Chapter XXII (3)

In the public concerns of kingdoms, the faith of treaties is so essential to the existence of society, that probably it has never been violated without a condign and a conspicuous punishment. The French king’s breach of treaty with England in the American war cost France a revolution, and Louis his throne. The French breach of treaty with Turkey, by the invasion of Egypt, cost France a fleet, an army, and the loss of Italy in a single campaign. And within our immediate view, the Piedmontese breach of treaty with Austria, by the invasion of Lombardy, cost the king his army, his military reputation, his throne, and his death in a distant country, in a voluntary and melancholy exile.

The Papal court was now terrified, and the Papal guards were ordered to protect the Vatican from its new pupils of liberty in the streets; but the guards themselves were now _Liberals_. The Papal Council, next, _modestly_ wrote to the Austrian Emperor to entreat his peaceable cession of the Austrian provinces, “and his acknowledgment of the _Italian nation_, each reducing its dominions within their natural limits with honourable compacts, and the blessing of heaven.”

But the Pope was still threatened by his people; and he took into his councils some of the popular favourites, chequering these councils, however, by men in his especial confidence. Thus Mamiani was placed side by side with Soglia—the tribune beside the cardinal. All was thenceforth confusion. A levy of twenty thousand men was ordered to march to the Po. But, at the next consistory, the Pope declared his reluctance to engage in hostilities with Austria. The populace clamoured, and the new Ministry resigned.

In June 1848, an “Assembly of Legislators” met in Rome. War, in the mean time, had broke out in the Milanese. An Austrian army threatened Rome. All was terror in the Court, and all fury in the streets. A new Ministry was chosen. They talked of a new code of laws, of reform, and rules of administration: they might as well have lectured on astrology. Such was the wisdom of choosing theorists to meet the perils of a state in the jaws of ruin. The Legislative Assembly met on the 15th of November; the populace crowded round the doors. The Minister, Rossi, was rash enough to pass through the hooting multitude. On some peculiarly stinging insult, he turned, with a smile of scorn; a ruffian rushed behind the unfortunate man, plunged a knife into his throat, and he expired!

That blow was struck against the Papal throne. The populace instantly took arms; the soldiery joined them; all cried out that they were betrayed. They formed in military array, and with cannon in their front, marched to the Quirinal, shouting for the downfall of the Pope, for the Roman republic, for war with Austria, and for a new Ministry!

Of the councils of that night of terror, of course, no exact detail can be given; but they were long, helpless, and distracted. The Pope is said to have appealed to the cardinals; the appeal was in vain; and the council terminated, with the vague but sufficient information to the populace, that “there should be a compliance with their demands.”

In the council, the Pope asked the commandant of the troops if they were to be relied on. His reply was, “Yes, if they are not ordered to act against the people.” The answer was decisive. The Pope, pale and confused, struck his hand against the table, exclaiming, “Then I have no resource left but to invoke the thunderbolts of God against the rebels”—and rushed out of the chamber.

Mamiani, recalled to Rome by the populace, now took the lead; the multitude were still the masters. On the night of the 24th of November, the Pope secretly fled from Rome in a carriage, with foreign arms, and, it is said, in the disguise of a valet. He took the road to Gaeta, and there remained.

Those events are worth recording, as they will yet form the essentials of history; and they are peculiarly important to England, as developing the principles of a domination, never more dangerous than when it is weak—never more haughty than when it is in the lowest depths of humiliation—and never more _aggressive_ than when it has lost all strength, but in the folly of legislatures and the negligence of nations.

The Roman territory was now left without a government. Deputations were twice sent to supplicate the Pope’s return, but he refused. The Parliament appointed a commission or Giunta of government. This commission was the only form of power during the two months which followed. The resolution was then adopted to form a government. The people were called on to elect, by _universal suffrage_, in committees, a Constituent Assembly. Of the population of the Roman States, consisting of 2,000,000 souls, 343,000 voted.

On the 6th of February 1849, the representatives met in Rome; and on the 9th, after a sitting of fifteen hours, the _fall_ of the Papal authority was decreed, and the Roman republic was declared from the Capitol!

Subsequently a triumvirate, consisting of Mazzini, Saffi, and Armellini, were chosen by the Assembly, and in them the executive power was embodied.

War was now inevitable, and the triumvirs prepared actively to meet it. They collected the dispersed soldiery; they appointed the exiled General Avezzana Minister of War. They provided arms, established a cannon foundry, organised an artillery, and soon were enabled to exhibit an army of forty thousand men. But the war, which was to dethrone the supremacy of Austria, was instantly converted into a war of defence, by the unexpected intelligence of a new assailant. The republic was to be crushed by a republic; liberalism was to receive its deathblow from liberals; and the fantasies of Roman freedom were to be scattered “into thin air” by the more substantial force of faction in France.

On the 24th of April, an expedition, under the command of General Oudinot, landed at Civita Vecchia. Its motives were an enigma. It was to take part with neither the people nor the Pope; it was neither to preserve the new constitution, nor to restore the old; it was simply to look on, while the people settled the form of government. But it was to prevent the possession of Rome by any other; the simple expedient being its possession by the French arms!

But the people did not comprehend this armed _peace_; they shouted defiance of France as they had done of Austria. The Assembly protested “in the name of God” against this aggression by an ally. They execrated the attempt to control the freedom of a people who had but followed the example of France, and they contemptuously compared the immediate act of the French government with its declaration, “that it made no war on the liberties of nations.” To this protest General Oudinot replied by advancing his camp to the walls of Rome; the people shut the gates, and the siege began.

But the shock of armies was to be in northern Italy. The pamphlets on the subject published by the contending parties are but imperfect sources of information; but a German volume—written by one who is neither Austrian nor Piedmontese, and so far free from the partialities of either, and which has the additional testimony to its truth of being translated by Lord Ellesmere—gives a remarkably intelligent view of the campaigns of 1848 and 1849. The work is anonymous, but the author is known to be a Swiss, and a soldier.

The first demand of revolutionists, and the first movement to revolution everywhere, is “a National Guard!” In 1847, the Pope established a National Guard in Rome! The example was followed by acclamation in all the towns of the Papal States. The acclamation and the example spread to Tuscany; they then spread to Lucca. All Italy was on fire for “National Guards.” The Pope spoke of disbanding the Swiss regiments in his service, amounting to 7000 men. He was thenceforth to know no protection but “his beloved citizens.” The unlucky sovereign had now mounted the first step of the ladder of revolution.

In Lombardy there were symptoms of conspiracy, but there was no National Guard. The presence of an Austrian force, and the vigour of a regular government, prevented both the acclamation and the example. The peasantry cared little for change of masters, since they had known the grinding of the French invasions; yet they hated the high rents of their nobles. The people of the towns, in Italy the idlest of the population, were the chief malcontents. The shopkeepers, with the little trade of an uncommercial country, envied the higher orders with nothing to do. The nobility, whose lives are spent between the opera and the Corso, longed for politics and parliaments, if it were only to divert the monotony of existence. In all Popish countries, the peasant believes in the church with the blindness of ignorance; the townspeople worship the image for the sake of the festival; and the nobility attend the altar through fashion or fear of the priest, and are pupils of Loyola in the spirit of Voltaire! In this mixture of ranks, of abject belief, of vulgar assent, and of indolent infidelity, there is always enough to involve national disturbance, and to consummate universal revolution; except where the government is military, and where the soldier is uncorrupted. It was soon found that even Lombardy was unsafe, and a reinforcement of sixteen battalions was ordered for the viceroyalty.

The conspiracy advanced; and as there is always something ridiculous in the seriousness of foreigners, the Liberals of Milan issued from their club, in the Café Cava, a prohibition of smoking cigars in the streets. By this formidable measure of finance, they proposed the bankruptcy of the Austrian empire!—though their patriotism did not extend to their firesides, for within doors the liberals themselves smoked as inveterately as ever. But the prohibition produced quarrels: the Austrian soldiers, not recognising the authority of the Café Cava, still smoked their cigars, and were insulted by the mob, until two proclamations were issued by the viceroy, the Archduke Raynier, to his “diletti Milanese,” for “the sake of peace,” forbidding the soldiers to smoke. Such concessions are always the reverse of conciliation, and the “diletti Milanese” became daily more and more insulting.

But stronger measures suddenly became necessary. Charles Albert of Savoy called out a conscription of 20,000 men, and fears were entertained for his adoption of the LEGA ITALIANA, and an attack on Lombardy. On the 19th of January, an order appeared from the Field-Marshal Radetsky, declaring “the determination of his imperial master to defend his states against every assault, whether from within or _without_;” adding, “The sword which I have borne for fifty-six years with honour, in so many fields of battle, is still _firm in my grasp_.” This proclamation produced a temporary lull. But the storm was now gathering from every point of the horizon. The French revolution of the 24th of February was answered by the rising of Vienna. On the 18th of March Milan was in open insurrection. Within six days after, Charles Albert crossed the Tessin, and the war was begun!

It has been the misfortune of Austria to rely on concession, where force was essential. This policy has always been attended with the same results. It is mistaken for royal fear, and always engenders popular arrogance. On the 18th of March it was announced to the Milanese that the Emperor Ferdinand had yielded to their demand of a “Constitution;” and, on the _same day_, the citizens, with the town council at their head, marched to the palace of the Governor Count O’Donnell, demanding the formation of a National Guard for the city, the dissolution of the police, and the transfer of their arms to the guard. They overpowered the piquet at the palace, and finally took O’Donnell prisoner. Radetsky now delayed no longer; he ordered the alarm-gun to be fired, and moved to the attack of the Broletto, or hall of the town council, on which the tricolor flag had been hoisted.

The city was now in arms; barricades were erected in every quarter; the windows flanking them were filled with musketeers, who kept up a heavy fire on the advance of the troops. Missiles of every kind were flung from the windows and roofs; and boiling water, and even boiling oil, was used by men and women, screaming like lunatics, and swearing destruction to the Austrians. From want of preparation, and perhaps from compassion for the frantic city, the troops made tardy progress, and the fighting had lasted six hours, when the Field-Marshal gave orders that the Broletto should be gained at any risk. The building resisted all attacks for four hours more. It was taken, with two hundred and fifty of its defenders, the rest escaping over roofs.

The night was stormy, the lanterns in the streets were extinguished, and the troops were exhausted by the fatigues of the day, and by the inclemency of the night. But at morning the attack was renewed. The populace fought fiercely—defending the entrance of every street, and manning the barricades, but less defending them in front than by the fire from the windows. Thus the insurgents were to be fought only hand to hand, and every house was a fortress. Still the troops made progress, till the Field-Marshal, probably thinking that his troops ought to be preserved for nobler contests, abandoned the interior quarters of Milan, concentrated them at some distance, and threatened Milan with a bombardment.

This retreat was magnified into a victory; the Provisional Government ordered every man from twenty to sixty to be enrolled in the National Guard, attacked and mastered one of the city gates, and announced war against the empire. The intelligence from Piedmont, and even from Switzerland, now began to be formidable. It was said that thirty thousand Swiss were in march. The army of Charles Albert was already in the field; further delay might have compromised the fate of the Austrian army; it was evident that the fate of the Austrian provinces, while Vienna was in the hands of the rebels, must depend on the conduct of the Field-Marshal’s divisions; and in order to keep up the communication with the Austrian territories, and at the same time meet the shock of the Piedmontese forces, it was resolved to retreat to the line of the Adige or the Mincio.

The Austrian troops in Italy were seventy thousand; the Field-Marshal had demanded, even before the tumults, a hundred and fifty thousand as the least force with which he could be answerable for the defence of the provinces; he now declared it “to be a terrible necessity that Milan should be abandoned.” He withdrew the garrison from the citadel, called in the regiments, which had been widely posted on the frontier, and, after sustaining a succession of attacks from the insurgents, now flushed with apparent triumph, moved in the night of the 22d, encumbered by an immense baggage-train, containing the government effects, the wounded, and the public servants, in five columns, on the way to Lodi.

The career of the able soldier by whom such services were achieved at the age of eighty-three, is singularly interesting. Born in 1766, of a distinguished Bohemian line, he began his military life in the regiment of Francis’s Cuirassiers, serving against the Turks, and against the French in the Netherlands. In that regiment he attained the rank of captain. In the famous campaign of Suwarrow in Italy, 1799, he obtained the rank of lieutenant-colonel on the general staff, a preferment which vouched for his strategical talents. In 1805 he commanded, as major-general, a cavalry brigade in the army in Italy. He fought in the campaign of Aspern and Wagram. In 1813 he acted as chief of the general staff in the “Grand Army” of invasion under Prince Schwartzenburg, a position which required not merely the qualities of a soldier, but the intelligence of the diplomatist and minister.

Promoted to the rank of general of cavalry in 1829, and appointed to the command in Italy in 1833, he devoted himself to a study of the country, as the seat of a campaign, by holding his great annual reviews in the territory between the Adige and the Mincio—the very line of country in which the mastery of the Austrian provinces must always be sustained.

During the interval from the peace of 1815 to his commission in 1829, he had employed himself in military studies, and, as their result, published “a System of Instruction for Generals and the Staff in command of troops of all classes, over all varieties of ground.” Thus, accomplished by science, trained by long service, and feeling nothing of age, but its experience, his appointment to the baton of field-marshal in 1836 placed in the highest rank of the service an officer unsurpassed by the ablest of his continental competitors. He is covered with decorations of his own sovereign and of foreign princes—not the toys and trinkets of courts, but the tributes of men who have been his comrades in the field. They have been gallantly earned, and their honours will stand the test of time.

The retreat from Milan was blazoned as the conquest of Austria. “The enemy flies from Milan,” was the language of the Milanese proclamation to the rural clergy and authorities, calling on them for the “annihilation of the remnant of those savage hordes.” But the retreat was not too early. On the same day which saw the Austrian columns moving from the gates, a proclamation appeared from the King of Sardinia to the people of Lombardy and Venice, declaring for “Italian Unity,” and announcing the advance of his army into those governments. His force was about forty-five thousand men, in a state of preparation such as no army of an Italian sovereign had exhibited for a hundred years.

Savoy and its princes form one of the most striking examples of character resulting from condition. As the key of Italy, Savoy has been compelled to have its arms constantly in readiness for action. Thus the whole long line of its princes have been compelled to be perpetually in the saddle, and among them have been some of the first warriors and diplomatists of Europe.

Commencing with Amadeus the First, son of the Count of Maurienne and Susa, and thus possessing the great pass of Mont Cenis, then almost the only one into Italy, this brave mountaineer exhibited the independence of a man who knew his power. It is recorded, that on attending the Emperor, Henry the Third, at Verona, followed by a train of his officers, the Emperor refused to admit him “with his tail.” Amadeus spiritedly refused to be admitted on this condition. The Emperor eventually complied, and Amadeus was thenceforth called “Caudatus,” the man with the tail. The phrase, which has since become so familiar to us, thus finds its origin in the eleventh century, and among the Alps.

The long succession of the princes of Savoy were almost constantly belligerent, and in every war increasing their influence and their territories. Amadeus the Sixth, in the fourteenth century, was the arbiter of Italy. Amadeus the Eighth was even elected Pope at the council of Basle, by the title of Felix V. During the Italian wars of Louis XIV. the princes of Savoy figured constantly in battle and negotiation; and when, by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Philip V. of Spain was forced to surrender Sardinia to the Emperor of Germany, by him it was given to the Duke of Savoy, who then assumed the title of King of Sardinia.

In the War of the French Revolution, the king, Charles Emmanuel, being expelled from his throne by the French, abdicated in favour of his brother, Victor Emmanuel, who remained in Sardinia until the fall of Napoleon in 1814.

The Prince of Carignan, the late Charles Albert, during the life of his predecessor, Charles Felix, had the character of a _liberal_ of the newest school. His accession to the throne inevitably changed his political sensibilities, and he became a monarch, in the sense of Duke Philibert, the founder of absolute monarchy in Savoy. With a revenue of sixty-nine millions of francs from his Continental States, and nearly three millions from Sardinia, with a regular army of between fifty and sixty thousand men, the best troops of Italy, and possessing one of the most defensible countries of Europe; with a considerable navy, and with a debt of but eighty-seven millions of francs, (scarcely more than a year’s revenue,) he might have seemed beyond the caprices of fortune, if not beyond the follies of ambition. The King himself was fond of soldiership. He had served in the Spanish Invasion as a volunteer, under the Duc d’Angouleme, and was present at the storming of the Trocadero. He was tall, robust, and bold in the field. Yet his political feelings were hostile to all change. He had completely thrown off the absurdities of liberalism; he was a rigid supporter of the ancient principles of the government, a champion of the privileged, and a protector of the peasant classes. In the midst of these rational principles, and the solid prosperity of the State, the temptation of territory was thrown out to him. To unite Lombardy with his hereditary dominions was the snare; and in an hour of calamity to his country, and of ruin to himself, breaking his treaties with Austria, and assuming the foolish, feeble, and frantic resolution of overthrowing the imperial sovereignty, he invaded the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom.

At this crisis the situation of the Austrian army was perilous in the extreme. One-third of its force was composed of _Italian_ regiments. Of those some openly passed over to the insurgents; some remained faithful, but they were daily diminishing by desertion. The Austrians were enveloped in an excited population of eighteen millions; National Guards were already arming everywhere. In this moment a decisive movement by the gallant General d’Aspre probably alone saved Verona, the most important post in all Italy. A National Guard had been formed in the city; it demanded to share the garrison duty of the citadel. The governor refused the demand; but the population were sixty thousand, already tampered with. D’Aspre on receiving this intelligence determined at once to leave Padua, where he was stationed, to its fate; marched with his whole force for Verona; disarmed the National Guard, and saved the city. Mantua, the fortress next in importance, was entered by an Austrian brigade, and thus the defensive line of the campaign was established. Marshal Radetsky transferred his headquarters to Verona in April, and published an order of the day to the troops, containing the expressive words, “On military grounds, and in my capacity as commander, I, _not you_, have retired before the enemy; _you_ have not been conquered!”

At this time, in every great town of Italy, with the exception of Verona and Mantua, the tricolor had been hoisted, a revolutionary government formed, and the population summoned to arms. Such was the result of the trumpet blown from Rome! The Papal troops, at the disposal of the League, were about seven thousand Italians, including a regiment of dragoons, besides a body of Swiss—capital soldiers—amounting to upwards of four thousand men. The whole amount of the forces of the League, including bands of volunteers, acting separately, probably amounted to one hundred thousand; which the first defeat of the Austrian army might have increased to ten times the number.

An inspection of the map will show the singularly difficult nature of the country through which the Austrian army had now to make its retreat. The Po, on the right hand, forms the natural boundary of Northern Italy, as the Alps form it on the left: the country between is intersected by the spurs of the mountains, and by the great rivers flowing from them—the Tessin, the Oglio, the Mincio, and the Adige. But a march along the right, or southern bank of the Po, may turn all those positions; and the position of Venice finally outflanks them all. On the parallelogram formed by Peschiera, Verona, Legnago, and Mantua, is the battle of Northern Italy to be fought; and that battle once won, either army must conclude the campaign.

It has been already observed, that the provident eye of the Austrian Field-Marshal had made this platform his especial study: he had instructed his staff to examine all its features with especial exactness, and had aided their practical knowledge of the ground by making it the scene of his Grand Reviews, from 1832. But new difficulties soon threatened him—the Tyrol was in danger. The portion verging on Italy was revolutionised, and thus his communications with Germany might be cut off. The Marshal instantly despatched a brigade to Trent; they took possession of the castle, and paraded the town with patrols of cavalry—arrested the conspirators, chiefly consisting of nobles—disarmed the citizens—prohibited party colours—and declared that, in case of disturbance, they would set the town in flames. The only successful mode of dealing with rebels is to punish them; and the knowledge that the Austrians would not now be chicaned into concession, put an end to their disloyalty.

The first collision of the armies was on the 7th of April. Colonel Benedek, an officer already distinguished in Gallicia, surprised a patrol of Genoa dragoons, and brought his prisoners into Mantua. Charles Albert moved on the Mincio, and a column of four thousand men attacked the Austrian post at Goito, on the right bank, two leagues above Mantua. The attack was gallantly resisted by the Tyrolese Jagers, and other troops; but after an action of four hours, the Piedmontese succeeded in crossing a bridge imperfectly blown up, and the Austrians retired, with the loss of their four guns, on the glacis of Mantua. In this action the two brothers Hofer, nephews of the famous Andreas Hofer—the one a cadet, and the other a lieutenant in the Tyrolese Jagers—were unfortunately killed. The Field-Marshal immediately advanced with eighteen thousand men to give battle; but the Piedmontese stopped, to leave the main body time to advance and enter upon the true field of the campaign.

The Field-Marshal now determined to leave the line of the Mincio. The Piedmontese were daily receiving reinforcements. On the 20th, General d’Arco Ferrari, the Tuscan commander, conducted a column of five thousand men into the royal camp. This number included fifteen hundred volunteers of the best families of Florence and Sienna, a corps of students from Pisa, officered by their professors, and a corps of two hundred and fifty Neapolitans, raised by a Neapolitan enthusiast. When this man took leave of the King of Naples, he asked him, “Your majesty, what shall I say to the Lombards on the part of my king?” The reply was, “Tell them that I will come to their assistance with all my forces, and will myself fight by the side of their humblest grenadier.” His majesty appears to have soon changed his mind.

The Austrians continued to retire, and Charles Albert commenced the siege of Peschiera, and the investment of Mantua. In the mean time the Austrian Council, though the whole empire was in confusion, made the most strenuous efforts to reinforce the army in Italy; and General Nugent, with some corps of Croats, joined the Field-Marshal.

Under the general name of Croat, in Austrian military language, are included all the Borderers of the Austrian dominions, who serve as light infantry. But of the eighteen regiments of Border light infantry, eight only are of the real Croat race. This race belongs to the great Sclave family, and passed from Bohemia to their present province at a remote period. The Hungarians, on the contrary, came from the far East. In Bohemia and Moravia the German and Sclave races are mingled; in Hungary, the Magyar, the Sclave, the Wallach, and the Saxon. From Hungary, at this period, nothing was to be hoped, for the Hungarian nobility had extorted from the emperor an independent administration. They had even gone so far as to demand the government of the military frontier towards the Turkish dominions. This innovation, which would have included the subordination of Croatia, was resisted by its gallant people, who now proved a firm and loyal defence of their country, and recovered a fame obscured since the wars of Maria Theresa.

Even in the briefest narrative of this anxious period, the governor of Croatia deserves a record.

Joseph, Baron Jellachich de Buzim, was the son of a military man of rank, who had served in the French war. Educated for the army, he did not neglect the studies which accomplish man in every condition; and he has been even distinguished as a poet. His family connection with Croatia, and his character for intelligence and intrepidity, rapidly attracted notice, and he was appointed to the Viceroyalty of the province. The march of the corps of Croats to Vienna gave the first favourable turn to the fortunes of the empire, and in the trying Hungarian campaigns, the Ban of Croatia was among the foremost officers of the service, as his troops were among the bravest. On the demand of the army in Italy for reinforcement, he did not hesitate a moment, but despatched from his force those battalions which had so large a share in the ultimate victories of the campaign.

Hostilities now rapidly advanced. On the 5th of May, Charles Albert attacked the celebrated position of Rivoli, but after a heavy cannonade, was repulsed. On the 7th, the Piedmontese army, amounting to forty-five thousand men, with sixty-six guns, attacked the Austrian front on the heights of Sena, near Verona. A defeat on this point would have left Verona open to a bombardment, and might have been the ruin of the Austrian cause in Italy. The battle began at nine in the morning. The Austrians were posted in a line of villages, partly fortified. The Piedmontese fought well, but they failed in all their attacks. The Austrian fire of artillery was heavy; and at four, a movement of Radetsky precipitated the retreat of the enemy. The king was in the field, as were the Archdukes Joseph (the present emperor) and Albert, the son of the famous Archduke Charles.

The action lasted till six in the evening. The returns of the loss, on both sides, are equally unintelligible. The Piedmontese loss was returned at only 87 killed! and 659 wounded; and this in a conflict which lasted nine hours, under a perpetual cannonade. The Austrians naturally lost less than their assailants; but foreign bulletins are always a trial to English credulity.

The prospect still darkened: the emperor fled from Vienna, and took refuge in the Tyrol. News of the insurrection in Naples, and fighting in the streets, arrived. Peschiera was besieged, without the hope of being relieved; it was already famishing; horse-flesh and maize were its only provision: it had withstood forty thousand cannon shots; and for every two guns remaining on its ramparts, there was but one artilleryman! On the 30th it capitulated. Intelligence next came that Vienna was in complete possession of the populace, and a provisional government installed! This put an end to all expectation of reinforcements. It now even became a question, whether the Austrian army should not abandon the field, and take shelter in Mantua. “What a misfortune,” said a German paper, “for an army to be so commanded. What has happened justifies the warning which we gave, months ago, that the conduct of such a struggle should not be committed to a man eighty-four years of age.”

On the night of the 5th of June, only two days after the disastrous news from Vienna, that old man commenced a movement which decided the war!

The whole army suddenly moved to the attack of Vicenza; swept the plain of the enemy’s detachments; assailed the fortified heights of Monte Berico, the key of Vicenza, defended by fifteen thousand Papal troops, with Swiss and volunteers; and forced the town to a capitulation next day. This daring exploit stopped Charles Albert at once; convinced him that he could advance no farther; and changed the whole face of the campaign.

The most interesting part in the history of nations at war is the sudden ebbs and flows of fortune. The Field-Marshal had hitherto been compelled to keep a watchful eye on the Alps; for if the French army, already collected at Grenoble, had joined the Italians, there was no resource for him but to have retired from the Peninsula. But the four days’ fighting in the streets of Paris, in June, satisfied him that the French would be fully occupied at home, and relieved him of anxiety in that quarter. The next news was, that the insurrection at Prague had been crushed, and that reinforcements were sure to be despatched; the next was, that Count Latour, the minister, had actually despatched twelve thousand men to the army. In a short period, his troops, which had been reduced to forty thousand men, of whom a large proportion were in hospital, were increased to a hundred and thirty-two thousand. The cavalry were raised to upwards of eight thousand, and the artillery to two hundred and fifty pieces.

On the 22d, in the evening, the troops moved to the attack of the entire Piedmontese position. It was on a range of hills rising in successive lines of heights. The troops were stopped by a heavy storm at midnight. They halted till dawn, and on the 23d attacked and carried the whole line of the Piedmontese. On the next day Charles Albert advanced against them, made a vigorous flank movement, broke an Austrian Brigade, and fought desperately till nightfall. On the 25th the battle was resumed, the heat was intense, and the ascent of the hills was fearfully exhausting. In one of the regiments a third of the men sank on the road, and sixteen died of _coup-de-soleil_. Such are the toils and the horrors of war. Charles Albert fought bravely, and manœuvred ably, but he was everywhere repulsed. Fortune had deserted him. The Austrians slept on the heights which they had won. Thus ended the great battle of Costazza.

General Radetsky now gave orders for a vigorous pursuit. In one of the towns occupied by the retreating enemy, the inhabitants took part in the skirmish. In this instance we find the first military use of gun-cotton, and it appears to have excited equal surprise and alarm in the pursuers. “It was _terrible_,” says one of of those describers, “to hear the whistling of the ball without the detonation. No despatch could be read, because the enemy fired from their concealment at every light that showed itself. Alarms were frequent, and occasioned momentary confusion among us; it was an awful night.”

After an unsuccessful attack on the Austrian outposts, the enemy retired. Soon afterwards, a flag of truce arrived, proposing an armistice, taking the Oglio for the line of demarcation. The Austrian general demanded the Adda, the cession of the captured fortresses, and the withdrawal of the king’s troops from Venice, Modena, and Parma. Those conditions were rejected, and the royal army renewed its retreat. The command of the troops was now relinquished by the king, and given up to General Bava.

All, thenceforth, was confusion; the army began to dissolve; there was neither rest for it, nor food. Many threw themselves down by the roadside and refused to go farther. An armistice was suggested by the British minister at Turin, but the answer was decisive: “No armistice till the imperial provinces are cleared.”

The retreat should have been by the right bank of the Po; but Charles Albert, in a chivalric spirit, resolved to defend Milan. The pursuit was still continued through the defensible and intricate country which surrounds Milan. On the evening of the 4th of August, the Austrian army was at the gates of the city. In the night a council was held, which determined on the evacuation of Milan. The populace, partly in terror, and partly in rage, denounced the king as a traitor to their cause, and even fired shots at his palace. In the night of the 6th the king was conveyed from Milan under escort; the report reached the populace in the morning, and they proceeded to plunder. A deputation of the magistracy were sent to the Field-Marshal. He entered the city at the head of a column of troops by the Porta Romana; and on the 7th, an order of the day appeared, thanking the troops, and containing these words: “The imperial flag is again waving from the walls of Milan; there is no longer an enemy on Lombard ground.” This fixed the fate of the imperial provinces.

The campaign which followed in 1849 may be described in a few words. The mortified pride of Charles Albert provoked him to make preparations for a renewal of the war. He raised his army by the conscription—that terrible tool in the hands of an ambitious or an absurd government, to a hundred and forty-eight thousand men—(of whom, however, eighteen thousand were in the hospitals.) But the army had known the disasters of war, and its romance had died away. None but the orators were advocates for a contest with the mighty force of the empire. General Bava, an able and brave officer, who had conducted the retreat, was displaced, and the command was given to Chrozanowski, a Pole, who had served on the Russian staff. The Austrian force, exclusive of sick and garrisons, was about eighty thousand men.

The armistice concluded on the 20th of March. The Polish general’s order of the day was in the theatrical style of Napoleon’s bulletins. “Soldiers! the greater your vigour in advance, the speedier will be your victory, and the earlier your return, crowned with laurels!” The manlier, because the more intelligible sentiment of the Field-Marshal’s order was, “Soldiers! forward, with Turin for your watchword!”

In twenty-four hours the Austrian army was in march for the Tessin, the boundary of Piedmont and Lombardy. The decisive battle was fought at Novara, a town on the left bank of the Agogna. In the rear of the town, the ground, consisting of water-courses and walled gardens, and with substantial villas, and a slope towards the town for artillery, is favourable for defence. The sons of Charles Albert, the Dukes of Savoy and Genoa, commanded brigades, the whole force amounting to fifty thousand men, with one hundred and eleven guns.

The battle began at eleven in the morning of the 23d of March, by an attack of the Archduke Albert on a fortified post. The combat continued in a succession of attacks on the Piedmontese positions, which were stoutly defended, till four o’clock; when, all the Austrian brigades having reached the field, the Field-Marshal gave orders for a general advance of the line. The enemy now fell into disorder, and retreated. The battle was won. The Austrian army bivouacked on the field. The king, who had remained under fire during the day, was in despair. He exclaimed to General Durando, who led him away, “General, this is my last day—let me die.” Later in the evening, he called his princes and chief officers about him, and declared his determination to resign the crown to the Duke of Savoy. He then dismissed them, wrote a letter of farewell to his wife, and made his appearance at the quarters of the Austrian officer, Count Thurn, at one in the morning, under the title of a Count; and being allowed to pass the Austrian lines, (of course his person being known,) went to Nice. From Nice he went to Portugal, and remained at Oporto until he died.

Thus ended the life of a king, and thus closed the first powerful effort of that consummation of violence and folly, misery, and popular ruin, which are all included in the name of ITALIAN INDEPENDENCE.

Let it not be supposed, from the tone of our observations, that we are hostile to the freedom of nations. Hostility of that order would contradict the character of our country. We have exposed only the _pretences_ to patriotism—the love of plunder under the plea of reform, the hatred of order under the pretext of right, and the convulsion of society under the affectation of independence.

We affirm, in the most unequivocal manner, that, to be free, nations must be Protestant. The Popish religion is utterly incompatible with freedom in _any_ nation. The _slave_ of the altar is essentially the _slave_ of the throne. We prove this by the fact, that _no_ Popish country in the world has been able to preserve, or even to have a conception of, the simplest principles of civil liberty. If we are told that France is free, the obvious reply is, that though France is the least Popish of Popish countries, it still has the _Conscription_; it is wholly under military government; it has _no Habeas Corpus_; and no journalist can discuss any subject without exposing himself to Government, by giving his name. Would this be called liberty in England?

LEVANTINE RAMBLES.[3]

Egotism is a shoal upon which literary travellers are particularly apt to damage their barks. Before us are two cases in point, although of different degree. Monsieur Gerard de Nerval, a Frenchman of letters, Mr F. A. Neale, an Englishman attached to the consular service, have each written a couple of volumes concerning Syria and adjacent lands, visited at about the same period. We need hardly say that there is little resemblance between the books. The numerous points of dissimilarity between the French and English characters are never more strikingly elicited than upon the road. Set the travellers to write down their experiences, and you have the palpable exposition of the diverting contrast. In two respects, however, Messrs Neale and Nerval resemble each other. Both are very amusing; each is more or less of an egotist. The Frenchman is the _more_, the Englishman the _less_. Mr Neale’s egotism is artless and inoffensive. His book is a collection of notes made for the amusement of himself and friends, and which in course of years grew to considerable bulk. Long a resident and rambler in the country he writes about, he unites the advantages of an observant eye, an agreeable style, a happy discrimination of what is most likely to interest and prove novel to the public. His greatest fault is not to have more carefully weeded his manuscript of trivial personal incidents, quite in place in a letter to a friend, but which have no claim to the honours of type. Forgive this defect, and there is little else to pardon in a book that gives us an excellent notion of the aspect and mode of life of a country with which, considering its proximity to Europe, and the all-important events in sacred and profane history that have occurred upon its soil, we can hardly say that our acquaintance is as intimate as it ought to be. Monsieur de Nerval is a gentleman of far different pretensions from Mr Neale, whose faults are the result of literary inexperience, not of conceit or affectation. There is more of malice prepense about the Frenchman’s egotism. Quite as amusing as his English rival, he makes us laugh twice as much; but probably he would be the last man to suspect the chief motive of our mirth. Deeply sensible of the strong interest personally attaching to him, he keeps his most private feelings and proceedings constantly before the reader. Withdraw from his work all those passages in which Gerard de Nerval figures as the hero, and the corpulent octavos would shrink into pamphlets. As we read, fancy presents us with his portrait upon every page. It simpers at us out of a graceful vignette, or peeps through the fantastical wreaths of a decorative capital; draped in Oriental robes, surmounted with a Turkish head-dress, the scalp despoiled by Mahomedan razor of all its flowing honours, save one tress upon its summit, the beard trimmed in conformity with the latest fashion of Stamboul. Turn the page and behold him galloping, with drawn yataghan, and glowing with military ardour, in the suite of a prince of Lebanon, out for a foray amongst the Maronites. A little farther he languishes at the feet of the lovely daughter of a Druse Sheik, or exerts his influence—far from inconsiderable—to obtain the release of her captive parent. But however occupied, whether martially, amorously, or philanthropically, Gerard de Nerval is always before us, the principal figure upon his own canvass. He is nothing if not egotistical. As to the value and extent of his information concerning the countries he visited, it is impossible to rate them highly, since he admits that his knowledge of Arabic was for some time limited to the single word _tayeb—it is good_—which conveys, he says, an infinity of meanings, according to the tone of its utterance, and which he takes to be the root of the Arabic tongue. It is quite clear, from various passages of his book, that he attained no great proficiency in his oriental studies, and that for the greater portion, if not for the whole period, of his stay in the East, he was at the mercy of roguish dragomans and casual acquaintances. He began his peregrinations farther south than did Mr Neale. After an introduction, somewhat pedantic and not much to the purpose, addressed, as well as the epilogue, to a mythic Hibernian, one _Timothy O’Neddy_, he abruptly opens his book at Cairo, by informing us that there the women are more hermetically veiled than in any other of the Levantine towns. The ladies, it must be observed, play a most important part in the narrative of this gallant and airy Frenchman, and have supplied subordinate titles to his volumes, the first of which is called _The Women of Cairo_, the second _The Women of Lebanon_. At the Egyptian city he had projected a residence of six months, and was mortally disheartened by the dull aspect of the place when, upon the first day of his arrival, he had passed some hours in wandering, mounted on a jackass and escorted by a dragoman, through its confused labyrinth of narrow dusty streets. The dragoman, whose name is Abdallah, is a character, and deserves better than to be passed over without a paragraph. M. de Nerval, who desired to husband his travelling purse, soon began to fear that he was too magnificent an attendant for so small a personage as himself.

“It was at Alexandria,” says Abdallah’s employer, “on the deck of the
Leonidas steamer, that he first appeared to me in all his glory. He
came alongside in a boat of his own, with a little black to carry his
long pipe, and a younger dragoman to bear him company. A flowing white
tunic covered his clothes, and contrasted with the colour of his face,
in which the Nubian blood tinted features borrowed from the head of
some Egyptian sphynx. Doubtless he was the offspring of two mixed
races. Large golden rings weighed down his ears, and his indolent gait
in his long garments completed to my imagination the ideal portrait of
some freedman of the lower empire.

“There were no English amongst the passengers, and Abdallah, rather
vexed at this, attached himself to me for want of a better. We
disembarked; he hired four asses for himself, for his suite, and for
me, and took me straight to the English hotel, where they were good
enough to take me in, at the rate of sixty piastres a-day; as for
himself, he limited his pretensions to half that sum, out of which he
undertook to keep the second dragoman and the little black. After
dragging this imposing escort at my heels for a whole day, I was
struck by the inutility of the second dragoman, and even of the little
boy. Abdallah made no objection to dismiss his young colleague; as to
the little black, he kept him at his own charges, reducing, at the
same time, his own salary to twenty piastres (about five francs)
a-day. Arrived at Cairo, the asses carried us straight to the English
hotel on the Esbekieh Square; but I checked their ardour on learning
that the charges at this hotel were the same as at the one in
Alexandria.

“‘You prefer, then, to go to the Waghorn hotel in the Frank quarter?’
said honest Abdallah.

“‘I should prefer a hotel which was not English.’

“‘Well! there is Domergue’s French hotel.’

“‘Let us go to it.’

“‘Pardon me, I will accompany you thither, but I cannot remain there.’

“‘Why not?’

“‘Because it is an hotel that only charges forty piastres a-day; I
cannot go to it.’

“‘But I find it quite good enough for me.’

“‘You are unknown; I belong to the town; I am accustomed to attend
English gentlemen; I must keep up my rank.’

Nevertheless, I considered the price of this hotel tolerably high for
a country where everything is about six times less dear than in
France, and where a piastre, or five sous of our money, is a
labourer’s daily wage.

“‘There is a way of arranging matters,’ said Abdallah. ‘You shall go
to Domergue’s for two or three days, and I will visit you as a friend;
during that time I will take a house for you in the town, and then
there will be no obstacle to my remaining in your service.’

“On inquiry, I found that many Europeans take houses in Cairo if they
propose remaining there any time, and, having ascertained this, I gave
full powers to Abdallah.”