The Pope's Legion: The Multinational Fighting Force that Defended the Vatican

The Pope's Legion: The Multinational Fighting Force that Defended the Vatican

by Charles A. Coulombe
The Pope's Legion: The Multinational Fighting Force that Defended the Vatican

The Pope's Legion: The Multinational Fighting Force that Defended the Vatican

by Charles A. Coulombe

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Overview

Charles A. Coulombe's The Pope's Legion tells the amazing adventures of the remarkable multinational force that rallied in defense of the Vatican during the ten-year war of Italian reunification.

With Arthurian grandeur the Papal Zouaves marched into Italy in the mid-nineteenth century, summoned by the Pope under siege as the Wars of the Risorgimento raged. Motivated by wanderlust, a sense of duty and the call of faith, some 20,000 Catholic men from around the world rallied to Vatican City to defend her gates against Sardinian marauders. Volunteers came from France, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Austria, and many other countries, including the United States. The battles that ensued lasted over 10 years, among a shifting array of allies and enemies and are among history's most fascinating yet largely overlooked episodes. Napoleon, Pius IX, and Bismarck all make appearances in the story, but at the center were the Zouaves--steeped in a knightly code of honor, and unflinching in battle as any modern warrior--as the Church they vowed to defend to the death teetered at the brink of destruction.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780230614697
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date: 09/02/2008
Sold by: Macmillan
Format: eBook
Pages: 272
File size: 704 KB

About the Author

Charles A. Coulombe is a historian and commentator in both Catholic and secular arenas. Commended by Pope John Paul II for his book Vicars of Christ: A History of the Popes, he provided narration for ABC News during the funeral of John Paul II and the election and installation of Benedict XVI. He is the author several books including a five-volume history of the United States for Catholic readers. Former Contributing Editor of the National Catholic Register, Coulombe won the Christian Law Institute's Christ King Journalism Award in 1992. He lives in Los Angeles.


Charles A. Coulombe is a historian and commentator in both Catholic and secular arenas. Commended by Pope John Paul II for his book Vicars of Christ: A History of the Popes, he provided narration for ABC News during the funeral of John Paul II and the election and installation of Benedict XVI. He is the author several books including a five-volume history of the United States for Catholic readers. Former Contributing Editor of the National Catholic Register, Coulombe won the Christian Law Institute's Christ King Journalism Award in 1992. He lives in Los Angeles.

Read an Excerpt

The Pope's Legion

The Multinational Fighting Force that Defended the Vatican


By Charles A. Coulombe

Palgrave Macmillan

Copyright © 2008 Charles A. Coulombe
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-230-61469-7



CHAPTER 1

A Gathering of Heroes

Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.

—St. Matthew 10:34


* * *

No army is greater than its chief. In the heat of battle, although a man's attention is focused on keeping himself and his immediate comrades alive, the cause they fight for must not only consume them, the leader in whom it is incarnated must—as far as his men are concerned—truly express it in himself. He must be their hero. Fortunately for the Pontifical Zouaves, the ruler they served was indeed heroic.

Given his wide-ranging interests, his unshakeable belief in Providence, and what he had seen in his own life, it is little wonder that Pius IX was not cowed by the forces arrayed against him. Pius IX had seen Pius VII taken captive and exiled from Rome in 1808, only to return in triumph six years later—just as Pius IX would do in 1848 and 1849. He believed that his cause would triumph, regardless of the forces arrayed against it and whether or not he lived to see such victory. The centering of his hopes beyond the grave gave him a strength lacking in his opponents. Napoleon III and Cavour were concerned with their place in history and their present popularity and political standing; Pius cared about none of this. "Beware the man who has nothing to lose," applied well to him. Against the backdrop of the splendors of the papal court and its age-old rituals, Pius lived his life ever with an eye to what he considered most essential, of which elaborate ceremony served as a constant reminder rather than an end in itself.

In return, for the most part, the Catholic world idolized him as few Popes had been until the twentieth century. The contemporary accounts of him—even by non-Catholics—range from grudging admiration to almost embarrassing fawning. In any case, it is easy to see why his cause became so popular among his far-flung flock, and why so many donated millions to him, and why thousands answered his call to arms despite the odds. Remarkably, the vast majority of those who joined his army, having worshiped him from afar, lost little of their reverence after seeing him up close. His men were devoted to him, a sentiment that was returned; their religious devotion and their conscious appropriation of the traditions of the Crusades and chivalry were married to an immense loyalty to a concrete man for whom they would gladly lay down their lives.

Pius IX was a mystery to many of his contemporaries. Liberals and revolutionaries throughout Italy and elsewhere were overjoyed at his election—some because he was thought to be sympathetic to them, others because they thought he was weak and easily manipulatable, still others because they believed him to be both. Those, of whatever stripe, who met him declared that he had an "imperturbable serenity," while being at the same time extremely jovial—especially loving jokes and puns of all kinds. Although watchful over the rights of the Holy See, Pius was eminently approachable, never as happy as when walking among his flock—either in the open or incognito. He was an immensely spiritual man, especially devoted to the Blessed Virgin (he defined the Immaculate Conception and approved the apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes) and to the Sacred Heart. But the Pope also appreciated some of the finer things in life, especially tobacco and cologne (he had a special blend of his own).

The Pontiff's earlier life gives us many clues to the enigma that was Pius IX. Born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti on May 13, 1792, in Senigallia (a town in the Marches), his early years were of course dominated by the chaos of the revolution in France and Italy. Although diagnosed as an epileptic (a diagnosis that has been disputed), the young nobleman was sent to the Collegio Romano to pursue studies in theology and philosophy. While there, he lodged with an uncle who was a canon of St. Peter's, but the two were forced to flee the Eternal City when Pius VII was taken into exile by the French. Back home, he was summoned in 1812 to Milan; because of his family lineage, the attempt was made to recruit him for the Noble Guard of Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy, but his supposed epilepsy excused him from service. Giovanni stayed in Senigallia until Pius VII stopped there on his way back to his capital in 1814. The young count was presented to the Pontiff and followed him back to Rome. A year later he was rejected for the Pope's Noble Guard and then felt called to the priesthood. But his disease prevented such aspiration until he was cured upon a visit to the Shrine of the Holy House of Loreto.

The life of the Church in Italy had been terribly disrupted by a decade and a half of war and periodic persecution. As one of the missionaries sent out to work among the people under these conditions, the future Pope began his lifelong activities with orphans. In 1825, having been a priest for six years, Giovanni was appointed assistant to the new nuncio in the recently independent South American country of Chile. This stint awakened Giovanni's interest in the Church beyond Europe.

After his return to Rome in December of 1826, Mastai-Ferretti was appointed by Leo XII to run the largest orphanage-cum-trade school in Rome, the vast Ospizio Apostolico di San Michele a Ripa. Wielding a firm but loving hand, this relatively minor command showed the shape of things to come. At least, Leo XII thought so. In 1827, Leo consecrated Mastai-Ferretti as archbishop of Spoleto, a severely troubled and divided see. He immediately set to work on the town's ills, opening an institution for orphans similar to the one he had just left. He was soon very popular, standing by his people during civil unrest and an earthquake.

The new Pope, Gregory XVI, transferred him in December of 1832 to the diocese of Imola, whose bishop, Giacomo Cardinal Giustiniani, had just resigned. Not only did he build another orphanage for boys, he called on the Sisters of Charity to open one for girls and to run the public hospital. He also built an insane asylum and a refuge for ex-prostitutes. The new bishop also established a special seminary for poor aspirants to the priesthood and two new schools—one for the poor and one for the nobility. All of his efforts were rewarded with the love of his people and, in 1840, the red hat of a cardinal from Gregory XVI.

Mastai-Ferretti was selected as Pope in 1846. His predecessor had been an unyielding defender of the faith; in that atmosphere, many a plotter and revolutionary had found himself in a pontifical prison. But experience had led Pius IX to believe that correction tempered with mercy would inevitably bring the best out of an individual, so he ordered an amnesty. Alas, he would learn that hardened agitators are quite different from orphans. To his death, he always attempted to give people what they wanted, as long as he could square it with his duty. It was in that spirit that he would give the Papal States representative government. But the murder of his prime minister, his own flight to Gaeta, and the murders and profanations of churches (including St. Peter's) in his absence were also part of his education.

Still, he never lost his love of charity, serenity, and good humor. Pius IX carved out a legend for himself as an inveterate doer of good deeds among his people. Many such stories survive today, as with the poor boy who came up to him on the street, having recently been orphaned. "I have no father," he tearfully told the Pope. "I will be your father," was the pontifical reply. And so he proved to be, paying for the lad's housing and education out of his pocket until the boy came of age. Beggars, widows, invalids—all found themselves beneficiaries of the largesse of the Pope who wandered his city incessantly. Moreover, appeals for aid came by post constantly and as constantly were answered. At the same time, his tours in Rome were not merely to seek out the miserable; surprise visits of prisons, hospitals, schools, monasteries, convents, and innumerable other institutions led to rewards, corrections—or changes of leadership—on a regular basis. Moreover, he delighted in bringing the sacraments to the dying and the ill. When a cholera epidemic raged in Rome, he assiduously visited the sufferers: in one hospital, a Jewish woman died in his arms.

But with all this activity and the political and military concerns to be dealt with at the time, he had also to run a Universal Church—and not merely from the standpoint of diplomatic fencing with governments anxious either to control the Church or to persecute her. There were liturgical, devotional, and doctrinal concerns in almost every nation of the world to address, each affected by conditions remote to his Roman experience.

In this work, Pius's foremost assistants were the mutually antagonistic Giacomo Cardinal Antonelli, his secretary of state, and Monsignor Count Xavier de Merode, his pro-minister of arms. Understandably, the ingratiating Italian diplomat and the bluff noble soldier-turned-cleric would clash; but it is typical of Pius that he was fond of both these disparate characters and valued their so-different strengths. It is to them that we now must turn our attention.

Cardinal Antonelli (1806–1876) came of a minor noble family from Sonnino in Latium. Although he intended to become a priest, he never went beyond the diaconate, deciding instead to enter the papal bureaucracy. With a flair for administration, a built-in ability to please superiors, and a smooth—some said oily—manner, he went far. By 1845 he was pontifical treasurer-general; two years later, he was made the next-to-last lay cardinal. In 1848, he preceded the murdered Count de Rossi as papal prime minister. After Pius's return, he was made secretary of state, a post which—then and now—includes in its duties supervision of papal diplomacy. As such, he became the face of the Holy See, at least as regarded the great powers. Since Pius was so popular, those who wished to attack him directed their ire at Antonelli. For his part, in foreign affairs Antonelli believed in diplomacy rather than arms.

Regarding the internal administration of the Papal States, Antonelli's views were rather different. After Pius IX's flight from Rome, he was forced to reexamine his methods of governance. The Pope was well aware that he did not have the native ability to carry out the sorts of hard repressions that would be necessary to prevent a repetition of the horrors of 1848. Pius had the humility to put all such questions into Antonelli's hands.

So it was that, in addition to foreign affairs, censorship and punishment passed under the secretary of state's purview. In truth, he was far more ruthless in these areas than his master could ever have been. He refused to take chances with agitators and propagandists, and was quick to throw them in jail (of course, as the partisans of the Bourbons of Naples would find out after the fall of that kingdom to Garibaldi, the new rulers were also quite capable of brutal repression in what they considered self-defense).

For a long time, however, Antonelli—so clear-eyed with regard to internal threats—had an almost childlike faith in the pro-papal assurances of Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II. His strategy was to appeal to the Catholic powers for protection. But Pius, based upon his experience, believed that he would have to mount his own defense. So, once again happy to defer to those whose abilities he considered superior to his own, he turned to Xavier de Merode for help.

Born in 1820, Xavier de Merode was born into a noble Belgian family; his father was an official of King Leopold I. Although intended for the priesthood, the hot-tempered young nobleman would never brook opposition lightly. Merode was no respecter of persons, and in later years he had violent arguments with his generals and even with the Pope himself. But Pius IX put up with this for the greater good.

After attending Catholic schools, Merode entered the Royal Military Academy at Brussels. Upon graduation two years later, he was posted to Liege. But peacetime life in the army of a neutral nation did not appeal. Young Merode, with his king's permission, passed into the French army, serving heroically in Algeria. His valor there won him the Legion of Honor. As a diplomat's wife put it, "He was really an ideal soldier—like one in a chivalrous religious romance—full of courage, and spirit and wit, and yet so deeply devout, picking up the dying Arab child and carrying it on his horse to a spring to baptize it." But in 1847, he decided to follow his vocation in the priesthood and was ordained two years later; at that time he was appointed chaplain to the French troops in Rome. In 1850, Pius IX placed him in charge of the Roman prisons; so successful was he in this position that foreign nations copied his reforms. Thus, when Pius IX felt need of a new leader to reorganize his army, Merode seemed the obvious choice.

When Merode became pro-minister at arms for Pius IX, he inherited an army of less than 10,000 soldiers—for the most part poorly trained, uniformed, and equipped. Apart from civil duties and the 1848 war, the papal army had not fought since 1797, and many of its rifles dated back to Napoleonic days. Some of its artillery was even older, and the arsenal at the Castel Sant' Angelo was a virtual museum. Sardinian and Garibaldian spies had already discovered that the arsenal was freely accessible in the afternoon, when its single sentry took his nap. Undaunted by this apparently hopeless situation, in early 1860 Merode traveled to Brussels for a secret meeting with his distant cousin, General Christophe Louis Juchault de Lamoricière, under whom he had served in Algeria; he offered him command of the papal army.

Lamoricière, a devoted Catholic, had quite literally covered himself with glory in Algeria. Born in Nantes in 1806, he entered the army of Charles X in 1828; two years later he was sent to North Africa, where he would spend most of the next 17 years. He fought bravely, was decorated frequently, and promoted rapidly. In his last year of service there he captured resistance leader Abd-el-Kader, thus effectively ending opposition to French rule.

In 1831, early in their conquest of Algeria, the French had found willing allies in the Kabyles, a Berber people living in the mountains. One of their tribes, the Zouaoua or Zwwa, was particularly anxious to join the tricolor. One by one, three battalions of them were raised, and in 1838, these became a regiment under the already distinguished Major Lamoricière. Wearing their traditional dress of baggy trousers, short vests, and native headgear, the Zouaves, as the French called them, were an imposing sight. They were soon replaced with Frenchmen who retained the unique uniforms and won a reputation as a crack light infantry. By 1852, two more regiments had been formed, and two years later the Zouaves of the imperial guard were inaugurated. In time other countries would form their own Zouave units.

But Lamoricière did not share their triumph in France. Back in Paris for the 1848 Revolution, he entered parliament and briefly served as secretary of war. But he opposed the rise of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, and after the coup of 1852 made the president into the emperor he was arrested and exiled. A contemporary described him thusly: "Vigorous of constitution and robust of frame; as insensible to fatigue as unconscious of fear; keen of vision, Quick of comprehension, and ready of resource; collected in the worst hour of difficulty; calm and cheerful, even gay and jaunty, under the deadliest fire." Great gifts, to be sure—and he would need every one of them in his new command.

He was quite aware of the problems he faced, saying to Pius IX shortly after his arrival at Rome on April 1, 1860:

"Most Holy Father, your Holiness has required my services: your desires are orders, and I have not hesitated a moment. You can dispose of my blood and life. But I ought at the same time to say that my presence here is either an assistance or a danger: an assistance, if I have only to maintain tranquility in your States, and preserve them from revolutionary bands; a danger, if my name be a pretext for hastening the Piedmontese invasion. For it is impossible for me, unless through a miracle, to triumph over an army trained to war, with troops of recent formation, badly armed, and who should have to fight one against ten."


Both Pope and general knew what they were up against, and their first problem was lack of manpower.

Of the enemies that Pius, Antonelli, de Merode, and Lamoricière would face, none was more dangerous than Camillo Count di Cavour. Although he would die in 1861, all of Cavour's successors as prime minister to Victor Emmanuel II followed the policies—and the duplicitous tactics—laid down by the crafty politician from Piedmont.

Although, reviewing Cavour's career, one might think that the count had little regard for tradition, this is not entirely true—at least as far as his own family's traditions were concerned. The Bensi, as the clan were originally called, had supported the pro-imperial Ghibellines against the pro-papal Guelphs throughout the Middle Ages. After the imperial cause was defeated, they became loyal servants of the dukes of Savoy, who became the kings of Sardinia. In the eighteenth century the head of the clan was made marquis of Cavour by his king, and Benso di Cavour—often shortened to Cavour—became the family name.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Pope's Legion by Charles A. Coulombe. Copyright © 2008 Charles A. Coulombe. Excerpted by permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments,
Introduction,
Prelude,
I A Gathering of Heroes,
II The Crusaders Arrive,
III Baptism of Fire,
IV The Watchful Peace,
V Garibaldi's Last Throw,
VI To the Porta Pia!,
VII Same Foe, Different Field,
VIII Viva Il Papa-Re!,
Appendix I: Songs of the Zouaves,
Appendix II: Zouave Sites,
Appendix III: Mass in Memory of the Pope's Soldiers,
Notes,
Bibliography,
Index,
Illustrations,

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