A great event now happened across the Alps; one of the decisive battles of the world was lost and won on the 5th of July at Sadowa near Königgrätz in Bohemia. The fate of Europe was shaped on that day for decades, if not for centuries. Of the immediate results, the first was the scattering to the wind of all calculations based upon a long continuance of the war, the issue of which, as far as Prussia was concerned, could not be regarded as doubtful. In respect to Italy, Austria's first thought was to prevent her from taking a revenge for Custoza. She attempted to compass this by ceding Venetia to Napoleon two days after Sadowa. It was making a virtue of necessity, as she was bound in any case to cede it at the conclusion of the war; but as the secret of the treaty had been well kept, the step caused great surprise, and in Italy, where the public mind had leapt from profound discouragement to buoyant hope, the impression was one of embarrassment and mortification. Italy was distinctly precluded by her [Pg.371] engagement with Prussia from accepting Napoleon's invitation to conclude a separate peace. Meanwhile, Austria gained by the move, as it set her at liberty to recall the larger part of her troops from Venetia for the defence of Vienna. Her honour did not require her to contest the ground in a province which she had already given away. When Cialdini, at the head of the reorganised Italian army of which he now held the chief command, advanced across the Po to Padua, he found the path practically open.
It was still possible for Italy to accomplish two things which would have in a great measure retrieved her prestige. The first was to occupy the Trentino; the second was to destroy the Austrian fleet. With the means at her disposal she ought to have been able to do both.
In the earlier phases of Italian liberation, no one disputed that if Lombardy and Venetia were lost to the Empire the Tridentine province, wedged in as it is between them, would follow suit. When, in 1848, Lord Palmerston offered his services as mediator between Austria and revolted Italy, it was on a minimum basis of a frontier north of Trento. The arguments for the retention of Trieste—that Austria had made it what it was; that Germany needed it as a seaport, etc.—were inapplicable here; and even after the defeat of Custoza, an occupation of the Trentino, had it happened in conjunction with a naval victory, would have opened a fair prospect to possession. But there was no time to lose, and much time was lost by ordering Garibaldi to descend to the southern extremity of the lake of Garda to 'cover Brescia' from an imaginary attack. When the fear of an Austrian invasion subsided, and Garibaldi returned to the mountains, he endeavoured to re-take the position of Monte Suello which he had previously held, but the attempt [Pg.372] failed. The volunteers were forced to retire with great loss, and the chief himself was wounded. On the 16th of July the volunteers renewed their advance up the mountain ravines, and, after taking Fort Ampola, reached the village of Bezzecca, where they were attacked by the Austrians early on the 21st. Each side claimed that sanguinary day as a victory; the Garibaldians remained masters of the ground, but the Austrians, in retiring, took with them a large number of prisoners. The losses of the volunteers on this and other occasions when they were engaged were disproportionately heavy. They were spendthrift of their lives, but in war, and especially in mountain warfare, caution is as needful as courage, and in caution they were so deficient that they were always being surprised. General Kuhn's numerically inferior force of tried marksmen, supported by good artillery and favoured by ground which may be described as one great natural fortification, had succeeded up till now in holding the Trentino, but his position was becoming critical, because while Garibaldi sought to approach Trento from the west, Medici with 10,000 men detached from the main army at Padua, was ascending the Venetian valleys that lead to the same destination from the east. Kuhn was therefore on the point of being taken between two fires when the armistice saved him.
These operations on the Tridentine frontier, though not without a real importance, passed almost unnoticed in the excitement which attended the first calamitous appearance of United Italy as a naval power.
When invited to assume the command of the Italian fleet, Admiral Persano twice refused; it was only when the King pressed upon him a third invitation that he weakly accepted a charge to which he felt himself unequal. He had been living in retirement for some years, and [Pg.373] neither knew nor was known by most of the officers and men whom he was now to command. The fleet under his orders comprised thirty-three vessels, of which twelve were ironclads. The Austrian fleet numbered twenty-seven ships, including seven ironclads. When the war broke out, both fleets were far from ready for active service; but, while the Austrian Admiral Tegethoff said nothing, but worked night and day at Pola to make his ships and his men serviceable, Persano despatched hourly lamentable reports to the Minister of Marine, without finding the way to bring about a change for the better. He wasted time in minutiæ, and took into his head to paint all the Italian ships a light grey, which was of the greatest use to the Austrians in the battle of Lissa, as it enabled them to distinguish between them and their own dark-coloured ships.
After long delaying at Taranto, Persano brought his fleet to Ancona; and, two days later, Tegethoff appeared in front of that town—not knowing, it seems, that the Italian squadrons had arrived. Tegethoff was bound on a simple reconnaissance, and, after firing a few shots, he sailed away. On this occasion, Persano issued orders so hesitating and confused that the Austrian admiral must have correctly gauged the capacity of the man opposed to him, while the superior officers of the Italian fleet were filled with little less than dismay. A strong effort was made to induce Depretis to supersede Persano then and there; he promised to do so, but it is said that the fear of offending the King prevented him. Instead, he set about showering instructions on the admiral, the worth of which may be easily imagined. The mistrust felt by the fleet in its commander invaded all ranks; and if it did not break out in open insubordination, it deprived officers and men of all confidence in the issue of the campaign.
[ [Pg.374] Left to himself, Persano would have stayed quietly at Ancona, but the imperative orders of a cabinet council, presided over by the King, forced him to take some action. Against the advice of Admiral Albini, but in agreement with another admiral, Vacca, Persano decided to attack the fortified island of Lissa, on the Dalmatian coast. Though Lissa is a strong position, the usual comparison of it with Gibraltar is exaggerated. It ought to have been possible to land the Italian troops which Persano had with him under cover of his guns, and to take the island before Tegethoff came up. The surf caused by the rough weather, to which he chiefly attributed his failure, would not have proved an insuperable obstacle had the ships' crews been exercised in landing troops under similar circumstances.
Persano reached Lissa on the morning of the 18th of July, and began a tremendous bombardment of the forts, which, though answered with the highest spirit by the Austrians, did most deadly damage to their batteries. In fact, by the evening, except one or two at a high elevation, they were practically silenced. At six o'clock Captain Saint Bon took the Formidabile into the narrow harbour to silence the inner works: a murderous fire rained on the corvette from Fort Wellington, which was too high for the Italian guns to get it into range. Though Saint Bon's attempt was not successful, the Italians had effected most of what they aimed at, and might have effected the rest had they continued the bombardment through the night, and so given the Austrians no time to repair their batteries, but at sunset Persano withdrew his fleet to a distance of eight miles. The Austrians worked all night at mending the batteries that could still be used, and hoped [Pg.375] in the coming of Tegethoff.
The telegraph cable connecting the neighbouring island of Lesina with the coast, and so with Pola, had been cut by Persano's orders; but either (as the writer was told on the spot last year) there was another line that was not noticed, or before the cable was destroyed the official in charge got off a message to Tegethoff, informing him of the arrival of the Italian fleet. An answer, to the effect that Tegethoff would come to the rescue as soon as possible, fell into the hands of the Italians, but Persano appears not to have believed in it.
The 19th was spent in attempts at landing, which the surf and the energetic play of the repaired batteries rendered fruitless. The bombardment was renewed, but it was not well conducted. Saint Bon, who made another plucky entry into the harbour, was unsupported, and, after an hour's fighting, he was obliged to retire, his ship having suffered severely.