Capture of Rome

The Capture of Rome (20 September 1870) was the final event of the long process of Italian unification known as the Risorgimento, which unified the Italian peninsula under King Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy.

Second Italian War of Independence
During the Second Italian War of Independence, much of the Papal States had been conquered by the Piedmontese Army, and the new unified Kingdom of Italy was created in March 1861, when the first Italian Parliament met in Turin. On 27 March 1861, the Parliament declared Rome the Capital of the Kingdom of Italy. However, the Italian government could not take its seat in Rome because it did not control the territory. In addition, a French garrison was maintained in the city by Napoleon III of France in support of Pope Pius IX, who was determined not to hand over temporal power in the States of the Church.

In July 1870, at the very last moment of the Church's rule over Rome, the First Vatican Council was held in the city – affirming the doctrine of papal infallibility.

Franco-Prussian War
In July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War began. In early August, Napoleon III recalled his garrison from Rome. The French not only needed the troops to defend their homeland - Prussian diplomats were actively trying to convince Italy to join the war, so there was real concern that Italy might use the French presence in Rome as a pretext to go to war with France. In the earlier Austro-Prussian War Italy had allied with Prussia and Italian public opinion favoured the Prussian side at the start of the war. The removal of the French garrison eased tensions between Italy and France. Italy remained neutral in the Franco-Prussian War.

With the French garrison gone, widespread public demonstrations demanded that the Italian government take Rome. But Rome remained under French protection on paper, therefore an attack would still have been regarded as an act of war against the French Empire. Until events elsewhere took their course the Italians were unwilling to provoke Napoleon, but after the surrender of Napoleon and his army at the Battle of Sedan the situation changed radically. The French Emperor was deposed. The new French government was clearly in no position to retaliate against Italy, nor did it possess the political will to protect the Pope's position.

Letter to the Pope
King Victor Emmanuel II sent Conte Gustavo Ponza di San Martino to Pius IX with a personal letter offering a face-saving proposal that would have allowed the peaceful entry of the Italian Army into Rome, under the guise of protecting the pope. Along with the letter, the count carried a document that Lanza had prepared, setting out ten articles to serve as the basis for an agreement between Italy and the Holy See.

The Pope would retain the inviolability and prerogatives attaching to him as a sovereign. The Leonine city would remain "under the full jurisdiction and sovereignty of the Pontiff". The Italian state would guarantee the pope's freedom to communicate with the Catholic world, as well as diplomatic immunity both for the nuncios and envoys in foreign lands and for the foreign diplomats at the Holy See. The government would supply a permanent annual fund for the pope and the cardinals, equal to the amount currently assigned to them by the budget of the pontifical state, and would assume all papal civil servants and soldiers onto the state payroll, with full pensions as long as they were Italian.

According to Raffaele De Cesare: "The Pope’s reception of San Martino [10 September 1870] was unfriendly. Pius IX allowed violent outbursts to escape him. Throwing the King’s letter upon the table he exclaimed, 'Fine loyalty! You are all a set of vipers, of whited sepulchres, and wanting in faith.' He was perhaps alluding to other letters received from the King. After, growing calmer, he exclaimed: 'I am no prophet, nor son of a prophet, but I tell you, you will never enter Rome!' San Martino was so mortified that he left the next day."

Capture
The Italian army, commanded by General Raffaele Cadorna, crossed the papal frontier on 11 September and advanced toward Rome, moving slowly in the hope that a peaceful entry could be negotiated. The Papal garrisons had retreated from Orvieto, Viterbo, Alatri, Frosinone and other strongholds in the Lazio, Pius IX himself being convinced of the inevitability of a surrender. When the Italian Army approached the Aurelian Walls that defended the city, the papal force was commanded by General Hermann Kanzler, and was composed of the Swiss Guards and a few "zouaves"&mdash;volunteers from France, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, and other countries&mdash;for a total of 13,157 men against some 50,000 Italians.

The Italian army reached the Aurelian Walls on 19 September and placed Rome under a state of siege. Pius IX decided that the surrender of the city would be granted only after his troops had put up enough resistance to make it plain that the take-over was not freely accepted. On 20 September, after a cannonade of three hours had breached the Aurelian Walls at Porta Pia, the crack Piedmontese infantry corps of Bersaglieri entered Rome. In the event 49 Italian soldiers and 19 Papal Zouaves died. The day's events are memorialized throughout Italy in the via XX Settembre in virtually every town of any size. Rome and the region of Lazio were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy after a plebiscite.

The Leonine City, including the Vatican, seat of the Pope, was occupied on September 21. The Italian government had intended to let the Pope keep the Leonine City, but the Pope would not agree to give up his claims to a broader territory.

The Via Pia, the road departing from Porta Pia, was rechristened Via XX Settembre (September 20). Subsequently, in numerous Italian cities the name Venti Settembre was given to the main road leading to the local Cathedral.

Writer Edmondo De Amicis took part in the capture of Rome as an officer in the Italian army.

Aftermath
For many years afterwards, the Catholic Church remained obdurate in rejecting the results of 1870. This ended with the Concordat of 1929, where the Church renounced its claims over most of the city of Rome in return for Italy's recognition of the Vatican State.

On 20 September 2000, an item in the Catholic publication Avvenire stated:

Pius's contingency plans
Several times during his pontificate, Pius IX considered leaving Rome. One occurrence was in 1862, when Giuseppe Garibaldi was in Sicily gathering volunteers for a campaign to take Rome under the slogan Roma o Morte (Rome or Death). On 26 July 1862, before Garibaldi and his volunteers were stopped at Aspromonte:

Two other instances occurred after the Capture of Rome and the suspension of the First Vatican Council. These were confided by Otto von Bismarck to Moritz Busch: