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 Security, Conflict and Cooperation
in the Contemporary World

Britain and the

Dictatorships of Argentina
and Chile, 1973-82
Foreign Policy, Corporations
and Social Movements

GRACE LIVINGSTONE
Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the
Contemporary World

Series Editors
Effie G. H. Pedaliu
LSE Ideas
London, UK

John W. Young
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, UK
The Palgrave Macmillan series, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in
the Contemporary World aims to make a significant contribution to
academic and policy debates on cooperation, conflict and security since
1900. It evolved from the series Global Conflict and Security edited by
Professor Saki Ruth Dockrill. The current series welcomes proposals that
offer innovative historical perspectives, based on archival evidence and
promoting an empirical understanding of economic and political coop-
eration, conflict and security, peace-making, diplomacy, humanitarian
intervention, nation-building, intelligence, terrorism, the influence of
ideology and religion on international relations, as well as the work of
international organisations and non-governmental organisations.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14489
 Grace Livingstone

Britain and the

Dictatorships of
Argentina and Chile,
1973–82
Foreign Policy, Corporations
and Social Movements
Grace Livingstone
Centre of Latin American Studies
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK

Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World

ISBN 978-3-319-78291-1 ISBN 978-3-319-78292-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78292-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018936594

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
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“The book is constructed by pioneering research of outstanding quality. It places
British foreign policy of the 1970s in a quite new and questionable light.”
—David Rock, Emeritus Professor of History, University of California, USA,
author of Argentina 1516–1987: From Spanish Colonization to Alfonsin

“Grace Livingstone provides a brilliantly original analysis of UK-Latin American

relations prior to the Falklands conflict. Her investigations into recently released
archives yield many important insights into the often murky fields of arms sales,
the politics of oil, and violations of human rights. Livingstone also develops orig-
inal and illuminating theoretical perspectives on her subject. Scholarly, compel-
ling and intellectually sophisticated, this book is outstanding.”
—John Dumbrell, Emeritus Professor of Government, Durham University, UK

“Meticulously researched, well-written and very convincing, this book is an

authoritative account of the making of British foreign policy towards the mil-
itary regimes of Argentina and Chile. It is an indispensable study of how both
Conservative and Labour governments tried to balance the competing forces
attempting to influence the policy-making process. I cannot recommend it too
highly.”
—Alan Angell, Emeritus Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford, UK

“In this major new study, Grace Livingstone contrasts the way in which British
Governments treated the military dictatorships in Chile and Argentina during the
1970s and 1980s, examining the conflicts between ministers and officials, and
the role of public opinion. It is an absorbing read which illuminates some dark
corners of British foreign policy.”
—Andrew Gamble, Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield, UK

“This is an exhaustive exploration of British National Archives covering

Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973 and the Argentine coup of 1976 leading to the
South Atlantic conflict in 1982. The resulting book provides a detailed analysis
of British foreign policy-making towards Chile and Argentina in the Cold War
years. The focus is on the diverging and contrasting attitudes of both Labour and
Conservative governments when dealing with Chile and Argentina. All in all, this
book is a must read for those interested in international relations, in the making
of British foreign policy, and in understanding the context that led to the 1982
conflict.”
—Celia Szusterman, The Institute for Statecraft, UK

“Grace Livingstone’s work marks an important contribution to the study of

British policy toward Latin America. Examining the informal networks of a wide
range of actors, from civil servants and politicians to business leaders and interest
groups, it demonstrates how the social class of officials influenced the policymak-
ing process.”
—Aaron Donaghy, EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow,
Harvard University, USA

“Grace Livingstone’s meticulous and detailed work to unearth and document the
execrable position of the FCO, its desk officers, section heads and embassy staff,
is wonderful. This book takes us behind the scenes to see how Foreign Office
ambassadors and civil service respond to and seek to mould the policies of gov-
ernments—nowhere more so than in their response to the 1973 military coup
in Chile. Conservatives wanted business as usual, Labour wanted an ethical for-
eign policy. Human rights campaigners wanted something stronger. Here, in tel-
egrams and briefing memos, you can see how it all played out. Grace Livingstone
has added a vital and previously missing component to our understanding of the
period.”
—Mike Gatehouse, former joint-secretary of the Chile Solidarity Campaign
 Contents

1 Introduction: Making Friends With the Junta 1

2 Chile 1973–1982 35

3 Welcoming Pinochet’s Coup (1973–1974) 45

4 Ethical Foreign Policy? Labour Versus the Foreign

Office (1974–1979) 57

5 Tea with a Dictator: Mrs. Thatcher

and the General (1979–1982) 85

6 Chile Conclusion 115

7 Argentina 1976–2 April 1982 121

8 Business as Usual: Arming the Junta (1976–1979) 129

9 Oil, the Islands and the Falklands Lobby (1976–1979) 161

10 Befriending ‘Common or Garden’ Dictators

(1979 to 2 April 1982) 181

vii
viii    Contents

11 Antarctica, Oil and Leaseback: Britain’s Strategic

Interests in the Falklands (1979 to 2 April 1982) 205

12 Conclusion 233

Appendix A 241

Appendix B 243

Appendix C 249

Bibliography 253

Index 271
 List of Tables

Table 9.1 Anglo-Argentine negotiations on the Falkland Islands

1966–1982 163
Table 9.2 British oil exploration around the Falkland Islands
since 1982 170
Table 10.1 British interests in Argentina in 1981 according to the FCO 184
Table 10.2 British arms sales to Argentina 1967–1982 195
Table 10.3 Major defence items agreed by British ministers for sale
to Argentina 1980–1982 which were either not bought
by that country or were not delivered 196
Table 11.1 Anglo-Argentine talks on the Falkland Islands 1979–1982 207
Table 11.2 The Falkland Islanders and British citizenship 225

ix
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Making Friends

With the Junta

While researching this book I interviewed a former minister in the

Thatcher government. As we sat in his private members club, sipping tea
and balancing biscuits on delicate china saucers, he told me that British
ministers had given little thought to the human rights abuses being com-
mitted by the Argentine dictatorship in the years before the Falklands
war. It was the Cold War he reminded me. I was surprised and impressed
by his frankness, but when I wrote to him afterwards asking for permis-
sion to cite his exact words, he refused and instead supplied me with an
anodyne quote which bore little relation to his previous remarks.
Interviewees can be unreliable sources for historians. It is hard for
anyone to remember accurately events from decades before. Politicians,
especially, can be prone to embellish or omit facts to ensure that they are
remembered in the best possible light. But after a war, the temptation
to embroider or erase is particularly great. It is therefore vital that we go
back to the contemporary records to find out what government ministers
and officials actually said at the time.
Using the newly-opened British government papers at the National
Archives, this book looks at Britain’s relations with the Argentine dicta-
torship that came to power in 1976. It not only gives the most complete
picture of British arms sales to the regime, providing evidence that minis-
ters violated their own guidelines on human rights, but also outlines the
political and military links between Britain and the junta. Neither Labour
nor Conservative governments imposed any sanctions on the Argentine

© The Author(s) 2018 1

G. Livingstone, Britain and the Dictatorships of Argentina and Chile,
1973–82, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78292-8_1
2 G. LIVINGSTONE

military government before the invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982.

Both governments promoted trade and sold military hardware that was
later used against British forces.
In contrast, the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James
Callaghan (1974–1979) imposed a series of measures against the regime
of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile that represented an early example
of an ‘ethical’ foreign policy—an arms embargo, a refugee programme,
the cutting of export credits and the withdrawal of the British ambas-
sador. These measures were overturned when Margaret Thatcher’s
Conservative government came to power in 1979. While the British
labour movement barely noticed the coup in Argentina in 1976, it had
been horrified when Hawker Hunter planes bombed the Chilean pres-
idential palace on 11 September 1973. Thirty years later, the Chilean
coup still aroused passionate divisions among British politicians.
Speaking to the Labour Party conference in 1999, Tony Blair confessed
that he found General Pinochet ‘unspeakable’, while Peter Mandelson,
an architect of New Labour, which sought to eradicate naïve leftism
from the party’s ideology, declared that it would be ‘gut-wrenching’ if
the former Chilean dictator evaded extradition to Spain.1 Former Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher and her ex-chancellor Norman Lamont,
meanwhile, spoke out in defence of Pinochet as a ‘friend of Britain’.
The opening of the archives has also made it possible to investigate
whether the British government had economic or strategic reasons for
retaining sovereignty over the Falkland Islands—a longstanding debate
between Argentine and British academics and politicians. While the doc-
umentary record suggests that fear of a domestic political outcry over
‘selling-out’ the Islanders was the primary reason British politicians failed
to reach a sovereignty deal with Argentina in this period, the evidence
presented here shows that the British government and British oil com-
panies were very interested in exploiting the oil in the waters around
the Islands and that whenever cabinet ministers discussed the Falklands
dispute, securing Britain’s access to the hydrocarbon and other marine
resources was part of the calculations. This book also presents exclusive
evidence that, during the Falklands War, ministers feared that losing the
Islands could set a precedent for Britain’s territorial claim in Antarctica.
But this is not a history of the Falklands dispute, nor is it simply
an account of Britain’s relations with two South American dictator-
ships; it is an investigation into the making of foreign policy. Taking an
inter-disciplinary approach, it assesses the factors that influence pol-
icy-makers and considers the role of private companies and banks,
 1 INTRODUCTION: MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE JUNTA 3

politicians and party ideology, and the media. It gauges the extent to
which human right groups, solidarity campaigns and other social move-
ments can have an impact on policy.
The attitudes of British diplomats and officials are also looked
at closely. British diplomats welcomed the coups in both Chile and
Argentina and sought to dissuade Labour ministers from taking any
type of sanction against the military regimes. In this Cold War period,
they were profoundly suspicious of radicalism both at home and abroad.
British business leaders shared these attitudes and were critical of any
policies that might ‘sour the atmosphere’ for those who wished to
invest or trade with these dictatorships. This book examines the nar-
row social background of British officials and traces the informal social
networks between diplomats, officials, business leaders, and other influ-
ential figures such as newspaper editors, peers and Conservative poli­
ticians. It argues that theoretical approaches to foreign policy-making
should not ignore the social class of state officials nor the social context
in which they operate. Similarly, when analysing how social movements
can influence policy, it is important to consider the existing biases of
policy-makers and their informal links to the private sector or other
influential societal groups.
One of the central themes of this work is the extent to which elected
politicians have the freedom to implement policy and how far they are
constrained by external factors: the agency-structure debate. One of
the main divisions among international relations theorists is between
those who focus on relationships between states and those who think
it important to look at how decisions are made within states. Informed
by foreign policy analysts who seek to ‘open the black box’ of the deci-
sion-making process, this study looks closely at how policy is made.2
While acknowledging that policy-makers may be constrained by systemic
factors, it accepts that there is, in Christopher Hill’s words, a ‘decisional
space’ in which politicians can choose between different policy options
or, as Gaskarth has put it: ‘The British government retains the capacity
to make political choices and these decisions have important effects.’3 It
accepts too, as Carlsnaes notes, that neither the individual (the national
politician) nor the structure (the international area) is an immutable sep-
arate entity: each continually influences and shapes the other.4 The book
is based on the premise that the state remains a legitimate focus of study
for understanding international relations, despite the growth of transna-
tional organisations, such as multinational corporations or international
4 G. LIVINGSTONE

non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Certainly, during the period

under study—the 1970s and 1980s—and to a large extent today, nation
states retain a capacity to shape the rules of the international game,
formu­lating policies on key areas such as trade, tax and immigration.5
A politician may have the freedom to make foreign-policy choices
within the constraints of international circumstances, but there is another
aspect of the agency-structure debate that is looked at more closely in
these pages and that is the extent to which a politician is able to pursue
his or her chosen policies in the face of bureaucratic opposition from the
civil service. Or to put it another way, it asks who makes policy: the dem-
ocratically-elected politician or the appointed official? David Vital, for
example, once suggested that the very excellence of the Foreign Office
bureaucratic machine, its efficiency and its competence, made its influ-
ence so formidable that the role of any Cabinet or Foreign Secretary
could become marginal.6 The question has been of particular interest to
the left wing of the Labour party which, from Harold Laski and Stafford
Cripps in the 1930s to Richard Crossman and Tony Benn in the 1960s
and 1970s, has long held the suspicion that a conservative civil service
will seek to undermine left-wing governments.7 Crossman’s diaries were
one of the sources of the BBC TV comedy Yes Minister, which portrayed
Machiavellian civil servants as the real power behind the throne.
Foreign Office documents show that Foreign and Commonwealth
Office (FCO) officials welcomed the overthrow of the socialist presi-
dent of Chile, Salvador Allende, and were critical of British activists and
Labour politicians who campaigned against the coup. Thus, the election
of a Labour government determined to take radical measures against the
Pinochet regime provides an opportunity to examine the power of the
elected politician versus the bureaucrat. The governments of Edward
Heath and Margaret Thatcher shared with the Foreign Office a similar
attitude towards the Pinochet regime, so there was little debate or antag-
onism between politicians and officials on policy towards Chile and there
is therefore little scope to examine the power of the politician against the
bureaucratic machine during those Conservative administrations.
In the case of Argentina, Labour did not seek to introduce tough
sanctions against the junta, so once again there was less conflict in the
policy-making process, although whenever Labour politicians did
consider taking measures on human rights, the Foreign Office advo-
cated moderation, warning of the risks to commercial and polit-
ical relations. The politician versus bureaucrat debate does arise in the
 1 INTRODUCTION: MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE JUNTA 5

context of Argentina, however, as some British politicians and histo-

rians have accused the Foreign Office of pursuing, in an underhand
manner, policies that were aimed at transferring the sovereignty of the
Falkland Islands to Argentina, against the wishes of both Labour and
Conservative governments. This claim is explored and judged to be
unfounded.
One of the central propositions of this book is that the attitudes of
British diplomats and state officials reflected, at least in part, their
social class: their upbringing, education, their socio-economic and cul-
tural status, and the social circles in which they moved. Theorists of
Foreign Policy Analysis—the sub-set of international relations which
has looked most closely at the decision-making process—have consid-
ered many attributes that might affect the decisions of policy-makers,
including their psychology, their belief systems and the political culture
in which they operate. Much useful work has been done on the func-
tioning of bureaucracies, their structures, inter-departmental rivalries and
the nuances of group dynamics.8 But social class is a factor that has been
overlooked.9
The ‘critical’ approach to foreign policy-making proposed by Dunne,
Hadfield and Smith, which emphasises the need to look at both agency
and structure, and advocates a theoretically-informed reading of the pri-
mary sources, could allow for the class background and informal social
networks of state officials to be considered; however the case studies in
their collection have not done so.10
There is a neo-Gramscian critique of international relations, follow-
ing the work of Robert Cox, which introduces the idea of class and class
conflict into the field of international relations; however, this work has
been largely theoretical, rather than empirically or historically based,
and it focuses on the international level rather than the national deci-
sion-making process.11 Marxist-inspired dependency theorists, mean-
while, did seek to study class formation in both the metropolis and the
periphery, but the state and decision-making were not their main focus
of study.12 If it is accepted, however, that national governments have
the power to shape the framework within which countries interact and
within which private companies operate, then the study of the deci-
sion-making process is a crucial question for those interested in power
and social class. And by taking account of the social context in which
these decisions are made, we can begin to identify the individuals or soci-
etal groups which have most influence on policy—accepting, of course,
6 G. LIVINGSTONE

that these state-societal relations will vary in different historical periods

and from country to country.
The Foreign Office has long drawn its recruits from a narrow stra-
tum of society. Originally recruited from the aristocracy, by the end of
the nineteenth century, officials were increasingly being drawn from the
class which Cain and Hopkins have described as ‘gentlemanly capital-
ists’, consisting of landowners and rich professionals from the fields of
finance, law or other services who had re-invested in land and through
their wealth, inter-marriage and public-school education had been ele-
vated into the social elite.13 This southern-centred elite, which dom-
inated the ancient universities, the civil service, the armed forces, the
church, the City and the major professions, was socially separate from,
and may have looked down upon, the manufacturing magnates of the
great northern cities such as Manchester and Liverpool. However, after
the Second World War, the financial and industrial elites became more
socially intertwined, as the City became more involved in financing large
scale industry, as corporations became more important wealth creators
than individuals, as productive manufacturing businesses came under the
control of banks, and as industrialists themselves invested in land and
adopted the lifestyle of the ‘gentlemanly capitalists’.14 One illustration of
this social transformation is the change in careers of Oxford graduates: in
1917 no graduate went into industry or commerce (all were employed
in education or public service), whereas by 1958, as many as 50% found
employment within industrial or commercial firms.15
Labour party intellectual Harold Laski memorably described the
Foreign Office in the 1930s as a ‘nest of public school singing birds’,
and throughout the twentieth century, the proportion of recruits who
attended fee-paying schools remained high, despite the reforms fol-
lowing the Fulton Report of 1968, which aimed to make it easier for
people from humbler backgrounds to reach top jobs in the diplomatic
service.16 In the period 1950–1954, 83% of recruits to the Foreign
Office had attended private school. Ten years later, the proportion had
fallen to 68%; but the figure for the top-ranking posts was higher: more
than 80% of ambassadors and senior FCO officials in 1961 had attended
fee-paying schools (and these public-school educated ambassadors took
all the most prestigious postings, such as Paris, Berlin and New York).17
Even by 1993, 66% of the fast-track entrants to the FCO—those des-
tined for the top posts—had attended public school.18 They were also
overwhelmingly male: in 1991, only 3.4% of the top grades in the
 1 INTRODUCTION: MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE JUNTA 7

FCO were women, which added to the clubbish nature of the Foreign
Office.19 A survey conducted for this book of diplomats dealing with
policy towards Argentina and Chile in the 1970s and 1980s found that
more than 75% had attended fee-paying schools.20 Most Foreign Office
officials were also graduates of Oxford or Cambridge; in 1966, 84% of
successful applicants for the diplomatic service came from these two uni-
versities; by 1989, this had fallen only slightly to 73%.21 When a senior
diplomat claimed in 1977 that recruitment to the Diplomatic Service was
wide open, Labour MP Neville Sandelson retorted: ‘Like the Ritz’.22
While few deny that FCO officials are recruited from a narrow social
base, Theakston and others have argued that it is hard to draw a straight-
forward connection between diplomats’ class backgrounds and their
views.23 Certainly, a number of caveats need to be made. Working class
Jim Callaghan got on better with FCO officials than the young mid-
dle-class upstart David Owen, although Callaghan did make sure he
distributed Labour Party manifestos to FCO staff on becoming Foreign
Secretary.24 Similarly trade unionist Ernest Bevin—who liked to boast
that he was educated ‘in the hedgerows of experience’—was well-re-
spected, even loved, by the FCO, while aristocrat Tony Benn was always
highly suspicious of the civil service.25 So clearly social class—particularly
that of a single individual—cannot be the only indicator of a person’s
views and cannot be the only indicator worth evaluating.
There was also a range of views among FCO officials, although this
remained within a narrow spectrum from conservative to conservatively
moderate and all new recruits imbibed the ethos of gentlemanly capital-
ism that permeated the institution. But, the Foreign Office always kept
a certain autonomy; diplomats prided themselves on seeing the ‘overall
picture’ and certainly did not act as the ‘arm’ of the business-­owning
class. In fact, other government departments, such as the Ministry of
Defence sales section, had a much closer relationship with the private
sector, sometimes acting as virtual lobbyists for arms companies and
chafing against any restrictions on sales opportunities. The Departments
of Energy and Trade also had close links with the oil and manufacturing
companies. To some extent, the FCO saw itself as an arbitrator between
departments and these bureaucratic rivalries—or differences of institu-
tional perspective—are explored throughout the work.
It should also be emphasised that Foreign Office attitudes evolved
during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as the social composition
of recruits changed. Otte, who accepts that the mindset of officials did
8 G. LIVINGSTONE

reflect their social class and, in particular, their public-school education,

concluded in his study of the nineteenth-century: ‘Foreign Office Mind’
that it was elitist, non-intellectual, had a strong code of honour and a
belief in public service. While it understood that security underpinned
Britain’s status in the world, it concentrated on political aspects of policy
and did not narrowly reflect the financial or commercial interests of the
class from which it came.26 Jones too emphasises the nineteenth-century
British diplomat’s reluctance to become a direct advocate of British mer-
chants and bankers in Argentina.27 The Foreign Office ‘mind’ may have
changed again in the late twentieth century as the recruitment base wid-
ened and Britain’s manufacturing sector shrank. But this study suggests
that in the decades following the Second World War, the Foreign Office
shared the business community’s outlook that trade and investment
should be promoted regardless of the nature of the recipient regime, and
shows that many diplomats—and businessmen—thought military gov-
ernments were beneficial for British business because they brought sta-
bility. Did this view reflect the class outlook of diplomats? A number of
objections may be made. Firstly, most of the population shared the view
that promoting British exports was in the national interest; it was the
hegemonic view, and certainly Labour ministers—particularly the min-
isters for employment, trade and industry—argued vigorously for trade
with the Argentine military regime. Another objection is that it was the
job of the Foreign Office to promote trade. At least since the nineteenth
century, one of the aims of British foreign policy had been to ensure
security for British trading interests. It was a short step from protec-
tion to promotion and the Committee on Overseas Representation (the
Duncan Committee) in 1969 specifically urged diplomats to promote
British business abroad, leading to complaints that ambassadors were to
become little more than ‘travelling salesmen’.28 In this post-war period,
it was a central objective of successive British governments to avoid bal-
ance of payments deficits and the dangers to sterling that these could
bring. Securing contracts to protect British manufacturing jobs was also
an important concern.
In the case of Chile, however, when a class-conscious trade union
movement at the height of its militancy in the 1970s, backed by Labour
politicians, demanded action against the Pinochet regime, there was a
clear difference between the outlook of Foreign Office officials and the
labour movement, and this may be attributed to differing class outlooks.
The Foreign Office favoured stability over radicalism, criticising the
 1 INTRODUCTION: MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE JUNTA 9

chaos under Allende and predicting that the Pinochet regime would be
better for British business. The FCO was staunchly anti-Communist in
this Cold War period; many officials were critical of human rights cam-
paigners and Chile Solidarity activists, suspecting that they had underly-
ing ‘political’ motives, by which they meant left-wing or pro-Communist
objectives. The Foreign Office believed that Britain’s commercial inter-
ests should be put above ethical considerations and were against end-
ing arms sales, cutting export credits and withdrawing the British
ambassador.
There was less of a clash of views between the labour movement
and Whitehall in the case of Argentina, because the left had not taken
up Argentina as a cause in the same way. The Labour Party regarded
Peronism as akin to fascism and did not mourn the overthrow of the cor-
rupt and repressive government presided over by Juan Perón’s widow.
Chile, on the other hand, was viewed as a clear-cut case of a democrati-
cally-elected socialist being ousted by a fascist dictator. Nevertheless, the
pro-business attitude of the Foreign Office can be seen in its consistent
advocacy of closer commercial ties with the Argentina junta, despite the
growing awareness of the gross human rights abuses being perpetrated
by the regime. Indeed, in the absence of a strong lobby, the de facto
policy of the Foreign Office towards all the military regimes of South
America, including Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, was to
impose no sanctions and to continue to promote trade, including arms
sales. Britain had a particularly strong relationship with the military
regime of Brazil, inviting dictator General Ernesto Geisel on a state visit
in 1976 and providing the Brazilian armed forces with British military
training manuals.29
Henry Fairlie, the Spectator journalist who coined the phrase ‘the
Establishment’ wrote: ‘By its traditions and its methods of recruitment
the Foreign Office makes it inevitable that the members of the Foreign
Service will be men…who “know all the right people”.’30 Using pri-
mary sources, this study traces the informal social networks between
Foreign Office officials and business leaders, financial executives, news-
paper editors and some Conservative politicians. They were often mem-
bers of the same private clubs—such as the Athenaeum in Pall Mall or
the Carlton in St. James’s Street—and they attended the same seminars,
lunches and drinks parties in Belgravia. Business executives had numer-
ous informal channels of access to the Foreign Office; officials regu-
larly reported conversations with representatives of—for example BP,
10 G. LIVINGSTONE

Rothschild or GEC—whom they had met at a function or had spoken

to on the phone. This elite often shared a common social and educa-
tional background, having attended the same universities and fee-paying
schools, and bought property in similarly wealthy parts of cities or afflu-
ent villages. They often had common cultural interests, reading the same
newspapers or following the same sports, such as horse racing or cricket.
These repeated informal and semi-formal encounters therefore had a
dual role, reinforcing existing social and political affinities, as well as giv-
ing private sector representatives direct access to policy-makers.
Ambassadors and embassy staff in Chile and Argentina socialised in
an even more tightly-knit social milieu, comprising the British business
community, many of whom were virulently right wing and in favour of
military rule, along with upper-class Argentines and Chileans, including
military officers. Embassy functions, drinks funded by private companies,
polo matches, dinner parties, as well as the more formal tasks of host-
ing trade missions or meeting Argentine or Chilean government officials,
were all part of the British diplomat’s life in South America. The com-
mon upbringing and education, socio-economic status and social con-
nections, may not have been the only factors determining the views of
Foreign Office officials, but there is a strong case for arguing they con-
tributed to the convergence of views between the Foreign Office and
Britain’s financial and commercial elites. Certainly, the Foreign Office,
as an institution, articulated a conception of the ‘national interest’ which
reflected the interests of the dominant industrial, financial, professional
and landed groups of post-war Britain.
The term elite has been used loosely in this work to describe individ-
uals who hold economic or political power, including the executives of
large private companies and financial institutions, people who hold great
personal wealth or land, government ministers, influential back-benchers,
peers, the monarchy, editors of influential broadsheets, magazines and
broadcasting companies, and those populating the higher ranks of the
civil and foreign service, the military, the judiciary and the Church of
England. The language of elites sits uneasily with that of class, the two
coming from distinct intellectual traditions. Certainly, elite is not used
here with any of the normative connotations of the early elite theorists,
Mosca and Pareto, who saw elitism as both inevitable and necessary in
all societies.31 But viewing the elite as the people within a class who are
most active in public life, or who act on behalf of powerful economic
sectors, is not necessarily incompatible with a class-based analysis.32
 1 INTRODUCTION: MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE JUNTA 11

It is not suggested here that members of the elite coordinated

their actions in a conspiratorial way, rather that the elite shared an
anti-­egalitarian, pro-business outlook in this post-war period, which in
foreign-policy terms translated into the promotion of British manufac-
turing and financial interests abroad.
However a simple binary opposition between the class outlook of
the labour movement and that of the pro-business elite—while use-
ful to describe differing perspectives on the Pinochet regime—has not
been found adequate to describe the political debates on the Falkland
Islands during the 1970s and 1980s, not least because the trade union
movement and the Labour Left had no coherent position on the sov-
ereignty dispute. Political divisions on the Falklands, particularly during
the Thatcher years, are best ascribed to splits within the elite and these
are analysed in the final chapter of this book.

Social Movements and Policy-Making

This study also looks at the circumstances in which non-­parliamentary
campaigning groups can be successful. It explores why the Chile
Solidarity Campaign had a much wider appeal than the groups lobby-
ing for human rights in Argentina. It also considers the impact of the
Falkland Islands Committee, an organisation that campaigned for the
rights of Falkland Islanders. The two political science approaches that
look most closely at how social movements can influence policy-making
are political process theory, which uses the concept of ‘political oppor-
tunity structures’, and the veto-player/gate-keeper approach, which is
derived from game theory.33 The merit of these approaches is that they
examine the nature of the governing structures and do not just consider
the characteristics of the campaigning organisations. In Guigni’s terms,
both the ‘external’ and ‘internal’ are considered.34 While there are a
number of factors which help determine the success of a social move-
ment, including the clarity of its message, the breadth of its appeal and
its tactics and strategies, it is arguably crucial for a lobbying organisation
to have some sort of leverage over key policy-makers (or ‘gate-keepers’).
So, for example, the Chile Solidarity Campaign successfully persuaded
the Labour government to impose sanctions on the Pinochet dictator-
ship because it not only had the support of sympathetic ministers, but
also had institutional links to the government through both the party
and the trade unions. Its leverage was particularly strong because Labour
12 G. LIVINGSTONE

held only a small majority, then a minority, of seats in parliament. The

Chile campaign had less influence on the Thatcher administration
because it had no supporters in cabinet and no institutional links to the
governing Conservative party, which had a large majority in parliament.
But neither political process theory nor the gate-keeper approach
analyses the social context in which policy is made, so do not consider
the potential biases of state officials stemming from their social class or
their informal social networks. Political process theorists have considered
a range of variables, including the relative repressiveness of a regime, its
openness to new actors and the multiplicity of power centres within in
it.35 Some have adopted a narrower focus on institutional arrangements
and compare features such as: federalism versus centralism, the electoral
system, the relationship between the legislature, executive and judiciary
and availability of referenda.36 But the role of state officials and their
biases has not been considered. The veto-player approach has considered
the role of unelected officials, suggesting that they will have more auton-
omy when there are more key policy-makers (veto-players), because as
the number of veto-players increases, the chain of command becomes
less clear and officials may play ministers off against each other.37 There
is no attempt, however, to discern the preferences or motives of officials;
unsurprisingly because in game theory all actors are divorced from their
social context and are ultimately reducible to quantifiable variables.
The actions of state officials may not always be the factor which
determines whether a social movement is successful. However, over-
looking the social matrix in which officials operate risks underestimat-
ing the resistance to campaigners’ demands from the state machinery
and the subtle ways in which officials try to dissuade ministers from
taking action. In the case of a weak lobby group, such as the Argentina
human rights campaign, the result was that no sanctions were imposed
and business links with the military regime were pursued. Even in the
case of a strong campaign, such as Chile, policy-making was a constant
process of negotiation between FCO officials, who advised caution, and
ministers, who were in turn under pressure from their base. While the
Labour government did succeed in introducing a policy that was radi-
cally different from that of its Conservative predecessors, officials suc-
cessfully persuaded ministers against taking the most extreme measures
demanded by activists such as the breaking of existing arms contracts
with the Pinochet regime. Meanwhile, the Falkland Island Committee,
which had the support of influential figures such as peers, high-ranking
former military officers and business leaders, had enhanced social access
 1 INTRODUCTION: MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE JUNTA 13

to policy-makers; for example its supporters hosted private dinners and

drinks parties for FCO officials and the campaign’s secretary belonged
to the same private club as the head of the FCO’s Falkland Island
Department (see Chapter 5). This informal social nexus, complemented
its more traditional lobbying techniques such as writing to MPs. By tak-
ing an inter-disciplinary approach, using the methods of a social histo-
rian and reading the primary sources critically, this study aims to show
that officials cannot be regarded as neutral players and that their attitudes
and social networks must be taken into account when analysing deci-
sion-making in government.

Informal Empire
‘And so behold! The New World established and if we do not throw it
away, ours’, proclaimed Foreign Secretary George Canning in 1825.38
Britain became the dominant economic power in Latin America in
the nineteenth century until it was superseded by the United States from
1900 onwards. Britain controlled almost a third of Latin America’s trade
in 1870 and, by 1913, 50% of all foreign investment in Latin America
came from Britain.39 Even these figures mask the greater relative eco-
nomic weight Britain had in the Southern Cone economies of Brazil,
Chile and Argentina, where British companies and investors built rail-
ways, held controlling shares in banks and public utilities, had large hold-
ings of government bonds and bought substantial amounts of land. In
Chile, British companies controlled the lucrative nitrate-mining indus-
tries, while in Argentina they dominated the banks, transport industry
and import trade. In both Argentina and Chile, there was often a conver-
gence of interests between the British and Latin American landed elite,
who favoured free trade and welcomed foreign investment. The British
did not create this elite—it was a legacy of Spanish colonialism—but
they did help to strengthen it and ensure that it remained dominant for
longer than might otherwise have been the case.
The British dominance of the economy of Latin America, and in par-
ticular Argentina, has led to a debate about the extent to which Britain
profited at the expense of Latin Americans and distorted Latin America’s
development path. Robinson and Gallagher argued that Argentina was
part of Britain’s ‘informal empire’, exploited economically like a colony
but through informal means.40 Some historians, such as H. S. Ferns,
rejected this argument on the grounds that the relationship was mutu-
ally beneficial to Britain and Argentina.41 But while there may have been
14 G. LIVINGSTONE

a convergence of interests between the Argentine elite and the British

in the nineteenth century, it was clearly an asymmetrical relationship.
British investment in Argentina reached a peak in 1913 of 10% of total
British overseas investment—a not insignificant figure for a country that
was not even a colony—but in Argentina, it had far greater weight, rep-
resenting 60% of all inward investment.42
D.C.M. Platt and others attacked the concept of an ‘informal empire’
on the basis that it was not the British state that was investing or interfer-
ing in Latin America, but British firms. Platt argued that business imperial-
ism should be the focus of study and that the impact of British investments
in each country or sector should be examined to see whether or not they
were detrimental to indigenous interests.43 So Colin Lewis, for exam-
ple, maintained that British investment in the railways was beneficial for
Argentine economic development and that the counterfactual argument
that Argentine development would have been more balanced without the
British could not be proven.44 Charles Jones, on the other hand, argued
that although state imperialism did not exist because the British state did
not encourage or help investors overseas, British banks did ultimately
undermine the authority of the Argentine state.45 A new generation of his-
torians have looked at the cultural impact of British involvement in Latin
America placing greater emphasis on the subjectivity of experiences.46
British influence in Latin America declined in the twentieth century.
In 1870, Latin Americans bought 32% of their imports from British
merchants; by 1950 this had fallen to just 6.5%.47 But the concept of an
‘informal empire’ has some relevance to this study in helping to explain
the disjuncture between the attitudes of Britons and Argentines—for
example, among politicians, journalists and members of the public—
towards the Falklands dispute. While in Argentina, there is a strong his-
torical memory of British ‘imperialism’ among nationalists on the right
and left of the political spectrum, in Britain there is little awareness of
Britain’s ‘imperial’ past in Argentina.
Although the concept of ‘informal empire’ was intended to encom-
pass Britain’s relationship with all of Latin America, the vast majority
of the scholarship has focused on Argentina and there is less work on
Anglo-Chilean relations.48 Perhaps this is unsurprising given that by the
turn of the twentieth century, British trade and investment, which had
been quite evenly distributed between Latin American countries in the
1860s, was overwhelmingly concentrated on Argentina. But as Miller
points out, ‘what looked marginal to the British could be central to a
 1 INTRODUCTION: MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE JUNTA 15

small Latin American country.49 From a Chilean perspective, the British

were the dominant foreign presence in the second half of the nine-
teenth century and remained Chile’s most important trading partner
until 1914. In 1895, 74% of Chilean exports went to Britain and almost
half its imports came from there.50 Despite the potential for anti-impe-
rialist resentment, however, the image of the British imperialist has not
become such a potent hate-figure in modern Chile as it has in Argentina.
This is partly because the ongoing dispute over the Falklands Islands has
been a source of nationalist anger in Argentina throughout the twenti-
eth century. But it also stems from the fact that British economic dom-
inance lasted longer in Argentina than in Chile. It lingered throughout
the 1930s, in large part due to the Roca–Runciman pact which gave
Britain preferential treatment in the Argentine market, whereas in Chile,
British influence was eclipsed by the United States after the First World
War. Chilean progressives therefore directed their ire at ‘Yankee imperi-
alists’ rather than the British in the twentieth century, while the Chilean
elite ‘the English of Latin America’, remembered the Anglo connection
with rose-tinted nostalgia. Pinochet, of course, had a fondness for old
England; during the days before he was arrested in London in 1998,
he had shopped at Burberry, lodged at a Park Lane hotel and dined at
Fortnum and Mason.

Britain and Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s

Latin America was a low priority for Britain after the Second World War.
The Duncan Report of 1969 defined it as an ‘outer area of concentra-
tion’ for policy-makers and Britain recognised that the region was a US
sphere of influence.51 Foreign Office reviews of British policy in Latin
America in 1975, 1978 and 1982 saw British interests as primarily eco-
nomic, combined with the geopolitical desire to keep Latin American
countries on the ‘right side’ during the Cold War. These interests were
identified as:

1. Latin America as a source of raw materials

2. Latin America more visible at the UN and international fora
3. Technological advances of Argentina and Brazil, particularly steps
towards nuclear power
4. Latin America as an export market
5. Latin America as a capital hungry area.52
16 G. LIVINGSTONE

These themes were strikingly similar to those highlighted by Victor

Perowne, the head of the South America Department at the Foreign
Office in his 1945 paper ‘The Importance of Latin America’: (i) Raw
materials; (ii) British investment in Latin America; (iii) Latin America as
an export market; (iv) The significance of Latin America for US strategic
interests; (v) The prospect of Latin American nations emerging with a
distinct identity in the new world order.53
After the Second World War, British politicians and policy-makers fre-
quently lamented Britain’s loss of economic influence in Latin America
and periodically launched export drives, but Britain’s overall share of the
Latin American market continued to fall, until by 1988, it was just 1.2%.54
There was one industry, however, in which Britain secured a significant
share of the Latin American market: the arms industry. During the 1970s,
Britain was the second-largest provider of armaments to South America,
supplying 25% of the total, compared with 29% for the United States, the
market leader.55 It was such a lucrative market that the Foreign Office
came under strong pressure from the Departments of Trade and Industry,
the Ministry of Defence’s sales department and from British companies
to allow arms trading with the military regimes of the Southern Cone,
despite human rights concerns and the potential threat to the Falklands.
British investment in the region, despite suffering an overall decline over
the twentieth century, experienced a mini boom in the 1970s—British net
outward investment flows to Latin America rose from 1.9% of total British
outward investment in 1970 to 8.2% in 1977—and a number of British
banks found themselves dangerously exposed when the Latin American
debt crisis broke in 1982.56 Although investment in Chile fell during the
Allende years, by 1981, Chile and Argentina were among the top three
destinations for British investment and exports within Latin America.57

Latin America, Human Rights

and Solidarity Campaigns

While Latin America was a low priority for British policy-makers in

the post war period, there was a growing public interest in the region.
The Cuban revolution sparked interest in Latin America among British
progressives and Che Guevara became an icon to the student radicals
of 1968. Meanwhile, the Latin American literary ‘boom’ of the 1960s
brought worldwide fame to authors such as Gabriel García Márquez,
Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes. The growing cultural and
 1 INTRODUCTION: MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE JUNTA 17

academic interest was reflected in the Parry Report of 1962, which

assessed the state of Latin American studies in British universities and
led to the creation of five specialist Latin American studies centres in
Oxford (1964), London (1965), Cambridge (1966), Liverpool (1966)
and Glasgow (1967). Academics founded the Society for Latin American
Studies in 1964. The Latin American Newsletter was established in 1967
to provide specialized news to the growing audience, while the quantity
and quality of mainstream media reporting on Latin America increased,
culminating in the 1980s in numerous documentaries on the region, par-
ticularly after the creation of Channel Four.58
British governments in the 1970s and 1980s faced an array of pressure
groups trying to influence policy on Latin America. The Chile solidar-
ity movement was the largest and most successful, encompassing a broad
array of trade unions, political parties, human rights groups, religious
organisations, student groups and refugee organisations. The Argentina
campaign was much smaller, consisting mainly of human rights groups,
individuals with a prior interest in Argentina, and exiles. Revolt and
repression in Central America in the late 1970s and early 1980s led to
the creation of a new generation of solidarity organisations, including
the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign and the El Salvador and Guatemala
Committees for Human Rights. The Latin America Bureau, a publishing
house funded by NGOs, was founded in 1977 to ‘raise public awareness
on social, economic, political and human rights issues in Latin America,
especially in relation to British involvement in the region’. It provided
an alternative nexus of human rights campaigners, progressive academics,
journalists and Labour politicians, which rivalled the traditional institu-
tions for Anglo-Latin interchange such as Canning House, whose mem-
bers tended to be diplomats and notables from the worlds of banking
and commerce.59

Ethical Foreign Policy

The British labour movement had a history of internationalism and had,
in the past, been inspired by international events such as the defence of
the Spanish republic against Franco—a cause to which events in Chile
were often compared. There was also a long tradition of humanitarian
organisations taking up the cause of subjugated peoples overseas. After
the Second World War, however, in most Western countries, the num-
ber of NGOs seeking to influence foreign policy proliferated and they
18 G. LIVINGSTONE

acquired a growing legitimacy among the public, press and politicians.60

The idea that human rights should play a part in foreign policy consid-
erations became more widespread following the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights (1948), the European Convention of Human Rights
(1953) and the creation of rights-based lobbying organisations such as
Amnesty International (1961).
The 1974–1979 Labour governments’ policies towards the Pinochet
regime can be seen as an early attempt at an ‘ethical foreign policy’,
although the term is anachronistic as it did not become common usage
until the announcement in 1997 by British Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook that New Labour’s foreign policy would have an ‘ethical dimen-
sion’. Britain had only imposed peacetime sanctions on a foreign gov-
ernment for ‘ethical’ reasons twice before, and in both of these cases,
the UK had come under strong pressure from the United Nations to
do so. Harold Wilson’s Labour government (1964–1970) applied sanc-
tions on the British colony of Rhodesia in 1965, when Ian Smith uni-
laterally declared independence for a white minority regime, and after
the UN Security Council had urged Britain to take the strongest possi-
ble action. The Wilson government also imposed an arms embargo on
South Africa in 1964, but this followed the UN Security Council’s 1963
call for all states to impose voluntary arms embargoes. Britain’s sanctions
against the Pinochet regime were unilateral and not a result of pressure
from the UN. While campaigners were less successful in persuading the
British government to impose sanctions on Argentina, they neverthe-
less convinced the Labour government in 1979 to introduce guidelines
on weapon sales, which advised against the sale of arms that could be
used for internal repression. Such a formula had only been used once
before (on South Africa in 1961) but became increasingly common in
later years. These measures can be seen as part of a growing trend by
governments, in Britain and internationally, to consider the human rights
impacts of overseas policies.
In the United States, President Jimmy Carter’s (1977–1981) advo-
cacy of human rights as a foreign policy goal transformed the interna-
tional debate and ensured that ethics became part of the rhetoric of
policy-making. Trans-national human rights campaigns on South Africa
and Chile, as well as other Latin American countries, also helped to
ensure that during the 1970s the language of human rights became
an integral part of international politics.61 It is noteworthy that both
Labour foreign secretary David Owen and the Conservative MP Richard
 1 INTRODUCTION: MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE JUNTA 19

Luce (who went on to become a minister in the FCO), published books

on human rights and foreign policy in the 1970s, while Labour MP
Stan Newens initiated a debate in parliament on ‘foreign policy and
morality’.62
During the Cold War, both superpowers used the issue of rights to
discredit the other, which led politicians from opposing sides to distrust
the motives of their opponents; in Britain, for example, Conservative
and Labour attitudes towards the abuses of the Pinochet regime often
divided along Cold War lines. Nevertheless, these international discus-
sions cemented the idea that human rights could be a legitimate ele-
ment of foreign policy.63 Academic work on ethics and foreign policy
has grown dramatically since the 1990s.64 Chandler and Heins date the
rising interest in ethical foreign policy from the end of the Cold War,
suggesting that the collapse of faith in broader explanatory frameworks,
such as Marxism or modernization theory has led to a demand from the
public for ethical action from governments.65
But while the language of ‘ethics’ has become more widespread in
government, the dilemmas of weighing economic, geopolitical and
strategic concerns against human rights issues remain as sharp as ever.
Just as the most contentious aspect of Labour’s 1970s Chile policy
was the decision not to break contracts to supply warships and sub-
marines to the Pinochet regime, so Cook’s ethical policy fell into dis-
array when his government honoured agreements to deliver Hawk jets
to Indonesia, which had invaded the former Portuguese colony of East
Timor in 1975. Similarly, Britain’s prioritising of economic and strate-
gic interests over human rights in its attitude toward the Argentine and
Brazilian dictatorships in the 1970s, has clear echoes in British policy
towards Saudi Arabia or Yemen in recent years. But the new global archi-
tecture of human rights laws and institutions—from the European Court
of Human Rights (1959, sitting permanently from 1998) and the Inter-
American Court of Human Rights (1979) to the UN Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (1993)—as well as the public’s accept-
ance of ethics as a legitimate or even necessary facet of foreign policy,
allows social movements and civil society to apply pressure on govern-
ments at multiple levels in both the domestic and international arenas.
The campaigns on Chile—and to a lesser extent Argentina—were an
important early step in the construction of these new institutional and
conceptual frameworks for global human rights governance.66
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
V’aveva fra le bandiere, ossia tra i corpi delle diverse porte, una
rivalità, una gara di valore nel resistere al comune nemico. La porta
Romana sosteneva la difesa dell’arco romano, già da noi
menzionato, il quale rimaneva fuori della città, e quantunque
danneggiato dal tempo e dai Goti, serviva come un forte, una rocca,
una specie insomma d’opera avanzata a difesa della città, destino
comune nei bassi tempi ai monumenti elevati dai conquistatori del
mondo a solo scopo di grandezza e magnificenza. Ad onta del carico
di sostenersi in sì perigliosa posizione, que’ di porta Romana erano
usciti, ed ai Lodigiani che stavano loro di fronte avevano dato un
duro ricordo delle passate sconfitte; e sarebbe stato assai più
terribile se accorso con numerose lancie il re di Boemia, non fossero
stati costretti gli assalitori a rientrare precipitosamente, perdendo
non pochi dei loro. Uscita era la Vercellina respingendo il duca
d’Austria, uscita contro gli Svevi ed i Pavesi la Ticinese, uscita la
Tosa. Era giunto il momento che uscire doveva la porta Nuova.
Eccettuati gli uomini d’armi che rimanere dovevano costantemente
alla guardia delle mura nel tratto affidato ad essi, tutti gli altri di
quella porta in numero di trecento, eransi adunati nel camerone
dell’armerìa presso la Brera [17], poichè era da quella Pusterla, ossia
porta minore della città, che per riuscire più inaspettati ai nemici
volevano uscire.
Preceduti dal milite avviato a loro, i due frati Umiliati entrarono in
quella vasta sala, o piuttosto ampio androne le cui pareti erano
interamente rivestite di appese armature. Vi ardevano rozze
lampade pendenti dalla vôlta al lume delle quali que’ robusti nostri
antenati vestivano gambieri, schinieri, panciere, corazze, bracciali,
manopole di ferro, e si coprivano il capo con celatoni, cervelliere,
cuffie ferrate, morioni grevi non meno di mortaj di bronzo;
attaccavansi ai fianchi spade smisurate, e impugnavano mazze di
ferro, ascie pesantissime, da mandarne spezzata d’un colpo
un’incudine. Era là dentro rumore pari a quello di un’officina di
ferramenta, poichè quando venivano a contatto que’ guerrieri,
cangiatisi in altrettante statue di ferro, mandavano cupo suono
metallico. Delle faccie di essi non eravene una sola che non
annunziasse intrepidezza, ardire, gagliardía estrema: erano sguardi
truci, tinte brune, lineamenti non usi mai a spianarsi per futili gioje.
Etruschi, Galli, Romani, Goti, Longobardi si erano fusi in una sola
razza, omai indistinguibile; non erano più che Milanesi, ma temprati
nell’aspetto e nei modi all’indole incolta di quel secolo di ferro. Il loro
linguaggio era di già dialetto milanese, come lo provano i nomi delle
persone e delle cose in uso a quel tempo, ma certo non s’aveva
quello schiacciato, quel prolungamento, quell’eco nelle vocali che
ebbe nei secoli susseguenti, onde acquistando un non so che di
troppo molle e lento, fu difetto che dalla pronunzia passò
erroneamente ad essere applicato al carattere personale degli
abitanti, per cui a torto dalle altre popolazioni d’Italia vennero talvolta
qualificati d’inetti e di infingardi. A’ giorni nostri tal nota sfavorevole al
dialetto va sensibilmente scemando; poichè rendesi sempre più
spedito il comune favellare, e odesi trascinare assai di meno che per
l’addietro non si facesse le vocali che formano desinenza alle parole;
sulle labbra poi alle persone delle classi più civili moltissimi vocaboli
vanno conformandosi meglio alla giusta dizione italiana.
Giunti i due Monaci in quell’adunanza di armati, appena furono
scorte le loro bianche tuniche, tutti si composero in silenzio. Si fece
tosto avanti il capo della bandiera, ch’era un compagnone il più
ardente e istizzito che mai vi fosse, nemico dei consoli della città,
nemico acerrimo del Biandrate, nemico insomma di tutti quelli che
comandavano più di lui. Arrogante, avvelenato contro ciascuno,
Caccatossico [18] accoglieva con sogghigno sardonico il racconto
delle imprese altrui, e teneva per fermo che coloro che assediavano
Milano non sarebbero andati sossopra che quando avesse egli fatta
una sortita colla sua bandiera. Era costui grandissimo della persona,
ossuto e magro con occhi irosi, stralunati; ma, per verità, di braccio
così poderoso, che narravasi di lui che, in un conflitto a Vaprio,
essendoglisi spezzata la spada e avendone lungi gettata
l’impugnatura, diede colla sola destra coperta del guanto un sì fiero
manrovescio all’uno degli avversarii che gli fracassò la testa e la
visiera. Postosi innanzi ai Frati:
— Alla barba del traditore Novarese [19], sclamò rabbioso
Caccatossico, la vogliamo vedere finita. Questa notte faremo tritume
di quella ciurmaglia che sta fuori a dar guasto ai nostri broli ed alle
nostre ortaglie. Menarono tanto rumore e fecero festa a san
Giovanni in Conca que’ di porta Romana, perchè condussero dentro
prigionieri Giovan Giudeo e il Peterzio di Lodi. Que’ due mascalzoni
me li sarei portati da me legati alla cintola. Faremo noi quel che va
fatto, e domani se ne sapranno le novelle; in seguito poi chi avrà da
pagarle le pagherà. Allorchè vi son io la vittoria non diserta mai la
nostra bandiera. Viva porta Nuova! —
E ognuno ad alta voce gridò: — Viva!
— Viva sant’Ambrogio! viva Milano!
— Viva! Viva! Viva! —
Tutti poscia i guerrieri s’inginocchiarono, e l’uno de’ frati con essi;
l’altro monaco, alzata con una mano la croce che portava appesa
alla cintura, recitò una preghiera invocando su di essi l’ajuto divino in
quella notturna spedizione che ritenevasi sacra, poichè esponevano
la vita per la salvezza della patria, quindi li andò benedicendo,
assolvendoli siccome fossero giunti all’ora estrema.
Allorquando poi furono di là partiti i due frati, venne inviato uno degli
uomini d’arme a vedetta sull’alto della torre della Pusterla onde
spiare nel campo nemico.
Il cielo era affatto oscuro, ma nell’accampamento dell’esercito
assediante splendevano innumerevoli fuochi. Da tutte le aperture
delle tende scorgevansi entro di esse, collocati in varie guise intorno
ai focolari ardenti, gruppi di soldati che stavano o pascendosi o
riscaldandosi. Passavano ad ogni tratto innanzi ad esse i drappelli
delle scolte, e cavalieri che apparivano d’improvviso illuminati con
tutto il destriero, e sparivano tosto nell’oscurità. Perveniva da quel
campo un rumor vario, un continuato bisbiglio, tra cui s’alzava di
tempo in tempo qualche voce, qualche grido più distinto che subito
moriva in quel mormorío incessante, come il frastuono d’un lontano
torrente. Ricinto da tutta quella vita serale d’un esercito infinito stava
Milano colle sue mura e le sue torri, nereggiante e muto come il
simulacro d’un vasto funebre monumento.
Mano mano però andavano facendosi più radi i fuochi, s’affievoliva il
mormorío, e quando fu prossima l’ora che segna la metà della notte,
ogni lume era scomparso, spento ogni fuoco, e regnava nel campo
un silenzio alto, profondo, universale.
Scese allora l’esploratore dall’alto a dare avviso a’ suoi essere
opportuno il momento per la sortita. Caccatossico ordinò la schiera e
tutti s’avviarono nell’oscurità tacitamente alla Pusterla Brera, il cui
ponte levatojo venne calato senza alcuno strepito.
Di contro alla linea di porta Nuova teneva il campo il conte Ecberto di
Butene, il quale capitanava una banda di cavalieri di ventura, che,
seguendo spontanei le bandiere di Federigo, erano venuti
all’assedio. I Milanesi varcato il ponte, procedettero in serrata
ordinanza verso le tende nemiche. A causa delle tenebre che fitte
regnavano, si erano già accostati d’assai alla sentinella, prima che
questa s’avvedesse di loro. Incerto ancora il soldato se le pedate
che udiva fossero de’ suoi, ebbe appena proferita la chiamata per
ricevere la parola d’ordine, che un colpo di mazza l’aveva steso
tramortito al suolo. Tolto così quell’inciampo, si sbandarono
prontamente gli usciti, e superato lo steccato, precipitarono verso le
tende. Alcune di queste furono fatte d’improvviso crollare, in altre
penetrarono i nostri uccidendo chi vi si trovava.
In poco d’ora però il rimbombo de’ colpi, le grida degli assaliti,
avevano destato l’allarme, e i circonvicini balzati dai giacigli,
accorrevano frettolosi a quel luogo chi colle spade impugnate, chi
colle fiaccole accese. Per le nuove genti che continuamente
sopraggiungevano, andavansi quindi moltiplicando i lumi e i
combattenti. Al rosso chiarore di tante fumide faci balenavano i ferri
con sanguigni riflessi, mentre fierissima e micidiale si stringeva la
mischia. Pugnavano i Milanesi come leoni affamati. Ogni loro colpo
era il tocco del fulmine. Colti all’impensata, mal coperti dalle
armature, gli imperiali non valevano a sostenere la furia dei nostri, e
ne andavano a fascio l’uno sovra l’altro. Caccatossico ingiuriando a
grida sgangherate i nemici, avanzava menando con poderoso
slancio a due mani da dritta e da sinistra il suo lungo spadone,
spazzando ad ogni colpo il luogo.
Respinti da tanta tempesta dovettero alla fin fine gli assaliti volgere
le spalle, e si diedero alla fuga per l’accampamento. Mentre il
maggior numero de’ Milanesi li andava inseguendo, altri scorgendo
quivi presso riparati sotto appositi assiti un branco di cento cavalli
de’ guerrieri di Ecberto, che tenevano tuttavia sul dorso gli arcioni,
posero sovr’essi le mani e tagliate le corde, li spinsero verso la città,
ove tosto que’ bardati destrieri furono fatti penetrare. Coloro che li
cacciavano innanzi però ebbero tempo appena di far pervenire fra le
mura la preda, che rivoltisi per raggiungere di nuovo i commilitoni, li
videro che non solo avevano cessato dall’incalzare i nemici, ma
venivano retrocedendo innanzi a loro continuando pur sempre a
pugnare.
Essendosi propagata colla velocità del lampo la nuova dell’uscita
degli assediati, varii de’ capi dell’esercito imperiale avevano avuto il
tempo di ordinare le schiere, le quali sopravvenivano sempre più fitte
e numerose. Il conte Ecberto salito prontamente un corsiero, e
seguito da alcuno de’ suoi più valorosi cavalieri, veniva a galoppo
incalzando colla lancia gli assalitori. Il fiero Caccatossico urtato da
lui, si volse d’un tratto e con un gran fendente alla cervice del cavallo
glielo mandò rovescio; mentre l’animale cadeva replicò poi con una
vigoría ed una prestezza indicibile il colpo sulla testa allo stesso
Conte, che lasciò cadere di mano la ronca, e fu veduto ripiegarsi
sovra sè stesso, colando il sangue a rivi dai fori della sua visiera.
Caccatossico lo afferrò tosto pel mezzo del corpo, fuor levandolo di
sella, ed esclamando che voleva portarselo in Milano ed inchiodarlo
come un gufo alla sua casa, onde tutti l’avessero a vedere e
sapessero quelli di porta Romana che il suo era uno de’ buoni, e non
un Lodigian di stoppa; aggiungendo ogni altra contumelia che l’odio
municipale faceva più consueta a quella lingua di fuoco. Ma in tale
istante tutti i seguaci d’Ecberto gli furono sopra, e tratte le spade lo
tempestarono con estrema vigoría. Impedito dai cavalli che lo
assiepavano, Caccatossico faceva ogni suo meglio per riparare i
colpi, ma ne veniva martellato in sì fatta guisa, che alfine rimase
fessa in più parti la sua grossa celata. Allorquando scortolo in tale
perigliosa posizione, volgendo faccia, irruppero i suoi contro i
cavalieri nemici, l’intrepido capitano della bandiera di porta Nuova
aveva già avute forate le tempia ed era caduto sul corpo d’Ecberto
che non aveva mai abbandonato.
Al nuovo impeto gli imperiali cessero il suolo e i Milanesi sollevati da
terra i due estinti guerrieri, via li tolsero, e vennero a gran passi
verso la città, dalle cui mura, i nemici che volevano ostinarsi a
inseguirli, furono trattenuti lontani con una pioggia di saette, di sassi,
di verrettoni. Rientrata al fine l’uscita schiera dalla Pusterla, venne
subito rialzato il ponte levatojo, e ribadita la ferrata imposta.
Quando i primi fuochi dell’aurora colorirono la sommità delle torri di
Milano, già gran parte della città era conscia del fatto; mano mano
poi che la luce del giorno si faceva più viva, per tutte le contrade
spandevasi il popolo chiedendo ed ascoltando con gioja ed avidità i
casi di quella gloriosa sortita, acclamando la bandiera di porta
Nuova, e deplorando la perdita del valente che avevala guidata.
Allorchè fu alto il sole, in tutte le chiese, ne’ conventi e monasteri,
furono fatte pubbliche preci, e poscia i guerrieri di porta Nuova
n’andarono processionalmente per la città, conducendo i cavalli
predati, e portando sopra un’alta bara il corpo del loro condottiero,
innanzi a cui veniva recata infissa in una lancia la compiuta armatura
del conte Ecberto. A tal vista l’ardire e la speranza de’ cittadini
s’accrebbero a dismisura, raffermi nella persuasione che mai
l’esercito alemanno avrebbe trionfato di loro.
Pure non scorsero quindici giorni e Milano erasi arresa, giurando
fedeltà al germanico imperatore; della qual cosa non è agevole
stabilire le cagioni. Certo è però che a loro mal costo vollero poi i
Milanesi ribellarsi, perchè Federigo sentenziatili contumaci, venne
alla metà dell’anno 1161 ad assediarli di nuovo, e dopo sette mesi di
difesa li costrinse un’altra volta ad arrendersi, sebbene piuttosto a
causa della fame che per la forza dell’armi. Ricevuto in Lodi l’atto di
loro sommissione la più intera ed umiliante, il Barbarossa qui si
recò [20] ordinando che tutti gli abitanti uscissero dalla città e venisse
Milano atterrata, distrutta. E ciò fu fatto. Ma nel chiostro di Pontida si
componeva la famosa lega che doveva vendicare un sì memorabile
affronto.
I Milanesi trionfarono, e la loro città sorse dalle proprie rovine
potente ancora e vigorosissima. L’abbellirono indi i Visconti con
stupendi edificii; l’adornarono gli Sforza; la sua area s’aggrandì, si
duplicò durante la signoria della Spagna; la prima dominazione
austriaca dalla ruggine dei secoli la ripuliva, indi l’imperante francese
vi disegnava opere grandiose. Ora fatta capitale del bel regno
Lombardo, come per incanto fiorisce e s’adorna. Si compiono e si
erigono templi, archi, monumenti; sorgono palazzi, gallerie; ogni dì
diroccano e spariscono vecchie deformi muraglie, e nuove case si
presentano di vago e ornato aspetto, che l’occhio ricreato ammira.
Le vie, le piazze, prima contorte e anguste, si fanno ampie e diritte, e
ogni oggetto v’abbonda a conforto o sollazzo della vita
abbisognevole.

FINE.
 I GUELFI DELL’IMAGNA
O IL CASTELLO DI CLANEZZO

RACCONTO STORICO.

Chi è quel vecchio che di sangue rossa

La persona, ver me gli sguardi ha intenti?
Non ti par che movendo ei di lontano
Con la fronte m’accenni e con la mano?
Io?... seguirti?... ma dove?... e tu chi sei?
Mi conosci tu forse?... Ah! no t’arresta:
Deh! per pietà non mi strappar da lei!
I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata.
canto xv.

Era il tempo in cui ferveva in Italia la maledetta peste dei due partiti,
generata dai contrasti tra Roma e il germanico impero; ed ogni città,
ogni terra, anzi dir si potrebbe ogni casale, ogni famiglia, andavano
divisi in sostenitori dell’una o dell’altra delle avverse fazioni e
vivevano quindi tra essi non come parenti o fratelli, ma quali accaniti
nemici.
Fra l’ultime ad essere attossicate da sì funesto contagio, fu
Bergamo, in cui il rompersi de’ cittadini in parte ghibellina e guelfa e
lo armato contendere fra loro per simile deploranda cagione, non
ebbe cominciamento che nell’anno 1296, mentre altrove avevano già
da lunga mano quei due nomi fatto insanguinare la terra italiana.
Ben tosto però arse ivi pure potentissimo l’incendio, e si stese dalla
città al territorio; onde il piano e le valli che Bergamo signoreggia,
presentarono rapidamente un solo feroce quadro di civili dissidii.
Dopo infiniti parziali azzuffamenti che gli animi già crudi inasprirono,
vennero alfine le due fazioni ad assalto entro le mura stesse di
Bergamo. Soccombettero nel conflitto i Ghibellini: per la qual cosa,
abbandonate le loro case, ire dovettero in esiglio. Si rivolsero essi
allora al Magno Matteo Visconte, ch’era in Milano il capo del loro
stesso partito, e acciecati dal desìo di vendetta offrirono con mal
consiglio di dargli in mano la città, quando volesse di sue milizie
ausiliarli. Accolse tale proposta l’astuto Visconte; mandò suoi uomini
d’armi, affortificati dai quali i Ghibellini bergamaschi, rientrati nella
città, sconfissero i seguaci della fazione contraria, li spogliarono de’
loro averi rilegandoli ai confini. I vincitori chiesero un governante a
Matteo, che s’affrettò ad avviare a Bergamo Ottorino Mandello qual
proprio rappresentante, per comandarvi in suo nome. Però quel
trionfo della parte ghibellina fu di breve durata, poichè indi a pochi
mesi i Guelfi ritornati in forze riconquistarono la città, e ne
scacciarono furiosamente i Ghibellini e il Mandello, e ogni loro
seguace, e per vari anni vi si mantennero dominatori.
Se non che molti tra i Guelfi stessi, mutata col tempo opinione, si
diedero al partito contrario; ond’è che i Ghibellini, ripreso vigore,
rialzarono la testa, e nell’anno 1301 chiamarono di nuovo Matteo al
dominio di Bergamo. Quel Signore si mosse incontanente da Milano,
cavalcando di compagnia col proprio figlio Galeazzo e seguito da
numerosa schiera di venturieri e di militi milanesi, venne ad unirsi coi
Ghibellini in terra bergamasca. I Guelfi ch’erano dentro la città,
vedendo affievolite le loro file da numerose diserzioni, messi in
ispavento dalle armi straniere, che sopraggiungevano collegate a
loro danno, sgombrarono Bergamo per la seconda volta, ed ivi entrò
il Visconte colla fazione ghibellina e vi fu proclamato capitano
generale. S’impossessarono i Guelfi della Terra di Romano, e
ampliandone il castello, vi si stanziarono.
In quella età succedevansi rapidissimi i sconvolgimenti, poichè la
forza sociale non stretta a centro comune, ma fra mille capi quasi
equabilmente divisa, faceva troppo arduo lo stabile signoreggiare
d’un solo in regolato ordinamento, e poneva la fortuna dei più in
balìa de’ capricci, degli interessi, degli errori di una moltitudine rozza
e subitanea nel suo parteggiare. Così avvenne che la potenza di
Matteo andò di subito ecclissata, onde il partito ghibellino spoglio del
saldo appoggio del signore di Milano, dovette co’ Guelfi venire a
componimento, e lasciare che questi pure rientrassero nella città di
Bergamo, ove alcun tempo, cioè pel corso di due anni, rimasero le
contrarie fazioni vicine e tranquille. Rinati poscia i dissidii, com’era
agevole a supporsi, la parte guelfa di nuovo prevalse e i Ghibellini
cacciati in bando si raccolsero a Martinengo e di là uscivano di
continuo a battagliare co’ Guelfi, recando ogni guasto alle loro ville
ed ai loro tenimenti.
Questo fatale avvicendare di vittorie e di sconfitte si prolungava da
quasi un secolo intero. Le stragi, le paci, gli assassinamenti, gli
accordi furono innumerevoli. Quella primitiva fazione, come in altre
parti d’Italia, assunse anche ne’ paesi bergamaschi nuovi nomi e
nuove divisioni. Colà si chiamarono Intrinsici i Guelfi, Estrinsici i
Ghibellini. Per le borgate e le terre sino alle estremità de’ monti, una
famiglia, un’insegna davano nome a novelli partiti, ed era per tutto
un indomabile delirio d’odiarsi e distruggersi.
Però tra le valli bergamasche quelle in cui più fervido e operoso si
mantenne l’astio di parti furono la Val di Imagna e l’antica Valle
Brembilla, ora entrambe sì queto asilo di placidi mandriani e
d’agricoltori.
S’apre la Valle d’Imagna a ponente di Bergamo poco al di là del
Brembo, e prende nome dal torrente che calando dai monti, da cui è
conterminata la valle a settentrione, la vien rigando presso che per
tutta la sua lunghezza, e va a metter capo nel Brembo. Ristretta è la
Val d’Imagna: ovunque severa, e in molte parti, ma più verso il
fondo, di tetro e selvaggio aspetto, poichè le fanno parete montagne
alte, ripide, boscose; la chiudono aspri monti dentati, di nudo
macigno, la cui catena chiamasi la Serrata, che la dividono dalla più
nordica Val Taleggio.
La Brembilla non era propriamente una sola valle; ma negli antichi
tempi davasi tal nome a tutto quel gruppo di monti cogli avvallamenti
in essi racchiusi, che hanno principio nel punto ove l’Imagna scende
nel Brembo, e per lo spazio di dieci miglia all’incirca, correndo
all’insù, dividono la Val d’Imagna dalla Valle Brembana. Il territorio
tutto e i villaggi di que’ monti, sia sul versante che accenna al
Brembo, sia sul pendio opposto che cala all’Imagna, s’ebbero
complessivamente la denominazione di Brembilla.
Vantava la Val d’Imagna le sue terre di Stroza, Capizzone,
Mazzoleni, Locatello dagli sparsi casali, Sant’Omobono dall’acque
salubri, le due Rota, l’altissimo Fuipiano ed altre non poche. Vantava
la Brembilla il suo Ubiallo, Bondello, Axolo, Biello, Mortesina e il
prospettico Clanezzo. Quest’ultimo aveva un castello, che quasi
chiave del paese, sorgeva al cominciamento di esso sul colle, a’ piè
del quale vengono a mischiarsi le acque del Brembo e dell’Imagna; e
teneva soggetto il ponte, che arcuato fra due dossi petrosi sul
fragoroso torrente, offriva l’unica via che agevole fosse a percorrersi
volendo penetrare in quella contrada.
La Brembilla poi iva orgogliosa eziandio d’una rocca, che sorgeva
sull’una delle sue più alte cime, il monte Ubione, a cui dalla falda
ov’è Clanezzo per arrampicati sentieri in non poco d’ora si sale. Quel
forte arnese, ivi eretto nel decimo secolo da Attone Leuco conte
d’Almenno, mostravasi turrito e cinto da merlate mura. Isolato e
minaccioso quale appariva su quel culmine a cavaliero delle due
Valli Brembana ed Imagna, quasi segnacolo della superiorità su di
esse di que’ della Brembilla, veniva considerato dagli afflitti abitatori
delle soggette vallate, che lo contemplavano da lungi, come un nido
inviolabile d’umani avvoltoi, da cui venivano rapaci piombando
inaspettati, ed a cui riparavano colla preda. Imperciocchè gli uomini
della Brembilla soverchiavano in forze i loro vicini, e con
depredazioni continue li danneggiavano. Erano essi vigorosi,
armigeri, arditissimi, ed avevano valorosi capi nelle famiglie potenti
che dimoravano nella valle.
Tra le distinte famiglie della Brembilla precipua poi era quella de’
Dalmasani, signori di Clanezzo, nel cui castello abitavano e d’onde
uscivano capitanando loro genti nelle zuffe che co’ propinqui
valligiani perpetuamente s’ingaggiavano, ed in ispecial modo con
quelli dell’Imagna. Poichè tra la Brembilla e l’Imagna, due montuose
rivali, manteneva acceso più fiero e inestinguibile il fuoco dell’ira, la
scintilla degli avversi partiti, essendo la prima di ghibellina, l’altra di
guelfa fazione.
E poco dopo la metà del secolo decimoquarto il più potente
avversario che s’avessero i Guelfi dell’Imagna, egli era appunto il
sire di Clanezzo Enguerrando Dalmasano, ghibellino ardentissimo.
Ottenuta ch’ebbe l’alta Rocca di Monte Ubione dalla gente
Carminata (abitatori di Casa Eminente altro castello nella Brembilla),
il rapace Enguerrando disegnava nella valle, che misurava dello
sguardo, i luoghi a cui portare assalto, e scendeva quindi ruinoso
con sue masnade, come irreparabile torrente, recando incendio e
ruina or in questa, ora in quella terra nemica; e solo nella gioja di
depredare i Guelfi e sconfiggerli quell’anima feroce diguazzava.
Andavano sconfortati al tutto gli abitanti dell’Imagna poichè non
avevano valida difesa ad opporre alla prepotente possa del loro
odiato vicino, e i soli nomi di Dalmasano, di Clanezzo, d’Ubione,
portavano in tutta la valle la desolazione e lo spavento.
Già da alcuni anni duravano sì disastrose vicende, allorchè fece
inaspettato ritorno nella terra nativa l’uno de’ più potenti valligiani
dell’Imagna, Pinamonte da Capizzone, ch’era da più lustri stato
assente.
Nell’ardore d’una bellicosa giovinezza Pinamonte erasi abbandonato
a tutta la foga di sfrenate passioni, cui tennero dietro sì tremende
sventure, che l’infelice attrito dalle angoscie e dai rimorsi abbandonò
il patrio suolo, e andò cercando piuttosto la morte che la gloria
combattendo in lontane contrade. Ma essendo uscito illeso dai più
gravi perigli, dimise l’usbergo e la spada e fattosi palmiero,
pellegrinò a Roma ed a Gerusalemme. Reduce da quella sacra terra
aveva fermo di racchiudersi pel rimanente de’ suoi giorni in cella
monacale, ore sperava dalla preghiera e dalla solitudine, raccoglier
pace agli affanni non ancora attutati nel cuore.
Poco lunge dal limitare di sua paterna valle, sorgeva a Pontida quel
chiostro, che la fama della lega lombarda, ch’ivi fu stretta, manda
tuttavia celebrato in Italia, sebbene or vuoto e nudo apra i suoi vasti
recessi al sole ed al vento che aleggia la valle. Di quella età esso
n’andava altamente venerato per la santità de’ suoi Cenobiti, e vi
traevano signori e penitenti a visitarlo sino dai più remoti abituri de’
monti.
Ivi Pinamonte cercò ed ottenne agevolmente ricetto, chè i monaci
s’avevano a grado d’accogliere fra loro chi pel lignaggio e per gli
ampi possedimenti poteva far più valido il loro predominio sugli
abitatori delle prossime valli. Mentre trascorrevano i giorni di prova,
pe’ quali il guerriero doveva farsi degno di proferire a piè degli altari il
voto solenne, che per sempre lo togliesse alle cure profane, giunse
replicatamente al suo orecchio la tristissima storia de’ patimenti de’
suoi congiunti dell’Imagna, che dall’incessante assalire
d’Enguerrando, il vecchio sire di Clanezzo, venivano oppressi.
Pinamonte, stirpe di Guelfi e caldissimo seguace egli stesso di
quella fazione, poichè teneva sacrosanta la causa della Chiesa nel
seno della quale aveva cercato rifugio, sentì bollirsi un fiero sdegno
nell’anima alle novelle di tante onte recate a’ suoi dall’avverso
ghibellino; e tutto divampando d’armigero fuoco, cesse, troppo
novello monaco, alle inveterate inclinazioni di battagliero; sicchè non
potè reprimere la smania di trovarsi fra’ suoi monti per affrontarsi co’
rivali della Brembilla e, sternati i Dalmasani, vendicare col ferro le
offese da’ suoi lungamente inghiottite.
Patto aperto ai monaci tal disegno con sì decise parole, che la forza
del suo volere invariabilmente annunziavano, non trovò tra que’
padri chi tentasse dissuaderlo dal guerresco proposito, che anzi ad
una voce lo animarono, affinchè, dimessa la tonica, avesse a
riprendere la spada, per recarsi a domare l’orgoglio degli iniqui
ghibellini. E ciò fecero, poichè lo reputavano efficace ausilio sul
campo alla guelfa fazione che dai monaci di Pontida veniva in
secreto bensì, ma operosamente favoreggiata. In que’ giorni stessi
nel chiostro, sotto il velo del più profondo mistero, tenevasi mano
cogli emissarii del Pontefice, ad ordire in tutti i monti dell’alta
Lombardia una vasta congiura, per riunire i Guelfi, e moverli a
sollevarsi ad un tratto nell’opportuno momento, affine di trionfare una
volta per sempre del partito ghibellino, scacciando le forze di
Bernabò Visconti, divenuto signore di Milano, il quale, siccome tutti
gli altri di suo casato, offriva il principale appoggio che s’avessero
nell’alta Italia i Ghibellini, la cui maggior potenza derivava
specialmente dal tenersi congiunti sotto lo stendardo della vipera
viscontea.
La cospirazione guelfa veniva però preparata nelle tenebre più fitte,
sì che allora non ne erano ancora fatti partecipi che alcuni tra i
precipui capi guelfi di Bergamo e delle valli Seriana e Camonica,
stretti al silenzio dai più solenni e tremendi giuramenti; nè i monaci
stimarono di render conscio del secreto Pinamonte prima d’averne
tenuto consiglio col Legato.
Ciò nondimeno quel dì che rivestita la sua pesante armatura, ricinta
la fida spada, il guerriero dell’Imagna abbandonando i Cenobiti
varcava sul cadere della notte la soglia del monastero, l’Abate che lo
accomiatò benedicendolo gli disse: — Andate, o valoroso figlio, la
forza di Dio sia con voi. Non passerà lungo tempo, lo speriamo, che
vi potremo annunziare una buona novella, voi fateci promessa che
ad ogni nostra chiamata ritornerete fedelmente in queste mura per
prestarvi ad operare come lo destinerà chi ode la voce di quegli ch’è
più illuminato di noi. —
Pinamonte piegò un ginocchio a terra e portandosi alle labbra la
mano dell’Abate che lo aveva benedetto, giurò ch’esso sarebbe
sempre stato umile servo della Chiesa, e la avrebbe con tutta fedeltà
obbedita sin che gli rimanesse nelle vene una goccia di sangue. Salì
poscia in arcione, e si pose per la via della sua valle, di cui gli era
noto ogni riposto sentiero.
Lasciati dietro a sè gli ultimi casolari d’Almenno, di cui vedeva
luccicare i rusticani fuochi, entrò nell’ombre più dense delle gole de’
suoi monti.
Procedeva per la tacita notte, e quando nell’universale silenzio udì
distinto il lontano mormorare delle acque della sottoposta Imagna,
un mesto lampo di gioja sorse nel cuore del guerriero. Oh! quanta
angoscia, quanti cupi pensieri, quanta storia di disperati affetti e di
pietà profonda eransi svolti in quell’anima ardente dall’ultimo dì che
aveva mirate le acque spumeggianti del suo torrente scorrere nel
fondo verdeggiante della valle, e udito quel loro stesso fragore! La
valle era placida, l’ombre solenni, soave il mormorío delle acque
come ne’ giorni della sua infanzia; ma quanto esso stesso era
cangiato! I suoi rosei colori, la sua balda leggiadria, tutto era
scomparso come le dilettose immagini di quell’età fortunata.
Pinamonte aveva varcato l’ottavo lustro; tetro e imponente n’era
divenuto l’aspetto, arso il viso dal sole, corrugata la fronte, fosco e
severissimo lo sguardo.
Progrediva il guerriero assorto nelle memorie dei dì che più non
erano e giunse ove il sentiero dalla folta macchia che copriva quella
falda, usciva all’aperto; ivi alzati gli occhi, mirò sull’alto della
montagna a destra, due punti rosseggianti, due fuochi che come due
occhi infernali, giù guardavano nella valle, ed erano lumi nella torre
della rocca d’Enguerrando che nera giganteggiava sull’Ubione.
Un fremito di rabbia assalì Pinamonte a quella vista e si fece più
intenso in lui il pensiero della vendetta, sì che assopì tutti gli altri
sentimenti che gli commovevano il cuore, e ratto spronando alla
volta di Capizzone, si trovò ben presto vicino alle domestiche pareti.
Quanta letizia la sua venuta recasse alle sventurate sue genti, mal si
saprebbe narrarlo. Egli però impose si tenesse celata la sua
presenza nella valle onde non pervenisse all’orecchio di que’ della
Brembilla. Per fidati messi fe’ quindi avvertiti i più prodi valligiani, e
raccoltili intorno a sè secretamente avvisarono ai modi di combattere
uniti e con efficacia i nemici, e statuirono i segni e l’appostamento,
attendendo l’istante propizio in cui i Ghibellini fossero discesi nella
loro valle, essendo vano presumere d’assalirli nella rocca d’Ubione o
ne’ castelli della Brembilla, ove si tenevano troppo
vantaggiosamente difesi.
Ne andò guari che a far paga l’aspettativa de’ Guelfi il vecchio
Enguerrando, come un lione, che sempre avido di prede mal giace
inoperoso nel covo, meditò di condurre sue genti sino al
boschereccio Mazzoleni, terra interna della valle Imagna, ch’era
andata sino a quel giorno immune da scorrerie. Vegliavano attente le
scolte di Pinamonte sì che mai da Clanezzo o dal forte d’Ubione,
durante il giorno, o nelle ore notturne, drappello alcuno moveva il
passo, senza ch’egli ne avesse prontamente novella.
Venuta la sera del giorno cinque d’aprile, (volgeva allora l’anno
1372) fu recato l’avviso che molti armati da varie parti della
Brembilla, avevano salito l’Ubione, ed erano stati accolti nella rocca.
Previde Pinamonte qualche ostile disegno del Dalmasano, e quindi
mandò pronti avvertimenti onde i suoi fossero parati all’evento.
Un’ora innanzi la mezzanotte, ecco splendere un fuoco sulle vette di
Valnera: tosto gli risponde al di là della valle un altro fuoco sulle rupi
di Bedulíta, e un terzo ne appare ben presto tra i macigni della
Corna Bucca. Tutta l’Imagna ha conosciuti i segnali.
I Ghibellini della Brembilla, usciti dalla rocca scendono intanto
guidati da Enguerrando che troppo uso a vincere e fugare i sin allora
timidi Guelfi non pone mente a que’ che reputa semplici fuochi
pastorali. Entrano così i Brembillesi nella valle Imagna; giungono al
torrente, lo varcano; le sponde ne sono sguernite d’ogni difensore;
quindi procedono confidenti e sicuri.
Intanto i montanari dell’Imagna, prese le armi, abbandonano le case,
e rinfrancano le pavide madri e le spose ripetendo ad esse il nome di
Pinamonte, ed accertandole che ritorneranno vittoriosi e vendicati.
Per diversi sentieri, rapidi e guardinghi nell’oscurità convengono da
ogni banda al luogo prefisso, ch’è là dove il loro fiume rompe
fragoroso tra gli eretti scogli di Ceppino. Quivi li attende Pinamonte,
che una bruna armatura tutto rinserra nelle sue scaglie di ferro.
Seppe egli ben tosto dai sopravvegnenti che la masnada ghibellina
teneva la volta a Mazzoleni, e deliberò d’assalirli al loro retrocedere.
Lasciò buona mano de’ suoi alla custodia di quel passo difficile, per
troncare ai nemici la ritirata se diretti si fossero al ponte di Ceppino;
ed esso, elettasi una schiera de’ più forti e risoluti, si recò oltre il
torrente ad appostarsi in un luogo pel quale, non prendendo la via
del ponte, dovevano i Brembillesi necessariamente passare per
riguadagnare la loro rocca.
È tal luogo una landa deserta sparsa di radi ma enormi massi che il
lavoro dell’acque e del vento ha resi vuoti e spugnosi imprimendovi
bizzarre forme. Quivi occultati ed intenti al venire del nemico trovò
l’aurora i guerrieri di Pinamonte. Appena alla prima incerta luce
pallidissima dell’alba i culmini delle opposte montagne si
disegnavano più distinte sull’azzurro del cielo già biancheggiante, e
là giù nel piano i drappelli degli armati mal si discernevano ancora
dai petroni ferrigni a cui stavano aggruppati intorno, che la masnada
d’Enguerrando ritornava trionfante d’avere incendiato Mazzoleni,
affrettando il cammino per giungere ne’ suoi asili anzi che fosse
interamente spiegato il giorno. Al crescente rischiarare del dì, mentre
pervenivano al fondo della valle più vivi riflessi di luce, i montanari
dal luogo ove stavano in agguato videro con fiera gioja i loro
avversarj varcare a guado il torrente, laddove allargasi in ampio
letto, e prendere cammino alla loro volta. Indi a pochi istanti i dossi
che fiancheggiano quella landa echeggiarono all’improvviso grido di
Imagna! Imagna! e i Ghibellini si videro ricinti da numerosi armati in
atto d’assalirli.
— O Dalmasano, io sono Pinamonte (gridò il condottiero de’ Guelfi),
ed oggi devi qui pagare il fio delle tante tue scelleratezze. —
Enguerrando non si sgominò, benchè in quel momento desiderasse
d’aversi appresso il prode Bertramo, il valoroso suo figlio, che
pugnava allora alle sponde del Tanaro. La zuffa incominciò
sull’istante, e il primo raggio del sole nascente che penetrò in quella
valle, illuminò l’una delle più fiere mischie che siano registrate negli
annali delle civili discordie. Ben presto tutto l’irto piano apparve
ricoperto di sangue, di morienti e di estinti; il ferreo braccio di
Pinamonte operò prodigi di valore. Invano i combattenti della
Brembilla, all’eccitatrice e ancor sonora voce del loro antico signore
vendevano a caro prezzo la propria vita: essi cadevano l’uno
sull’altro orribilmente mutilati da innumerevoli colpi. Il lungo astio
represso pareva duplicare la vigoria ne’ montanari dell’Imagna: essi
consumarono la strage de’ loro nemici. A gran fatica pochi fra i più
arditi e fidi vassalli d’Enguerrando, esponendo i loro petti gli fecero
scudo intorno, e strascinarono il vegliardo nei dolorosi passi della
fuga, sì che giunse ad avere scampo su per la montagna, e
pervenne a racchiudersi nella fatale sua rocca.
Mai sì compiuta vittoria aveva coronati gli sforzi d’alcuno de’ due
partiti: quindi la clamorosa disfatta del temuto Dalmasano, e il nome
di Pinamonte da Capizzone, riempirono le valli circonvicine e
recarono letizia inesprimibile a quelli della stessa fazione, sdegno e
sconforto nella fazione contraria.
A Pinamonte mandarono nell’Imagna gratulandosi tutti i capi guelfi
della terra bergamasca, e dal chiostro di Pontida gli venne un foglio
da nome venerabile segnato, che le maggiori grazie della Chiesa
gl’impartiva. Nè al prode guerriero riuscì poi di minore diletto l’invito
che gli fu recato dal castello d’Endenna di prender parte ad una
nuova impresa.
Sorgeva forte e ben munita nella valle Brembana il castello
d’Endenna, ed erane signore il cavaliero Merino l’Olmo, il quale era
stato nelle antecedenti vicende eletto supremo duce di parte guelfa.
Avendo egli però conosciuto che vanamente si contrastava co’
Ghibellini sinchè tenevano congiunte le loro armi con quelle del
Visconte, erasi condotto a vivere solitario nel proprio castello,
spiando l’occasione di uscire a campo in loro danno, quando ne
fosse venuto favorevole l’istante. Di que’ giorni che il grosso delle
forze di Bernabò trovavasi impegnato contro Amadeo conte di
Savoja, ei meditava di cogliere il momento per recarsi al conquisto
del castello di san Lorenzo in valle Seriana, d’onde i Ghibellini che vi
si tenevano forti sturbavano i Guelfi della valle, e tagliavano sovente
le loro comunicazioni colla Valle Camonica, ove quel partito contava
numerosissimi fautori. Nel frattempo giungeva all’orecchio del
cavaliero d’Endenna il trionfo di Pinamonte; per la qual cosa tosto
bramò che questo valoroso guelfo seco lui si congiungesse, e si
spiegassero unite contro i Ghibellini le loro baveríe, che così
chiamavansi i pennoni o stendardi de’ partigiani.
Il guerriero di Capizzone, non temendo che Enguerrando, di cui
aveva fiaccato così terribilmente l’orgoglio, osasse uscire da
Clanezzo o dalla rocca di Ubione per molestare la sua valle, raccolta
buona schiera de’ suoi, abbandonò l’Imagna e recossi ad Endenna.
Ivi Merino e gli altri capi guelfi onoratamente l’accolsero e
festeggiarono. Trascorsi poi brevi giorni, ordinate le loro genti
partirono unitamente dalla Brembana, e presa la via per le
montagne, calarono in valle di Serio al castello di san Lorenzo, che
tosto cinsero di forte assedio.
A Bergamo recò grande scompiglio ne’ Ghibellini l’inaspettato
annunzio d’una tale guerresca provocazione, poichè mal sapevano
comprendere come il sire d’Endenna e Pinamonte dell’Imagna cogli
altri Guelfi osassero tentare una sì aperta ed ardua impresa, quale si
era l’espugnazione di quel castello, mentre potevano venire
agevolmente assaliti alle spalle dalla fazione cittadina.
A provvedere quindi alla bisogna i Ghibellini s’adunarono e
statuirono che in ajuto de’ loro seguaci, accorresse la Cà Suardi,
ch’era nella città la più potente di quel partito. Onofrio e Baldino
Suardi raccolsero quindi i loro uomini, ed assoldate alcune bande
d’Ungari che stanziavano disperse nel paese, s’affrettarono a portar
l’armi contro i tracotanti Guelfi montanari, che addoppiavano gli
sforzi per mandare rovescie le ghibelline bastite.
Il quindici maggio (quaranta giorni appena dopo la carnificina di valle
Imagna) fu il dì in cui la valle Seriana, vide sventolarsi incontro le
nemiche bandiere. Tolti gli Ungari che ingrossavano le file condotte
dai Suardi, tutti quegli armati che si trovavano a fronte erano d’un
medesimo suolo, parlavano un linguaggio, un dialetto stesso, e molti
ve ne avevano nelle linee opposte congiunti dai sacri vincoli del
sangue, poichè la sorella dell’uno era dell’altro o la sposa, o la
cognata o la madre. Ma nulla valeva il potere di sì santi legami a
petto di quella fera cecità dei partiti, che tramutava i fratelli in nemici,
e le terre italiane in tanti campi di guerra.
Preso ch’ebbero terreno le schiere suardesche, i Guelfi diedero il
segno del combattimento, e tosto andarono loro incontro con impeto
estremo. Abbenchè i due Suardi fossero valenti battaglieri, e le loro
genti senza viltà combattessero, non poterono però tener fronte al
sire d’Endenna, ed al pro’ Pinamonte, veri mastri di guerra; ond’è
che dopo poche ore di pugna n’andarono rotti in fuga, lasciando
seminato la valle di cadaveri e di feriti.
Questo secondo e più importante trionfo de’ Guelfi delle montagne,
recò in Bergamo alla parte ghibellina somma costernazione, sì che
spedirono prontamente loro messi alla corte di Milano, che a quel
signore arrecassero l’infausta novella. Bernabò Visconti ne rimase
altamente corrucciato; e sebbene delle politiche cose non fosse
troppo accorto e profondo conoscitore, pure gli fu agevole
comprendere che se i Guelfi fossero divenuti dominatori nel
bergamasco, avrebbero fatto potente sostegno alle pretese del
Pontefice, e prossimi come erano alla signoria di Milano (poichè da’
suoi verroni del castello di Trezzo tutto gli si schierava allo sguardo il
loro paese) gli sarebbero riusciti troppo pericolosi avversarii.
Per ciò commise al capitano Giovanni d’Iseo la condotta d’una
grossa schiera d’uomini d’armi milanesi, ordinando si recasse
immediatamente a liberare i Ghibellini della Seriana, a cui i Guelfi
vincitori stavano per dare nel castello di san Lorenzo l’ultima stretta.
Mentre veniva a gran furia quel forte soccorso di militi del Visconte,
giunse più affrettatamente al campo de’ Guelfi un messo dal chiostro
di Pontida, e chiamati a consiglio Pinamonte, Merino e gli altri capi,
fece sì che lasciassero l’impresa e si ritraessero, senza sostenere un
nuovo combattimento. Le masnade montanare infatti abbandonato
l’assedio si sciolsero e ritornarono alle loro valli senza attendere i
milanesi.