Page 127 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1859 CAMPAIGN 125

go to Biella via Ivrea, to take action on the Austrian right at Lake Maggiore,
in the manner he considered most suitable. In short, once the threat to Turin
had been thwarted, it would have been his job on one hand to keep the atten-
tion of the enemy divided, forcing it to detach forces and weaken the main
body of the army and on the other to keep alive the insurgency on the flanks
and the back of the enemy.
th
On the 9 , when the Brigade arrived in Bròzolo, Garibaldi went to Turin
to talk with the count of Cavour, minister of war, and on the 10 th he was in
Chivasso: here the three regiments joined and went to S. Germano, about fif-
teen kilometres west of Vercelli, at the service of General Ettore de Sonnaz,
provisional commander of the troops on the Dora, in accordance with the
orders received by the count himself.
On May 16, once any danger of the enemy advancing on Turin had past
and the provisional command had been dissolved, Garibaldi was ordered to
reach by any means Biella, to carry out the operations ordered by the King.
The leader then found himself free in his manoeuvres, a position – as he
wrote later – worth a fortune.
th
On the 18 , the entire Brigade was transported by train to Biella and
immediately placed outposts to Gattinara and to Vercelli. The general allowed
the soldiers one day of rest, of which he took advantage to go to Andorno, the
birthplace of Pietro Micca. In order to lighten the troop, in the fast marches he
planned, he ordered to leave behind the rucksacks and to make two large cloth
pockets inside their coats, in which to carry the most necessary things.
th
On the midday of the 20 , Garibaldi left Biella with his men, spent the
st
night at Gattinara, on the 21 crossed the Sesia in Romagnano, over a sus-
pension bridge, provisionally built by the inhabitants, and moved to
Borgomanero. The day after he went as far as Arona, from where he turned
south after a short stop, arriving in Castelletto by that night. To deceive his
enemy, he had ordered the setting up of quarters and supplies in Arona, in
Melina and other towns on the lake. The volunteers therefore, arrived in
Arona believing they would spend the night there, instead began, after dark,
a speedy march for another three hours in the opposite direction, without
stopping, in absolute silence and forbidden to even light a match. That was
a very clever stratagem of war, well thought out and well executed, due above
all to the speed and secrecy of movements.
rd
At midnight between the 22 nd and the 23 , the first two companies of
the Medici regiment, with it its general, silently crossed the Ticino on some