Almost at the same time as the engagement of Montebello, Garibaldi with his diminutive army (which through the weeding-out of men unfit for service was reduced to about 3,500 before it took the field), crossed the Lago Maggiore, and advanced boldly into the heart of the enemy's country. The volunteers had no artillery, and by way of cavalry only some forty or fifty were mounted on their own horses and dignified with the name of 'guides.' They were badly armed and worse equipped; the only good thing they had was an excellent ambulance organised by Dr Bertani, Garibaldi's surgeon-general from Roman days downwards. But they formed a picturesque sight as they marched along gaily to the everlasting song, 'Addio, mia bella, addio'; and a physiognomist would have been struck by their intelligent and often distinguished faces: nobles and poets, budding doctors and lawyers, bristled in the ranks, while the officers were the still young veterans of 1848-1849: Cosenz, hero of Venice; Medici, the defender of the Vascello; Bixio, Sirtori, Cairoli—all the Knights of the Legend.
Moving swiftly from place to place, and appearing where and when he was least expected, Garibaldi took the entire country of the Lombard lakes. Gyulai, who at first looked upon the Garibaldian march as a simple diversion intended to draw off his attention, now became [Pg.232] concerned, and dispatched Urban with 10,000 men to destroy the volunteers, and stem the insurrection which everywhere followed in their wake. On the 27th of May Garibaldi drove Urban from his position near San Fermo, and that commander had his mission still unfulfilled when he received the order to retreat after the battle of Magenta. The volunteers were free to pursue their way to Brescia and the Valtellina, where they performed many feats in the latter period of the war, winning the admiration of Hayn, the Austrian general opposed to them, which he was generous enough to express in no measured terms.
The great war was meanwhile approaching its climax. After Montebello the whole French army executed a secret flank movement, changing its position from Voghera, where Gyulai believed it to be, and whence he expected it to move on to Piacenza, to the line of the Sesia, between Cameriano and Casale. To mask the main operations, the Sardinian forces were sent to Palestro, on the other side of the Sesia. On the 30th of May, they drove in the outposts of the enemy, and on the 31st fought the important engagement by which the Austrian attempt to retake Palestro was repelled, and great damage caused to Zobel's corps, which was obliged to leave eight guns sticking in the mud. The French Zouaves of the 3rd regiment fought with the Piedmontese, and made the battle famous by the reckless valour of their bayonet charges. Victor Emmanuel, deaf to all remonstrances, placed himself at their head, in consequence of which they elected him their corporal, an honour once paid to the first Napoleon.
There is reason to think that after Palestro, Gyulai, having at last realised what Napoleon was about, wished to evacuate Lombardy, but was prevented from doing so by strong protests sent by the Emperor Francis [Pg.233] Joseph, who was at Verona. The Austrian army was in full retreat when it was pulled up near Magenta, with the object of checking the advance of the French, who had already begun to cross the Ticino by the bridges of San Martino and Buffalora, which the Austrians had tried to blow up, but had not succeeded from want of proper powder. In the great battle of the 4th of June, Austrians and French numbered respectively about 60,000 men; no Piedmontese were engaged till the evening, when a battalion of Bersaglieri arrived. The Imperial Guard, with which was Napoleon, had to bear the brunt of the fight for four hours, and ran a good chance of being annihilated; not a brilliant proof of French generalship, but happily the Austrians also committed grave mistakes. MacMahon's arrival at five in the afternoon prevented a catastrophe, and the fighting, which continued far into the night, was from this moment attended by results on the whole advantageous to the French. Not much more can be said. Magenta was very like a drawn battle. The Austrians are calculated to have lost 10,000 men, the French between 4,000 and 5,000. It was expected that the Austrians would renew the attack, but on the 5th, Gyulai ordered the retreat, which was the last order he had the opportunity of giving, as he was deprived of his command immediately after.
At mid-day on the 5th, Milan, which was trembling on the verge of revolution, made the pleasurable discovery that there were no Austrians left in the town. The municipality sent out delegates with the keys of the city to Victor Emmanuel. At ten a.m. on the 7th, MacMahon's corps began to file down the streets. Words cannot describe the welcome given to them. How MacMahon lifted to his saddle-bow a child that was in danger of being crushed by the crowd will be [Pg.234] remembered from the pretty incident having passed into English poetry. On the 8th, the King and the Emperor made their entry amidst a new paroxysm of enthusiasm. Napoleon is reported to have exclaimed: 'How this people must have suffered!' In his proclamation 'to the Italian people,' which bears the same date as his entry into Milan, he renewed the assurance of the disinterested motives which had brought him to Italy: 'Your enemies, who are also mine, have endeavoured to diminish the universal sympathy felt in Europe for your cause, by causing it to be believed that I am making war for personal ambition, or to increase French territory. If there are men who fail to comprehend their epoch, I am not one of them. In the enlightened state of public opinion now prevailing, true greatness lies in the moral influence which we exercise rather than in sterile conquests.' The proclamation ended with the words: 'To-morrow you will be the citizens of a great country.' Not the least effusive demonstrations were reserved for Cavour, who joined his Sovereign a few days after the battle of Magenta.
Leaving the Milanese to put their faith in princes while yet there was time, a glance must be taken at what had been going on in the rest of Italy, which was becoming a great nation far more rapidly, and in a much fuller sense than Napoleon III. expected or wished. When Austria sent her ultimatum to Turin, the Sardinian minister at the Court of Tuscany invited the Grand Duke's Government to take part in the war of liberation. This they refused to do. On perceiving, however, that he could not depend on his troops, the Grand Duke promised to co-operate with Piedmont, but his advisers did not now think it possible to save the grand ducal throne, unless Leopold II. abdicated in favour of his [Pg.235] son, who was not burdened with the fatal associations of the reaction of ten years before. Leopold probably thought that even his abdication would not keep out the deluge, and he took the more dignified course of declining to yield to force. On the 27th of April, accompanied by the Corps Diplomatique as far as the frontier, he left Tuscany. A Provisional Government was formed with Peruzzi at its head, which hastily raised 8000 men for immediate service under the command of General Ulloa. Before long Prince Napoleon, with the fifth corps of the French army, landed, for no reason that could be avowed, at Leghorn. The real motive was to prepare the way for the fabrication of a new kingdom of Etruria, which existed already in Napoleon's brain. This masterpiece of folly had but a lukewarm supporter in Prince Napoleon, who was the only Napoleon and about the only Frenchman (if he could be called one) who grasped the idea of the unity of Italy and sincerely applauded it. Had Jérôme Napoleon been born with the least comprehension of self-respect and personal dignity, his strong political intelligence and clear logical discernment must have produced something better than the most ineffectual career of the century.
On the 8th of May, Baron Ricasoli took office under the Provisional Government as Minister of the Interior, and for nearly twelve months he was the real ruler of Tuscany. He had an ally of great strength, though of humble origin, in Giuseppe Dolfi, the baker, of whom it was currently said that any day he could summon 10,000 men to the Piazza della Signoria, who would obey him to the death. To Dolfi it was due that there were no disorders after the Grand Duke left. What Italy owes to the Lord of Brolio, history will never adequately state, because it is well-nigh impossible fully to realise how critical was [Pg.236] her position during all that year, from causes external and internal, and how disastrous would have been the slightest mistake or wavering in the direction of Tuscan affairs, which formed the central hinge of the whole complicated situation. Fortunate, indeed, was it that there was a man like the Iron Baron, who, by simple force of will, outwitted the enemies of Italy more thoroughly than even Cavour could do with all his astuteness. Austere, aristocratic, immovable from his purpose, indifferent to praise or blame, Ricasoli aimed at one point—the unity of the whole country; and neither Cavour's impatience for annexation to Piedmont, nor the scheme of Farini and Minghetti for averting the wrath of the French Emperor by a temporary and preparatory union of the central states, drew him one inch from the straight road, which was the only one he had ever learnt to walk in.
In June, the Duke of Modena and the Duchess-Regent of Parma found it impossible to remain in their states, now that Austrian protection was withdrawn. The latter had done what she could to preserve the duchy for her young son, but the tide was too strong. These revolutions were accomplished quietly; but, some months after, on the incautious return to Parma of a man deeply implicated in the abuses of Charles III.'s government—Colonel Anviti—he was cruelly murdered; an act of vengeance which happily remained alone.
After the battle of Magenta, when the Austrian troops were recalled from the Marches and Romagna, those districts rose and demanded the dictatorship of Piedmont. Napoleon foresaw that this would happen as far back as the Plombières interview, and at that date it did not appear that he meant to oppose it. But now, in Paris, the Clerical party were seized with panic, and the Empress-Regent, then, as always, completely under their control, did all in her power to arouse the [Pg.237] Emperor's opposition. The Pope , on his part, knowing that he was secure in Rome—thanks to the French garrison, which, though it hated its office, as the French writer Ampère and others bore witness, was sure to perform it faithfully—had the idea of sending his Swiss troops to put down the growing revolution. With these, and a few Roman troops of the line, Colonel Schmidt marched against Perugia, where, in restoring the Papal authority, he used a ferocity which, though denied by clerical writers, was attested by all contemporary accounts, and was called 'atrocious' by Sir James Hudson in a despatch to Lord John Russell. The significance of such facts, wrote the English minister at Turin, could only be the coming fall of the Pope's Temporal Power.