The Sun.
London, England, 1859-05-07 00:00:00

TILE WAR IN ITALY.

(Jlrom the Times.)
We cannot repeat every morning that Italy is a peninsula,
shaped like a boot, surrounded by the Alps and the Medi-
terranean Sea, and divided by the Apennines ; but it is
necessary in this early stage of warlike operations to supply
almost ecpiAlly rudimentary information when we attempt
to carry the ordinary reader with us while tracking the
course of the invaders of Piedmont. We left the Austrians
yesterday divided into two bodies, one of which was lost to
view among the northern highlands, and the other and more
considerable &tiny was advancing very slowly in the low
and level country which lies between the Northern and
Southevinges. The general expectation h'id been that
this 06y would follow the northern bank of the Po, and
thus arrive at Turin. But the Po washes the declivities of
these southern highlands, among and behind which lie the
three principal fortresses of the Sardinian territory—Genoa,
far down south upon the sea coast ; Alessandria, upon a
southern tributary to the Po, and only a few miles distant
from the southern bank of that principal river; and Casale,
a fortress which lies upon that southern bank, and about
twenty miles distant from the point where the Po in its
winding approaches nearest to Alessandria. The shape of
the little district wherein the interest of the war for the
moment centres may be rudely described as a rectangular
triangle. There is a road which passes from the fortress of
Alessandria to that of Casale, and at the centre of that road,
in a little town upon a lofty eminence called St. Salvador,
the King of Sardinia has set up his head-quarters. The
river Po and the river Tanaro form the two sides to which
this road is the base. The Austrian army manceuvring on
the other side of the Po leaves it uncertain whether its
intention is to cross the river and attack the fortresses or
to move on upon Turin. Having thrown a body of troops
across at Cambio, which is the nearest point to Alessan-
dria' they pushed their vanguard to Sala, which is on the
road to Alessandria, and at the same time, 20 miles
further up the river, and close to the fortress of Casale,
they also attempted to cross under cover of a continuous
cannonade. Here, however, the passage was disputed,
some casualties occurred, the operation was not effected, and
the troops already pushed over at Cambio were withdrawn.
Still, however, the Austrian divisions threaten to force the
river, and the point chiefly indicated is the little town of
Frassinetto, at a very short distance from the fortress of
Casale. This, therefore, is the present position :—The
Sardinian army occupies the base, with its right wing rest-
inr, upon Alessandria, and with its left wing reaching to
Casale ; while the Austrians are manoeuvring upon the Po,
and attempting, or pretending to attempt, to force a pas-

sage.
The French boast that they have already 70,000 men in
Sardinia, and Marshal Baraguay D'Hilliers, from his head-
quarters at Genoa, is issuing addresses to his army, remind-
ing them of the campaigns of 1796 and 1800, and faintly
echoing the Orders of the Day of the old Napoleon, who
proposed to his troops, as a reward equal to all their labours,
that each should be pointed at, on his return to France,
with the respectful designation—" Ire was of the Army of
Italy." It is too late now, with 70,000 Frenchmen in the
country, and railway communications open between Genoa,
Alessandria, and Turin, to attempt that rush upon the
Sardinian capital, for which Europe had given credit to
Austria as the object of her sudden hostilities. The Aus-
trians themselves, if we may trust the meagre accounts that
reach us, are very much of this opinion. They complain
bitterly of the meddling of the diplomatists in delaying the
commencement of hostilities beyond that 26th of April
which had been fixed as the day of the invasion, and they
declare that the two or three days thus gained by France
and Sardinia will cost Austria thousands of men and
millions of florins. The sudden rains, added to the
artificial inundations for which the rice-fields of this watery
plain offer opportunities that have not been neglected,
naturally increase the difficulties of an invader who seeks to
advance through an alluvial district, where the country is
intersected by innumerable streams, and where the roads
are easily destructible. If to this we must add, as some of
the Continental newspapers affirm, that the old system of
receiving military instructions from Vienna, which pro-
duced the disasters of 1796, is still' adhered to—if General
Hess at Vienna controls and varies the orders given by
:General Gyulia in Piedmont, the ancient blunders of the
Aulic Council may possibly be re-enacted, and we have in
that case no right to be surprised that the progress of the
Austrians is so slow and that their present position so un-
promising. We have yet to see, however, if the Austrians
have not changed since the time of Wurmser, whether the
French have retained the traditions of the First Napoleon.
If we are to judge of the present war by the old principles
of strategy, and if we are to expect none of those daring
movements by which Napoleon I. shattered to pieces four
Austrian armies and conquered Piedmont and Lombardy in
the space of six weeks, we must be content to watch a pro-
crastinated campaign of many marches and counter-
marches, and, perhaps, little decisive fighting. The Aus-
trians will, under such a supposition, hesitate to advance
upon Turin, for fear of the fortresses on their flank, and
the French will hesitate to advance upon the Austrians,
lest they, in their turn, should be assailed in flank by the
Austrian force at Pavia and Piacenza. It is hard to cal-
culate what may be the moves in a game of chess so intri-
cate as this may then become, but it would not be very im-
possible that such a course of tactics would lead to a second
encounter in that plain close by the walls of Alessandria,
which is already so known to history as the Plain of
Marengo.
The invader has lost his opportunity of surprise; but it
is not yet proved that Baragnay_ D'Hilliers is capable,
according to the old Napoleonic tactics, of disconcerting
the Austrian system of concentric attacks by destroy-
ing in detail the separated columns. Apart, however,
from that little spot in Piedmont, where the
aspect of war is most threatening, the military
counsels of Austria do not seem to be guided by absolute
wisdom. Nothing can well be imagined more rash or ill-
judged than the recent measure of throwing troops and
suppliesinto Ancona, a fortress open to the sea on the
eastern coast of Italy, 200 miles from the nearest Austrian
place of strength, with no other means of communication
but a coast road liable to be interrupted by any enemy who
is master of the sea, and having at its back a hostile popu-
lation. Unless Austria has a respectable navy in some un-
discovered port, and intends to contend the open Adriatic
with France, it would seem that she has merely put troops
into Ancona to give a little amusement to the French navy,
and to enable France to inflict upon her a certain humilia-
tion. It is early days yet, and a battle may possibly change
all things, but, as far as Austria has yet shown herself,
her generals have not come up to what Europe expected
from her haughty bearing and her military preparations.

(From the Daily _Yews.)
The course pursued by the J'imes makes us doubt in
what light we ought to regard the most alarming story it
published last week. Hitherto we have examined its au-
thority and discussed its probability as we would any other
statement offered as part of the current history of the times.
But the persistence with which our contemporary clings to
it, if we understand him, or at least to its remains, after it
has received -every refutation of which it is capable, compels
us to doubt whether we should have accepted it in that
character. The passion with which it is defended bids us
regard it rather as an article of faith, proposed not for ex-
amination but for belief. Or is it a weapon of offence, to
be employed as occasion may serve against an English
Minister or a foreign Sovereign ? If it is a mystery we
will not pursue it with an offensive scepticism—if it is a
sword, we- ask not for its surrender ; but if a place is claimed
for it among the facts of the day we can only deal with it
upon the ordinary rules of evidence.
In justification of its course, the Times, in the
article it published yesterday, refers to the authority
upon which it made its alarming statements and
their antecedent probabilities. First as to the autho-
rity. We read, " We published on the same morning tele-
grams from Berlin and Vienna announcing that an alliance
had been formed between Russia and France hostile to
Austria, and were enabled, from authority which would be
recognised as excellent if we were at liberty to produce it, to
give some details of the Treaty or understanding between
the two Powers." On this we beg to observe that the fore-
going statement refers to two separate days. The Times
raised its alarm on Wednesday morning, when the only
facts it was able to publish were those contained in two
telegrams. That from Vienna commenced, " The Russians
here state," &c., a form of words by which the correspon-
dent cautiously avoided committing himself to the truth of
what followed. The other, from Berlin, was sent as an ab-
stract of a statement which had appeared in one of the local
papers of no especial authority, and seems to have been
thought unworthy of notice by the correspondent of our
contemporary in the Prussian capital, as it was furnished
through another channel. No one can complain of the Times
forpublishing these telegrams, for the public, which is con-
cerned in knowing what is believed in foreign capitals, could
judge for itself how much weight ought to be attached to
the authority on which they were given. But our contem-
porary, on Wednesday, twenty-four hours before he was in
a position to support the credit of these most dubious tele-
grams by any other statements, unreservedly, eagerly, and
irrevocably committed himself to the most alarming portions
of his announcement. Not stopping there, he employed his
pen to heighten and aggravate its effects, describing it "as
most startling intelligence," declaring that " everything is
changed," that Austria had after all some justification for
what otherwise seemed unaccountable precipitancy, and In-
timating that the Rhine and the East, and England herself,
were menaced in the coming war.
Such were the frail foundations of the alarming announce-
ment of Wednesday week. By the following day the " autho-
rity which would be recognised as excellent," were the Times
at liberty to produce him, had come up. We should think our
contemporary expected him, at all events he had invited,we
may say tempted him. On Thursday, then, there were—
not one but—two treaties between France and Russia, the
armies and navies of the two great aggressive powers of the
world were united for a common object, and Russia was to
join France in a war upon Austria within fifteen days.
As the Times believed this information it published it,
arid while bespeaking for it calm attention exhausted every
artifice of rhetoric to influence the public mind: Spells
were thrown into the air. Before the reader was permitted
to know what had happened, be was informed that it was
the most important event in the experience of this genera-
tion, something therefore worse than the Indian mutiny
or the Crittreairicvar. Every Englishman was told that he
and his Gcevernment had been duped, and was invited to
,contemplate himself as the object of the closest possible con-
federacy between the two great despots of the world, united
in grim strength, and masters of our fate. He roust have
been a very wise or a very stupid man who, reading the
Times that morning without the corrective of sound infor-
mation, did not feel himself roused to indignation at the
picture which had been set before him. Happily the cor-
rective was siA delayed. The exaggeration was exposed
by the press, and, one of our first statesmen, in the heart of
the City of London, publicly expressed his disbelief in the
story. The Rflsstan Government was interrogated, and
gave it a pointed denial ; and the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer showed that the only part of it that was true, and
which in no way concerned us, was voluntarily communi-
cated to our Government by France some time ago. Since
then the Russian Government has published a solemn de-
claration, not only " That there exists no treaty of alliance,
offensive and defensive, between Russia and any other power
whatever," but that " the Emperor retains in the present
conjuncture entire liberty of action." And how does the
Tones meet these solemn assertions made under the
highest responsibility ? It appeals to some secret authority,
and vehemently reproach -s those win have emancipated
the. public from a cruel delusion. We too have our re- '
ticences. Last week, when we affirmed the non-existence
of the treaties mentioned the Tiwe- we assume all the
responsibility of the by
'u- er , e will now d say that
if we were at liberty to name the authority upon which we
Made it, the world would acknowledge that it could not be
ignorant, and would be the last to deceive. The only argu-
ment now loft to the Times i
support of its original asser-
tion is, that since the engagement between Russia and
France cannot be produced, anybody may describe it accord-
ing to his own fancy. The pleading against Russia because
that Power increases its forces on the Austrian frontier, we
have replied to by anticipation. The question was, how-
ever, so well discussed last Saturday in the Economist, that 1
we refer to an article on that subject which we republish 1
in the present impression. There can be not tbeleast doubt
that Ilussia acts an unfriendly though not illegal part
towards Austria, in assembling a corps d'armee on her
frontler ; but there is nothing unfriendly to us in this If
pe we Te the allies of Austria in this war there would be

some reason for us to complain ; but as we neither are, nor
mean to become her allies, we may reasonably remain
tranquil.
We cannot but observe again, that it is the constant asso-
ciation, sometimes expressed, sometimes tacit, of the cause
of Austria and England in the columns of the Times, which
is at the bottom of this outcry. As soon as Austria
seemed to be menaced by Russia, our contemporary
cried out as if the apple of our eye were in danger,
and even yesterday he connected her with us in the
most gratuitous manner. As long, however, as the British
public professes neutrality it ought to get the benefit
of that position. Austria having foolishly persuaded
herself that because a few lords avowed their sym
pathies with her she could command the English
alliance, now takes a horrible revenge for her disap-
pointment by confounding us with false reports. This
very story has already cost us more millions than we
paid her as subsidies in any year during the war. Every
workman has had to pay the fine in the shape of increased
price for his bread and other prime necessaries of life. It
wean be cheaper to call upon Count Apponyi to state for
what sum his Government will consent to exempt us from
these grave alarms which, like grenades suddenly thrown
into our Exchanges, banks, and counting-houses, cause un-
heard of ruin and desolation and to pay down the money.
We cannot contend with Austria in this warfare of blind
rumours and dark surmises.