Page 71 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1848 CAMPAIGN 69

Garibaldi gave to communications.
Medici set out on the evening of the 22 nd , during the night he reached
Ligurno and there the morning after was informed that a strong Austrian
Corps was approaching along the Olgiate-Casanova-Rodero road, perhaps
to interpose themselves between Garibaldi and the Swiss border. This Corps
belonged to that part of the Schwarzenberg brigade that from Olgiate had set
out towards Clivio, where the other part left in Como would join them.
Medici, left with only 110 men, since the others had deserted to Switzerland,
as Garibaldi had feared, decided to oppose the advance of the enemy and on
August 23 he occupied Ligurno and Rodero and deployed his men along a
vast front, well positioned. The volunteers put up a valid resistance for about
three hours, but then, attacked on their flank and from behind, after a last
resistance on mount S. Maffeo, withdrew behind the Swiss border.
rd
On August 23 , the Gulay, Simbshen, Strassolo and Maurer brigades
gathered in the surroundings of Varese, whereas the Schwarzenberg brigade
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took positions at Clivio, On the 24 , d’Aspre ordered the Maurer brigade to
go to Luino and Laveno, via Gavirate, and the Gulay brigade to Sesto
Calende, the two Schwarzenberg and Simbschen brigades to Viggiù and
Induno, the Strassoldo brigade to remain as reserves in Varese. The marshal
hoped in this way to block Garibaldi’s troops between the two lakes,
Maggiore and Lugano, and the Swiss border.
Garibaldi saw the danger of being entrapped, if he had remained on the
hills of Induco, and, to escape it, decided to go round the massif of Campo
dei Fiori, through Valganna and Valcuvia, and make the first stop at Gavirate.
So, while the Austrians marched northwards with the intention of blocking
him at the Swiss border, he thought to escape them by marching fast and
therefore getting a new field of action behind them.
In fact he set out on the 23 rd ; the day after, at Rancio, he met a strong
detachment of the Maurer brigade on its way to Luino; but it was a short
skirmish, because Garibaldi did not want to utilise its full strength, and the
Austrian commander was satisfied to have easily opened up his way towards
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his goal. On the 25 , the legionaries moved to Ternate, between the Lakes
of Monate and Comabbio; Garibaldi probably went as far as Osmate.
That same day d’Aspre, informed of the new positions taken by the vol-
unteers, ordered four brigades to converge on the area between Brebbia,
Osmate and Ternate; the Gulay brigade had to go there from Sesto Calende,
and leave a battalion in Angera; the Schwarzenberg and Strassoldo brigades