Giuseppe garibaldi quotes
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Italian patriot and general (–)
"Garibaldi" redirects here. For other uses, see Garibaldi (disambiguation) and Giuseppe Garibaldi (disambiguation).
Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi (GARR-ib-AHL-dee, Italian:[dʒuˈzɛppeɡariˈbaldi]ⓘ;[note 1] 4 July – 2 June ) was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican.
He contributed to Italian unification (Risorgimento) and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. He is considered to be one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland", along with Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and Giuseppe Mazzini.[1] Garibaldi is also known as the "Hero of the Two Worlds" because of his military enterprises in South America and Europe.[2]
Garibaldi was a follower of the Italian nationalist Mazzini and embraced the republican nationalism of the Young Italy movement.[3] He became a supporter of Italian unification under a democratic republican government.
However, breaking with Mazzini, he pragmatically allied himself with the monarchist Cavour and Kingdom of Sardinia in the struggle for independence, subordinating his republican ideals to his nationalist ones until Italy was unified. After participating in an uprising in Piedmont, he was sentenced to death, but escaped and sailed to South America, where he spent 14 years in exile, during which he took part in several wars and learned the art of guerrilla warfare.[4] In he joined the rebels known as the Ragamuffins (farrapos), in the Ragamuffin War in Brazil, and took up their cause of establishing the Riograndense Republic and later the Catarinense Republic.
Garibaldi also became involved in the Uruguayan Civil War, raising an Italian force known as Redshirts, and is still celebrated as an important contributor to Uruguay's reconstitution.
In , Garibaldi returned to Italy and commanded and fought in military campaigns that eventually led to Italian unification.
The provisional government of Milan made him a general and the Minister of War promoted him to General of the Roman Republic in When the war of independence broke out in April , he led his Hunters of the Alps in the capture of major cities in Lombardy, including Varese and Como, and reached the frontier of South Tyrol; the war ended with the acquisition of Lombardy.
The following year, , he led the Expedition of the Thousand on behalf of, and with the consent of, Victor Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia. The expedition was a success and concluded with the annexation of Sicily, Southern Italy, Marche and Umbria to the Kingdom of Sardinia before the creation of a unified Kingdom of Italy on 17 March His last military campaign took place during the Franco-Prussian War as commander of the Army of the Vosges.
Garibaldi became an international figurehead for national independence and republican ideals, and is considered by twentieth-century historiography and popular culture as Italy's greatest national hero.[5][6] He was showered with admiration and praise by many contemporary intellectuals and political figures, including Abraham Lincoln,[7]William Brown,[8]Francesco de Sanctis, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Malwida von Meysenbug, George Sand, Charles Dickens,[9] and Friedrich Engels.[10]
Garibaldi also inspired later figures like Jawaharlal Nehru and Che Guevara.[11] Historian A.
J. P. Taylor called him "the only wholly admirable figure in modern history".[12] In the popular telling of his story, he is associated with the red shirts that his volunteers, the Garibaldini, wore in lieu of a uniform.
Giuseppe garibaldi biography caprera: Prepare to step back in time as we delve into the life of one of the most remarkable figures in Italian history - Gi.
Early life
Garibaldi was born and christened Joseph-Marie Garibaldi[13][note 2] on 4 July in Nice, which had been conquered by the French Republic in , to the Ligurian family of Domenico Garibaldi from Chiavari[14] and Maria Rosa Nicoletta Raimondi from Loano.[15] In , the Congress of Vienna returned Nice to Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia.
(Nice would be returned to France in by the Treaty of Turin, over the objections of Garibaldi.)
Garibaldi's family's involvement in coastal trade drew him to a life at sea.
He lived in the Pera district of Istanbul from to He became an instructor and taught Italian, French, and mathematics in the Ottoman Empire.[16] Garibaldi had close ties with the vast Sardinian exile network in the Ottoman Empire, befriending people such as Giovanni Timoteo Calosso.[17]
In April , he travelled to Taganrog, in the Russian Empire, aboard the schoonerClorinda with a shipment of oranges.
During ten days in port, he met Giovanni Battista Cuneo from Oneglia, a politically active immigrant and member of the secret Young Italy movement of Giuseppe Mazzini. Mazzini was a passionate proponent of Italian unification as a liberal republic via political and social reform.
In November , Garibaldi met Mazzini in Genoa, starting a long relationship that later became troubled.
He joined the Carbonari revolutionary association, and in February participated in a failed Mazzinian insurrection in Piedmont.
South America
Garibaldi first sailed to the Beylik of Tunis before eventually finding his way to the Empire of Brazil. Once there, he took up the cause of the Riograndense Republic in its attempt to separate from Brazil, joining the rebels known as the Ragamuffins in the Ragamuffin War of
During this war, he met Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro da Silva, commonly known as Anita.
When the rebels proclaimed the Catarinense Republic in the Brazilian province of Santa Catarina in , she joined him aboard his ship, Rio Pardo, and fought alongside him at the battles of Imbituba and Laguna.
In , Garibaldi and Anita moved to Montevideo, Uruguay, where Garibaldi worked as a trader and schoolmaster. The couple married in Church of St.
Francis of Assisi in the Ciudad Vieja neighborhood, the following year.[18] They had four children; Domenico Menotti (–), Rosa (–), Teresa Teresita (–), and Ricciotti (–).[19] A skilled horsewoman, Anita is said[by whom?] to have taught Giuseppe about the gaucho culture of Argentina, southern Brazil and Uruguay.
Around this time he adopted his distinctive style of clothing—wearing the red shirt, poncho, and hat commonly worn by gauchos.
Giuseppe mazzini Prepare to step back in time as we delve into the life of one of the most remarkable figures in Italian history - Gi.In , Garibaldi took command of the Uruguayan fleet and raised an Italian Legion of soldiers—known as Redshirts—for the Uruguayan Civil War. This recruitment was possible as Montevideo had a large Italian population at the time: 4, out of a total population of 30, according to an census.[20]
Garibaldi aligned his forces with the Uruguayan Colorados led by Fructuoso Rivera and Joaquín Suárez, who were aligned with the Argentine Unitarian Party.
This faction received some support from the French and British in their struggle against the forces of former Uruguayan president Manuel Oribe's Blancos, which was also aligned with Argentine Federales under the rule of Buenos Aires caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas. The Italian Legion adopted a black flag that represented Italy in mourning, with a volcano at the centre that symbolized the dormant power in their homeland.
Though contemporary sources do not mention the Redshirts, popular history asserts that the legion first wore them in Uruguay, getting them from a factory in Montevideo that had intended to export them to the slaughterhouses of Argentina. These shirts became the symbol of Garibaldi and his followers.[21]
Between and , Garibaldi defended Montevideo against forces led by Oribe.
In , he managed to occupy Colonia del Sacramento and Martín García Island, and led the infamous sacks of Martín García island and Gualeguaychú during the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata. Garibaldi escaped with his life after being defeated in the Costa Brava combat, delivered on 15 and 16 August , thanks to the mercy of Admiral William Brown.
The Argentines, wanting to pursue him to finish him off, were stopped by Brown who exclaimed "let him escape, that gringo is a brave man."[22] Years later, a grandson of Garibaldi would be named William, in honour of Admiral Brown. Adopting amphibious[20] guerrilla tactics, Garibaldi later achieved two victories during , in the Battle of Cerro and the Battle of San Antonio del Santo.
Induction to Freemasonry
Garibaldi joined Freemasonry during his exile, taking advantage of the asylum the lodges offered to political refugees from European countries. At the age of 37, during , Garibaldi was initiated in the Asilo de la Virtud Lodge of Montevideo.
Giuseppe garibaldi biography video "Discover the incredible story of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the legendary freedom fighter who played a pivotal role in uniting Italy. From daring battles to his un.This was an irregular lodge under a Brazilian Freemasonry not recognized by the main international masonic obediences, such as the United Grand Lodge of England or the Grand Orient de France.
While Garibaldi had little use for Masonic rituals, he was an active Freemason and regarded Freemasonry as a network that united progressive men as brothers both within nations and as a global community.
Garibaldi was eventually elected as the Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy.[23][24]
Garibaldi regularized his position later in , joining the lodge Les Amis de la Patrie of Montevideo under the Grand Orient of France.
Election of Pope Pius IX,
The fate of his homeland continued to concern Garibaldi.
The election of Pope Pius IX in caused a sensation among Italian patriots, both at home and in exile. Pius's initial reforms seemed to identify him as the liberal pope called for by Vincenzo Gioberti, who went on to lead the unification of Italy. When news of these reforms reached Montevideo, Garibaldi wrote to the Pope:
If these hands, used to fighting, would be acceptable to His Holiness, we most thankfully dedicate them to the service of him who deserves so well of the Church and of the fatherland.
Joyful indeed shall we and our companions in whose name we speak be, if we may be allowed to shed our blood in defence of Pius IX's work of redemption.[25]
Mazzini, from exile, also applauded the early reforms of Pius IX. In , Garibaldi offered the apostolic nuncio at Rio de Janeiro, Bedini, the service of his Italian Legion for the liberation of the peninsula.
Then news of the outbreak of the Sicilian revolution of in January and revolutionary agitation elsewhere in Italy, encouraged Garibaldi to lead approximately 60 members of his legion home.
Return to Italy
First Italian War of Independence
Garibaldi returned to Italy amidst the turmoil of the revolutions of in the Italian states and was one of the founders and leaders of the Action Party.
Garibaldi offered his services to Charles Albert of Sardinia, who displayed some liberal inclinations, but he treated Garibaldi with coolness and distrust. Rebuffed by the Piedmontese, he and his followers crossed into Lombardy where they offered assistance to the provisional government of Milan, which had rebelled against the Austrian occupation.
In the course of the following unsuccessful First Italian War of Independence, Garibaldi led his legion to two minor victories at Luino and Morazzone.
After the crushing Piedmontese defeat at the Battle of Novara on 23 March , Garibaldi moved to Rome to support the Roman Republic recently proclaimed in the Papal States.
However, a French force sent by Louis Napoleon threatened to topple it. At Mazzini's urging, Garibaldi took command of the defence of Rome. In fighting near Velletri, Achille Cantoni saved his life. After Cantoni's death, during the Battle of Mentana, Garibaldi wrote the novel Cantoni the Volunteer.
On 30 April , the Republican army, under Garibaldi's command, defeated a numerically far superior French army at the Porta San Pancrazio gate of Rome.
Subsequently, French reinforcements arrived, and the Siege of Rome began on 1 June. Despite the resistance of the Republican army, the French prevailed on 29 June. On 30 June the Roman Assembly met and debated three options: surrender, continue fighting in the streets, or retreat from Rome to continue resistance from the Apennine Mountains.
Garibaldi, having entered the chamber covered in blood, made a speech favouring the third option, ending with: Ovunque noi saremo, sarà Roma[26] ("Wherever we will go, that will be Rome").
The sides negotiated a truce on 1–2 July, Garibaldi withdrew from Rome with 4, troops, and ceded his ambition to rouse popular rebellion against the Austrians in central Italy.
The French Army entered Rome on 3 July and reestablished the Holy See's temporal power. Garibaldi and his forces, hunted by Austrian, French, Spanish, and Neapolitan troops, fled to the north, intending to reach Venice, where the Venetians were still resisting the Austrian siege.[27] After an epic march, Garibaldi took temporary refuge in San Marino, with only men having not abandoned him.
Anita, who was carrying their fifth child, died near Comacchio during the retreat.
North America and the Pacific
Garibaldi eventually managed to reach Porto Venere, near La Spezia, but the Piedmontese government forced him to emigrate again. He went to Tangier, where he stayed with Francesco Carpanetto, a wealthy Italian merchant.
Carpanetto suggested that he and some of his associates finance the purchase of a merchant ship, which Garibaldi would command. Garibaldi agreed, feeling that his political goals were, for the moment, unreachable, and he could at least earn a living.[28]
The ship was to be purchased in the United States.
Garibaldi went to New York City, arriving on 30 July However, the funds for buying a ship were lacking. While in New York, he stayed with various Italian friends, including some exiled revolutionaries. He attended the Masonic lodges of New York in , where he met several supporters of democratic internationalism, whose minds were open to socialist thought, and to giving Freemasonry a strong anti-papal stance.[24]
The inventor Antonio Meucci employed Garibaldi in his candle factory on Staten Island[29] (the cottage where he stayed is listed on the U.S.
National Register of Historic Places and is preserved as the Garibaldi Memorial). Garibaldi was not satisfied with this, and in April he left New York with his friend Carpanetto for Central America, where Carpanetto was establishing business operations. They first went to Nicaragua, and then to other parts of the region.
Garibaldi accompanied Carpanetto as a companion, not a business partner, and used the name Giuseppe Pane.[28]
Carpanetto went on to Lima, Peru, where a shipload of his goods was due, arriving late in with Garibaldi.
Giuseppe garibaldi italy General Garibaldi cut a distinctive figure amongst the protagonists of that epic novel that is European history of the XIX century, when Nations were forged.En route, Garibaldi called on revolutionary heroine Manuela Sáenz. At Lima, Garibaldi was generally welcomed. A local Italian merchant, Pietro Denegri, gave him command of his ship Carmen for a trading voyage across the Pacific, for which he required Peruvian citizenship, which he obtained that year.[30] Garibaldi took the Carmen to the Chincha Islands for a load of guano.
Then on 10 January , he sailed from Peru for Canton, China, arriving in April.[28]
After side trips to Xiamen and Manila, Garibaldi brought the Carmen back to Peru via the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific, passing clear around the south coast of Australia. He visited Three Hummock Island in the Bass Strait.[28] Garibaldi then took the Carmen on a second voyage: to the United States via Cape Horn with copper from Chile, and also wool.
Garibaldi arrived in Boston and went on to New York. There he received a hostile letter from Denegri and resigned his command.[28] Another Italian, Captain Figari, had just come to the U.S. to buy a ship and hired Garibaldi to take the ship to Europe. Figari and Garibaldi bought the Commonwealth in Baltimore, and Garibaldi left New York for the last time in November [29] He sailed the Commonwealth to London, and then to Newcastle upon Tyne for coal.[28]
The Commonwealth arrived on 21 March Garibaldi, already a popular figure on Tyneside, was welcomed enthusiastically by local working men—although the Newcastle Courant reported that he refused an invitation to dine with dignitaries in the city.
He stayed in Huntingdon Place Tynemouth for a few days,[31] and in South Shields on Tyneside for over a month, departing at the end of April During his stay, he was presented with an inscribed sword, which his grandson Giuseppe Garibaldi II later carried as a volunteer in British service in the Second Boer War.[32] He then sailed to Genoa, where his five years of exile ended on 10 May [28]
Second Italian War of Independence
Garibaldi returned to Italy in Using an inheritance from the death of his brother, he bought half of the Italian island of Caprera (north of Sardinia), devoting himself to agriculture.
In , the Second Italian War of Independence (also known as the Franco-Austrian War) broke out in the midst of internal plots at the Sardinian government. Garibaldi was appointed major general and formed a volunteer unit named the Hunters of the Alps (Cacciatori delle Alpi). Thenceforth, Garibaldi abandoned Mazzini's republican ideal of the liberation of Italy, assuming that only the Sardinian monarchy could effectively achieve it.
He and his volunteers won victories over the Austrians at Varese, Como, and other places.[33]
Garibaldi was very displeased as his home city of Nice (Nizza in Italian) had been surrendered to the French in return for crucial military assistance. In April , as deputy for Nice in the Piedmontese parliament at Turin, he vehemently attacked Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, for ceding the County of Nice (Nizzardo) to Emperor Napoleon III of France.
In the following years, Garibaldi (with other passionate Niçard Italians) promoted the Italian irredentism of his native city, supporting the Niçard Vespers riots in [34]
Campaign of
See also: Expedition of the Thousand
On 24 January , Garibaldi married year-old Giuseppina Raimondi.
Immediately after the wedding ceremony, she informed him that she was pregnant with another man's child and Garibaldi left her the same day.[35] At the beginning of April , uprisings in Messina and Palermo in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies provided Garibaldi with an opportunity. He gathered a group of volunteers called i Mille (the Thousand), or the Redshirts as popularly known, in two ships named Il Piemonte and Il Lombardo, and left from Quarto, in Genoa, on 5 May in the evening and landed at Marsala, on the westernmost point of Sicily, on 11 May.
Swelling the ranks of his army with scattered bands of local rebels, Garibaldi led volunteers to victory over an enemy force of 1, at the Battle of Calatafimi on 15 May. He used the counter-intuitive tactic of an uphill bayonet charge. He saw that the hill was terraced, and the terraces would shelter his advancing men.
Though small by comparison with the coming clashes at Palermo, Milazzo, and Volturno, this battle was decisive in establishing Garibaldi's power on the island. An apocryphal but realistic story had him say to his lieutenant Nino Bixio, "Here we either make Italy, or we die."[36]:&#;&#; His Neapolitan adversaries now fought for him, which led to accusations of bribery being made against their leader, Francesco Landi.[37]
The next day, he declared himself dictator of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy.
He advanced to the outskirts of Palermo, the capital of the island, and launched a siege on 27 May. He had the support of many inhabitants, who rose up against the garrison, but before they could take the city, reinforcements arrived and bombarded the city nearly to ruins. At this time, a British admiral intervened and facilitated a truce, by which the Neapolitan royal troops and warships surrendered the city and departed.
The young Henry Adams—later to become a distinguished American writer—visited the city in June and described the situation, along with his meeting with Garibaldi, in a long and vivid letter to his older brother Charles.[38] Historians Clough et al. argue that Garibaldi's Thousand were students, independent artisans, and professionals, not peasants.
The support given by Sicilian peasants was not out of a sense of patriotism but from their hatred of exploitive landlords and oppressive Neapolitan officials. Garibaldi himself had no interest in social revolution and instead sided with the Sicilian landlords against the rioting peasants.[39]
By conquering Palermo, Garibaldi had won a signal victory.
He gained worldwide renown and the adulation of Italians. Faith in his prowess was so strong that doubt, confusion, and dismay seized even the Neapolitan court. Six weeks later, he marched against Messina in the east of the island, winning a ferocious and difficult Battle of Milazzo. By the end of July, only the citadel resisted.[40]
Having conquered Sicily, he crossed the Strait of Messina and marched north.[41] Garibaldi's progress was met with more celebration than resistance, and on 7 September he entered the capital city of Naples, by train.
Despite taking Naples, however, he had not to this point defeated the Neapolitan army. Garibaldi's volunteer army of 24, was not able to conclusively defeat the reorganized Neapolitan army—about 25, men—on 30 September at the Battle of Volturno. This was the largest battle he ever fought, but its outcome was effectively decided by the arrival of the Royal Sardinian Army.[42]
Meanwhile, Garibaldi's victories started to cause disquiet to the Piedmont, and particularly the Sardinian Prime Minister, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour.
He feared that, should the revolutionaries succeed in conquering the entire Neapolitan state, they would then invade the Papal States, which would lead to France intervening.[43] The Piedmontese themselves had conquered most of the Pope's territories in their march south to meet Garibaldi, but they had deliberately avoided Rome, the capital of the Papal state.[44] Garibaldi deeply disliked Cavour.
To an extent, he simply mistrusted Cavour's pragmatism and realpolitik, but he also bore a personal grudge for Cavour's trading away his home city of Nice to the French the previous year.[45] On the other hand, he supported the Sardinian monarch, Victor Emmanuel II, despite his dislike of royalty, who he admired as a champion of Italian independence.[46] In his famous meeting with Victor Emmanuel at Teano on 26 October , Garibaldi greeted him as King of Italy and shook his hand.
Garibaldi rode into Naples at the king's side on 7 November, then retired to the rocky island of Caprera, refusing to accept any reward for his services.[47]
Aftermath
At the outbreak of the American Civil War (in ), Garibaldi was a very popular figure. The 39th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment was named Garibaldi Guard after him.[48] Garibaldi expressed interest in aiding the Union, and he was offered a major general's commission in the U.S.
Army through a letter from Secretary of StateWilliam H. Seward to Henry Shelton Sanford, the U.S. Minister at Brussels, 27 July [7] On 9 September , Sanford met with Garibaldi and reported the result of the meeting to Seward:
He said that the only way in which he could render service, as he ardently desired to do, to the cause of the United States, was as Commander-in-chief of its forces, that he would only go as such, and with the additional contingent power—to be governed by events—of declaring the abolition of slavery—that he would be of little use without the first, and without the second it would appear like a civil war in which the world at large could have little interest or sympathy.[49]
But Abraham Lincoln was not ready to free the slaves; Sanford's meeting with Garibaldi occurred a year before Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
Sanford's mission was hopeless, and Garibaldi did not join the Union army.[50] A historian of the American Civil War, Don H. Doyle, however, wrote, "Garibaldi's full-throated endorsement of the Union cause roused popular support just as news of the Emancipation Proclamation broke in Europe."[51] On 6 August , after Lincoln had issued the final Emancipation Proclamation, Garibaldi wrote to Lincoln, "Posterity will call you the great emancipator, a more enviable title than any crown could be, and greater than any merely mundane treasure."[52]
On 5 October , Garibaldi set up the International Legion bringing together different national divisions of French, Poles, Swiss, Germans and other nationalities, with a view not just of finishing the liberation of Italy, but also of their homelands.
With the motto "Free from the Alps to the Adriatic",[53] the unification movement set its gaze on Rome and Venice. Mazzini was discontented with the perpetuation of monarchial government, and continued to agitate for a republic. Garibaldi, frustrated at inaction by the king, and bristling over perceived snubs, organized a new venture.
This time, he intended to take on the Papal States.
Expedition against Rome
Garibaldi himself was intensely anti-Catholic and anti-papal. His efforts to overthrow the pope by military action mobilized anti-Catholic support. On 28 September , Irish labourers disrupted a pro-Garibaldi meeting in London by chanting "God and Rome", which triggered weeks of ethnic conflict between Protestants and Irish Catholics.[54] Garibaldi's hostility to the pope's temporal domain was viewed with great distrust by Catholics around the world, and the French Emperor Napoleon III had guaranteed the independence of Rome from Italy by stationing a French garrison there.
Victor Emmanuel was wary of the international repercussions of attacking Rome and the pope's seat there, and discouraged his subjects from participating in revolutionary ventures with such intentions. Nonetheless, Garibaldi believed he had the secret support of his government. Once he was excommunicated by the pope, he chose the Protestant pastor Alessandro Gavazzi as his army chaplain.[55]
In June , he sailed from Genoa to Palermo to gather volunteers for the impending campaign, under the slogan Roma o Morte ("Rome or Death").
An enthusiastic party quickly joined him, and he turned for Messina, hoping to cross to the mainland there.
Otto von bismarck biography
"Discover the incredible story of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the legendary freedom fighter who played a pivotal role in uniting Italy. From daring battles to his un.He arrived with a force of around two thousand, but the garrison proved loyal to the king's instructions and barred his passage. They turned south and set sail from Catania, where Garibaldi declared that he would enter Rome as a victor or perish beneath its walls. He landed at Melito di Porto Salvo on 14 August and marched at once into the Calabrian mountains.
Far from supporting this endeavour, the Italian government was quite disapproving. General Enrico Cialdini dispatched a division of the regular army, under Colonel Emilio Pallavicini, against the volunteer bands. On 28 August, the two forces met in the rugged Aspromonte.
One of the regulars fired a chance shot, and several volleys followed, killing a few of the volunteers. The fighting ended quickly, as Garibaldi forbade his men to return fire on fellow subjects of the Kingdom of Italy. Many of the volunteers were taken prisoner, including Garibaldi, who had been wounded by a shot in the foot. The episode was the origin of a famous Italian nursery rhyme: Garibaldi fu ferito ("Garibaldi was wounded").
A government steamer took him to a prison at Varignano near La Spezia, where he was held in a sort of honourable imprisonment and underwent a tedious and painful operation to heal his wound. His venture had failed, but he was consoled by Europe's sympathy and continued interest. After he regained his health, the government released Garibaldi and let him return to Caprera.
En route to London in he stopped briefly in Malta, where many admirers visited him in his hotel.[56] Protests by opponents of his anticlericalism were suppressed by the authorities. In London, his presence was received with enthusiasm by the population.[57] He met the British Prime Minister Viscount Palmerston, as well as revolutionaries then living in exile in the city.
At that time, his ambitious international project included the liberation of a range of occupied nations, such as Croatia, Greece, and Hungary. He also visited Bedford and was given a tour of the Britannia Iron Works, where he planted a tree (which was cut down in due to decay).[58]