Page 73 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1848 CAMPAIGN 71

that village. His advanced-guard, hidden by the vegetation and helped by the
dim twilight, marched unnoticed and reached the Morazzone cemetery, where
they took the volunteers’ outposts by surprise. Garibaldi’s soldiers, bewildered,
ran away without firing a single shot and gave the alarm to the village.
There, in the narrow road, the legionnaires were drawn up in columns and
ready to set off. They had just concluded the food and wages distribution. «I
– wrote Garibaldi – had taken a piece of bread and a glass of wine from the
table where the distribution was organized, when some of my officers, who
had some broth prepared, came and invited me to share it with them. We were
at Porta Varese, on the ground floor of a house, when, all of a sudden, we
heard loud shouts coming from outside, and, precisely, from the city gate. The
Austrians were coming in, mixed up with our guards who, either because they
were tired or because they were hungry, had been taken by surprise and were
at no more than fifty yards from where I was with a handful of officers. It was
almost nightfall, and you can imagine the confusion present among our peo-
ple, volunteers who had been recruited just a few days before and were not
exactly feeling cheerful. It took very little for me and the few but brave offi-
cers who accompanied me, to draw out our sabers and set off in pursuit.
Among them, Daverio, Fabrizi, Bueno, Cogliolo, a Milanese youth named
Giusti, my aide-de-camp, who on that occasion was mortally injured and then
died…. Hearing our voices, the fugitives stopped and turned towards their
pursuers, clashing into one another, engaging in hand-to-hand fighting. The
fray, the back and forth lasted for a few moments, but in the end Italian brav-
ery prevailed and our enemies were driven out of Morazzone; defence meas-
ures were taken by barricading the streets and taking possession of some hous-
es at the entrance of the village from where the attack could be pursued».
The Austrian resorted to the artillery, and, firing upon the houses from a
short distance, they set them ablaze. When the cannon shots were roaring,
d’Aspre arrived with two battalions and a battery. Those troops tried again to
attack the western side of the village, but despite the gunfire and the flames,
we gave such a tenacious resistance that d’Aspre ordered the attack to be sus-
pended, since it was pitch-black, and postponed any decision to daybreak,
gathering the bulk of his troops at Bizzozero and Azzate.
Garibaldi did not know the number, or the positions of his enemies and
could neither take the offensive against them so late at night nor remain in
the village at the risk of being surrounded at daybreak by troops exceeding