Beware Whoever Touches It
THE SECOND NAPOLEON FLEES FROM PARIS
Napoleon II, claimant to the throne of France, has fled from Paris to southern France along with supporters from the Senate, to gather an army to press his claim on the throne. Reports of attempts on his life by radical republicans have surfaced, although whether they are true attempts by the Senate in Paris to end Bonaparte's legacy or a smear campaign by Bonaparte II remains unclear.
Sicily was filled with even more activity than usual, with soldiers marching through the streets, their footsteps echoing like gunshots, rifles on their shoulders. Though small in numbers, the Sicilian army was armed with rifles as opposed to muskets and quite a few rifled cannons pulled by horses. The men were alert, their boats were prepared at the docks, and Lelouch could feel a warm sirocco wind blowing up from the Barbary coast, urging him to sail north, to destiny. His contacts had given him news of major unrest in Liguria, and they would sail within in the day.
He was loath to leave Nunnally alone, but she was smart enough to look after Sicily in his and Jeremiah's absence. Part of the reason he decided to raise so few men from Palermo and not take many others from Sicily was manifold, including keeping Sicily calm and well garrisoned in his absence, so that his gentle sister didn't have to put down revolting peasantry, and to keep the workshops and sulfur mines running properly so his campaign did not run low on powder or shot.
Lelouch also had a more aesthetic reason to keep his army so small: while they were all Sicilian, they would be in some way tainted by Britannian occupation, seen as foreign agents of the Britannian crown. The more volunteers he got from French Italy, the better his army would look to the people. It would be a delicate dance to keep his Britannian and Italian traits in balance- too much kowtowing to London would keep him from unifying Italy in the first place, or leave the country stunted by revolts; however, if he gave too much to the Italians he would have to worry about Britannia coming in and clamping down on Italy.
A pair of French gendarmes patrolled the streets of Milan, sabers rattling at their hips as the moon hung in the sky, full and pale. Many Italian cities under French control had seethed with unrest, and they had heard it was even worse in cities directly controlled by France like Genoa, Florence, and Turin, although the Pope had calmed unrest in Rome. Fortunately, things had seemed to simmer down in the past few days, although their captain was worried the Italians were plotting something.
They barely even heard the shots before the bullets entered their skulls.
After three days of sailing, Lelouch could see Genoa in the distance, the harbor full of ships gently gliding across the blue sea. From this distance, Lelouch was confident that his ships looked as innocuous as the sloops in the harbor, just instead of being loaded with merchandise they were loaded with men and materiel of war. In times like these, ships with many gunports weren't seen as suspect, especially when they flew the French Tricolore (fakes, obviously).
The wind was good and the ships of the fleet managed to get to the quays under their own power without stopping for tugboats. If he believed in such things, Lelouch supposed that may have been a good omen.
The French Tricolore still flew above the harbors, although he could see no Gendarmes or soldiery within the immediate area. He leaned over towards Jeremiah. "Prepare the men to disembark. I'll look around."
Lelouch see a nearby stevedore, and gestured him over.
"Was there something you needed, signore?"
"I was wondering… how are things in Genoa? I have not gotten much news at sea, you know?"
The man looked nervous, and leaned towards Lelouch, "Unless you've got urgent business, I recommend you sail away, signore. There's violence and chaos in the streets. You'll make no profit here, I assure you."
Lelouch grinned. "I'll tell the crews. Thank you."
He climbed back aboard and gave Jeremiah a nod of approval, and the man gave a fierce grin.
He caught a glimpse of the same stevedore's expression transforming into one of horror as row after row of men in blood red vests marched from the ships, rifles over their soldiers.
The Doge's Palace was within a surprisingly short walk, and they met no resistance as the men marched in lockstep down the streets. No true Genoese doge had lived in the palace for nearly thirty years, although the French departmental council did rule the region from the palace. He realized very quickly why he didn't see any French soldiers near the docks, as they were occupied in fortifying the palace, stacking sandbags and blocking up shattered windows. They seemed stunned by the sudden arrival of the three thousand, and Lelouch seized the moment, shouting "Take the palace!", and the street broke into chaos.
Few of the gendarmes were armed, and they fell to the ground as several hundred men fired their accurate rifles at once. Sicilian soldiers charged the door, slamming into it with rifle butts and forcing it open, bayonets flashing in the air. Boots crushed the shattered glass of the windows, and the French defenders fell back in a panic, hardly expecting another attack so soon, much less one by a professional army and not a rabble.
The floors of the Doge's palace may have been stained with blood, but very little of it was Sicilian. Genoa was his with nothing more than a few scrapes or bruises for his men. The men went about fortifying the palace, and Lelouch prepared himself to address the concerned figures he could already see gathering in the Piazza dei Ferrari.
With Jeremiah by his side, he walked outside to see throngs of people mulling in the plaza, and they fell silent when he approached.
"People of Genoa! My name is Lelouch Lamperouge, and I am viceroy of Sicily! After hearing about the chaos in the French government, I have come to free Italy from the tyrannical grip of the French, who claim to be liberators but simply crush the world underfoot! As Viceroy of Sicily, I declare the Duchy of Genoa, and call all able-bodied men, not Genoese men, but all Italian men to join me in freeing Italy from those that would subdue her, to unite the peninsula at long last! Long live the Risorgimento! Long live Italy!"
The crowd cheered, and Lelouch gave a grin. Things were going as planned for now.
The newly dubbed Duchy of Genoa was in many way like his home in Sicily. Self determining, with a parliament handling day to day life while Lelouch handled the military. And what a military it was. Overnight, the army of the Risorgimento swelled, with 8,000 Genoese men joining.
Lelouch was pleased to finally read a newspaper within a day of its printing, instead of waiting days or weeks for it to reach Sicily, and he knew that any attempts to slow the spread of his attack would be impossible. He was on a timer now, and he needed to pick up steam before either French faction, either pro-Napoleonic or pro-Senate swept him up, but large portions of the French army were tied up in the Balkans under the Marshal Murat.
THE DUCHY OF GENOA!
While France was already struggling from conflict both internal and external, another complication has appeared in the form of Lelouch Lamperouge (also known as Lelouch vi Britannia), the Britannian viceroy of Sicily, who has landed in Genoa and declared a brand new Duchy of Genoa, seemingly under the governance of the Kingdom of Sicily. He has proclaimed the Risorgimento and declared his intent to unite Italy and free it from French rule. His next move remains unknown, but he seems primed to exploit civil unrest throughout French Italy.
The Genoese seemed very happy to be ruled by someone even half Italian, and with a port secured Lelouch sent his fleet back, to acquire more supplies for the thousands of new men in the army of the Risorgimento. The Sicilian 3,000 were well equipped and the closest Lelouch had to veterans, in contrast the 8,000 new volunteers he picked up were poorly equipped and while there was an occasional ex-soldier, many were just excited young men with no experience. Lelouch's next stop was Milan, not just to pick up more enthusiastic young men from urban centers, but because it was a stop on the way to the town of Monza, which held a cathedral of some importance.
However, he also knew that he couldn't just leave his back flank uncovered, and decided to order Jeremiah to take half of the army to seize Turin, which lay to the northwest of Genoa as opposed to the more northeastern Milan. Lelouch was loath to separate from one of his most loyal men, but trusted no one else to command such a mass of soldiers.
"Jeremiah?"
"Your highness?'
"You know of Turin? In Savoy? You shall take half of the army, 1,500 of our Sicilians and 4,000 of the Genoese, and seize it, and set up watches in the Alps. I will have no crossing of the Alps interrupt my plans, or at least I refuse to be caught off guard like the Romans when Hannibal crossed into Cisalpine Gaul. Napoleon did it, one of his successors might try it. Return to Genoa afterwards. I will be taking Milan, and I will meet you there once I have handled some business."
"Your highness, I should accompany you at all times-"
"We have no time to loose, Jeremiah. It could take more than a month for us to take just one of the two cities and return to Genoa, and speed is critical."
Jeremiah sighed. "Yes, your highness."
The army was a little slower than usual, with all the fresh new volunteers, and the long train of carriages laden down with rifled guns and supplies did not help matters. What cities lay between Genoa and the Po surrendered without issue, and they crossed the Po within 10 days of leaving Genoa, although a few hundred men larger when they left.
Milan was incredibly important as a center of French administration in Italy, where Napoleon I was crowned King of Italy two decades previously and where said puppet kingdom was ruled from. The Kingdom had been dismembered as per one of Napoleon's final decrees, but it remained one of the most important cities in Italy, capital of the French puppet state of Lombardy.
Lelouch first reached Milan a fortnight after leaving Genoa; although the first sign of the famed city was plumes of smoke from the north, and when Milan itself became visible he could see fires and fighting near the walls of the city's castle, Castle Sforza. It seemed that French garrisons had fallen back to try to hold the castle, as the Milanese tried to take it, with little success, seeing as they had no siege pieces to bombard the 300 year old castle with.
However, Lelouch most certainly had cannons, rifled cannons even, and he was happy to help… liberate Milan. Upon seeing the Sicilian flag his men flew, the gates of the city were opened, and Lelouch found himself riding through the streets of another storied city. The story of the Ambrosian Republic came to Lelouch's mind, where a succession crisis caused the city to become a republic, only for a defection by an ally of theirs (the very same Sforza who built the now besieged castle, in fact) to revert the city back to a duchy. How fitting, Lelouch mused, his horse trotting towards the castle as he carefully looked for a place to position his cannon.
A bombardment from the guns did the trick, turning the gate into rubble and allowing a wave of infantry, both Milanese and Lelouch's soldiers, to charge inside and defeat the French garrison in a chaotic melee.
When the battle had ended, nearly 500 men of the Risorgimento lay dead in and around the castle, although one of the greatest cities of Italy had joined the ranks of the unification, and Lelouch declared the Duchy of Milan and made another call for Italian unification before taking his army on a quick trip to a town to northeast of Milan named Monza.
The town was definitely not as major as Milan, it did have a very notable cathedral, or at least a cathedral that held an object of interest. Upon hearing the news of Milanese surrender, Monza surrendered to Lelouch without trouble, and the authorities were more than happy to show him to Cathedral, and were more than happy to give him the relic, after a careful reminder of just whose army they were hosting.
It was a circlet of gold, studded with garnets and sapphires, and a thin ring of a silver material ran around the inside. It was the Iron Crown of Lombardy, named for that interior band, supposedly formed from a nail from the cross Christ was crucified upon. Lelouch honestly didn't buy it (if it was iron, several hundred year old iron in fact, why didn't it rust?) but taking the crown gave him a certain appearance of being a legitimate ruler of all Italy. The supposed holiness of the relic also related to another issue he knew he would have to focus on soon: religion.
Lelouch was never really a believer in the Anglican Church, despite his father being the head of it, but he realized that presenting a pious appearance helped pacify the masses. He suspected that at the very least his father and his sister Cornelia were closet atheists, and even if Lelouch was a believer, he would gladly damn himself for Nunnally's safety. Perhaps that made him a bad Christian, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
However, he knew that there was always going to be some friction between him and his Italian subjects unless he converted to Catholicism eventually. He supposed he was going to meet the Pope soon, when his campaigns reached Rome, and if he was going to convert why not do with the help of the Pope? It would certainly help his image.
Emperor Charles was no fool, he knew his son Lelouch was plotting something in Sicily, but he was far too curious to stop the boy. So few of his children lived up to his expectations, but Lelouch was certainly one of them, cunning and bold in equal measure. He knew that Lelouch was gathering an army armed with weapons from that eccentric, Asplund, but other than perhaps Scneizel and Cornelia none of his other children showed an ounce of initiative.
Whatever he was expecting, opening a newspaper from the continent and reading that his son had taken over Genoa was not it. He had figured Lelouch was preparing for something small, perhaps a campaign in North Africa while the Turks were distracted, but never an attack on France. The sheer opportunism of the move impressed Charles, and it reminded him very much of Lelouch's mother, Marianne, so daring and unexpected.
Jeremiah also thought of Marianne as he left Turin behind him, heading to Genoa and fervently hoping that Marianne's boy still lived, despite only having been separated from him for a few days more than two weeks.
Jeremiah had never fully understood Lelouch's passion about seeing Italy unified, but he supposed that he simply wasn't Italian. However, he sensed that Lelouch was doing it for more than just political ideals, to protect his sister with the strength of a country or restore his status in the imperial court? He couldn't answer with certainty, but Jeremiah would stand by his side for the entire way.
So that's another chapter. The events of this one took a heavy cue from Garibaldi's expedition of the Thousand, where a group of volunteers sailed from Sardinia and landed in Sicily to take over Naples. In Lelouch's case it's practically the other way around. The timeline is kind of vague, I admit, but the Floreal massacre which started the French unrest last time was May 10th, and reached Lelouch around a week later, with about a three day trip meaning Lelouch lands around the 21st. A bit over two weeks of marching brings us to June 6th. The French will react in time, but it's basically been about two weeks. I tried to explain a bit more of the history this time, and tried out more diverse perspectives. Chapter title is part of a quote from Napoleon when he was crowned with the Iron Crown. "God gives it to me, beware whoever touches it", but I think Lelouch can handle it. Tell me what you think!