Page 206 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

204 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

of ships (and this was helped by the precious information given by the Sicilian
Strazzeri), the troops had to land in a place where the presence of the enemy
forces was weak and as far as possible from the main body of the enemy corps.
This was in order to have time to gain ground, incite the population and
receive reinforcements from the squads before a large number of enemy troops
arrived to oppose their advance. Time was a precious ally for Garibaldi, and
therefore the choice could not fall on Carini or Castellamare that were too
close to Palermo. Trapani was too dangerous, because a large troop could gar-
rison it, all the more so because a revolt had been recently put down. And also
Marsala was dangerous for this same reason, since Letizia’s mobile column had
recently crossed it and a company had remained to garrison the city until the
eve of the landing, therefore the only choice could be the coast between
Sciacca and Girgenti, as Crispi had proposed. Castiglia proposed Marsala, a
preferable place from the nautical point of view, and the news received by the
English schooner and Strazzeri persuaded Garibaldi, but that choice had been
dangerous and without the ineffective behaviour of the Bourbon fleet the
expedition would have run the serious risk of being sunk completely.

2. - Objective. – Which objective could Garibaldi have after his landing?
His first idea was probably to reach the centre of the island and once there
organise and spread the revolt. Salemi was an inescapable choice, and there-
fore his first objective was Salemi. “There - wrote Corleo - he asked which was
the shortest route with the least possible presence of Bourbon troops to go to
Castrogiovanni without engaging in a fight. It is the route that crosses
Partanna – was the answer he received – and from there it continues though
Belice, from the Sciacca district to the border of the province of Caltanissetta”.
Salemi was at least three days of march from Castrogiovanni.
But the enthusiasm of the populations, the emphatic exhortations of La
Masa, the arrival of the squads, persuaded him to set his course towards
Palermo, through Calatafimi instead of Castrogivanni through Partanna.
Nothing would have been jeopardised if he had gone to Calatafimi. The dis-
tance between Palermo and Marsala (118 km) was such that if the population
of the towns along the way had not answered Garibaldi’s call to arms making
it difficult for him to continue along that way, he could always go back to
Corleone through Ghibellina and Roccamena, and to Prizzi, in the centre of
the island, implementing the first plan, that gave him also the possibility to
wait perhaps for some other expedition to come as reinforcements from abroad.