He contributed to Italian unification Risorgimento and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. Garibaldi was a follower of the Italian nationalist Mazzini and embraced the republican nationalism of the Young Italy movement.
However, breaking with Mazzini, he pragmatically allied himself with the monarchist Cavour and Kingdom of Sardinia in the struggle for independence, subordinating his republican ideals to his nationalist ones until Italy was unified. After participating in an uprising in Piedmont, he was sentenced to death, but escaped and sailed to South America, where he spent 14 years in exile, during which he took part in several wars and learned the art of guerrilla warfare.
Garibaldi also became involved in the Uruguayan Civil War , raising an Italian force known as Redshirts , and is still celebrated as an important contributor to Uruguay's reconstitution. In , Garibaldi returned to Italy and commanded and fought in military campaigns that eventually led to Italian unification. The provisional government of Milan made him a general and the Minister of War promoted him to General of the Roman Republic in When the war of independence broke out in April , he led his Hunters of the Alps in the capture of major cities in Lombardy, including Varese and Como , and reached the frontier of South Tyrol; the war ended with the acquisition of Lombardy.
The expedition was a success and concluded with the annexation of Sicily, Southern Italy, Marche and Umbria to the Kingdom of Sardinia before the creation of a unified Kingdom of Italy on 17 March His last military campaign took place during the Franco-Prussian War as commander of the Army of the Vosges. Garibaldi became an international figurehead for national independence and republican ideals, and is considered by twentieth-century historiography and popular culture as Italy's greatest national hero.
Garibaldi also inspired later figures like Jawaharlal Nehru and Che Guevara. Taylor called him "the only wholly admirable figure in modern history". Nice would be returned to France in by the Treaty of Turin , over the objections of Garibaldi. He lived in the Pera district of Istanbul from to He became an instructor and taught Italian , French , and mathematics in the Ottoman Empire.
