José Borges (general)

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File:L'Illustration 1862 gravure Le général Borgès.jpg
Portrait of Borges (L'Illustration, February 1862)

Josep Borges i Granollers[1] (1813 – 8 December 1861), was a Spanish general. Initially serving in the Carlist army, and for that reason exiled in France, Borges went on to serve Queen Isabella II and led an expedition of Spanish and Italian pro-Bourbonists to regain the lost Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in favor of Francis II, as part of the post-unification brigandage. Known for his exploits with Lucanian brigand leader Carmine Crocco, their relations slowly deteriorated over disagreements about the command of operations. He was shot at Tagliacozzo[2] with his men after being captured by a division of Royal Army bersaglieri.[3]

Biography

Early life and education

José Borges was born at Vernet (Artesa de Segre, Lleida), a small town in Catalonia, the son of Antonio, an army officer who participated in the Peninsular War and was shot at Cervera in 1836, during the First Carlist War. He received a Catholic and traditionalist education, devoting himself fruitfully to humanistic studies. His favorite book was the Latin text of Caesar's Commentaries.

Military career

Close to Roger Bernard de Ramefort, Borges trained at the military academy of Lleida and enlisted in Don Carlos's militia, becoming its brigade commander in 1840. After the defeat of the Carlists, Borges left to exile in France, making ends meet as a bookbinder, tutor and wine merchant. He later returned to Spain and practiced guerrilla actions in 1846-1848 and in 1855, switching to the cause of Queen Isabella II.

In 1847 during the War of the Matiners, where he participated, as a brigadier general, under the orders of Benito Tristany, Ignasi Brujó and Ramon Cabrera y Grinyó in numerous actions that earned him the general command of the Tarragona lands, and later that of the Principality, on an interim basis; he was defeated (1849) by the troops of the liberal general Quesada in Selma (Alt Camp). During the Progressive Biennium he revolted with a war party in several Catalan regions.

In 1860, he traveled to Rome seeking to place himself in the service of the Papal State but the authorities ultimately rejected the idea. Back in France, he was contacted by Bourbon agents sent by General Tommaso Clary, receiving an invitation to serve the Bourbon government in exile. He was presented with a favorable situation in which Bourbon committees and numerous rebels, ready to fight to restore the kingdom, would be waiting for him. Borjes, fascinated by the proposal, accepted the assignment.

Landing in Calabria

General Borges, with only 17 men, began his mission by setting out from Marseille and arriving first at Malta and then at Cape Spartivento in Calabria. Here Borges began to doubt the promises made by Clary, finding no one waiting for him.

The local population appeared distrustful if not hostile. When he arrived in Precacore (today's Samo), Borges was welcomed by a parish priest but no representative of the Bourbon committee arrived to receive him and he managed to enlist only about 20 peasants. He met Don Ferdinando Mittiga's 120-men band, with which he unsuccessfully attacked the town of Platì.

Abandoned by Mittiga, who was to be killed a few days later in another confrontation, and pursued by the National Guards who shot anyone who provided him with help,[4] Borges headed for Basilicata on the instructions of a delegate of the Prince of Bisignano, hoping to find a more optimal situation.

Alliance with Carmine Crocco

In October, he landed in Basilicata to meet the leader of one of the most feared bands of that period, Carmine Crocco. Borges was met by Crocco and his men in the woods of Lagopesole. The pacts included transforming his band into a regular army, employing precise military tactics,[5] conquering as many towns as possible to enlist new fighters and conquering Potenza, the most substantial Savoy stronghold in the region.[6]

Although he stipulated the agreement himself, Crocco did not trust his counterpart from the beginning, fearing that Borges wanted to take the bands and territories under his power from him.[7] The brigand leader and Borges managed to achieve numerous victories but, against the general's wishes, an attempt to conquer Potenza was avoided and the army was by then reduced to exhaustion. So Crocco decided to retreat to Monticchio, breaking his alliance with Borges, moved in part by the failure of the exiled Bourbon government to deliver a promised military reinforcement. The general, embittered by his decision, moved to Rome to inform King Francis II of what had happened and in an attempt to organize a volunteer army to repeat the operation.

Death

Having reached almost the border between Abruzzo and Lazio, he ordered his men to make a halt during the cold and snowy night between December 7 and 8, 1861, at the casale Mastroddi, between Sante Marie and the hamlet of Castelvecchio in the Luppa valley. This decision proved fatal: Borges and his men were hunted down by the Savoy bersaglieri commanded by Major Enrico Franchini, who had been informed of their arrival by some locals. A firefight was engaged and, after the bersaglieri set fire to the farmstead, the legitimists were forced to surrender and were taken to Tagliacozzo to be sentenced to death without trial.

Surrendering his sword to Franchini, Borjes asked for confession in a chapel with the other prisoners. Shortly before his death, the general shouted, "Our last hour has come, let us die strong."[8] In front of the firing squad, he embraced his men and recited a litany in Spanish, which was abruptly interrupted by the firing squad. The corpses, stripped of their personal belongings, were buried in a mass grave, but through the intercession of Folco Russo, Prince of Scylla, and the Parisian Viscount of Saint-Priest, the body of Borges was exhumed by order of General Alfonso La Marmora and taken to Rome to receive solemn funerals.

Borges' death aroused outrage and was harshly criticized, even by liberal figures. Victor Hugo, although an admirer of Risorgimento ideals, blamed the fledgling Kingdom of Victor Emmanuel II for the methods employed, exclaiming, "The Italian government is shooting royalists."[9] Archaeologist François Lenormant called the general "one of those adversaries whom one is honored to respect" and considered his death "a bloody stain on the Italian government."[10] General Rafael Tristany, Borges' comrade-in-arms in the Carlist wars and employed by the Bourbons to raise the people at the papal frontier, accused Bourbon generals Clary and Giovan Battista Vial as responsible for his death, for misleading him about the directives of the insurgencies while they were safe in the comforts of the Roman court.[11]

Works

Borjes's diary, originally written in French and in which he noted the salient events of his enterprise in Calabria and Basilicata, had wide distribution and was printed several times. In 1862, it was published by Marc Monnier in his work Histoire du Brigandage dans l'Italie méridionale. Monnier had obtained the diary from deputy Antonio Ranieri, after it had gone through the scrutiny of the then Prime Minister Urbano Rattazzi. In the same year an Italian translation came out as an appendix to the book Notizie storiche documentate sul brigantaggio.

The general's notes and some of the letters he sent to General Bosco were also published by the writer Emilio Cardinali in I briganti e la corte pontificia (1862), while the following year the manuscript was included in Giacomo Oddo's work Il brigantaggio; or, L'Italia dopo la dictatura di Garibaldi. In 1864, Borges' diary was translated into Spanish and published by journalists Joan Mañé i Flaquer and Joaquim Mola i Martinez in Historia del bandolerismo y de la Camorra en la Italia meridional. In Britain, passages from the diary were translated by David H. Wheeler in Brigandage in South Italy and, in 1865, French author Armand Lévy reported the complete diary in La Cour de Rome, Le Brigandage et la Convention Franco-Italienne.

In the twentieth century, Borges' diary had other reprints, including those by Tommaso Pedio (José Borjès, la mia vita da brigante, 1965) and Gianni Custodero (José Borjès, da hidalgo a brigante, 2001).

Honors

In popular culture

  • Borges's expedition was illustrated by Alarico Gattia in the comic strip L'uomo del Sud (1978), from the series Un uomo un'avventura.

Notes

  1. ↑ Better known as José Borges, sometimes spelled Borjes.
  2. ↑ Guerri, Giordano Bruno (2010). Il Sangue del Sud: Antistoria del Risorgimento e del Brigantaggio. Milano: Mondadori, p. 210.
  3. ↑ Molfese, Franco (1971). "Borjes, José." In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 12. Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
  4. ↑ Molfese (1983).
  5. ↑ Crocco (2008), p. 8.
  6. ↑ Crocco (2008), p. 56.
  7. ↑ Del Zio, Basilide (1903). Il Brigante Crocco e la Sua Autobiografia. Melfi: Tipografia G. Grieco, p. 143.
  8. ↑ Monnier (1862), p. 245.
  9. ↑ Monnier (1862), p. 246.
  10. ↑ Cinnella, Ettore (2010). Carmine Crocco. Un Brigante nella Grande storia. Pisa: Della Porta, p. 136.
  11. ↑ Cinnella (2010), p. 135.

References

External links

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