CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VITHE YEAR OF REVOLUTION1848Insurrection 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.[Pg.92]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.[Pg.93]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[Pg.94]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—vivato-day,morteto-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 ofI Lombardi.[3]This was the excuse[Pg.95]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.'TheJudicium 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.[Pg.96]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[Pg.97]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[Pg.98]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.[Pg.99]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;[Pg.100]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, heknewthe 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.[Pg.101]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[Pg.102]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[Pg.103]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[Pg.104]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[Pg.105]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[Pg.106]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. Hewasafraid of revolution at home; hewasafraid 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 twocorps 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[Pg.107]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[Pg.108]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[Pg.100]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[Pg.110]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[Pg.111]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,[Pg.112]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 themCrociati, 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.[Pg.113]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 Venetianterra firmawas 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,[Pg.114]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[Pg.115]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[Pg.116]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[Pg.117]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[Pg.118]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[Pg.119]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.[Pg.120]CHAPTER VIITHE DOWNFALL OF THRONES1848-1849Garibaldi Arrives—Venice under Manin—The Dissolution of the Temporal Power—Republics at Rome and Florence.While the remnant of the Piedmontese army recrossed the bridge over the Ticino at Pavia, crushed, though not though want of valour, outraged in the person of its King, surely the saddest vanquished host that ever retraced in sorrow the path it had traced in the wildest joy, a few thousand volunteers in Lombardy still refused to lay down their arms or to recognise that, after the capitulation of Milan, all was lost. Valueless as a fact, their defiance of Austria had value as a prophecy, and its prophetic aspect comes more clearly into view when it is seen that the leader of the little band was Garibaldi, while its standard-bearer was Mazzini. These two had lately met for the first time since 1833, when Garibaldi, or 'Borel,' as he was called in the ranks of 'Young Italy,' went to Marseilles to make the acquaintance of the head and brain of the society which he had joined, as has been mentioned, on the banks of the Black Sea.'When I was young and had only aspirations,' said Garibaldi in London in April 1864, 'I sought out a man who could give me counsel and guide my youthful years; I sought him as the thirsty man seeks water. This man I found; he alone kept alive the sacred fire, he alone watched[Pg.121]while all the world slept; he has always remained my friend, full of love for his country, full of devotion for the cause of freedom: this man is Joseph Mazzini.'The words spoken then—when the younger patriot was the chosen hero of the greatest of free nations, while the elder, still misunderstood by almost all, was shunned and calumniated, and even called 'the worst enemy of Italy'—gave one fresh proof, had one been wanting, that, though there have been more flawless characters than Garibaldi, never in a human breast beat a more generous heart. Politically, there was nearly as much divergence between Mazzini and Garibaldi as between Mazzini and Cavour; the master thought the pupil lacked ideality, the pupil thought the master lacked practicalness; but they were at one in the love of their land and in the desire to serve her.On parting with Mazzini in 1833, Garibaldi, then captain of a sailing vessel, went to Genoa and enrolled himself as a common sailor in the Royal Piedmontese Navy. The step, strange in appearance, was certainly taken on Mazzini's advice, and the immediate purpose was doubtless to make converts for 'Young Italy' among the marines. Had Garibaldi been caught when the ruthless persecution of all connected with 'Young Italy' set in, he would have been shot offhand, as were all those who were found dabbling with politics in the army and navy. He escaped just in time, and sailed for South America.TheGazzetta Piemonteseof the 17th of June 1834 published the sentence of death passed upon him, with the rider which declared him exposed to public vengeance 'as an enemy of the State, and liable to all the penalties of a brigand of the first category.' He saw the paper; and it was the first time that he or anyone else had seen the[Pg.122]name of Giuseppe Garibaldi in print; a name of which Victor Emmanuel would one day say that 'it filled the furthest ends of the earth.'Profitable to Italy, over nearly every page of whose recent history might be written 'out of evil cometh forth good,' was the banishment which threw Garibaldi into his romantic career of the next twelve years between the Amazon and the Plata. Soldier of fortune who did not seek to enrich himself; soldier of freedom who never aimed at power, he always meant to turn to account for his own country the experience gained in the art of war in that distant land, where he rapidly became the centre of a legend, almost the origin of a myth. Antique in simplicity, singleness, superabundance of life, and in a sort of naturalism which is not of to-day; unselfconscious, trustful in others, forgiving, incapable of fear, abounding in compassion, Garibaldi's true place is not in the aggregation of facts which we call history, but in the apotheosis of character which we call theIliad, theMahabharata, theEdda, the cycles of Arthur and of Roland, and theRomancero del Cid.In childhood he rescued a drowning washerwoman; in youth he nursed men dying of cholera; as a veteran soldier he passed the night among the rocks of Caprera hunting for a lamb that was lost. No amount of habit could remove the repugnance he felt at uttering the word 'fire.' Yet this gentle warrior, when his career was closed and he lay chained to his bed of pain, endorsed his memoirs with the Spanish motto: 'La guerra es la verdadera vida del hombre.' War was the veritable life of Garibaldi; war, not conspiracy; war, not politics; war, not, alas! model farming, for which the old chief fancied in his later years that he had discovered in himself a vocation.[Pg.123]Riding the wild horses and chasing the wild cattle of the Pampas, his eyes covering the immense spaces untrodden by man, this corsair of five-and-twenty drank deep of the innocent pleasures of untamed nature, when not occupied in fighting by land or sea, with equal fortune; or rather, perhaps, with greater fortune and greater proof of inborn genius as commander of the naval campaign of the Paran[=a] than as defender of Monte Video. No adventures were wanting to him; he was even imprisoned and tortured. In South America he found the one woman worthy to bear his name, the lion-hearted Anita, whom he carried off, she consenting, from her father and the man to whom her father had betrothed her. Garibaldi in after years expressed such deep contrition for the act which bore Anita away from the quiet life in store for her, and plunged her into hardships which only ended when she died, that, misinterpreting his remorse, many supposed the man from whom he took her to have been already her husband. It was not so. Shortly before the Church of San Francisco at Monte Video was burnt down (some twenty years ago), the marriage register of Garibaldi and Anita was found in its archives, and a legal copy was made. In it she is described as 'Doña Ana Maria de Jesus, unmarried daughter of Don Benito Rivevio de Silva, of Laguna, in Brazil.' The bridegroom, who during all his American career had scarcely clothes to cover him, parted with his only possession, an old silver watch, to pay the priest's fees. Head of the Italian Legion, he only took the rations of a common soldier, and as candles were not included in the rations, he sat in the dark. Someone reported this to the Government, who sent him a present of £20, half of which he gave to a poor widow.[Pg.124]When the first rumours that something was preparing in Italy reached Monte Video, Garibaldi wrote a letter offering his services to the Pope, still hailed as Champion of Freedom, and soon embarked himself for the Old World, with eighty-five of his best soldiers, among whom was his beloved friend, Francesco Anzani. Giacomo Medici had been despatched a little in advance to confer with Mazzini. At starting, the Legion knew nothing of the revolution in Milan and Venice, or of Charles Albert having taken the field. Great was their wonder, therefore, on reaching Gibraltar, to see hoisted on a Sardinian ship a perfectly new flag, never beheld by them out of dreams—the Italian tricolor.So Garibaldi returned at forty-one years of age to the country where the sentence of death passed upon him had never been revoked. Before the law he was still 'a brigand of the first category.' Nor was he quite sure that he would not be arrested, and, as a precaution, when he cast anchor in the harbour of his native Nice, he ran up the Monte Videan colours. It was needless. Throngs of people crowded the quays to welcome home the Ligurian captain, who had done great things over sea. Anita was there; she had preceded him to Europe with their three children, Teresita, Menotti and Ricciotti. There, also, was his old mother, who never ceased to be beautiful, the 'Signora Rosa,' as the Nizzards called her. She was almost a woman of the people, but the simple dignity of her life made all treat her as a superior being. To her prayers, while she lived, Garibaldi believed that he owed his safety in so many perils, and after her death the soldiers used to say that on the eve of battles he walked apart communing with her spirit.From Nice, Garibaldi went to Genoa, where he took a last leave of his friend Anzani, who returned from exile not to fight, as he had hoped,[Pg.125]but to die. The day before he expired, Medici arrived at Genoa; he was very angry with the Chief, in consequence of some disagreement as to the place of landing. Anzani said to him entreatingly: 'Do not be hard, Medici, on Garibaldi; he is a predestined man: a great part of the future of Italy is in his hands.' The counsel from dying lips sank deep into Medici's heart; he often disagreed with Garibaldi, but to his last day he never quarrelled with him again. Long years after, if friction arose between Garibaldi and his King, it was Medici's part to throw oil on the waters.Garibaldi sought an interview with Charles Albert, and offered him his arms and the arms of his Legion, 'not unused to war.' Pope or prince, little it mattered to him who the saviour of Italy should be. But Charles Albert, though he was polite, merely referred his visitor to his ministers, and the inestimable sword of the hero went begging for a month or more, till the Provisional Government of Milan gave him the command of the few thousand volunteers with whom we saw him at the conclusion of the campaign. The war was over before he had a chance of striking a blow. His indignant cry of defiance could not be long sustained, for Garibaldi never drove men to certain and useless slaughter; when the real position of things became known to him, he led his band over the Swiss confines, and bid them wait for a better and not distant day.Under Manin's wise rule, which was directed solely to the preservation of peace within the city, and resistance to the enemy at its gates, Venice remained undaunted by the catastrophes in Lombardy, after all the Venetianterra firmahad been restored to Austria. (Even the heroic little mountain fort of Osopo in the Friuli was compelled to capitulate on the 12th of October.) The blockade of the city on the[Pg.126]lagunes did not prevent Venice from acting not only on the defensive but on the offensive; in the sortie of the 27th of October, 2500 Venetians drove the Austrians from Mestre with severe losses, carrying back six captured guns, which the people dragged in triumph to the Doge's palace. A cabin-boy named Zorzi was borne on the shoulders of the soldiers enveloped in the Italian flag; his story was this: the national colours, floating from the mast of the pinnace on which he served, were detached by a ball and dropped into the water; the child sprang in after them, and with a shout ofViva l'Italia,fixed them again at the masthead under a sharp fire. Zorzi was, of course, the small hero of the hour, especially among the women. General Pepe commanded the sortie, with Ulloa, Fontana and Cosenz as his lieutenants; Ugo Bassi, the patriot monk of Bologna, marched at the head of a battalion with the crucifix, the only arms he ever carried, in his hand. The success cost Italy dear, as Alessandro Poerio, poet and patriot, the brother of Baron Carlo Poerio of Naples, lost his life by a wound received at Mestre. But the confidence of Venice in her little army was increased a hundredfold.The most important event of the autumn of 1848 was the gradual but continuous break-up of the Papal authority in Rome. The meeting of the new Parliament only served to accentuate the want of harmony between the Pope and his ministers; assassinations were frequent; what law there was was administered by the political clubs. In Count Terenzio Mamiani, Pius IX. found a Prime Minister who, for eloquence and patriotism, could hardly be rivalled, but hampered as he was by the opposition he encountered from the Sovereign, and by the absence of any real or solid moderate constitutional party in the Chamber of[Pg.127]Deputies, Mamiani could carry out very few of the improvements he desired to effect, and in August he retired from an impracticable task, to be replaced by men of less note and talent than himself.Wishing to create fresh complications for the Pope, the Austrians invaded the Legations, regardless of his protests, and after the fall of Milan, General Welden advanced on Bologna, where, however, his forces were so furiously attacked by the inhabitants and the few carabineers who were all the troops in the town, that they were dislodged from the strong position they had taken up on the Montagnola, the hill which forms the public park, and obliged to fly beyond the city walls. Radetsky disapproved of Welden's movements on Bologna, and ordered him not to return to the assault.Had the Austrians returned and massacred half the population of Bologna, the Pope might have been saved. When Rome heard that the stormy capital of Romagna was up in arms, once more, for a moment, there were united counsels. 'His Holiness,' ran the official proclamation, 'was firmly resolved to repel the Austrian invasion with all the means which his State and the well-regulated enthusiasm of his people could supply.' The Chamber confirmed the ministerial proposal to demand French help against Austria. But all this brave show of energy vanished with the pressing danger, and Bologna, which, by its manly courage, had galvanised the whole bloodless body-politic, now hastened the hour of dissolution by lapsing into a state of deplorable anarchy, the populace using the arms with which they had driven out the Austrians, to establish a reign of murder and pillage. L.C. Farini restored something like order, but the general weakness of the power of government became every day more apparent.[Pg.128]The Pope made a last endeavour to avert the catastrophe by calling to his counsels Count Pellegrino Rossi, a man of unyielding will, who was as much opposed to demagogic as to theocratic government. Rossi, having been compromised when very young in Murat's enterprises, lived long abroad, and attained the highest offices under Louis Philippe, who sent him to Rome to arrange with the Pope the delicate question of the expulsion of the Jesuits from France, which he conducted to an amicable settlement, though one not pleasing to the great Society. Not being one of those who change masters as they change their boots according to the state of the roads, the ambassador retired from the French service when Louis Philippe was dethroned. As minister to the Pope, he made his influence instantly felt; measures were taken to restore order in the finances, discipline in the army, public security in the streets, and method and activity in the Government offices. The tax on ecclesiastical property was enforced; fomenters of anarchy, even though they wore the garb of patriots, and perhaps honestly believed themselves to be such, were vigorously dealt with. If anyone could have given the Temporal Power a new lease of life, it would have been a man so gifted and so devoted as Pellegrino Rossi, but the entire forces, both of subversion and of reaction, were against him, and most of all was against him the fatality of dates. Not at human bidding do the dead arise and walk. The most deeply to be regretted event that happened in the course of the Italian revolution gave his inevitable failure the appearance of a fortuitous accident.[Pg.129]Parliament, which had been prorogued on the 26th of August, was to open on the 15th of November. Anarchy, black and red, was in the air. Though disorders were expected, Rossi made no provision for keeping the space clear round the palace where Parliament met; knots of men, with sinister faces, gathered in all parts of the square. Rossi was warned in the morning that an attempt would be made to assassinate him; he was entreated not to go to the Chamber, to which he replied that it was his duty to be present, and that if people wanted his blood they would have it sooner or later, whether he took precautions or not. Two policemen to keep the passage free when he reached the Chamber would, nevertheless, have saved his life. As he walked from his carriage to the stairs, an unknown individual pushed against him on the right side, and when he turned to see who it was, the assassin plunged a dagger in his throat. He fell, bathed in blood, to expire without uttering a word.In the Chamber, the deputies proceeded to business; not one raised an indignant protest against a crime which violated the independence of the representatives of the nation. The mere understanding of what liberty means is absolutely wanting in most populations when they first emerge from servitude.After the craven conduct of the deputies, it is no wonder if the dregs of the people went further, and paraded the streets singing songs in praise of the assassin. The Pope summoned the Presidents of the two Chambers and Marco Minghetti, whom he requested to form a new ministry. But the time for regular proceeding was past; the city was in the hands of the mob, which imposed on the Pope the acceptance of a ministry of nonentities nominated by it. The Swiss Guard fired on the crowd which attempted to gain access to the Quirinal; the crowd, reinforced by the Civic Guard, returned to the attack and fired[Pg.130]against the walls, a stray shot killing Monsignor Palma, who was in one of the rooms. The Pope decided on flight. He left Rome in disguise during the evening of the 25th of November. After gaining the Neapolitan frontier, he took the road to Gaeta. The illusion of the Pope Liberator ended with the Encyclical; the illusion of the Constitutional Pope ended with the flight to Gaeta. Pius IX. was only in a limited degree responsible for his want of success, because the task he had set before him was the quadrature of the circle in politics.The weight of a less qualified responsibility rests upon him for his subsequent actions. On the 3rd of December Parliament voted a proposal to send a deputation to the Pope, praying him to return to his States. To give the deputation greater authority, the Municipality of Rome proposed that the Syndic, the octogenarian Prince Corsini, should accompany it. It also comprised two ecclesiastics, and thus constituted, it left Rome for Gaeta on the 5th of December. On the borders of the Neapolitan kingdom its passage was barred by the police, and it was obliged to retrace its steps to Terracina. Here the deputation drew up a letter to Cardinal Antonelli (no longer the patriotic minister of the spring), in which an audience with the Sovereign Pontiff was respectfully requested. The answer came that the Pope would not receive the deputation. It was an answer that he was at liberty to make, but it should have meant abdication. If, called back by the will of the Parliament of his own making, the Sovereign deigned not even to receive the bearers of the invitation, in what way did he contemplate resuming the throne? It was only too easy to guess. The Head of Christendom had become a convert of King Ferdinand of Naples, otherwise Bomba. By a path strewn with the sinister flowers of war did Pius IX. meditate returning to his subjects—by that path and no other.[Pg.131]The Galetti-Sterbini ministry, appointed by the Pope under popular pressure a few days before his departure, remained in charge of affairs, somewhat strengthened by the adhesion of Terenzio Mamiani as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mamiani at first declined to form part of the ministry, but joined it afterwards with self-sacrificing patriotism, in the hope of saving things from going to complete rack and ruin during the interregnum caused by the withdrawal of the Head of the State. He only retired from the ungrateful office when he saw the imminence of a radical change in the form of government, which was not desired by him any more than it had been by Rossi.The mass of the population of the Roman States had desired such a change ever since the days of Gregory; the temporary enthusiasm for Pius, if it arrested the flow of the stream, did not prevent the waters from accumulating beyond the dyke. One day the dyke would burst, and the waters sweep all before them.A Constituent Assembly was convoked for the 5th of February 1849. The elections, which took place on the 21st of January, were on this basis: every citizen of more than twenty-one years was allowed to vote; every citizen over twenty-five could become a deputy; the number of deputies was fixed at two hundred; a candidate who received less than 500 votes would not be elected. On the 9th of February, the Constituent Assembly voted the downfall of the Temporal Power (free exercise of his spiritual functions being, at the same time, assured to the Supreme Pontiff), and the establishment of a republican form of government. The Roman Republic was proclaimed from the Capitol.Ten votes were given against the republic. No government ever came[Pg.132]into existence in a more strictly legal manner. Had it not represented the true will of the people, the last Roman Commonwealth could not have left behind so glorious, albeit brief, a record.A youthful poet, descendant of the Doges of Genoa, Goffredo Mameli, whose 'Fratelli d'Italia' was the battle-hymn to which Italy marched, wrote these three words to Mazzini: 'Roma, Repubblica, Venite.' So Mazzini came to Rome, which confided her destinies to him, as she had once confided them to the Brescian Arnold and to Cola di Rienzi. Not Arnold—not Rienzi in his nobler days—dreamed a more sublime dream of Roman liberty than did Giuseppe Mazzini, or more nearly wrote down that dream in facts.Originally the executive power was delegated to a committee, but this was changed to a Triumvirate, the Triumvirs being Armellini, Saffi and Mazzini. Mazzini's mind and will directed the whole.On the 18th of February, Cardinal Antonelli demanded in the Pope's name the armed intervention of France, Austria, Spain and Naples, 'as in this way alone can order be restored in the States of the Church, and the Holy Father re-established in the exercise of his supreme authority, in compliance with the imperious exigencies of his august and sacred character, the interests of the universal Church, and the peace of nations. In this way he will be enabled to retain the patrimony which he received at his accession, and transmit it in its integrity to his successors.'The Pope, who could not bring himself to stain his white robes with the blood of the enemies of Italy, called in four armies to shoot down his subjects, because in no other way could he recover his lost throne.Pius IX. was the twenty-sixth Pontiff who called the foreigner into Italy.[Pg.133]The final conquest of the Pope by the party of universal reaction could only be effected by his isolation from all but one set of influences; this is precisely what happened at Gaeta. There are reasons for thinking that his choice of the hospitality of the King of the Two Sicilies, rather than that of France or Spain or Sardinia, was the result of an intrigue in which Count Spaur, the Bavarian minister who represented the interests of Austria in Rome after that power withdrew her ambassador, played a principal part. Even after Pius arrived at Gaeta, it is said that he talked of it as the first stage of a longer journey. He had never shown any liking for the Neapolitan Bourbons, and the willingness which he expressed to Gioberti to crown Charles Albert King of Italy if his arms were successful, was probably duly appreciated by Ferdinand II. To save the Pope from absorption by the retrograde party, and to avoid the certainty of a foreign invasion, Gioberti, who became Prime Minister of Piedmont in November 1848, was anxious to occupy the Roman states with Sardinian troops immediately after the Pope's flight, when his subjects still recognised his sovereignty. Gioberti resigned because this policy was opposed by Rattazzi and other of his colleagues in the ministry. It would have been a difficultrôleto play; Sardinia, while endeavouring to checkmate the reaction, might have become its instrument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be regretted, but his forecast of what would happen if it were not attempted proved to be correct.Soon after the arrival of his exalted guest, King Ferdinand with his family, a great number of priests, and a strong escort, moved his residence from the capital to Gaeta. The modified Constitution, substituted for the first charter after the events of the 15th of May, was still nominally in force; Parliament had met during the summer,[Pg.134]but the King solved the riddle of governing through his ministers, on purely retrograde principles, without paying more heed to the representatives of the nations than to the benches on which they sat. Prorogued on the 5th of September, Parliament was to have met on the 30th of November, but when that date approached, it was prorogued again to the 1st of February. 'Our misery has reached such a climax,' wrote Baron Carlo Poerio, 'that it is enough to drive us mad. Every faculty of the soul revolts against the ferocious reactionary movement, the more disgraceful from its execrable hypocrisy. We are governed by an oligarchy; the only article maintained is that respecting the taxes. The laws have ceased to exist; the Statute is buried; a licentious soldiery rules over everything, and the press is constantly employed to asperse honest men. The lives of the deputies are menaced. Another night of St Bartholomew is threatened to all who will not sell body and soul.' Ferdinand only waited till he had recovered substantial hold over Sicily to do away with even the fiction of parliamentary government. Messina had fallen in September, though not till half the city was in flames, the barbarous cruelties practised on the inhabitants after the surrender exciting the indignation of the English and French admirals who witnessed the bombardment. This was the first step to the subjection of Sicily, but not till after Syracuse and Catania fell did the King feel that there was no further cause for anxiety—the taking of the capital becoming a mere question of time. He was so much pleased at the fall of Catania that he had a mock representation of the siege performed at Gaeta in presence of the Pope and of half the sacred college.

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.

[Pg.92]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.[Pg.93]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[Pg.94]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—vivato-day,morteto-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 ofI Lombardi.[3]This was the excuse[Pg.95]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.'

TheJudicium 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.

[Pg.96]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[Pg.97]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[Pg.98]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.

[Pg.99]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;[Pg.100]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, heknewthe 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.[Pg.101]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[Pg.102]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[Pg.103]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[Pg.104]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[Pg.105]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[Pg.106]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. Hewasafraid of revolution at home; hewasafraid 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 twocorps 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[Pg.107]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[Pg.108]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[Pg.100]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[Pg.110]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[Pg.111]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,[Pg.112]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 themCrociati, 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.

[Pg.113]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 Venetianterra firmawas 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,[Pg.114]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[Pg.115]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[Pg.116]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[Pg.117]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[Pg.118]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[Pg.119]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.

While the remnant of the Piedmontese army recrossed the bridge over the Ticino at Pavia, crushed, though not though want of valour, outraged in the person of its King, surely the saddest vanquished host that ever retraced in sorrow the path it had traced in the wildest joy, a few thousand volunteers in Lombardy still refused to lay down their arms or to recognise that, after the capitulation of Milan, all was lost. Valueless as a fact, their defiance of Austria had value as a prophecy, and its prophetic aspect comes more clearly into view when it is seen that the leader of the little band was Garibaldi, while its standard-bearer was Mazzini. These two had lately met for the first time since 1833, when Garibaldi, or 'Borel,' as he was called in the ranks of 'Young Italy,' went to Marseilles to make the acquaintance of the head and brain of the society which he had joined, as has been mentioned, on the banks of the Black Sea.

'When I was young and had only aspirations,' said Garibaldi in London in April 1864, 'I sought out a man who could give me counsel and guide my youthful years; I sought him as the thirsty man seeks water. This man I found; he alone kept alive the sacred fire, he alone watched[Pg.121]while all the world slept; he has always remained my friend, full of love for his country, full of devotion for the cause of freedom: this man is Joseph Mazzini.'

The words spoken then—when the younger patriot was the chosen hero of the greatest of free nations, while the elder, still misunderstood by almost all, was shunned and calumniated, and even called 'the worst enemy of Italy'—gave one fresh proof, had one been wanting, that, though there have been more flawless characters than Garibaldi, never in a human breast beat a more generous heart. Politically, there was nearly as much divergence between Mazzini and Garibaldi as between Mazzini and Cavour; the master thought the pupil lacked ideality, the pupil thought the master lacked practicalness; but they were at one in the love of their land and in the desire to serve her.

On parting with Mazzini in 1833, Garibaldi, then captain of a sailing vessel, went to Genoa and enrolled himself as a common sailor in the Royal Piedmontese Navy. The step, strange in appearance, was certainly taken on Mazzini's advice, and the immediate purpose was doubtless to make converts for 'Young Italy' among the marines. Had Garibaldi been caught when the ruthless persecution of all connected with 'Young Italy' set in, he would have been shot offhand, as were all those who were found dabbling with politics in the army and navy. He escaped just in time, and sailed for South America.

TheGazzetta Piemonteseof the 17th of June 1834 published the sentence of death passed upon him, with the rider which declared him exposed to public vengeance 'as an enemy of the State, and liable to all the penalties of a brigand of the first category.' He saw the paper; and it was the first time that he or anyone else had seen the[Pg.122]name of Giuseppe Garibaldi in print; a name of which Victor Emmanuel would one day say that 'it filled the furthest ends of the earth.'

Profitable to Italy, over nearly every page of whose recent history might be written 'out of evil cometh forth good,' was the banishment which threw Garibaldi into his romantic career of the next twelve years between the Amazon and the Plata. Soldier of fortune who did not seek to enrich himself; soldier of freedom who never aimed at power, he always meant to turn to account for his own country the experience gained in the art of war in that distant land, where he rapidly became the centre of a legend, almost the origin of a myth. Antique in simplicity, singleness, superabundance of life, and in a sort of naturalism which is not of to-day; unselfconscious, trustful in others, forgiving, incapable of fear, abounding in compassion, Garibaldi's true place is not in the aggregation of facts which we call history, but in the apotheosis of character which we call theIliad, theMahabharata, theEdda, the cycles of Arthur and of Roland, and theRomancero del Cid.

In childhood he rescued a drowning washerwoman; in youth he nursed men dying of cholera; as a veteran soldier he passed the night among the rocks of Caprera hunting for a lamb that was lost. No amount of habit could remove the repugnance he felt at uttering the word 'fire.' Yet this gentle warrior, when his career was closed and he lay chained to his bed of pain, endorsed his memoirs with the Spanish motto: 'La guerra es la verdadera vida del hombre.' War was the veritable life of Garibaldi; war, not conspiracy; war, not politics; war, not, alas! model farming, for which the old chief fancied in his later years that he had discovered in himself a vocation.

[Pg.123]Riding the wild horses and chasing the wild cattle of the Pampas, his eyes covering the immense spaces untrodden by man, this corsair of five-and-twenty drank deep of the innocent pleasures of untamed nature, when not occupied in fighting by land or sea, with equal fortune; or rather, perhaps, with greater fortune and greater proof of inborn genius as commander of the naval campaign of the Paran[=a] than as defender of Monte Video. No adventures were wanting to him; he was even imprisoned and tortured. In South America he found the one woman worthy to bear his name, the lion-hearted Anita, whom he carried off, she consenting, from her father and the man to whom her father had betrothed her. Garibaldi in after years expressed such deep contrition for the act which bore Anita away from the quiet life in store for her, and plunged her into hardships which only ended when she died, that, misinterpreting his remorse, many supposed the man from whom he took her to have been already her husband. It was not so. Shortly before the Church of San Francisco at Monte Video was burnt down (some twenty years ago), the marriage register of Garibaldi and Anita was found in its archives, and a legal copy was made. In it she is described as 'Doña Ana Maria de Jesus, unmarried daughter of Don Benito Rivevio de Silva, of Laguna, in Brazil.' The bridegroom, who during all his American career had scarcely clothes to cover him, parted with his only possession, an old silver watch, to pay the priest's fees. Head of the Italian Legion, he only took the rations of a common soldier, and as candles were not included in the rations, he sat in the dark. Someone reported this to the Government, who sent him a present of £20, half of which he gave to a poor widow.

[Pg.124]When the first rumours that something was preparing in Italy reached Monte Video, Garibaldi wrote a letter offering his services to the Pope, still hailed as Champion of Freedom, and soon embarked himself for the Old World, with eighty-five of his best soldiers, among whom was his beloved friend, Francesco Anzani. Giacomo Medici had been despatched a little in advance to confer with Mazzini. At starting, the Legion knew nothing of the revolution in Milan and Venice, or of Charles Albert having taken the field. Great was their wonder, therefore, on reaching Gibraltar, to see hoisted on a Sardinian ship a perfectly new flag, never beheld by them out of dreams—the Italian tricolor.

So Garibaldi returned at forty-one years of age to the country where the sentence of death passed upon him had never been revoked. Before the law he was still 'a brigand of the first category.' Nor was he quite sure that he would not be arrested, and, as a precaution, when he cast anchor in the harbour of his native Nice, he ran up the Monte Videan colours. It was needless. Throngs of people crowded the quays to welcome home the Ligurian captain, who had done great things over sea. Anita was there; she had preceded him to Europe with their three children, Teresita, Menotti and Ricciotti. There, also, was his old mother, who never ceased to be beautiful, the 'Signora Rosa,' as the Nizzards called her. She was almost a woman of the people, but the simple dignity of her life made all treat her as a superior being. To her prayers, while she lived, Garibaldi believed that he owed his safety in so many perils, and after her death the soldiers used to say that on the eve of battles he walked apart communing with her spirit.

From Nice, Garibaldi went to Genoa, where he took a last leave of his friend Anzani, who returned from exile not to fight, as he had hoped,[Pg.125]but to die. The day before he expired, Medici arrived at Genoa; he was very angry with the Chief, in consequence of some disagreement as to the place of landing. Anzani said to him entreatingly: 'Do not be hard, Medici, on Garibaldi; he is a predestined man: a great part of the future of Italy is in his hands.' The counsel from dying lips sank deep into Medici's heart; he often disagreed with Garibaldi, but to his last day he never quarrelled with him again. Long years after, if friction arose between Garibaldi and his King, it was Medici's part to throw oil on the waters.

Garibaldi sought an interview with Charles Albert, and offered him his arms and the arms of his Legion, 'not unused to war.' Pope or prince, little it mattered to him who the saviour of Italy should be. But Charles Albert, though he was polite, merely referred his visitor to his ministers, and the inestimable sword of the hero went begging for a month or more, till the Provisional Government of Milan gave him the command of the few thousand volunteers with whom we saw him at the conclusion of the campaign. The war was over before he had a chance of striking a blow. His indignant cry of defiance could not be long sustained, for Garibaldi never drove men to certain and useless slaughter; when the real position of things became known to him, he led his band over the Swiss confines, and bid them wait for a better and not distant day.

Under Manin's wise rule, which was directed solely to the preservation of peace within the city, and resistance to the enemy at its gates, Venice remained undaunted by the catastrophes in Lombardy, after all the Venetianterra firmahad been restored to Austria. (Even the heroic little mountain fort of Osopo in the Friuli was compelled to capitulate on the 12th of October.) The blockade of the city on the[Pg.126]lagunes did not prevent Venice from acting not only on the defensive but on the offensive; in the sortie of the 27th of October, 2500 Venetians drove the Austrians from Mestre with severe losses, carrying back six captured guns, which the people dragged in triumph to the Doge's palace. A cabin-boy named Zorzi was borne on the shoulders of the soldiers enveloped in the Italian flag; his story was this: the national colours, floating from the mast of the pinnace on which he served, were detached by a ball and dropped into the water; the child sprang in after them, and with a shout ofViva l'Italia,fixed them again at the masthead under a sharp fire. Zorzi was, of course, the small hero of the hour, especially among the women. General Pepe commanded the sortie, with Ulloa, Fontana and Cosenz as his lieutenants; Ugo Bassi, the patriot monk of Bologna, marched at the head of a battalion with the crucifix, the only arms he ever carried, in his hand. The success cost Italy dear, as Alessandro Poerio, poet and patriot, the brother of Baron Carlo Poerio of Naples, lost his life by a wound received at Mestre. But the confidence of Venice in her little army was increased a hundredfold.

The most important event of the autumn of 1848 was the gradual but continuous break-up of the Papal authority in Rome. The meeting of the new Parliament only served to accentuate the want of harmony between the Pope and his ministers; assassinations were frequent; what law there was was administered by the political clubs. In Count Terenzio Mamiani, Pius IX. found a Prime Minister who, for eloquence and patriotism, could hardly be rivalled, but hampered as he was by the opposition he encountered from the Sovereign, and by the absence of any real or solid moderate constitutional party in the Chamber of[Pg.127]Deputies, Mamiani could carry out very few of the improvements he desired to effect, and in August he retired from an impracticable task, to be replaced by men of less note and talent than himself.

Wishing to create fresh complications for the Pope, the Austrians invaded the Legations, regardless of his protests, and after the fall of Milan, General Welden advanced on Bologna, where, however, his forces were so furiously attacked by the inhabitants and the few carabineers who were all the troops in the town, that they were dislodged from the strong position they had taken up on the Montagnola, the hill which forms the public park, and obliged to fly beyond the city walls. Radetsky disapproved of Welden's movements on Bologna, and ordered him not to return to the assault.

Had the Austrians returned and massacred half the population of Bologna, the Pope might have been saved. When Rome heard that the stormy capital of Romagna was up in arms, once more, for a moment, there were united counsels. 'His Holiness,' ran the official proclamation, 'was firmly resolved to repel the Austrian invasion with all the means which his State and the well-regulated enthusiasm of his people could supply.' The Chamber confirmed the ministerial proposal to demand French help against Austria. But all this brave show of energy vanished with the pressing danger, and Bologna, which, by its manly courage, had galvanised the whole bloodless body-politic, now hastened the hour of dissolution by lapsing into a state of deplorable anarchy, the populace using the arms with which they had driven out the Austrians, to establish a reign of murder and pillage. L.C. Farini restored something like order, but the general weakness of the power of government became every day more apparent.

[Pg.128]The Pope made a last endeavour to avert the catastrophe by calling to his counsels Count Pellegrino Rossi, a man of unyielding will, who was as much opposed to demagogic as to theocratic government. Rossi, having been compromised when very young in Murat's enterprises, lived long abroad, and attained the highest offices under Louis Philippe, who sent him to Rome to arrange with the Pope the delicate question of the expulsion of the Jesuits from France, which he conducted to an amicable settlement, though one not pleasing to the great Society. Not being one of those who change masters as they change their boots according to the state of the roads, the ambassador retired from the French service when Louis Philippe was dethroned. As minister to the Pope, he made his influence instantly felt; measures were taken to restore order in the finances, discipline in the army, public security in the streets, and method and activity in the Government offices. The tax on ecclesiastical property was enforced; fomenters of anarchy, even though they wore the garb of patriots, and perhaps honestly believed themselves to be such, were vigorously dealt with. If anyone could have given the Temporal Power a new lease of life, it would have been a man so gifted and so devoted as Pellegrino Rossi, but the entire forces, both of subversion and of reaction, were against him, and most of all was against him the fatality of dates. Not at human bidding do the dead arise and walk. The most deeply to be regretted event that happened in the course of the Italian revolution gave his inevitable failure the appearance of a fortuitous accident.

[Pg.129]Parliament, which had been prorogued on the 26th of August, was to open on the 15th of November. Anarchy, black and red, was in the air. Though disorders were expected, Rossi made no provision for keeping the space clear round the palace where Parliament met; knots of men, with sinister faces, gathered in all parts of the square. Rossi was warned in the morning that an attempt would be made to assassinate him; he was entreated not to go to the Chamber, to which he replied that it was his duty to be present, and that if people wanted his blood they would have it sooner or later, whether he took precautions or not. Two policemen to keep the passage free when he reached the Chamber would, nevertheless, have saved his life. As he walked from his carriage to the stairs, an unknown individual pushed against him on the right side, and when he turned to see who it was, the assassin plunged a dagger in his throat. He fell, bathed in blood, to expire without uttering a word.

In the Chamber, the deputies proceeded to business; not one raised an indignant protest against a crime which violated the independence of the representatives of the nation. The mere understanding of what liberty means is absolutely wanting in most populations when they first emerge from servitude.

After the craven conduct of the deputies, it is no wonder if the dregs of the people went further, and paraded the streets singing songs in praise of the assassin. The Pope summoned the Presidents of the two Chambers and Marco Minghetti, whom he requested to form a new ministry. But the time for regular proceeding was past; the city was in the hands of the mob, which imposed on the Pope the acceptance of a ministry of nonentities nominated by it. The Swiss Guard fired on the crowd which attempted to gain access to the Quirinal; the crowd, reinforced by the Civic Guard, returned to the attack and fired[Pg.130]against the walls, a stray shot killing Monsignor Palma, who was in one of the rooms. The Pope decided on flight. He left Rome in disguise during the evening of the 25th of November. After gaining the Neapolitan frontier, he took the road to Gaeta. The illusion of the Pope Liberator ended with the Encyclical; the illusion of the Constitutional Pope ended with the flight to Gaeta. Pius IX. was only in a limited degree responsible for his want of success, because the task he had set before him was the quadrature of the circle in politics.

The weight of a less qualified responsibility rests upon him for his subsequent actions. On the 3rd of December Parliament voted a proposal to send a deputation to the Pope, praying him to return to his States. To give the deputation greater authority, the Municipality of Rome proposed that the Syndic, the octogenarian Prince Corsini, should accompany it. It also comprised two ecclesiastics, and thus constituted, it left Rome for Gaeta on the 5th of December. On the borders of the Neapolitan kingdom its passage was barred by the police, and it was obliged to retrace its steps to Terracina. Here the deputation drew up a letter to Cardinal Antonelli (no longer the patriotic minister of the spring), in which an audience with the Sovereign Pontiff was respectfully requested. The answer came that the Pope would not receive the deputation. It was an answer that he was at liberty to make, but it should have meant abdication. If, called back by the will of the Parliament of his own making, the Sovereign deigned not even to receive the bearers of the invitation, in what way did he contemplate resuming the throne? It was only too easy to guess. The Head of Christendom had become a convert of King Ferdinand of Naples, otherwise Bomba. By a path strewn with the sinister flowers of war did Pius IX. meditate returning to his subjects—by that path and no other.

[Pg.131]The Galetti-Sterbini ministry, appointed by the Pope under popular pressure a few days before his departure, remained in charge of affairs, somewhat strengthened by the adhesion of Terenzio Mamiani as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mamiani at first declined to form part of the ministry, but joined it afterwards with self-sacrificing patriotism, in the hope of saving things from going to complete rack and ruin during the interregnum caused by the withdrawal of the Head of the State. He only retired from the ungrateful office when he saw the imminence of a radical change in the form of government, which was not desired by him any more than it had been by Rossi.

The mass of the population of the Roman States had desired such a change ever since the days of Gregory; the temporary enthusiasm for Pius, if it arrested the flow of the stream, did not prevent the waters from accumulating beyond the dyke. One day the dyke would burst, and the waters sweep all before them.

A Constituent Assembly was convoked for the 5th of February 1849. The elections, which took place on the 21st of January, were on this basis: every citizen of more than twenty-one years was allowed to vote; every citizen over twenty-five could become a deputy; the number of deputies was fixed at two hundred; a candidate who received less than 500 votes would not be elected. On the 9th of February, the Constituent Assembly voted the downfall of the Temporal Power (free exercise of his spiritual functions being, at the same time, assured to the Supreme Pontiff), and the establishment of a republican form of government. The Roman Republic was proclaimed from the Capitol.

Ten votes were given against the republic. No government ever came[Pg.132]into existence in a more strictly legal manner. Had it not represented the true will of the people, the last Roman Commonwealth could not have left behind so glorious, albeit brief, a record.

A youthful poet, descendant of the Doges of Genoa, Goffredo Mameli, whose 'Fratelli d'Italia' was the battle-hymn to which Italy marched, wrote these three words to Mazzini: 'Roma, Repubblica, Venite.' So Mazzini came to Rome, which confided her destinies to him, as she had once confided them to the Brescian Arnold and to Cola di Rienzi. Not Arnold—not Rienzi in his nobler days—dreamed a more sublime dream of Roman liberty than did Giuseppe Mazzini, or more nearly wrote down that dream in facts.

Originally the executive power was delegated to a committee, but this was changed to a Triumvirate, the Triumvirs being Armellini, Saffi and Mazzini. Mazzini's mind and will directed the whole.

On the 18th of February, Cardinal Antonelli demanded in the Pope's name the armed intervention of France, Austria, Spain and Naples, 'as in this way alone can order be restored in the States of the Church, and the Holy Father re-established in the exercise of his supreme authority, in compliance with the imperious exigencies of his august and sacred character, the interests of the universal Church, and the peace of nations. In this way he will be enabled to retain the patrimony which he received at his accession, and transmit it in its integrity to his successors.'

The Pope, who could not bring himself to stain his white robes with the blood of the enemies of Italy, called in four armies to shoot down his subjects, because in no other way could he recover his lost throne.

Pius IX. was the twenty-sixth Pontiff who called the foreigner into Italy.

[Pg.133]The final conquest of the Pope by the party of universal reaction could only be effected by his isolation from all but one set of influences; this is precisely what happened at Gaeta. There are reasons for thinking that his choice of the hospitality of the King of the Two Sicilies, rather than that of France or Spain or Sardinia, was the result of an intrigue in which Count Spaur, the Bavarian minister who represented the interests of Austria in Rome after that power withdrew her ambassador, played a principal part. Even after Pius arrived at Gaeta, it is said that he talked of it as the first stage of a longer journey. He had never shown any liking for the Neapolitan Bourbons, and the willingness which he expressed to Gioberti to crown Charles Albert King of Italy if his arms were successful, was probably duly appreciated by Ferdinand II. To save the Pope from absorption by the retrograde party, and to avoid the certainty of a foreign invasion, Gioberti, who became Prime Minister of Piedmont in November 1848, was anxious to occupy the Roman states with Sardinian troops immediately after the Pope's flight, when his subjects still recognised his sovereignty. Gioberti resigned because this policy was opposed by Rattazzi and other of his colleagues in the ministry. It would have been a difficultrôleto play; Sardinia, while endeavouring to checkmate the reaction, might have become its instrument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be regretted, but his forecast of what would happen if it were not attempted proved to be correct.

Soon after the arrival of his exalted guest, King Ferdinand with his family, a great number of priests, and a strong escort, moved his residence from the capital to Gaeta. The modified Constitution, substituted for the first charter after the events of the 15th of May, was still nominally in force; Parliament had met during the summer,[Pg.134]but the King solved the riddle of governing through his ministers, on purely retrograde principles, without paying more heed to the representatives of the nations than to the benches on which they sat. Prorogued on the 5th of September, Parliament was to have met on the 30th of November, but when that date approached, it was prorogued again to the 1st of February. 'Our misery has reached such a climax,' wrote Baron Carlo Poerio, 'that it is enough to drive us mad. Every faculty of the soul revolts against the ferocious reactionary movement, the more disgraceful from its execrable hypocrisy. We are governed by an oligarchy; the only article maintained is that respecting the taxes. The laws have ceased to exist; the Statute is buried; a licentious soldiery rules over everything, and the press is constantly employed to asperse honest men. The lives of the deputies are menaced. Another night of St Bartholomew is threatened to all who will not sell body and soul.' Ferdinand only waited till he had recovered substantial hold over Sicily to do away with even the fiction of parliamentary government. Messina had fallen in September, though not till half the city was in flames, the barbarous cruelties practised on the inhabitants after the surrender exciting the indignation of the English and French admirals who witnessed the bombardment. This was the first step to the subjection of Sicily, but not till after Syracuse and Catania fell did the King feel that there was no further cause for anxiety—the taking of the capital becoming a mere question of time. He was so much pleased at the fall of Catania that he had a mock representation of the siege performed at Gaeta in presence of the Pope and of half the sacred college.

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