Prologue
Journal: Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks
Year: 2010

In the spring of 1859, French and Austrian armies numbering together in the hundreds of thousands converged on northern Italy. Many traveled to this centuries-old battleground as their predecessors had, by ship, wagon, and their own feet. Many more came by train, the new mode of travel that was about to transform the art of war as it had transformed so much else. Waiting for them was the army of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, recently allied to France and hoping a war would break the power of