Page 218 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

216 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

ed them, and from there, with huge fires, they signalled their presence to the
general. Later on they tried to enter Bagnara, but were driven away at their
first appearance, and found shelter in “Le Forestali”, then in S. Lorenzo,
where they waited in vain for the reinforcements that expected to arrive
according to the agreements. Also the attempt made by Salvatore Castiglia,
to berth near Alta Fiumara, was immediately suppressed: the expedition,
caught between the fire of the Forts and the frigates that had come, had to
go back under the protection of the cannons deployed at Punta del Faro.
If these attempts did not achieve the immediate purpose that Garibaldi
had in mind, they could not be considered as fruitless. First of all, they
strengthened the enemy’s opinion that the volunteers wanted to land between
Scilla and Catona, whereas the general was perhaps already thinking of a
landing place further away. And then they forced the enemy to a watchful
and wearing wait and to continuously move along the coast, since, as it hap-
pened in those cases, the Bourbon commanders received the most contradic-
tory news and they were already worried and puzzled about the presence of
Musolino’s men who, behind them, had the run of the mountain.
Moreover, the attempts made and the preparations displayed had neces-
sarily attracted the attention of the Bourbons only on Punta del Faro. And
while General Vial, who could not undertake anything against Garibaldi’s
camp just waited passively on the Calabrian Coasts, at the court of Naples no
one was even worried about that threatened region fearing instead, a possible
imminent landing of Garibaldi near Salerno.
As things were, the delay could not be detrimental to the volunteers, who
waited for the right moment, and could not but hope for the best. In those
days Garibaldi’s presence was requested elsewhere, and so he left the com-
mand to Sirtori and went to Sardinia.
The expedition of the Mille and its lucky development had had vast
echoes all across Italy, and when the campaign had not yet achieved the goals
for which it had been organised and, on the contrary, Garibaldi’s army was in
a very delicate situation, others were already planning new undertakings and
planning a new adventure: the conquest of the Papal State to bridge the dis-
tance and meet that southern army that was fighting in the name of Italy and
of Victor Emmanuel. About nine thousand men, divided into four brigades,
whose command had to be taken by Luigi Pianciani, a man more familiar
with the intrigues of politics than with the things of war, had gathered in
Tuscany, in Romagna and in Liguria.