THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION
1848
Insurrection in Sicily--The Austrians expelled from Milan and
Venice--Charles Albert takes the Field--Withdrawal of the Pope and King
of Naples--Piedmont defeated--The Retreat.
On the 12th of January, the birthday of the King of the Two Sicilies,
another insurrection broke out in Sicily; this time it was serious
indeed. The City of the Vespers lit the torch which set Europe on
fire.
So began the year of revolution which was to see the kings of the
earth flying, with or without umbrellas, and the principle of monarchy
more shaken by the royal see-saw of submission and vengeance than ever
it was by the block of Whitehall or the guillotine of the Place Louis
XV.
In Italy, the errors and follies of that year were not confined to
princes and governments, but it will remain memorable as the time when
the Italian nation, not a dreamer here or there, or a handful of
heroic madmen, or an isolated city, but the nation as a whole, with an
unanimity new in history, asserted its right and its resolve to exist.
King Ferdinand sent 5000 soldiers to 'make a garden,' as he described
it, of Palermo, if the offers sent at the same time failed to pacify
the inhabitants. These offers were refused with the comment: 'Too
late,' and the Palermitans prepared to resist to the death under the
guidance of the veteran patriot Ruggiero Settimo, Prince of Fitalia.
'Separation,' they said, 'or our English Constitution of 1812.'
Increased irritation was awakened by the discovery in the head office
of the police at Palermo of a secret room full of skeletons, which
were supposed to belong to persons privately murdered. The Neapolitans
were compelled to withdraw with a loss of 3000 men, but before they
went, the general in command let out 4000 convicts, who had been kept
without food for forty-eight hours. The convicts, however, did not
fulfil the intentions of their liberator, and did but little mischief.
Not so the Neapolitan troops, who committed horrors on the peasantry
as they retreated, which provoked acts of retaliation almost as
barbarous. In a short time all Sicily was in its own hands except the
citadel of Messina.
It is not possible to follow the Sicilians in their long struggle for
their autonomy. They stood out for some fourteen months. An English
Blue-book is full of the interminable negotiations conducted by Lord
Napier and the Earl of Minto in the hope of bringing the strife to an
end. When the parliament summoned by the revolutionary government
declared the downfall of the House of Bourbon, all the stray princes
in Europe, including Louis Napoleon, were reviewed as candidates for
the throne. The choice fell on the Duke of Genoa; it was well received
in England, and the British men-of-war were immediately ordered to
salute the Sicilian flag. But the Duke's reign never became a reality.
After an heroic struggle, the islanders were subjugated in the spring
of 1849.
So stout a fight for independence must win admiration, if not
approval. The political reasons against the course taken by the
Sicilians have been suggested in a former chapter. In separating their
lot from that of Naples, in rejecting even freedom unless it was
accompanied by disruption, they hastened the ruin of the Neapolitans
and of themselves, and surely played into the hands of the crafty
tyrant who desired nothing better than to fish in the troubled waters
of his subjects' dissensions.
In the gathering storm of January 1848, the first idea that occurred
to Ferdinand II. was the good old plan of calling in Austrian
assistance. But the Austrians were told by Pius IX. that he would not
allow their troops to pass through his territory. Had they attempted
to pass in spite of his warning, events would have taken a different
turn, as the Pope would have been driven into a war with Austria then
and there; perhaps he would have been glad, as weak people commonly
are, of the compulsion to do what he dared not do without compulsion.
The Austrian Government was too wise to force a quarrel; it was easy
to lock up Austrian subjects for crying 'Viva Pio Nono,' but the
enormous importance of keeping the Head of the Church, if possible, in
a neutral attitude could not be overlooked. All thoughts of going to
Ferdinand's help were politely abandoned, and he, seeing himself in a
defenceless position, and pondering deeply on the upsetting of Louis
Philippe's throne, which was just then the latest news, decided on
that device, dear to all political conjurors, which is known as taking
the wind out of your enemy's sails. The Pope, the Grand Duke of
Tuscany and the King of Sardinia, had worried him for six months with
admonitions. 'Very well,' he now said; 'they urge me forward, I will
precipitate them.' Constitution, representative government, unbridled
liberty of the press, a civic guard, the expulsion of the Jesuits;
what mattered a trifle more or less when everything could be revoked
at the small expense of perjury? Ferdinand posed to perfection in the
character of Citizen King. He reassured those who ventured to show the
least signs of apprehension by saying: 'If I had not intended to carry
out the Statute, I should not have granted it.'
Not many days later, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the King of
Sardinia each promulgated a Charter. In the case of Charles Albert, it
had been formally promised on the 8th of February, after sleepless
nights, severe fasts, much searching of the heart--contrasting
strangely with the gay transformation scene at Naples; but promises
have a more serious meaning to some persons than to others. Nor did
Charles Albert take any pleasure in the shouts of a grateful people.
'Born in revolution,' he once wrote, 'I have traversed all its phases,
and I know well enough what popularity is worth--_viva_ to-day,
_morte_ to-morrow.'
In the Lombardo-Venetian provinces all seemed still quiet, but the
brooding discontent of the masses increased with the increasing
aggressiveness of the Austrian soldiers, while the refusal to grant
the studiously moderate demands of men like Nazari of Bergamo and
Manin and Tommasco of Venice, who were engaged in a campaign of legal
agitation, brought conviction to the most cautious that no measure of
political liberty was obtainable under Austrian rule.
At the Scala Theatre some of the audience had raised cries of 'Viva
Pio Nono' during a performance of _I Lombardi._[3] This was the excuse
for prohibiting every direct or indirect public reference to the
reigning Pontiff. Nevertheless, a few young men were caught singing
the Pope's hymn, upon which the military charged the crowd. On the 3rd
of January the soldiers fell on the people in the Piazza San Carlo,
killing six and wounding fifty-three. The parish priest of the Duomo
said that he had seen Russians, French and Austrians enter Milan as
invaders; but a scene like that of the 3rd of January he had never
witnessed; 'they simply murdered in the streets.'
The _Judicium Statuarium_, equivalent to martial law, was proclaimed
in February; but the Viennese revolution of the 8th of March, and
Prince Metternich's flight to England, were followed by promises to
abolish the censure, and to convoke the central congregations of the
Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. The utmost privilege of these assemblies
was consultative. In 1815 they were invested with the right to 'make
known grievances,' but they had only once managed to perform this
modest function. It was hardly worth while to talk about them on the
18th of March 1848.
On the morning of that day, Count O'Donnel, the Vice-Governor of
Milan, announced the Emperor's concessions. Before night he was the
hostage of the revolution, signing whatever decrees were demanded of
him till in a few hours even his signature was dispensed with. The
Milanese had begun their historic struggle.
Taking refuge in the Citadel, Radetsky wrote to the Podestà, Count
Gabrio Casati (brother of Teresa Confalonieri), that he acknowledged
no authority at Milan except his own and that of his soldiers. Those
who resisted would be guilty of high treason. If arguments did not
avail, he would make use of all the means placed in his hands by an
army of 100,000 men to bring the rebel city to obedience. Unhappily
for Radetsky, there were not any such 100,000 men in Italy, though
long before this he had told Metternich that he could not guarantee
the safety of Lombardy with less than 150,000. In spite of partial
reinforcements, the number did not amount to more than from 72,000 to
75,000, while at Milan it stood at between 15,000 and 20,000. But if
we take the lower estimate, 15,000 regular troops under such a
commander, who, most rare in similar emergencies, knew his own mind,
and had no thought except the recovery of the town for his Sovereign,
constituted a formidable force against a civilian population, which
began the fight with only a few hundred fowling-pieces. The odds on
the side of Austria were tremendous.
If the Milan revolt had been one of the customary revolutions,
arranged with the help of pen and paper, its first day would have been
certainly its last. But even more than the Sicilian Vespers, it was
the unpremeditated, irresistible act of a people sick of being slaves.
At the beginning Casati tried to restrain it; so, with equal or still
stronger endeavours, did the republican Carlo Cattaneo, whose
influence was great. 'You have no arms,' he said again and again. Not
a single man of weight took upon himself the awful responsibility of
urging the unarmed masses upon so desperate an enterprise; but when
the die was cast none held back. Initiated by the populace, the revolt
was led to its victorious close by the nerve and ability of the
influential men who directed its course.
Towards nightfall on the 18th, during which day there had been only
scuffles between the soldiers and the people, Radetsky took the
Broletto, where the Municipality sat, after a two hours' siege, and
sent forthwith a special messenger to the Emperor with the news that
the revolution was on a fair way to being completely crushed.
Meanwhile, he massed his troops at all the entrances to the city, so
that at dawn he might strangle the insurrection by a concentric
movement, as in a noose. The plan was good; but to-morrow does not
belong even to the most experienced of Field-Marshals.
In all quarters of the city barricades sprang up like mushrooms.
Everything went, freely given, to their construction; the benches of
the Scala, the beds of the young seminarists, the court carriages,
found hidden in a disused church, building materials of the
half-finished Palazzo d'Adda, grand pianofortes, valuable pieces of
artistic furniture, and the old kitchen table of the artisan. Before
the end of the fight the barricades numbered 1523. Young nobles,
dressed in the velvet suits then in vogue, cooks in their white
aprons, even women and children, rushed to the defence of the
improvised fortifications. Luciano Manara and other heroes, who
afterwards fell at Rome, were there to lead. In the first straits for
want of arms the museums of the Uboldi and Poldi-Pozzoli families were
emptied of their rare treasures by permission of the owners; the crowd
brandished priceless old swords and specimens of early firearms. More
serviceable weapons were obtained by degrees from the Austrian killed
and wounded, and from the public offices which fell into their hands.
Bolza, long the hated agent of the Austrian police, was discovered by
the people, but they did not harm him. Throughout the five days, the
Milanese showed a forbearance which was the more admirable, because
there can be no doubt that when the Austrians found they were getting
the worst of it, they vented their rage in deplorable outrages on
non-combatants. That Radetsky was personally to blame for these
excesses has never been alleged, and it was perhaps beyond the power
of the officers to keep discipline among soldiers who, towards the
end, were wild with panic.
'The very foundations of the city were torn up,' wrote the
Field-Marshal in his official report; 'not hundreds, but thousands of
barricades crossed the streets. Such circumspection and audacity were
displayed that it was evident military leaders were at the head of the
people. The character of the Milanese had become quite changed.
Fanaticism had seized every rank and age and both sexes.'
As always happens with street-fighting, the number of the slain has
never been really known; the loss of the citizens was small compared
with that of the Austrians, who, according to some authorities, lost
5000, between killed and wounded.
Radetsky ordered the evacuation of the town and citadel on the night
of Wednesday, the 22nd of March. The Milanese had won much more than
freedom--they had won the right to it. And what they had done they had
done alone. When the news that the capital was up in arms spread
through Lombardy, there was but one gallant impulse, to fly to its
aid. But the earliest to arrive, Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco, with
his troop of Brescian peasants, found when he reached Milan that they
were a few hours too late to share in the last shots fired upon the
retreating Austrians.
Nowhere, except in Milan, did the revolution meet with a Radetsky. The
Austrian authorities became convinced that their position was
untenable, and they desired to avoid a useless sacrifice of life.
This, rather than cowardly fears, was the motive which induced Count
Palffy and Count Zichy, the civil and military governors of Venice, to
yield the city without deluging it in blood. The latter had been
guilty of negligence in leaving the Venetian arsenal in charge of
troops so untrustworthy that Manin could take it on the 22nd of March
by a simple display of his own courage, and without striking a blow,
but after this first success on the side of the revolution, which
supplied the people with an unlimited stock of arms and ammunition,
the Austrians did well to give way even from their own point of view.
At seven o'clock on the evening of the 22nd of March, the famous
capitulation was signed. Manin's prediction of the previous day,
'To-morrow the city will be in my power, or I shall be dead,' had been
realised in the first alternative.
Daniel Manin, who was now forty-four years of age, was by profession a
lawyer, by race a Jew. His father became a Christian, and, according
to custom, took the surname of his godfather, who belonged to the
family of the last Doge of Venice. Manin and the Dalmatian scholar,
Niccolò Tommaseo, had been engaged in patiently adducing proof after
proof that Austria did not even abide by her own laws when the
expression of political opinion was concerned. At the beginning of the
revolution they were in prison, and Palffy's first act of surrender
was to set them free. Henceforth Manin was undisputed lord of the
city. It is strange how, all at once, a man who was only slightly
known to the world should have been chosen as spokesman and ruler. It
did not, however, happen by chance. The people in Italy are observant;
the Venetians had observed Manin, and they trusted him. The power of
inspiring trust was what gave this Jewish lawyer his ascendancy, not
the talents which usually appeal to the masses. He had not the
advantage of an imposing presence, for he was short, slight, with blue
eyes and bushy hair; in all things he was the opposite to a demagogue;
he never beguiled, or flattered, or told others what he did not
believe himself. But, on his side, he _knew_ the people, whom most
revolutionary leaders know not at all. 'That is my sole merit,' he
used to say. It was that which enabled him to cleanse Venice from the
stain of having bartered her freedom for the smile of a conqueror, and
give her back the name and inheritance of 'eldest child of liberty.'
It was a matter of course that emancipated Venice should assume a
republican form of government. Here the republic was a restoration. At
Milan the case was different; there were two parties, that of
Cattaneo, which was strongly republican, that of Casati, which was
strongly monarchical. There was a third party, which thought of
nothing except of never again seeing a soldier with a white coat. By
mutual agreement, the Provisional Government declared that the
decision as to the form of government should be left to calmer days.
For a time this compromise produced satisfactory results.
The revolution gained ground. Francis of Modena executed a rapid flight,
and the Duke of Parma presently followed him. By the end of March,
Lombardy and Venetia were free, saving the fortresses of the
Quadrilateral. The exception was of far greater moment than, in the
enchantment of the hour, anyone dreamt of confessing. Mantua, Legnano,
Peschiera and Verona were so many cities of refuge to the flying
Austrian troops, where they could rest in safety and nurse their
strength. Still, the results achieved were great, almost incredible;
with the expectation that Rome, Naples, Tuscany and Piedmont would send
their armies to consolidate the work already done, it was natural to
think that, whatever else might happen, Austrian dominion was a thing of
the past. Alessandro Bixio (brother of the General), who was a
naturalised Frenchman, wrote to the French Government on the 7th of
April from Turin: 'In the ministries, in meetings, in the streets, you
only see and hear people to whom the question of Italian independence
seems to be one of those historical questions about which the time is
past for talking. According to the general opinion, Austria is nothing
but a phantom, and the army of Radetsky a shadow.' Such were the hopes
that prevailed. They were vain, but they did not appear so then.
Pius IX. seemed to throw in his lot definitely with the revolution
when, on the 19th of March, he too granted a Constitution, having
previously formed a lay ministry, which included Marco Minghetti and
Count Pasolini, under the presidency of Cardinal Antonelli, who thus
makes his first appearance as Liberal Premier. That the Roman
Constitution was an unworkable attempt to reconcile lay and
ecclesiastical pretensions, that the proposed Chamber of Deputies,
which was not to make laws affecting education, religious
corporations, the registration of births and marriages; or to confer
civil rights on non-catholics, or to touch the privileges and
immunities of the clergy, might have suited Cloud-cuckoo-town, but
would not suit the solid earth, were facts easy to recognise, but no
one had time to pause and consider. It was sufficient to hear Pius
proclaim that in the wind which was uprooting oaks and cedars might be
clearly distinguished the Voice of the Lord. Such utterances, mingled
with blessings on Italy, brought balm to patriotic souls. The Liberals
had no fear that the Pope would veto the participation of his troops
in the national war, for they were blind to the complications with
which a fighting Pope would find himself embarrassed in the middle of
the nineteenth century. But the other party discerned these
complications from the first, and knew what use to make of them.
The powers of reaction had only to catch hold of a perfectly modern
sentiment, the doctrine that ecclesiastics should be men of peace, in
order to dissipate the myth of a Pope liberator. It was beside the
question that, from the moment he accepted such a doctrine, the Pope
condemned the institution of prince-bishoprics, of which he
represented the last survival. Nor was it material that, if he adopted
it, consistency should have made him carry it to its logical
consequence of non-resistance. By aid of this theory of a peaceful
Pontiff, with the threat, in reserve, of a schism, Austria felt
confident that she could avoid the enormous moral inconvenience of a
Pope in arms against her.
Either, however, the full force of the influence which caused Pius IX.
to draw back was not brought to bear till somewhat late in the day, or
the part acted by him during the months of March and April can be
hardly acquitted of dissimulation. War preparations were continued,
with the warm co-operation of the Cardinal President of the Council,
and when General Durando started for the frontier with 17,000 men, he
would have been a bold man who had said openly in Rome that they were
intended not to fight.
While the Pope was still supposed to favour the war, Ferdinand of
Naples did not dare to oppose the enthusiasm of his subjects, and the
demand that a Neapolitan contingent should be sent to Lombardy. The
first relay of troops actually started, but the generals had secret
orders to take the longest route, and to lose as much time as
possible.
Tuscany had a very small army, but such assistance as she could give
was both promised and given. The fate of the Tuscan corps of 6000 men
will be related hereafter. The Grand Duke Leopold identified himself
with the Italian cause with more sincerity than was to be found at
Rome or Naples; still, the material aid that he could offer counted as
next to nothing.
There remained Piedmont and Charles Albert. Now was the time for the
army which he had created (for Charles Felix left no army worthy of
the name) to assert upon the Lombard fields the reason of its
existence. War with Austria was declared on the 23rd of March. It was
midnight; a vast crowd waited in silence in Piazza Castello. At last
the windows of the palace were opened, a sudden flood of light from
within illuminating the scene. Charles Albert stepped upon the balcony
between his two sons. He was even paler than usual, but a smile such
as no one had seen before was on his lips. He waved the long
proscribed tricolor slowly over the heads of the people.
The King said in his proclamation that 'God had placed Italy in a
position to provide for herself ('in grado di fare da sè'). Hence the
often repeated phrase: 'L'Italia farà da sè.' He told the Lombard
delegates, who met him at Pavia that he would not enter their capital,
which had shown such signal valour, till after he had won a victory.
He declared to all that his only aim was to complete the splendid work
of liberation so happily begun; questions of government would be
reserved for the conclusion of the war. Joy was the order of the day,
but the fatal mistakes of the campaign had already commenced; there
had been inexcusable delay in declaring war; if it was pardonable to
wait for the Milanese initiative, it was as inexpedient as it seemed
ungenerous to wait till the issue of the struggle at Milan was
decided. Then, after the declaration of war, considering that the
Sardinian Government must have seen its imminence for weeks, and
indeed for months, there was more time lost than ought to have been
the case in getting the troops under weigh. Still, at the opening of
the campaign, two grand possibilities were left. The first was
obviously to cut Radetsky off in his painful retreat, largely
performed along country by-roads, as he had to avoid the principal
cities which were already free. Had Charles Albert caught him up while
he was far from the Quadrilateral, the decisive blow would have been
struck, and the only man who could save Austria in Italy would have
been taken prisoner. Radetsky chose the route of Lodi and the lower
Brescian plains to Montechiaro, where the encampments were ready for
the Austrian spring manoeuvres: from this point an easy march carried
him under the walls of Verona. Here he met General d'Aspre, who had
just arrived with the garrison of Padua. D'Aspre, by skill and
resolution, had brought his men from Padua without losing one, having
refused the Paduans arms for a national guard, though ordered from
Milan to grant them. 'You come to tell me all is lost,' said the
Field-Marshal when they met 'No,' rejoined the younger general, 'I
come to tell you all is saved.'
This great chance missed, there was another which could have been
seized. Mantua, extraordinary to relate, was defended by only three
hundred artillerymen and a handful of hussars. It would have fallen
into the hands of its own citizens but for the presence of mind of its
commandant, the Polish General Gorzhowsky, who told them that to no
one on earth would he deliver the keys of the fortress except to his
Emperor, and that the moment he could no longer defend it he would
blow it into the air, with himself and half Mantua. He showed them the
flint and the steel with which he intended to do the deed. Enemy
though he was, that incident ought to be recorded in letters of gold
on the gates of Mantua, as a perpetual lesson of that most difficult
thing for a country founded in revolution to learn: the meaning of a
soldier's duty.
It is easy to see that, if Charles Albert had made an immediate dash
on Mantua, the fortress, or its ruins, would have been his, to the
enormous detriment of the Austrian position. But this chance too was
missed. On the 31st of March, the 9000 men sent with all speed by
Radetsky to the defenceless fortress arrived, and henceforth Mantua
was safe. Charles Albert only got within fifteen or sixteen miles of
it five days later, to find that all hope of its capture was gone.
The campaign began with political as well as with military mistakes.
At the same time that the King of Sardinia was declaring in the
Proclamation addressed to the Lombards that, full of admiration of the
glorious feats performed in their capital, he came to their aid as
brother to brother, friend to friend, his ambassadors were trying to
persuade the foreign Powers, and especially Austria, Prussia and
Russia, that the only object of the war was to avoid a revolution in
Piedmont, and to prevent the establishment of a republic in Lombardy.
No one was convinced or placated by these assurances; far better as
policy than so ignominious an attempt at hedging would have been the
acknowledgment to all the world of the noble crime of patriotism. But,
as Massimo d'Azeglio once observed, Charles Albert had the incurable
defect of thinking himself cunning. It was, moreover, only too true
that, although in these diplomatic communications the King allowed the
case against him to be stated with glaring exaggeration, yet they
contained an element of fact. He _was_ afraid of revolution at home;
he _was_ afraid of a Lombard republic; these were not the only, nor
were they the strongest, motives which drove him into the war, but
they were motives which, associated with deeper causes, contributed
to the disasters of the future.
The Piedmontese force was composed of two _corps d'armée,_ the first
under General Bava and the second under General Sonnaz: each amounted
to 24,000 men. The reserves, under the Duke of Savoy, numbered 12,000.
Radetsky, at first (after strengthening the garrisons in the
fortresses), could not put into the field more than 40,000 men. As has
been stated, the King assumed the supreme command, which led to a
constant wavering between the original plan of General Bava, a capable
officer, and the criticisms and suggestions of the staff. The greatest
mistake of all, that of never bringing into the field at once more
than about half the army, was not without connection with the supposed
necessity, based on political reasons, of garrisoning places in the
rear which might have been safely left to the care of their national
guards.
Besides the royal army, there were in the field 17,000 Romans, 3000
Modenese and Parmese, and 6000 Tuscans. There were also several
companies of Lombard volunteers, Free Corps, as they were called,
which might have been increased to almost any extent had they not been
discouraged by the King, who was believed to look coldly on all these
extraneous allies, either from doubt of their efficiency, or from the
wish to keep the whole glory of the campaign for his Piedmontese army.
The first engagements were on the line of the Mincio. On the 8th of
April the Sardinians carried the bridge of Goito after a fight of four
hours. The burning of the village of Castelnuovo on the 12th, as a
punishment for its having received Manara's band of volunteers,
excited great exasperation; many of the unfortunate villagers perished
in the flames, and this and other incidents of the same kind did much
towards awakening a more vivid hatred of the Austrians among the
peasants.
After easily gaining possession of the left (Venetian) bank of the
Mincio, Charles Albert employed himself in losing time over chimerical
operations with a view to taking the fortresses of Peschiera and
Mantua, now strongly garrisoned, and impregnable while their
provisions lasted. This object governed the conduct of the campaign,
and caused the waste of precious months during every day of which
General Nugent, with his 30,000 men, was approaching one step nearer
from the mountains of Friuli, and General Welden, with his 10,000,
down the passes of Tyrol. If, instead of playing at sieges, Charles
Albert had cut off these reinforcements, Radetsky would have been
rendered powerless, and the campaign would have had another
termination. Never was there a war in which the adoption of Napoleon's
system of crushing his opponents one by one, when he could not
outnumber them if united, was more clearly indicated.
General Durando crossed the Po on the 21st of April with 17,000 men,
partly Pontifical troops and partly volunteers, to which weak corps
fell the task of opposing Nugent's advance in Venetia. The colours of
the Pontifical troops were solemnly blessed before they left Rome, but
as the order was only given to go to the frontier, and nothing was
said, though everything was understood, about crossing it, the Pope
was technically able to assert that the war was none of his making.
His ministry ventured to suggest to him that the situation was
peculiar. Now it was that Catholic Austria and Russia, herself
schismatic, flourished in the face of the Pope the portentous scare of
a new schism. It is said that the Pope's confessor, a firm Liberal,
died just at this time, not without suspicion of poison. Thoroughly
alarmed in his spiritual capacity, the Pope issued his Encyclical
Letter of the 29th of April--when his ministers and the whole country
still hoped from day to day that he would formally declare war--in
which he protested that his sacred office obliged him to embrace all
nations in an equal paternal love. If his subjects, he added, followed
the example of the other Italians, he could not help it: a
half-hearted admission which could not mitigate the indignation which
the document called forth. With regard to Durando's corps, the Pope
did what was the best thing under the altered circumstances; he sent
L.C. Farini as envoy to the King of Sardinia, with the request that he
would take the Roman troops under his supreme command, the Papal
Government agreeing to continue the pay of such of them as belonged to
the regular army. Pius IX. made one last effort to help his
fellow-countrymen which people hardly noticed, so futile did it
appear, but which was probably made in profound seriousness. He wrote
a letter to the Emperor of Austria begging him to make all things
right and pleasant by voluntarily withdrawing from his Italian
dominions. Popes had dictated to sovereigns before now; was there not
Canossa? Besides, if a miracle was sought, why should not a miracle
happen? Pope and Emperor shaking hands over a free Italy and a world
reconciled--how delightful the prospect! Who can doubt that when the
Pope wrote that letter all the beautiful dreams of Cardinal Mastai
carried him once more away (it was the last time) in an ecstasy of
blissful hopes? 'Let not your Majesty take offence,' ran the appeal,
'if we turn to your pity and religion, exhorting you with fatherly
affection to desist from a war which, powerless to re-conquer the
hearts of the Lombards and Venetians, can only lead to a dark series
of calamities. Nor let the generous Germanic nation take offence if
we invite it to abandon old hatreds, and convert into useful relations
of friendly neighbourhood a dominion which can be neither noble nor
happy if it depend only on the sword. Thus we trust in the nation
itself, honestly proud of its own nationality, to no longer make a
point of honour of sanguinary attempts against the Italian nation, but
rather to perceive that its true honour lies in recognising Italy as a
sister.'
The Emperor received the bearer of the letter with coldness, and
referred him to his ministers, who simply called his attention to the
fact that the Pope owed the Temporal Power to the same treaties as
those which gave Austria the possession of Lombardy and Venetia.
The day after the publication of the Encyclical, that is to say, the
30th of April, the Piedmontese obtained their first important success
in the battle of Pastrengo, near Peschiera. Fighting from daybreak to
sundown, they drove the enemy back into Verona, with a loss of 1200
killed and wounded. The Austrians were in rather inferior numbers; but
the victory was highly creditable to the hitherto untried army of
Piedmont, and showed that it contained excellent fighting material. It
was not followed up, and might nearly as well have never been fought.
The Neapolitan troops, of whom 41,000 were promised, 17,000 being on
the way already, were intended to reinforce Durando's corps in
Venetia. With the two or three battalions which Manin could spare from
the little army of Venice, the Italian forces opposed to Nugent's
advance would have been brought up to 60,000 men; in which case not
even Charles Albert's 'masterly inactivity' could have given Austria
the victory.
The Neapolitan Parliament convoked under the new Constitution was to
meet on the 15th of May. A dispute had been going on for several days
between the Sovereign and the deputies about the form of the
parliamentary oath, the deputies wishing that the Chambers should be
left free to amend or alter the Statute, while the King desired that
they should be bound by oath to maintain it as it was presented to
them. It was unwise to provoke a disagreement which was sure to
irritate the King. However, late on the 14th, he appeared to yield,
and consented that the wording of the oath should be referred to the
discussion of Parliament itself. It seems that, at the same time, he
ordered the troops of the garrison to take up certain positions in the
city. A colonel of the National Guard raised the cry of royal treason,
calling upon the people to rise, which a portion of them did, and
barricades were constructed in the Toledo and other of the principal
streets. A more insane and culpable thing than this attempt at
revolution was never put in practice. It was worse even than that 20th
of May at Milan, which threw Eugene into the arms of Austria. Its
consequences were those which everyone could have foreseen--a two
days' massacre in the streets of Naples, begun by the troops and
continued by the lazzaroni, who were allowed to pillage to their
hearts' content; the deputies dispersed with threats of violence,
Parliament dissolved before it had sat, the original Statute torn up,
and (by far the most important) the Neapolitan troops, now at Bologna,
recalled to Naples. This was the pretty work of the few hundred
reckless rioters on the 15th of May.
Had not Pius IX. by this time repudiated all part in the war, the King
of the Two Sicilies would have thought twice before he recalled his
contingent, though the counsels of neutrality which he received from
another quarter--from Lord Palmerston in the name of the English
Government--strengthened his hand not a little in carrying out a
defection which was the direct ruin of the Italian cause. When the
order to return reached Bologna, the veteran patriot, General Pepe,
who had been summoned from exile to take the chief command, resolved
to disobey, and invited the rest to follow him. Nearly the whole of
the troops were, however, faithful to their military oath. The
situation was horrible. The choice lay between the country in danger
and the King, who, false and perjured though he might be, was still
the head of the State, to whom each soldier had sworn obedience. One
gallant officer escaped from the dilemma by shooting himself. Pepe,
with a single battalion of the line, a company of engineers, and two
battalions of volunteers, went to Venice, where they fought like
heroes to the end.
On the 27th of May, Radetsky, taking the offensive with about 40,000
men, marched towards Mantua, near which was stationed the small Tuscan
corps, whose commander only received when too late General Bava's
order to retire from an untenable position. On the 29th the Austrians,
in overwhelming numbers, bore down upon the 6000 Tuscans at Montanara
and Curtatone, and defeated them after a resistance of six hours. The
Tuscan professor, Giuseppe Montanelli, fell severely wounded while
holding the dead body of his favourite pupil, but he recovered to show
less discretion in politics than he had shown valour in the field.
Peschiera, where the supplies were exhausted, capitulated on the 30th,
and the day after found 22,000 Piedmontese ready to give Radetsky
battle at Goito, whence, after a severe contest, they drove him back
to Mantua. The Austrians lost 3000 out of 25,000 men. The honours of
the day fell to the Savoy brigade, which was worthy of its own fame
and of the future King of Italy, who was slightly wounded while
leading it. Outwardly this seemed the most fortunate period of the war
for Charles Albert, but that had already happened which was to cause
the turning of the tide. Nugent, with his 30,000 men, had joined
Radetsky. His march across Venetia was harassed by the inhabitants,
who left him no peace, especially in the mountain districts, but the
poor little force of Romans and volunteers under Durando and Ferrari
was unable to seriously check his progress in the open country, though
he failed in the attempt to take the towns of Treviso and Vicenza in
his passage. The repulse of the Austrians, 18,000 strong, from Vicenza
on the 23rd of May, did great credit to Durando, who only had 10,000
men, most of them _Crociati_, as the volunteers were called, whose
ideas about fighting were original. It is hard to see how this General
could have done more than he did with the materials at his disposal,
or in what way he merited the abuse which was heaped upon him. The
case would have been very different if his hybrid force had been
supported by the Neapolitan army.
Nugent was ordered by Radetsky to let the intermediate places alone,
and to come on to him as fast as circumstances would admit. The
junction of their troops was, the Field-Marshal saw, of vital
necessity, but when this was achieved, and when Welden had also
brought his 15,000 fresh men from Tyrol, he turned his attention to
Vicenza, since, as long as that town remained in Durando's hands,
Venetia would still be free. He conceived the bold plan of making an
excursion to Vicenza with his complete army, while Charles Albert
enjoyed the pleasant illusion that the Austrians were in full retreat
owing to his success at Goito. The result of Radetsky's attack was not
doubtful, but the defence of the town on the 10th of June could not
have been more gallant; the 3500 Swiss, the Pontifical Carabineers,
and the few other troops belonging to the regular army of the Pope did
wonders. Cialdini, the future general, and Massimo d'Azeglio, the
future prime minister, fought in this action, and the latter was
severely wounded. After several hours' resistance there was nothing to
be done but to hoist the white flag; Radetsky's object was
accomplished, the Venetian _terra firma_ was practically once more in
the power of Austria. On the 14th he was back again at Verona without
the least harm having happened in his absence.
Only military genius of the first order could now have saved the
Piedmontese, and what prevailed was the usual infatuation. Charles
Albert's lines were extended across forty miles of country, from
Peschiera to Goito. On the 23rd of July the Austrians fell upon their
weakest point, and obliged Sonnaz' division to cross over to the right
bank of the Mincio. On the 24th, the King succeeded in dislodging the
Austrians from Custozza after four hours' struggle; but next day,
which was spent entirely in fighting, Radetsky retook Custozza, and
obliged the King to fall back on Villafranca. Now began the terrible
retreat on Milan, performed under the ceaseless fire of the pursuers,
who attacked and defeated the retreating army for the last time, close
to Milan, on the 4th of August. Radetsky had with him 45,000 men;
Charles Albert's forces were reduced to 25,000. He had lost 5000 since
he recrossed the Mincio. He begged for a truce, and, defeated and
undone, he entered the city which he had vowed should only receive him
victorious.
To suppose that anything could have been gained by subjecting Milan to
the horrors of a siege seems at this date the veriest madness;
whatever Charles Albert's sins were, the capitulation of Milan was not
among them. The members of a wild faction, however, demanded
resistance to the death, or the death of the King if he refused. It is
their severest censure to say that their pitiless fury is not excused
even by the tragic fate of a population which, having gained freedom
unaided less than six months before, saw itself given back to its
ancestral foe by the man in whom it had hoped as a saviour. They saw
crimes where there were only blunders, which had brought the King to a
pass only one degree less wretched than their own. Crushed,
humiliated, his army half destroyed, his personal ambition--to rate no
higher the motive of his actions--trodden in the dust; and now the
name of traitor was hissed in his ears by those for whom he had made
these sacrifices.
Stung to the heart, the King instructed General Bava to tell the
Milanese that if they were ready to bury themselves under the ruins of
the city, he and his sons were ready to do the same. But the
Municipality, convinced of the desperateness of the situation, had
already entered into negotiations with Radetsky, by which the
capitulation was ratified. On this becoming known, the Palazzo Greppi,
where Charles Albert lodged, was the object of a new display of rage;
an attempt was even made to set it on fire. During the night, the King
succeeded in leaving the palace on foot, guarded by a company of
Bersaglieri and accompanied by his son, the Duke of Genoa, who, on
hearing of his father's critical position, disobeyed the order to stay
with his regiment, and came into the city to share his danger.
The next day, the 6th of August, the Austrians reentered Milan. They
themselves said that the Milanese seemed distraught. The Municipality
was to blame for having concealed from the people the real state of
things, by publishing reports of imaginary victories. Had the
unthinking fury of the mob ended, as it so nearly ended, in an
irreparable crime, the authors of these falsehoods would have been,
more than anyone else, responsible for the catastrophe.
The campaign of 1848 was finished. From the frontier, Charles Albert
issued a proclamation to his people, calling upon the Piedmontese to
render the common misfortunes less difficult to bear by giving his
army a brotherly reception. 'In its ranks,' he concluded, 'are my sons
and I, ready, as we all are, for new sacrifices, new hardships, or for
death itself for our beloved fatherland.'
The political and diplomatic transactions connected with the war in
Lombardy were the subject after it closed of much discussion, and of
some violent recriminations. Even from the short account given in
these pages, it ought to be apparent that the supreme cause of
disaster was simply bad generalship. Contemporaries, however, judged
otherwise; if they were monarchists, they attributed the failure to
the want of whole-hearted co-operation of the Provisional Governments
of Lombardy with the liberating King; if they were republicans, they
attributed it to the King's want of trust in the popular element, and
anxiety lest, instead of receiving an increase of territory, he should
find himself confronted with a new republic at his door. Both parties
were so far correct that the strain of double purposes, or, at least,
of incompatible aspirations which ran through the conduct of affairs,
militated against a fortunate ending. The Piedmontese Government,
even had it wished, would have found it difficult to adhere strictly
to the programme of leaving all political matters for discussion after
the war. What actually happened was that the union, under the not
altogether attractive form of Fusion with Piedmont (instead of in the
shape of the formation of an Italian kingdom), was effected at the end
of June and beginning of July over the whole of Lombardy and Venetia,
including Venice, where, perhaps alone, the feeling against it was not
that of a party, but of the bulk of the population. Manin shared that
feeling, but his true patriotism induced him to push on the Fusion in
order to avoid the risk of civil war. He retired into private life the
day it was accomplished, only to become again by acclamation Head of
the State when the reverses of Sardinia obliged the King's Government
to renounce the whole of his scarcely--acquired possessions, not
excepting Modena, which had been the first, by a spontaneous
plebiscite, to elect him Sovereign.
The diplomatic history of the war is chiefly the history of the
efforts of the English Cabinet to pull up a runaway horse. Lord Minto
had been sent to urge the Italian princes to grant those concessions
which Austria always said (and she was perfectly right) would lead to
a general attack upon her power, but when the attack began, the
British Government strained every nerve to limit its extension and
diminish its force. That Lord Palmerston in his own mind disliked
Austria, and would have been glad to see North Italy free, does not
alter the fact that he played the Austrian game, and played it with
success. He strongly advised every Italian prince to abstain from the
conflict, and it is further as certain as anything can well be, that
his influence, exercised through Lord Normanby, alone averted French
intervention in August 1848, when the desperate state of things made
the Italians willing to accept foreign aid. What would have happened
if the French had intervened it is interesting to speculate, but
impossible to decide. Their help was not desired, except as a last
resource, by any party in Italy, nor by any man of note except Manin.
The republicans wished Italy to owe her liberation to herself; Charles
Albert wished her to owe it to him. The King also feared a republican
propaganda, and was uneasy, not without reason, about Savoy and Nice.
Lamartine would probably have been satisfied with the former, but it
is doubtful if Charles Albert, though capable of giving up his crown
for Italy, would have been capable of renouncing the cradle of his
race. When Lamartine was succeeded by Cavaignac, perhaps Nice would
have been demanded as well as Savoy. That both the King and Mazzini
were right in mistrusting the sentiments of the French Government, is
amply testified by a letter written by Jules Bastide to the French
representative at Turin, in which the Minister of Foreign Affairs
speaks of the danger to France of the formation of a strong monarchy
at the foot of the Alps, that would tend to assimilate the rest of
Italy, adding the significant words: 'We could admit the unity of
Italy on the principle and in the form of a federation of independent
states, each balancing the other, but never a unity which placed the
whole of Italy under the dominion of one of these states.'
Whether, in spite of all this, a political mistake was not made in not
accepting French aid when it was first offered (in the spring of 1848)
must remain an open question. When the French came eleven years later,
they were actuated by no purer motives, but who would say that Cavour,
instead of seeking, should have refused the French alliance?
One other point has still to be noticed: the proposal made by Austria
in the month of May to give up Lombardy unconditionally if she might
keep Venetia, which was promised a separate administration and a
national army. Nothing shows the state of mind then prevailing in a
more distinct light than the scorn with which this offer was
everywhere treated. Lord Palmerston declined to mediate on such a
basis 'because there was no chance of the proposal being entertained,'
which proved correct, as when it was submitted to the Provisional
Government of Milan, it was not even thought worth taking into
consideration. No one would contemplate the sacrifice of Venice by a
new Campo Formio.
Far, indeed, was Austria the victorious in August from Austria the
humiliated in May. On the 9th of August, Hess and Salasco signed the
armistice between the lately contending Powers. The next day the
Emperor Ferdinand returned to his capital, from which he had been
chased in the spring. He might well congratulate himself upon the
marvellous recovery of his empire; but the revolution in Hungary was
yet to be quelled, and another rising at Vienna in October tried his
nerves, which were never of the strongest. On the 2nd of December he
abdicated in favour of his young nephew, the Archduke Francis Joseph,
who had been brought face to face more than once on the Mincio with
the Duke of Savoy, whom he rivalled in personal courage.
On the 10th of December, another event occurred which placed a new
piece on the European chess-board: Louis Napoleon was elected to the
Presidency of the French Republic.