What Pocci’s satire is aimed at is not so much Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) as the provincialism of Pocci’s own countrymen. The hero of the Risorgimento serves primarily as a bogeyman: he is compared to the German bandits Schinderhannes and Matthias Klostermayr, known as Hiesel the Bavarian (Mayor Salzmaier even says: "dem italienischen bayrischen Hiesel", "Hiesel the Italian Bavarian"). At the time the play was written, Garibaldi had arrived in southern Italy from Sicily, but he was far from threatening the Tyrol...

The tailor Bock lodges a complaint with the mayor Salzmaier against Kasperl, his tenant, for night-time disturbances. Salzmaier wants to put him in prison, but Kasperl, warned by his clerk friend Spritzler, pretends to be Garibaldi, entering the Tyrol leading 50,000 men. He takes up residence in Salzmaier's house, flirts with his wife Margarethe and drinks so much beer... that everyone recognises him: the play ends with a general brawl.