United States or Djibouti ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The command devolved upon the Marquis of Mantua, who marched on Gaeta. He found Gonzalvo of Cordova posted with his army on the left bank of the Garigliano, either to invest the place or to repulse re-enforcements that might arrive for it. The two armies passed fifty days face to face almost, with the river and its marshes between them, and vainly attempting over and over again to join battle.
The Neapolitan army retreated, as has been already stated, beyond the Garigliano. Capua, isolated and surrounded, could render no material service to the royal cause; it capitulated on the 2nd of November, though not until the town had been bombarded for forty-eight hours.
"The celebrated Cucumetto, pursued in the Abruzzo, driven out of the kingdom of Naples, where he had carried on a regular war, had crossed the Garigliano, like Manfred, and had taken refuge on the banks of the Amasine between Sonnino and Juperno. He strove to collect a band of followers, and followed the footsteps of Decesaris and Gasperone, whom he hoped to surpass.
The siege was witnessed by Victor Emmanuel, who said to General Delia Rocca: 'It breaks my heart to think that we are sending death and destruction into an Italian town. Two days after the surrender of Capua, Cialdini threw a bridge over the Garigliano near its mouth, an operation covered by the guns of Admiral Persano's squadron.
In the late autumn there was a sharp but indecisive contest at the Garigliano Bridge. Gonsalvo held to his position, despite the destitution of his troops, until he received reinforcements. Then, on December 28, he suddenly and unexpectedly crossed the river; the French retired rapidly, gallantly covered by the rear-guard, hotly attacked by the Spanish advance guard.
"I am, sir," quoth he, "of England, and my name is Thomas Cromwell; my father is a poor man, and by occupation a cloth-shearer; I am strayed from my country, and am now come into Italy with the camp of Frenchmen that were overthrown at Garigliano, where I was page to a footman, carrying after him his pike and burganet."
The church itself is a tolerable structure of the Renaissance costly marble incrustations and mosaics, meaningless Neapolitan frescoes. One singular episode in the mediocrity of art adorning it, is the tomb of Pietro dei Medici. Expelled from Florence in 1494, he never returned, but was drowned in the Garigliano.
Gonzalvo, who was kept well informed of his enemies' condition, threw, on the 27th of December, a bridge over the Garigliano, attacked the French suddenly, and forced them to fall back upon Gaeta, which they did not succeed in entering until they had lost artillery, baggage, and a number of prisoners.
In the annals of the ancient chivalry of the nation it had been recorded as the most brilliant feat of Bayard, that, on a bridge of the Garigliano, he had for a while, with his single arm, stemmed the onset of two hundred Spaniards; and that glorious exploit of the model hero of the nation had never been more faithfully copied and more nobly rivaled than it was on this morning of shame and danger by Miomandre and his intrepid comrades, as they successively stepped into the breach to fight against those whom he truly called, not men, but tigers.
The passage of the Piedmontese troops over the Abruzzi mountains was opposed both by a division of the Bourbon army and by armed peasants, who burnt a man alive at a place called Isernia; but their advance was not long delayed. The Neapolitans now began to retire from the right bank of the Volturno, and retreat towards the Garigliano, their last line of defence.
Word Of The Day