The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-19 00:00:00

VIE FUTURE OF AUSTRIA.

Austrian obstinacy has been tried in old times
against the Turk, the Prussian, and the French-
man, and has come out of many encounters, if not
conquering, at least unconquered. It is impossible
to dispose of a dynasty and a race which has stood
undismayed in so many disasters, and has surmounted
so many difficultiP.. Within the next few months,
however, the antique framework of the Empire may
be exposed to heavier shocks than it has heretofore
felt. There are some who are incredulous as to
another Austrian war. That they have many
arguments on their side of the question cannot be
doubted. All policy, prudence, good sense, and
military calculation tend to dissuade the Italians
from attacking their enemies in Venetia. Even
now the dominion of Victor Emmanuel over the
southern part of the Peninsula can hardly be called
secure. He is annexing great territories to his own
under the hostile eye of the Northern Powers and
the capricious nonchalance of France. The non-
intervention which allows him success is only a self-
imposed restraint of one great State, and might be
discarded to-morrow, to the utter ruin of Italian
hopes. The Sovereign whom we may now call King
of Italy is at the head of twenty-two million souls,
but this great dominion requires consolidation, con-
trol, and instruction in all the duties of citizenship.

There is not, and cannot be for years, a strong
Italian unity. The Piedmontese have beaten the
foreign troops in the service of the Pope, and they
have defeated the native armies of the King of
Naples. Although the great number of the Nea-
politan people have voted the crown to Victor
Emmanuel, yet it would show ignorance of human
nature to suppose that they can be free from
jealousy of the army which has come among them
to finish the defeat of their late Sovereign.
Although the Piedmontese Generals have taken
care to avoid as much as possible a contest with
the Neapolitan forces, they have been obliged to
give battle twice, and, having gained easy victories,
they are now driving the enemy into a foreign ter-
ritory. With a powerful if not a numerous section
of the Neapolitan people wounded in their personal
vanity, with the inhabitants of Umbria and the
Marches just severed from the oldest and most un-
yielding throne in Europe, and with a great French
garrison at Rome, it would seem wonderful that
any politic Sovereign or thinking people should
meditate a war against 35 millions of Austrians,
strongly posted in the country they occupy, and
possibly supported by the whole force of two other
first class States.

But the Italians in this matter are not a think-
ing people. All accounts agree in representing
that the desire for war is so strong that the new
King of Italy will have much to do to restrain it.
Success, wonderful, unheard-of, has naturally ren-
dered the Italians incredulous of defeat. After
what has been done by Garibaldi's " Thousand,"
they may be pardoned for believing that enterprise
and courage may do anything. But six months ago
a small party of ill-armed Volunteers landed on
the Sicilian coast, headed by a partisan leader. This
handful of men had been condemned by the opinion
of European Governments and disavowed by the
King whose flag they claimed as their own. Daring
has triumphed over every obstacle, and before the
year comes to a close the little force of Garibaldi
landed from his two hired steamers will have
founded a great kingdom. To the enterprise of
one man, blamed, decried, and ridiculed in the
highest places, Italy owes her existence as a nation.
Is she, then, not Justified in believing that her
safety lies in daring, and that no faint heart will
ever ackieve her independence or consolidate her
liberties? It is almost announced that Austria is to
_ _

be attacked in the spring. The regular Piedmon-
tese army is large, and Garibaldi on taking his de-
parture told the Italian people that they must pre-
pare for a great war, for which a levy in mass
would be required. These various warnings cannot
be overlooked. We do not pretend to penetrate
the secrets of Victor Emmanuel's Cabinet, but, to
do Count Cavour justice, he is not a man whose
schemes require much penetration. He has all along
had only one policy—to attack Austria at the first
favourable opportunity—and when he has made
sure of France he will assuredly hasten the conflict
as much as possible. The Cabinet of Turin may
be depended upon by the patriotic Italians to make
no delay in the prosecution of the war. Every-
thing which has come from the Piedmontese Chan-
cery,—every speech in the Piedmontese Chambers,
shows that the Italians are determined to provoke
their enemy to a new combat. They trust in France,
in the sympathy which their name and history ex-
cite in Europe, and in the native strength of which
they can now boast. It may be that Italy unaided
may not be able to cope with the forces of the
Austrian Empire, but the Italians are either not
of this opinion or they expect to be assisted by a
large foreign army. At any rate they are prepar-
ing for war, and the little State of Sardinia has
now an army of 150,000 men, without counting the
regiments which may be raised in the new pro•
vinces subjected to the national King.
Were Austria in reality what she looks on the
map, and what her chief men are taught from child-
hood to believe—the union of a number of States
under one dynasty, which commands the affection
of all by recognising and respecting their diver-
sities—then we should have little hope of Italy
winning the Quadrilateral or escaping an igno-
minious defeat. The Austrian Generals may have
been wretchedly bad in the war of last year, but
it is in the nature of military service to raise the
inferior combatant to the level of the man who has
beaten him, and Austrian officers, though sluggish
at Magenta and confused at Solferino, may find
genius and resolution in defending a great system
of fortresses which are thought to be the last
bulwark of the Empire. If, then, the whole the
Aus-
trian army could Ise brought down againstbe
Italians, if the other provinces couldn9tonlwiLle
trusted to remain quiet, but would give their
force to the prosecution of the war,. the prospects of
the Italians would not be cheering. tinless France
should interfere—a thing .not
campaign
might frustrate the hopes not likely, should the
Italians begin the war
uniof the new kingdom for
many years, and, perhaps, diminish its hardly won
territory.
But the internal state of Austria becomes every
day more precarious. The Hungarians are the
most determined, though the most moderate, of
rebels. They do not, like the French in their
various revolut:ons, seek to overthrow a dynasty,
or, like the Italians in their late struggle, to drive
out the foreigner. They are so far acquiescent in
the present dynasty that they do not wish for any
other, and, though the Germans are to the Ma g-
yars as foreigners, yet so many of the former race
are :settled in the country that no thought of B,
general expulsion can be entertained. But the
determination to insist on all the old historical
rights of the country is as firm as ever, and, in case
of their being refused, the people are quite ready. to
assert them by force of arms. The estimate of the
of
insurrectionary impulse a country must vary
according to the temperament of the observer. It
may be said, however, that according to the most
trustworthy authority there is less discord between
the races, and less difference of views between the
aristocracy and peasantry, than was the case in
1849. Then there were two widely sundered
parties in Hungary—the party which made the
constitutional movement, and the party which
under Kossuth converted it into a democratic ex-
periment. The decay of these rivalries makes
Hungary more powerful than ever, and a more
dangerous enemy to the Austrian system of govern-
ment. Unless sternly opposed, Hungary will be
certain to give its assistance to Italy by a timely
diversion. We can, indeed, only imagine one cure
for the evils of Austria, one escape from the many
dangers which threaten her. It is to aban Should
promo which is her hvulnerable point.