : a pack of thieves!

The General, winner of a gold medal, distinguished as killing  an unknown number of people, looting, firing their ' homes, collected  prisoners and put hunger throughout the area.

He distinguished himself less on the battlefield where all its attacks were repelled.

he was replaced by another General and more slaughter took place, several years ago, during the work of enlargement of the national route passing through Teramo there was discovered a mass grave: from the remains it was discovered that the pieces dated back to the period of the war of 1860-1861.

This General got more reinforcements and cannons and after a bombing he could capture the fortress.

On March 14, the battle was fierce but the siciliani won and the illustrious General was replaced with another General yet and still other reinforcements.

The fortress was starving, the bombing constant, also the country citizens remained stuck between the two armies not managing to escape.
 King Francis II, with his own sense of humanity sent an order to cease fire .

At 11 am on 20 March Piedmontese soldiers entered the fortress, the kings men posed arms and thought to be considered prisoners of war, but it was not so.

the "bandits" were judged, not soldiers but rebels and then sentenced to death.

At one  began the shooting and when the piedmontese eventually left the dead were without burial, thrown  into a ditch.

In order to leave no trace they decided to demolish totally the  fortress and make it disappear, as  with Pescara.

But the guerrillas exploded around Abruzzo and every day grew the number of villages they freed .

There is a single episode of the so-called brigandage in which the main accusation is that of robbery or crimes like: in all cases the first charge is to having attempted to restore the previous reign, strange charge for simple brigands!

This is the story of Civitella.







with all the present revision of garibaldis invasion of the south one wonders if this print is from life or not.Who knows?


garibaldian 54mm


sketch of a general of the two sicilies




A brilliant scratchbuilt piece from Antonino sanfillipo of an honour guard of the two Sicilies.Bronze medal
ANGELO MARIA CICCHIELLO Captain of artillery
Captain Angelo Maria Cicchiello belongs to a host of  soldiers who were able to maintain their oath and fought until the end to the freedom of their homeland. Those men were all heroes, from low grade to highgrade. .





His service in the army of the two Sicilies lasted 35 years, 8 months and 16 days. He was named Sergeant on 1 June 1836 and Commenced on 7 July 1848. Second Lieutenant on 15 June 1849 and Lieutenant on 12 September 1855. His appointment as Captain came on 27 February 1858.










Among his numerous assignments include: in 1848 he had command of half of a departmental mobile battery in Apulia; mountain battery Commander from 23 February 1849 to 21 August 1849 in the campaign against the so-called Roman Republic, where he participated, under the command of Prince of Ischitella, at the battle of velletri ; Commander of the 18th artillery company from 1858 to November 1860; Commander of the 9th artillery company since December 1860 to 14 February 1861 throughout the siege of Gaeta, where he shot Battery s. Maria until the end of the siege.

Captain Angelo Maria Cicchiello on 12 October 1844  was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal order of Francis I for heroic conduct

In addition, he was awarded the cross of Knight of grace of the Real Order of Saint George for the valiant behaviour in more occasions during the siege of Gaeta, especially in the shelling of 5 and 22 January and 5 February 1861.




Re-enactors in Naples uniforms

re-enactors salute their comrades in the lager of Savoy.
francis the second. It seems if he had taken the largest army in western Europe to meet Garibaldi in sicily he would have held his kingdom
Notwithstanding the present climate that everything in the south was well remember that the Sicilians had fought a rebellion against Naples.




Umberto Bossi, speaking recently to his party in the province of Brescia  settled on  the problem of money for the celebration of the unification of Italy: "what should I spend? I believe zero ". BOSSI Is a traitor in all respects to Italy but forms part of the government.








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the two other sons of Ferdinand the second






Navy Inf




Naples Navy



After the war in the South the savoy army had to have a running continuous battle with patriots and outlaws all over the South
To combat the brigandage in the Government of the Kingdom of Italy sent in regions of the South more than 100,000 soldiers, supported by Cavalry divisions, among them also the  1859), Montebello Lancers.
 On November 5, 1861, following the ministerial order received, the regiment commanded by Col. Charles of Humilly De Chevilly, left his garrison in Terni .
 Captained by frequent episodes in Basilicata and in Molise.
 On 22 November the regiment together with 1 Squadron took stationed at Lucera, other squadrons settled in other places with the following order: the 2nd Squadron at San Severo, the 3rd Serra ROEs, 4th to Larino of Molise, 5 ° to Sink in Basilicata, with a warband in Ascoli. On 13 December 1861 the command of the regiment was transferred to the headquarters of Foggia (from which she operated for the next 18 months), where he reached initially by the 3rd Squadron, and later by the 4th and 5th Squadron, while the 1st Squadron was deployed to Lucera and part at Torre Maggiore.Successive detachments were then dispersed, depending on the opportunities and needs. In the plain of Tavoliere the lanceri of Montebello claimed fifty clashes with the brigands, the nature of the terrain, very fertile and treeless, was particularly suited to the use of cavalry, different departments was the situation to the mountains of Gargano and the Adriatic coast, which for long stretches was, and is covered with dense forests.
In the early days the military authorities acted with methods and systems unfit for this type of guerrilla warfare which were not only  ineffective, but often resulted in the loss of many  infantry and cavalry, especially when taking  into account the knowledge of the places and skill of the neoborbonici and/or brigands.
On 16 December 1861 a platoon of the 4th Squadron commanded by Lieutenant Luigi Mussi Fort of 22 lanceri, attacked at the masseria De Matteis, a formation of over 200 brigands.
 The combat lasted three hours, during which the brigands lost seven men and had 22 injured, while the Lancers lost six men.
 In order to protect communications from Foggia in San Marco in Lamis and Manfredonia, the upper command established a fixed place, and  a platoon and rotate every month, the fixed place was a fortified farm called a masseria situated at the foot of the Gargano.
  Aware of the presence in the area of Angelo Maria del Sambro, known leader of a band of brigands, Lieutenant de Gregorio in command of a band of lanceri attempted to capture him, with no luck, .
The latter decided to exact revenge by implementing a retaliatory action, on 31 December 1861, day of the change of the platoon , Angelo Maria del Sambro in command of 200 men, decided to prepare an ambush. However  Sambro, unaware of the arrival of the platoon , disposed his men on the left bank of the River Candelaro.
 While the robbers waited for the arrival of the platoon Lieutenant de Gregorio and another platoon commanded by Lieutenant Carlo Alberto Ditches left Foggia . Near the bridge Lieutenant Moats saw a dozen Brigands  that apparently had not noticed the arrival of the lancers.
 Lieutenant Ditches lunged with his platoon against the brigands  the band fell into the ambush, the platoon consisted of twenty-one lancers, but they  fled to Foggia chased by Angelo Maria del Sambro at the head of forty brigands.










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The Swiss are still in that association of Delinquency the vatican of course!!!!!


The Swiss had been  important in the Kingdom of Naples in the turbulent year of 1848, when calls for reform and revolution swept virtually all of Europe.
 In January of that year, there was an uprising in Sicily, and a call for the restitution of their constitution of 1812. (In that year, the mainland portion of the Kingdom of Naples was in French hands, under Murat, while the Bourbon monarchy with their royalist troops and Swiss Guard were holed up on Sicily, protected by the British fleet.
 The Bourbons granted, with British encouragement, a constitution to their subjects on Sicily. That constitution extended to the rest of the Kingdom when it was retaken in 1814, but it was revoked by Ferdinand I after the riots of 1821.)

lancers 1848 by plantagenet
In 1848, Sicily also declared its independence from the Kingdom of Naples. Ferdinand II of Naples—by any account an absolutist and becoming more and more so the longer this talk of a "united Italy" continued—obviously wouldn't buy the part about independence, but he did feel compelled to grant another constitution of sorts.
 That put the situation in limbo for a few months. Then, in April, Ferdinand declared war on Austria, a move—had things gone differently in the "what-if" school of history—that would have put him on the same side as the Savoys of Piedmont—a united Italian army

That was not to be. Banal events in Naples the next month involving the form of a parliamentary oath of office led to Ferdinand closing the parliament, revoking the constitution, and recalling his troops from the north.

 In May an uprising took place in the city of Naples, and Ferdinand relied heavily on his Swiss Guards to suppress it. The four Swiss regiments in the city lost a total of 205 troops in the single day of combat in the city and came under severe criticism for their brutality, investigations of which were conducted even by the respective cantonal governments back in Switzerland.
 Sicily, by that time, was in full revolt, and later in the year, the Swiss sent their Neapolitan regiments as an expeditionary force to help quell the revolt on the island. That took until early 1849.
The Sicilian episode included the infamous bombardment of Messina, an act that earned Ferdinand II of Naples the nickname of "la bomba" for the rest of his life.
Throughout the 1850s, the Swiss Guards helped to prop up the Bourbon monarchy. the hopeless defence of Gaeta in late 1860 and early 1861 in the face of the overwhelming forces of Victor Emmanuel II. Those that survived accompanied the defeated Bourbon king, Francis II, into exile.


swiss



swiss in catania putting down the rebellion for naples















Naples infantry.On sale from Fixed Bayonet at £5 each and painted. I sell these

  Bourbon  is synonymous with obscurantism and inefficiency. In fact, there was a degree of artistic and cultural wealth and material well-being, commercial and industrial.
Under the Bourbons there was the rediscovery of Magna Grecia, with the discovery of the plates of Heraclea surfaced in 1732.

garibaldi attacks the south
 The beginning of the campaigns to find  Herculaneum and Pompeii, and in Calabria archaeological ones initiated at Locri by Domenico venuti, .
 In 1839, also to give impetus to  industry, Ferdinand built the first railroad of the peninsula that ranged from Naples to Arcades (Portici)

opening day Naples Portici 1839
. The  Turin-Moncalieri line was built in Piedmont ten years later and was only  half the distance. The naval fleet of the Bourbons was the first Mediterranean one with four thousand ships.

one of the first stations still in use on the line
The most important shipyards at the time were those of Castellammare di Stabia, where he built the first Steamboat.
The gold reserves of the Banco di Napoli and Banco di Sicilia were very consistent, insomuch that Garibaldi hastened  to transfer them to Piemont and managed to take away  many war debts accumulated from 1848 onwards.  The silk industry of San lucido  produced more than those of Lombardy, there were the early wool mills of Arpino, besides the industrial cotton mills founded by Swiss, French and Neapolitans.
In 1847 in Calabria  ground tax was abolished, and within  the Bourbon Kingdom major cities could communicate with the Telegraph.
 Theatres in Reggio Calabria, Catanzaro and Cosenza and Mongiana
 The  Regie Ferriere, a steel factory with around two thousand workers who suffered after the unification of Italy was dismantled.
 Suddenly all this was destroyed by the Kingdom Of Piedmont  acting with a pre-colonial mentality they blotted out all progress, and southern populations after a few years were forced to emigrate .
The second return of King Ferdinand of Naples was not characterized by repression.
 The King retained most of the reforms implemented by the French 

After the Congress of Vienna and the Treaty of Casalanza (20 May 1815), December 8, 1816, Ferdinand IV reunited into a single nation the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily with the name of the Kingdom of the two Sicilies, abandoning the name of Ferdinand IV of Naples and III of Sicily and assuming that of Ferdinand I of the two Sicilies.

This Act had, inter alia, the result of depriving the Sicily of the Constitution promulgated by Ferdinand.

Until the Congress of Vienna, the Kingdom of Sicily had maintained its independence, represented by the Sicilian Parliament, despite the personal Union with the Kingdom of Naples,  two kingdoms entirely independent of each other; Ferdinand retained however more attention towards the latter, causing major unhappiness in the Sicilian people.
In 1812, King Ferdinand I de Bourbon, fleeing a Naples occupied by Napoleon, fled to Sicily, where he was  greeted with the honours of the occasion, but not only: the Sicilians were crying out for a Constitution that ensured stability of the State and greater certainty in law.

In 1814, but following the Congress of Vienna, King Ferdinand I de Bourbon, in a coup brought  together the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples under one Crown, namely that of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, eliminating the Sicilian Parliament declaring de facto deprived.
 The Bourbons accomplished the restoration, but did  not restore the Union of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily status quo ante 1789, but jumped back to five and a half centuries and restored the reign of Charles I of Anjou. The document was viewed by the Sicilian politicians as an affront to what was continuously for 700 years,  an independent Kingdom.
 Almost immediately there began an antireligious anti borbonica, accompanied by the propaganda of the identity of Sicily, especially by the voice of èlites in Palermo.
 This lead, in 1820, to a revolution, in Palermo, leading to the establishment of a provisional Government, professedly separatist.
 However, the lack of coordination of the forces  soon fell under the blows of repressionist  borbonic power. The failure of this first revolution however did not discourage the political forces .

on the first July 1820, at the news that in Spain there had been restored the Constitution of 1812, there rioted in Nola a military group, led by Michele Morelli and Joseph Silvati. The uprising was supported also by senior officers including distinguished General Guglielmo Pepe.

Ferdinand, found it impossible to suppress the revolt, granted the Spanish Constitution .


The innovations introduced in the two Sicilies were not appreciated by the Governments of the European great powers.

Following the Congress of Ljubljana the Kingdom was invaded by Austrian troops in March 1821 , they defeated the constitutional army commanded by Neapolitan.General Pepe . 

On 23 March 1821 Naples was occupied, the Constitution was suspended and then began the repressions

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