Italian Wars

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 Königgrätz—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 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

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.

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, Pélissier, 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 Mobilization. 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.

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 Austrian movements. 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.

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 Austrians grouped at Mortara. 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 Blücher. 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.

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 Montebello. 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.

Montebello had, however, one singular result: both sides fell back and took defensive measures. The French headquarters were already meditating, if they had not actually resolved upon, a transfer of all their forces Flank march of the Allies. from right to left, to be followed by a march on Milan (a scheme inspired by Jomini). But the opening of the movement was suspended until it became quite certain that Stadion’s advance meant nothing, while Gyulai (impressed by Forey’s aggressive tactics) continued to stand fast, and thus it was not until the 28th that the French offensive really began.8 The infantry of the French III. corps was sent by rail from Pontecurone to Casale, followed by the rest of the army, which marched by road. To cover the movement D’Autemarre’s division of Prince Napoleon’s corps (V.) was posted at Voghera and one division of the king’s army remained at Valenza. The rest of the Piedmontese were pushed northward to join Cialdini’s division which was already at Vercelli. The emperor’s orders were for Victor Emmanuel to push across the Sesia and to take post at Palestro on the 30th to cover the crossing of the French at Vercelli. This the king carried out, driving back outlying bodies of the enemy in spite of a stubborn resistance and the close and difficult character of the country. Hearing of the fighting, Gyulai ordered the recapture of Palestro by the II. corps, but the Sardinians during the night strengthened their positions and the attack (31st) was repulsed with heavy loss. These two initial successes of the allies, the failures in Austrian tactics and leadership which they revealed, and the fatigues and privation to which indifferent staff work had exposed his troops, combined to confirm Gyulai in his now openly expressed intention of “basing his defensive on the Quadrilateral.” And indeed his only alternatives were now to fall back or to concentrate on the heads of the French columns as soon as they had passed the Sesia about Vercelli. Faithful to his view of the situation he adopted the former course (1st June). The retreat began on the 2nd, while the French were still busied in closing up. Equally with the Austrians, the French were the victims of a system of marching and camping that, by requiring the tail of the columns to close up on the head every evening, reduced the day’s net progress to 6 or 7 m., although the troops were often under arms for fourteen or fifteen hours. The difference between the supreme commands of the rival armies lay not in the superior generalship of one or the other, but in the fact that Napoleon III. as sovereign knew what he wanted and as general pursued this object with much energy, whereas Gyulai neither knew how far his government would go nor was entire “master in his own house.”

The latter became very evident in his retreat. Kuhn, the chief of staff, who was understood to represent the views of the general staff in Vienna, had already protested against Gyulai’s retrograde movement, and on the 3rd Hess Austrian retreat. appeared from Vienna as the emperor’s direct representative and stopped the movement. It was destined to be resumed after a short interval, but meanwhile the troops suffered from the orders and counter-orders that had marked every stage in the Austrian movements and were now intensified instead of being removed by higher intervention. Meanwhile (June 1-2) the allies had regrouped themselves east of the Sesia for the movement on Milan. The IV. corps, driving out an Austrian detachment at Novara, established itself there, and was joined by the II. and Guard. The king’s army, supported by the I. and III. corps, was about Vercelli, with cavalry far out to the front towards Vespolate. From Novara, the emperor, who desired to give his troops a rest-day on the 2nd, pushed out first a mixed reconnaissance and then in the afternoon two divisions French advance to the Ticino. to seize the crossing of the Ticino, Camou’s of the Guard on Turbigo, Espinasse’s of the II. corps on San Martino. Further the whole of the Vercelli group was ordered to advance on the 3rd to Novara and Galliate, where Napoleon would on the 4th have all his forces, except one division, beyond Gyulai’s right and in hand for the move on Milan. The division sent to Turbigo bridged the river and crossed in the night of the 2nd/3rd, that at San Martino (on the main road) occupied the bridge-head and also the river bridge itself, though the latter was damaged. Espinasse’s division here was during the night replaced by a Guard division and went to join a growing assembly of troops under General MacMahon, which established itself at Turbigo and Robecchetto on the morning of the 3rd. Lastly, in order to make sure that no attack was impending from the direction of Mortara, Napoleon sent General Niel with a mixed reconnoitring force thither, which returned without meeting any Austrian forces—fortunately for itself, if the fate of the “reconnaissance in force” at Montebello proves anything.

While the fighting was prolonged to nightfall, the various corps of the Austrian army had approached, and it was Gyulai’s intention to resume the battle next day with 100,000 men. But Clam-Gallas reported that the I. and II. corps were fought out, and thereupon Gyulai resolved to retreat on Cremona and Mantua, leaving the great road Milan-Brescia unused, for the townsmen’s patriotism was sharpened by the remembrance of Haynau, “the Hyena of Brescia.” Milan and Pavia were evacuated on the 5th, Hess departed to meet the emperor Francis Joseph (who was coming to take command of the united I. and II. Armies), and although Kuhn was still in favour of the offensive Gyulai decided that the best service he could render was to deliver up the army intact to his sovereign on the Mincio. On the 8th of June Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel made their triumphal entry into Milan, while their corps followed up rather than pursued the retreating enemy along the Lodi and Cremona roads. On the same day, the 8th of June, the I. and II. French corps, under the general command of Marshal Baraguay d’Hilliers, attacked an Austrian rearguard (part of VIII. corps, Benedek) Melegnano. at the village of Melegnano. MacMahon with the II. corps was to turn the right flank, the IV. the left of the defenders, while Baraguay attacked in front. But MacMahon, as at Magenta, deployed into a formal line of battle before closing on the village, and his progress through the vineyards was correspondingly slow. The IV. corps was similarly involved in intricate country, but Baraguay, whose corps had not been present at Magenta, was burning to attack, and being a man aussi dur à ses soldats qu’à lui-même, he delivered the frontal attack about 6 P.M. without waiting for the others. This attack, as straightforward, as brusque, and as destitute of tactical refinements as that of the Swiss on that very ground in 1515 (Marignan), was carried out, without “preparation,” by Bazaine’s division à la baïonnette. Benedek was dislodged, but retreated safely, having inflicted a loss of over 1000 men on the French, as against 360 in his own command.

After Melegnano, as after Magenta, contact with the retiring enemy was lost, and for a fortnight the story of the war is simply that of a triumphal advance of the allies and a quiet retirement and reorganization of the Austrians. Up to Magenta Napoleon had a well-defined scheme and executed it with vigour. But the fierceness of the battle itself had not a little effect on his strange dreamy character, and although it was proved beyond doubt that under reasonable conditions the French must win in every encounter, their emperor turned his attention to dislodging rather than to destroying the enemy. War clouds were gathering elsewhere—on the Rhine above all. The simple brave promise to free Italy “from the Alps to the Adriatic” became complicated by many minor issues, and the emperor was well content to let his enemy retire and to accelerate that retirement by manœuvre as far as might be necessary. He therefore kept on the left of his adversary’s routes as before, and about the 20th of June the whole allied army (less Cialdini’s Sardinian division, detached to operate on the fringe of the mountain country) was closely grouped around Montechiaro on the Chiese. It now consisted of 107,000 French and 48,000 Sardinians (combatants only).

The Austrians had disappeared into the Quadrilateral, where the emperor Francis Joseph assumed personal command, with Hess as his chief of staff. Gyulai had resigned the command of the II. Army to Count Schlick, a cavalry Austrians on the Mincio. general of 70 years of age. The I. Army was under Count Wimpffen. But this partition produced nothing but evil. The imperial headquarters still issued voluminous detailed orders for each corps, and the intervening army staff was a cause not of initiative or of simplification, but of unnecessary delay. The direction of several armies, in fact, is only feasible when general directions (directives as they are technically called) take the place of orders. All the necessary conditions for working such a system—uniformity of training, methods and doctrine in the recipients, abstention from interference in details by the supreme command—were wanting in the Austrian army of 1859. The I. Army consisted of the III., IX. and XI. corps with one cavalry division and details, 67,000 in all; the II. Army of the I., V., VII. and VIII. corps, one cavalry division and details or 90,000 combatants—total 160,000, or practically the same force as the allies. The emperor had made several salutary changes in the administration, notably an order to the infantry to send their heavy equipment and parade full-dress into the fortresses, which enormously lightened the hitherto overburdened infantryman. At this moment the political omens were favourable, and gathering the impression from his outpost reports that the French were in two halves, separated by the river Chiese, the young emperor at last accepted Hess’s advice to resume the offensive, in view of which Gyulai had left strong outposts west of the Mincio, when the main armies retired over that river, and had maintained and supplemented the available bridges.

The possibility of such a finale to the campaign had been considered but dismissed at the allied headquarters, where it was thought that if the Austrians took the offensive it would be on their own side, not the enemy’s, of the Mincio and in the midst of the Quadrilateral. Thus the advance of the French army on the 24th was simply to be a general move to the line of the Mincio, preparatory to forcing the crossings, coupled with the destruction of the strong outpost bodies that had been left by the Austrians at Solferino, Guidizzolo, &c. The Austrians, who advanced over the Mincio on the 23rd, also thought that the decisive battle would take place on the third or fourth day of their advance. Thus, although both armies moved with all precautions as if a battle was the immediate object, neither expected a collision, and Solferino was consequently a pure encounter-battle.

The Campaign of 1866

In the seven years that elapsed between Solferino and the second battle of Custozza the political unification of Italy had proceeded rapidly, although the price of the union of Italy had been the cession of Savoy and Nice to Napoleon III. Garibaldi’s irregulars had in 1860 overrun Sicily, and regular battles, inspired by the same great leader, had destroyed the kingdom of Naples on the mainland (Volturno, 1st-2nd October 1860). At Castelfidardo near Ancona on the 18th of September in the same year Cialdini won another victory over the Papal troops commanded by Lamoricière. In 1866, then, Italy was no longer a “geographical expression,” but a recognized kingdom. Only Rome and Venetia remained of the numerous, disunited and reactionary states set up by the congress of Vienna. The former, still held by a French garrison, was for the moment an unattainable aim of the liberators, but the moment for reclaiming Venetia, the last relic of the Austrian dominions in Italy, came when Austria and Prussia in the spring of 1866 prepared to fight for the hegemony of the future united Germany (see Seven Weeks’ War).

The new Italian army, formed on the nucleus of the Sardinian army and led by veterans of Novara and Solferino, was as strong as the whole allied army of 1859, but in absorbing so many recruits it had temporarily lost much of its efficiency. It was organized in four corps, of which one, under Cialdini, was detached from the main body. Garibaldi, as before, commanded a semi-regular corps in the Alpine valleys, but being steadily and skilfully opposed by Kuhn, Gyulai’s former chief of staff, he made little or no progress during the brief campaign, on which indeed his operations had no influence. The main Austrian army, still the best-trained part of the emperor’s forces, had been, up to the verge of the war, commanded by Benedek, but Benedek was induced to give up his place to the archduke Albert, and to take up the far harder task of commanding against the Prussians in Bohemia. It was in fact a practically foregone conclusion that in Italy the Austrians would win, whereas in Bohemia it was more than feared that the Prussians would carry all before them. But Prussia and Italy were allied, and whatever the result of a battle in Venetia, that province would have to be ceded in the negotiations for peace with a victorious Prussia. Thus on the Austrian side the war of 1866 in Italy was, even more than the former war, simply an armed protest against the march of events.

The part of Hess in the campaign of Solferino was played with more success in that of Custozza by Major-General Franz, Freiherr von John (1815-1876). On this officer’s advice the Austrian army, instead of remaining Second Battle of Custozza. behind the Adige, crossed that river on the 23rd of June and took up a position on the hills around Pastrengo on the flank of the presumed advance of Victor Emmanuel’s army. The latter, crossing the Mincio the same day, headed by Villafranca for Verona, part of it in the hills about Custozza, Somma-Campagna and Castelnuovo, partly on the plain. The object of the king and of La Marmora, who was his adviser, was by advancing on Verona to occupy the Austrian army (which was only about 80,000 strong as against the king’s 120,000), while Cialdini’s corps from the Ferrara region crossed the lower Po and operated against the Austrian rear. The archduke’s staff, believing that the enemy was making for the lower Adige in order to co-operate directly with Cialdini’s detachment, issued orders for the advance on the 24th so as to reach the southern edge of the hilly country, preparatory to descending upon the flank of the Italians next day. However, the latter were nearer than was supposed, and an encounter-battle promptly began for the possession of Somma-Campagna and Custozza. The king’s army was unable to use its superior numbers and, brigade for brigade, was much inferior to its opponents. The columns on the right, attempting in succession to debouch from Villafranca in the direction of Verona, were checked by two improvised cavalry brigades under Colonel Pulz, which charged repeatedly, with the old-fashioned cavalry spirit that Europe had almost forgotten, and broke up one battalion after another. In the centre the leading brigades fought in vain for the possession of Custozza and the edge of the plateau, and on the left the divisions that had turned northward from Valeggio into the hills were also met and defeated. About 5 P.M. the Italians, checked and in great disorder, retreated over the Mincio. The losses were—Austrians, 4600 killed and wounded and 1000 missing; Italians, 3800 killed and wounded and 4300 missing. The archduke was too weak in numbers to pursue, his losses had been considerable, and a resolute offensive, in the existing political conditions, would have been a mere waste of force. The battle necessary to save the honour of Austria had been handsomely won. Ere long the bulk of the army that had fought at Custozza was transported by rail to take part in defending Vienna itself against the victorious Prussians. One month later Cialdini with the re-organized Italian army, 140,000 strong, took the field again, and the 30,000 Austrians left in Venetia retreated to the Isonzo without engaging.

In spite of Custozza and of the great defeat sustained by the Italian navy at the hands of Tegetthof near Lissa on the 20th of July, Venetia was now liberated and incorporated in the kingdom of Italy, and the struggle for unity, that had been for seventeen years a passionate and absorbing drama, and had had amongst its incidents Novara, Magenta, Solferino and the Garibaldian conquest of the Two Sicilies, ended in an anti-climax.

Three years later the cards were shuffled, and Austria, France and Italy were projecting an offensive alliance against Prussia. This scheme came to grief on the Roman question, and the French chassepôt was used for the first time in battle against Garibaldi at Mentana, but in 1870 France was compelled to withdraw her Roman garrison, and with the assent of their late enemy Austria, the Italians under Cialdini fought their way into Rome and there established the capital of united Italy.

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