Garibaldi had overthrown the Neapolitan rule in Sicily, and raised the cry of “Italy and Victor Emmanuel!” which found a hearty response.  Having been so successful he now determined, despite the warnings of friendly advisers and the hostility of enemies, to carry his forces from Sicily to the mainland, and take possession of Naples itself.  He was at the head of about twenty thousand men under the command of Generals Medici, Bixio, Cosenz, and Turr.  He had also the prestige of victory mingled with a kind of legendary fame which continually increased.  These were formidable aids to further success, especially when brought to bear on the fervid feelings and imagination of a southern people.  Francis of Naples still possessed an army of eighty thousand men, of which he despatched more than twenty thousand to arrest, if possible, the progress of his formidable opponent.

Victor Emmanuel sought to dissuade Garibaldi from an enterprise so full of danger as that of marching upon Naples against the wishes of the united cabinets of Continental Europe.  The King desired that matters should proceed by negotiation, the basis of which should be that Neapolitans and Sicilians should be allowed to decide their future destinies for themselves.  Garibaldi, who loved and trusted the honest King, replied that the actual state of Italy compelled him to disobey his majesty.  “When,” said the noble-hearted patriot, “I shall have delivered the populations from the yoke that weighs them down, I will throw my sword at your feet, and will then obey you for the rest of my life.”  In truth, Italians of all ranks were now so roused that neither Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, nor even Garibaldi himself could have stayed the movement.

The overpowering strength of foreign armies could alone have put it down.  Circumstances, however, happily prevented so gross an abuse of mere force.  For once Italians were allowed to do as they wished in their own country instead of being compelled by foreign powers to do as those powers commanded.  Many things concurred to bring about this result.  The French Emperor had just received Savoy and Nice; he had been spending the blood and treasure of France in giving the first blow to the old despotisms of Italy; how could he now fly in the face of his own principle of the national will in order to save the worst of those despotisms?  He could not declare that Sicilians and Neapolitans should not dare have the opportunity of doing what he had at last permitted in Central Italy and profited by in Nice and Savoy.  To have allowed Austria to do so would be to stultify himself in the eyes of Europe, to enrage Italians, and to lead France to ask what was the use of calling on her to make sacrifices for the overthrow of Austrian domination in the Peninsula if within a few months that domination was to be in a large measure restored.

Austria too had her own difficulties to encounter, and they were both numerous and complicated.  Her military and priestly despotism had suffered defeat; her people disliked its rule and desired freer institutions; her finances were terribly disordered.