PORTA PIA .All the people are players.They have their entrances and their exits

The best bersaglieri ever made and its  by Chota Sahib. I replaced the sword with a more Italian sabre.Its in 54mm. I bought this in the late 70's if my memory serves me right. Chota did maybe the finest pieces ever done. If I was collecting now I'd certainly choose their models.
The Prince found his father-in-law eager to give the 50,000 men that were asked for, but the ministers protested that the Italian army was unprepared for war. Still, to satisfy the King, who signified his irritation so clearly to Lanza that this good servant was on the point of resigning, they agreed to submit the case to Austria; if Austria would co-operate, they would re-consider their decision. Austria replied: 'Too late.'
d.model 54mm French officer 1870



When, in 1873, Victor Emmanuel paid a visit to Berlin, he caused some sensation at a grand State banquet by saying to his host: 'But for these gentlemen' (and he waved his hand towards the ministers who accompanied him) 'I should have gone to war with you.' Sedan The Debaclè
Courtiers did not know which way to look, but the aged Emperor was not displeased by the soldierly bluntness of the avowal.
sardinian guard officer 54mm


Prince Napoleon remained in Florence, throwing away his eloquence, till the 2nd of September cut short the argument. When he had left his cousin, the Emperor was resolved to fall back on Paris according to  MacMahon's plan, but the ministers and the Empress Regent forced him to his doom. On the 2nd of September Sédan was lost; on the 4th the Empire fell.

fortress of sedan


'And to think,' exclaimed Victor Emmanuel when he heard the news, 'that this good man was always wanting to give me advice!'He said this with irony and sarcasm but forgot that Louis Napoleon had given him Italy.
d.models french dragoon 1868


From the date of the declaration of war, and still more since the evacuation of Rome by the French troops (begun on the 29th of July, ended on the 19th of August), Italy had been too deeply agitated for any sane person to suppose that the prescriptive right of the nation to seize the opportunity which offered itself of completing its unity could be resisted by the artificial dyke of a compromise which made the Government the instrument of France.

above papal dragoons by Zinnfiguren Italy in 54mm.very expensive but beautiful models , could be investment pieces in the future.
 Lanza was determined to maintain order; he had Mazzini arrested at Palermo, and suppressed disorders where they occurred, but the rising tide of the will of the people could not be suppressed, and had the ministry resisted it, something more than the ministry would have fallen.

d.models 1868 trumpeter of the imperial guard

In justification of Lanza's slowness to move, and of the apparent, if not real, unwillingness with which he took every forward step, it is contended that more precipitate action would have caused what most people will agree would have been a misfortune for Italy, the departure of the Pope from Rome. It was only on the 20th of August that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Visconti-Venosta, sent a memorandum to the European Powers which announced that the Government had decided on occupying Rome at once. brigadier. lancers of the imperial guard 1870 by d.models
A week after, the fall of the Empire came as a godsend to the ministry which had possibly hardly deserved such a stroke of luck. They were no longer hampered by the September Convention, because the September Convention was dead. This  was amply admitted by Jules Favre, though he declined to denounce the treaty formally; even a French Radical, in the hour of setting up the Republic, was afraid to proclaim aloud that France renounced all claim to interfere in her neighbour's concerns.favre



Of the other Powers, Switzerland signified her approval, and the rest engaged to abstain from any opposition.
Poste Militaire French inf Prussian war


The King addressed a letter to the Pope, in which, with the affection of a son and the faith of a Catholic, he appealed to his spirit of benevolence and his Italian patriotism to speak the word of peace in the midst of the storm of war that was distracting Europe, and to accept the love and protection of the people of Italy in lieu of a sovereignty which could not stand without the support of foreign arms. nino bixio in 54mm. Bixio was a Garibaldian then became a regular army officer. He's a legend in Italy. Died of yellow fever in the South seas.
Pius IX. merely answered by saying that the letter was not worthy of an affectionate son, and that he prayed God to bestow upon His Majesty the mercy of which he had much need. To the bearer of the royal appeal, Count Ponza di San Martino, he said that he might yield to violence, but would never sanction injustice.Piedmot Cavalry in 54mm.



This was about the time that the Pope, on his side, wrote an appeal not, be it observed, to any Catholic monarch, but to King William of Prussia, who would certainly not have read unmoved the complaint of one who, like himself, was crowned with white hairs, but Count Bismarck took the precaution of causing the letter not to reach his master's hands till the Italians were in Rome.Piedmonts attacking

The day following the Pope's interview with Count Ponza, the 11th of September, the Italian troops received the order to enter the Papal states. For several weeks five divisions under General Cadorna(below) had been in course of concentration along the frontier; this force now marched on Rome. Nino Bixio was sent to Civita Vecchia where resistance was expected, and had been ordered by Kanzler, but the native element prevailed over the foreign in the garrison, and the Spanish commandant, Colonel Serra, interpreting the wishes of the Roman troops, surrendered without firing a shot.

civitavecchia


Great was the indignation of the French and Belgian Zouaves. They were resolved that the same thing should not happen in Rome. That there was a chance of avoiding bloodshed may be inferred, from Count Arnim's numerous journeys between the Vatican and General Cadorna's headquarters outside Porta Salara(below) the Prussian representative hoping till the last moment to arrange matters in a pacific sense. Cardinal Antonelli is said to have been nearly persuaded, when he received a message from Colonel Charette in these terms: 'You had better go and say mass while we look after defending you.' The war party so far carried the day that the Pope adhered to his plan of 'sufficient resistance to show that he yielded only to force.belgian zouave uniform


At half-past five on the morning of the 20th of September, all attempts at conciliation having failed, the Italian attack was opened upon five different points, Porta San Pancrazio, Porta San Giovanni Laterano,(below)
 Porta San Lorenzo, Porta del Popolo and Porta Pia. General Maze de la Roche's division attacked the latter gate, and the wall near it, in which a breach was rapidly effected by the steady fire of the Italian batteries, though it was not till past eight o'clock that it seemed large enough to admit of an assault. Then the 41st of the line, and the 12th and 34th Bersaglieri were ordered up, and dashed into the breach with the cry of 'Savoia! Savoia!'

above Porta del popolo. The challenge was returned by the Zouaves with their 'Vive Pie Neuf.' They had been already ordered to desist, as the Pope's instructions were clear, 'to stop when a breach was made;' but on the plea that the order was sent to them verbally they continued firing.
photo of the times . Porta Pia
When the written order came, they displayed a white handkerchief fastened to a bayonet, and at this point the fight was over. Hundreds of Roman exiles poured through the breach after the soldiers; 15,000 of them had arrived or were arriving at the gates of the city.

The breech


At the same time the white flag was hoisted on Porta Pia, but on the advance of the 40th Regiment and a battalion of Bersaglieri, shots were fired which killed and wounded several officers and men; when they saw their companions falling, the troops could not be restrained from scaling the barricade which had been formed to defend the gate, and surrounding and capturing the Zouaves who were behind it.Porta San Procrazia
 The whole Diplomatic Corps now came out in full uniform to urge General Cadorna to effect the occupation as quickly as possible, that order might be maintainedmodel

1853 T chasseur carabine

nice figure but is it a hill?

By midday, the Italian troops had penetrated into most parts of the city left of the Tiber; as yet there was no formal capitulation on the part of the Zouaves, and their attitude was not exactly reassuring.
This did not prevent the population, both men and women, from filling the streets and greeting the Italians with every sign of rejoicing. They cheered, they wept, they kissed the national flag, and the cry of Roma Capitale drowned all other cries, even as the fact it saluted closed the discords and the factions of ages.

Conte Carlos D'Alcantara

papal zouave

In the afternoon all the Papal troops were persuaded to lay down their arms, which, in the case of the foreigners, were given back to them. Next day they were reviewed by General Cadorna. As the Italians presented arms to the retiring host, some of the Antibes Legion shouted at them: 'We are French, we shall meet you again.'
The Roman troops were sent to their homes; the foreigners conducted to the  frontier, Charette and other of the French officers went to the battlefields of their prostrate country, and thus it came to pass that the Pope's defenders were found fighting side by side with Garibaldi; they, indeed, only doing their simple duty, but he, acting on an impulse of Quixotic generosity which was repaid—the world knows how!
Algerien Tiralleur Prussian War


Cadorna received three pressing requests from the Pope to occupy the Leonine City, and the third he granted. The idea of leaving the part of Rome on which the Vatican stands under the Pope's jurisdiction had been long favoured by a certain class of politicians, and Lanza made a last effort to give it effect by excluding the Leonine City from the plebiscite which was ordered to take place in Rome and in the Roman province on the 2nd of October.
 It was in vain. The first voting urn to arrive at the Capitol on the appointed day was a glass receptacle borne by a huge Trasteverino, and preceded by a banner inscribed: 'Città Leonina Si.' As the Government had not supplied the inhabitants with an official urn, it occurred to them to provide themselves with an unofficial one in which they duly deposited their votes. The Roman plebiscite yielded the results of 133,681 affirmative and 1507 negative voteslight cavalry of lodi by mas in 54mm