rights as an independent sovereign, but from respect for the untoward results to himself which he was afraid, on reflection, might arise from enforcing his claims with the bayonet.  But people forget; and it was of vital consequence that virtuous Austria should figure in the coming conflict not as the victim of aggression but as the aggressor.  On all sides it was said that the Austrian Government would never commit an error of such magnitude; only Cavour thought the contrary.  ’I shall force her to declare war against us,’ he told Mr Odo Russell in December 1858.  When asked by the incredulous diplomatist at what date he expected to perform so great a feat, Cavour quietly answered:  ’In the first week of May.’  War was actually declared a few days sooner.

For months Austria had been pouring troops into Italy, a large portion of which were massed on the frontier line of the Ticino.  Who shall count the number of the men brought to fight and die in the Italian plains between 1848 and 1866 to sustain for that short time the weight of a condemned despotism?  The supply was inexhaustible; they came from the Hungarian steppes, from the green valleys of Styria, from the mountains of Tyrol, from the woodlands of the Banat and of Bohemia; a blind million battling for a chimera.  They came, and how many did not return?

Austria’s final refusal to adhere to the Congress scheme meant, of course, war, and Cavour called the Chamber and demanded a vote conferring upon Government the power to take such prompt measures as the situation required.  ‘We trust,’ he said, ’that the Chamber will not hesitate to sanction the proposal to invest the King with plenary powers.  Who could be a better guardian of our liberty?  Who more worthy of the faith of the nation?  He it is whose name a ten years’ reign had made synonymous with honour and loyalty; who has always held high the tricolor standard of Italy, who now prepares to unsheath his sword for freedom and independence.’

When Cavour walked out of the Chamber after the vote had been taken, he said:  ’I am leaving the last sitting of the Piedmontese Parliament, the next will be that of the Kingdom of Italy.’  At that moment, if ever in his career, the great minister who had fought so long a fight against incalculable obstacles learnt what it is to taste the sweetness of triumph.

CHAPTER XII

THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY

1859

Austria declares War—­Montebello—­Garibaldi’s
Campaign—­Palestro—­Magenta—­The Allies enter Milan—­Ricasoli saves
Italian Unity—­Accession of Francis II.—­Solferino—­The Armistice of
Villafranca.