Chapter X: Part 10

The ideas that were making their way in French society in the 18th century, and afterwards brought about the Revolution of 1789, gave a special direction to Italian literature of the second half of the 18th century. Love of ideal liberty, desire for equality, hatred of tyranny, created in Italy a literature which aimed at national objects, seeking to improve the condition of the country by freeing it from the double yoke of political and religious despotism. But all this was associated with another tendency. The Italians who aspired to a political redemption believed that it was inseparable from an intellectual revival, and it seemed to them that this could only be effected by a reunion with ancient classicism--in other words, by putting themselves in more direct communication with ancient Greek and Latin writers. This was a repetition of what had occurred in the first half of the 15th century. The 17th century might in fact be considered as a new Italian Middle Age without the hardness of that iron time, but corrupted, enervated, overrun by Spaniards and French, an age in which previous civilization was cancelled. A reaction was necessary against that period of history, and a construction on its ruins of a new country and a new civilization. There had already been forerunners of this movement; at the head of them the revered Parini. Now the work must be completed, and the necessary force must once more be sought for in the ancient literature of the two classic nations.

Alfieri (1749-1803).

Patriotism and classicism then were the two principles that inspired the literature which began with Alfieri. He worshipped the Greek and Roman idea of popular liberty in arms against the tyrant. He took the subjects of his tragedies almost invariably from the history of these nations, made continual apostrophes against the despots, made his ancient characters talk like revolutionists of his time; he did not trouble himself with, nor think about, the truth of the characters; it was enough for him that his hero was Roman in name, that there was a tyrant to be killed, that liberty should triumph in the end. But even this did not satisfy Alfieri. Before his time and all about him there was the Arcadian school, with its foolish verbosity, its empty abundance of epithets, its nauseous pastoralizing on subjects of no civil importance. It was necessary to arm the patriotic muse also against all this. If the Arcadians, not excluding the hated Metastasio, diluted their poetry with languishing tenderness, if they poured themselves out in so many words, if they made such set phrases, it behoved the others to do just the contrary--to be brief, concise, strong, bitter, to aim at the sublime as opposed to the lowly and pastoral. Having said this, we have told the good and evil of Alfieri. He desired a political reform by means of letters; he saved literature from Arcadian vacuities, leading it towards a national end; he armed himself with patriotism and classicism in order to drive the profaners out of the temple of art. But in substance he was rather a patriot than an artist. In any case the results of the new literary movement were copious.

Foscolo.

Ugo Foscolo was an eager patriot, who carried into life the heat of the most unbridled passion, and into his art a rather rhetorical manner, but always one inspired by classical models. The _Lettere di Jacopo Ortis_, inspired by Goethe's _Werther_, are a love story with a mixture of patriotism; they contain a violent protest against the treaty of Campo Formio, and an outburst from Foscolo's own heart about an unhappy love-affair of his. His passions were sudden and violent; they came to an end as abruptly as they began; they were whirlwinds that were over in a quarter of an hour. To one of these passions _Ortis_ owed its origin, and it is perhaps the best, the most sincere, of all his writings. Even in it he is sometimes pompous and rhetorical, but much less so than he is, for example, in the lectures _Dell' origine e dell' ufficio della letteratura_. On the whole, Foscolo's prose is turgid and affected, and reflects the character of the man who always tried to pose, even before himself, in dramatic attitudes. This was indeed the defect of the Napoleonic epoch; there was a horror of anything common, simple, natural; everything must be after the model of the hero who made all the world gaze with wonder at him; everything must assume some heroic shape. In Foscolo this tendency was excessive; and it not seldom happened that, in wishing to play the hero, the exceptional man, the little Napoleon of ladies' drawing-rooms, he became false and bad, false in his art, bad in his life. The _Sepolcri_, which is his best poem, was prompted by high feeling, and the mastery of versification shows wonderful art. Perhaps it is to this mastery more than to anything else that the admiration the _Sepolcri_ excites is due. There are most obscure passages in it, as to the meaning of which it would seem as if even the author himself had not formed a clear idea. He left incomplete three hymns to the Graces, in which he sang of beauty as the source of courtesy, of all high qualities and of happiness. Here again what most excites our admiration is the harmonious and easy versification. Among his prose works a high place belongs to his translation of the _Sentimental Journey_ of Sterne, a writer by whom one can easily understand how Foscolo should have been deeply affected. He went as an exile to England, and died there. He wrote for English readers some _Essays_ on Petrarch and on the texts of the _Decamerone_ and of Dante, which are remarkable for the time at which they were written, and which may be said to have initiated a new kind of literary criticism in Italy. Foscolo is still greatly admired, and not without reason. His writings stimulate the love of fatherland, and the men that made the revolution of 1848 were largely brought up on them.

Monti.

If in Foscolo patriotism and classicism were united, and formed almost one passion, so much cannot be said of Vincenzo Monti, in whom the artist was absolutely predominant. Yet Monti was a patriot too, but in his own way. He had no one deep feeling that ruled him, or rather the mobility of his feelings is his characteristic; but each of these was a new form of patriotism, that took the place of an old one. He saw danger to his country in the French Revolution, and wrote the _Pellegrino apostolico_, the _Bassvilliana_ and the _Feroniade_; Napoleon's victories caused him to write the _Prometeo_ and the _Musagonia_; in his _Fanatismo_ and his _Superstizione_ he attacked the papacy; afterwards he sang the praises of the Austrians. Thus every great event made him change his mind, with a readiness which might seem incredible, but is yet most easily explained. Monti was above everything an artist; art was his real, his only passion; everything else in him was liable to change, that alone was persistent. Fancy was his tyrant, and under its rule he had no time to reason and to see the miserable aspect of his political tergiversation. It was an overbearing deity that moved him, and at its dictation he wrote. Pius VI., Napoleon, Francis II., were to him but passing shadows, to which he hardly gives the attention of an hour; that which endures, which is eternal to him, is art alone. It were unjust to accuse Monti of baseness. If we say that nature in giving him one only faculty had made the poet rich and the man poor, we shall speak the truth. But the poet was indeed rich. Knowing little Greek, he succeeded in making a translation of the _Iliad_ which is remarkable for its Homeric feeling, and in his _Bassvilliana_ he is on a level with Dante. In fine, in him classical poetry seemed to revive in all its florid grandeur.

Niccolini.

Monti was born in 1754, Foscolo in 1778; four years later still was born another poet of the same school, Giambattista Niccolini. In literature he was a classicist; in politics he was a Ghibelline, a rare exception in Guelph Florence, his birthplace. In translating or, if the expression is preferred, imitating Aeschylus, as well as in writing the _Discorsi sulla tragedia greca_, and on the _Sublime e Michelangelo_, Niccolini displayed his passionate devotion to ancient literature. In his tragedies he set himself free from the excessive rigidity of Alfieri, and partly approached the English and German tragic authors. He nearly always chose political subjects, striving to keep alive in his compatriots the love of liberty. Such are _Nabucco_, _Antonio Foscarini_, _Giovanni da Procida_, _Lodovico il Moro_, &c. He assailed papal Rome in _Arnaldo da Brescia_, a long tragic piece, not suited for acting, and epic rather than dramatic. Niccolini's tragedies show a rich lyric vein rather than dramatic genius. At any rate he has the merit of having vindicated liberal ideas, and of having opened a new path to Italian tragedy.

Historians.

The literary period we are dealing with had three writers who are examples of the direction taken by historical study. It seems strange that, after the learned school begun by Muratori, there should have been a backward movement here, but it is clear that this retrogression was due to the influence of classicism and patriotism, which, if they revived poetry, could not but spoil history. Carlo Botta, born in 1766, was a spectator of French spoliation in Italy and of the overbearing rule of Napoleon. Hence, excited by indignation, he wrote a _History of Italy from 1789 to 1814_; and later on he continued Guicciardini's _History_ up to 1789. He wrote after the manner of the Latin authors, trying to imitate Livy, putting together long and sonorous periods in a style that aimed at being like Boccaccio's, caring little about that which constitutes the critical material of history, only intent on declaiming his academic prose for his country's benefit. Botta wanted to be classical in a style that could no longer be so, and hence he failed completely to attain his literary goal. His fame is only that of a man of a noble and patriotic heart. Not so bad as the two histories of Italy is that of the _Guerra dell' indipendenza americana_.

Close to Botta comes Pietro Colletta, a Neapolitan born nine years after him. He also in his _Storia del reame di Napoli dal 1734 al 1825_ had the idea of defending the independence and liberty of Italy in a style borrowed from Tacitus; and he succeeded rather better than Botta. He has a rapid, brief, nervous style, which makes his book attractive reading. But it is said that Pietro Giordani and Gino Capponi corrected it for him. Lazzaro Papi of Lucca, author of the _Commentari della rivoluzione francese dal 1789 al 1814_, was not altogether unlike Botta and Colletta. He also was an historian in the classical style, and treats his subject with patriotic feeling; but as an artist he perhaps excels the other two.

The Purists.

At first sight it seems unnatural that, whilst the most burning political passions were raging, and whilst the most brilliant men of genius in the new classical and patriotic school were at the height of their influence, a question should have arisen about "purism" of language. Yet the phenomenon can be easily accounted for. Purism is another form of classicism and patriotism. In the second half of the 18th century the Italian language was specially full of French expressions. There was great indifference about fitness, still more about elegance of style. Prose then was to be restored for the sake of national dignity, and it was believed that this could not be done except by going back to the writers of the 14th century, to the "aurei trecentisti," as they were called, or else to the classics of Italian literature. One of the promoters of the new school was Antonio Cesari of Verona, who republished ancient authors, and brought out a new edition, with additions, of the _Vocabolario della Crusca_. He wrote a dissertation _Sopra lo stato presente della lingua italiana_, and endeavoured to establish the supremacy of Tuscan and of the three great writers Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio. And in accordance with that principle he wrote several books, taking pains to copy the "trecentisti" as closely as possible. But patriotism in Italy has always had something municipal in it; so to this Tuscan supremacy, proclaimed and upheld by Cesari, there was opposed a Lombard school, which would know nothing of Tuscan, and with Dante's _De vulgari eloquio_ returned to the idea of the "lingua illustre." This was an old question, largely and bitterly argued in the Cinquecento (16th century) by Varchi, Muzio, Castelvetro, Speroni and others. Now the question came up again quite fresh, as if no one had ever discussed it before. At the head of the Lombard school were Monti and his son-in-law Count Giulio Perticari. This gave Monti an occasion to write _Proposta di alcune correzioni ed aggiunte al vocabolario della Crusca_, in which he attacked the Tuscanism of the _Crusca_, but in a graceful and easy style, such in fact as to form a prose that is one of the most beautiful in Italian literature. Perticari on the other hand, with a very inferior intellect, narrowed and exasperated the question in two treatises, _Degli scrittori del Trecento_ and _Dell' amor patrio di Dante_, in which, often disguising or altering the facts, he only makes confusion where there was none. Meantime, however, the impulse was given. The dispute about language took its place beside literary and political disputes, and all Italy took part in it--Basilio Puoti at Naples, Paolo Costa in the Romagna, Marc' Antonio Parenti at Modena, Salvatore Betti at Rome, Giovanni Gherardini in Lombardy, Luigi Fornaciari at Lucca, Vincenzo Nannucci at Florence.

Giordani.

A patriot, a classicist and a purist all at once was Pietro Giordani, born in 1774; he was almost a compendium of the literary movement of the time. His whole life was a battle fought for liberty. Most learned in Greek and Latin authors, and in the Italian trecentisti, he only left a few writings behind him, but they were carefully elaborated in point of style, and his prose was in his time considered wonderful. Now it is looked on as too majestic, too much laboured in phrases and conceits, too far from nature, too artificial. Giordani closes the literary epoch of the classicists.

Manzoni.

7. _Nineteenth Century and After._--At this point the contemporary period of literature begins. It has been said that the first impulse was given to it by the romantic school, which had as its organ the _Conciliatore_ established in 1818 at Milan, and on the staff of which were Silvio Pellico, Lodovico di Breme, Giovile Scalvini, Tommaso Grossi, Giovanni Berchet, Samuele Biava and lastly Alessandro Manzoni. It need not be denied that all these men were influenced by the ideas that, especially in Germany, at the beginning of the 19th century constituted the movement called Romanticism. Nevertheless, in Italy the course of literary reform took another direction. There is no doubt that the real head of the reform, or at least its most distinguished man, was Alessandro Manzoni. He formulated in a letter of his the objects of the new school, saying that it aspired to try and discover and express "il vero storico" and "il vero morale," not only as an end, but as the widest and eternal source of the beautiful. And it is precisely realism in art that characterizes Italian literature from Manzoni onwards. The _Promessi Sposi_ is the one of his works that has made him immortal. No doubt the idea of the historical novel came to him from Sir Walter Scott, but he succeeded in something more than an historical novel in the narrow meaning of that word; he created an eminently realistic work of art. The romance disappears; no one cares for the plot, which moreover is of very little consequence. The attention is entirely fixed on the powerful objective creation of the characters. From the greatest to the least they have a wonderful verisimilitude; they are living persons standing before us, not with the qualities of one time more than another, but with the human qualities of all time. Manzoni is able to unfold a character in all particulars, to display it in all its aspects, to follow it through its different phases. He is able also to seize one moment, and from that moment to make us guess all the rest. Don Abbondio and Renzo are as perfect as Azzeccagarbugli and Il Sarto. Manzoni dives down into the innermost recesses of the human heart, and draws thence the most subtle psychological reality. In this his greatness lies, which was recognized first by his companion in genius, Goethe. As a poet too he had gleams of genius, especially in the Napoleonic ode, _Il Cinque Maggio_, and where he describes human affections, as in some stanzas of the _Inni_ and in the chorus of the _Adelchi_. But it is on the _Promessi Sposi_ alone that his fame now rests.

Leopardi.

The great poet of the age was Leopardi, born thirteen years after Manzoni at Recanati, of a patrician family, bigoted and avaricious. He became so familiar with Greek authors that he used afterwards to say that the Greek mode of thought was more clear and living to his mind than the Latin or even the Italian. Solitude, sickness, domestic tyranny, prepared him for profound melancholy. From this he passed into complete religious scepticism, from which he sought rest in art. Everything is terrible and grand in his poems, which are the most agonizing cry in modern literature, uttered with a solemn quietness that at once elevates and terrifies us. But besides being the greatest poet of nature and of sorrow, he was also an admirable prose writer. In his _Operette morali_--dialogues and discourses marked by a cold and bitter smile at human destinies which freezes the reader--the clearness of style, the simplicity of language and the depth of conception are such that perhaps he is not only the greatest lyrical poet since Dante, but also one of the most perfect writers of prose that Italian literature has had.

Political literature.

As realism in art gained ground, the positive method in criticism kept pace with it. From the manner of Botta and Colletta history returned to its spirit of learned research, as is shown in such works as the _Archivio storico italiano_, established at Florence by Giampietro Vieusseux, the _Storia d' Italia nel medio evo_ by Carlo Troya, a remarkable treatise by Manzoni himself, _Sopra alcuni punti della storia longobardica in Italia_, and the very fine history of the _Vespri siciliani_ by Michele Amari. But alongside of the great artists Leopardi and Manzoni, alongside of the learned scholars, there was also in the first half of the 19th century a patriotic literature. To a close observer it will appear that historical learning itself was inspired by the love of Italy. Giampietro Vieusseux had a distinct political object when in 1820 he established the monthly review _Antologia_. And it is equally well known that his _Archivio storico italiano_ (1842) was, under a different form, a continuation of the _Antologia_, which was suppressed in 1833 owing to the action of the Russian government. Florence was in those days the asylum of all the Italian exiles, and these exiles met and shook hands in Vieusseux's rooms, where there was more literary than political talk, but where one thought and one only animated all minds, the thought of Italy.

The literary movement which preceded and was contemporary with the political revolution of 1848 may be said to be represented by four writers--Giuseppe Giusti, Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi, Vincenzo Gioberti and Cesare Balbo. Giusti wrote epigrammatic satires in popular language. In incisive phrase he scourged the enemies of Italy; his manner seemed very original, but it really was partly imitated from Beranger. He was a telling political writer, but a mediocre poet. Guerrazzi had a great reputation and great influence, but his historical novels, though read with ferverish avidity before 1848, are now almost forgotten. Gioberti, a powerful polemical writer, had a noble heart and a great mind; his philosophical works are now as good as dead, but the _Primato morale e civile degli Italiani_ will last as an important document of the times, and the _Gesuita moderno_ will live as the most tremendous indictment ever written against the Jesuits. Balbo was an earnest student of history, and made history useful for politics. Like Gioberti in his first period, Balbo was zealous for the civil papacy, and for a federation of the Italian states presided over by it. His _Sommario della storia d' Italia_ is an excellent epitome. (A. Ba.)

Contemporary literature.

After the year 1850 political literature becomes less important, one of the last poets distinguished in this _genre_ being Francesco dall' Ongaro, with his _stornelli politici_. For details as to the works of recent writers, reference may be made to the separate biographical articles, and here a summary must suffice. Giovanni Prati and Aleardo Aleardi continue romantic traditions. The dominating figure of this later period, however, is Giosue Carducci, the opponent of the Romantics and restorer of the ancient metres and spirit, who, great as a poet, was scarcely less distinguished as a literary critic and historian. Other classical poets are Giuseppe Chiarini, Domenico Guoli, Arturo Graf, Guido Mazzoni and Giovanni Marradi, of whom the two last named may perhaps be regarded as special disciples of Carducci, while another, Giovanni Pascoli, best known by his _Myricae_ and _Poemetti_, only began as such. Enrico Panzacchi (b. 1842) was at heart still a romantic. Olindo Guerrini (who wrote under the pseudonym of Lorenzo Stecchetti) is the chief representative of _veriomo_ in poetry, and, though his early works obtained a _succes de scandale_, he is the author of many lyrics of intrinsic value. Alfredo Baccelli and Mario Rapisardi are epic poets of distinction. Felice Cavallotti is the author of the stirring _Marcia de Leonida_. Among dialect writers, the great Roman poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli has found numerous successors, such as Renato Fucini (Pisa), Berto Barbarini (Verona) and Cesare Pascarella (Rome). Among the women poets, Ada Negri, with her socialistic _Fatalita_ and _Tempeste_, has achieved a great reputation; and others, such as Vittoria Aganoor, A. Brunacci-Brunamonti and Annie Vivanti, are highly esteemed in Italy.

Among the dramatists, Pietro Cossa in tragedy, Gherardi del Testa, Ferdinando Martini and Paolo Ferrari in comedy, represent the older schools. More modern methods were adopted by Giuseppe Giacosa and Gerolamo Rovetta.

In fiction, the historical romance has fallen into disfavour, though Emilio de Marchi has written some good examples in this genre. The novel of intrigue was cultivated by Anton Giulio Barrili and Salvatore Farina, the psychological novel by Enrico Annibale Butti, the realistic local tale by Giovanni Verga, the mystic philosophical novel by Antonio Fogazzaro. Edmondo de Amicis, perhaps the most widely read of all modern Italians, has written acceptable fiction, though his moral works and travels are more generally known. Of the women novelists, Matilde Serao and Grazia Deledda have become deservedly popular.

Gabriele d' Annunzio has produced original work in poetry, drama and fiction, of extraordinary quality. He began with some lyrics which were distinguished no less by their exquisite beauty of form than by their licence, and these characteristics reappeared in a long series of poems, plays and novels. D' Annunzio's position as a man of the widest literary and artistic culture is undeniable, and even his sternest critics admit his mastery of the Italian tongue, based on a thorough knowledge of Italian literature from the earliest times. But with all his genius, his thought is unhealthy and his pessimism depressing; the beauty of his work is the beauty of decadence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Among the more aesthetic accounts of Italian
literature, those of Emiliano Giudici (Florence, 1855) and Francesco
de Sanctis (Naples, 1870) are still the best. Two histories of real
scientific value were interrupted by the death of the authors: that of
Adolfo Bartoli (Florence, 1879-1899) breaking off in the 14th century,
and that of Gaspary (Berlin, 1884-1889; English version, so far only
down to the death of Dante, London, 1901) breaking off before Tasso (a
completion being undertaken by Wendriner). Bartoli's article in the
9th edition of this encyclopaedia has been reproduced, with some
slight revision, above. Among the many recent Italian works, the most
important is the elaborate series of volumes contributing the _Storia
lett. d' Italia scritta da una societa di professori_ (1900 sqq.):
Giussani, _Lett. romana_; Novati, _Origini della lingua_; Zingarelli,
_Dante_; Volpi, _Il Trecento_; Rossi, _Il Quattrocento_; Flamini, _Il
Cinquecento_; Belloni, _Il Seicento_; Concari, _Il Settecento_;
Mazzoni, _L' Ottocento_. Each volume has a full bibliography.
Important German works, besides Gaspary, are those of Wilse and
Percopo (illustrated; Leipzig, 1899), and of Casini (in Grober's
_Grundr. der rom. Phil._, Strassburg, 1896-1899). English students are
referred to Symonds's _Renaissance in Italy_ (especially, but not
exclusively, vols. iv. and v.; new ed., London, 1902), and to R.
Garnett's _History of Italian Literature_ (London, 1898). (H. O.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Giesebrecht, _De litterarum studiis apud Italos primis
mediaevi saeculis_ (Berlin, 1845.)

[2] See Gaspary, _Die sicilianische Dichterschule des 13ten
Jahrhunderts_ (Berlin, 1878).

[3] _Storia della repubblica di Firenze_ (Florence, 1876).

ITALIAN WARS (1848-1870), a generic name for the series of wars for Italian unity which began with the Milan insurrection of the 18th of March 1848 and closed with the capture of Rome by the Italians on the 20th of September 1870. For their Italian political interest see ITALY: _History_. The present article deals with certain campaigns of distinctively military importance, viz. 1848-49, 1859 and 1866, in the first and third of which the centre of gravity of the nationalist movement was the Piedmontese regular army, and in the second the French army commanded by Napoleon III. On the other side the Austrian army was throughout the basis of the established order of things, settled at the Congress of Vienna on the theory that Italy was "a geographical expression." Side by side with these regular armies, each of which was a special type, there fought national levies of widely varying kinds, and thus practically every known form of military service, except the fully organized "nation in arms" (then peculiar to Prussia) made its appearance in the field. Further, these wars constitute the greater part of European military history between Waterloo and Koniggratz--a bridge--if a broken one--between Napoleon and Moltke. They therefore present a considerable technical interest, wholly apart from their historical importance and romantic interest.

AUSTRO-SARDINIAN WAR OF 1848-1849

From about 1846 the spirit of revolt against foreign domination had gathered force, and two years later, when Europe was on the verge of a revolutionary outburst, the struggle for Italian unity was initiated by the insurrection at Milan. At this moment the Austrian army in Lombardy, practically a highly-trained force of long-service professional soldiers, was commanded by Radetzky, one of the greatest generals in Austrian history. Being, however, virtually an army of occupation, it was broken up into many garrisons, and in all was not more than 70,000 strong, so that after five days' fighting in the streets of Milan, Radetzky did as Wellington had proposed to do in 1817 when his army of occupation in France was threatened by a national rising, and withdrew to a concentration area to await reinforcements. This area was the famous Quadrilateral, marked by the fortresses of Mantua, Verona, Peschiera and Legnago, and there, in the early days of April, the scattered fractions of the Austrians assembled. Lombardy and Venetia had followed the example of Milan, and King Charles Albert of Sardinia, mobilizing the Piedmontese army in good time, crossed the frontier, with 45,000 regulars two days after the Austrians had withdrawn from Milan. Had the insurrectionary movements and the advance of the Piedmontese been properly co-ordinated, there can be little doubt that some, at any rate, of the Austrian detachments would have been destroyed or injured in their retreat, but as it was they escaped without material losses. The blow given to Austrian prestige by the revolt of the great cities was, however, so severe that the whole peninsula rallied to Charles Albert. Venice, reserving a garrison for her own protection, set on foot an improvised army 11,000 strong on the mainland; some 5000 Lombards and 9000 insurgents from the smaller duchies gathered on both sides of the Po; 15,000 Papal troops under Durando and 13,000 Neapolitans under the old patriot general Pepe moved up to Ferrara and Bologna respectively, and Charles Albert with the Piedmontese advanced to the Mincio at the beginning of April. His motley command totalled 96,000 men, of whom, however, only half were thoroughly trained and disciplined troops. The reinforcements available in Austria were about 25,000 disciplined troops not greatly inferior in quality to Radetzky's own veterans. Charles Albert could call up 45,000 levies at a few weeks' notice, and eventually all the resources of the patriot party.

The regular war began in the second week of April on the Mincio, the
passages of which river were forced and the Austrian advanced troops
driven back on the 8th (action of Goito) and 9th. Radetzky maintained
a careful defensive, and the king's attempts to surprise Peschiera
(14th) and Mantua (19th) were unsuccessful. But Peschiera was closely
invested, though it was not forced to capitulate until the end of May.
Meantime the Piedmontese army advanced towards Verona, and, finding
Radetzky with a portion of his army on their left flank near
Pastrengo, swung northward and drove him over the Adige above Verona,
but on turning towards Verona they were checked (action of Pastrengo
28th-30th April and battle of Santa Lucia di Verona, 6th May).

Meantime the Austrian reinforcements assembled in Carniola under an
Irish-born general, Count Nugent von Westmeath (1777-1862) and entered
Friuli. Their junction with the field marshal was in the last degree
precarious, every step of their march was contested by the levies and
the townsmen of Venetia. The days of rifled artillery were not yet
come, and a physical obstacle to the combined movements of trained
regulars and a well-marked line of defence were all that was necessary
to convert even medieval walled towns into centres of effective
resistance. When the spirit of resistance was lacking, as it had been
for example in 1799 (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS), the importance of
the walled towns corresponded simply to their material strength, which
was practically negligible. But throughout the campaign of 1848-1849,
the essential moral conditions of defence being present, the Austrians
were hampered by an endless series of minor sieges, in which the
effort expended was out of all proportion to the success achieved.

Radetzky in the Quadrilateral.

Nugent, however, pressed on, though every day weakened by small
detachments, and, turning rather than overpowering each obstacle as it
was encountered, made his way slowly by Belluno to Vicenza and Treviso
and joined Radetzky at Verona on the 25th of May. The latter then for
a moment took the offensive, passing around the right flank of the
loyal army by way of Mantua (actions of Curtatone, 29th May, and
Goito, 30th May), but, failing of the success he expected he turned
swiftly round and with 30,000 men attacked the 20,000 Italians (Papal
troops, volunteers, Neapolitans) under Durando, who had established
themselves across his line of communication at Vicenza, drove them
away and reoccupied Vicenza (9th June), where a second body of
reinforcements from Trent, clearing the Brenta valley (Val Sugana) as
they advanced, joined him, the king meanwhile being held in check by
the rest of Radetzky's army.

After beating down resistance in the valleys of the Brenta and Piave,
the field marshal returned to Verona. Charles Albert had now some
75,000 men actually in hand on the line of high ground, S.
Giustina-Somma Campagna, and made the mistake of extending
inordinately so as to cover his proposed siege of Mantua. Napoleon,
fifty years before on the same ground (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS),
had only with great difficulty solved this same problem by the
economical grouping and resolute handling of his forces, and Charles
Albert, setting out his forces _en cordon_, was weak at all points of
his long front of 45 m. Thus Radetzky, gathering his forces opposite
the king's centre (Sona, Somma Campagna), was able to break it (23rd
July). The Piedmontese, however, fell back steadily, and 25,000 of
them collected at Villafranca, whence on the 24th they
counter-attacked and regained the heights at Custozza and Somma
Campagna that they had lost. Radetzky, however, took the offensive
again next morning and having succeeded in massing half of his army
opposite to one quarter of the Piedmontese, was completely victorious
(first battle of Custozza, 24th-25th July). Pursuing vigorously, the
Austrians drove the king over the Mincio (action of Volta, 26th-27th),
the Chiese, the Adda and the Ticino into his own dominions, Milan
being reoccupied without fighting. The smaller bands of patriots were
one after the other driven over the borders or destroyed. Venice alone
held out to the end. Besieged by land and water, and bombarded as
well, she prolonged her resistance until October 1849, long after the
war had everywhere else come to an end.

The first campaign for unity had ended in complete failure, thanks to the genius of Radetzky and the thorough training, mobility and handiness of his soldiers. During the winter of 1848-1849--for, to avoid unnecessary waste of his precious veterans, Radetzky let the Piedmontese army retire unmolested over the Ticino--Charles Albert took energetic measures to reorganize, refit and augment his army. But his previous career had not fitted him to meet the crisis. With aspirations for unity he sympathized, and to that ideal he was soon to sacrifice his throne, but he had nothing in common with the distinctively revolutionary party, with whom circumstances had allied him. Radicalism, however, was a more obvious if a less real force than nationalism, and Charles Albert made it a fatal concession in appointing the Polish general Albert Chrzanowski (1788-1861) his principal adviser and commander-in-chief--an appointment that alienated the generals and the army, while scarcely modifying the sentiments of distrust with which the Liberal party regarded the king.[1]

Campaign of Novara.

In March the two main armies were grouped in the densely intersected
district between Milan, Vercelli and Pavia (see sketch map below),
separated by the Ticino, of which the outposts of either side watched
the passages. Charles Albert had immediately in hand 65,000 men, some
25,000 more being scattered in various detachments to right and left.
Radetzky disposed of 70,000 men for field operations, besides
garrisons. The recovery of Milan, the great city that had been the
first to revolt, seemed to the Italians the first objective of the
campaign. It was easier indeed to raise the whole country in arms than
to crush the field-marshal's regulars, and it was hoped that Radetzky
would, on losing Milan, either retire to Lodi and perhaps to Mantua
(as in 1848), or gather his forces for battle before Milan. Radetzky
himself openly announced that he would take the offensive, and the
king's plans were framed to meet this case also. Two-thirds of the
army, 4 divisions, were grouped in great depth between Novara,
Galliate and Castelnuovo. A little to the right, at Vespolate and
Vigevano, was one division under Durando, and the remaining division
under Ramorino was grouped opposite Pavia with orders to take that
place if possible, but if Radetzky advanced thence, to fall back
fighting either on Mortara or Lomello,[2] while the main body
descended on the Austrian flank. The grouping both of Ramorino and of
the main body--as events proved in the case of the latter--cannot be
seriously criticized, and indeed one is almost tempted to assume that
Chrzanowski considered the case of Radetzky's advance on Mortara more
carefully than that of his own advance on Milan. But the seething
spirit of revolt did not allow the army that was Italy's hope to stand
still at a foreign and untried general's dictation and await
Radetzky's coming. On the 19th of March orders were issued to the main
body for the advance on Milan and on the 20th one division, led by the
king himself, crossed the Ticino at San Martino.

But no Austrians were encountered, and such information as was
available indicated that Radetzky was concentrating to his left on the
Pavia-Lodi road. Chrzanowski thereupon, abandoning (if indeed he ever
entertained) the idea of Radetzky's retirement and his own triumphal
march on Milan, suspended the advance. His fears were justified, for
that evening he heard that Ramorino had abandoned his post and taken
his division across the Po. After the war this general was shot for
disobedience, and deservedly, for the covering division, the fighting
flank-guard on which Chrzanowski's defensive-offensive depended, was
thus withdrawn at the moment when Radetzky's whole army was crossing
the Ticino at Pavia and heading for Mortara.[3]

The four Austrian corps began to file across the Ticino at noon on the
20th, and by nightfall the heads of Radetzky's columns were at
Zerbolo, Gambolo and La Cava, the reserve at Pavia, a flank-guard
holding the Cava-Casatisma road over the Po against the contingency of
Ramorino's return, and the two brigades that had furnished the
outposts along the Ticino closing on Bereguardo.

Action of Mortara.

Chrzanowski, however, having now to deal with a foreseen case, gave
his orders promptly. To replace Ramorino, the 1st division was ordered
from Vespolate through Mortara to Trumello; the 2nd division from
Cerano to push south on Vigevano; the reserve from Novara to Mortara;
the remainder to follow the 2nd division. Had the 1st division been
placed at Mortara instead of Vespolate in the first instance the story
of the campaign might have been very different, but here again, though
to a far less culpable degree, a subordinate general's default
imperilled the army. Durando (21st March), instead of pushing on as
ordered to Trumello to take contact with the enemy, halted at Mortara.
The reserve also halted there and deployed west of Mortara to guard
against a possible attack from San Giorgio. The Sardinian advanced
guard on the other road reached Borgo San Siro, but there met and was
driven back by Radetzky's II. corps under Lieut. Field Marshal d'
Aspre (1789-1850), which was supported by the brigades that now
crossed at Bereguardo. But the Italians were also supported, the
Austrians made little progress, and by nightfall the Sardinian II.,
III. and IV. divisions had closed up around Vigevano. Radetzky indeed
intended his troops on the Vigevano road to act simply as a defensive
flank-guard and had ordered the rest of his army by the three roads,
Zerbolo-Gambolo, Gropello-Trumello and Lomello-San Giorgio, to
converge on Mortara. The rearmost of the two corps on the Gambolo road
(the I.) was to serve at need as a support to the flank-guard, and,
justly confident in his troops, Radetzky did not hesitate to send a
whole corps by the eccentric route of Lomello. And before nightfall an
important success had justified him, for the II. corps from Gambolo,
meeting Durando outside Mortara had defeated him before the Sardinian
reserve, prematurely deployed on the other side of the town, could
come to his assistance. The remaining corps of Radetzky's army were
still short of Mortara when night came, but this could hardly be well
known at the royal headquarters, and, giving up the slight chances of
success that a counterstroke from Vigevano on Mortara offered,
Chrzanowski ordered a general concentration on Novara. This was
effected on the 22nd, on which day Radetzky, pushing out the II. corps
towards Vespolate, concentrated the rest at Mortara. That the Italians
had retired was clear, but it was not known whither, and, precisely as
Napoleon had done before Marengo (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS), he
sent one corps to seize the king's potential line of retreat,
Novara-Vercelli, kept one back at Mortara--ready, it may be presumed,
to grapple an enemy coming from Vigevano--and engaged the other three
in a single long column, widely spaced out, on the Novara road. Thus
it came about that on the 23rd d' Aspre's II. corps encountered
Charles Albert's whole army long before the III. and Reserve could
join it. The battle of Novara was, nevertheless, as great an event in
the history of the Imperial-Royal Army as Marengo in that of the
French.

Novara.

First the II. corps, and then the II. and III. together attacked with
the utmost resolution, and as the hours went by more and more of the
whitecoats came on the field until at last the IV. corps, swinging
inward from Robbio, came on to the flank of the defence. This was no
mere strategical triumph; the Austrians, regiment for regiment, were
more than a match for the Italians and the result was decisive.
Charles Albert abdicated, and the young Victor Emmanuel II., his
successor, had to make a hasty armistice.

After Novara, the first great struggle for Italian unity was no more than a spasmodic, if often desperate, struggle of small bodies of patriots and citizens of walled towns to avert the inevitable. The principal incidents in the last phase were the siege of Venice, the sack of Brescia by the merciless Haynau and the capture of Rome by a French expeditionary corps under General Oudinot.

THE ITALIAN WAR OF 1859

The campaign of Magenta and Solferino took place ten years later. Napoleon III., himself an ex-_carbonaro_, and the apostle of the theory of "nationalities," had had his attention and his ambitions drawn towards the Italian problem by the attempt upon his life by Orsini. The general political horizon was by no means clear at the end of 1858, and on the 1st of January 1859 the emperor of the French publicly expressed to the Austrian ambassador his regret that "our relations are not so good as heretofore." This was regarded by all concerned as a prelude to war, and within a short time a treaty and a marriage-contract allied Sardinia with the leading European power. In the smaller Italian states, as before, the governments were on the side of Austria and the "settlement of 1815," and the peoples on that of United Italy. The French still maintained a garrison in Rome to support the pope. The thorny question of the temporal power _versus_ the national movement was not yet in the foreground, and though Napoleon's support of the former was later to prove his undoing, in 1859 the main enemy was Austria and the paramount factor was the assistance of 200,000 French regulars in solving the immediate problem.

The Sardinian army, reconstituted by La Marmora with the definite object of a war for union and rehabilitated by its conduct in the Crimea, was eager and willing. The French army, proud of its reputation as the premier army in the world, and composed, three-fourths of it, of professional soldiers whose gospel was the "Legend," welcomed a return to the first Napoleon's battle-grounds, while the emperor's ambitions coincided with his sentiments. Austria, on the other hand, did not desire war. Her only motive of resistance was that it was impossible to cede her Italian possessions in face of a mere threat. To her, even more than to France and infinitely more than to Italy, the war was a political war, a "war with a limited aim" or "stronger form of diplomatic note"; it entirely lacked the national and personal spirit of resistance which makes even a passive defence so powerful.

Events during the period of tension that preceded the actual declaration of war were practically governed by these moral conditions. Such advantages as Austria possessed at the outset could only be turned to account, as will presently appear, by prompt action. But her army system was a combination of conscription and the "nation in arms," which for the diplomatic war on hand proved to be quite inadequate. Whereas the French army was permanently on a two-thirds war footing (400,000 peace, 600,000 war), that of Austria required to be more than doubled on mobilization by calling in reservists. Now, the value of reservists is always conditioned by the temper of the population from which they come, and it is more than probable that the indecision of the Austrian government between January and April 1859 was due not only to its desire on general grounds to avoid war, but also, and perhaps still more, to its hopes of averting it by firmness, without having recourse to the possibly dangerous expedient of a real mobilization. A few years before the method of "bluffing" had been completely successful against Prussia. But the Prussian reservist of 1850 did not want to fight, whereas the French soldier of 1859 desired nothing more ardently.

Mobilization.

In these conditions the Austrian preparations were made sparingly, but with ostentation. The three corps constituting the Army of Italy (commanded since Radetzky's death in 1858 by Feldzeugmeister Count Franz Gyulai (1798-1863)), were maintained at war efficiency, but not at war strength (corps averaging 15,000). Instead, however, of mobilizing them, the Vienna government sent an army corps (III.) from Vienna at peace strength in January. This was followed by the II. corps, also at peace strength, in February, and the available field force, from that point, could have invaded Piedmont at once.[4] The initial military situation was indeed all in favour of Austria. Her mobilization was calculated to take ten weeks, it is true, but her concentration by rail could be much more speedily effected than that of the French, who had either to cross the Alps on foot or to proceed to Genoa by sea and thence by one line of railway to the interior. Further, the demands of Algeria, Rome and other garrisons, the complicated political situation and the consequent necessity of protecting the French coasts against an English attack,[5] and still more the Rhine frontier against Prussia and other German states (a task to which the greatest general in the French army, Pelissier, was assigned), materially reduced the size of the army to be sent to Italy. But the Austrian government held its hand, and the Austrian commander, apparently nonplussed by the alternation of quiescence and boldness at Vienna, asked for full mobilization and turned his thoughts to the Quadrilateral that had served Radetzky so well in gaining time for the reserves to come up. March passed away without an advance, and it was not until the 5th of April that the long-deferred order was issued from Vienna to the reservists to join the II., III., V., VII. and VIII. corps in Italy. And, after all, Gyulai took the field, at the end of April, with most of his units at three-quarters of their war strength.[6] On the side of the allies the Sardinians mobilized 5 infantry and 1 cavalry divisions, totalling 64,000, by the third week in April. A few days later Austria sent an ultimatum to Turin. This was rejected on the 26th, war being thereupon declared. As for the French, the emperor's policy was considerably in advance of his war minister's preparations. The total of about 130,000 men (all that could be spared out of 500,000) for the Italian army was not reached until operations were in progress; and the first troops only entered Savoy or disembarked in Genoa on the 25th and 26th of April.

Austrian movements.

Thus, long as the opening had been delayed, there was still a period after both sides had resolved on and prepared for war, during which the Austrians were free to take the offensive. Had the Austrians crossed the frontier instead of writing an ultimatum on the 19th of April, they would have had from a week to a fortnight to deal with the Sardinians. But even the three or four days that elapsed between the declaration and the arrival of the first French soldiers were wasted. Vienna ordered Gyulai to take the offensive on the 27th, but it was not until the 30th that the Austrian general crossed the Ticino. His movements were unopposed, the whole of the Sardinian army having concentrated (by arrangement between La Marmora and Marshal Canrobert) in a flank position between Casale and Alessandria, where it covered Turin indirectly and Genoa, the French disembarkation port, directly. Gyulai's left was on the 2nd of May opposite the allied centre, and his right stretched as far as Vercelli.[7] On the 3rd he planned a concentric attack on King Victor Emmanuel's position, and parts of his scheme were actually put into execution, but he suspended it owing to news of the approach of the French from Genoa, supply difficulties (Radetzky, the inheritor of the 18th-century traditions, had laid it down that the soldier must be well fed and that the civilian must not be plundered, conditions which were unfavourable to mobility) and the heavy weather and the dangerous state of the rivers.

Austrians grouped at Mortara.

Gyulai then turned his attention to the Sardinian capital. Three more days were spent in a careful flank march to the right, and on the 8th of May the army (III., V. and VII.) was grouped about Vercelli, with outposts 10-14 m. beyond the Sesia towards Turin, reserves (II. and VIII.) round Mortara, and a flank-guard detached from Benedek's VIII. corps watching the Po. The extreme right of the main body skirmished with Garibaldi's volunteers on the edge of the Alpine country. The Turin scheme was, however, soon given up. Bivouacs, cancelled orders and crossings of marching columns all contributed to exhaust the troops needlessly. On the 9th one corps (the V.) had its direction and disposition altered four times, without any change in the general situation to justify this. In fact, the Austrian headquarters were full of able soldiers, each of whom had his own views on the measures to be taken and a certain measure of support from Vienna--Gyulai, Colonel Kuhn his chief of staff, and Feldzeugmeister Hess, who had formerly played Gneisenau to Radetzky's Blucher. But what emerges most clearly from the movements of these days is that Gyulai himself distrusted the offensive projects he had been ordered to execute, and catching apparently at some expression of approval given by the emperor, had determined to imitate Radetzky in "a defensive based on the Quadrilateral." His immediate intention, on abandoning the advance on Turin was to group his army around Mortara and to strike out as opportunity offered against the heads of the allied columns wherever they appeared. Meantime, the IX. corps had been sent to Italy, and the I. and XI. were mobilizing. These were to form the I. Army, Gyulai's the II. The latter was by the 13th of May grouped in the Lomellina, one third (chiefly VII. corps) spread by brigades fanwise from Vercelli along the Sesia and Po to Vaccarizza, two thirds massed in a central position about Mortara. There was still no information of the enemy's distribution, except what was forwarded from Vienna or gathered by the indefatigable Urban's division, which moved from Milan to Biella, thence to Brescia and Parma, and back to Lombardy in search of revolutionary bands, and the latter's doings in the nature of things could not afford any certain inferences as to the enemy's regular armies.

On the side of the allies, the Piedmontese were grouped on the 1st of May in the fortified positions selected for them by Canrobert about Valenza-Casale-Alessandria. The French III. corps arrived on the 2nd and 3rd and the IV. corps on the 7th at Alessandria from Genoa. Unhampered by Gyulai's offensive, though at times and places disquieted by his minor reconnaissances, the allies assembled until on the 16th the French were stationed as follows: I. corps, Voghera and Pontecurone, II., Sale and Bassignana, III., Tortona, IV., Valenza, Guard, Alessandria, and the king's army between Valenza and Casale. The V. French corps under Prince Napoleon had a political mission in the duchies of middle Italy; one division of this corps, however, followed the main army. On the eve of the first collision the emperor Napoleon, commanding in chief, had in hand about 100,000 French and about 60,000 Sardinian troops (not including Garibaldi's enlisted volunteers or the national guard). Gyulai's II. Army was nominally of nearly equal force to that of the allies, but in reality it was only about 106,000 strong in combatants.

Montebello.

The first battle had no relation to the strategy contemplated by the emperor, and was still less a part of the defence scheme framed by Gyulai. The latter, still pivoting on Mortara, had between the 14th and 19th drawn his army somewhat to the left, in proportion as more and more of the French came up from Genoa. He had further ordered a reconnaissance in force in the direction of Voghera by a mixed corps drawn from the V., Urban's division and the IX. (the last belonging to the I. Army). The saying that "he who does not know what he wants, yet feels that he must do something, appeases his conscience by a reconnaissance in force," applies to no episode more forcibly than to the action of Montebello (20th May) where Count Stadion, the commander of the V. corps, not knowing what to reconnoitre, engaged disconnected fractions of his available 24,000 against the French division of Forey (I. corps), 8000 strong, and was boldly attacked and beaten, with a loss of 1400 men against Forey's 700.

Flank march of the Allies.