The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1859-05-18
Correspondent Of the n. !. Courier and Enquirer
The Austrian War.--Position of
the Beligerents.
PARIS, April 20.


The Austrian War.--Position of
the Beligerents.
PARIS, April 90
commence my letter to you this day
under impressions as solemn as in the
course Of my life Of journalism have yet
experienced. Everything tends to the
belief that war is on the point of break
ing out on the Continent Of Europe, the
incidents and casualties of which, and
above all, its mode of termination no hu-
man being can foresee or predict spoke
to Courier yesterday, who had Just ar
rived from Milan and Venice, and who
waited only certain train to take him to
Calais, on his journey to London. The
accounts he gave of the situation OF the
Milanese at the moment Of his departure
from it, and of Lombardy aud Venice on
the one hand, and of Piedmont on the
other, lead irresistibly to the conclusion
that the commencement of hostilities is at
hand-indeed, he said, it might be ex-
pected at any moment Every private
house, every Palace land you know these
are not few in Venice and Milan) was
crowded with Austrian soldiers. of whom
100000 had already arrived and yet con-
tinued to arrive by thousands, yea tens
of thousands, with trains of artillery, shot
shell, powder magazines, and all the hell
ish material requisite for the destruction
of human life, and the converting of peace
able cities into ruins, and farmfelds and
landscapes into quaemires saturated with
human gore and encountered with human
fragments
Is all this necessary for the happiness
of Man ? Perhaps-for that Of one or two
or three
Italy requires reform. That is an un-
controvertible fact. Austria desires to
retain possession of Milan, Lombardy,
Venice, and their respective territories,
and of the great fortress of Mantua in par
ticular, and even (but this Is not with her
a sine qua nom Ancona. She wishes
also to maintain in their Dukedoms and
Principallties the Sovereign Princes who
lord it and have for too many centuries
lorded it over Central Italy, and who have
dwindled into second infancy, but she
seems to have not the slig ghtest intention
OF modifying the despotism she herself ex
ercises in her TIA. ian or Lombardian hold
iugs, or of permitting either popular or
foreign interference with the arbitrary
rule of the day Princes who govern under
her protection in Tuscany, Modena, Par
ma, &c. OF the Pope | speak not. As
a temporal power Rome can hardly be
said to exist She is at the mercy of all
who are able to attack and overwhelm and
take possession of her. Neither do |
speak of that unhappy kingdom Naples,
over which King Ferdinand tyrannized so
long (but Heaven forgive him, he is at his
last gasp for Naples is too remote from
the contemplated theatre of struggle for
mastery between the Powers now about
to contend for dominion in fair Italy, to
be taken into and kept in view.
have said that reform is necessary in
Italy, and that Austria, powerful in pos
session and in influence, is opposed to it ;
but am net quite sure that she would
not, seeing the whole to be in jeopardy
lat least about to become bone for con.
tention), am not sure, | say, that she
would not acquiesce on counsel honestly,
reasonably, and disinterestly given, and
make concessions to popular calls for, or
even foreign recommendations, of reform.
The sovereigns of Sardinia, whose con-
tinental kingdom of Piedmont connects
them with Italy, and constitutes them
an Italian power, it may be sa id, have
during now two generations perceived that
discomfort reigned in the fragments into
which Central Italy is broken. They saw
inevitable popular instructions against
the Dukes and Grand Dukes and Ouch
esses who misgovern those subdivisions OF
the Peninsula. They adopted towards
their own subjects that species of liberal
ism which kings know how TO parade, and
even changed their form OF government
from absolute to constitutional. By this
latter proceeding they wisely rendered
their own position secure from disafection
and treason, and being safe at home, Spec
ulated on attaining thereby to popularity
with the Italians of other States, and
thence possibly to arriving at the sovereign
| ty of United Italy which for them loomed