During the wars which followed the French Revolution, France's armies
turned on Britain's last ally in Italy, the kingdom of Naples. The
French chased out the Bourbon royal family and established a republic,
governed by scholars and philosophers. It lasted six months before an
Army of the Holy Faith, under Cardinal Ruffo, counter-attacked and
reduced the republic to a handful of castles in Naples itself. In June
1799 their republican garrisons agreed to surrender when Ruffo promised
to save them from his fanatical mob by offering them safe passage to
France. That treaty of surrender was signed and sealed when Admiral
Nelson arrived in the bay with his British fleet. The admiral, urged on
by Lady Hamilton, objected to the treaty's generous terms, then seemed
to relent, permitting the republicans and their families to evacuate
their forts. Once they were disarmed and had climbed aboard the waiting
transports, Nelson struck and seized the would-be exiles. Hundreds of
Neapolitan rebels now found themselves delivered up to a merciless
court. This book asks whether Nelson was capable of such a betrayal. It
makes use of accounts by Cardinal Ruffo, Lady Hamilton and Nelson
himself, as well as by many others caught up in those brutal events, to
tell the story of the atrocity committed in Naples in the summer of
1799. From all those experiences comes the drama. But to Naples alone
belongs the tragedy.
