Italian General Raffaele Cadorna Orders a Bombardment of Rome: September 20, 1870
- Catholic Textbook Project
- Sep 15
- 5 min read
This text comes from our book, Light to the Nations, Part II.
For a month after the last French troops left the Papal States on August 6, 1870, the kingdom of Italy made no move against Rome. Instead, Vittorio Emanuele’s government insisted that it would respect the 1864 treaty it had signed with France; it would not invade the papal state, and would protect it from invasion. On August 19, 1870, the Italian foreign minister said that not only the 1864 treaty but the “common law of nations” called on Italy to respect the Church’s temporal domain.
Vittorio Emanuele’s government used such talk as long as it seemed that France had some chance of prevailing in the war against Prussia; but when French armies began losing battles, the Italian government saw it could do what it wanted with the pope without fear of French interference. When Napoleon III fell from power after the Battle of Sedan, the Italian government knew nothing stood in its way; for Bismarck, it knew, could not care less what happened to Rome and, for that matter, the Catholic Church.
So it was that on September 8, 1870, an Italian envoy presented a letter to Pope Pius IX. The letter was from Vittorio Emanuele and opened with these words: “With the affection of a son, with the faith of a Catholic, with the loyalty of a King, with the sentiment of an Italian, I address myself again, as I have done formerly, to the heart of your Holiness.” In his letter, Vittorio Emanuele warned the pope of the “revolution” that threatened both of their thrones and offered to protect the pope by sending Italian troops into the Papal States. The king asked only that the pope disband his “foreign troops” and allow them to be replaced by troops of the kingdom of Italy.
Pius IX saw through Vittorio Emanuele’s offer of protection. The foreign troops the king referred to were the Papal Zouaves, who made up only about one-third of the Pope’s 10,000-man army. But the king did not just object to the Zouaves; he wanted the entire papal army disbanded and replaced with royal Italian troops—which, of course, would bring the papal state completely under Vittorio Emanuele’s power. “You are whitened sepulchres,” Pius told the king’s envoy. “I know you not, and cannot know you or in any way treat with you.” On September 11, the pope sent an official reply to Vittorio Emanuele, rejecting the king’s offer.
But even before he had received the pope’s official reply, Vittorio Emanuele unleashed war on the papal state. From three different points, the Italian army, 60,000 strong, invaded the pope’s domains. At Civitavecchia, the papal army fought bravely and made some resistance; but vastly outnumbered, it finally withdrew toward Rome. Vittorio Emanuele’s army followed and laid siege to the city.
The Italian king, however, did not immediately assault Rome. He had told his troops that they were fighting to free the pope from the foreign troops that held him captive. The people of the papal state, Vittorio Emanuele had said, would welcome the Italian army with joy and join them in freeing the Holy Father from his oppressors. Nearly everywhere, however, the pope’s subjects met the Italians with cold silence. They did not rise up to fight for Vittorio Emanuele and Italian unity. The king waited for a popular uprising, but he waited in vain.
At 5:00 a.m. on September 20, 1870, the Italian General Raffaele Cadorna ordered the bombardment of Rome to begin. Hermann Kanzler, commanding the papal army, led a brave resistance and was able for a short time to drive Cadorna back from the city. The pope, however, wanted to avoid a useless shedding of blood; he had told Kanzler to surrender once the Italians breached the walls of the city. The first breach appeared in one of Rome’s ancient walls, the Porta Pia, at about 10:00 a.m.; Kanzler, in obedience to the pope, raised the white flag.
The people of Rome soon learned what Vittorio Emanuele’s idea of liberation meant for them. Following the Italian army was a host of revolutionaries, followers of Garibaldi, and bandits. When these entered the city, they released prisoners from the jails and with these companions wandered the streets, committing acts of violence and brutality. For two days, Cadorna did nothing as mobs burned houses and destroyed property. About 80 Roman citizens died at the hands of the mobs, and the ruffians killed any papal soldiers they discovered on the streets.
On October 2, Vittorio Emanuele called a plebiscite to ask the people of the Papal States to vote on whether they wanted to be annexed to the kingdom of Italy. With Italian troops, Redshirts, and assorted bandits prowling Rome and the surrounding countryside, most of the papal state’s 150,000 voters did not venture out to cast a vote. Forty thousand, however, did; and of these, only 46 were found who opposed annexation. Based on this “vote of the people,” Vittorio Emanuele declared the end of the pope’s government and the annexation of his states into Italy.
Vittorio Emanuele, however, did not want the world to think badly of his illegal seizure of another state. Over the months following the conquest of Rome, he and the Italian parliament passed two laws, one demanding that the pope be paid the respect owed to kings and another allowing the pope to exercise his spiritual authority freely. Yet, even as it passed these laws, the Italian government seized religious houses and church property, including schools and charitable institutions like orphanages. Italian troops placed in the Vatican used their guns to threaten anyone who appeared at a window of the papal palaces, and Italian officials violated the pope’s spiritual authority by refusing to allow any of his encyclicals to be posted in public.
For his part, Pope Pius condemned the seizure of his states, calling it null and illegal. He refused to recognize the authority of the Italian government. Pius, however, did not leave Rome; he remained there, a voluntary “prisoner” in the Vatican. With him were most of the foreign ambassadors who had waited on him when he had ruled as king. Nor did his people forsake their Holy Father. Most of those who had held offices under him, including the Marquis Cavalletti, the mayor of Rome, refused to take the oath of allegiance to the new government. A Liberal Italian newspaper gave witness to the devotion of the Roman people to the pope and their opposition to the kingdom of Italy. “Rome,” it said, “does not resemble a friendly city, but a city constantly writhing under a prolonged military occupation, which it bears impatiently.”
The pope’s greatest joy may have been the devotion shown to him by Catholics all over the world. When Pius refused a large yearly payment of money from the Italian government (which would have made him more dependent on his enemies), Catholics revived an ancient offering called Peter’s Pence to supply the material needs of the Church of Rome. Every year, the Catholic faithful of Europe as well as the Americas sent offerings to the pope. So great were these offerings that Pius was able not only to care for his own few needs and those of his household but also to provide for charitable organizations and schools. In addition, he could aid bishops who were driven from their sees by the Italian government.
It was not until July 1871 that King Vittorio Emanuele and his government entered Rome and claimed it for the capital of a united Italy. But even as the Italian king took up his residence in the Quirinal, the ancient papal palace, a group of Catholics in Rome presented to the pope an address signed by 27,000 Roman citizens. The address expressed sorrow for the public immorality that had come upon Rome since the conquest. Unbowed, Pope Pius responded that he would stand firm to the end. “I am weary of all this,” he said, “and yet I am not disposed to lay down my arms, nor debase myself to make any compact with iniquity.
“I shall fulfill my duty to the end,” he said.
