Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-05-19 00:00:00

PROGRESS OF THE WAR.

(PROM THE " TIMES" CORRESPONDENT.)

-AUSTRIAN HEAD-QUARTERS, MORTARA, May 12.
—I hope my letter of the day before yesterday
' reached London in safety, because, though- written
hurriedly to catch the post, it contained information
calculated to underceive you on one or two points on
which the Piedmontese press has been mistaken.
The affair of Frassinetto, for instance, was simply
a feint. to draw the attention of the allies from the
real passage of the river at Corsale. This' the allies
must know, for the planks supplied by Candia,
and nailed together with so much noise on. the
island, were left there, and could tell . their own
story: - Had the Austrians really wished to
pass the river they would have used the pontoon
bridge which they had in the neighbourhood, by.
which they afterwards crossed the Sesia between
Pezzana and Rivoletta, and which was yet standing
the day before yesterday. I am not quite sure
whether it is there now or not. I rather think not,
and that the bridge at Vercelli is the only one now
existing over the-Sesia. At Vercelli, there is an
Austrian corps d'armee. When I was there, on
Tuesday, it was busy throwing up earthworks to
form an intrenched camp, for which the 'position is
admirably suited. This will command the road from ,
Turin to Novaro and Milan, and will also cheek any
attempt on the part of the allied army, now near
Casale, to turn the Austrian right flank.
I . see a Turin paper asserts that Novara was
threatened with a 'general massacre by the Austrians
in default of certain contributions. I can assure
you that the orders to treat the inhabitants well are
peremptory, and that they are 'obeyed_ willingly.
Indeed the conduct of the natives is such as to secure
good treatment even from a less gob&natured fellow
than the Austrian soldier certainly is. Most pro-
bably the bearing of the soldier towards the popula-
tion induces the reciprocal good feeling. How do
the Zouaves and the Piedmontese peasantry get on ?
As an example of the high state of discipline in
the Austrian army, I may mention that General
Benedek had two men shot for. stealing property
worth only a few francs. From other sources you
may hear different accounts, as 20 or 30 imitations .
of Austrian uniforms were captured at Novara.
They had been-. made by certain parties for the
purpose of committing robberies and atrocities, and
of throwing the - odium on the ,Austrians. _ The'
same may have been done elsewhere. You must
receive with caution every statement coming from
a Piedmontese source. One. story, written from
Turin to Le Nord, and copied into other papers,
has excited much merriment here. A Marquis
Colli is there represented as having, with a
couple of squadrons of light cavalry, greatly dis-
tinguished himself in a fight near Gropeilo. In
imitation of the knights of old, he is said to have
singled out the commander of' the Austrian detach-
ment, and to have, slain him in single combat. Here
nothing is known of any incident at all resembling
this, nor has any cavalry officer been killed as yet.
Some newspapers express astoniShment that the
Austrians did not , push on to Turin, but • surely
to have done so would have been extremely
dangerous with such a large army on their flank,
as the allieS had between AlesSandria and Casale,
even by the 3rd of this month. I mentioned
in my last letter that it took three days for
the Austrian army to cross the Ticino. This will
give you some idea of the time required to move
180,000 men. To have crossed by several bridges
would have been useless, because, when in Piedmont,
they can only advance by the roads. The fields are
utterly impassable, except for infantry ; and even
that could not move across country except by short
and slow marches. .Every field is bounded by a
ditch full of water, with a hedge of trees about
two feet apart on each side of it ; and fully one-
fourth of the country is under water entirely. The
consequence is, that a corps d'armee of 30,000
men, part cavalry and part artillery, with the
necessary train of waggons, occupies ten or twelve
miles of road. It -is evident that to . protect the
advance of such a column strong positions must
be secured in front of it. Thus the line of the
Terdoppio, the Agogna, and the Sesia are to be seized.
successively, and, as the heavy rains and the melting
of the snow on the hilis had converted.. each of these
streams into a considerable river, it was impossible
to conceive that they would not be defended. Be-
sides, haste was unnecessary. The five days' start
England secured for France rendered it impossible
for the Austrians to reach Turin in time, so their
advance; so far as it extended, was simply a
reconnaissance in force. The battle-field will most
probably ,be near this place (Mortara), or, at
all events, between the Sesia and the Ticino
somewhere. The allies will scarcely dare to
attempt to pass • between Pavia and , Piacenza,
nor can they well move north between the Dora
Baltea and the Sesia, while the Austrians possess
the bridge at Vercelli. The spirits of the Austrian
army are excellent. The condition of nearly all
their horses is also good. The latter are excessively
hardy, particularly those bred in Hungary. I wish
we had in England some really light cavalry like
the Hungarian Husssars. The Austrian train is
notoriously good ; that of this army is immense.
The Piedmontese large two-wheeled waggons will,
however, have an advantage in moving on good
level roads, because they require fewer horses.
Apropos of roads I must say that, except in Lombardy,
I have never seen' better roads than here, but they
are narrow. , I mentioned in my last letter that the
people of Piedmont were not in favour of this war.
So far from it are they,- that nothing would be easier
than to raise the population of this part of the country
against the government. Count Cavour is detested.
As for the King, they consider him a mere puppet of
Cavour's. The entire power, they say, is in the hands
of agitators, principally from Milan. At the first
elections the well-to-do quiet people, contented to leave
well alone, did not vote at all. The consequerxe was
that the violent few carried the day, and the
first Parliament did the mischief' by its talk-
ing. This is the opinion I have heard ex-
pressed by such men as heads of large villages.
In the towns it is different • there the phraseology
of the conquest of Lombardy party has been intro-
duced, and is used by many who never did, nor ever
cat, form an opinion of their own, and who under-
stand little of the opinions of others. Some letters
have been captured on the road from Cigliano to San
Germano, written by recruits from the latter place,
now near Alessandria, to their friends. They
express the greatest dislike to the war. One
man congratulates himself on being in the third
line, and hopes the first two will have the fighting
to do. Now, there is another point on which
I wish to undeceive the British public. The
Lombard regiments in the Austrian service are
generally represented as untrustworthy. I came
out with this idea, and fancied, as others in England
do, that all the Italian regiments were in Hungary
or Galicia, and that all the nation would be distrusted.
I find on the contrary, that nine out of ten posts of
especial confidence are filled by, Italians. Clerks,
orderlies, gendarmerie, pass examiners, police 'officers,
both inferior and superior, all, or nearly all, are
Italian. Besides these, there are fully 20,000 Italian
troops now with this army in Piedmont, and not one
of them is suspected of preferring the Government of
France or Piedmont to that of Austria. The fact
seems to be, that the hatred of Austria is confined
to the class which pays substitutes, and does not
enter the army itself. On this point lam loth,
however, to express a decided opinion as yet,
because, although I on different occasions have
passed a good deal of time in Italy, yet I did not
enter more than superficially into this inquiry on
those occasios. You must not expect to hear of a
battle just yet. The Austrians surely will not
now cross the Po to attack the allies on their own
chosen position, and these will probably wait till
vast stores of provisions and means of transport are
collected at Alessandria. The mere landing of
these at Genoa will occupy some time. We must
remember that a continual stream of troops and
material has been passing day and night for
three months along the Lombardy-Venetian lines.