page_title: Charles Albert of Sardinia
section_title: Initial campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Albert of Sardinia / Liberal sovereign (1845–1849) / First Italian War of Independence / Initial campaign
caption_attribution_description: Il comando piemontese alla Battaglia di Pastrengo, ridotto, ritoccato, litografia
context_page_description: Charles Albert was the King of Sardinia from 27 April 1831 to 23 March 1849. His name is bound up with the first Italian constitution, the Albertine Statute, and with the First Italian War of Independence.
  During the Napoleonic period, he resided in France, where he received a liberal education. As Prince of Carignano in 1821, he granted and then withdrew his support for a rebellion which sought to force Victor Emmanuel I to institute a constitutional monarchy. He became a conservative and participated in the legitimist expedition against the Spanish liberals in 1823.
  He became king of Sardinia in 1831 on the death of his distant cousin Charles Felix, who had no heir. As king, after an initial conservative period during which he supported various European legitimist movements, he adopted the idea of a federal Italy, led by the Pope and freed from the House of Habsburg in 1848. In the same year he granted the Albertine Statute, the first Italian constitution, which remained in force until 1947.
context_section_description: Charles Albert left Turin on the evening of 26 March 1848 for Alessandria, in order to take command of the army and then advanced to Voghera. He was preoccupied with the delay of the provisional government of Milan's acceptance of annexation by the Kingdom of Sardinia. The Austrians however had regrouped on the River Mincio, at one corner of the Quadrilatero. On 29 March, the king entered Pavia in triumph, where he was met by some envoys of the Milanese government. On 2 April, Charles Albert was in Cremona, on 5 April at Bozzolo, on 6 April at Asola, on 8 April at Castiglione delle Stiviere, and on 11 April at Volta Mantovana, only four kilometres from the Mincio. After nearly two weeks, he had made it to the front.
  At the opening of hostilities, on 8 and 9 April, Italian sharpshooters had achieved success in the first battle of the campaign at the Battle of Goito Bridge. After crossing the Mincio with his army, Charles Albert achieved another victory on 30 April at Pastrengo, where he saw the front lines. The units under his command attacked some Austrians who had been dispersed by a charge of the carabinieri on horseback. On 2 May, in the midst of this triumphant atmosphere, news arrived that Pius IX had withdrawn his military and political support for the Italian cause.
  Nevertheless, the Papal soldiers in the army did not withdraw, choosing to remain to fight as volunteers, but Charles Albert had lost the moral justification for his mission. His dream of becoming the sword of the papacy and king of an Italy united under the Pope, as Vincenzo Gioberti had proposed, was thwarted. Yet the king was undiscouraged and continued to advance towards Verona, where a harsh and indecisive battle was fought with the Austrians at Santa Lucia on 6 May.
  Two further events followed in the next few days. On 21 May, the contingent of 14,000 men from the Neapolitan army which were en route to fight against the Austrians, were ordered by Ferdinand II to return home in light of Pius IX's decision. Then on 25 May, the Austrian reinforcements which had been travelling through Veneto, joined Radetzky's troops at Verona. Charles Albert was ambitious but had only modest strategic abilities and he could not realistically continue the war alone. The Battle of Goito and the surrender of Peschiera on 30 May were his last successes. The Austrians conquered Vicenza on 10 June, dispersing the Papal volunteers and finally obtained a decisive victory over the Piedmontese in the Battle of Custoza, which lasted from the 22 to 27 July.
  In the meantime, on 8 June, the Milanese and Lombards had voted with an overwhelming majority to join the Kingdom of Sardinia, as had the citizens of the Duchy of Parma on 2 May. But for Charles Albert, things were going sour: the soldiers were angry about the recent defeat and were hungry and exhausted. A council of war suggested seeking a truce.
caption: Charles Albert (with the spyglass) and the Piedmontese commanders at the Battle of Pastrengo.
exif: {"Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 128, 255, 128, 255]", "Image ExifOffset": "150", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "542", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "381"}