New leader portraits

Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont (III)

Okay, here we go again....

HISTORICAL NOTE: The Kingdom of Italy was officialy proclaimed on 17th March 1861, thus marking the end of the independent Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. All the officers listed here reached the rank of general or admiral before that date. The ones who reached it after that date have been included in the Italian leaderlist.
Accordingly, the leaders Fanti and Menabrea have been removed from the Italian leaderlist and put intead in the Sardinian one, as they reached the rank of general before the aforementioned date.


Manfredo Fanti (1806-65) + Leaderfile done


Domenico Cucchiari (1806-1900)

(Service: 1848-1871, Background: politician, Personality: impetuous)

Giacomo Durando (1807-1894)

(Service: 1st April 1848-1887, Background: amateur, Personality: balanced)

Enrico Della Rocca, Marquis of Bianzè and Count of Morozzo (1807-1897)

(Service: 12th March 1849-1867, Background: pawn, Personality: inept)

Leopoldo Valfré di Bonzo (1808-1887)

(Service: 1860-May 1877, Background: school_of_firepower, Personality: harsh)

Count Federico Luigi Menabrea (1809-96) + Leaderfile done


Luigi Mezzacapo (1814-1885)

(Service: 1859-79, Background: adventurer, Personality: romantic)

Agostino Petitti Bagliani, Count of Roreto (1814-1890)

(Service: 1859-77, Background: generals_aide, Personality: coolminded)

Maurizio Gerbaix, Count of Sonnaz (1816-1892)

(Service: May 25th 1859-81, Background: powerful_friends, Personality: gallant)

Giacomo Medici, Marquis del Vascello (1817-1882)

(Service: November 1860-80, Background: adventurer, Personality: defiant)


Just five more leaders left to finish with the Sardinian leaderfile. In my next post, I will also add an historical explanation about some of these guys, which I'm too tired to bother with now. Enjoy!

Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont (IV)

Carlo Mezzacapo (1817-1905)

(Service: 1859-82, Background: generals_aide, Personality: able)

Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia, Duke of Savoy (1820-1878)

(Service: 16th March 1842-1867, Background: aristocrat, Personality: spirited)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: King Carlo Alberto's eldest son; from 23rd March 1849, King of Sardinia, and from 17th March 1861, King of Italy)

Enrico Cosenz (1820-1896)

(Service: October 1860-31st August 1896, Background: engineer, Personality: confident)

Nino Bixio (1821-1873)

(Service: 1860-1871, Background: politician, Personality: bold)

Ferdinando di Savoia, Duke of Genova (1822-1855)

(Service: 1845-1855, Background: uncommonly_young, Personality: heroic)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: King Carlo Alberto's youngest son, brother of Vittorio Emanuele II)

The Kingdom of Sardinia was by the time when Vicky Grand Campaign starts, the only one of the Italian states with a liberal parlamentarian from of government. This, together with the facts that the House of Savoy was the only Italian ruling house of native ascent and that the Kingdom of Sardinia was perhaps the most economically advanced of all the Italian states, turned the Kingdom into the beacon of many Italian nationalists who saw it as the great hope for a future unification of the Italian peninsula. Not everybody shared those views, though: many Italian nationalists were republicans (followers of Mazzini) or even put their hopes in king Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, who was seen as the most powerful ruler in Italy.
The fact that in 1848 king Charles Albert chose to declare war on Austria to help the rebelled provinces of Lombardy and Venice while king Ferdinand did everything in his power to stop the revolutionary wave, turned the Kingdom of Sardinia definitively into the beacon for the Italian nationalists.
Accordingly, many Italian officers born in other parts of the peninsula fled to Piedmont and entered the Sardinian army. Some of the leaders that I've posted in here follow this pattern:

The Mezzacapo brothers were Neapolitans, and began their military careers as artillery officers in the army of the Two Sicilies. When the 1848 revolutionary wave struck Naples, the king was forced to proclaim a constitution and accept a parliamentary government, which immediately dispatched an army corps of 16000 men to the North in help of the Sardinians, commanded by the veteran liberal general Guglielmo Pepe. many junior officers of liberal ideas voluntarily joined the expediation. But when this force reached Bologna, it received the news that king Ferdinand had launched a countercoup and after assuming again absolute power had recalled the army back to the south. 2000 of its members though, together with general Pepe, chose to disobey the orders and joined the war against Austria. After the defeat of the revolution in Italy and elsewhere in 1849, these dissafected officers decided to exile themselves in Piedmont, and in the following years many of them joined the Sardinian army. Enrico Cosenz was also one of these Neapolitan officers to join the Sardinian army.

Domenico Cucchiari began his military career in the army of his native Duchy of Modena, but his political convictions made him take part in a failed coup agains the Habsburg duke of Modena, so he fled the Duchy and by 1848 he had become a division general in Charles Albert's army.

The Durando brothers were born in Rome, and disliking the situation in the Papal States, joined the Piedmontese army at quite an early stage, well before 1848. In this year, Giovanni Durando was put in command of the contingent of 7500 men that Pope Pius IX sent to serve with the Sardinian army.

The leadermod only deals with leaderfiles and pictures, so we're not going to work on events, but I think that probably the Kingdom of Sardinia should not receive these leaders if it not follows its historical path of being a Constitutional Monarchy (or a Democracy) and to raise the flag of Italian unification in 1848 or earlier.

The Sardinian leaders are finished. I will begin to work now with the leaders for Italy.

PD: Thanks for your efforts, Kaiser Franz. Any help is much appreciated!

A very good resource for Italian leaders of the period is the webpage of the Italian Senate, which has biographical sketches of all the senators of that period, many of whom were generals or admirals. Hope this helps!

Italy (I)

Okay, here we go with the Italian leaders.

HISTORICAL NOTE: The Kingdom of Italy was officialy proclaimed on 17th March 1861. All the officers listed here reached the rank of general or admiral after that date.
However, if you don't play with VIP, it's not rare at all to see Italy not forming. So I'll detail for each of the Italian leaders their geographical procedence, so if anybody feels like it, they can try to create events to offer the possibility of these leaders appearing in the leaderfiles of the several Italian states.

VANILLA LEADERS

Antonio Baldissera (1837-1917) + Leaderfile done

(Born in the Veneto, began his military career in the Habsburg army, taking part in the battle of Custoza in 1866 in the ranks of the army commanded by Archduke Albert)

Count Luigi Cadorna (1850-1928) + Leaderfile done

(Piedmontese, son of general Raffaele Cadorna)

Luigi Capello (1859–1941) + Leaderfile done

(Born in Intra, Piedmont)

Admiral Paolo Emilio Thaon, Count of Revel (1859-1948) + Leaderfile done

(A scion of an old Piedmontese aristocratic family)

Armando Diaz, 1st Duke of the Victory (1861-1928) + Leaderfile done

(CORRECTION: Service period 1914-24)
(Born in a Neapolitan family of Spanish origin)

Admiral Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of the Abruzzi (1873-1933) + Leaderfile done

(Of course, a member of the House of Savoy, son of King Amadeo I of Spain)

Oh, and by the way....









FORÇA BARÇA!!!!!!!

Italy (II)

Some more italians....

Giuseppe Salvatore Pianelli (1815-1892)

(Service: 1861-1883, Background: war_college, Personality: able)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: General of brigade in 1855, by 1860 he had already been promoted to the rank of Field Marshal in the army of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Minister of War for a few weeks in 1860, just when Garibaldi had finished the conquest of Sicily and was about to invade the continental part of the Kingdom, his defensive plans collapsed totally when several important Borbonic detachments in Calabria and Lucania surrendered to Garibaldi's forces without fighting. He resigned and left active service on 31st August 1860, exiling himself in Paris. After the fall of Gaeta and the annexation of the Two Sicilies to the new Kingdom of Italy, he joined the new Italian army with the rank of Division general. During the 1866 war against Austria, he was one of the very few Italian commanders to achieve successes against their Austrian foes. He eventually reached the rank of Full General and was made a vitalician senator by royal designation in 1871.)

Domenico Primerano (1820-1911)

(Service: 1877-96, Background: generals_aide, Personality: cautious)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: Born in Naples, began his military career in the Borbonic army)

Cesare Francesco Ricotti-Magnani (1822-1917) + Leaderfile done

(HISTORICAL NOTE: Born in Novara, Piedmont)

Admiral Simone Antonio Pacoret de Saint Bon (1823-1892)

(Service: 1867-15th May 1892, Background: gifted_administrator, Personality: audacious)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: Born in Chambéry in Savoy, in an aristocratic family; opted to keep the Sardinian nationality after Savoy and Nice were ceded to France in 1860)

Emilio Pallavicini, Marquis of Priola (1823-1901) + Leaderfile done

(HISTORICAL NOTE: Born in Genoa, belonged to the patrician Pallavicini family, which gave many historical personalities across the centuries)

Edoardo Driquet (1824-1916)

(Service: 1877-1899, Background: diplomat, Personality: smart)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: Hungarian revolutionary who fled to the Kingdom of Sardinia after the failure of the Hungarian insurrection in 1849, he joined the Sardinian army and would eventually be the founder of the Italian army intelligence service)

Gaetano Sacchi (1824-1886)

(Service: 1861-86, Background: exranker, Personality: romantic)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: Born in Pavia, Lombardy. Of humble origins, he joined the Sardinian merchant navy and in 1845 met Garibaldi in Montevideo, from then on he remained one of his most loyal supporters, in 1861 after the great success of the Expedition of the Thousand he was admitted along many other Garibaldine officers including Garibaldi himself, in the newly created Italian army)

Giuseppe Govone (1825-72) + Leaderfile done

(HISTORICAL NOTE: Born in Isola d'Asti, Piedmont; in a family of the lesser nobility)

Admiral Guglielmo Acton (1825-1896)

(Service: 1868-1888, Background: cartographer, Personality: stout)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: The Italian branch of the Acton family descended from John Francis William Acton, 6th Baronet (1736-1811), a British politician who became prime minister of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies during the reign of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon. The family settled in the ciry of Naples and would give many marine officers during the XIX and early XX centuries first to the Borbonic Navy and later to the Regia Marina Italiana. They received the rank of "Patrizio napoletano", members of the Neapolitan urban nobility.)

Admiral Marquis Paolo Orengo (1828-1921)

(Service: 1873-1893, Background: war_college, Personality: doughty)
(HISTORICAL NOTE: Born in Ventimiglia, Liguria)

Enjoy!