Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (I)
The research for these leaders has been quite difficult. Of the three vanilla leaders, I've only been able to find the picture for one of them (Filangieri), while I've been unable to find pics for the other two (Lanza and Clary). As the main objective of the Leadermod is to improve the quality, both historical and graphical, of the leaders in game, I've decided to scrap these two guys, because I'll be adding some more leaders that will make up for their disappearance. Here you have a brief account of their historical importance anyway:
Ferdinando Lanza (1780-1865): in the vanilla game, he's in the game until 1871, which I find to be quite unlikely, unless we're willing to accept that like the Cid he kept on fighting after dead. Historically, he retired from the army after the fall of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. He was a member of one of the principal families of Sicilian aristocracy, and he's mainly remembered for his actions during the 1860 campaign in Sicily. He was appointed governor of the island after the previous governor, the Prince of Castelcicala, had failed to stop the initial Garibaldine landing. Lanza was not only unable to prevent the fall of Palermo, but in order to punish the city for its Garibaldine sympathies, he ordered a brutal naval bombardment of the city that caused many civilian victims, definitely damaging the reputation of the Borbonic cause among Sicilians. After the fall of Palermo, he returned to Naples, where he was imprisoned at the island of Ischia and underwent an official enquiry along with other officers responsible for the Sicilian debacle.
Tommaso Clary was in 1860 commander of all the Borbonic forces in eastern Sicily. After Lanza departed the island, he became the de facto commander in chief in the island, and like his predecessor had done, he performed abismally, being completely unable to stop Garibaldi's advance. He also ended up at Ischia, his loyalty to the dinasty allowed him to get out of the whole affair and after the fall of the Kingdom he followed the exiled court to France, from there he would direct for some time the attempts to orchestrate a legitimist uprising in the territories of the old kingdom.
VANILLA LEADERS
Carlo Filangieri, Prince of Satriano and Duke of Taormina (1784-1867) + Leaderfile done
(Service: 1831-1850, Background: generals_aide, Personality: harsh)
(HISTORICAL NOTE:One of the most relevant figures of the Neapolitan army during the XIX century. He was born into one of the main families of the Neapolitan aristocracy, and during the Napoleonic period he rose up steadily among the ranks first of Napoleon's army -as a young captain he fought at Austerlitz and later in Spain- and after his return to Naples, of king Murat's army. After the Borbonic restoration he remained in the army; he was a moderate liberal and took part in the 1820 uprising that reinstated the constitutional monarchy. After the Austrian intervention that restored absolute monarchy, he left the army and retired to private life until 1831, when Ferdinand II recalled him again. He supported the 1848 liberal movement, but in 1849 he remained loyal to Ferdinand II after the king suspended the Constitution that he had conceded the previous year, and afterwards he commanded the army that crushed down -bloodily- the Sicilian revolt against the absolutist Bourbon king. After that, he became viceroy of Sicily and ended up his career as prime minister of the kingdom. In 1860, he refused to command the Neapolitan army against Garibaldi's forces, allegedly due to his advanced age. The king's reluctance to follow his advice the year before -to enact liberal reforms and that the Two Sicilies should ally with the Piedmont and France against Austria- was one of the main factors that led to the fall of the dinasty.)
NEW ADDITIONS:
Admiral Baron Raffaele de Cosa (1778-1856)
(Service: 1840-50, Background: war_college, Personality: gallant)
Guglielmo Pepe (1783-1855)
(Service: 1813-1849, Background: politician, Personality: romantic)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: Should be active ONLY if Naples is NOT an absolute monarchy. Perhaps the most famous among the Neapolitan soldiers of the era. He began his military career in king Murat's army, and by the end of the Napoleonic rule he had already become a general. He was allowed to retain his rank under the restored Borbonic monarchy, but his liberal ideas led him to plot actively against their absolutist regime. When the news of the Spanish liberal uprising of 1820 reached Naples, he was one of the army commanders who forced king Ferdinand to issue the Constitution of 1820, but the following year the Neapolitan constitutional army was unable to stop the advance of the Austrian forces that restored king Ferdinand's absolute rule. General Pepe was forced to go into exile and only returned to the country after the 1848 revolution, in which king Ferdinand II had been forced to issue a new Constitution. He was put in charge of the army corps of 30,000 men that the new liberal government decided to send north to help the Piedmontese in their struggle against the Austrians. But when the army reached Bologna, news arrived that back in Naples the king had suspended the Constitution and after seizing again the absolute government of the state, had recalled his forces back to the south. Some 2000 men, both soldiers and officers, refused to obey the command, and Pepe led them to Venice, where they made a great contribution in the several months long siege of the city. The fall of Venice in 1849 forced him to flee Italy again, and died in exile a few years later)
Count Francesco Traversa (1786-1861)
(Service: 1851-1861, Background: engineer, Personality: resolute)
(By 1860, general Traversa had been for some time the commander of the Engineer branch of the Neapolitan army. His son, also an engineers officer, defected to the Garibaldines, but general Traversa decided to remain loyal to Francis II to the end. He was responsible for strengthening the defenses of the fortress of Gaeta, being killed in action when Sant'Antonio battery was blown up by Piedmontese artillery fire on February 5th 1861.)
Francesco Emanuele Pinto y Mendoza, Prince of Ischitella and Migliano, and Marquis of Trevico and Sant'Agata (1788-1875)
(Service: 1815-1861, Background: aristocrat, Personality: arrogant)
(Perhaps the second most respected Neapolitan general after Carlo Filangieri during Ferdinand II's reign, during the 1850s when he was Minister for War and Navy for several years, and like Filangieri he too refused command of the Borbonic army against Garibaldi's forces. He began his military career in Murat's army, and after taking part in the Russian campaign of 1812, by 1815 he had already become a division general at the age of 27. He remained loyal to the Borbonic dinasty till the end, and after the fall of the kingdom, he exiled himself in Paris.)
Leopoldo Giovanni Giuseppe di Borbone, Prince of Salerno (1790-1851)
(Service: 1809-1851, Background: aristocrat, Personality: calm)
(Son of king Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and brother of Francis I. When he was only 19 years old he commanded the expedition that recaptured the islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida from the French. The Austrian defeat at Wagram though put an end to the war of the Fifth Coalition, forcing the Borbonic forces to sail back to Sicily.)
Paolo Ruffo, Prince of Castelcicala and Duke of Bagnara (1791-1867)
(Service: 1837-1861, Background: generals_aide, Personality: diplomatic)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: Member of a family of the Sicilian aristocracy, he began his career in the Borbonic army during the Napoleonic Wars, when the Bourbon kings only retained Sicily. He served as Lord Wellington's aide during the battle of Waterloo, and afterwards occupied many important charges in the borbonic administration -he was even ambassador to London for some time. In 1860, he was the viceroy of Sicily, and his failure to prevent Garibaldi's landing at Marsala and his advance towards Palermo caused his dismissal by the king.)
Gennaro Férgola (1793-1870)
(Service: 1859-1870, Background: school_of_defense, Personality: gutsy)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: Just ascended to brigade general in 1859 after a long career, he became by royal designation the commander of the fortress of Messina, which became the only remaining strongpoint under borbonic control in Sicily after the Garibaldine conquest of the island. He rejected all the offers of honourable surrender and after the fall of Gaeta when Francis II was forced to leave the kingdom, he kept on fighting, stating that he had received no orders from the king to hand over the fortress. It was necessary for general Cialdini to move to Messina with the army that had taken Gaeta, finally forcing the citadel of Messina to surrender after being practically reduced to rubble by the Piedmontese new rifled artillery.)
Giosuè Ritucci (1794-1869)
(Service: December 21st 1853-February 13th 1863, Background: exranker, Personality: cautious)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: He was one of the relatively few high ranking officers who remained loyal to Francis II until the bitter end. He commanded the Borbonic army during the indecisive battle of the Volturno in september-october 1860, which was the last opportunity for the Borbonic army to defeat Garibaldi; his hesitancy and defeatism while conducting the battle allowed the Garibaldine forces a breathing time until the arrival of the regular Piedmontese army sealed the fate of the Two Sicilies. He would still be appointed commander of the fortress of Gaeta during the final and futile resistance against general Cialdini's army.)
Ferdinando Nunziante, Marquis of San Ferdinando (1801-1852)
(Service: September 1844-1852, Background: war_college, Personality: soldierly)
