The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-07 00:00:00

principal facts and dates relating to the war for the'
last six weeks.
It was on Monday, the 18th of April, that our
Government, relying too much, we fear, on Austrian
professions, coloured their statements, in regard to
their foreign policy, with too strong expressions in
favour of Austria ; they spoke of her dignified for-
bearance, and, it seems, intentionally created the
impression, of which Lord JOHN RT:rs'ELL was not
slow to avail himself, that +ley might be induced
to support the cause o
,f Austria if she were worsted.
On the following Saturday, the 23d of
April, only two days after the disso-
lution of our Parliament, Austria sent
her utterly inexcusable ultimatum to Piedmont.
The Monday after, the 25th, Lord DERBY dined at
the Mansion-house, and lost no time in denouncing
in bitter language—in the language, we should
say, of an English gentleman of honour who had
been deceived by supposing another's honour to be
equal to his own—the wicked act of the Austrian
Government, We think it desirable at this moment
to recal his Lordship's words, for they have now a
solemn significance :—"Austria," said he, "has taken
on herself that fearful responsibility which attaches
to that country which first deserts the peaceful ways
of diplomacy, and subjects the question in dispute to
the terrible arbitrament of the sword." Again :
" There was nothing, in my judgment, to justify the
hasty, the precipitate, and, because involving the
horrors of war, the criminal step, which has been
taken by Austria."

At almost every hustings throughout the country
these sentiments, in some form, were uttered and
applauded. England had done what she could to
avert bloodshed ; she could, as Lord DERBY said
the same evening, be trifled with no longer. She
retreated to the dignified silence of a benevolent
but spurned, or rather deceived, adviser.
The decision of Sardinia could not for a moment
be doubtful. At half-past five on Tuesday, the
26th of April, the day after Lord DERBY'S speech,
1311'011 KELLERSBERG received the reply of the
KING ; and on the night of Thursday, the 28th
it would appear (for some accounts stated
the 28th others the 29th) the Austrians began their
passage of the Ticino; a passage they have, happily,
had to make again, in the reverse direction, and with
soldiers at their heels, instead of unarmed civilians
merely in their front. They crossed, it may be re-
membered, at three principal points—their right
close by Lake Maggiore on the north, at the foot of
the Alps ; their centre at Buffalora, on the road to
Novara and Vercelli ; and their left, further south,
directed towards Vigevano and Mortara. Imme-
diately after there appears to have been movements
of considerable bodies from Piacenza and Pavia
along the north bank of the Po. Count GYULAI
issued his proclamation declaring his intention to
respect the lives, honour, and property of 'the
inhabitants ; to interpret which by the results,
we must suppose either that he intended to
delude them into non-concealment of what
he intended to plunder, or that his brutal mob of
Uhlans and Croats, and selfish Austrians proper, were
under no discipline whatever. Till about the 10th
of May these locusts continued to spread themselves
over the long parallelogram formed by the Ticino
and the Sesia on the east and west, with the shorter
sides formed by the Alps and the Po on tke north
and the south ; chiefly about the southern portion
of it from Novara to the Po, where we read of them
at almost every place where they could get some-
thing to eat, or clothes to exchange for rags. They
had also pushed for a short time forward over the
Sesia at Vercelli chiefly, into the second parallelo-
gram, which is formed by that river and the Dora
Baltea, along which, as the chief protection
of Turin, General LA MARMORA had formed
his line of defence. We read of them here for a
few days at Pobietto, close on the Po, at Trino, not
far from it, at Tronzano, ten or fifteen miles north
of it, and at Saluzzola, about ten miles yet further
north. Once, indeed, they occupied Biella, and
ventured to peep at Ivrea on the Dora Baltea itself ;
but as it looked as if it would be warm work to
pillage a town in LA MARMORA'S line of defence,
they retreated to where women and shopkeepers
dared not refuse them what they asked. It was
about the 10th that they had straggled to
their farthest westward in search of booty.
They then commenced strengthening themselves
on the Sesia to enable them to sweep the
parallelogram formed by it; and to pass by
the rivers at leisure ; and also began moving
their troops to the great angle formed by the Ticino
and the Po, their headquarters being first at Lo-
mella, and subsequently at Mortara.
Meantime the Allies had not been inactive. It
certainly appears as if they hardly expected the
real declaration of war—the ultimatum—or they
would probably have seen prepared to defend the
territory between the Sesia and the Ticino from
spoliation ; but they rightly considered it as
a declaration of war. It was supposed that
Turin was to have been seized, and the Sardinian
Court fugitives, before the French could arrive to i
succour, and at first we were almost all shuddering
at the thought of the brutal Hapsburgs at Turin ;
but it soon appeared that food and clothing were
the noble objects of Austrian ambition, and that
Frenchmen had not, in respe3t of rapid movement,
degenerated from the days of " the little corporal."
They were in motion across the Alps towards Susa,
only 30 miles by railway from Turin, and were
there the very day the Austrians had crossed in the
opposite direction. On the day the Austrians
crossed the Ticino, Friday the 29th April, the
French had also begun to arrive at Genoa ; the
Patrie indeed stated that 40,000 troops were there,
including the Imperial Guards. The Austrians,
most ludicrously indeed, charge the French with
beginning
the war,
because by the 28th or 29th
they were in Piedmont ; as if the ultimatum of the
23d had left the Allies any other course than to
look to the safety of Piedmont immediately. 011
the 13th the Emperor of the FRENCH himself ar-
rived at Genoa, and issued his proclannjdon ; the
French troops and materiel of war have continued
to arrive ever siry,:e ; their shiA,s took naval posses-
sion of the A'Ariatic by the 18th ; some French
soldiers also landed at Leghorn, where Prince
NAPOLEO joined them on the 23d, to be ready
probal.4 for a flank movement through Parma,
by Piacenza, and the Austrians seem to have thought
PP.rtly to neutralise this movement by sending
10,000 men to Ancona ; there, however, while
treating the Holy Father's subjects as their breth-
ren were treating the bourgeois and peasantry of
Piedmont, they were called to order by the Pope
himself.

The Austrians now began on the whole a retreat-
ing. policy ; but it were useless to record the petty
skirmishes, not very clear in their object to us ;
perhaps not so to the parties themselves. By the
20th of May they had so decidedly withdrawn
themselves to the east of the Sesia that they blew
up the bridge at Vercelli, and withdrew several
miles from it after grossly maltreating the peasan-
try. At that time the French were beginning to
move northwards from Alessandria, which they
had of course made the military basis of their
operations ; since, we end the Austrians dis-
puting, unsuccessfully, their passage of the
Po at Valenza. It was at this time that
Count STADION wishing, as he says, to ascertain