A rain of cannon balls is sending death to the distant reserves of Austria. If these desert the field they yield it only step by step, and soon recommence action. Their ranks are ceaselessly reforming. On the plains the wind raises the dust, which flies over the roads like dense clouds, darkening the day and blinding the fighters.
The French cavalry flings itself on the Austrian cavalry; uhlans and hussars slash furiously at each other with their swords.
The rage is so great that in some places, after the exhaustion of the cartridges and the breaking of the muskets, they fight with fists and beat one another with stones.
The strongest positions are captured, lost, and recaptured, to be lost again. Everywhere men are falling mutilated, riddled with bullets, covered with wounds.
In the midst of these endless combats, these massacres, blasphemies arise in different tongues, telling of the diverse nationalities of the men, many of whom are obliged to become homicides in their twentieth year.
The soldiers of the Sardinian King, defending and attacking with fervor, continue their skirmishes from early morning. The hills of San Martino, Roccolo, Madonno della Scoperta are captured and recaptured five or six times. Their Generals Mollard, La Marmora, Della Rocca, Durando, Fanti, Cialdini, Cucchiari, de Sonnoz, with all kinds and all grades of officers help the king before whose eyes lie the wounded Generals Cedale, Perrier and Arnoldi.
The French Emperor orders that the corps of Baraguey d'Hilliers and MacMahon, together with the Imperial Guard, attack at the same time the fortress of San Cassiano and occupy Solferino.
But the brave Austrians make the allied army pay dearly for its success.... One of its heroes, Prince Aleksandro de Hessen, after fighting with great courage at San Cassiano defends against repeated attacks, the three heights of Mount Fontana.... At Guidizzolo, Prince Charles of Windischraetz, braves certain death in seeking to recapture under a hail of balls Casa Nova. Mortally wounded, he still commands, supported and carried by his brave soldiers, who vainly make for him a rampart of their own bodies.
Marshal Baraguey d'Hilliers finally enters the town of Solferino, courageously defended by Baron Stadion.
The sky is darkened, dense clouds cover the horizon. A furious wind is rising. It carries away the broken branches of the trees. A cold rain, driven by the tempest, a veritable cloud-burst, drenches the combatants, exhausted from hunger and fatigue, while dust, hail and smoke are blinding the soldiers forced to fight also the elements.