p. 325 | Untitled article

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 5, 1867

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 21

Latest From Italy.

STARTLING and significant is the news from Italy. Two sanguinary engagements have been fought and two decided victories won by the ardent Garibaldians. Rome is again beleaguered as in the days when Brennus encamped before the gates with his army of Gauls. The Pope has left his palace, and taken refuge in the castle or citadel of St. Angelo, which connects, by a long covered gallery, with the Vatican. His Holiness has likewise issued an encyclical letter, couched in pathetic terms, calling upon the faithful throughout Europe to witness the straits to which the Holy See is reduced. Catholic Spain responds by announcing her willingness to join in protesting the Holy Father; and Napoleon hastens the departure of the French expedition from Toulon. Some time will elapse before the fleet arrives at Civita Vecchia, which is distant 36 miles from Rome. Meanwhile Garibaldi is being hourly strengthened by recruits from the youth of Italy, and the fate of the eternal City again trembles in the balance. Within the city martial law is necessary to keep the 180,000 inhabitants in a peaceful state, while without its thirteen miles of walls a contest is being waged upon which the whole civilized world is gazing with anxious solicitude.

In an article on Italy and France, the Detroit Post, in the same issue from which we take the above, further says:—

The situation around Rome is rapidly precipitating the disturbed relations between France and Italy. Garibaldi in possession of Rome would be master of Italy, or at least of the Italian people. Victor Emanuel could not prevent their uprising in favor of making Rome the capital of Italy. Napoleon will have to fight a united Italy. There can be no doubt of his ability to crush it if there is to be no other combatant admitted in the fight. But Italy will not long stand alone. Interest, if not sympathy, will raise up allies. Napoleon will probably be supported by the French people, more by reason of their dislike for the Italians than their devotion to the Papacy. But Prussia will not permit such an occasion to pass unimproved, nor Russia probably refrain from another effort to solve the “Eastern question” satisfactorily to herself. The Italian government cannot be said to have violated the treaty of last September. It agreed “not to attack the actual territory of the Holy Father, and to prevent, even by force, every attack coming from the interior against the said territory.” It had nothing to do with the uprising in Rome, and it is not responsible for its inability to carry out the terms of that treaty, when its subjects will not obey it. The Italian people are ready to support the “party action.” What effect Napoleon’s interference may have upon their enthusiasm remains to be seen. If it consolidates them, Napoleon will not be able to restore the Papal power at a single blow.

Later advices show that Victor Emanuel has not courage enough to defy Napoleon. On the contrary he has issued a proclamation denouncing Garibaldi, to whom he owes his very power and authority to denounce him at all, and pronouncing Napoleon to be in the right. He will now be obliged to denounce the Italian people and lead the French forces against them, in order to give any graceful effect to his poor-spirited proclamations.