You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (October 2023)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Italian Wikipedia article at [[:it:Battaglia di Castelfidardo]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|it|Battaglia di Castelfidardo}} to the talk page.
On 7 September, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Prime Minister of Piedmont, sent an ultimatum to the Pope demanding that he dismiss his foreign troops. When he failed to do this, 35,000troops crossed the border on 11September, with General Enrico Cialdini advancing along the Adriatic coast and General Della Rocca leading another troop across Umbria. Papal troops were caught by surprise and thrown into confusion. Some of the Papal troops surrendered the same day and some retreated to Ancona which fell on 29 September 1860 after Siege of Ancona (1860) a short siege.[2]
Battle
Bloodshed and the wildly disproportionate army levels—less than 10,000 Papal soldiers against 39,000 Sardinian infantry—are what make the conflict memorable.[citation needed]
Papal Army
The Papal army was composed of volunteers from many European countries, amongst whom the French and Belgian nationals constituted a Franco-Belgian battalion. Among the French volunteers were a notable number of nobles from western France: after the battle, whilst consulting the list of dead and wounded members of the Papal army, the Sardinian general Cialdini is reported to have said, in an example of black humor, "you would think this was a list of invites for a ball given by Louis XIV!"[3]
The Franco-Belgian, Austrian and Irish battalions later joined the Papal Zouaves, an infantry regiment of international composition that pledged to aid Pope Pius IX in the protection of the Papacy for the remainder of the Italian unificationist Risorgimento.
Military and political results
As a result of this battle, the Marche and Umbria entered the Kingdom of Italy and the Papal States were reduced to the area of what is today known as Lazio.[2]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Sardinia 
Papal States 
