The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-11 00:00:00

votion of the Austrian officer to his Sovereign—it
is unlimited and ready for any sacrifice.
The explanation of this rather strange spectacle
in the 19th century is that the Austrian officer,
from whateyer class he issues, becomes a privileged
being the moment he puts on the sash. He forms
part of a distinct corporation, like the priest, he
ceases to be a citizen, and belongs to a powerful
body in the State. He becomes socially equal to the
noble, which, in a country of exclusively aris-
tocratic tendencies, is, perhaps, the most powerful
link which can exist. Facilities are given to the
sons of officers to follow the example of their
fathers, and the consequence is that in no other
country is there such a number of military fami-
lies as in Austria, who consider it almost a right to
belong to the army. They acquire, as it were, a
distinct physiognomy, and are easily recognised
among the rest.
With this devoted class of officers the Austrian
Government cements together those heterogeneous
elements of which its army is composed. In
order to keep the soldier as separate as possible from
the officer, and not to let in the latter the idea to
generate that he is anything besides an Austrian
officer, care is taken to put, only very rarely, an
officer into a regiment of the same nationality as he
is of himself. The soldier is thus doubly separated
from his officer, first, by the exceptional position
of the latter, and, secondly, by race and language.
Herein lies the greatest weakness of the whole sys-
tem. It all goes on wonderfully well in the barracks
and on the manoeuvring ground, where the soldier
learns mechanically to execute some movement at
the sound of certain words, to him utterly unintel-
ligible, but, when ever it comes to the battlefield,
no example of devotion on the part of the officer,
and no driving will ever produce the class which
one spirited word in the mother tongue could easily
obtain. The soldier feels alone and deserted, think-
ing, perhaps, of his own dear home. In this critical
moment he hears words, the meaning of which he
knows not, and sees a man with whom he has no
connection but that of drill and punishment. It is
in vain that the officer exerts himself; he cannot
animate the inert mass.
" This is the key to the superiority of the allied
armies, and it must always be so as long as the pre-
sent military organisation lasts in Austria. It is
useless to swell the masses, you cannot vivify them ;
they will remain dead until you can invent a system
• by which the Hungarian can fight as an Hungarian,
. the Croat as a Croat, the Pole as a Pole. As it is
now, they may resist by dint of discipline behind
entrenchments, but, unless under very rare circum-
stances, will never be a match for the allies in the
field.
"In consequence of the change in the Austrian
position, ours has likewise been modified to suit it.
How this has been done will appear by and bye.
" Peschiera has been unusually noisy the whole
of yesterday, firing in every direction ; but doing
little damage. They evidently don't know in that
fortress from which side the danger threatens, for
there is great vagueness in the direction of the
firing. So much the better; they will find it out
in time."

" DESENZANO, JULY 4.

The cries of Peschiera, the invested, attracted
me yesterday evening, and, as is often the case in
such circumstances, the fortress is obstinately silent
to-day. As I don't know what is going on inside I
can only suppose that they fire by the thermometer,
and stop when it becomes " very warm," and warm
it is to-day, undoubtedly. Bright sunshine, and
yet sultry as before a storm, without a single
merciful cloud to protect your head, or a breath of
wind to refresh your brow. The Lake is almost hid
behind a veil of haze, and the mountains of Tyrol
only faintly visible. The peninsula of Sermione
stretches out its long back into the grayish-blue
waters, and looks like some gigantic antediluvian
animal, or ancestor of sea-serpents, cooling itself in
the lake, while the white crenelated towers repre-
sent admirably its head erect. Behind it, and hid-
den by it, lies Peschiera, the only sign of its exist-
ence being clouds of smoke arising from the firing
of the buildings in the neighbourhood of the for-
tress which might afford shelter to the besieging
armies of the allies. The trenches of the latter
were opened the night before last, and in two or
three days we hope to hear again that familiar and
more or less regular booming, which will probably
form a prominent feature during the rest of the
campaign.
The Austrians have evidently considered Pes-
chiera more important than in 1848, or rather they
have had more time for preparation than they had
then, at any rate ; Peschiera has been considerably
strengthened since that time. All the positions
which were then occupied by the blockading Sar-
dinian army are now held by the Austrians, so that
the enceinte of the fortress has swelled out to at
least twice its original size.
Peschiera is built on the point where the river
Mincio leaves the Lake. The issuing of the river has
been regulatedby sluices and floodgates. It comes out
now in three branches, which divide the ground lyin g
between them into two islands of unequal size, both
having, as well as the river itself, a direction from
north-west to south-east. Both islands together
do not occupy more than a surface of half a square
mile. The town proper, or rather hamlet, for it is
little more, is built on the more southerly of these
two islands, and the islands themselves are sur-
rounded by an irregular pentagon of stone and
earthworks, the two outer branches of the river
forming the ditch to them. The mainbranch, which
runs between the two islands, as well as the two
outer ones, is bridged over in several places, thus
connecting the banks of the river with the islands,
and these islands between them. Close to the
banks are two hills, the one on thg left bank skirt-
ing the river, which takes a southerly direction
soon after leaving the town. The others lie to the
south-west of the town. They form thus as it were
natural outworks for the fortress, and have been
both fortified with a double line of works. These
two hills formed the boundary of the fortress when
the Sardinians blockaded it in 1848. Not more
than 1,000 yards from these detached hills begins
the range which, more or less, runs along the whole
extent of the southern shores of the lake. To the
west of the fortress it begins almost close to the
lake, and by a gentle ascent rises in a semicircle
towards the Mincio, crossing the road to Ponti. It
is broken by the course of the Mincio, but rises
again rather abruptly on the other bank of the
river at La Ca, and striking off in a north-easterly
direction goes off towards Cavalcasele, having some
low ground between it and the lake. On the first
semicircular range were the Sardinian lines in
1848. Since then, the Austrians have constructed
all round from sea shore to sea shore 13 detached
forts, all lunettes—namely, seven to the west, and
the six others to-the east and north of the Mincio.
This additions looks more formidable than it is in
reality, for everywhere, except close to the shores
of the lake, these detached works are commanded
from the hills close to them, and the irregularity of
these hills gives great facilities for enfilading them.
It was just with a view to guard against this that
the Austrians constructed these detached works so
close to each other, especially those to the west of
the Mincio.
The garrison, according to our accounts, con-
sists of from 3,000 to 4,000 men. The work,
therefore, ought not to be very long. Of course, it
is improbable that the Austrians will, as in 1848,
let Peschiera fall without making some effort
to relieve it by making an offensive movement, un-
less they are much more overmatched than we have
a right to suppose.

VALEGGIO, JULY 5.

There is no perceptible alteration in the situation,
except that Villafranca, which had been occupied
by the allied troops, has again been abandoned by
them. On entering the place six days ago some
earthworks were found which the Austrians had
thrown up for the defence of this open town, situ-
ated in the midst of the plain. They faced the great
road to Goito, and were turned now in the direction
of Verona. If you should ask why the place was
again abandoned, I can only say that you must
recollect that what is necessary one day may be
useless the next. The Allies quitted Villafranca the
evening of the day before yesterday, and yesterday
the Austrians came back again to it.
The day before yesterday the son of Gen. Urban
came as parlementaire to the head-quarters of the
French army here, bringing with him an autograph
letter from the Emperor of Austria to the Emperor
of the French. He was allowed to pass through
without any bandaging of the eyes or other mea-
sures of precaution which were formerly used on
such occasions. He found the Emperor in the gar-
den, and delivered his missive. You may imagine
the field which this missive has opened to conjec-
ture. Some say it is a letter of thanks for the
manner in which the Austrian wounded have been
treated; others think it has reference to the ex-
change of prisoners ; others are of opinion that it is
a demand for an armistice ; while. some go so far
as to dream of peace. This step, it cannot be denied,
has something rather strange in it,
if, as it was re-
ported, the Emperor of Austria has returned, or is
to return to Vienna, otherwise it must be recol-
lected that both Emperors are like wise the Com-
manders-in-Chief of their respective armies, and
can therefore have communication as such without
there being any grounds for attributing greater
importance to this step than it really deserves.
Last night we had an alarm. In the middle of
the night the call, Aux armes, resounded, the
troops turned out and formed in order of battle, in
which they
remained for about an hour, when it
appeared that it had been a false alarm, and the
soldiers returned to their tents in not the most
amiable of humours. The impression among them
was that it was got up, like the panic after the battle
of Solferino; fortunately there was no one on whom
the suspicion could be fixed. I should not advise