Between the 4th and the 24th of June, no engagement of any magnitude was fought in Lombardy except the attack on Benedek at Melegnano, a battle in which the French lost most men, and gained no strategical advantage. It was supposed to have been fought because Napoleon I. had gained a victory in the same neighbourhood. The Austrians retreated to the Mincio, destroying the bridges over the Adda, Serio, Oglio and Mella as they went; these rivers the allies had to make repa.s.sable, which is the excuse given for the dilatory nature of their pursuit of the enemy. The Emperor Francis Joseph had now a.s.sumed the command, with Hess as his principle adviser, and Wimpffen and Schlick, famous as the "One-eyed," as heads of the two great corps into which the army was divided.
On the 22nd of June, the Austrians were ranged along the left bank of the Mincio from Peschiera to Mantua, and the French were ma.s.sed near Montechiaro, on the Brescia road, which Napoleon had made his headquarters. In withdrawing all their men from the right bank of the river, the Austrians desired to create the impression that they had finally abandoned it. It was their plan, which did not lack boldness, to throw the whole army back upon the right bank, and to perform a concentric movement on Montechiaro, where they hoped to fall unawares on the French and destroy them. They were confident of success, for they knew what a good stand they had made at Magenta, and now that Gyulai was got rid of, and the young Emperor had taken the field, they did not doubt that fortune would turn her wheel. To these men of many nations, the presence of their Emperor was the one inspiration that could rouse them, for if they were fighting for anything, it was for him in the most personal sense; it was to secure his mastery of the splendid land over which he looked from the castle of Valleggio, on the 23rd of June, whilst his brilliant staff stood round, waiting for the signal to mount and clatter down the steep road to the Mincio bridge. The army now advanced along all its line.
Even the soberest writers have not resisted making some reference to the magnificent scene of to-morrow"s battle. On one side, the mountain bulwarks rising tier on tier, gorgeous with the trancendent beauty of colour and light of the Italian summer; on the other, the vine-clad hillocks which fall gently away from the blue lake of Garda till they are lost in the
............harvest shining plain Where the peasant heaps his grain In the garner of his foe.
The 24th of June was to decide how much longer the Lombard peasant should labour to fill a stranger"s treasury.
The calculations of the Austrians were founded on the slowness which had hitherto characterised Napoleon"s movements. Hess thought that two days might be safely allowed for the Austrian advance, and that the enemy would remain pa.s.sive on the west bank of the river Chiese, waiting to be attacked on the 25th. If the operation could have been performed in one day, and it is thought that it could, there would have been more prospect of success. But even then, the original plan of attacking the allies west of the Chiese could not have been carried out, as on the 23rd the whole allied army moved forward, the French occupying Castiglione and Lonato, and the Sardinians Rezzato and Desenzano, on the lake of Garda. It is not clear how far the allies believed in the Austrian advance; that they had warning of it from several quarters is certain. For instance, a gentleman living at Desenzano heard from the country people, who, for marketing or other purposes, constantly go to and fro between that place and Peschiera, that the Austrians had ordered a quant.i.ty of country carts and transport waggons to be in readiness on the 23rd, and he hastened with the intelligence to the Piedmontese General Delia Rocca, who, in a fine spirit of red-tapism, pooh-poohed the information. The French encountered several Austrian patrols in the course of the day, but they were inclined to think that the Austrians were only executing a reconnaissance. On the whole, it seems that the conflict came as a surprise to both sides.
The Emperor of Austria, after accompanying the advance for a short distance, returned with Hess to Valleggio for the night. Napoleon slept at Montechiaro. The Austrian forces bivouacked on the little hills between Solferino and Cavriana. They rested well, still confident that no fighting would be done next day. At two in the morning, the French began to move in the direction of Solferino, and the Sardinians in that of Peschiera. There is a legend, that in the grey mists of dawn an advance party of French cavalry espied a huge and gaunt hussar standing by the roadside. For a moment the figure was lost sight of, but it reappeared, and after running across the road in front of the French, it turned and dealt the officer who led the party so tremendous a blow that he fell off his horse. Then the adventurous Austrian fled, followed by a volley from the French troopers; the sound vibrating through the dawn stillness gave the call to arms to the contrasted hosts. The battle of Solferino had begun.
The news flew to Montechiaro and to Valleggio. Napoleon started for the scene of action with the Imperial Guard; Francis Joseph"s staff was sent forward at six a.m., but the Emperor and Hess did not start till later. At near nine, the staff was looking for the Emperor, and the Emperor was looking for the staff in the open country about Volta; the sixty or seventy staff-officers dashed across ploughed fields and over hedges and ditches, in a style which would have done credit to an English fox-hunt. This remarkable incident was in keeping with the general management of the battle on the part of the Austrians, who had been fighting for many hours before the commander-in-chief arrived.
After his arrival, they continued fighting without any visible plan, according to the expedients of the divisional generals. The particular expedient adopted by General Zedwitz was to withdraw 15,000 men, including six regiments of cavalry, from the field. At a critical moment, Count Clam Gallas had the misfortune to lose his artillery reserve, and sent everywhere to ask if anyone had seen it. The Prince of Hesse, acting without orders, or against orders, separated his division from Schwarzenberg"s and brought it up at the nick of time to save the Austrians, when they were threatened with actual destruction, at two o"clock in the afternoon.
At that hour the French were in possession of the Spia d"Italia, and of all the heights of Solferino. They had been engaged in attacking them since eight in the morning, Napoleon having seen at once that they were the key to the position, and must be taken, cost what it might. The cost was great; if there is any episode in French military history in which soldiers and officers earned all the praise that can be given to brave men, it is the taking of these Solferino hills.
Again and again Forey"s division and Bazaine"s brigade returned to the charge; the cemetery and streets of Solferino were piled up with their dead, mingled with the dead of the defenders, who contested every inch of ground. The individual valour of the French soldiers in that six hours" struggle made it possible to win the battle.
The Austrians, however, after their desperate straits at two o"clock recovered to so great an extent that, had Zedwitz returned with his cavalry, as the Emperor was hoping that he would, the day might still have been theirs. Even as it was, MacMahon"s corps swerved under Zobel"s repulse of his attack on San Ca.s.siano, and Niel, in the plain, was dangerously hard pressed by Schwarzenberg. But, by degrees, the French recommenced gaining and the Austrians losing ground, and at six p.m., the latter were retreating in good order, defending each step before they yielded it.
In the last stage of the battle the French limbered up their guns in the belief that a vast reserve of Austrian cavalry was galloping into action. What made them think so was a dense yellowish wall advancing through the air. Had they been natives, they would have recognised the approach of one of those frightful storms which bring devastation in their train, and which, as they move forward in what appears a solid ma.s.s, look to the inexperienced eye exactly like the clouds of dust raised by innumerable hors.e.m.e.n. The bursting of the storm hastened the end of the fight.
All the day another fight, separate from this, had been going on between Benedek and the Sardinian army near the knoll of San Martino, overlooking the lake of Garda. The battle, which began in the early morning among the cypresses that crown the hillock, raged till seven p.m. with a fury which cost the Piedmontese over 4,000 in dead and wounded. It consisted largely in hand-to-hand fighting, which now gave an advantage to the Austrians, now to the Italians; many of the positions were lost and re-taken more than half-a-dozen times; the issue seemed long doubtful, and when Benedek, who commanded his side with unquestionable ability, received orders from the field of Solferino to begin a retreat, each combatant was firmly convinced that he was getting the best of it. Austrian writers allege that this order saved the Sardinians from defeat, while in both Italian and French narratives, the Piedmontese are represented as having been already sure of success. The courage shown alike by Piedmontese and Austrians could not be surpa.s.sed. Victor Emmanuel, as usual, set an example to his men.
An incident in the battle brings into striking relief what it was this b.l.o.o.d.y strife was meant to end. An Austrian corporal fell, mortally wounded by a Bersagliere whom he conjured, in Italian, to listen to what he had got to say. It was this: Forced into the Austrian army, he had been obliged to serve through the war, but had never fired his rifle on his fellow-countrymen; now he preferred to die rather than defend himself. So he yielded up his breath with his hand clasped in the hand which had slain him.
The Austrians lost, on the 24th of June, 13,000 men in killed and wounded; the French, 10,000. It was said that the frightful scene of carnage on the battlefield after Solferino influenced Napoleon III. in his desire to stop the war. Had that scene vanished from his recollection in June 1870?
Even a field of battle, with its unburied dead, speaks only of a small part of the miseries of a great war. Those who were at that time at Brescia, to which town the greater portion of the French wounded and all the worst cases were brought, still shudder as they recall the dreadful human suffering which no skill or devotion could do more than a very little to a.s.suage. The n.o.ble Brescian ladies who had once nursed Bayard, turned, with one accord, into sisters of charity; every house, every church, became a hospital, all that grat.i.tude and pity could do was done; but many were to leave their bones in Italy, and how many more to go home maimed for life, or bearing with them the seeds of death.
Other reasons than those of sentiment in reality decided Napoleon"s course. Though these can only be guessed at, the guess, at the present date, amounts to certainty. In the first place, the skin-deep rejoicings in Paris at the news of the victories did not hide the fact that French public opinion, never genuinely favourable to the war, was becoming more and more hostile to it. Then there was the military question. It is true that the Fifth Corps, estimated at 30,000 men, had, at last, emerged from its crepuscular doings in Tuscany, and was available for future operations. Moreover, Kossuth paid a visit to the Imperial headquarters, and held out hopes of a revolution in Hungary which would oblige the Austrian Emperor to remove part of his troops from the scene of the war. Nevertheless, Napoleon was by no means convinced that his army was sufficient to take the Quadrilateral. He realised the bad organisation and numerous shortcomings of the forces under him so vividly that it seems incredible that, in the eleven following years, he should have done nothing to remedy them. He attributed his success mainly to chance, though in a less degree to a certain lack of energy in the Austrians, joined with the exaggerated fear of responsibility felt by their leaders. He never could thoroughly understand why the Austrians had not won Solferino.
Naturally, he did not express these opinions to his marshals, but there is ample proof that he held them; and if the fact stood alone, it ought not to be difficult to explain why he was not anxious for a continuance of the war.
But it does not stand alone. Napoleon feared being defeated on the Rhine as well as in the Quadrilateral. Prussia had six army corps ready, and she was about to move them. That, after her long hesitations, she resolved to intervene was long doubted, but it cannot be so after the evidence which recent years have produced.
At the time things wore a different complexion. Europe was never more amazed than when, on the 6th of July, Napoleon the victor sent General Fleury to Francis Joseph the vanquished with a request for an armistice. One point only was plain; an armistice meant peace without Venetia, and never did profound sorrow so quickly succeed national joy than when this, to contemporaries astonishing intelligence, went forth. But the blow fell on no Italian with such tremendous force as on Cavour.
There are natives of Italy who appear to be more cool, more calculating, more completely masters of themselves, than the men of any other nationality. Cavour was one of these. But there comes, sooner or later, the a.s.sertion of southern blood, the explosion of feeling the more violent because long contained, and the cool, quiet Italian of yesterday is not to be recognised except by those who know the race intimately well, and who know the volcano that underlies its ice and snow as well as its luxuriant vegetation.
On Wednesday, the 6th of June, the French army was spread out in battle array along the left bank of the Mincio, and everything led to the supposition that a new and immediate battle was in contemplation.
The Piedmontese were engaged in making preparations to invest Peschiera. Napoleon"s headquarters were at Valleggio, those of the King at Monzambano. By the evening a very few persons had picked up the information that Napoleon had sent a messenger to Verona. Victor Emmanuel knew nothing of it, nor did any of the French generals except Marshal Vaillant, but such things leak out, and two or three individuals were aware of the journey to Verona, and spent that night in racking their brains as to what it might mean. Next day at eleven o"clock General Fleury returned; the Austrian Emperor had accepted the armistice. Further secrecy was impossible, and like lightning the news flashed through the world.
Cavour rushed from Turin to Desenzano, where he arrived the day before the final meeting between Napoleon and Francis Joseph. He waited for a carnage in the little _cafe_ in the piazza; no one guessed who it was, and conversation went on undisturbed: it was full of curses on the French Emperor. Mazzini, someone said, was right; this is the way the war was sure to end. When a shabby conveyance had at length been found, the great statesman drove to Monzambano. There, of course, his arrival did not escape notice, and all who saw him were horrified by the change that had come over his face. Instead of the jovial, witty smile, there was a look of frantic rage and desperation. What pa.s.sed between him and his Sovereign is partly a matter of conjecture; the exact sense of the violent words into which his grief betrayed him is lost, in spite of the categorical versions of the interview which have been printed. Even in a fit of madness he can hardly have spoken some of the words attributed to him. That he advised the King to withdraw his army or to abdicate rather than agree to the peace which was being plotted behind his back, seems past doubting. It is said that after attempting in vain to calm him, Victor Emmanuel brought the interview to a sudden close. Cavour came out of the house flushed and exhausted, and drove back to Desenzano. He had resigned office.
The King showed extraordinary self-control. Bitter as the draught was, he saw that it must be drunk, and he was determined to drink it with dignity. Probably no other Italian grasped as clearly as he did the real reason which actuated Napoleon; at any rate his chivalrous appreciation of the benefits already received, closed his lips to reproaches. "Whatever may be the decision of your Majesty," he said to the Emperor on the eve of Villafranca, "I shall feel an eternal grat.i.tude for what you have done for the independence of Italy, and I beg you to believe that under all circ.u.mstances you may reckon on my complete fidelity."
If there was sadness in the Sardinian camp, so there was in that of Austria. The Austrians by no means thought that the game was up for them. It would be interesting to know by what arguments Napoleon persuaded the young Emperor to renounce the hope of retrieving his disasters, whilst he slowly pulled to pieces some flowers which were on the table before which he and Francis Joseph sat. When they left the house, the heir to all the Hapsburgs looked pale and sad. Did he remember the dying counsels of "Father" Radetsky--not to yield if he was beaten on the Mincio, on the Tagliamento, on the Isonzo, before the gates of Vienna.
When, on the evening of the same day, the Emperor of Austria signed the preliminaries of peace, he said to Prince Napoleon, who took the doc.u.ment to Verona for his signature: "I pray G.o.d that if you are ever a sovereign He may spare you the hour of grief I have just pa.s.sed."
Yet the defeat of Solferino and the loss of Lombardy were the first steps in the transformation of Radetsky"s pupil from a despot, who hourly feared revolution in every land under his sceptre, to a wise and const.i.tutional monarch ruling over a contented Empire. To some individuals and to some states, misfortune is fortune.
CHAPTER XIII
WHAT UNITY COST
1859-1860
Napoleon III. and Cavour--The Cession of Savoy and Nice--Annexations in Central Italy.
Napoleon"s hurried journey to Turin on his way back to France was almost a flight. Everywhere his reception was cold in the extreme. He was surprised, he said, at the ingrat.i.tude of the Italians. It was still possible to ask for grat.i.tude, as the services rendered had not been paid for; no one spoke yet of the barter of Savoy and Nice. But Napoleon, when he said these words to the Governor of Milan, forgot how the Lombards, in June 1848, absolutely refused to take their freedom at the cost of resigning Venice to Austria. And if Venice was dear to them and to Italy then, how much dearer had she not become since the heroic struggle in which she was the last to yield. The bones of Manin cried aloud for Venetian liberty from his grave of exile.
Venice was the one absorbing thought of the moment; yet there were clauses in the brief preliminaries of peace more fraught with insidious danger than the abandonment of Venice. If the rest of Italy became one and free, it needed no prophet to tell that not the might of twenty Austrias could keep Venetia permanently outside the fold.
But if Italy was to remain divided and enslaved, then, indeed, the indignant question went up to heaven, To what end had so much blood been shed?
When he resolved to cut short the war, Napoleon still had it in his power to go down to history as the supreme benefactor of Italy. He chose instead to become her worst and by far her most dangerous enemy.
The preliminaries of peace opened with the words: "The Emperor of Austria and the Emperor of the French will favour the creation of an Italian Confederation under the honorary presidency of the Holy Father." Further, it was stated that the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena would return to their states. Though Napoleon proposed at first to add, "without foreign armed intervention," he waived the point (Rome was in his mind) and no such guarantee was inserted. Here, then, was the federative programme which all the personal influence and ingenuity of the French Emperor, all the arts of French diplomacy, were concentrated on maintaining, and which was only defeated by the true patriotism and strong good sense of the Italian populations, and of the men who led them through this, the most critical period in their history.
In England Lord Derby"s administration had fallen and the Liberals were again in power. Napoleon was so strangely deluded as to expect to find support in that quarter for his anti-unionist conspiracy. His earliest scheme was that the federative plan should be presented to Europe by Great Britain. Lord John Russell answered: "We are asked to propose a part.i.tion (_morcellement_) of the peoples of Italy, as if we had the right to dispose of them." It was a happy circ.u.mstance for Italy that her unity had no better friends than in the English Government during those difficult years. Cavour"s words soon after Villafranca, "It is England"s turn now," were not belied.
One thing should have made Napoleon uneasy; a man like Cavour, when his blood is roused, when his nature is fired by the strongest pa.s.sions that move the human heart, is an awkward adversary. If there was an instant in which the great statesman thought that all was lost, it was but an instant. With the quick rebound of virile characters he recovered his balance and understood his part. It was to fight and conquer.
"Your Emperor has dishonoured me," he said to M. Pietri in the presence of Kossuth (the interview taking place at Turin on the 15th of July). "Yes, sir, he has dishonoured me," and he set forth how, after promising to hunt the last Austrian out of Italy, after secretly exacting the price of his a.s.sistance to which Cavour had induced his good and honest King to consent, he now left them solemnly in the lurch; Lombardy might suffice! And, for nothing to be wanting, the King was to be forced into a confederation with Austria and the Italian princes under the presidency of the Pope. After painting the situation with all the irony and scorn of which he was master, he gave his note of warning: "If needs be, I will become a conspirator, I will become a revolutionist, but this treaty shall never be executed; a thousand times no--never!"
The routine business of the Prime Minister still fell to Cavour, as Rattazzi, who succeeded him, had not yet formed his cabinet. He was obliged, therefore, to write officially to the Royal Commissioners at Modena, Bologna and Florence to abandon their posts. But in the character of Cavour, the private citizen, he telegraphed to them at the same time to remain and do their duty. And they remained.
On one point there was a temporary lull of anxiety. Almost the last words spoken by Napoleon to Victor Emmanuel before he left Turin were: "We shall think no more about Nice and Savoy." The mention of Nice shows that though it had not been promised, Napoleon was all along set upon its acquisition. It is impossible to say how far, at the moment, he was sincere in the renunciation. That, very soon after his return to Paris, he was diligently weaving plans for getting both provinces into his net, is evident from the tenor of the articles and notes published in the "inspired" French newspapers.
Two chief motives can be divined for Napoleon"s determined opposition to Italian unity which never ceased till Sedan. The first was his wish, shared by all French politicians, that Italy should be weak. The second was his regard for the Temporal Power which proceeded from his still being convinced that he could not reign without the Clerical vote. The French prelates were perpetually giving him reminders that this vote depended on his keeping the Pope on his throne. For instance, Cardinal Donnet told him at Bordeaux in October 1859, that he could not choose a better way of showing his appreciation of the Blessed Virgin than "en menageant un triomphe a son Fils dans la personne de son Vicaire." It would be a triumph which the Catholic world would salute with transport. Hints of this sort, the sense of which was not hard to read, in spite of their recondite phraseology, reached him from every quarter. He feared to set them aside. The origins of his power were too much tainted for him to advance boldly on an independent policy. Thus it was that bit by bit he deliberately forfeited all t.i.tle to the help of Italy when the same whirlwind that dashed him to earth, cleared the way for the final accomplishment of her national destinies.
Whilst Victor Emmanuel was more alive than Cavour to the military arguments in favour of stopping hostilities when the tide of success was at its height, he was not one whit more disposed to stultify his past by becoming the va.s.sal at once of Paris and Vienna. In a letter written to the Emperor of the French in October, in answer to a very long one in which Napoleon sought to convert him to the plan of an Austro-Italian Confederation, he wound up by saying: "For the considerations above stated, and for many others, I cannot, Sire, second your Majesty"s policy in Italy. If your Majesty is bound by treaties and cannot revoke your engagements in the (proposed) congress, I, Sire, am bound on my side, by honour in the face of Europe, by right and duty, by the interests of my house, of my people and of Italy. My fate is joined to that of the Italian people. We can succ.u.mb, but never betray. Solferino and San Martino may sometimes redeem Novara and Waterloo, but the apostasies of princes are always irreparable. I am moved to the bottom of my soul by the faith and love which this n.o.ble and unfortunate people has reposed in me, and rather than be unworthy of it, I will break my sword and throw the crown away as did my august father. Personal interest does not guide me in defending the annexations; the Sword and Time have borne my house from the summit of the Alps to the banks of the Mincio, and those two guardian angels of the Savoy race will bear it further still, when it pleases G.o.d."
The events in Central Italy to which the King alludes were of the highest importance. L.C. Farini, the Sardinian Royal Commissioner at Modena, when relieved of his office, a.s.sumed the dictatorship by the will of the people. L. Cipriani became Governor of Romagna, and at Florence Ricasoli continued at the head of affairs, undismayed and unshaken in his resolve to defeat the combined machinations of France and Austria. In August the populations of Modena, Reggio, Parma and Piacenza declared their union with Piedmont by an all but unanimous popular vote, the two last provinces placing themselves for temporary convenience under the Dictator Farini. A few days later, Tuscany and Romagna voted a like act of union through their Const.i.tuent a.s.semblies. The representatives of the four States, Modena, Parma, Romagna and Tuscany, formally announced to the great Powers their choice of Victor Emmanuel, in whose rule they recognised the sole hope of preserving their liberties and avoiding disorder. Delegates were sent to Turin with the offer of the crown.
Peace, of which the preliminaries only were signed at Villafranca, was not yet definitely concluded, and a large French army was still in Italy. The King"s government feared therefore to adopt the bold course of accepting the annexations outright, and facing the responsibilities which might arise. Victor Emmanuel thanked the delegates, expressing his confidence that Europe would not undo the great work that had been done in Central Italy. The state of things, however, in these provinces, whose elected King could not yet govern them, was anomalous, most of all in what related to defence; they being menaced on the Austrian side by the Duke of Modena, and on the South by the Papal troops in the Cattolica. An armed force of 25,000 men was organised, of which the Tuscan contingent was under the command of Garibaldi, and the rest under that of the Sardinian General Fanti, "lent" for the purpose. Garibaldi hoped not merely to defend the provinces already emanc.i.p.ated, but to carry war into the enemy"s camp and make revolution possible throughout the States of the Church. To the Party of Action the chance seemed an unique one of hastening the progress of events. Unaccustomed as they were to weigh diplomatic difficulties, they saw the advantages but not the perils of a daring course. Meanwhile Napoleon threatened to occupy Piacenza with 30,000 men on the first forward step of Garibaldi, who, on his side, seemed by no means inclined to yield either to the orders of the Dictator Farini, or to the somewhat violent measures taken to stop him by General Fanti, who instructed the officers under his command to disobey him. It was then that Victor Emmanuel tried his personal influence, rarely tried without success, over the revolutionary chief, who reposed absolute faith in the King"s patriotism, and who was therefore amenable to his arguments when all others failed. The general was summoned to Turin, and in an audience given on the 16th of November, Victor Emmanuel persuaded him that the proposed enterprise would r.e.t.a.r.d rather than advance the cause of Italian freedom.
Garibaldi left for Caprera, only insisting that his "weak services"
should be called into requisition whenever there was an opportunity to act.
Before quitting the Adriatic coast the hero of Rome went one evening with his two children, Menotti and Teresita, to the Chapel in the Pine Forest, where their mother was buried. Within a mile was the farmhouse where he had embraced her lifeless form before undertaking his perilous flight from sea to sea. In 1850, at Staten Island, when he was earning his bread as a factory hand, he wrote the prophetic words: "Anita, a land of slavery holds your precious dust; Italy will make your grave free, but what can restore to your children their incomparable mother?" Garibaldi"s visit to Anita"s grave closes the story of the brave and tender woman who sacrificed all to the love she bore him.
After sitting for three months, the Conference which met at Zurich to establish the definite treaty of peace finished its labours on the 10th of November. The compact was substantially the same as that arranged at Villafranca. Victor Emmanuel, who had signed the Preliminaries with the reservation implied in the note: "In so far as I am concerned," preserved the same liberty of action in the Treaty of Zurich. He still hesitated, however, in a.s.suming the government of the central provinces, and even the plan of sending the Prince of Carignano as governor fell through in consequence of Napoleon"s opposition. His hesitations sprang from the general apprehension that a hint from Paris might any day be followed by a new eruption of Austrians in Modena and Tuscany for the purpose of replacing the former rulers of those states on their thrones. Such a fear existed at the time, and Rattazzi"s timid policy was the result; it is impossible not to ask now whether it was not exaggerated? "What statesman," wrote the Prince Consort in June 1859, "could adopt measures to force Austrian rule again upon delighted, free Italy?" If this was true in June was it less true in November? For the rest, would not the supreme ridicule that would have fallen on the French Emperor if he encouraged the Austrians to return to Central Italy after driving them out of Lombardy, have obliged him to support the principle of non-intervention, whether he wished it or not? England was prepared to back up the government of Piedmont, in which lay a great moral force.
It is plain that the long wavering about what ought to be done with the central provinces is what cost the country Savoy and Nice, or at any rate, Nice. Napoleon did all in his power to prevent and to r.e.t.a.r.d the annexations, especially that of Tuscany, which, as he said, "would make Italian unity a mere question of time," but when he found that neither threats nor blandishments could move the population from their resolve to have Victor Emmanuel for their king, he decided to sell his adhesion for a good price. Compelled for the sake of appearances to withdraw his claim after the abrupt termination of the war, he now saw an excellent excuse for reviving it, and he was not likely to let the opportunity slip.