It was in 1867 that Disraeli—now in his sixties—made his first great contribution to posterity, when he and Derby vigorously pushed through the 1867 Reform Act. This nearly doubled the number of people entitled to vote (although it did not enfranchise any women) and had the effect of underpinning the two-party system in England, lining up Conservatives against Liberals. When Derby became so ill that he had to resign the premiership in 1868, Disraeli was the natural choice to lead the Conservatives and the government. But his premiership was short. Gladstone’s Liberals returned to power at the end of the year.
After another six years of opposition, Disraeli was prime minister once more (1874–80). “I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole,” he said. This time the Conservatives had a majority. Queen Victoria adored him—in contrast to Gladstone, whom she loathed. He joked that with royalty it was necessary to “lay on the flattery with a trowel.” He flattered Victoria as “we authors, ma’am.” In 1876 Disraeli gave the queen the title of empress of India, and he was created earl of Beaconsfield, describing his presence in the House of Lords as “dead—but in the Elysian Fields!” In foreign affairs he successfully impressed upon Europe and the world that Britain was indeed “Great.” He protected British shipping interests and the route to India by arranging the purchase of a controlling stake in the Suez Canal. In European politics he played a canny hand to contain Russia’s ambitions as the Ottoman Empire, the so-called “sick man of Europe,” declined.
One of Disraeli’s most influential achievements was in creating an imperial ethos for the British empire. He sang the virtues of
Throughout his political career, Disraeli maintained an intense feud with Gladstone, whom he called “that unprincipled maniac … [an] extraordinary mixture of envy, vindictiveness, hypocrisy and superstition.” The feeling was mutual. Gladstone compared Disraeli’s defeat in 1880 to “the vanishing of some vast magnificent castle in an Italian romance.” Though Gladstone outlived Disraeli and served as prime minister a total of four times (the last time in 1892–4) he never had the same charm, vision or style.
GARIBALDI
1807–1882
Garibaldi to his followers when fleeing Rome, as described by Giuseppe Guerzoni, in
Maverick general of irregular troops and irrepressible liberator of peoples, Garibaldi led an almost incredible life of battle and adventure. But his cause was as heroic as his exploits: the liberation of the long-subdued disparate states of Italy from the shackles of corrupt tyrants and hidebound empires. In this process, known as the Risorgimento, Garibaldi led his Redshirt followers to decisive victories over the Spanish Bourbon and Austrian Habsburg dynasties that still ruled much of Italy.
Garibaldi was born in Nice, which from 1814 to 1860 was part of the Italian kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. He ran away from home in order to avoid a clerical education but was then reunited with his father in the coastal trade, becoming a sea captain in his early twenties. In his midtwenties he joined the Young Italy movement, influenced by the nationalist republicanism of Giuseppe Mazzini, conspiring in an anti-monarchical uprising in Genoa in 1834. The plot was discovered; Garibaldi fled, but, drawn to other liberation causes, he traveled to South America.
