Capture of Rome

The capture of Rome (Italian: Presa di Roma) on 20 September 1870 was

Capture of Rome
the final event of the long process of Italian unification known as the
Presa di Roma
Risorgimento,[1] marking both the final defeat of the Papal States under
Pope Pius IX and the unification of the Italian peninsula under King Victor Part of the wars of Italian Unification
Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy.

The capture of Rome ended the approximate 1,116 year reign (AD 754 to
1870) of the Papal States under the Holy See and is today widely
memorialized throughout Italy with the Via XX Settembre street name in
virtually every town of any size.

The Breach of Porta Pia, by Carlo Ademollo

Date 20 September 1870

Contents
Location Rome
Prelude
Second Italian War of Independence
Result Italian victory
Franco-Prussian War
Peaceful overture to Pius IX End of the Papal States

Pius IX flees Rome End of the Risorgimento

Rome captured by Raffaele Cadorna Territorial Rome and Latium annexed to
"Roman Question": Mussolini's Lateran Pacts changes the Kingdom of Italy
See also Belligerents
Notes
Kingdom of Italy Papal States
References
Commanders and leaders
External links
Victor Pope Pius IX
Emmanuel II Hermann Kanzler
Raffaele
Prelude Cadorna
Strength
Second Italian War of Independence 50,000 13,157
During the Second Italian War of Independence, much of the Papal States Casualties and losses
had been conquered by the Piedmontese Army, and the new unified 49 killed 19 killed
Kingdom of Italy was created in March 1861, when the first Italian
Parliament met in Turin. On 27 March 1861, the Parliament declared Rome the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. However, the Italian
government could not take its seat in Rome because it did not control the territory. In addition, a French garrison was maintained in
the city by Napoleon III of France in support of Pope Pius IX, who was determined not to hand over temporal power in the States of
the Church.

In July 1870, at the very last moment of the Church's rule over Rome, the First Vatican Council was held in the city – affirming the
doctrine of papal infallibility.

Franco-Prussian War
In July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War began. In early August, Napoleon III recalled
his garrison from Rome. The French not only needed the troops to defend their
homeland, but there was also real concern in Paris that Italy might use the French
presence in Rome as a pretext to go to war with France. In the earlier Austro-
Prussian War, Italy had allied with Prussia and Italian public opinion favoured the
Prussian side at the start of the war. The removal of the French garrison eased
tensions between Italy and France. Italy remained neutral in the Franco-Prussian
War.

With the French garrison gone, widespread public demonstrations demanded that the
Italian government take Rome. But Rome remained under French protection on
paper, therefore an attack would still have been regarded as an act of war against the
French Empire. Furthermore, although Prussia was at war with France, it had gone
to war in an uneasy alliance with the Catholic South German states that it had fought
against (alongside Italy) just four years earlier. Although Prussian prime minister
Otto von Bismarck was no friend of the papacy, he knew any war that put Prussia
and the Holy See in opposing alliances would almost certainly have upset the
delicate pan-German coalition, and with it his own carefully laid-out plans for
Portrait of Napoleon III(1808–1873),
national unification. For both Prussia and Italy, any misstep that caused the breakup Franz Xaver Winterhalter
of the pan-German coalition brought with it the risk of Austro-Hungarian
intervention in a wider European conflict.

Above all else, Bismarck made every diplomatic effort to keep Prussia's conflicts of
the 1860s and 1870s localized and prevent them from spiraling out of control into a
general European war. Therefore, not only was Prussia unable to offer any sort of
alliance with Italy against France, but actually had to make diplomatic efforts to
maintain Italian neutrality and keep the peace on the Italian peninsula, at least until
the potential of a conflict there becoming intertwined with her own war with France
had passed. Moreover, the French Army was still regarded as the strongest in Europe
- and until events elsewhere took their course, the Italians were unwilling to provoke
Napoleon.

It was only after the surrender of Napoleon and his army at the Battle of Sedan the
situation changed radically. The French Emperor was deposed and forced into exile.
The best French units had been captured by the Germans, who quickly followed up
their success at Sedan bymarching on Paris. Faced with a pressing need to defend its
capital with its remaining forces, the new French government was clearly not in a
military position to retaliate against Italy. In any event, the new government was far
less sympathetic to the Holy See and did not possess the political will to protect the Pope Pius IX.
Pope's position.

Finally, with the French government on a more democratic footing and the seemingly harsh German peace terms becoming public
knowledge, Italian public opinion shifted sharply away from the German side in favour of France. With that development, the
prospect of a conflict on the Italian peninsula provoking foreign intervention all but vanished.

Peaceful overture to Pius IX

King Victor Emmanuel II sent Conte Gustavo Ponza di San Martino to Pius IX with a personal letter offering a face-saving proposal
that would have allowed the peaceful entry of the Italian Army into Rome, under the guise of protecting the pope. Along with the
letter, the count carried a document that Lanza had prepared, setting out ten articles to serve as the basis for an agreement between
Italy and the Holy See.
The Pope would retain the inviolability and prerogatives attaching to him as a sovereign. The Leonine City would remain "under the
full jurisdiction and sovereignty of the Pontiff". The Italian state would guarantee the pope's freedom to communicate with the
Catholic world, as well as diplomatic immunity both for the nuncios and envoys in foreign lands and for the foreign diplomats at the
Holy See. The government would supply a permanent annual fund for the pope and the cardinals, equal to the amount currently
assigned to them by the budget of the pontifical state, and would assume all papal civil servants and soldiers onto the state payroll,
with full pensions as long as they were Italian.[2]

According to Raffaele De Cesare:

The Pope’s reception of San Martino [10 September 1870] was unfriendly. Pius IX allowed violent outbursts to
escape him. Throwing the King’s letter upon the table he exclaimed, "Fine loyalty! You are all a set of vipers, of
whited sepulchres, and wanting in faith." He was perhaps alluding to other letters received from the King. After,
growing calmer, he exclaimed: "I am no prophet, nor son of a prophet,[3] but I tell you, you will never enter Rome!"
.[4]
San Martino was so mortified that he left the next day

Pius IX flees Rome

Several times during his pontificate, Pius IX considered leaving Rome. Early in his
papacy, secretive citizen organizations sprung up across Rome (such as the "Circolo
Romano" under the direction of Ciceruacchio) and advocated for the establishment
of a popularly elected constitutional Italian government, the entire removal of the
ministry from positions of temporal governmental authority, and for the immediate
declaration of war against Austria for maintaining its foreign military occupation
force in Italy.
On 15 November 1848 the Swiss
On February 8, 1848, large, organized street riots against the temporal rule by the Guards were disarmed, briefly
Papal States began, and by March 14, 1848, Pius IX found himself obliged to making Pius IX a self-imposed
acknowledge an independent Italian constitution, but in his later allocution of April prisoner within the Quirinal.
29, Pius IX solemnly proclaimed that, as the "Father of Christendom", he could
never advocate for an Italian military campaign against the Austrian occupation of
Italy.

As the frequency of popular protests against the Papal States increased across the
Italian peninsula, and Pius IX was forcefully denounced as a traitor to Italy, his
prime minister Pellegrino Rossi was stabbed to death while ascending the steps of
the Palazzo della Cancelleria. On the following day, the pope himself was besieged
by a large crowd of outraged protesters assembling at the Quirinal Palace. Palma, a
papal prelate, who was standing at a window, was shot, and Pius IX then decided to Pius IX lived in exile at the Castle of
flee Rome and concede his temporal rule to an Italian constitutional republic. Gaeta from 1848 to 1850.
Succeeding pontiffs have lived in the
With the assistance of Bavarian ambassador Count Spaur and French ambassador more secure Vatican apartments.
Duc d'Harcourt, Pope Pius IX escaped from the Quirinal Palace on November 24,
1848 in disguise (differing accounts had Pius IX dressed as a simple priest wearing
tinted eyeglasses, a carriage footman, or as a woman) and hastily fled to Gaeta where he was joined by many of the cardinals. On
February 9, 1849, democratic revolutionaries of the new Italian republic seized Rome and abolished the temporal power of the
papacy. Pope Pius IX later appealed to the Catholic leaders of France, Austria, Spain, and Naples to restore the Papal States and on
June 29, 1849, French troops under General Charles Oudinot restored the Papal States. On 12 April 1850, Pius IX returned to Rome,
no longer a political liberal supporting constitutional republics.
A later occurrence was in 1862, when Giuseppe Garibaldi was in Sicily gathering
volunteers for a campaign to take Rome under the slogan Roma o Morte (Rome or
Death). On 26 July 1862, before Garibaldi and his volunteers were stopped by Royal
Italian Army on The Day of Aspromont:

Pius IX confided his fears to Lord Odo Russell, the British Minister
in Rome, and asked whether he would be granted political asylum in
England after the Italian troops had marched in. Odo Russell assured
him that he would be granted asylum if the need arose, but said that
he was sure that the Pope's fears were unfounded.[5]

Two other instances occurred after the Capture of Rome and the suspension of the
First Vatican Council. These were confided byOtto von Bismarck to Moritz Busch:

As a matter of fact, he [Pius IX] has already asked whether we could

grant him asylum. I have no objection to it—Cologne or Fulda. It
would be passing strange, but after all not so inexplicable, and it
Giuseppe Garibaldi, 1861.
would be very useful to us to be recognised by Catholics as what we
really are, that is to say, the sole power now existing that is capable
of protecting the head of their Church. [...] But the King [William I]
will not consent. He is terribly afraid. He thinks all Prussia would be
perverted and he himself would be obliged to become a Catholic. I
told him, however, that if the Pope begged for asylum he could not
refuse it. He would have to grant it as ruler of ten million Catholic
subjects who would desire to see the head of their Church
protected.[6]

Rumours have already been circulated on various occasions to the effect that the Pope intends to leave Rome.
According to the latest of these the Council, which was adjourned in the summer, will be reopened at another place,
some persons mentioning Malta and others Trient. [... ] Doubtless the main object of this gathering will be to elicit
from the assembled fathers a strong declaration in favour of the necessity of the Temporal Power. Obviously a
secondary object of this Parliament of Bishops, convoked away from Rome, would be to demonstrate to Europe that
the Vatican does not enjoy the necessary liberty, although the Act of Guarantee proves that the Italian Government, in
its desire for reconciliation and its readiness to meet the wishes of the Curia, has actually done everything that lies in
its power.[7]

Rome captured by Raffaele Cadorna

The Italian army, commanded by General Raffaele Cadorna, crossed the papal frontier on 11 September and advanced toward Rome,
moving slowly in the hope that a peaceful entry could be negotiated. The Papal garrisons had retreated from Orvieto, Viterbo, Alatri,
Frosinone and other strongholds in the Lazio, Pius IX himself being convinced of the inevitability of a surrender.[8] When the Italian
Army approached the Aurelian Walls that defended the city, the papal force was commanded by General Hermann Kanzler, and was
composed of the Swiss Guards and a few "zouaves"—volunteers from France, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, and other countries—
[9]
for a total of 13,157 men against some 50,000 Italians.

The Italian army reached the Aurelian Walls on 19 September and placed Rome under a state of siege. Pius IX decided that the
surrender of the city would be granted only after his troops had put up enough resistance to make it plain that the take-over was not
freely accepted. On 20 September, after a cannonade of three hours had breached the Aurelian Walls at Porta Pia (Breccia di Porta
Pia), the crack Piedmontese infantry corps of Bersaglieri entered Rome. In the event
49 Italian soldiers and 19 Papal Zouaves died. Rome and the region of Lazio were
annexed to the Kingdom of Italy after a plebiscite.

The Leonine City, excluding the Vatican, seat of the Pope, was occupied by Italian
soldiers on September 21. The Italian government had intended to let the Pope keep
the Leonine City, but the Pope would not agree to give up his claims to a broader
territory and claimed that since his army had been disbanded, apart from a few
.[10]
guards, he was unable to ensure public order even in such a small territory

The Via Pia, the road departing from Porta Pia, was rechristened Via XX Settembre
(September 20). Subsequently, in numerous Italian cities the name Venti Settembre
was given to the main road leading to the local Cathedral.

Writer Edmondo De Amicis took part in the capture of Rome as an officer in the
Italian army. General Raffaele Cadorna (Carlo
Ademollo)

"Roman Question": Mussolini's Lateran

Pacts
During the unification of Italy in the mid-19th century, the Papal States resisted
incorporation into the new nation, even as all the other Italian countries, except for
San Marino, joined it; Camillo Cavour's dream of proclaiming the Kingdom of Italy
from the steps of St. Peter's Basilica did not come to pass. The nascent Kingdom of
Italy invaded and occupied Romagna (the eastern portion of the Papal States) in
1860, leaving only Latium in the Pope's domains. Latium, including Rome itself,
was annexed during the capture of Rome. For nearly sixty years, relations between
the Papacy and the Italian government were hostile, and the status of the Pope
became known as the "Roman Question".
Via XX Settembre, Rome.
Negotiations for the settlement of the Roman Question began in 1926 between the
government of Italy and the Holy See, and culminated in the agreements
of the Lateran Pacts, signed—the Treaty says—for King Victor
Emmanuel III of Italy by Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister and Head of
Government, and for Pope Pius XI by Pietro Gasparri, Cardinal
Secretary of State, on February 11, 1929. The agreements were signed in
the Lateran Palace, hence the name by which they are known and ending
with the Lateran Treaty of 1929, where the Holy See renounced its
claims over most of the city of Rome in return for Italy's recognition of
the Vatican State.

On 20 September 2000, an item in the Catholic publication Avvenire

stated:
Territory of Vatican City State, established
che nel 1970, proprio il 20 settembre, Paolo VI inviò a during 1929 by the Lateran Accords
Porta Pia il cardinale vicario, Angelo Dell'Acqua, a
celebrare il significato "provvidenziale" di quella perdita
del potere temporale. Da allora, almeno da allora, è
anche festa cattolica, Porta Pia!
 transl.: that in 1970, precisely on 20 September 1970, Pope Paul VI sent Cardinal Angelo Dell'Acqua, his vicar for
Rome, to Porta Pia to celebrate the "providential" significance of the loss of the temporal power. Since then, at least
since then, Porta Pia has also been a Catholic celebration!

See also
History of Rome
Roman Question
Temporal power (Papal)
Unification of Italy
International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919)

Notes
1. See Timeline of Italian unification.
2. David I. Kertzer. Prisoner of the Vatican: The Popes' Secret Plot To Capture Rome From The New Italian State.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006. p. 45.
3. These words are derived from the BiblicalBook of Amos 7:14 where the Prophet defies the emmissary of the King of
Israel s:Bible, King James, Amos#Chapter 7
4. De Cesare, 1909, p. 444.
5. Jasper Ridley, "Garibaldi", Viking Press, New York (1976) p. 535
6. Moritz Busch Bismarck: Some secret pages of his history, Vol. I, Macmillan (1898) p. 220, entry for 8 November
1870
7. Moritz Busch Bismarck: Some secret pages of his history, Vol. II, Macmillan (1898) pp. 43–44, entry for 3 March
1872
8. Rendina, Enciclopedia di Roma, p. 985
9. De Cesare, 1909, p. 443
10. For the Vatican during the Savoyard Era 1870–1929, see also "prisoner in the Vatican" and the Roman Question.

References
De Cesare, Raffaele. (1909).The Last Days of Papal Rome. London: Archibald Constable & Co.
Rendina, Claudio (2000).Enciclopedia di Roma. Rome: Newton Compton.

External links
Article by Angela Pellicciari(in Italian)
Historical summary at cronologia.leonardo.it(in Italian)
The Papal Zouaves
Papal States and all that : Part 1. Vatican Radio.
Papal States and all that : Part 2. Vatican Radio.

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