II. THE CAMPAIGN OF MENTANA
By Ricciotti Garibaldi.
Arriving in Florence, I found the committee in a state of confusionon account of so many volunteers coming forward to be enrolled. Wehad neither arms nor money, and were, therefore, obliged to limitenlistment. I remained three days in Florence, and then went to Terni,and found the place full of volunteers--in all nearly 2000 men. Wereceived information that the fortress occupied by Menotti was to beattacked. I left to join him, and, the men being unarmed, went alone.
He had 1500 men. On the morning of the third day he left N------ with afew men, and went to Monte Calvario, leaving me in command of the fortand of the band, which had been reinforced by nearly 1000 men. Abouteleven at night, on the same day, my outposts were driven in by thePapal troops. Many of our volunteers not having so much as one cartridgeper man, I was obliged to abandon the fortress, and take up position tothe left, at a distance of two miles, as it was impossible to holdthe post against the Papal artillery. Menotti having rejoined us, westarted, at one on the following morning, for Porcile, as the enemywere trying to cut us off from the Italian frontier. After twelve hours'march we arrived at Porcile. We rested there for the remainder of theday and night, when the alarm was given of the approach of theenemy. Being in an unfit state to receive them, with few arms and noammunition, my brother determined to recross the frontier. After tenhours' march, we arrived at the convent of Santa Maria, where we set towork to re-form our command.
Whilst there news came that the General was at Terni, whence he sentorders for us to prepare to march on Passo Corese, he joining us on theroad. This is a pass leading to the valley of the Tiber. After waitingseveral days to reform the bands, the General gave the signal to march.We divided into two columns, and took the road to Monte Rotondo, astrong position occupied by the Papal troops. One column marched alongthe banks of the Tiber, and the other by the road in the hills. Atmorning both columns arrived in sight of Monte Rotondo, and at onceproceeded to the assault. Colonel Frygisi attacked the east gateway withtwo battalions, whilst Masto attacked the west gateway also with twobattalions; but he being wounded at the first assault, the command ofthe party devolved upon me. After charging twice up to the gateway,which, for want of artillery, we could not take, we were in turnattacked by the enemy, and forced to seek refuge in a group of houses.We were thus cut off from the rest of our corps for the whole day,daring which time we lost out of 300,107 men and five officers. In theevening we managed to communicate with the General; erected barricadesin the inner street, and fought all day. We were thirty-six hourswithout food. The place was too important to be left, or we might havecut our way out. The General sent a battalion as a reinforcement, andby a desperate charge we got to the gate, piled there a cartload offascines and a quantity of sulphur, which, being set on fire, burntit down in about an hour and a half. At half-past twelve at night--theGeneral having come down and taken personal command--we charged throughthe burning gate, and took possession of the entrance and adjoininghouses. The fighting went on until about eight in the morning, theydefending themselves step by step till we had driven them into thepalace of the Prince of Piombino, a large castellated building, verystrong. We first took the court-yard, in which we found their cannon,they defending story after story of the building until driven to thethird floor, when, seeing the smoke of a fire which had been lighted onthe ground-floor to bam them out, they surrendered, and the fight wasover.
In the night the greater number of the men escaped towards Rome; only300 in the palace were taken prisoners, besides forty-two horses and twopieces of cannon, 500 stand of arms, and all their materials of war.The fight had lasted twenty-four hours--from eight one day to eight thenext--without a single instant's cessation of firing. It cost usbetween 400 and 500 men, amongst whom were some of our bravest and bestofficers. This was the first real struggle under the General.
We had one day's rest; but on the following night the enemy returned,and attacked the railway station at about a mile distant from MonteRotondo, where, finding a number of our wounded, they bayoneted them intheir beds, one man having twenty-seven wounds in his body. The Generalat once sent heavy reinforcements, and the enemy was driven back. Threedays after this we marched to the Zecchenella, a large farmhouse about amile distant from the Ponte de la Mentana, within about four miles and ahalf from Rome. On our approach the enemy re-crossed the bridge, blowingup one of the two bridges and mining the other. The Papal troops cameagain on our side of the Teverone--a river which joins the Tiber a fewmiles from Rome. They extended themselves as sharpshooters all alongour line, amusing themselves by firing at us until the evening, wescarcely returning a shot, the General having ordered us not to doso--our aim, since we were so few, being to draw the enemy into the opencountry. In the night we lighted large fires, to let the people in Romeknow that we were near; but the movement which we expected in the citydid not take place, and we returned to Monte Rotondo the next day.
After staying there for several days, the General resolved to march toTivoli, which was held by a strong body of our volunteers. The column,consisting of 4700 infantry, two field guns and two smaller guns, andone squadron of cavalry, commenced its march at eleven o'clock. When wehad gone a mile beyond Mentana the vanguard was suddenly attacked, andwe had to fall back on Mentana, so as to form our battalions in line ofbattle. Recovered from our first surprise, the General ordered all thetroops to advance, and we retook the positions we had lost, when, justas the Papal troops were retreating on the road to Rome, the Frenchregiments, which till now had remained hidden behind the hills,out-flanked us on the left. After some very heavy fighting, especiallyin the position of the haystacks in the centre, which were taken, lost,and retaken, four or five times, the General, seeing the uselessnessof contending against such an overwhelming force, gave the order toretreat. We retreated from the field of battle, passing under the fireof the Chassepots, leaving between 400 and 500 men on the field, andabout the same number of prisoners in their hands, and one pieceof cannon. Two battalions, numbering altogether over 400 men, shutthemselves up in the old fort of Munturra, where, having exhausted alltheir ammunition, they surrendered in the morning. When the main bodyhad returned to Monte Rotondo, the General gave orders that every thingshould be ready to re-attack in the night; but on examining the state ofour army, we found that scarcely a cartridge remained, and not a singleround of ammunition for the cannon. Learning this, the General gavethe order to retreat to Passo Corese, where we arrived about one inthe morning, being again on Italian soil. We then proceeded to thedisbandment of our troops.
At Mentana, where we had retaken all our positions, and where we thoughtthe day was ours, we saw red-trowsered soldiers out-flanking us on theleft, and we took them for the legion of Antibes, but the rapid roll oftheir firing opened our eyes to the fact that we were face to face withthe French, armed with their new weapon, the deadly Chassepot, and fromthat moment we fought merely to save the honor of the day. There wasno hope of winning the battle, though if the ammunition of our guns andrifles had not failed, and the General could have attacked again in thenight, as he intended to do, I have no doubt but that we should havedriven back the Franco-Papal army, for they did not dare to takepossession of the positions which we held during the battle, and ofthe one gun which we left there, till late next day. Had they dared it,being so numerically superior, they could have cut us off and made usall prisoners, as their left wing almost touched the road running fromMonte Rotondo to Passo Corese.
Some idea may be formed of the state and appearance of the volunteerarmy by the fact that it had no proper arms; the muskets were many ofthem as old as the first Napoleon.
When Menotti resolved to recross the frontier, he issued an order of theday in which he said, "I can not march, having no shoes; I can not standstill, because I have nothing to cover my men; and I can not fight,because I have no ammunition."
When we started for Monte Rotondo the men had been so long withouteating, that in passing along th
e line with my guides, I actually sawthe infantry battalions making themselves soup out of the grass of thefield, having nothing else to put into their caldrons.
At the battle of Montana we had 4700 men all told; opposed to us were8000 Papal troops and 3000 French. Battle began at half past eleven inthe morning; lasted until half past five in the evening; the weatherfine. The 300 who surrendered were allowed to recross the frontier. TheGeneral was taken prisoner by the Italian Government.
At Mentana the Papal troops thought they had taken me. They took a manlike me to Rome, and put him in handsome apartments until the mistakewas discovered. When they thought they had me, the Papal officersordered the prisoner to be shot at once, but the French officers savedhim.
In a work entitled "Rome and Mentana," surprise has been expressed thatGeneral Garibaldi did not enter Rome after the victory of Monte Rotondo,and before the entry of the French. To that we reply:--We could not,for the Papalini held the Mentana bridge, the only one not blown up nearRome, and we should have been obliged to go round by Tivoli and downthe other side of the Teverone, two days' march. We tried to take theMentana bridge, but on nearing it we found it strongly fortified andmined, so that after lying at the Zecchenella (three-quarters of a milefrom the bridge) for a day and two nights, we retired to Monte Rotondo.
The same work states:
"The two plateaux on which we had been walking had been held by theGaribaldini, taken by the Pontificals, and retaken by the Garabaldini,at which period the French advanced, when, finding it hopeless, theGaribaldini retreated into Mentana."
This is true; the Papalini were retreating along the road when theFrench out-flanked our left, and threatened our line of retreat. Theretreat commenced at nine o'clock in the evening of the battle, as weexpected the Papalini to attack and surround Monte Rotondo. If we hadstopped they would have made us all prisoners, as our ammunition failed.
We entered Monte Rotondo by the gate coming from Passo Corese; theTivoli gate was stormed also by Frygisi, but not taken till we openedthe gate for him from inside. The attack lasted from 8 a.m. till 7 a.m.next day. We set fire to the gate about 12 o'clock at night, and lostabout 250 men, dead and wounded. The church of Monte Rotondo suffered agood deal. The same author writes:-
"It was a large and handsome one, with carved oak seats in the choir,and presented a sad scene of devastation. The holy water stoops had beendashed to pieces, the font destroyed, the side chapel, in which the Hostwas reserved, had its altar all broken by bayonets. The Host had beencarried on the point of one, and borne in mock procession, attended,amongst others, by a man holding the sacristan's large three-corneredhat stuck round with candles."
It is true our people were so hungry that they ate the holy wafers.