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It is the early morning of September 20, 1870 and the sun timidly peeks over Rome. The troops of the Italian Royal Army moved into the night to approach the walls of the Eternal City, the last stronghold of the Pope Pius IX. Everyone is ready for war. Within the walls, the general Chancellor Hermann he harangued his 16,000 men: they must be willing to sacrifice themselves to defend “the sweet Christ on earth”, the one who, although nobody knows it, will be the last pope king. Outside the walls, however, Italian soldiers are ready to fight for the Eternal City to become the capital of Italy. No more Turin, no more Florence. The capital of the newborn Kingdom must be the city of the Caesars and the Popes. “Either Rome or death,” Giuseppe Garibaldi had said in Marsala on July 19, 1862. So it was.
Since the beginning of summer, the city is in crisis. In fact, the Franco-Prussian war has revitalized the forces of those who, even within the Papal State, want to make Rome the capital of Italy. It says in the docs: “Many individuals spontaneously brought, personally, or participated in writing, information, as happens when a cause is popular; but it was difficult to discern the true from the false. Many were fantastic and the fruit of a heated imagination, with what annoyance for a Headquarters already very worried, it is superfluous to mention it. And what harm then if you do the operations with false or altered data! And yet, in calmer times, some of those news inventors demanded compensation … Essentially, the positive information and The useful information came from secretly dispatched army officers. The reliable data included that at the outbreak of the Franco-German war there were several disputes between Germans and French of the papal army. ” Spies, real or alleged, everywhere. And the certainty that sooner or later an attack would come.
On September 20 the clashes begin shortly after five in the morning. It is the Zouaves who shoot first, seeing a large number of soldiers lined up. One of the first to fall, if not the first, is Corporal Piazzoli, who is hit while trying to load the artillery piece that should have fired the first shot. Therefore, the attack is delayed, but only a few minutes. According to a legend, he is therefore the captain Giacomo Segre, Israelite, to shoot first. Because the? As a Jew, he would not have incurred papal excommunication. However, the reality is different, as the Brigadier General explains. Fulvio Poli: “The anecdote that he was ordered to open fire on the walls of Rome to avoid papal excommunication is not confirmed by the documents. Segre was an excellent gunner in a multi-denominational army. In truth, at 5:15, the artillery of the 9th Division and the 13th Division opened fire as ordered by General Cadorna, minutes later those of the 11th and 12th Division also began. At 5:20, the reserve batteries opened fire. ”The documents are clear and dismantled the vulgate that has survived to this day: “In the center the batteries of the reserve position and the other two of the 11 ^ began to break the already established part of the wall and above all the 5th battery of the wall contributed to the ruin of the wall. Captain Segre for the short distance that separated it from the target ”.
Three hours pass before the wall that defended the pontiff falls. 888 shots are fired and, at 8.30, the breach of Porta Pia. Intense smoke rises. Smell of lime and gunpowder. The artillery does not stop and continues firing until 9.45 am, when a tricolor flag appears on the Villa Patrizi tower. This is the sign: Rome is taken. The wall collapses completely, except for a representation of Mary, as Edmondo De Amicis wrote, at that time a young officer who witnessed these events: “Pia’s door was broken; the only image of the Virgin, which rises Behind her, it remained intact, the statues on the right and left no longer had heads, the only environment was strewn with piles of earth, smoking mattresses, Zouave caps, weapons, beams, stones. regiments.
Papal soldiers, in fact, don’t hold out that long. It is Pius IX himself who orders, in a letter whose date has been modified several times, that blood not be spilled unnecessarily. The letter, initially dated September 14 or 19, was later amended several times, changing the phrase “to the first shots” to or “just breached” and “to any bloodshed” with “by a large spill. of blood”. “After 150 years, we still do not know why the Holy Father wanted to take responsibility for the fallen. But it was. As was the case also on the Italian side: the battle” was supposed to be smooth, not to give to the community Catholic – more opportunities than those offered by an armed attack on the supreme head of the Church – to mount an international scandal “(Antonio di Pierro, The last day of Pope King September 20, 1870: the rupture of Porta Pia). After all, the dead were only 48 for the royal army and 19 for the pontifical: “The progress of operations shows, on the one hand, how the papal resistance, although initially fierce, was little more than symbolic and, on the other hand, another shows the Italian will not to damage the city and its population “, explains General Poli. Thus, one era was closed, that of the pope kings, and another opened: the unity of Italy had been achieved. And won with blood .
