Garibaldi Legion in the Argonne

On 26 December 1914, in the forests of the Argonne, a regiment of Italian volunteers known as the Garibaldi Legion went into action for the first time. The volunteers made a bayonet attack on German trenches in the Bois de Bolante, near Lachalade. Second Lieutenant Bruno Garibaldi, grandson of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the hero of Italian unification, was killed in the attack.

Italians in the Foreign Legion

Italy remained neutral, but many Italians, especially republicans and heirs of the Garibaldian tradition, wanted to fight on France’s side. Since foreigners could serve in the French army only in the Foreign Legion, in the autumn of 1914 a separate regiment made up of Italians was formed within it, formally the 4th Marching Regiment of the 1st Foreign Regiment. It numbered about 2,100 men and 57 officers, and roughly half of them were Italians living in France. Under their legionnaires’ uniforms they wore red shirts, the symbol of Garibaldi’s old expeditions.

Command was taken in November by Lieutenant-Colonel Giuseppe Garibaldi, known as Peppino, son of General Ricciotti Garibaldi, who in 1870 had fought with his father on France’s side against Prussia. Peppino was an experienced soldier who had fought, among other wars, on the Greek side in the war with Turkey in 1897 and in the British army in the Boer War. Several of his brothers also served in the regiment. After brief training in the south of France the legion arrived in December in the Argonne, where since the autumn a bitter positional war had been fought in the dense, waterlogged forest against the troops of the German Fifth Army.

Baptism of fire

The attack of 26 December was the volunteers’ first real fight. The legion took some of the German trenches, but paid a high price for it. According to Foreign Legion figures, the regiment lost 30 killed, 17 missing and 111 wounded that day. Bruno Garibaldi, who had asked his brother for permission to take part in the assault, was killed during the advance.

A few days later the fighting in the Argonne brought another death in the family. On 5 January 1915, in the Courtes-Chausses area near Four-de-Paris, Peppino’s younger brother Costante Garibaldi fell. The regiment then suffered even heavier losses than in December.

Funeral in Rome

The deaths of Garibaldi’s grandsons, fallen for France, shook Italy. When Bruno’s body was brought to Rome at the beginning of January 1915, huge crowds followed the funeral procession, and the ceremony turned into a demonstration of Italian–French friendship. Supporters of Italy’s entry into the war on the side of the Entente made the Garibaldi brothers a symbol of their cause.

The legion fought in France for only a few months. In the spring of 1915, as Italy was preparing for war with Austria-Hungary, it was disbanded, and most of the volunteers returned home and joined the Italian army. Among them was Peppino Garibaldi, who distinguished himself in 1915 in the fighting in the Dolomites.