Page 254 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

252 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

the Calabrian Coast, speed became the necessary condition for the success of
the operations. If at Punta Faro he was not so much worried about waiting,
since time was his ally, now any delay was his enemy. The Bourbon contin-
gent widely spread across that territory to watch over the entire coast, had to
be defeated separately, before they could join and outnumber his volunteers.
And so the march on Reggio and the conquest of that city, the order for the
volunteers who had landed in Melito and those who had landed near Scilla to
concentrate on Villa San Giovanni, catching the troops of the poor Briganti in
a vice, were carried out quickly, clearly understanding that any delay would
make the volunteers’ situation very difficult, while the populations, still
unaware of the landing, waited restless and worried for the moment of their
uprising. Similarly, the movements of the columns converging on the Bourbon
troops in Ghio were very quick, they surrounded them at Soveria Pass, and got
the last remainder of the royal Calabrian army out of the way.
By then, Garibaldi had arrived in front of Salerno.
Rumours agreed in reporting huge concentrations of enemies around that
city and he was worried, more than he showed, by the impending clashes that
seemed to be unavoidable. But a clever combination of movements by land
and sea, that enabled him during the whole march to have always on hand
most of his forces, would allow him to find the day after in Sapri the main
body of his army, a brilliant logistic operation that would enable him to attack
the enemy en mass, if the enemy were really intentioned to give battle.
Only once, in the whole campaign, seemed that luck was against
st
Garibaldi’s army, and this was between September 19 th and 21 , on the
Volturno, when Cattabene and Vacchieri were defeated in Caiazzo and
Csudafy was driven back with very serious losses to Maddaloni, but, as we
said, the political needs diverted in those days Garibaldi’s attention from war
issues, and the serious events of Palermo even requested his presence away
from the battlefield. Moreover, his army was going through a crisis, since a
considerable part of its forces were far away for public order needs.
However, the responsibility of those failures must be ascribed almost entire-
ly to the person who had the command in those days, General Türr, who, in
compliance with the orders received, had to remain on the defensive on the left
bank of the Volturno and just limit himself to send some detachments to the
rear and flank of the enemy to annoy him, and most of all, to make him believe
that the volunteers wanted to do more than what they were able to do.
For sure, Türr, a brave soldier, despite those unfortunate episodes, went