BATTLE OF GOVERNOLO

The uniforms of the Genoan Cavalry who arrived to force the Austrians from the bridge.

Governolo was a kind of secondary action to the one described below in a previous post at Goito.(to be continued) . The troops arriving from Modena entrencfhed and barricaded themselves at Governolo under Major Fontana. It was a small Moderna force that defended the town. Above is the Strategic bridge.

Easter had just ended and this sleepy but important strategic town on the Mincio river started to extinquish candles and retire to bed.
But a little before the first light on the 24th of April 1848 the cannons roared.The battle had begun.

Tuscan grenadiers

Mantova was held by the Austrians and one of their ideas was to get Governolo and a base on the Mincio.

Sardinian Guards

The best magazine anywhere on toy soldiers and model soldiers.I have included it not because I write for them but because it really is a great source of info (sometimes) on this period
Austrian Guards .
Colonel Castellitz moved out of Mantova and moved towards Roncoferraro (A part of Governolo) and Casale, they killed Italian sentries and Major Fontana saw them on the other side of the river banks. He opened fire with cannon .

Austrian officers .

tHE FIGHTING LASTED FROM 4.30 UNTIL 9.00. The intelligent placing of troops stopped the Austrians. They retreated . The Austrians lost nine men and 18 wounded. The Italians one and 7 wounded. But it wasn't over Fontana heard that 4,000 Austrians were heading towards the village of Governolo . The Austrians quickly controlled the strategic bridge next to the old tower of Governolo

The first tricolour

On the 15th of July the Austrians arrived led by Rukavina. The day after they were reinforced by another 3 companies . The Bersaglieri hid on boats and sailed down river and took the Austrians by suprise. They let down the bridge and allowed the Queen's Brigade to go across with the Genoan cavalry. The Austrians fled towards Mantova, they more or less ran, abandoning arms and uniforms trying to hide themselves.The Austrian flag was taken and is now conserved in The Royal Armoury of Torino.

Line infantry of Modena

The only bridge on the Mincio at Governolo was back in Italian hands.It had been a very brief barttle but it had been a brilliant one for the Italians.

A typical volunteer

Modena royal infantry in parade unform

Modena artillery sgt

Modena dragoons

Austrian Guards

Re-enactors in typical voluunteer uniforms. Likely it was these kinds of uniforms that were worn by Modena troops at Governolo

A selection of Italian uniforms in the period

Close ups.

I have no idea of what these particular volunteer uniforms are but these were general garb in the war

Bologna civic guard

Typical volunteer regular.

Governolo in the first part of the century

The battle

tuscan university volunteer

Soldiers of the war

1. French Foreign Legion at Solferino 2.Swiss Grenadier of the Legion at Solferino 2nd regt3.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   ITALIAN CAVALRY
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   PIEDMONT LINE INFANTRY ALONGSIDE BERSAGLIERI
   
   
   QA SUPERB MODEL OF THE ITALIAN CARABINIERI OF THE TIMES
   
   
   
   
   
   I forget where this Bersaglieri came from but its quite nice.
   Superb BMC figure easily painted up as Italian to be honest there is little to do to paint up BMC's production as Italians especially the Garibaldini who used Remington's The Cannon is I suppose generic to the times This one just needs a new metal flag with a paper Italian one (downloadable for free)plus an Italian kepi . PIEDMONT REGULARS Draggoon of the Sicilian army of 1854lancer emi 17 pounds 54mm


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   PONTIFICAL VOLUNTEER AND BELOW A TUSCAN ONE


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THE OTHER ITALIAN STATES

Like all wars the war of Italian independence is now covered in the glory of nationhood but it was sparsely supported in Italy.

estense brigade

The peasant class turned their backs on it from the start;things moved along O.K with the austrians and no one in those poorer classes wanted to change that status -quo that or the fact that nothing was worth changing.
So the war became one of the new liberal classes who had seen their chance of economic success with the revolutions in Austria and many European states; the liberal class once in position of power would suck the blood of the peasant class much more than any Hapsburg royal had ever done.
 If we look at Italy today it is a country where a minority live off the backs of the workers and do hardly anything for their sumptuous pay packet.
 Berlusconi apart from being dangerously close to the underworld according to many and head of a state that could go bankrupt in any moment (if the uk call their debt in) is the patron saint of these blood suckers so we may say that the peasants of 1848 were right all along.People need
myths to make them feel that not all is wrong in the world; the photo  montage of Iwo Jima , the sainthood of Mother Teresa,Gandhi as liberator,Martin Luther King as not being the things that Hoover taped, Edgar Hoover himself in high heels, Kennedy,the charge at Omdurman and above all the fact that (in our case here)the Italian war of Independence meant anything as regards change.

jagers of modena

Forgotten archives of the mind. It was Che who said."A nation that cannot read or write is easily fooled"=hence the myth. A well known toy soldier dealer from New York once quoted as fact the line from Liberty Valance="when the myth becomes history believe the myth".I prefer getting as near to the truth as possible as the truth means reason and logic. (And this particular dealer had
lets say an "original idea" on business , lets be honest a complete arsehole)


The muster to the Piedmont cause was nearly zero as regards the other Italian states.The troops they sent had in the main little bearing on the war's outcome. It was an Italy made by Piedmont and Lombardy

tuscan grenadier

The war against Austria is not covered in plastic as regards 54mm (although I am bringing out some pieces soon if my contact manages to cast them ; these will be in boxes of 20 figures all in the same position and will enable one to create a unit either standing firing or advancing with bayonet). Until that happens the Timpo figures available from Harfields are easily converible plus other plastic 54mm ones




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Here are some Garibaldi in Ho/OO


Troops from the Kingdom of Sardinia



Parma troops .This state/duchy sent only 1026.200 National Guards mostl. The Parma contingent allowed Charles Albert to keep Piedmontese troops in Piedmont to stop French republicans from Lyons who were invading Piedmont.y unharmed.Two guns and a little cavalry










Parma troops







Modena troops . Modena sent 1000 troops to join Charles Albert on April 4th. They produced good officers though.Two companies of regulars=225. Thirty two dragoons and thirty gunners.Major Fontana led them. He entrenched and barricaded them at Governolo thus forming a link between the Tuscans at Montanara and Durando's papal troops at Ferrara. They also watched Mantua .

The Tuscan regulars .

TUSCANY :Nearly two million people with no military tradition.They were frightened by possible Austrian aggression so armed in 1847.The army was two regiments.one depot battalion plus a regiment of Dragoons.4,ooo men and 136 officers. the Grand Duke of Tuscany was forced into the war by the poulation but after not many went. By April the 24th tjhe Tuscans who had joined Charles Albert numbered 7771. Their misasion to block Mantua. Their right was at Montanara and their left in the village of Curatone. Their H.Q was at Castelluchio 5 kilometres in the rear. See above in the next post for a map

Tuscan troops

A view of Parma's army just before the outbreak of war

Thisb is an illustration of the Pope's army in 1860 12 years after Goito. I am still researching what their army looked like in 1848 . We'll be talking about them in a post that will show them at the Battle of Cornuda

Types of the Naples army in the period

Parma's army was very small.

These are finance police from Mode4na and Tuscany

Here are some Pontifical (the Pope's army) that I think represent his troops in 1848 but I'm not sure

THE MAIN CONTIGENTS WERE lOMBARDS AFTER PIEDMONT.HERE ARE SOME TROOP TYPES