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45,000 regulars two days after the Austrians had withdrawn from Milan.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.