Page 283 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1866 CAMPAIGN 265

national guard from Ponte ran to the rescue, and two mountain howitzers and
an old gun with few ammunitions had been sent from Sondrio. In
Valcamonica the defence concentrated in Breno, very far from the Austrians.
Garibaldi, informed of the situation, sent, as said before, a battalion (Major
Caldesi) of the 4 th regiment, force-marched from Bergamo to Edolo, followed
by the rest of the regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Cadolini) to take a concerted
action under the leadership of Colonel Guicciardi. Meanwhile the Austrians,
th
numbering about 2000, had descended from the Tonale on the 26 , and
th
when the Caldesi battalion arrived to Edolo on the 28 , they pushed recon-
naissance patrols on to Prese in Valtellina and to Vezza in Valcamonica.
In fairness to those populations it must be said that the Valtellina had
given its best men to the regular army, the volunteers and the best riflemen
to the II Bersaglieri Volunteer Battalion, composed in large part of people
from Lombardy, Veneto and Trentino: also from there came the mobile
National Guard XLV battalion.
And if this was not enough, other armed groups had answered the call of
the mayors: some more men had left from Bormio, Tirano and Sondrio and
a squad of riflemen came to Tirano from Como. The defence of the Valtellina
occupied the good position of Sernio, northeast of Tirano; that of the
Valcamonica had the Caldesi battalion at Incudine on the Oglio, a few kilo-
metres from Vezza, where the mobile XLIV battalion of the National Guard
made up of 450 men “organised as well as possible” had been pushed on. A
link, at least in principle, between the defenders of the two valleys in Tirano
and Edolo, had been established by expert mountaineers through the
Mortirolo pass. But the Mortirolo should have had more that that function:
in fact it should have constituted together with the pass of the Aprica, the
area in which the entire defence was concentrated, to ensure the occupation
of the Valtellina and the Valcamonica.
Having neglected this, the direction of the enemy forces was clearly threat-
ening.
Garibaldi ordered that three battalions of the 4 th regiment be kept at
Edolo in Valcamonica, where they were: he sent there the II Bersaglieri
Battalion, to which outside Vezza, were added about 150 riflemen from
Como, Chiavenna and Tirano, almost all armed with Swiss rifles.
Colonel Guicciardi, although overestimating the necessity to defend the
Valtellina, proved deserving of the unexpected task given to him with troops
that were very improvised. And in fact at his moment, general Kuhn thought