Nicholas Schofield's Victorian Crusaders is a contribution to Helion Publishing's series on nineteenth-century military history. It covers the recruitment, organization, and employment of foreign soldiers for the Papal army in the 1860s with special attention to men drawn from Ireland, England, and Scotland. Schofield describes the engagement of these men in the three major campaigns of the period: 1860, when the Pope lost control of about two-thirds of the territory of the Papal States; 1867, when the Papal army in concert with the French successfully defended what was left against the Garibaldians; and 1870, when the withdrawal of the French garrison left the Pontifical forces unable to resist successfully the new Italian army. In September of that year, Italian forces entered Rome, and the surviving foreign soldiers were captured (casualties were not very high) and repatriated. Pius IX declared himself a “prisoner in the Vatican,” and Rome was now the capital of the new Italian state.

Schofield sets his account in the dynamic intersections of nineteenth-century culture wars (in this case Risorgimento vs. Anti-Risorgimento), Catholic hierarchical and parish politics in the British Isles, and the domestic and international politics of the great powers. Students of church history will be most interested in the subjects of individual motivation to service and “ideological volunteering.” These are addressed primarily in the first three chapters and in chapter 12. The book is sourced from secondary literature, contemporary periodicals, memoirs, and correspondence from archives. Schofield writes well and the text is supported by useful maps.