Page 282 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

264 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

proud retreat with the face looking at the enemy who believing that it was pos-
sible to launch an attack, went down in column on the road of the Caffaro;
but struck on the side by four pieces of artillery from the behind hillock of S.
Antonio, had to take shelter again behind the rocks of Suello Mountain.
“With the approaching of the evening the two camps remained facing
each other”, then the appearance on the Berga Mountain of the two compa-
nies of Salomone worried the Austrians that they would be surrounded: so
that in the night they abandoned Suello Mountain, re-crossed the border and
retreated trough the Val Giudicaria.

The operations that were now given to Garibaldi aimed at advancing into
the Judicarian Alps with Riva and Trento as objectives. But they left the two
valleys of the High Oglio (Valcamonica) and the Adda (Valtellina) open to
enemy’ excursions. Only eight days before the declaration of war, in their
defence jointly with Garibaldi, the mobilization of two battalions of nation-
al guards (XLIV Breno, and XLV Sondrio), led by Colonel Enrico Guicciardi,
(former officer of the Bersaglieri), and under the orders of Garibaldi: a diffi-
cult task given the nature of the ground, the late and improvised arrangement
and the eccentricity in respect of Garibaldi’s line of attack, which had only an
indirect relation with the operations in Valtellina and Valcamonica. However,
they are worth mentioning as a proof of patriotism and energy on the part of
those mountaineers, eager to see the back of the Austrians after getting rid of
them seven years before.
Up to the 19 th of June, a few dozen border guards had been sent to guard
the pass of the Stelvio in the High valley of the Adda. Being alone and receiv-
ing no news up there at 2800 metres and believing that a strong attack was
imminent, on the 22 nd they retreated a little to the 4 th roadman’s house.
Having increased to about sixty men, the squad went back to the front; but
the Austrians, at the start of hostilities were already occupying that alpine
pass and at dawn of the 24 th of June, descended in three columns to sur-
round our few troops. On the same day, the district of Bormio was in the
hands of the enemy because the few national guards that had been scraped
together there, had retreated to the Ponte del Diavolo and the Prese.
The Tonale was not guarded any better: it fell into the hands of the
Austrian half brigade of Colonel Albertini; while further back, in Breno, the
soldiers of the two battalions of the national guards gathered together and a
few other border guards, some Carabinieri of the High Valtellina, some