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The Garigliano River  The
Garigliano river (n. 5, right) is in Campania for only
38 km (24 miles) of its total length of 158 km (98
miles). The complete name of the entire river is the
Liri-Garigliano. It starts way up at Mt. Camiciola at
1,701 meters (5600 feet) in the central Apennines near
the town of Cappadiocia. As the Lire river, it flows
down into Campania and runs through the Liri Valley
until it picks up a smaller tributary, the Gari,
near the town of Sant'Apollinare nor far from Cassino.
It bends right almost 90 degrees, is then called the
Garigilano, and flows to the sea, forming the boundary
between the two provinces of Lazio and Campania. It
flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea at Minturno, just south
of Gaeta. The Garigliano has a large hydrographic
basin and an average discharge of 120 m3/sec, greater
than the Volturno.The Garigliano has a number of important military events connected with it. One was "Battle of Garigliano" in 1503 between the Spanish and French over who was going to "inherit" the kingdom of Naples now that the Aragonese dynasty had merged with the Castille to form the modern nation state of Spain. You might think that Spain would be the logical choice. The French thought otherwise, so they had a war, decided at the Battle of Garigliano. The Spanish won and ruled Naples for two-hundred years, turning the capital city, Naples, into the largest and best defended city in the Spanish Empire. (Details here.) Also, in October 1860, a major battle was fought along the Garigliano between the invading northern armies of Piedmont-Sardinia and the defending force of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Naples). It was won by the north and was one of the last actions in the process that produced the modern nation state of Italy. Finally, the name "Cassino" (above) may have tipped off another significant military episode. Indeed, in late 1943, the Liri Valley was nicknamed "Death Valley" by Allied troops trying to break through the endless chain of German defenses just below Monte Cassino. (See this link for a wartime "oral history" account.) main index to history portal |
