The army of Austria was in those days the Austrian Empire.  Outside the army the empire was a jealous congery of intriguing disaffected nationalities.  The same policy which played the various States against one another in order to reduce all to subserviency to the central Head, erected a privileged force wherein the sentiment of union was fostered till it became a nationality of the sword.  Nothing more fatal can be done for a country; but for an army it is a simple measure of wisdom.  Where the password is march, and not develop, a body of men, to be a serviceable instrument, must consent to act as one.  Hannibal is the historic example of what a General can accomplish with tribes who are thus, enrolled in a new citizenship; and (as far as we know of him and his fortunes) he appears to be an example of the necessity of the fusing fire of action to congregated aliens in arms.  When Austria was fighting year after year, and being worsted in campaign after campaign, she lost foot by foot, but she held together soundly; and more than the baptism, the atmosphere of strife has always been required to give her a healthy vitality as a centralized empire.  She knew it; this (apart from the famous promptitude of the Hapsburgs) was one secret of her dauntless readiness to fight.  War did the work of a smithy for the iron and steel holding her together; and but that war costs money, she would have been an empire distinguished by aggressiveness.  The next best medicinal thing to war is the military occupation of insurgent provinces.  The soldiery soon feel where their home is, and feel the pride of atomies in unitive power, when they are sneered at, hooted, pelted, stabbed upon a gross misinterpretation of the slightest of moral offences, shamefully abused for doing their duty with a considerate sense of it, and too accurately divided from the inhabitants of the land they hold.  In Italy, the German, the Czech, the Magyar, the Croft, even in general instances the Italian, clung to the standard for safety, for pay, for glory, and all became pre-eminently Austrian soldiers; little besides.

It was against a power thus bound in iron hoops, that Italy, dismembered, and jealous, and corrupt, with an organization promoted by passion chiefly, was preparing to rise.  In the end, a country true to itself and determined to claim God’s gift to brave men will overmatch a mere army, however solid its force.  But an inspired energy of faith is demanded of it.  The intervening chapters will show pitiable weakness, and such a schooling of disaster as makes men, looking on the surface of things, deem the struggle folly.  As well, they might say, let yonder scuffling vagabonds up any of the Veronese side-streets fall upon the patrol marching like one man, and hope to overcome them!  In Vienna there was often despair:  but it never existed in the Austrian camp.  Vienna was frequently double-dealing and time-serving her force in arms was like a trained man feeling his muscle.  Thus, when the Government thought of temporizing, they issued orders to Generals whose one idea was to strike the blow of a mallet.