The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-13 00:00:00

THE AUSTRIAN AR:

(From the Times Special Correspondent)
TYROL, Aug. 7.
I have already mentioned the object of my -visit to
Verona, but was obliged to suspend the account of
my visit to the battle-field of Custozza for another
opportunity. Early on the morning after our arrival
at Verona we started for the battle-field,
which is
some nine miles outside the city, in the direction of
Solferino. Outside the city, on the road of Somma
Campagna, we drove at a good pace
.through the
rich but most dreary expanse of Indian corn an
mulberry trees. The parade ground beyond the moat
was, for a wonder, free of parades, and
the dense
columns of men just visible in the gloaming last
night as they wheeled and marchdeds o afbout units,`
s, ear
were
station, scattered into
thousan
i
preparing for a quiet parade or two before the
heat of the sun drove them under
.cover. Then
came the forts—grey or black or white—with ram-
parts just topping the summits of the mulberry
trees, each in its own plot of cleared ground, with
trees cut down to the proper height. None of the
forts are very large. There are no long curtains to
be attacked. Many of them look as if they were
counter sunk, so that the embrasures are very low,
others stand high and have a good command. All
have, I am told, deep scarp and counter scarps to the
moat, whiCh is generally very broad also, and well
swept by low flanking fire. It would be difficult to
reach the faces of the works below the level of the
glacis, but the parapets and embrasures are, of course,
exposed to artillery fire, and some of the redoubts
look like shell traps. There must be some people to
gather the mulberry leaves and the Indian corn, but
they -were in the distant villages probably, as those
near the lines of forts were not much occupied, and
there were not half a dozen men, women, or children
on the road in the first three miles of the drive. At
about 40 miles out from Verona there was a soli-
tary soldier on guard under a tree near a dilapidated
farmhouse by the roadside, and some 10 or 12
men were stretched on straw in the shade by their
piled arms. This was the Austrian outpost. Beyond
was neutral ground, but where the Italian posts lay
no one could or would inform me. The driver pulled
up, and the sergeant of the guard with one of the
soldiers came forward to examine our passport. I
doubt very much if the worthy Croat quite under-
stood that Col. Baker, of the 10th Hussars, of the
English army, Lieut. Russell, of the same regiment,
and a third person mentioned in the document sub-
mitted to him were permitted to proceed from Trent
to Verona within the Austrian lines, or that he was
particularly familiar with the signature of Gen. Kuhn
or Gen. Jacobs, for he examined it very much as an
antiquary would investigate a new sort of Celt, and at
last drawing out a pocketbook, and taking from it a
very much worn out card, inquired if we had any of
these. The mention of Gen. Jacobs's name did not so
much improve our position as might have been ex-
pected, but at last his attention was called to the large
wafer stamped with a seal on which a double-headed
eagle might be constructed with a little aid from
the imagination, and the sergeant gave a gruff
" vorwarts" to the vetturino, and shaking his head
as one who knows he is doing wrong, but can't help
it, looked wistfully after the vehicle with its three
mysterious strangers, boldly advancing towards the
Piedmontese lines with leave and licence of his betters.
As we journeyed onwards the churches and houses
of the Somma Campagna on a gentle rising ground
came in sight above the mulberries, and the hil-
locky undulations which indicate the lapse of an
Alpine ridge into a plain gathered in our front and
shut out the low grounds towards Mantua. The heat
and the silence were oppressive. Birds there were
none to sing or chirp—not even a solitary sparrow
protested against our passage through this village,
and the crack of the vetturino's whip and the rustle
of a lizard among the dry leaves were quite sensa-
tions till we came to the outlying houses of Somma,
Campagna, and saw some villagers marching to
church. Here there were traces of the fight of the
24th of June, or of Austrian preparations to meet
another attack, for the walls and houses were loop-
holed, though not up to the mark of General Kuhn's
operations in that way. Somma Campagna, which
is so familiar to us all by name, is a large village on
on the top of a very moderate elevation, and is tho-
roughly unlike tne Ideal of e would form ou%, tvt
name—a poor, broken-hearted, ruinous-looking
aggregation of big, tumble-down, and yet solidly-
built houses, overhanging tortuous streets, and melt-
ing away into hovels and shed,s,amid vines, mulberries,
and maize. In a few minutes we came out on a sloping
ridge, across which the road gently ascended towards
a small edition of Somma Campagna, and the traces
of the fight, now so many weeks old, grew and
multiplied, for the farmhouses were torn and wrecked
with shot, the trees were split and shattered, and the
loopholed walls and the hedges by the roadside were
still bordered by cartridge paper, pieces of leather,
torn cloth, here and there a knapsack or battered
shako, letters, and odds and ends left by men in
battle. As we crept in the grilling heat up the hill, a
bright-eyed, intelligent lad came out of the shadow
of a house, and, in reply to a question as to the scene
of the fight, told us he knew all about it, having
been on the spot throughout the day. To be sure,
he admitted afterwards that he spent his time in a
drain or a cave in his father's house ; but as he came
out and saw the field when the Italians retreated,
and knew the country well, perhaps he was as good
a guide as we could get. So, putting the horses in
the shade, we proceeded to go over the scene of the
fight which has done so much to aggravate the bit-
terness of the Austro-Italian quarrel. When the
battle was fought I was in Vienna, on my way to
the head-quarters of the Feldzeugmeister Benedek,
and I never read any account of it. My com-
panions were equally ignorant of the details, and
we, therefore,, proceeded to construct a theory of
the tactics of the day out of our internal conscious-
ness, assisted by local evidence and such aids as
trampled fields, heaps of burnt cartridges, graves,
and battered houses and wounded trees could render.
It was an interesting, but a very hot and exhausting
ramble. From the highest part of the village of Cus-
tozza a widespread plain is visible on the left and in
face, which is full of remarkable places. This plain
is green with maize and the inevitable mulberry,
and villages and churches stand out on its
surface like islands and rocky pinacles from
a sea. Then, somewhat on our left as we
look towards Mantua, the domes and spires
of which are plainly perceptible, are the towers of
Villafranca ; to the right of Mantua is the tower of
Solfexino ; behind us, hid in a dip of the ground
which rises from the blue sky-like strip of the Lago
di Garda, is Peschiera. As we look a few villagers
come forth from their houses and talk of the battle.
Some tell one story, some another ; but they all
admit they were in a great fright, and that they
hid in the depths of their cellars and in abstruse cor-
ners during the fight, though they all clung to their
houses, where one or two were smashed by falling
shells, and ruins, or were mutilated by cannon shot.
Now the sum of their stories was this. The Italians
crossed the Mincio in three columns, of which one
advanced straight on the rear of Custozaa by way of
Santa Lucia, the small hamlet with a church on our
right down there in the
ohollow. This column crossed
below Peschiera, the otherur. two columns coming
from the direction of ainndpVaraalllleeglgliion,e43l—vhtihche
we see very plainly marched
one in the centre towards Villafranca, the other on
the right by way of Mozzecane Their' object was to
cut in on the railroads between Mantua and Verona,
and between Peschiera and Verona, and bydestroy-
ing them to isolate the garrisons; and they
of battle to
probably
expected to find the Austrians in line
cover the ground parallel with the line between
Peschiera and Verona. The Austrians were in Cus-
tozza the night before the battle, but they retired
to some elevated hillocks, covered with vines, which
extend from Guastalla behind Custozza to the ridge
in rear of the village as the Italian army advanced,
and formed with their right towards Peschiera,
their centre on some hillocks close to Custozza, and
notably one called Monte Croce, while their left
was in front of Somma Campagna, where the re-
serves were posted, Villafranca being also strongly
held and fiercely disputed throughout the day. The
action commenced about 8 a.m., when the Aus-
trian guns opened on the rear and flank of the
centre column, and ceased at 6 o'clock at night,