A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator', 9 November, I867—The
accounts of the battle of Monte Rotondo, or Men- tana, as the French call it, from a village nearer to Rome, are conflicting; but according to the most trustworthy accounts Garibaldi was entrenched on the hills with about 4,000 men, when on Sunday the Papal Zouaves, four thousand strong, armed, with Chassepots, advanced to the attack. Pressed by hunger, Garibaldi descended the hills, and tried to pass the Zouaves and so seize Tivoli, but he was intercepted at Mentana, and in the struggle which followed barely held his own. The Zouaves, however, were desisting from the attack, when the Polhes brigade of 5,000 regulars arrived, and the Garibaldians, who had lost 500 in killed and wounded, broke, fled, or surrendered.
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