After the collapse of the Roman Empire, in whose hands
Corsica had rested for centuries, the island was conquered by Vandals. It
traded hands through the Byzantines, Lombards, Tuscans, Pisans, Aragonese, and
Genoans across the years. The eighteenth century was especially tumultuous when
a peasant refused to pay his tax in 1729. The single act ignited a revolution
against Genoa that lasted a generation until the Republic of Corsica was
proclaimed in 1755 under President Pasquale Paoli. Even though it wasn’t
recognized, Corsicans held onto their freedom, outlined in the first written
constitution of the Enlightenment.
At the Treaty of Versailles of 1768, Genoa relinquished its
claim to the island to France in exchange for forgiveness on its massive
war-debts. France had already come into Corsican affairs with occupations of
key harbors and forts during the Seven Years War, and in September they landed
with more than one hundred thousand troops keen on establishing a new colony
for the kingdom. Outgunned and outnumbered seven-to-one, the Corsican Republic
vanished into the mountains, carrying on guerilla warfare. With only a few
organized soldiers, the Corsicans fought viciously as irregulars, including the
female company under lady-captain Serpentini. That October, Paoli led the
Corsicans to victory at Borgo, reminding his troops, “Europe is watching you!”
The true turning point of the invasion was at the Battle of
Ponte Novu. The French made landfall at Bastia and marched toward the heart of
Paoli’s strength in Corte. The Corsicans’ Thermopylae was the bridge over the
Golo River, built originally as part of the Genoan defenses. Paoli, who had
been attempting recruitment, rushed to command the battle. Rather than holding
the whole bridge with brave Corsicans at one side and placing hardened Prussian
mercenaries at the far end, Paoli determined to hold only the far end of the
bridge. Harriers kept French artillery from gaining ground, and French troops
who attempted to cross were cut down.
Eventually the French attempted to maneuver around and ford
the river, but their army fell into disarray. The Corsicans counterattacked, forcing
the disorganized army into retreat all the way to Bastia. News of the Corsican
victory flew across Europe. King Louis XV of France, who was already
discouraged about the expedition after defeat at Borgo, announced its end
despite the objections of the disgraced mastermind Duc de Choiseul.
Later that same year, a third son was born to the wealthy Buonaparte
family and named Napoleone. The energetic boy was taught discipline by his
mother, while his father engaged the young Napoleone in matters of state
through his work as Paoli’s secretary. While studying in the new university at
Corte, Napoleone received word that his father’s long illness with stomach
cancer had finally brought his death. Napoleone compressed his final years of
study into one, graduating with highest honors at age sixteen.About the same
time, the French Revolutionary Wars began spilling out of the country, into the
Lowlands and Italy.
Napoleone had found employment in Paoli’s government, but
with the battles sweeping back and forth over northern Italy, he vowed to
liberate other Italian communities on the mainland. He wrote to Paoli, "As
the nation was besieged, I was born. Thirty thousand Frenchmen were vomited on
to our shores, threatening the throne of liberty with waves of blood. Such was
the odious sight which was the first to strike me." With Paoli’s
endorsement, Napoleone soon became a mercenary officer in Austria’s army. There
he rose quickly through the ranks, proving to be a very adaptable leader hailed
as a hero by locals. His defense in Mantua raised eyebrows across Europe, as
did his daring crossing of the Alps to reinforce Archduke Charles’s lines at
the Rhine.
Meanwhile, France changed governments one after the other.
Eventually the Republic was worn down and the Royalists restored the king,
although it would continue to struggle with periodic revolutions across the
nineteenth century. With the wars over, Napoleone found himself struggling in
clerk jobs offered to him by the Austrian court. He finally quit, returning to
Corsica across Austrian-dominated Italy. There he found his new calling, which
was his first when he left Paoli’s employ: to liberate Italy.
For the next twenty years of his life, Napoleone fought in
Italy. He was seen alternately as a folk hero and a brigand, the latter
especially by Austria as he drove them out of Lombardy. His ideals of
republicanism merged with views of constitutional monarchy, which brought
together the rival bourgeoisie with his most ardent followers, the religious,
royalist lower class. He oversaw the intertwining of the royal lines of the
Kingdom of Sardinia and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, although his efforts
toward unification stopped at confederation, giving no region the chance to
rule over another. The Italian Confederation is infamous for its short-lived
civil wars and haphazard economy, although it has an unquestionable military
force for defense. Through the twentieth century, its foreign affairs have been
colonial ambitions in Africa while neutrally avoiding the conflicts of the
brutal First and Second World Wars.
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In reality, the Battle of Ponte Novu was a thorough French
victory when Prussian mercenaries fired at the charging French through
retreating Corsicans. Paoli, who was not at the battle, left for Britain, where
he showed the holes in his coat made by French musket balls and tried to raise
funds to liberate the island. During the many years of the Wars of the
Coalitions, Britain did dispatch troops, but not until long after young
Napoleon Bonaparte left for military school in Paris. Today Corsica remains a region of France.
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