Page 280 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

262 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

Tirol competed with the Swiss for the first place as European riflemen. What
is more, they were formed by 4 half light brigades, in which the tactical unit
was the company and relayed on the natural defences of the ground and
against these Garibaldi’s bayonets could do little, and a system of forts built
in the last few years, a blockade of the main access roads. For this reason, our
numeric superiority, more often a source of embarrassment rather than use-
ful, was greatly counterbalanced.
When, on the 23 rd of June 1866, war was declared, the dislocation of the
forces was as follows:
6 regiments, 2 battalions of Bersaglieri, 1 squadron of guides, 1 mountain
battery spread in Lombardy;
4 regiments that were still in the Apulia, reached the front later.
In all, Garibaldi had only 6,ooo men with a mountain battery near the
border.
On that day with his headquarters in Salò, he had pushed forward part
of his forces on the right bank of lake Idro, ready to cross the border of the
Judicarian Alps at the Caffaro Bridge and Suello Mountain on the next day
with the head of the column.
In fact, in the morning of the 24 th he occupied Suello Mountain without
firing a shot, and Caffaro bridge after repelling an enemy’s assault, during
which Brezzi from Trentino and lieutenant Cella from Friuli stood out for
their bravery.
But on the morning of the 25 th Garibaldi received news of the unlucky
Custoza, with the order to “cover the main cities that like the patriotic Brescia
could find themselves exposed to the enemy”.
th
The order was promptly executed: therefore, on the evening of the 25 ,
Garibaldi, having cleared the area of lake Idro, spread his men on the but-
tresses of the furthest western point of the Garda on the Castiglione’ hillocks.
Luckily the alarm was in vain: the quick retreat of the army of La Marmora
to the Oglio line and that of Cialdini on Modena and Bologna did not result
in a sudden advance of the archduke Albert, not very convinced, at that time,
of the results in Custoza.. Therefore, for four days, from the 27 th to the 30 th
of June, the ten or eleven thousand volunteers of Garibaldi remained pretty
st
much alone facing the Austrians. But on the 1 of July, since these were still
on the left of the Mincio and since they were joined by two more regiments
from those formed in southern Italy, Garibaldi restarted his march to the bor-
st
der with the Trentino. He personally led the 1 and 2 nd regiment and the