Bernardino Milon

Bernardino Milon (Termini Imerese, September 4, 1829 – Rome, March 20, 1881) was an Italian general and politician. He was a deputy from May 1880 and Minister of War in the third Cairoli government.

Early career in the Bourbon army The son of Pietro Milon and Cecilia Voces, was born into a military family of Spanish origin in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: his uncle, Francesco, was the last Bourbon governor of Gaeta and signed its surrender in February 1861 to the Sardinian general Enrico Cialdini.

On October 29, 1842, he was admitted to the Nunziatella Military School and when he graduated from the course for army officers in October 1849 he was assigned to the artillery brigade. Promoted to lieutenant the following year in the horse artillery company, in September 1852 he transferred to the "Re Artiglieria" regiment, and was made first lieutenant two months later. Promoted to captain and returned to the artillery brigade in January 1856, he was named captain first class on July 1, 1860 and shortly after, on August 2, sent to Calabria as chief of staff of the 3rd brigade under the command of General B. Marra.

Upon his arrival in Reggio Calabria, Milon came under the orders of General :it:Fileno Briganti. On August 21, he was alongside the general during the failed attempt to recapture Reggio from the Garibaldians. The next day, he led eight companies of the 1st line regiment to the Piale camp and attended the war council of the Bourbon commanders which followed. The paralyzing indecision with which the council ended led to the opening of negotiations which brought about the complete retreat of Bourbon troops from Calabria. On August 23, 1860, Milon decided not to retreat with General Briganti, who was killed the same day by revolting troops. Instead, he remained at Villa San Giovanni to fulfil his duty to the end.

Existing measures to combat banditry were proving insufficient: the network of complicity provided by the "manutengoli", who helped the bandits through kinship, interest or fear, could not be broken. Milon therefore ordered suspects to be killed by faking incidents or escape attempts. In the space of a month, there were around thirty cases of this type, which had the desired effect of terrifying the local populations. Milon himself is said to have kept the preserved head of a bandit leader in a glass jar.

In December, Milon banned taking food from the cities to the countryside to starve out the bandits, and he had livestock herded into designated pastures and guarded by armed shepherds. The banditry did not stop: the same month, Milon was injured during a clash with :it:Domenico Straface's gang, called "Palma", that had been in the bush since 1848. When he threatened to leave his post in the spring of 1869, the authorities asked him to stay, which he agreed to and then reestablished the draconian system he had used previously. In July, the gang leader Straface was killed by an accomplice. At the end of the year, the state of emergency was over, with 86 bandits killed, denounced or arrested, 200 "maintainers" referred to the judicial authorities and no less than 86 deaths by "accident" or during “escape attempts”. His departure in January 1870 led to a brief and limited resumption of banditry; but it was enough for Milon to return in May to extinguish the last outbreaks.

In October 1880, he brought together the General Staff Committee and requested a new plan for the Kingdom's fortifications; then he presented to the House three bills concerning modifications in recruitment, the creation of a subsidiary officer position and the increase in the pensions of officers who participated in the campaigns of 1848 and 1849.