Tancredi’s Service in Garibaldi’s Army and the Sardinian Royal Army

Tancredi’s Service in Garibaldi’s Army and the Sardinian Royal Army marks Tancredi Falconeri’s passage from Garibaldi’s volunteer forces into the regular army of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Recounted to his uncle alongside Count Carlo Cavriaghi, the change combines political transition with a practical rebranding: the young men surrender rank, distance themselves from their former comrades, and acquire the authority of official uniforms.

From volunteer service to the regular army

When Garibaldi’s army broke up, Tancredi says, its members could either return home or remain in the King’s army. He and Cavriaghi chose to stay, along with many others, becoming officers in the Royal Sardinian Army. Tancredi presents this as a temporary national transition: they serve the King of Sardinia for only a few more months, before becoming officers of Italy.

Rank, respectability, and repudiation

The transfer came with demotion. Tancredi had been a captain and became a lieutenant; Cavriaghi, formerly a lieutenant, became a second lieutenant. Yet Tancredi describes both as pleased despite the loss of status within the hierarchy. Their new uniforms, he says, make them respected in a different way. The change is also a repudiation of their former army: Tancredi calls its members disorderly and fit for ambushes and looting, while contrasting them with the supposedly decent men among whom he and Cavriaghi now serve. His disgust at the Garibaldini makes the new uniform more than a change of dress; it signals the identity and social standing he now claims.

The uses of official authority

Tancredi’s recollection of the journey from Palermo reveals a comic, opportunistic side to the transition. At post stations, he and his companions invoked urgent orders in the King’s service to secure fresh horses. The documents they displayed, however, were bills from a Naples hotel, wrapped and sealed to pass as official orders. The episode punctures the dignity of their new military status even as it shows how effectively the appearance of royal authority could work in practice.