[1] Several of the French generals--Lamoriciere, Bedeau, Changarnier
and others--who had been prominent in Algeria and in the 1848
revolution in France had been invited to take the command, but had
declined it.
[2] Students of Napoleonic strategy will find it interesting to
replace Ramorino by, say, Lannes, and to post Durando at
Mortara-Vigevano instead of Vespolate-Vigevano, and from these
conditions to work out the probable course of events.
[3] Ramorino's defence was that he had received information that the
Austrians were advancing on Alessandria by the south bank of the Po.
But Alessandria was a fortress, and could be expected to hold out for
forty-eight hours; moreover, it could easily have been succoured by
way of Valenza if necessary.
[4] The Sardinians, at peace strength, had some 50,000 men, and
during January and February the government busied itself chiefly with
preparations of supplies and armament. Here the delay in calling out
the reserves was due not to their possible ill-will, but to the
necessity of waiting on the political situation.
[5] The Volunteer movement in England was the result of this crisis
in the relations of England and France.
[6] As far as possible Italian conscripts had been sent elsewhere and
replaced by Austrians.
[7] The movements of the division employed in policing Lombardy
(Urban's) are not included here, unless specially mentioned.
[8] The advantages and dangers of the flank march are well summarized
in Colonel H. C. Wylly's _Magenta and Solferino_, p. 65, where the
doctrinaire objections of Hamley and Rustow are set in parallel with
the common-sense views of a much-neglected English writer (Major
Adams, _Great Campaigns_) and with the clear and simple doctrine of
Moltke, that rested on the principle that strategy does not exist to
avoid but to give effect to tactics. The waste of time in execution,
rather than the scheme, is condemned by General Silvestre.
ITALIC, i.e. Italian, in Roman archaeology, history and law, a term
used, as distinct from Roman, of that which belongs to the races,
languages, &c., of the non-Roman parts of Italy (see ITALY, _Ancient
Languages and Peoples_). In architecture the Italic order is another
name for the Composite order (see ORDER). The term was applied to the
Pythagorean school of philosophy in Magna Graecia, and to an early Latin
version of the Bible, known also as _Itala_, which was superseded by the
Vulgate, but its special technical use is of a particular form of type,
in which the letters slope to the right. This is used, in present-day
printing, chiefly to emphasize words or phrases, to indicate words or
sentences in a foreign language, or to mark the titles of books, &c. It
was introduced by the Aldine Press (see MANUTIUS and TYPOGRAPHY).