Austrians.  It took them unprepared.  They had talked so much about war that perhaps they thought it would happen in the next century.  When the “now or never” sounded, which does sound sooner or later in all human affairs, they hesitated or suffered the king to hesitate, which came to the same thing.  That Charles Albert stood for one instant in doubt when the hour was come desired by him all his life, as he had often stated, and there is no reason to think untruly, is possibly the most serious stain on his memory.  There are moments when to reflect is criminal:  a man has no right to reflect when his mother is in a burning house.  The reflections which held Charles Albert back were two.  He was afraid that the Milan revolution would breed a republic, and he was afraid of England and of Russia.  England, which during the previous autumn had sent Lord Minto to urge upon the Italian princes a line of policy rightly described by Prince Metternich as inevitably leading to an attack on Austria, now applied the whole force of her diplomacy to stop the ball she had herself set running.  The spectacle of Lord Palmerston trying to save or serve Austria, which he detested, in obedience to the atavistic tendencies of the Foreign Office, is a lesson in history.  For English politicians of whatever party or private sentiments, Austria was still what Lord Castlereagh called her:  “The great hinge on which the fate of Europe must ultimately depend.”  Sir Ralph Abercromby assured the king that “the least act of aggression” would place his throne in jeopardy.  His throne was already in jeopardy, but from the contrary reason.  Each minute that passed while the Milanese were fighting their death struggle and he stood inactive threatened to deprive him and his house of that power of progress on which not only their fortune but their existence depended.

The news from Milan reached Turin on March 19; on the 23rd, the last of the Milan days, king and ministry were still hesitating.  On that day Cavour printed in the Risorgimento the most impassioned piece of writing that ever came from his pen.  The conservative, the reactionary, once more cried aloud that audacity was prudence, temerity wisdom.  The supreme hour of the Savoy dynasty had struck, the hour of strong resolves, on which hangs the fate of empires, the destinies of peoples.  Hesitation, doubt, delay, were no more possible:  they could only prove fatal.  “We, men of calm minds, accustomed to listen more to the dictates of reason than to the impulses of the heart, after deliberately weighing each word we utter, are bound in conscience to declare that only one path is open to the nation, the government, the king:  war, immediate war!” It was said, he continued, that Russia and England were on the point of uniting against Italy.  In common times such an argument would be conclusive, not now.  When Milan was struggling for life, was perhaps getting worsted, at all costs they were bound to fly to the rescue.  Duty, brotherhood, policy, commanded it.  Woe unto them if they crossed the frontier to find that Milan had fallen.