Bandiera brothers

At an early age they were won over to the ideas of Italian unification, and corresponded with Giuseppe Mazzini and other members of the Giovine Italia, a patriotic revolutionary secret society.

The Bandiera brothers spread propaganda among the officers and enlisted men of the Austrian navy, nearly all Italians, and planned to seize a warship to bombard the city of Messina.

[1] A detachment of gendarmes and volunteers were sent against them, and after a short fight the whole band was taken prisoner and escorted to Cosenza, where a number of Calabrians who had taken part in a previous rising were also under arrest.

[citation needed] The moral effect was enormous throughout Italy, the action of the authorities was universally condemned, and the martyrdom of the Bandiera brothers bore fruit in the subsequent revolutions.

It also created a profound impression in Great Britain, where it was believed that the Bandiera brothers’ correspondence with Mazzini had been tampered with, and that information as to the proposed expedition had been forwarded to the Austro-Hungarian and Bourbon governments by their own Foreign Secretary Lord Aberdeen.