The Army of the Two Sicilies, also known as the Royal Army of His Majesty the King of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Reale esercito di Sua Maestà il Re del Regno delle Due Sicilie), the Bourbon Army (Esercito Borbonico) or the Neapolitan Army (Esercito Napoletano), was the land forces of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, whose armed forces also included a navy. It was in existence from 1734 to 1861. It was the land armed force of the new independent state created by the settlement of the Bourbon dynasty in southern Italy following the events of the War of the Polish Succession.
History
Although the Royal Army arose only in 1734, the Neapolitan and Sicilian military institutions boast a much older history, which lays its foundations in the organization of a "state" army (i.e. state and no longer feudal) by Ferdinand I of Naples in 1464. In particular, during the Spanish period (1503-1714) customs used by Aragon in Sicily mixed old military traditions from the Norman, Arab, and Byzantine periods. All of these different cultures profoundly marked the military customs of the later Bourbon period. It can be seen in many examples of military clothing including items, such as the Turban which dated back to Emirate of Sicily. During this time the soldiers of southern Italy were in fact involved in almost all the military events of the Spanish Empire (from the Wars of Charles V to the Wars of Flanders, from colonial campaigns in America to the Thirty Years' War,often showing great value and loyalty to the Spanish government. The captains, belonging to the best feudal nobility of the Neapolitan and Sicilian provinces, were able to frame and prepare the subjects of the two vice-kingdoms for war, obeying the firm political direction given by the monarchs of Spain.
In the later Bourbon period, however, with the reconquest of independence, the nobility gradually lost this military character, giving way to the new centralizing policy of a dynastic imprint. The goal of the Bourbons was in fact to replace loyalty to the old noble commanders, who had served the Habsburgs for over 200 years, with an exasperated fidelity to the new national crown. This progressive disunity from the obsolete Iberian traditions, promoted by the reforms desired by Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, provoked in the eighteenth century a state of "disorientation" within the Bourbon military institutions that resulted in an almost frenetic sequence of restructuring and reform. This restless evolution of the military structures of the Two Sicilies stopped only with the accession of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, who finally managed to stabilize and rationalize the military systems of the kingdom, giving it a definitively national and dynastic imprint. However, the evolution of the European and Neapolitan political framework of those last 30 years, which fully involved the army of the Two Sicilies, caused political dissent to turn directly against the same Bourbon ruling house.
Charles de Bourbon
1734, the year in which the expeditionary force of Charles of Bourbon conquered the Neapolitan provinces and the following year the Kingdom of Sicily, tearing them from the Austrian viceroyalty, also marked the creation of the first entirely "national" regiments, flanked by the Spanish regiments with which Infante Don Carlo had descended in Italy.
The story of this army naturally fits into the same space of time in which the dynasty of which it was supported lived: from 1734 to 1861. However, following the establishment in December 1816 of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies with the formal merger of the two kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, this armed force was deeply reorganized, incorporating also the elements of the Neapolitan army of the Napoleonic age. This historically led to resentment from Sicilian members of the army, and caused many of them to join rebels during the Sicilian revolution of 1848. From 1817, therefore, the official name of Royal Army of His Majesty the King of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was adopted; the latter, together with the Army of the Sea, constituted the armed forces of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.