Giuseppe Govone

On the eve of the conflict, Govone was promoted to lieutenant colonel and assigned to the General Headquarters of the King and appointed Chief of the military intelligence unit (Ufficio I).

(Luigi Carlo Farini, Lieutenant-Royal of Vittorio Emanuele II at Naples) At the end of the Second War of Independence, Govone was promoted colonel at the age of 33 and, after a short marriage licence, sent to fight the brigandage in the Meridione of Italy.

He operated in the Roveto and Liri valleys against the famous brigand Chiavone, the one amongst the many southern bandits who more resembled like a real bourbon legitimist partisan.

Towns and villages were surrounded and occupied by troops, water supplies were cut, and relatives of suspected draft dodgers were seized as hostages.

[1] It was an extremely critical phase: Facing the hostility of the population, Govone had made himself an enemy of the traditional Sicilian nobility and the rising mafia-linked middle class, who accused him of war crimes.

In defending himself against these charges, Govone commented about the "barbarity" of Sicily and its inhabitants, sparking an uproar in the Italian parliament that led to a parliamentary investigation, resignations from the government, and challenges to duels among the deputies.