Page 330 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

312 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

Vitali with the usual partisan exaggeration states that the Garibaldians had
800 dead, 1,000 wounded and 2,100 prisoners.

Could Garibaldi continue the struggle after Mentana?
If one had thought in time about such a possibility, if the defeat had been
foreseen, and if there would have been the means, it would have been possi-
ble to throw a bridge over the Tiber near the station of Monterotondo, or at
least gather the floating material to cross the river, and instead of returning
to the Kingdom through Passo Corese, pass on the right of the Tiber, join
Acerbi retry on the right the attempt that had failed on the left…but what
for? France was by now engaged and present with an Army Corps of at least
20,000 men that could receive reinforcements easily and quickly; was it pos-
sible to hope for another victory against the united forces of the French-Papal
army? It would have been a folly to believe it possible. Garibaldi understood
this, and resigned himself to such adverse destiny and waited painfully to take
his revenge in Dijon, in the Italian style, for the defeat of Mentana. If not his
body, he had placed Mentana between Italy, the Papacy and France.
Gen. de Failly, who had not moved from Rome, interrogated by Colonel
Campo with regard to the battle replied.
«Il faut avouer que les troupes pontificales se sont battues à merveille, mais
elles n’auraient pu se maintenir à Mentana... si notre arrivée n’avait pas decidée
la déroute des garibaldiens sur toute la ligne!... il nous a fallu leur faire goûter
les effets du chassepot qui sont vraiment formidables...» But they were not
enough, less than three years later, to avoid the disaster of which de Faille him-
self was not a glorious victim, but not the person ultimately responsible for it.

On the 4 th November shortly after 09:00 (07:30 according to Vitali),
Garibaldi crossed again the border at Passo Corese with the few surviving vol-
th
unteers that remained with him. From Cortese on the same day the 4 , con-
tinues by rail until Figline, where at about 17:00 by order of the Government
he is arrested by Lieutenant Colonel Camosso of the Royal Carabinieri and
escorted to Florence by two companies of Bersaglieri led by Major Fiastri. He
arrives at the station of S. Croce on the dawn of the 5 th and then to La Spezia
where he is again locked in the fort of Varignano. On the 26 th November he
is taken back to Caprera. The rest of the Garibaldian columns, far from the
main corps, a few at a time crossed the border in different points, surrender-
ing to the Italian regular forces.