Page 287 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1866 CAMPAIGN 269

the enemy time to think, hurled himself on the road and in the midst of
friendly and enemy fire summoned the enemy to surrender, which they did”.
Pedranzini, with his bunch of braves went the same day to Bormio taking
with him 75 prisoners.
After the battle of Bagni di Bormio, the intelligent and fearless Colonel
Guicciardi had envisaged and predisposed a wider range move, to prepare
which he camped several days in the high border mountains, but was stopped
abruptly by the first armistice of the 25 th of July.
“That mass of soldiers, border guards, Bersaglieri, foresters, royal
Carabinieri, explorers, coalmen and shepherds pushed back the Austrians
from the inhospitable peaks of the Stelvio’s pass” and went to the attack “of
such barrage positions to discourage better armed and organised troops”.
That mass was the real progenitor of our admirable alpine troops.
In Valcamonica, after the battle of Vezza, the 4 th volunteers regiment was
left on guard in Edolo until the 15, when from Garibaldi’s headquarters
arrived the order to go down to the Oglio, up to Cèdegolo and from there,
clambering up through the dreadful paths that separate the Valcamonica
from the Trentino, arrived at the entrance to Val di Fumo, pass close to it
until the foot of the Bagol Mountain, and then descend into the Roncone
valley with that village as the objective. The order aimed at taking that regi-
ment on the right flank of the Austrians in the Judicarian Alps; but the
imprecision of the names and the aims and the lack of promised guides, left
Cadoilini feeling insecure and not without reasons so that once he reached
the point of the snowline, having received no orders or news, stayed for seven
days in those inhospitable peaks, where the volunteers were far from any
inhabited centre, with reduced supplies of food and exposed to the inclemen-
cy of high mountain weather.
The retreat of La Marmora’s army from the Oglio and the missed occupa-
tion of Garda convinced Garibaldi that the choice that in such circumstances
seem to present the best chance of success was a raid in Trentino through the
valleys of the Chiese and of Ledro, to go up the Giudicarie and the Concei
valley in the direction of Trento. But the deployment of his forces in those
narrow paths could not be hurried.
“One cannot fly on a mountain” he had warned.
On the other hand, despite the readiness of the operation, the most
important coefficient was lacking: the presence or rather the personal
omnipresence of Garibaldi who, because of the injury received at Suello