Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora - military leader

General who became prime minister of Italy

Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora was an important
figure in Italy's Risorgimento movement

Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora, a general and statesman who became the sixth prime minister of Italy, was born on this day in 1804 in Turin.

A graduate of the Turin Military Academy, La Marmora went on to play an important part in the Risorgimento, the movement to create a united Italy.

One of his older brothers was Alessandro Ferrero La Marmora, who founded the Italian army’s famous Bersaglieri corps, which entered French-occupied Rome in 1870 through a breach in the wall at Porta Pia and completed the unification of Italy.

Alfonso La Marmora went into the army in 1823 and first distinguished himself in the Italian wars of independence against Austria.

In 1848, La Marmora rescued the Sardinian king, Charles Albert, from Milanese revolutionaries who had resented the king’s armistice with the Austrians. Afterwards he was promoted to general and briefly served as minister of war.

La Marmora suppressed an insurrection at Genoa in 1849 and commanded the Sardinian forces in the Crimean War in 1855.

A meeting between La Marmora (right) and
Garibaldi, as depicted by an Italian magazine

Later, while serving as minister of war again, he reorganised the Italian army.

He then served as premier of Piedmont, governor of Milan and as the king’s lieutenant in Naples.

He became the sixth prime minister of the new united Italy in 1864, succeeding Marco Minghetti, and concluded the country’s alliance with Prussia against Austria.

But La Marmora was held responsible for the overwhelming defeat of the Italians by the Austrians at Custoza in 1866 and was accused of hesitant conduct during the battle, despite the superior numbers of the Italian troops.

Scenes from the Italian side of the Battle of Custoza were recreated in the 1954 Luchino Visconti film, Senso.

La Marmora retired shortly afterwards but was appointed the king’s lieutenant in Rome after it was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in 1870.

One of the books he wrote in retirement was entitled Un po’ di luce sugli eventi politici e militari dell’anno 1866 (A little light on the political and military events of the year 1866), which aimed to justify his actions at Custoza. 

Alfonso La Marmora died in 1878 in Florence.

The equestrian statue of La Marmora in
Turin's Piazza Bodoni

Travel tip:

In Turin, the Via Alfonso Lamarmora, an elegant residential street, commemorates the military general and sixth prime minister of Italy who was born in the city. The street links Corso Stati Uniti with Via Sebastiano Caboto, bisecting the busy Corso Luigi Einaudi.  There is an equestrian statue of Alfonso La Marmora in Via Giambattista Bodoni, not far from Turin's main railway station

Travel tip:

Custoza, where the Italians under Alfonso La Marmora were defeated in battle in 1866, is in the province of Verona in the Veneto, close to Lake Garda . The town is also famous for producing the prestigious wine, Bianco di Custoza, sometimes referred to as the white equivalent of the red wine Bardolino, which is produced nearby.

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Luigi Cadorna – Marshall of Italy

Tough military leader was blamed for losing crucial battle

General Luigi Cadorna was Chief of Staff
of the Italian Army in the First World War

Luigi Cadorna, a military General who was made a Marshall of Italy, was born on this day in 1850 in Verbania, on the shore of Lake Maggiore in the Piedmont region.

Cadorna is most remembered for his role as Chief of Staff of the Italian Army during the first part of the First World War.

His father was General Raffaele Cadorna, the Piedmontese military leader whose capture of Rome in 1870 completed the unification of Italy.

Sent by his father to a military school in Milan from the age of 10, he entered the Turin Military Academy when he was 15 and, after graduating at the age of 18, was commissioned as a second lieutenant of artillery.

He participated in the occupation of Rome in 1870 as part of the force commanded by his father.

After becoming a Major, Cadorna was appointed to the staff of General Pianelli and became Chief of Staff of the Verona Divisional Command.

From 1892 he was the Colonel commanding the 10th Regiment of Bersaglieri, where he acquired a reputation for strict discipline and harsh punishment.

He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1898 and subsequently held a number of senior command positions.

General Cadorno (fourth from the right) inspecting Italian
troops ahead of the second Isonzo offensive

By 1915, when Italy was about to enter the First World War, Cadorna was on the verge of retiring and had a history of differences with his political and military superiors.

But he was offered the post of Chief of Staff and took Italy into the war with 36 infantry divisions composed of 875,000 men, armed with only a small number of modern artillery pieces.

Large numbers of men and equipment had been deployed to Tripolitania in Libya, leaving the home army disorganised and short of equipment.

Cadorna launched four offensives along the Isonzo river with the aim of capturing Gorizia from the Austrians, but they all failed, leaving 250,000 Italian casualties.

Cadorna would ultimately fight 11 unsuccessful battles in unsuitable terrain between 1915 and 1917.

In October 1917, a combined Austro-Hungarian army advanced, defeating Cadorna’s troops at Caporetto. The troops managed to get as far as the Piave River, because Cadorna’s tactics had provided little defence in depth.

General Armando Diaz led the defeat of the
Austro-Hungarian army after replacing Cadorna

The Italian army fled in disarray and seemed on the verge of total collapse, with 275,000 soldiers captured.

During the battle, Cadorna had ordered the execution of all officers whose units retreated.

Italy’s allies, Britain and France, insisted on the dismissal of Cadorna and sent 11 divisions to reinforce the Italian front.

Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando appointed General Armando Diaz as Chief of General Staff and Cadorna was reassigned to be the Italian representative at the Allied Supreme War Council set up in Versailles.

The restored Italian defensive line held firm during the Battle of the Piave River, providing a springboard for the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, where the Austro-Hungarian army was finally defeated.

After the war, the Italian Government held an inquiry into the defeat at Caporetto and the published report was critical of Cadorna.

He wrote in his memoirs that he was not responsible for the defeat, despite having fled to Padua during the battle.

In 1924, after Benito Mussolini seized power, Cadorna was made a Field Marshall (Maresciallo d’Italia), an honour recognising his service to Italy before and during the war. Cadorna died in Bordighera in 1928 at the age of 78.  His body was entombed in a mausoleum designed by the architect Marcello Piacentini by the waterside at Verbania.

His son, Raffaele Cadorna, also became a General, fighting in the First and Second World Wars. He became famous for his actions as one of the commanders of the Italian Resistance, fighting against the Germans who were still occupying northern Italy after 1943.

A picture taken from Verbania at sunset with the Cadorna
Mausoleum in the foreground and Isolina di San Giovanni

Travel tip:

Verbania, where Luigi Cadorna was born, is a town on the shore of Lake Maggiore, about 91km (57 miles) northwest of Milan and about 40km (25 miles) from Locarno in Switzerland. Verbania is also known as Verbania Pallanza, following its merger with Intra, Pallanza and Suna in 1939. It faces the city of Stresa across the lake. A small island a few metres from the shore, known as the Isolino di San Giovanni, is famous for having been the home of Arturo Toscanini, between 1927 and 1952. 

Milano Cadorna railway station is named after Luigi Cadorna

Travel tip:

Milano Cadorna railway station in Piazzale Luigi Cadorna, near the Castello Sforzesco, provides a permanent reminder of the General to all rail commuters. The original station building was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War and the current building was restored, along with the square, in 1999. Piazzale Cadorna is now a Milan transport hub with an underground station, tram stops and 11 bus stops.

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Alessandro La Marmora - military general

Founder of Italy's famed Bersaglieri corps

A painting, by an unknown artist, that shows General
Alessandro La Marmora, in his Bersaglieri uniform

The general who founded the Italian army's famous Bersaglieri corps was born on this day in 1799 in Turin.

Alessandro Ferrero La Marmora was one of 16 children born to the Marquis Celestino Ferrero della Marmora and his wife Raffaella.  The family had a strong military tradition. Alessandro was one of four of the male children who grew up to serve as generals.

La Marmora was a captain when he came up with the idea for the Bersaglieri in 1836.

He had spent much time in France, England, Bavaria, Saxony, Switzerland, and the Austrian county of Tyrol studying armies and tactics and he approached King Carlo Alberto of Piedmont-Sardinia with the idea of creating a new corps of light infantry.

He envisaged a mobile elite corps similar to the French chasseurs and Austrian jägers, trained to a high physical level and all crack marksmen.  He suggested they should act as scouts, providing screen for the main army, operate as skirmishers and use their sharpshooting skills to weaken the flanks of the enemy during a battle.

From this proposal emerged the Bersaglieri, soldiers who were trained to be bold, carrying out their duties with patriotic fervour despite personal danger.

A painting by Carlo Ademollo from 1880 shows Bersaglieri
 soldiers storming Rome's Porta Pia in 1870

They wore distinctive headgear, both for ceremonial occasions and in action, that sported generally black grouse or capercaillie feathers, which was seen to symbolise their flair and bravery on the battlefield, setting them apart from others.

The other feature of the Bersaglieri was that, on parade, they moved in a fast jog rather than marching.

The feathers were important to morale, reinforcing belief in corps members that they were a force to be reckoned with against any opposing troops.  Battlefield helmets carried about 100 plumes compared with 400 on dress helmets.

The feathers served a practical purpose, too. Worn on the right side of the hat, they helped shade the shooting eye of the soldier as an aid to taking aim.  Also, because adornments to military headgear were normally worn on the left, they had the potential to confuse enemy spotters over the direction in which they were moving.

When, during the First World War, it was decided that feathers would make the Bersaglieri too conspicuous in trench warfare and the corps were ordered to wear plain tin helmets, morale suffered so much that the order had to be reversed.

Bersaglieri in action at the Battle of Novara

The Bersaglieri made their first public appearance at a military parade on July 1, 1836 and so impressed King Carlo Alberto they were immediately integrated as part of the Piedmontese regular army.  The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was relatively poor and a quick-moving infantry corps with sharpshooting skills helped compensate for their army's lack of numbers.

Led by La Marmora, the Bersaglieri distinguished themselves during the First Italian War of Independence by storming a bridge in the Battle of Goita - in which La Marmora suffered a broken jaw when he was shot in the face - and became famous on September 20, 1870 when they charged through a breach in the walls of Rome at Porta Pia. Their assault led to the capture of the city, completing Italian unification.

Elements served in the expeditionary force sent by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia to Russia during the Crimean War and during the First World War many Bersaglieri saw service on the front with Austria and in the Middle East. Their valour and bravery was noted.

In the Second World War, although largely disastrous for Mussolini's armies, the Bersaglieri regiments performed so effectively they not only impressed Italy's German allies, particularly during the North African campaign, but also their adversaries on the Allied side.

Today's Bersaglieri regiments are no longer foot soldiers but mechanised units. They have served as peacekeepers in the in Lebanon, Yugoslavia and in the Somali civil wars, and were also active in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

A modern Italian Bersagliere in the
service of Nato

La Marmora had joined the Piedmontese army at the age of 15 in the regiment of the Grenadier Guards and became a second lieutenant. At the age of 22, during the First Italian War of Independence, he fought at the Battle of Novara and was awarded the cross of justice by the Mauritian Order.

In 1849, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the army and inspector of the Bersaglieri. He was in charge of the division stationed in the Ligurian city of Genoa and at the command of his brother Alfonso, the Royal commissioner, who had been sent to quell an anti-monarchy revolt.

In 1852 Alessandro was regular commander of the military division of Genoa and in the same year was promoted by King Vittorio Emanuele II to lieutenant general. He stayed in the Ligurian capital until 1854, when he married Rosa Roccatagliata,

In 1855, at the age of 56, he was lieutenant general in command of the second division of the army corps sent to the Crimea, but died at Balaklava from cholera. A memorial bust was erected outside among the statues and monuments of patriots on the Janiculum Hill in Rome.

Porta Pia and the monument to the Bersaglieri in Rome

Travel tip:

The achievements of the Bersaglieri are commemorated in Rome at the Historical Museum of the Bersaglieri, which was inaugurated by King Victor Emanuel III in June 1904, at the La Marmora barracks in the Trastevere district. From May  1909 it housed the medals won by the Bersaglieri corps.  The museum was moved to the area of Porta Pia in 1921.



Travel tip:

In addition to the bust at the Janiculum Hill in Rome, La Marmora is commemorated in Turin with a statue in bronze in the Giardino La Marmora on Via Cernaia in the centre of the city. The statue, which shows La Marmora in action with his sword drawn, was created in 1867 by the sculptors Giuseppe Cassano and Giuseppe Dini.

More reading:

How the capture of Rome completed Italian unification

Italy's decisive victory of the First World War

The Milanese uprising that drove out the Austrians

Also on this day:

1969: The birth of Gianluigi Lentini, once the world's most expensive footballer



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Capture of Rome

Troops enter the capital in final act of unification

Bersaglieri soldiers storm through the walls of Rome in
this 1880 painting by Carlo Ademollo

Crack infantry soldiers from Piedmont entered Rome and completed the unification of Italy on this day in 1870.

Rome had remained under French control even after the first Italian parliament had proclaimed Victor Emmanuel of Savoy the King of Italy in 1861.

The Italian parliament had declared Rome the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy even though it had not yet taken control of the city.

A French garrison had remained in Rome on the orders of Napoleon III of France in support of Pope Pius IX.

An 1860 portrait of
 Victor Emmanuel II

But after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, Napoleon III had to withdraw many of his troops. Italian soldiers from the Bersaglieri regiments in Piedmont led by General Raffaele Cadorna seized their chance and after a brief bombardment were able to enter Rome through a breach in the Aurelian Walls near Porta Pia.

King Victor Emmanuel II was then able to take up residence in the Quirinale Palace and Italy was declared officially united.

The date of 20 September, which marked the end of the Risorgimento, the long process of Italian unification, is commemorated in practically every town in Italy with a street named Via XX Settembre.

Porta Pia, designed by Michelangelo in 1564, stands at the
end of Via XX Settembre, not far from the Villa Borghese

Travel tip:

Porta Pia is a gate in Rome’s ancient walls, named after Pope Pius lV, who commissioned Michelangelo to design it just before his death in Rome in 1564. You will find it at the end of Via XX Settembre, which goes off Piazza di San Bernardo, not far from the Quirinale Palace and the Trevi Fountain. A marble and brass monument - the Monumento al Bersagliere - commemorating the liberation of Rome was erected near the place the Italian troops breached the walls, opposite the external façade of the gate.

Travel tip:

One of Italy's many Via XX Settembre can be found in the beautiful city of Bergamo in northern Italy. Bergamo's Via XX Settembre is one of the main thoroughfares in the lower town and has been dubbed ‘the shopping street’ by the locals because of the wealth of smart shops that line both sides, from department stores, book and gift shops to jewellery and fashion stores. Top names gracing the elegant street include Calvin Klein, Stefanel, Benetton, Max Mara, Luisa Spagnoli, Marina Rinaldi and Sisley.

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