At dawn of 20th September 1870, more than 15.000 soldiers of the papal army, most of them Zouaves (volunteers from France, Belgium and the Netherlands), were prepared to face the attack of the besiegers, snipers and soldiers of the Italian army who had been waiting for days for the declaration of resignation of the Papal States.
At 9 in the morning, the Piedmontese Raffaele Cadorna gave the first signal. It was the instant the fray began. The roar of the shots was joined by the fall of a large part of the wall that extends a few tens of meters from the Porta Pia. The onslaught was massive, to the point that the defenders could not hold out for long. Thus ended the power of the popes, a government that had lasted for more than a thousand years.
The Porta Pía was completely destroyed. Of all the statues, only one of the Virgin Mary remained intact. The ground was covered with dirt, debris and piles of stones and inert bodies everywhere. Everything happened on a morning in September, a historic event for Rome and Italy. What until a few years ago had been a chimera, that not even Garibaldi himself had been able to achieve, was now a reality.
The truth is that, a few weeks before, the Battle of Sedan, a contest destined to change the European political and diplomatic balance for many years. In it, Bismarck's Prussia went to war against the France of Napoleon III, the best Italian friend and who, at the same time, was the greatest protector of papal rule in Rome. With the defeat of France against Prussia and the capture of Emperor Napoleon III, the road to the fall of the Popes was clear.