Battle of Castelfidardo

The Battle of Castelfidardo was fought on 18 September 1860, at Castelfidardo, a small town in the Marche region of Italy; the Piedmont army, acting as the driving force in the war for Italian unification, won a famous battle against papal troops.

As a result of this battle, the Marches and Umbria entered in the Kingdom of Italy and the extent of the papal states was reduced to the area of what is today known as Lazio.

The battle is remembered for being bloody, and for the highly disparate numbers of troops - less than 10,000 papal soldiers to 60,000 Piedmontese. The papal army was composed of volunteers from many different European countries, amongst whom the French and Belgian nationals constituted a Franco-Belgian battalion. Among the French volunteers were a notable number of nobles from western France: after the battle, whilst consulting the list of dead and wounded members of the papal army, the Piedmontese general Cialdini is reported to have said, in an example of rather black humor, "you would think this was a list of invites for a ball given by Louis XIV!"

The Franco-Belgian battalion gave rise to a Papal Zouave corps.