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Miscellaneous Prose by George Meredith
page 22 of 61 (36%)
beaten back, and compelled to retire in disorder towards Goito and
Rivolta. In this unequal encounter the Italian lancers distinguished
themselves very much, made some Austrian hussars prisoners, and killed a
few more, amongst whom was an officer. The same state of thing, prevails
at Rivottella, a small village on the shores of the Lake of Garda, about
four miles distant from the most advanced fortifications of Peschiera.
There, as elsewhere, some Austrian parties advanced with the object of
watching the movements of the Garibaldians, who occupy the hilly ground,
which from Castiglione, Eseuta, and Cartel Venzago stretches to Lonato,
Salo, and Desenzano, and to the mountain passes of Caffaro. In the last-
named place the Garibaldians came to blows with the Austrians on the
morning of the 28th, and the former got the best of the fray. Had the
fait d'armes of the 24th, or the battle of Custozza, as Archduke Albrecht
calls it, been a great victory for the Austrians, why should the imperial
army remain in such inaction? The only conclusion we must come to is
simply this, that the Austrian losses have been such as to induce the
commander-in-chief of the army to act prudently on the defensive. We are
now informed that the charges of cavalry which the Austrian lancers and
the Hungarian hussars had to sustain near Villafranca on the 24th with
the Italian horsemen of the Aorta and Alessandria regiments have been so
fatal to the former that a whole division of the Kaiser cavalry must be
reorganised before it can be brought into the field main.

The regiment of Haller hussars and two of volunteer uhlans were almost
destroyed in that terrible charge. To give you an idea of this cavalry
encounter, it is sufficient to say that Colonel Vandoni, at the head of
the Aorta regiment he commands, charged fourteen times during the short
period of four hours. The volunteer uhlans of the Kaiser regiment had
already given up the idea of breaking through the square formed by the
battalion, in the centre of which stood Prince Humbert of Savoy, when
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