Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

Documenti americani sul conflitto italo-austrìaco del 1859 21
bable and unsurpassed cven in. Italy, the land of pageants. Thesc people, looking on bim as the long promised Liberator who should deliver them from the forcign yoke, received him with honours such as migbt bave been paid to the Divine Messiah in person.
Gyulai [sic] entered Piedmontese territory eighteen days ago with 120,000 men, supportcd by another bundred thousand on the frontiers. Thus, armies sueh as have not been seen in Europe since the great days of Leipzig and Mo-skowa confront one another, with outposts sometimes in sigbt, on a plain where botb masscs migbt be brougbt together by a day's manoenvre. Yet up to this moment there bas been notbing bnt trifling skirmisb to record. The Ànstrians march and countermarch, take np positions only to abandon them, and the AUies do notbing except accumulate additional force. Indeed tbeir attitude has for sometimc furnisbed plausibility to those military critics who pretend there is not a general now living in Europe capable of handling an army of 200,000 men in the field. Gertain it is that those who have seen sucb an army are ali superaunuated, and forty years of peace have rendered sucb concentra-tions for destruction bappily unknown to the present generation.
But on one point ali are agreed. That from the commencement of this affair up to the present moment Austria has done everytbing that her advcr-saries could wish her to do. Sbe has played their game in diplomacy and war. By blundering precipitancy in the negociations [sic], sbe Iost ali the advantage which the position really gave her that of a country at peace "with ali nations attacked by two others on vaguc pleas and general accnsations baving no foun-dation in Public Law. The ultimatum by which she brought war abruptly on Europe might however have been excused in point of policy and expedicncy, at least, had she acted, with celerity and decision after it. Everyone expected to see Gyulai [sic] in Turin forthwith. There was notbing then to prevent the Austri an from overrnnning nearly ali Piedmont, levying vast sums of money and taking up exactly the ground which he liked beat. The Piedmontese army was not enough to oppose effective opposition, and the Frencb had not come. But for three days after the deelaratiou of war the Austrians did not move at ali.....
Then they passed the Ticino with every species of precaution and slowly occupied the territory between that river and the Dora, ali left open to them, without a solitary soldier, by their adversaries. Since then they have made se-veral feeble demonstrations of attack against the Sardinian lines, from ali of which they have turned back after the slightest show of resistancc on the other side. In every skirmisb they have had the worst of it, and in one affair they Iost a quanti tv of boats and other material which they had prepared for passing the Po. Judging by the movements of their columns they have vaclllated between further invasion and retrcat, and have severally made aud given over plans for attacks on Turin, Alexandria and Novi. Everytbing indicates divided ceoncils at Vienna and in the camp. At the present moment they are with-drawing their troops from ali sides and concentratmg -them abotrt Mortara and Piacenza, where they now pretend to await the Erench.
The exactions which they have made, the requisitions of cattle, bread, money, e, which they have drawn from the Piedmontese towns and population durine this brief and inglorious ocoupation have been very great; the King of Sardinia, who occupied bimself with the outposts and does little with the plans of the campaign, is said to have latcly wrìtten. a note to Gyulai [sic] to know