The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-10 00:00:00

TilE AUSTRIAN ARMY.

(From the Times Special Correspondent)
TRENT, IN THE TYROL, Aug. 3.
With -a
splendid band playing the most lively airs
and dance music at the corner of the street, with
hundreds of officers and a populace of soldiers form-
ing a foreground to a vista of tall, balconied houses
such as I'rout or Haghe would revel in, and a thin
outer border of " citizens" enclosing the white coats
in a sombre frame, with ladies peering from their
lattices on the crowd below, the scene presented by
Trent yesterday evening when the sun was setting
the
put one much in mind of some grand tableau on
stage of a theatre. The illusion might have been
complete but for those grand Alpine peaks towering
over roof and campanile, which raised the beauty of
the spectacle beyond the highest effort of the most
successful painters. Then, in the intervals of the
music.
other bands could be heard afar, and up and
down the street columns of troops, pouring from
point to point, passed across the thoroughfare, and
the pavement echoed with the regular beat of their
feet. As night came there was silence, scarcely
broken after the bugles and drums had announced
the last post; and with the dawn again the world
was ordered to awake by beat of drum and by the
bugle call, and again and again the roll of many
feet in regal cadence rose and fell as these restless
troops marched to and fro, and were so engaged
pretty much all through the day. On the walls are
notices which announce to the stranger that he is in
a state of siege, and that he cannot leave or enter
the city without permission. Others indicate the
bridges which are open to licensed persons ; others
call on the citizens to preserve order in case of an
engagement with the enemy, and direct that the
drawing rooms shall be lighted up from dusk till
dawn in the event of a combat occurring in the
neighbourhood, for Gen. Kuhn is not the man to
neglect precautions. He was Gyulai's Chief of the
Staff, and it is said that if he had had his way the
French would have met with very different treatment
in the campaign of Italy. The Italians are now at
his gates, and Gen. de Medici will find, if his Royal
master renews hostilities, that he has a formidable
antagonist. For some time past Gen. Kuhn has exer-
cised the officers and troops under his orders in the
most arduous marchings among the mountains, and
long before the war broke out the whole of his staff
became perforce acquainted with the terrain. He
works hard himself, and makes those around him
work also; and as the corps under his orders cover a
large space, and are necessarily much divided, there
is an immense deal to do, especially under a system
like that of Austria, which is complicated in paper,
pen, and ink work as can be. There are some 10 or
12 officers on his Staff, and many of them begin their
work at 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning, and do not
leave their desks till 7 or 8 o'clock at night, except
to take their meals. When the Italians first made
their appearance in the valley of the Brenta the
Austrians had only a few hundred men posted
near Primolano and Cismone, but they fell back
fighting with such skill and tenacity that they were
enabled to check the Italians in the passes till Kuhn
received reinforcements from Verona, and by the
time De Medici arrived at Pergino the Austrians
were strong enough to entertain hopes of defending
Trent, although they could not hold Burgo or
Levico. When I arrived at Trent I heard with in-
credulity that the road was open to Verona. It
seemed impossible that an enemy should have ad-
vanced
up the Val Saguna and left open a railroad
connecting a great fortress with the point he was
attacking. But it was quite true. There is a cer-
tain place in the valley whence De Medici might and
ought to have sent a force to destroy the railroad
between Trent and Verona, in the neighbouring
valley of the Adige. However, he neglected to do
so, and, as the Austrians have the rail up from
Verona and the rail down to Innsbruck, the road
over the Brenner, and then a rail from Botzen to
Trent, they have been able to assemble a large
force to save Trent should hostilities be renewed,
and to get supplies and provisions of all kinds.
But the position of the Austrians in the Southern
Tyrol is not easy in a military Or political sense.
From the irregular line of mountains running
nearly south-west and north-east north of Brixen,
the valleys and rivers have a southerly direction,
BO that a force defending them is necessarily
split up and has to act by itself, and often-
times the valleys, instead of tending towards a
common point as they recede, diverge and increase
the distance between the columns. There are certain
obvious advantages, however, Ato counterbalance
those defects in the position of a defensive force.
For an army taking the offensive the situation of the
Austrians, if they were led by good generals, is ad-
mirable. The names of a dozen towns lying at their
feet recall what Bonaparte and his generals did in
these very defiles. But, whatever their military con-
dition may be, no one can doubt thepolitical status in
the Southern Tyrol. Without going back to histori-
cal relations, it may fairly be assumed, if language,
look, politics, and commercial relations go for any-
thing, that the majority of the people of Trent are
Italians. Some 30 years ago the German element
predominated, but the principle of developing na-
tionality, which the present Emperor, from the best
of motives, is said to have favoured to a dangerous
extent, set in motion before his time and vigorously
employed ever since, bore down by its vivacity and
positive life the inert resistance of the Teutonic
mass, and established an Italian supremacy in the
cities and towns, though the valleys are still full of
a faithful peasantry little affected by " Italianisi-
mus." The increase of the trade in silk and oil has
strengthened the yearning of , the bourgeoisie to
unite their fortunes with those of the subjects of
Victor Emmanuel, not because they like him or love
the Piedmontese, but because they think the change
would add to their social happiness and to their
political strength. It would be difficult to trace the
line of demarcation, and, as far as one can judge
from a hasty glance at the condition of the people
and the state of the towns under their rule, there
is no reason for removing the Tyrolese of the
south from the jurisdiction and government of the
Austrians. It would be well for us if all our people
in England,lreland, and Scotland looked as thriving
—if our towns were all as decent and all our manu-
factures as prosperous—as the Tyrolese
peasantry,
as Trent, and as the oil and silk trade hereabouts.
oulation be
Whether the Italianisation of the city pop
a sort of Fenianism or not I am unable now to de-
termine, but it causes uneasiness to the Austrians,
as it gives them a sense of enemies within and with-
out, and complicates their position by giving to their
' defence of the Southern Tyrol the aspect of an at-
tempt to hold by force that to which they have no
moral right, and of a struggle in which success will
be odious to those whom they seek to defend against
• invasion. Should the war be renewed it is scarcely
. possible to doubt of their holding the Tyrol. It is
true that the Austrians, by some strange perversity
of fortune, or incapacity of their leaders, generally
play a role for which they are not suited. They are,
and have been nearly always, in a defensive position.
'rue initiative has been denied to them because their
_1,7
urrnsers, blacks, and Gyulais were not capable of
originating plans of campaign, and took theplans of
their adversaries. If the uti posseditis be the base of
the new appropriation of territory, the Austrians
will lose the Valley of the Brenta up the suburbs of
in addition Trent itself, tioi to other losses in the Tyrol,
and no doubt they
smitten
will resist such a decision vigor-
ously, althoughinto the Slough of Despond
by repeated buffets and blows from all sides.
This morning I saw General Kuhn at his quarters
in Trent. He was good
enough to accede to my
request to be permitted to visit the
advancedposts
and get a view of the Italianposition,and added
that he would send one of his staff officers to accom-
panym
two English officers and myself who have
to Trent with the intention of visiting the battle-
fieldcoe
of Custozza if possible, and take us over the
ground at 5 o'clock, when the sun had lost a little
of its fervour. The General is in -the prime of life,
and is evidently a man of immense energy and
quickness. He spoke English for choice, and added
to his courtesy by offering us a pass by the military
train for Verona to-morrow. At 5 o'clock the
officer ordered by General Kuhn to show us the out-
posts made his appearance, and we drove through
the fortified gateway along the high road towards
Pergine, which is one of the most picturesque 1
have seen even in the Tyrol or Switzerland. lit is