Rule of the Monk; Or, Rome in the Nineteenth Century

by Giuseppe Garibaldi

Whilst there news came that the General was at Terni, whence he sent orders for us to prepare to march on Passo Corese, he joining us on the road. This is a pass leading to the valley of the Tiber. After waiting several days to reform the bands, the General gave the signal to march. We divided into two columns, and took the road to Monte Rotondo, a strong position occupied by the Papal troops. One column marched along the banks of the Tiber, and the other by the road in the hills. At morning both columns arrived in sight of Monte Rotondo, and at once proceeded to the assault. Colonel Frygisi attacked the east gateway with two battalions, whilst Masto attacked the west gateway also with two battalions; but he being wounded at the first assault, the command of the party devolved upon me. After charging twice up to the gateway, which, for want of artillery, we could not take, we were in turn attacked 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 the evening we managed to communicate with the General; erected barricades in the inner street, and fought all day. We were thirty-six hours without food. The place was too important to be left, or we might have cut our way out. The General sent a battalion as a reinforcement, and by a desperate charge we got to the gate, piled there a cartload of fascines and a quantity of sulphur, which, being set on fire, burnt it down in about an hour and a half. At half-past twelve at night—the General having come down and taken personal command—we charged through the burning gate, and took possession of the entrance and adjoining houses. The fighting went on until about eight in the morning, they defending themselves step by step till we had driven them into the palace of the Prince of Piombino, a large castellated building, very strong. We first took the court-yard, in which we found their cannon, they defending story after story of the building until driven to the third floor, when, seeing the smoke of a fire which had been lighted on the ground-floor to bam them out, they surrendered, and the fight was over.

In the night the greater number of the men escaped towards Rome; only 300 in the palace were taken prisoners, besides forty-two horses and two pieces 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 the next—without a single instant's cessation of firing. It cost us between 400 and 500 men, amongst whom were some of our bravest and best officers. 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 Monte Rotondo, where, finding a number of our wounded, they bayoneted them in their beds, one man having twenty-seven wounds in his body. The General at once sent heavy reinforcements, and the enemy was driven back. Three days after this we marched to the Zecchenella, a large farmhouse about a mile distant from the Ponte de la Mentana, within about four miles and a half from Rome. On our approach the enemy re-crossed the bridge, blowing up one of the two bridges and mining the other. The Papal troops came again on our side of the Teverone—a river which joins the Tiber a few miles from Rome. They extended themselves as sharpshooters all along our line, amusing themselves by firing at us until the evening, we scarcely returning a shot, the General having ordered us not to do so—our aim, since we were so few, being to draw the enemy into the open country. In the night we lighted large fires, to let the people in Rome know that we were near; but the movement which we expected in the city did not take place, and we returned to Monte Rotondo the next day.

After staying there for several days, the General resolved to march to Tivoli, which was held by a strong body of our volunteers. The column, consisting of 4700 infantry, two field guns and two smaller guns, and one squadron of cavalry, commenced its march at eleven o'clock. When we had gone a mile beyond Mentana the vanguard was suddenly attacked, and we had to fall back on Mentana, so as to form our battalions in line of battle. Recovered from our first surprise, the General ordered all the troops to advance, and we retook the positions we had lost, when, just as the Papal troops were retreating on the road to Rome, the French regiments, which till now had remained hidden behind the hills, out-flanked us on the left. After some very heavy fighting, especially in the position of the haystacks in the centre, which were taken, lost, and retaken, four or five times, the General, seeing the uselessness of contending against such an overwhelming force, gave the order to retreat. We retreated from the field of battle, passing under the fire of the Chassepôts, leaving between 400 and 500 men on the field, and about the same number of prisoners in their hands, and one piece of cannon. Two battalions, numbering altogether over 400 men, shut themselves up in the old fort of Munturra, where, having exhausted all their ammunition, they surrendered in the morning. When the main body had returned to Monte Rotondo, the General gave orders that every thing should be ready to re-attack in the night; but on examining the state of our army, we found that scarcely a cartridge remained, and not a single round of ammunition for the cannon. Learning this, the General gave the order to retreat to Passo Corese, where we arrived about one in the morning, being again on Italian soil. We then proceeded to the disbandment of our troops.

At Mentana, where we had retaken all our positions, and where we thought the day was ours, we saw red-trowsered soldiers out-flanking us on the left, and we took them for the legion of Antibes, but the rapid roll of their firing opened our eyes to the fact that we were face to face with the French, armed with their new weapon, the deadly Chassepot, and from that moment we fought merely to save the honor of the day. There was no hope of winning the battle, though if the ammunition of our guns and rifles had not failed, and the General could have attacked again in the night, as he intended to do, I have no doubt but that we should have driven back the Franco-Papal army, for they did not dare to take possession of the positions which we held during the battle, and of the 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 us all prisoners, as their left wing almost touched the road running from Monte Rotondo to Passo Corese.

Some idea may be formed of the state and appearance of the volunteer army by the fact that it had no proper arms; the muskets were many of them as old as the first Napoleon.

When Menotti resolved to recross the frontier, he issued an order of the day in which he said, "I can not march, having no shoes; I can not stand still, 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 without eating, that in passing along the line with my guides, I actually saw the infantry battalions making themselves soup out of the grass of the field, having nothing else to put into their caldrons.

At the battle of Montana we had 4700 men all told; opposed to us were 8000 Papal troops and 3000 French. Battle began at half past eleven in the morning; lasted until half past five in the evening; the weather fine. The 300 who surrendered were allowed to recross the frontier. The General was taken prisoner by the Italian Government.

At Mentana the Papal troops thought they had taken me. They took a man like me to Rome, and put him in handsome apartments until the mistake was discovered. When they thought they had me, the Papal officers ordered the prisoner to be shot at once, but the French officers saved him.