CASTELFIDARDO, BATTAGLIA. – The armed engagement fought at Crocette, between papal and royal forces on 18 September 1860, took its name from the medieval village near Ancona.
The Papal army had been (11 September) caught off guard by a sudden ultimatum, with an extremely short deadline, from Cavour to Cardinal Antonelli, at the height of its reorganization.
The studied diplomatic duplicity of Napoleon III’s government, together with a whole series of circumstances not yet fully clarified, kept de Lamoricière, against his will, in almost complete ignorance of the events that were rapidly unfolding. Thus, when it became apparent that the enemy, without declaring hostilities, was advancing with approximately 40,000 men, against approximately 14,000, simultaneously into the Marches and Umbria, de Lamoricière had no choice but to hastily move the two available brigades, approximately 7,000 men, toward Ancona, a well-fortified stronghold capable of prolonged resistance.
But when he arrived at Loreto on the evening of 17 September, he found that the royal general Enrico Cialdini had nearly closed his route.
Most of the papal troops, both Italian and foreign, fought with the heroism of veterans, thereby saving the army’s honor and strewing the steep ascent of Crocette with dead and wounded. Among those who fell was Brigadier General de Pimodan, while his men carried out bayonet charges with a temerity that was all too reckless; they achieved a clear initial success, forcing their adversaries, thrown into confusion by the impetuosity of the attack, to retreat toward the summit of the hill and to bring up strong reserves.
Nevertheless, the battle was lost, and the Marches and Umbria were thus wrested from the Papal State, marking a significant step forward in the unity of the country. But the painful impression made by that bloody event was very strong among Catholics, provoking their poorly restrained anger against Napoleon III and their resentment over so many young victims who had fallen as a result of an abandonment that was certainly not honorable. The already difficult and complex question of Rome and temporal power was thereby further complicated and embittered: C. was preparing Mentana. Pius IX wept as he remembered the fallen, and a wave of opposing sentiments shook Europe. A memento of the defeat,
something without precedent in history, was distributed to the vanquished: its silver rim bore the words «Pro Petri Sede», surrounding a cross of St Peter, «said to be “reversed”—but upright like a sword drawn in defense of justice». On the funerary monument in S. Giovanni in Laterano one reads: «Victoria quae vincit mundum fides nostra».
Paolo Dalla Torre