The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-14 00:00:00

THE WAR IN TEE .ROMJN

IBRRITORIES.

We have not had long to wait for the decision of
the King of Sardinia upon the advice proffered to
him by the French semi-official press. The troops
of Victor Emmanuel have entered the Roman ter-
ritories, and war has begun in good earnest. Gen.
Cialdini has taken Pesaro, which was already an•
nounced as being in a."etate of insurrection, and with
the town 1,200 Germans and Monsignor Bella have
fallen into his hands. Orvieto has also surren-
dered. This is a dashing beginning of the cam-
paign, and a step that cannot be retracted. Sar-
dinia has abandoned the temporising policy which
she had adopted since the armistice of Villafranca.
She no longer oscillates backwards and forwards,
but throws in her lot with the Italian revolution.
Policy has done her work, all that negotiation, all
that balancing and temporising could effect has
been effected, and there is nothing left for it but
to fight it out manfully to the last. We may easily
imagine the motives that have driven Sardinia
to this decisive step. So long as she and her King
were the only recognised representatives of the
Italian movement she might feel herself at liberty
to consult her own safety, and await quietly the
march of events ; but the Italian movement is no
longer under the exclusive direction of the Sar-
dinian Government. Victor Emmanuel has in Gar-
baldi a most formidable competitor—a man of that
mould of which the successful leaders of great popu-
lar uprisings are made,—a man utterly regardless
of self, and not to be acted' on by any of the meaner
motives by which common men are to be controlled.
The conqueror of Naples and Sicily is quite certain
not to arrest his advance at the frontier of the Ro-
man States. The momentum that he has gained
seems sufficient to carry him over all the resistance
which the States of the Church can offer, and to
bring him with a violent shock into collision with
the Austrian power ins Venice. For such a con-
summation the Sardinian Government is not pre-
pared. It sees plainly that if things hold their pre-
sent course a little longer it will be in the power of
Garibaldi to drag Piedmont as well as all the rest
of Italy into a conflict with Austria, and to force
her to risk all she has gained in an encounter where
the probabilities of success are against her. She
must, therefore, at whatever cost or risk, make her-
self once more mistress of the revolution. She must
lead, that she may not be forced to follow. She must
revolutionise the Papal States, in order that she
may put herself in a position to arrest a dangerous
revolutionary movement against Venetia. There
is some reason to think that in a recent interview
the Emperor of the French has been induced
to see things from this point of view, and
that no danger is apprehended on the side of
France. These motives are amply sufficient to ac-
count for the decisive movement of Victor Em-
manuel. He lives in revolutionary times, when self-
preservation has superseded all other considerations,
and it would be childish to apply to his situation
the maxims of international law which are applica-
ble to periods of tranquillity.
These being the motives which have impelled
Piedmont to draw the sword, we have next to see
what are the grounds on which she justifies the
step. These grounds are two—the extraordinary
misrule and oppression of the Papal Government,
and the presence of large bands of foreign mercena-
ries, by which the country is oppressed and ter-
rorised. The object is said to be to give the people
an opportunity of expressing their own wishes and
the re establishment of civil order. The King pro-
mises to respect the seat of the Chief of the Church
—Rome, we suppose, and its immediate environs ;
but, while holding out this assurance, the manifesto
speaks of the Pope and his advisers in terms of bit-
terness and acrimony unusual in the present age,
even in a declaration of war. He will teach the
people forgiveness of offences, and Christian tole-
rance to the Pope and his General. He denounces
the misguided advisers of the Pontiff and the fana-
ticism of the wicked sect which conspires against
his authority and the liberties of the nation. This
is harsh language, and is not inconsistently seconded
by the advance of 50,000 men.
We have not scrupled to avow the opinion that
the motives which urge the King of Sardinia to
invade the territory of a neighbour with whom he
is nominally at peace, and whom he has already
stripped of half his dominions, are not wholly, or
even principally, those which his declaration puts
forward; and yet we do not scruple to say that
we heartily wish the King success. For this we
have many reasons. In the present condition of
Southern and Northern Italy it is quite impossible
to prevent a people outraged and trampled upon
like the subjects of the Pope from rising in prema-
ture, and, if their own strength alone be considered,
in hopeless insurrection. At Fossombronn the in-
surrection has been put down by force, and the
telegraph informs us of what we can well believe—
that scenes similar to those of Perugia have been
enacted. The war began between the Pope and his
subjects before the Piedmontese crossed the frontier,
and we well know how the soldiers of the Cross
make war. We do not wish to see Lamoriciere and
his Condottieri carrying fire, slaughter, and viola-
tion through the dominions of the Pope, and justify-
ing the rule of the Vicegerent of heaven by deeds
which hell itself might blush to look upon. This
band of mercenaries is a menace and an insult to
the rest of Italy. It has been called into existence
for no other purpose than to oppress the subjects of
the Pope, and to put down by armed force the rising
revolution ; and we do not see that the Powers
against which this army has been levied are bound
to wait till a suitable opportunity presents itself for
the Free Companions, satiated with slaughter and
rapine in the States of the Church, to exercise their
trade at the expense of Tuscany or the Legations.
Then there is the intolerable oppression of the Pope's
Government. The best proof of that oppression is
the fact that the Pope dares not trust his own sub-
jects with arms, but places himself, like Dionysius
of Syracuse, in the hands of foreign mercenaries.
The spectacle of a people kept down by such means
is an outrage on the civilisation of the age, and a
danger and menace for all the rest of Italy. Till
some government be established in the centre of Italy
which can be maintained without ten thousand
French troops to garrison the capital, and five and
twenty thousand foreign mercenaries to sack insur
gent towns it is in vain to hope for peace. We freely
admit that nothing but the extremity of the evil
could justify the step which Sardinia has taken, but
we think that step is justified. The evil would not
cure itself. The locusts would not depart while a
blade of grass remained for them to devour, and the
mercenaries would remain while wealth,beauty, and
revenge for the hatred in which they are held by
the people had still temptations to offer. For all
these reasons we think the King of Sardinia is en-
titled to the sympathy of Englishmen in the war in
which he has engaged, We wish him cordially suc-
cess, and that his success may be rapid as well as
decisive.—Times.

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