Only military genius of the first order could now have saved the Piedmontese, and what prevailed was the usual infatuation.  Charles Albert’s lines were extended across forty miles of country, from Peschiera to Goito.  On the 23rd of July the Austrians fell upon their weakest point, and obliged Sonnaz’ division to cross over to the right bank of the Mincio.  On the 24th, the King succeeded in dislodging the Austrians from Custozza after four hours’ struggle; but next day, which was spent entirely in fighting, Radetsky retook Custozza, and obliged the King to fall back on Villafranca.  Now began the terrible retreat on Milan, performed under the ceaseless fire of the pursuers, who attacked and defeated the retreating army for the last time, close to Milan, on the 4th of August.  Radetsky had with him 45,000 men; Charles Albert’s forces were reduced to 25,000.  He had lost 5000 since he recrossed the Mincio.  He begged for a truce, and, defeated and undone, he entered the city which he had vowed should only receive him victorious.

To suppose that anything could have been gained by subjecting Milan to the horrors of a siege seems at this date the veriest madness; whatever Charles Albert’s sins were, the capitulation of Milan was not among them.  The members of a wild faction, however, demanded resistance to the death, or the death of the King if he refused.  It is their severest censure to say that their pitiless fury is not excused even by the tragic fate of a population which, having gained freedom unaided less than six months before, saw itself given back to its ancestral foe by the man in whom it had hoped as a saviour.  They saw crimes where there were only blunders, which had brought the King to a pass only one degree less wretched than their own.  Crushed, humiliated, his army half destroyed, his personal ambition—­to rate no higher the motive of his actions—­trodden in the dust; and now the name of traitor was hissed in his ears by those for whom he had made these sacrifices.

Stung to the heart, the King instructed General Bava to tell the Milanese that if they were ready to bury themselves under the ruins of the city, he and his sons were ready to do the same.  But the Municipality, convinced of the desperateness of the situation, had already entered into negotiations with Radetsky, by which the capitulation was ratified.  On this becoming known, the Palazzo Greppi, where Charles Albert lodged, was the object of a new display of rage; an attempt was even made to set it on fire.  During the night, the King succeeded in leaving the palace on foot, guarded by a company of Bersaglieri and accompanied by his son, the Duke of Genoa, who, on hearing of his father’s critical position, disobeyed the order to stay with his regiment, and came into the city to share his danger.

The next day, the 6th of August, the Austrians reentered Milan.  They themselves said that the Milanese seemed distraught.  The Municipality was to blame for having concealed from the people the real state of things, by publishing reports of imaginary victories.  Had the unthinking fury of the mob ended, as it so nearly ended, in an irreparable crime, the authors of these falsehoods would have been, more than anyone else, responsible for the catastrophe.