Attilio and Emilio Bandiera were sons of the Austrian admiral who, in 1831, arrested Italian fugitives at sea.  Placed by their father in the Austrian navy, they renounced every prospect of a brilliant career to enter the service of their down-trodden country.  When they deserted, strong efforts were made by the Archduke Rainieri, through their mother, to win them back, but neither the offers of pardon nor the poor woman’s tears and reproaches turned them from their purpose.  Another deserter was with them, Lieutenant Domenico Moro, a youth of great charm of person and disposition, who had been employed with a mixed force of Englishmen and Austrians in the Lebanon, where he formed a warm friendship with Lieutenant, now Admiral, Sir George Wellesley, who still preserves an affectionate remembrance of him.  Nicola Ricciotti, a Roman subject who had devoted all his life to Italy, and Anacarsi Nardi, son of the dictator of Modena, were also of the band, which counted about twenty.

The Bandieras and their companions sailed from Corfu for the coast of Calabria on the 11th of June 1844.  ‘If we fall,’ they wrote to Mazzini, ’tell our countrymen to imitate our example, for life was given to us to be nobly and usefully employed, and the cause for which we shall have fought and died is the purest and holiest that ever warmed the heart of man.’  It was their last letter.  After they landed in Calabria one of their number disappeared; there is every reason to suppose that he went to betray them.  They wandered for a few days in the mountains, looking for the insurgent band which they had been falsely told was waiting for them, and then fell into an ambush prepared by the Neapolitan troops.  Some died fighting; nine were shot at Cosenza, including the Bandieras, Mori, Ricciotti and Nardi.  Boccheciampi the Corsican, whom they suspected of treason, was brought up to be confronted with them during the trial; when asked if he knew who he was, Nardi replied:  ’I know no word in my divine Italian language that can fitly describe that man.’  Boccheciampi was condemned to a nominal imprisonment; when he came out of prison he wrote to a Greek girl of Corfu, to whom he was engaged, to join him at Naples, that they might be married.  The girl had been deeply in love with him, and had already given him part of her dowry, but she answered:  ’A traitor cannot wed a Greek maiden; I bear with me the blessing of my parents; upon you rests the curse of God.’

The martyrdom of the Bandieras made a great impression, especially in England, where the circumstance came to light that their correspondence with Mazzini had been tampered with in the English Post Office, and that information as to their plans had reached the Austrian and Neapolitan Governments through the British Foreign Office.  The affair was brought before the House of Commons by Thomas Duncombe.  The Home Secretary repeated a calumny which had appeared many years before in a French newspaper, to the effect that the murder of an Italian in Rodez by two of his fellow-countrymen was the result of an order from the Association of Young Italy.  Sir James Graham had to apologise afterwards for ‘the injury inflicted on Mr Mazzini’ by this statement, which he was obliged to admit was supported by no evidence, and was contrary to the opinion of the Judge who tried the case.