The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-13 00:00:00

Disbandment of the Modenese Army.

(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)
The position of the Modenese troops in the Austrian ter-
ritorities was regulated in anticipation, by an engagement
of the Imperial Goveramett in tho form of a verbal note

communicated to the Modenese Legation in Vienna, and

dated 31st May, 1859. At that date the Duke and his
troops were still in the Modenese territories. But the Ducal
Government, foreseeing that the chance of the war between
France and Austria might necessitate the evacuation of the
Modenese territory, and foreseeing that thence would result

the impossibility of defraying the maintenance of the Ducal
troops from the resources of the Duchy, obtained from the

Austrian Government in that verbal note an unlimited en-
gagement that, from the moment the Medenese troops
should cress the Austrian frontier to combat as allies of the

Imperial forces, they should receive their pay and the cost

of maintenance from the Austrian military draft, as a loan
to be reimbursed after the war, or as soon as the Modenese
territory should be reconquered.
_ .

In virtue of this bilateral arrangement between two in-

dependent States, the Estensian brigade remained around

the Ducal banners at Bassano during the last four years,

preserving the most exemplary discipline throughout, and

recruited from the numbers of brave and true-hearted

young Modenese peasants, rusticorum mascula militum

proles, who crossed the frontiers at every risk to enter the

little Ducal army.
This was a thorn in the eyes of the Revolutionists and

their abettors and dupes everywhere. It was a living pro-
test against the swindle called a plebisc te ; and against the
combination of force and fraud, by which the engage-
ments of Villafranca and the solemn stipulations of
Zurich were violated before the ink of the treaty was

Well dry. The Modenese army, under its prince's ban-
ner, was still more; it was a nucleus around which,
whenever Piedmont begins the attack—about which her
politicians and her King are always rhodomontading—

upon Venetia, there would have rallied vast numbers ol
Italian peasants from the " annexed" provinces, who now,
... _

sorely against their notorious will, form so large an ele-

went of the present Piedmontese army.
This, Piedmont, and her protectors in Paris, and in
Downing-street, and everywhere else, saw more clearly,
unfortunately it would seem, that the Austrian statesmen

who have been intimidated and caressed at last into dia•

banding that faithful and chivalrous little brigade. Foreign
persuasion and the pretexts of economy, put forward by
some Radical members of the Austrian Lower House of
Parliament, have led to the commission of this short-

sighted and grave political fault. For many months efforts
were made to induce the Ducal Government to consent to

this measure, and, at last, not obtaining that consent, the
Austrian Government took upon themselves the responsibi-
lity of the initiative, offering, however, to any of the men
and officers of the Brigade who should prefer entering the
Austrian army—the army of the head of the duke's family
—to seeking private employment as civilians, or returning
to their homes in the Modenese, the privilege of joining the
Imperial army under very fair and honourable conditions.
The men and officers were, therefore, called upon in the
month of September to pronounce their election deliberately
and individually before a mixed commission of Austrian
and Modenese officers upon this alternative. Perhaps
nothing in all the honourable fidelity of this gallant little
force is a more striking mark of their attachment to their
Sovereign, than that, in that deliberate and trying moment,
about 1,000 men of Modenese birth elected to enter the

Austrian army and remain in exile, in the hope some day of
rallying again round their rightful Prince, rather than re-
turn to their native homes, now in the bands of Piedmont,

or even remain as private civilians in the Austrian States.
Thirty-six per cent. of the men and all the officers of the
Modenese Brigade, with one single exception—that of an
officer whose private family affairs necessitated his return to
Modena—pronounced individually for remaining thus under
a friendly flag on a foreign soil, and eat the bread of volun-
tary exile while waiting for the chances of the future.
The decision of the Austrian Government to disband the
Modenese was first publicly proclaimed to the brigade by
the Austrian Commander-in-Chief in Italy, Gen. Benedek,
by a general order, dated 11th September, in which, after
announcing the conditions offered to such as choose to re-
main, he continues as follows :

" And now, before the coming lot of the Ducal troops be
fulfilled, I feel bound openly to declare that the whole im-
perial royal army experiences the most hearty sympathy for
the band of brave men, who, under the most difficult cir-
cumstances, have known how to guard loyalty to their Most
Serene Sovereign, and the spotless honour of their banner

--who throughout four years on the territory of the Empe
ror and King, despite unfavourable circumstances, ever
showed most excellent spirit, and maintained an exemplary
order and discipline in every respect. and which now, in
the painful moment when their hereditary Prince absolves
them from their oath, present to the world the proof, that
troops sustained by genuine soldierly virtues may be bent
by fate, but never struck in the palladium of their honour.
History, too, will acknowledge this in handing down to
future generations this rare example of truth and sense of
honour ; and whatever turn the lot of each and every of
these br tve men may take, each can say with pride that he
belonged to the ducal troops of Modena, for every political
opinion honours those virtues, which stand higher than the
varying fate and advantage of the hour. In these senti-
ments I therefore now bid a hearty farewell to those who
aro leaving, for whom the army of the Emperor and King,
in every contingency,
will guard the memory of noble fra-
ternity in arms ; and in these sentiments, in the name of the
whole imperial royal army, I wish most hearty welcome to
those who are about cnteringour ranks, who willbe received
with all the respect and brotherly feeling which is due to
that loyalty and chivalrousness, above all praise, which dis-
tinguishes them."
The fate of the brigade having thus been made known by
the organ of the Austrian Government, the Duke, after the
lapse of some days, addressed the following proclamation to
his faithful troops :--
" Soldiers I from the commander of the Imperial Royal
Army in Italy you will have heard that the Estensian
Brigade must boon be disbanded.
"As your Sovereign, and as your commander, it is now
incumbent upon us also to make known to you with sorrow,
that notwithstanding all our endeavours, and all the steps
of various kinds which we tried and tried again ; and not-
withstanding our official protests and our personal sacrifices
likewise, this decision has been definitively taken by the
' Imperial Austrian Government.
"That Government, in ordering you to be disbanded, has
by a convention dated 16th May, which we concluded with
it, opened the ranks of its own army to the officers and sol-
diers who may prefer adopting that course rather than re-
turn home, and will admit them either in active service or
in the gendarmerie, or in what are called peace employ-
ments, or on pension.
We, however, concluded that con-
vention under the most explicit reservations that we did not
thereby mean to consent to the disbandment, but to secure
at least for each of you individually all possible guarantees
in such a contingency.
" Rofoundly grieved at seeing his efforts to keep his
faithful and well-beloved troops together until better times,
rendered vain, your Sovereign though leaving you free to
follow the course which your conscience may dictate, ad-
dresses to you this day a few words to let you clearly un-
derstand his opinion to the important moment when you
will have each to make your election as to your lot, before
a mixed Austro-Estensian Con2mission.
"Absolved as you will be by the disbandment of the
Brigade from tho special oath of fidelity which as soldiers
you have taken to us,you may undertake a new obligation,
from which according to the convention, you may free
yourselves at any moment or at the utmost within four

years.
You can, therefore, freely enter the Imperial Royal
A.ustrian army to servo therein honourably And faithfully
as you served us.
" The strong and young, especially among the officers
another
who may not have special motives for adopting
resolution, will do well to adopt that course, for they will
tsr;,-ipe titu,, the danger of lloing to deny their principles,