The Battle of Castelfidardo took place on 18 September 1860 at

Castelfidardo Castelfidardo (Marchigiano: ''Castello'') is a town and '' comune'' in the province of Ancona, in the Marche region of central-eastern Italy. It is remembered for a Piedmontese victory over an army composed of foreign volunteers defending th ...

, a small town in the Marche region of Italy. It was fought between the Sardinian army – acting as the driving force in the war for Italian unification, against the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...

Prologue

On 7 September, Cavour, Prime Minister of Piedmont, sent an ultimatum to the Pope demanding that he dismiss his foreign troops. When he failed to do this, 35,000 troops crossed the border on 11 September, with General

Enrico Cialdini Enrico Cialdini, Duca di Gaeta (8 August 18118 September 1892) was an Italian soldier, politician and diplomat. Biography He was born in Castelvetro, in the province of Modena. In 1831 he took part in the insurrection at Modena, fleeing afterw ...

advancing along the Adriatic coast and General Della Rocca leading another troop across

Umbria it, Umbro (man) it, Umbra (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , ...

. Papal troops were caught by surprise and thrown into confusion. Some of the Papal troops surrendered the same day and some retreated to

Ancona Ancona (, also , ) is a city and a seaport in the Marche region in central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region. The city is located northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic ...

which fell on after a short siege.

Battle

The battle is remembered for being bloody, and for the highly disparate numbers of troops—fewer than 10,000 Papal soldiers to 39,000 Sardinians.

Papal Army

The papal army was composed of volunteers from many European countries, amongst whom the French and Belgian nationals constituted a Franco-Belgian battalion. Among the French volunteers were a notable number of nobles from western France: after the battle, whilst consulting the list of dead and wounded members of the papal army, the Sardinian general Cialdini is reported to have said, in an example of

black humor Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discus ...

, "you would think this was a list of invites for a ball given by

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ver ...

!"Marquis de Ségur. 1891. ''Les martyrs de Castelfidardo''. Paris: Tolra1 The Franco-Belgian, Austrian and Irish battalions later joined the

Papal Zouaves The Papal Zouaves ( it, Zuavi Pontifici) were an infantry battalion, later regiment, dedicated to defending the Papal States. Named after the French zouave regiments, the ' were mainly young men, unmarried and Catholic, who volunteered to assist P ...

, an infantry regiment of international composition that pledged to aid Pope Pius IX in the protection of the Papacy for the remainder of the Italian unificationist

Risorgimento The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...

Military and political results

As a result of this battle, the Marche and

entered the

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to an institutional referendum to abandon the monarchy and f ...

and the Papal States were reduced to the area of what is today known as

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

Commemoration

The battle was commemorated by the , built in the 1860s and the 26th Bersaglieri Battalion "Castelfidardo".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Castelfidardo, Battle of 1860 in Italy Battles involving the Papal States Conflicts in 1860 September 1860 events