Page 75 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1848 CAMPAIGN 73

ability that made him a great leader. He strongly believed that the people
would follow him. His soul was still contemplating that faraway country
where he had fought for twelve years to set those people free. Down there,
this feeling of independence had become his second religion and all the peo-
ple fought their national war without respite and to the death. He believed
that those feelings were alive and strong also in Italy, but they were still dor-
mant deep in their consciences, people were not yet ready for a great revolu-
tion.
Hence, his feat failed mainly for lack of popular consensus and became no
more than an attempt, or, better, the early stages of a war of bands, nipped in
the bud, because Radetzky, frightened by the idea that a handful of ill-armed
and still worse equipped men could really cause a revolution, rose against
them with more than an army corps.
Limited in space, very short in its duration, this deed had three important
components: the two fights at Luino and Morazzone and the manoeuvres of
August 25 around Campo dei Fiori. The Luino fight was a clash on
encounter, that of Morazzone a surprise attack; both were evidence of the
volunteers’ bravery and the cool nerves of their leader, but no more than that.
Their tactical importance was not such as to deserve a special memory. They
lasted one hour or a little more; in Luino the Austrians remained passive, they
were not able to attack the legionaries when they set out on the road a few at
a time to line up, they were soon overwhelmed by the attackers’ onslaught,
fell back and ran. In Morazzone, the Austrian commanders showed lack of
foresight and incompetence: they ordered the fight to be broken off during
the night and let Garibaldi’s soldiers escape from a very small village without
even disturbing their retreat.
More worthy of consideration by far is the manoeuvre that Garibaldi
th
operated to escape his encirclement on August 24 th and 25 . Here, with
admirable strength, great insight and sharpness, with determination and
knowledge of the ground, one of his more remarkable military abilities, he
anticipated the Austrians’ moves and mocked them by attacking them by sur-
prise and unexpected from behind. A commander with a common mind and
intelligence, who found himself in that situation, aware that a great army,
well armed and well-trained, was moving against him, would not risk fight-
ing on an unknown ground, but would renounce the battle, the outcome of
which was already compromised, and would reach the Swiss border.