Garibaldi who was the most sublime personification of Latin genius and military valor of our day, won the battle of the Volturno at the end of September 186036 and on the following day, in his capacity as dictator of southern Italy sent a message to the powers of Europe exhorting them to put an end to wars and armaments by uniting in a European confederation
With the same hand that had but a little earlier wielded the sword of liberation, he wrote In waging war, we differ little from primitive men who killed one another to snatch each other's prey. We spend our lives today as then continually threatening one another while in Europe the large majority not only of great minds but of all sensible men understand perfectly that we could easily go through life without this perpetual menace and mutual hostility and without the necessity which seems to have been fatally imposed on nations by some secret and invisible enemy of mankind of slaughtering each other with such science and refinement