(M) Army Papal States. State Chiesa Troops Split Drum Volunteer Genuine
Original lithograph from 1840 ca.
Author Anonymous
Title Volunteer Captain and Drum
Technique Litography original vintage watercolor original lithograph with ancient colors
Period / Age 1840 ca.
Conditions / Condition excellent very nice
Dimensions
image / picture cm 14 by 14 approx.
The sheet / sheet cm 33 by 23 approx.
This is an original lithograph from around 1840. not a modern reproduction or photoengraving.
It's an original lithograph around 1840 not a modern copy or photo.
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L'Church State Army or Army of the Papal State was the army of the Papal State. Created starting from Middle Ages, it was dismissed in 1878 with the death of Pius IX and Italian unification. Officially he was dissolved as pope Paul VI In the 1970.
Index[hide] |
History [modification]
The military policy of the Papal State [modification]
On the basis of a generic consideration it can be affirmed that the State of the Church has tried to defend material goods and its own autonomy religious, resorting, in the first instance, to religious power, especially that of the excommunication, or more rarely thanforbidden, but, when this were not enough, also the use of weapons.[1]
The policy most followed by the popes was to involve in their own interests another state, usually neighboring, which with its army would defend the territorial and political integrity of the papal state, receiving in exchange honors, money, legitimacy of its political conduct and religious condemnation of his enemies.
The fact remains that the papal state endowed itself with its own little one army to suppress any revolts, both peasant and Roman nobles, to fight against banditry, true plague ofAgro Romano, or to counteract the raids of the pirates barbarian that scourged the coasts and sometimes dared to go up the course of the Tiber to the point of threatening Rome.
In its long history, the State of the Church it took part in wars by allying with states that already had their own army. The Holy See most often provided troops of mercenaries hired for the occasion, who wore the same uniforms of the allied army. The Roman aristocratic families reinforced the papal contingents with their own knights: from their ranks, as in the case of the Orsini and gods Column, more than twelve of the major ones were chosen leaders.
The middle Ages [modification]
The political choice to seek alliances with Lombards, Franks, Normans, in the impossibility of having its own regular troops, characterizes the military history of the State of the Church up to 1049, when papa Leo IX decided to equip the State with a real army, which remained unchanged in its structure until 1320.
This standing military force consisted of one cavalry noble (or even mercenary), with a militia Roman, flanked by a mercenary made up of crossbowmen, archers And infantrymen: if it were necessary, the nearby allies of Perugia, Ancona, Spoleto etc.
In the 1072 the first mercenary knights appear in the pope's army Germans (Swabian) to which they preferred in 1250 those French. In the'communal age the papal army was well organized in a mercenary cavalry divided into two corps: one with heavy armor for men and horses, a second with light armor and without protection for horses. The strategy of the heavy cavalry was generally to break the enemy front and then leave the field to the light one and the infantry.
The Renaissance [modification]
With the proliferation of Venture companies in age Renaissance even the papacy considers it convenient to use these troops of war professionals to complement the mercenary ones, used especially in the Avignonese period to bring back under control the States of the Church which had made themselves autonomous from Rome and which were now severely punished and terribly plundered.
The papacy at this time relied on a company of fortune led by Piero Giampaolo Orsini formed by 800 cavalry and 200 infantry, structured in six teams. Alongside these regulars there were also soldiers hired individually by the papal government for particular tasks and for limited periods of time.
It could include mercenary knights and nobles, crossbowmen And arquebusiers, on foot and on horseback, militias civic, lansquenets German and Spanish infantry, infantry Romagna all armed with bladed and firearms.
A mixture of 8000, 10000 men who formed a military apparatus only apparently chaotic but in reality well managed. Such a large number of infantry, which exceeded the limit established by the treaties of the Italic League (1454) generally came from the gangs that operated in the mountains of Romagna, ofUmbria andAbruzzo, while for all the XVIII century It will be there Spain to take charge of the defense of the papacy through armies hired in the territories ofEmpire.
The regiments were made up of ten companies of 120, 150 soldiers, arranged in ten lines, alternating between infantry armed with pikes up to 18 feet long and soldiers armed with muskets with very long barrel that could only be used with a support planted in the ground. Another 8, 10 row array consisted of cuirassiers armed with the medieval broadsword and two large pistols.
The function of the cavalry was always that of the past: only now the discharge of firearms was added to the impact; the light one did not have defensive weapons like this one Croatian which was armed with carbines.
The papal army also had aCampaign artillery with a range of about 800 steps for low pitches while for curved ones it used howitzers And mortars
The Swiss Guard [modification]
The most famous military formation of the papal army is that of the Swiss Guard set up on the initiative of Sixtus IV which he had concluded in 1479 an agreement with the Swiss confederation, which provided for the possibility of to recruit mercenaries Swiss.
The January 22 1506, a group of 150 mercenaries Swiss at the command of the captain Kaspar von Silenen, del Canton of Uri, settled permanently in Vatican at the service of Pope Julius II.
The Swiss Guards were not only employed as the pope's personal escort, but participated in numerous battles, the most famous that occurred on May 6 1527 during the lot of Rome by the lansquins of contestable of borbone, permitting with their sacrifice a Pope Clement VII to have your life saved.
Of the 189 Swiss, only forty-two were saved, that is, those who at the last moment had accompanied Clement VII on his flight along the Step from Village, the passage that connects the Vatican to Sant'Angelo castel. The June 5th Clement VII surrendered.
The papal garrison was replaced with mercenaries Spaniards And lansquenets. The Pope got the surviving Swiss to be included in the new Guard, but only 12 of them accepted.
From the Napoleonic age to Porta Pia [modification]
During XVIII century, after the bad test given in War of the Spanish Succession, the papal army was increasingly neglected by the papal government until it was reduced to a few thousand soldiers, divided into garrisons with the main task of defense, losing all characteristics of mobility.
The papal army reduced to a minimum was therefore unable to adequately defend the pope when the papal state was occupied by the France of the Directory. Dad Pius VI, fled first to Siena and then in the charterhouse from Florence it was defended by the Corps of "Broken Lances", so called in memory of the feudal knights who broke their spears to defend their lord. The body, set up by Paul IV In the 1555, consisted of one hundred citizens and nobles chosen to defend the pope.
In the 1848 this training of volunteers was dissolved with the establishment of the Roman Republic, in whose ranks the dissolved papal army converged.
The May 19 1860 the papal troops, led by the French colonel Georges de Pimodan, rejected 400 Garibaldini who intended to enter the territory of the State from Tuscany. The French contingent, warned of the danger, had not moved from Rome. Pius IX he decided that the time had come for an organized army.
The Minister of Weapons, Cardinal Msgr. Francis Xavier de Mérode, who had fought in the Belgian and French armies, summoned the French general to command the new army Christophe Louis de Lamoricière, who had distinguished himself in the Algerian war by defeating the emir Abd el-Kader. The reorganization had as its objective the increase of the personnel from 16,000 to 20,000 men. Through the diocese of every European Catholic state, recruitment centers were organized and fundraising campaigns started. 5,000 Austrians enlisted, 3,000 Irish, followed by Poles, Belgians, Swiss and Dutch. The Italians were over 6,000.
The military organization followed the Austrian model: just as the imperial army was made up of battalions of only Hungarians, only Croats, etc., so the battalions of the new papal army were organized by nationality: the shooters were Franco-Belgians, the carabinieri they were Germans; the Bersaglieri were Austrians; the Irish made up the St. Patrick's Brigade. Guided by devotion to the Pope and a spirit of revenge towards their stepmother England, their motto was "We fought for the Pope and for Catholic Ireland". As for the papal subjects, a battalion of Bolognese gendarmes was set up.
The baptism of fire of the new army took place in September of that year, due to the attack of the Piedmontese army led by general Cialdini and della Rocca. With 38,000 men with 5,000 horses and 78 pieces of artillery, it repeatedly faced and defeated the papal army, which had 21,000 troops and about thirty guns, in Perugia, Spoleto, Castelfidardo (where de Pimodan fell) and Ancona. The defeat led to the loss of Umbria And Marche. The territory of the Papal State was restricted to Lazio only. The prisoners were treated harshly: in columns, they were led to forced marches in Piedmont, from where they returned home only after long months. The wounded were massed near the sanctuary of Loreto, which was transformed into a hospital. Again the French did not move to fight outside Rome.
After the defeat, the Holy See started a new reorganization of the army. Minister de Mérode appointed two new general commanders: the German Hermann Kanzler and the Romagna Giovanni Battista Zappi. The company of St. Patrick, which had proved so valiant in the clashes of Spoleto and Castelfidardo, was recreated.
In the 1864 the Italian state moved the capital from Turin to Florence. It was a move towards Rome, considered as the final goal. Fearing new attacks, the "Legion of Antibo" was created (Antibes), made up of French Catholics. Belgians, Dutch, Irish and even British enlisted. Volunteers flocked to Rome with their families, who provided them with horses and money for armament. There was even a few volunteers from Canada and give it United States.
In the 1867 the papal army numbered 13,000 men, defending Lazio, under the command of General de Courten. In Rome there was a garrison of 6,000 soldiers, commanded by General Zappi. That year the most prestigious episode for the army took place. The September 28 the first Garibaldini entered the Papal State. In October he landed in Civitavecchia a French division of 9,000 men in aid of the pontiffs. For the first time since 1859, Pius IX publicly intervened with the address Levate (October 27, 1867). Garibaldi's attack was repulsed. The decisive victory was obtained in Mentana (November 3): three thousand pontiffs and two thousand French defeated about nine thousand Garibaldini.
All the veterans of the victorious campaign were given a silver frieze in the shape of an octagonal cross [2].
The army of the 1870 always consisted of 13,000 staff (to be precise, 13,385) [3], which was reduced to about 10,000 regular: Zouaves, Foreign Carabinieri, papal infantry, Legion of Antibo, Dragoons, Artillerymen who gave good proof of themselves to Mentana with the support of the French allies of Napoleon III. Since 1860 there was also a battalion made up of Bolognese gendarmes; over time, two squadrons on horseback from the city of Bologna had also been added. Among the Italians, none of the families of the Catholic aristocracy were missing: the prince Pietro Aldobrandini, Prince Paul Bourgeois, Prince Francis Ruspoli, Prince Vittorio Odescalchi, Prince Charles Chigi Albani della Rovere, the prince Alfonso of Bourbon-Two Sicilies brother of the former King of the Two Sicilies; Prince Alfonso Carlo of Bourbon-Spain and other representatives of the European nobility.
In September 1870, having understood that the end of the papal state was inevitable, Pius IX ordered the soldiers to offer symbolic resistance. [4]. The conquest of Rome by the Italian army took place on September 20.
The prisoners were offered to pass under the banner of the victors. Only a hundred accepted. For the others, as had already happened in 1860, a very strict treatment was reserved: 4,800 soldiers were led to forced marches in the fortresses of Mantua, Peschiera, Verona and Alessandria. The others (Emilia, Romagna, Marche, Veneto and Lombardy) were considered "traitors" and were imprisoned in the special prison of Fenestrelle. For all the detention was long and the living conditions very hard.
After the taking of Porta Pia [modification]
After the conquest of the city, excluding the Leonine city, the surrender agreement involved the dissolution of the papal army except for the bodies of the Swiss Guard, Palatine Guard, Noble guard and of Papal Gendarmerie who remained to garrison the areas not occupied by Italian soldiers. The remaining troops, after the honor of arms bestowed by the victorious soldiers, were disarmed and sent towards the fortress of Alexandria or, in the case of foreign volunteers, embark a Civitavecchia.
The "Legion of Antibo", made up of French volunteers, survived the breakup of the papal army. Embarked in Civitavecchia, she moved to Toulon. He fought in the ongoing war against Prussia with the name of "Western Volunteer Legion". The legionaries maintained their papal uniform and their own flag. They took to the field against the Germans on the Loire, then to Le Mans. The department was dissolved on August 13 1871, at the end of the war.
The Swiss Guards remained in personal defense of the pope in his quarters. Pope Pius X In the 1914 decided to fix the number of soldiers who made up this special corps at 100, plus 6 officers, including the commander with the rank of colonel.
During the Second World War, and in particular after theSeptember 8, 1943, Pope Pius XII temporarily strengthened his small army (the Swiss Guards Corps was raised to over 300 and that of the Palatine Guards up to 2000), both to shelter the many displaced people who sought hospitality in Vatican both to give a minimum of security to the State of the Church.
Today the Swiss Guard deals with the safety of the pope and the Vatican CITY, guarding the papal quarters and maintaining order during religious ceremonies.
The other military corps that survived the September 20 1870 they were definitively dissolved in 1970 by the will of Paul VI.
Note [modification]
- ^ Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2005. ISBN 88-15-10781-9
- ^ The frieze was accompanied by a medal bearing the inscription Fidei et Virtute on the one hand and Hinc Victoria on the other.
- ^ Thus broken down by nationality: 8,240 Italians, 3,000 French, 1,200 Germans and Austrians, a thousand Swiss, 900 Dutch, 700 Belgians, 300 French-Canadians, then other nationalities to a lesser extent.
- ^ Gilberto Oneto, The strange unity , p. 98, The Circle, 2008.