Page 204 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

202 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

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mistakes, he had come to Porta Termini on the 28 th or even on the 29 ,
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instead of the 30 , the fate of the campaign and, perhaps, also that of Italy,
would have been different.
The best military officer among the royal troops was Bosco, who from
major reached the rank of colonel during the campaign. He vas a valiant,
brave soldier and had uncommon military knowledge. He died in Naples in
1881, after following the Bourbon family in their exile first to Rome and
then to France.
A figure that has remained rather enigmatic is Colonel Bonopane. He was
a learned man and in the armistice he played a real positive role for the cause
of Italy, but his behaviour was questionable from a military viewpoint.
Without imagining betrayals of which no evidence has ever been found, who
may say that the idea of an armistice did not come to his mind after what
Radetzky had done in 1848, when after five days he left Milan with his troops
and in so doing he won that campaign?
After this discussion of the commanding officers, it is our duty to add that
their troops gave proof of being by far better than the reputation they
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received a posteriori. Their life, starting from April 4 , had been an uninter-
rupted series of privations, and even Lanza noted in his report that “for more
than forty days, the troops in the surveillance outposts have not been able to
cook their ordinary meals, they have been resting mainly in the open, fully
st
dressed and armed”. During the days from the 21 to the 26 th they could
eat only biscuits and some strawberries, and Dumas, in his letters to Palermo,
reported that during the armistice a curious sight was seen of “20.000
Neapolitans equipped with 40 cannon pieces, closed in their forts, in their
barracks and on board of their vessels, watched by 800 soldiers in Garibaldi’s
army who twice a day bring them something to eat and drink”
It is clear that in those conditions the troops resorted to looting and rob-
beries, a conduct that General Lanza admitted and condemned, but it must
be also said that among those troops there were many foreigners, in particu-
lar Swiss and Bavarian soldiers. Despite all this suffering, their discipline was
quite generally maintained and Lanza recalled the shooting of a soldier from
the 8 th line regiment charged with insubordination who had resorted to vio-
lence against his corporal. Only in the last days did the desertions begin, due
to tiredness, discouragement, and rage against their officers. As for their con-
duct on the battlefield, we have seen in this narration that in Calatafimi and
Milazzo they fought with bravery. Garibaldi acknowledged that many times: