Cacciatori delle Alpi
The Cacciatori delle Alpi (German: Alpenjäger ) were an Italian volunteer group in the Second Italian War of Independence .
history
The Cacciatori delle Alpi were founded on February 20, 1859 by Giuseppe Garibaldi in Cuneo . This force consisted of Italian volunteers whose task it was to help the regular Sardinian troops in the Sardinian war against the Austrians . As the name suggests, their battle zone was the Alps and their goal was the liberation of northern Italy . They fought in May 1859 at Varese and San Fermo, among others, and then covered the left flank of the Piedmontese and French as far as Solferino at the foot of the Alps. Two regiments of the Cacciatori delle Alpi were taken over in 1860 as the 51st and 52nd infantry regiments in the Piedmontese and then Italian army , in which they together formed the Alpi brigade .
1866 fought in the third Italian war of independence about 40,000 Italian volunteers under Garibaldi again against the Austrian army , especially in Bezzecca . These volunteers are sometimes also referred to as Cacciatori delle Alpi .
The Alpini , founded in 1872, have no direct connections to the Cacciatori delle Alpi , as the latter were incorporated into the Italian line infantry in 1860 and 1861 , respectively. In a broader sense, however, they can be considered the predecessors of the Alpini.
literature
- Martin Prieschl, "The Road to Solferino - The Political Causes of 1859", in: Austrian Military Journal ÖMZ 2/2010, Vienna 2010, pp. 189–207