The history of Bourbon Sicily began in 1734, when Charles of Bourbon moved to conquer the Two Sicilies, removing them from Austrian rule. This historical period ended in July 1860, when, following the Expedition of the Thousand, the Bourbon troops were defeated and withdrawn, partly due to the support of the Sicilian population. Subsequently, Sicily was annexed to the constituent Kingdom of Italy.
Background Spain possessed in 1700 the largest empire in the world: present to some degree on all continents, and suffocated at home by clear political and commercial decadence, its legacy attracted the major European powers, just as it was of great concern in whose hands such dominion would pass. England, which had long been waging war against Spain on the oceans, joined in an alliance with the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire, supporting with arms the Austrian heir entitled to the Spanish throne: Archduke Charles VI of Habsburg; he had supporters in SicilyGiovanni Evangelista Di Blasi, Storia cronologica dei viceré, luogotenenti e presidenti del Regno di Sicilia, 1842, pp. 452–453. and in the remaining Iberian dominions, since he was seen as the legitimate continuator of the House of Habsburg, which by then had ruled the Sicilian throne for as much as 200 years. However, Spain's chosen heir was instead Philip V of Bourbon, son of the Grand Dauphin, Louis, who was destined to succeed to the throne of France as successor to Louis XIV, the Sun King: the one who had tried to conquer Sicily two decades earlier.
This union between two powerful monarchical houses, sole heirs to the vast Spanish Empire, sparked the warlike conflict in Europe known as the War of the Spanish Succession. The French and British had attempted before the death of the last Habsburg of Spain to peacefully partition the empire (this was attempted in two different treaties): France had demanded to possess Sicily along with the other Italian dominions, while it would leave Spain and the Indies, i.e., the Americas, to the Habsburg empire. However, the agreements had broken down because Charles of Habsburg refused to be crowned ruler of Spain and the Indies without also obtaining the centuries-old crown of the Kingdom of Sicily.
The Sicilian situation took a turn for the worse when the Anglo-Habsburg allies conquered the Kingdom of Naples for the Austrian Archduke, thus reaching the Sicilian borders in 1707.
The war continued in Europe and the rest of the world, with considerable bloodshed, especially for the French, until Emperor Joseph I of Habsburg suddenly died in 1711, which meant for Philip of Bourbon's rival, namely Charles of Habsburg, the ascension to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. England, which saw in Habsburg power a danger as great as that of Spain, refused at this point to continue supporting the Habsburgs for the Iberian throne (just as it did not want a Spain united with France, it also absolutely rejected a Spain united with the vast Habsburg area). This led to a peace treaty between the powers: the Treaty of Utrecht, signed in 1713.
With this treaty, England stood as victors and France and Spain as defeated nations, and the final dissolution of the Spanish Empire was sanctioned. The English then decided the fate of Sicily by taking it away from the Spaniards and handing it over, literally, to a figure quite unexpected to the Sicilians and the other warring powers: the Piedmontese Duke Victor Amadeus II of Savoy.
England then decided to resolve the "Sicilian" question by giving it neither to the French nor to the Austrians; in fact, the new emperor was given the Kingdom of Naples, the Duchy of Milan, and Sardinia was given to the German Bavaria, but he, precisely because of the lack of the Sicilian crown, did not want to sign the peace of Utrecht: the war of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire would continue for another two years, until Charles VI signed the peace of Rastatt, by which he decided to accept what had been established at Utrecht.
On the island, long before the invasion, word had already spread that Spain was returning to claim what Utrecht had taken from it. Victor Amadeus knew he was in an extremely precarious condition on that throne: there were too many powerful claimants to keep him unharmed. The powers had united by forming the Quadruple Alliance: the British, French, Austrians and Dutch at war with the Spanish, stipulated that the crown of Sicily should go to the Emperor of Austria, since the Savoy on their own could not protect the Mediterranean island from the sights of Philip V of Bourbon's army.
On July 1, 1718, the Spaniards landed in Sicily, near Solunto (in the gulf of the same name, which later became the Gulf of Termini Imerese), landing 30,000 men-at-arms,Isidoro La Lumia, La Sicilia sotto Vittorio Amedeo di Savoia, 1877, p. 208.Centro Studi Piemontesi, Studi piemontesi, vol. 28, ed. 2, 1999, p. 546. whose orders were to take Sicily by force from the Savoyards and bring the Sicilians back under the Iberian crown. The Savoy king's order was in turn to keep the crown of the island for the Savoy, so there was no capitulation of the kingdom.
Believing that Palermo was not capable of being defended, Piedmontese Viceroy Annibale Maffei, together with the Palermo Senate, negotiated its surrender to the Spaniards on July 2 with their commander, Jean François de Bette, Marquess of Lede.On the chapters of the surrender see Gioacchino Di Marzo, Diari della città di Palermo dal secolo 16. al secolo 19. pubblicati sui manoscritti della Biblioteca comunale: 8, vol. 1–19, 1871, da p. 300. Maffei at the same time ordered his men to set out for Syracuse, which, unlike Palermo and other Sicilian cities, had been fashioned over the centuries by the Spaniards with the main purpose of resisting the enemy to the bitter end, so it was evaluated by the Piedmontese king (for several years already)Gioacchino Barbera, Da Antonello a Paladino, 1996, p. 29. as the best place in which to entrench and wait for events to unfold.Isidoro La Lumia, La Sicilia sotto Vittorio Amedeo di Savoia, 1877, pp. 193. Although against their will, the Savoyards were finally forced to surrender Sicily to Austria. German soldiers then prevented the Spaniards from returning to the island.
The new territorial arrangement, however, did not satisfy the major houses of Europe,Isidoro La Lumia, La Sicilia sotto Vittorio Amedeo di Savoia, 1877, pp. 196–197. and the reason for ousting Austria from Sicily was given by the War of Polish Succession, which erupted in 1733: the new Austro-Russian-Prussian alliance, formed by the Treaty of the Three Black Eagles (Bund der drei schwarzen Adler),Enrico Iachello, I Borbone in Sicilia (1734–1860), 1998, p. 19; Luciano Guerci, L'Europa del settecento: permanenze e mutamenti, 1988, p. 472. had sided with the candidate Augustus III of Poland, outraging France, which instead supported Louis XV's father-in-law, Stanislaw Leszczyński. Since the French were unable to counter the troops of Anna Ivanovna Romanova (Empress of All Russia), who had brought Poland into her orbit, they then decided to attack Charles VI's possessions, thus substantiating a new war in Sicily, the purpose of which was to take it away from the Habsburg Empire.
Early Sicilian Bourbon period
The conquest
Louis XV of France made a family pact with Bourbon Spain by which the two nations swore to protect each other (El Escorial, Nov. 7, 1733).Gaetano Falzone, La Sicilia nella politica mediterranea delle grandi potenze: indipendenza o autonomia nei documenti inediti del Quai d'Orsay, vol. 5, 1974, p. 13. This pact promised the King of Spain's eldest son born to his second wife, the Duke of Parma and Piacenza, Charles Sebastian of Bourbon, the southern European domains of the Holy Roman Empire, i.e., both Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, which were, however, to be kept strictly separate from the Spanish throne.Francesco Pitteri, La storia dell'anno 1735 [...], Amsterdam, vol. 1, da p. 18: vol. 2, da p. 1.
Charles of Habsburg had, all things considered, fairly peacefully accepted the cession of his northern domains in Italy to the Infante of Spain. To the Neapolitan Kingdom he was unable or unwilling to give much relief (the conquest began in March 1734 and ended with the siege and conquest of the two Italic strongholds, Gaeta and Capua, in November of that year). He was doing this for the sake of his empire, wanting to pass it on to his daughter Maria Theresa of Austria, and thus needing the powers to accept his Pragmatic Sanction. However, when the time came for the Allies to conquer Sicily, the Habsburgs became serious about Syracuse in particular, choosing it as their last major stronghold against the Franco-Spanish plans and British acquiescence.
While still fighting for the Neapolitan kingdom, Charles VI gave orders to his troops to move to Syracuse: German soldiers were arriving there from Italian cities and also from other Sicilian cities. The Spanish troops, now allied with the French as well as the British, had landed on the western side of the island since the summer of '34 and, having conquered the area without difficulty (except for Trapani, also a fortress, which held out), had appointed the Duke of Montemar, José Carrillo de Albornoz as the new viceroy of Sicily.Gioacchino Di Marzo, Diari della città di Palermo dal secolo XVI al XIX, vol. 9, 1871, p. 228.
On March 9, 1735, Charles of Bourbon, then less than 20 years old, set out for Sicily with the intention of completing its conquest. The future king landed in Messina, to witness the taking of the Royal Citadel: it had surrendered on February 23, 1735.Charles III (King of Spain), Imma Ascione, Università di Napoli, Lettere ai sovrani di Spagna: 1735–1739, 2002, pp. 48, 54. From this time onward the heavy siege of Syracuse began, concentrating on it the Hispanic crown's aims: after having the population forcibly evacuated to the neighboring countryside, Germans and Spaniards opened fire on the city, and from May, for 24 days, the artillery of the Ejército de Tierra poured inside the walls; approximately 2000 bombs were dropped there.Società Siracusana di Storia Patria, Archivio storico siracusano, 1990, p. 83. At the same time that palaces, roads and various structures were being destroyed, there came from the Austrian emperor a kind of incentive for the Syracusans: he promised them, in the event of victory, the restoration of the city as the capital of Sicily as a reward for their loyalty to the Austrian Empire. If he had kept his word it would surely have been a momentous change, since Syracuse had lost its title and powers as capital since the distant Arab rule.Istituto italiano per gli studi filosofici, Corrispondenze diplomatiche veneziane da Napoli, vol. 16, 1992, p. 280.
Inside the walls the bombardment continued, but without significant casualties, not even among the Germans: according to some sources the limited number of casualties and destruction of civilian buildings occurred because the Spaniards deliberately bombarded the city with “great discretion,” and precision, aiming exclusively at the fortifications. The team of military engineers in charge of directing the Spanish bombers belonged to the school of Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (one of the greatest military engineers in history who flourished in the court of the Sun King).Società siciliana per la storia patria, Massimo Ganci, Eventi e personaggi di ieri e di oggi visti da un osservatorio siciliano, 2000, p. 201. On 1 June 1735, the capitulation finally came.
The birth of the Bourbon Kingdom