Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

George Macctulay Trevelyan 521
in whick restcd most of the faith, vigour and initiative of the llalian Bi? sorgi mento, as weH most of its unwisdom and rashness .J> Vittorio Ema­nuele II ò invece il pater patriae che interviene solo se necessario: Gari­baldi si incontra con lui tutte le volte che ai prepara qualcosa di decisivo, and, whenever they mot, Garibaldi left the King's presence with an increased sensc of loyalty and a more docile spirit .s)
Quanto a Cavour, Trevelyan vede in Ini giustamente il politico scal­tro, ma di estrazione fondamentalmente democratica; e cosi si mostra piut­tosto scettico circa le accuse rivolte al Piemontese dagli ambienti democra­tici pre- e post-unitari e cerea di portare il suo contributo, che è fìlocavou-riano. alla spinosa questione sulla politica piemontese del 1860. Dopo aver precisato, infatti, che. è bene essere scettici anche verso testimonianze di­rette, continua: I have now given some account of Cavour's action in Aprii 1860. I do noi pretend to have fathomed bis motives. Our knowledge of his correspondence and his conversa tion is stili incomplete, and ili ose of his sayings and lettera which we already know contain, in the sanie week and even on the same day, such strange contradictions that it is folly to dogma lise as to the nature of his wishes and intentions up to rime of the Thousand. I will only venture to suggest that, mitil the moment the expeditìon had sailed, Cavour was. at least in some degree, an opportunist waiting on circumstance, and unwilling to commit himself or his country till the latest possible moment. Nor, in the terrible uncertainties of the case, con he be blamed for refusing to take a more decided part in thrust-ìng Garibaldi out on an expeditìon where Sirtori and Medici thought he would fall, and Garibaldi himself could not at first believe in his own chances of success . *)
Poi ci sono i personaggi minori, come Bixio ( Next to Garibaldi, .. the chef cause of the success of the expeditìon ... );4) ma al di sopra di tutti è il Nizzardo, il personificalore dell'ideale unitario, colui per il quale la spedizione di Sicilia è il naturale punto d'arrivo di tutta una vita: The quarrel of North and South was felt in the patrio tic camp, to a greater or less extent, from the moment of the landing at Marsala, but it was not felt by Garibaldi, who remained the very personiiìcation of the idea of national un-ily, and succeeded where a eleverei" politician would have failed, in drawing North and South along together until the game was won .
Il guerriero è alla fine un nomo semplice, felice di sentire sul punto
2) GÌ M. TKBVBI.VAN, Garibaldi and the Thousand, cit., p, 63. 2) Ibidem, p- 84, 8) Ibidem, V- 198. *) Ibidem, p. 222. J ìbidem p. 241.