Episode 17: Giuseppe Garibaldi: ‘The Only Hero the World Needs’

Paul O’Neill CBE and Professor Beatrice Heuser

3 June 202533 Minute Listen

Professor Lucy Riall explains Garibaldi’s mastery of revolutionary war by harnessing military, political and populist levers of power to become a ‘father’ of modern Italy.

Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) was one of the world’s greatest revolutionaries, leading resistance movements with irregular armies such as the Ragamuffins and the Red Shirts in Latin America and Europe. A crucial figure of 19th century liberalism and nationalism, he inspired millions. Che Guevara claimed that he was ‘the only hero the world needs’.

As one of the ‘fathers’ of modern Italy, Garibaldi was the Risorgimento’s Sword, to Count Cavour’s Brain and Giuseppe Mazzini’s Soul. Untrained as a soldier and often over-matched by his opponents, he nevertheless achieved victories against the French and Austrian Armies, the Papal States and in Sicily. Perhaps as impressively, he maintained the effectiveness of irregular forces in numerous retreats that might, under a lesser commander, have lost the morale of his citizen fighters against professional armies. Historian AJP Taylor described Garibaldi thus: ‘He evoked from the people, and even from the politicians, a personal devotion almost without parallel in modern history; . . . and he showed himself the greatest general that Italy has ever produced.’

Professor Lucy Riall is a leading expert on modern Italy. She has written extensively on Italy’s formation, as well as on Giuseppe Garibaldi. She is currently at the European University institute in Florence and a Visiting Professor at the National Museum of Ethnology in Japan.