England, the Risorgimento and the Bourbon Fleet

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Some claim that Italian Unification was only made possible thanks to English support. This is a long-standing myth promoted by anglophiles and especially by neo-bourbonists.

It's not true that England desired the unification of Italy. Indeed, when Garibaldi arrived at the Strait of Messina, London diplomatic maneuvers attempted to stop the expedition, because they did not want the unification of the whole peninsula in a single state, which naturally would have major economic, demographic, military and political repercussions for the British. It took all of Cavour's skills to play on the rivalry between England and France in order to get the "green light": however, the fact that England was in principle opposed to Italian Unification is proven by diplomatic documents.

The English attitude was due to fear of a united Italy, with a demographic, economic and military power far superior to that of the pre-unification states, which would pose a threat to British interests in the Mediterranean.

Additionally, it is quite wrong to say that the Bourbon military fleet was anywhere near as strong as the British. In his book "La fine di un regno", written shortly after the Unification, the southern historian Raffaele De Cesare noted that the Bourbon fleet was even lower in quality than the fleet of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which had never been a maritime power. Its units were comparatively older and had smaller tonnage.

The "power" of the Bourbon fleet is another mythical invention, pure and simple. Suffice to say that in 1828 this war navy had conducted an expedition against the pirates of Tripoli, which threatened the southern coast. In a time when European fleets and armies literally ruled the world, when integer powers already had extensive colonial dominions, a group of pirates still had the ability to threaten the coasts of southern Italy: this alone demonstrates the military conditions of the Bourbon fleet of the Two Sicilies. However, the expedition had the following outcome. Once in front of Tripoli, the admirals realized that they were in no condition to fight, because the gunpowder was not working (!). An attack by pirates, conducted with outdated galleys (in 1828), threatened the Bourbon navy, which was unable to defend itself (since they were unable to use their guns without powder) and quickly retreated. After this inglorious war episode, the Bourbon government decided to buy peace from the Tripoli pirates by paying them 100,000 ducats.