The Express.
London, England, 1851-04-12 00:00:00

THE VOLUNTEERS.

All Italy was eagerly rushliti---itiarras ; 2,000 national
guards from Itologna broke into the Modenese territory on
the first report of a popular outbreak. Citizen and regular
troops from Leghorn, toe whole body of stud:nits from Pies,
set forth on their march across the Apennines without wait-
ing for guidance or orders. The youth of Turin and °cool
stormed for arins and ammunition the palace-doors of their
equally willing but more cautious and deliberate rulers.
Masses or armed men were mustering in the streets of Rome.
Naples was dragged along by an utemvernable multitude,
anxious not to be the last in the national contest.
" It is the will of God!" was the cry ; the same as in the
old wi.rs of the Cross. Such tears of joy as were then shed
Italian eyes were unused to, time out of memory.
I The alarm spread far and wide. The commotion was felt
in Switzerland. and France; at Corfu and Malta; at Con-
stantinople and in Egypt ; in Spain and Algiers ' • at Nes--
York and Monte Viedo. Whereve.: au Italian heart beat—
...

there—truth must he said—was a soldier of the country. '
Nn consideration of age or infirmity, no private interest or
domestic tie, proved a hindrance ; old military men, grown
hoary in the pursuit of humble literary occupations, girt on
a sword that had lain inactive since Napoleon. tnrecog-
nimble by long absence, denaturalised by long exposere to
distant climates, by the adoption of outlandish manners,
they stood on that native soil they had long given up all
hope to revisit. A moving sight, and sublime, was that
meetirg of exiles under the walls of Mantua and Verona.
Thither most of them repaired; many actually having,
Ininny refusing to have, any other home than the camp.
It may be easy for a sneering traveller in the East to
state, that '• of the refugee Italians who were going back
to their own country, to rat up the last remnant of
the Austrians, after all very few went." We could quoto
sufficient instances of men whom as overstrained sense of
public duty made too utterly regardless of other no less
sacred duties of a private nature.
But alas! it soon became obvious that it was not by num-
ber alone that Itedetzky could be oterpowered. Had
mere bands of volenteers been a match for the Austrian
soldiery, the Lombardo-Venetian provinces alone might and
should, out of four or five millions of souls' have been ablo
for
ce adequate to the task. But for a modern
war—a war of fortresses, too, something more than men
WC) wanted. The insurrectionary war was well nigh at an
' end. Those who had so long been teaching that an Italian
revolution should rely for success on " God and the people,"
may tell us how two fortresses of the very first order, such
as Manilla and Verona could be taken, as everything else is
to he done, by the people; or even how their garrisons could
be sufficiently surround,d and besieged therein. There is
no great sense in referring to the achievements of the
French revolutionary armies of 1789. The French were,
by long habit, a martial race: the Garden Front:ruses, with
with others of the best regiments of the ex-royal arms-, had
merged into the popular ranks ever since they fraternised
with them at the taking of the Basilic. These veterans of
i the Flemish and American wars were the soul and nerve of
that sans-culottie rabble, which was, however, disorderly
only in dress and appearance. Nor is it less idle to point to
the glorious example of national warfare, such as given by
the Spaniards in 1819. The guerilla consisted of the sturdy
mule-drivers and smugglers—half bandits—the vary kernel
of those Anatolian and Catalonian tribes proverbial for their
sobriety and power of endurance. They stood on the vant-
age-ground of their vast, broad, bleak mountain-range, and
were headed by a priesthood who shrunk front no appeal to
their worst, no less than to their best passions ; they relied,
besides, for their sustenance on the inexhaustible supplies of
• foreign power.
The Italian volunteers—students most of them, and
young men front the moss effeminate classes of the cities—
were indifferently provided with anus, still more indiffer-
ently familiar with the use of them ; utterly unacquainted
with finy, either regular or irregular, mode of warfare ;
fighting on aground not always friendly ; ill-seconded by
the still stupefied rural population; often compelled to vio-
lent means for subsistence, they were sure to prove as ex-
pensive a weapon as they were inefficient and unwieldy.
(here is no doubt but a volunteer in Italy, probably in any
other country, costs three times as much as a regular
soldier.

The Italian volunteers, by their gallant spirit, by a cer-
tain dashing impetuosity, and even by their perseverance
under hardships and privations, far exceeded the expecta-
tions both of friends and eneaues. These their brilliant
qualities might and should, most certainly, have been
turned into amount, but only for auxiliary work—only for
that kind of desultory warfare for which they were pro-
perly intended. It would have been arrant folly to hope
that, by themselves, not only they could ever bring the war
to a happy issue, but even that they could avert the most
dire calamities from the defenceless country.
The free corps, besides, had, properly speaking, no of-
ficers; Austria had left nothing unattempted that could
utterly break the spirit of a population naturally not war-
like. The veterans of Napoleon's Italian army were mostly
dead ; some of them had pined away as prisoners at Lay-
back and Spielberg, in consequence of the conspiracies of
1816 and 1820. The very few remaining were in their
dotage; they understood nothing of that blind, reckless
temerity with which revolutionary wars must be carried on.

Of the regular armies the only one worthy m

tioning winithe Sardinian. Ora author thui speak%
of the

PIEDMONTVIE ARMY.
The Sardinian army, upon which all the princes of the
house of Savoy, since their restoration is ISI4, and tbat
ill-
fated Charles Albert, above all others, had bestowed so
great a care—on whose good fenny, mien, and countenance
they had plumed themselves, was, however, at the bast only
intended for defensive warfare. Piedmont, in its best days
a second-rate power, could only be expected to enter the
field as an auxiliary ; in which case it would only have to
supply its contingent, relying for generalship no less than
for more solid resources, on that among its mightier allies
whoa. side it deemed expedient to take. The idea, not
only of entering the lists with Austria, but even of taking
the field alone, would, in any normal state of things, have
bean scouted as preposterous • and no preparations had
ever been seriously made with that view.
We shall waste no words in praise of the gallantry of the
Sardinian troops, especially of those taken from Savoy and
Piedmont, as friends and enemies have equally borne wit-
nem to it. The men were not only steady and resolute in
Eof danger but also long-enduring and cheerful under
vatic= and hardships. There was a liveliness and good-
OW among these "merry men" worthy of the French
of the old republican school, ready to Ed a,
gcao2rn.nountenance on the gloomiest aspect of thiPrawThey
wen sadly off,:to say the troth, on the score of • line
but its want was made up for 17 a ready wllliagaess and
mer Zeal, finless tliin by an easy depending.e on, end ro-
tifer fatilliar attachment to, their °Betio. These latter,
chosen with obvious partiality from the aristocratic orders,
were modest men, well-bred, and well-principled, keenly

alive to feelings of fluty and honour, thoroughly free from
bravado and boasting. Excessive spruceness, ermine-
like exclusiveness and fastidiousness, might be discernible
amongst them, hut milting like morgue and supercilious-
ness. They had ben somewhat too long estranged from
their soldiers during the dissipations of garrison life, but
they had not been three days on the march ere a mutual
good-win—a kind of family compact—had hound them to
their men. Not much of the effeminacy and languor con-
sequent on Italian idleness and sensuality was to bo seen
here. _ . .

The riedmontese have sometimes been called the English
of Italy; by their love of hones, by their earnestness of
manners, high breeding, and gentlemanly behaviour, the
S..rdinian officers ceriainly resembled men of the same call-
bs in England, rather than those of any other army no tho
co iiinent. _ _ .

The ultra-liberals of Lombardy affected to find fault with
the arisorcratic pride of these officers, and with their lack of
patriotic zeal. The Savoyards were certainly strangers to
Daly, and could he actuated by no enthusiastic devotion to
its cause. But they had embraced it with no less ardour,
notwithstanding, out of the finest spirit of chivalrous ail-
' venture, out of mere professional amateurship ; the very
darkest ingratitude cannot charge them with having been
chary of their blood for its sake.
On the 29th of March, at Pavia, the king had only three
divisions with him, amounting al.ogether to 23,000 men ;
the army was not complete before the end of April, when
it numbered about 30,000 men, 6,300 horses, and 120 can-
non. 'fu these must be added 3,000 Tuscan volunteer* and
regular troops, and 3,000 men from Part= and Modena.
Altogether it may be questioned if Charles Albert had, at
any time, more toan 70 to 75,000 men tinder his immediate
orders. The 5,000 Lombard volunteers in the Tyrol, rind,
perhaps, as many Venetians in the Julian Alps, together
with the 17,000 Roman* under Ferrari and Durand°, were
intended for fron.ier war, and seldom acted in combination
with the Sardinian forces.

The pride of Cie army was its horse and artillery ; the
cavalry- was no: on the war-footing at the outbreak of hos-
Wide's, and was always imperfectly mounted. It consisted
only of six regiments, all armed with long and rather pon-
derous lances. The artillery was faulilessly equipped and
well trained; and it opposed sixteen-pounders against the
Austrian pieces, which only carried twave pounds.
The Lersaglicri, also, or sharpshooters, of which there
were only two battalions, armed with a rifle of new inven-
tion, were, to say the least, a match fur the best firalleurs
from Styria or the Tyrol.
The Piedmontese infantry might, also, have been as good
as any in Europe, but for some defects in its organisation.
The men are generally small, but broad-chested, muscular,
licalihy, and ae.ive. They are drilled to a greater rapidity
of inovemmts than the Germans, and to a greater preci-
sion than the French. Their fire is well-aimed, but they
are thought to be "not fond of close action, unable to
stand, much le.s to repulse, a bayonet aitnek." This, how-
ever, in the estiauaiion of their enemies.
. .

The organic fault in the infantry to which we allude re-
sults faim its male of recruitment. The conscription
binds them to Queen years service. They are, however,
only fourteen months under arms, during which period
arc made to go through all heir drilling, and are
then sent home for the remainder of their time, under
liability to bo called out as a reserve on any emergency.
Asa reserve they do not form a separate body, but are
made to join their respective regiments, and to take their
place in the rinks with their comrades already in
active service. his system—analogous to, and grouuded
upon, that of the Prussian laudaehr, though it has the
apparent advantage of doubling the forces of the state on
the shortest notice—has, however, also the effect of bringing
under the stauclardsmenuntiitedfor arms by long desuetude,
by domestic IL-4, and family cares and concerns. The
number of officers also becomes inadequate to the sudden
tilling up of their cadres, upon a tran,ition front the peace
to the war-footing. Those evils were not much felt at the
opening of the campaign, and during the excitement of a
triumphal march ; but as the dilheultieo of the undertak-
ing became apparent, and the length of the campaign ob-
vious, nothing con.ributed to the disorganisation of the
Piedmontese battalions more than the weariness and home-
sickness of the husbands and fathers that had been too freely
admitted into their ranks.

The horse and artillery are, to a great extent, free from
similar inconvenience, hence their superior steadiness and
higher sense of duty.
So much fur the body of the army : the soul of it was
nowhere so be found. Once out of their snug quarters of
Alessandria, Genoa, or Turin, away from their annual mus-
ter-field of (Ark, the Sardinian generals, together with
their royal commander-in-chief, seemed to have lost the
very rudiments of strategy. With utter improvidence had
they set out, without maps, without knowledge of a couthry
so near to their own, with the utmost contusion in their
commissariat. Never before was an army so sorely tried
iby hunger during a career of success. Orders were issued
without number ; but as a wag of a stall-officer once coolly
observed, "there was always so arching stronger than even
a king's order, and that was Disorder.'
By the time that Charles Albert could take the
field, Radetsky had at least 50,000 men under his
command, all severely disciplined; his army was
highly organised, the officers romantically loyal.
With these he might, in April, have considered him-
self a match fur the Sardinian anti his 70000, even,
on the open field, but within four fortresses of the !I
first order, upon his own ground, with every inch of
which lee was familiar, he had a decided advantage,
of which it is surprising that both parties remained
I so long unaware. Bonaparte, indeed, m 1796, had gone
lover the same ground with success; but the French
' came as conquerors, while the Sardinians were rather
defenders. Napoleon came anxious to strike a de-
cisive blow, and little heedful of the misery he might
meanwhile inflict ; 'Charles Albert to shut up an
enemy who it was fancied had been beaten off the
field. Bonaparte had to deal with Mantua only,
before it had received all the strength it poosmsed in
1803. But Charles Albert could only march through
formidable quadrangle of fortresses, front one of
which to the other was only a short night's march.
The military difficulties which beset the King's
path, and his own lack of genius, have been often
insisted on. Another formidalie impediment to
success is thus notices], by our author:
inc TEMPER OP Inc PATRIOTS.
Still the great mass of volunteers, especially Lombards,
were looked upon as a mere encumbrance by the Pied-
montese generals. It was a weapon they ill knew how to
weld. ply its very organisation the Sardinian army had
absolutely no officers to spare for the drilling of these un-
tutored auxiliaries. The few that were set to the engrat".-
NI task failed, signally: wedded to barrack routine, they
could and would understand nothing of the eccentric
manoeuvres of party warfare. Pos-ibly, also, some of those
volunteers were wild and unmanageable: wilful, expen-
sive, troublesome, quarrelsom.-. Such is the nature of those
combatants all the world over. Rut in this particular ease
there were many reasons to make their conceit intolerable
—their ambition insatiable. They were most of them the
heroes of the Five Days "of Milan ;or men, at least,
that strove hard to identify themselves with that great
achievement. They thought that all had been done—or, at
least, that enough had been done for their part ; they
seemed inclined to leave the mere drudgery of what all
thought would prove an uneventful war to the Pied-
montese, who were paid for it ; and yet, at the same time,
they looked upon them with a vague jealousy, as if they
grudged them the too easy laurels that bombard blood
had ripened, and as if apprehensive of the high price the
royal leader of those mercenaries might put upon his tardy
and in.significant services.
They had routed Radctaky: to the Piedmontese was left
the comparatively safe and easy task of unearthing him.
They persisting in looking upon themselves as a self-eman-
cipated, not a rescued, people ; and were very loud in their
vindication of the inalienable right they had now so bravely
re-asserted, of disposing of themselves at their own plea-
sure.

They raked up old grievances against the person of the
king; who, whatever might be thought of the past, was
now irretrievably commit' d, and staked his all on what
might yet prove a hasesdous game.
This was the ease with the whole mass of the Lombard
population. Pavia, Lodi, Creme, the find towns occupied
by the l'icdmontese, remised them in silence. Nothing
was heard at Milan, nothing was chalked on its walls, but
the eternal Guelphie cry of " Viva Pio Nino! " the re was
not one cheer for the monarch who was only anxious to
abed every drop of blood fur the common cause.
It took no little trouble to well-meaning patriots to get
up a little show of enthu-iasin in behalf of the l'iulmon-
tree ; but every demonstration was slow, and by no means
spontaneous.
Not a few of the Milanese who took up arms, conse-
quently, far from wishing to afford the Piedmontese a help
that they could by no possibiliiy want, were only anxious
to prevent the ready-made victory from being too utterly
and excludvely their own ; only anxious to go hand-in-
hand with them, with an emulation which, however ques-
tionable its motives, might have been happy in its effects.
Charles Albert's great difficulty in the way of
strengthening himself against the Austrians was the
premature discussions and suspicions of the patriots.
M. Mariotti would have liked this obstacle to have
boon surmounted in the following fashion :
THE STYLE OF ACTIO,/.

But, alas I Charles Albert himself had from the begin-
ning fut that one condition of victory too sadly out of the
question. His very virtues were hardly less fatal to him
than his most capital faults. A little less chivalrous senti-
ment, a little loses romantic generosity on his part, might
have saved the country in spite of itself. Charles Albert
deserves blame, not merely for his vain regards to his
Italian allies, but for his eubeervency to foreign mediators,
for his dread of the French republic or of tho German con-
federacy, or for his deference to England. His greatest
crime, in our ayes, is his want of vigour and energy against
kis dosesetio opponents. He should at awe knee
nuniked upon Lombard y, as on his own ground.
should, from the 23rd of /Larch, hen assumed an absekute
distatorship. He should have known enough of the Italian
character to feel assured that it was necessary above all
things to save Italy from "her greatest enemy "—herself.
He should have converted the country into a vast camp,
laid it under a strict mate of sedge. Would he not thus
hays seed Budd*, the tremble ef dram it so aeon after.
wards ? The constitution in Piedmont should have e
mained a dead letter up to the close of the war. Those
Italians that would not fight should at least have been made

to hold their tongues. What was wasted in ink and paper
might be so much better employed in gunpowder and
muskets. Liberty, equality—nay, even "God and the
people," should have had a compulsory holiday. He
should have hushed up all disciesuons ndiourned
all questions, till the king's intention. should' have
been revealeil, and his conduct justiaed by events.
Time enough to play the part of a Cintimmus, an Andrea
Doris, or a Washington when the sword of Italy could
with honour be rcturn dto it sheath. But during the war
there should have been no " neutrality," no " compromise
between p,!.ii-s"—in bet, no parties; no utterance of any
cry but " War with the Austrian !" All sedition-shops,
clubs, and raps, should have been closed. Incorrigible de-
magogues should—like the Viennese students on the op-
I 'mite side—have been pressed for the army, and sent to the
forloni hopes. The annexation should have been a fait or-
, rompli from the first l'iedmontcse occupation. It should
have been high treason openly to mention the " individu-
ality " of Lombardy: from the moment the name of Italy
was set up, all provincial demarkations had ceased to exist.
Certainly no country more needed, none would more
cheerfully have submitted to, a temporary reign of terror
than Italy. It was only by showing himself terribly in
earliest that the king could obtain oblivion of the past, and
win confiuence for the future. Every town and province of
Lombardy should have been made over to Piedmontese
commissioners—mere rough drill-sergeants, whose political
science should have been limited to a requisition of men,
horses, and money.

Mariotti, while acknowledging that a more
loyal and noble heart than Mazzint's never beat,
thinks that he "stabbed Italy to the heart" by, his
protests and declarations. He taught Italy to look
to France and Switzerland, when it was above all
things necessary for every Italian to feel that only
danger could come from those quarters, and that all
was lost unless the nation, forgetting politics, com-
bined as one man in a long and determined strugglo
against the Austrians.
The disastrous retreat from Milan, the armistice,
and subsequent humiliation of Italy are well known.
Let us conclude with an extract on