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Updated: June 8, 2025
The action at Monte-Libretti, which took place on the 14th October, was of a more serious character. Eighty Zouaves contended from half-past five in the evening till eight o’clock against twelve hundred Garibaldians. Arthur Guillemin, their captain, and Urbain de Quelen, their second lieutenant, fell gloriously.
A violent scene took place between this general and Cavour; Fanti wished that the Garibaldians should be simply sent home with a gratuity, alleging that "the exigencies of the army" were opposed to the recognition of their grades. Cavour replied that they were not in Spain, in Italy the army obeyed. Cavour, himself, treated him always as a power and an equal.
The French soldiers, on the other hand, always inclined to raillery and punning, baptized the action of the preceding day, calling it the battle of Montre ton dos. The Garibaldians, who held the castle, as well as the rest of the banditti who could not get away in time, surrendered, unconditionally, to General Polhes.
Mentana was not taken, but it surrendered on the following morning, and as Monte Rotondo had been evacuated during the night and most of the Garibaldians had escaped over the frontier, the fighting was at an end, and the campaign of twenty-four hours terminated in a complete victory for the Roman forces.
The Garibaldians were, according to all accounts, not less than twelve thousand, and were known to be securely entrenched at Monte Rotondo and further protected by the strong outpost of Mentana, which lies nearly on the direct road from Rome to the former place.
On abandoning the Caffaro line, which they had reoccupied after the Lodrone encounter in consequence of which the Garibaldians had to fall back because of the concentration following the battle of Custozza the Austrians have retired to the Lardara fortress, between the Stabolfes and Tenara mountains, covering the route to Tione and Trento, in the Italian Tyrol.
Meanwhile, a detachment of Zouaves managed to place themselves between Mentana and Monte Rotondo, and so intercepted the reinforcements which were hastening from the latter place to join the Garibaldians. At sight of this achievement, the bands, already much demoralized, were thrown into confusion. Night came, and, favoring their flight, changed it to a rout.
Military prejudice was what was really to blame; General Fanti, the Minister of War, even provoked Cavour into telling him 'that they were not in Spain, and that in Italy the army obeyed. 'A cry of reprobation would be raised, he wrote, 'if, while the Bourbon officers who ran away disgracefully were confirmed in their rank, the Garibaldians who beat them were coolly sent about their business.
The latter had achieved some slight successes near Dijon on January 21 and 23, but on February 1 that is, two days after the signing of the armistice the Garibaldians were once more driven out of the Burgundian capital. That, however, was as nothing in comparison with what befell Bourbaki's unfortunate army. A portion of the army was saved, however, by General Billot.
Dijon had repeatedly to be evacuated; and the nocturnal attack at Chattillon, 20th November, by Garibaldians, when one hundred seventy horses were lost, affording a striking proof of the dangers to which the German army was exposed in this hostile country; although the revolutionary excesses of the turbulent population of the south diverted to a certain extent the attention of the National Guard, who were compelled to turn their weapons against an internal enemy.
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