Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/660

 624 FRANCE [HISTORY. 856 -53. The peace of Paris. The Orsini attempt. The Italian war. the war speedily came to an end. The English would will ingly have gone on till they bad ruined the Russian navy ; the emperor of the French was glad to be done with it. In 1856 the czar Alexander, who had succeeded Nicholas in the winter of the great siege, signed a treaty of peace, the tarms of which had besn agreed on at the Congress of Paris. The Black Sea and the Danube were neutralized; the Danubian principalities taken, in part at least, from under Russian protection ; the sultan was admitted to the council-board of Europe. The peace did little for the real good of France, created a cold feeling between her and Eng land, annoyed Prussia, and did not satisfy Austria. The war had not been very brilliant; the losses had been heavy; the appearance of Count Cavour at the congress had forecast the coming events of 1859. The attempt of Orsini on the emperor s life in January 1858 led the way. A man who had been among the carbonari, and had handled the explosive substances which lay like torpedoes in all the water ways of European politics, ought not to have been astonished that Italians, smarting under their country s wrongs, should try to avenge them selves on him for the expedition to Rome and the restoration of the papacy. To them Napoleon III. seemed to be a traitor, and the chief cause of their subjection to hateful and foreign masters. And Orsini s attempt was by no means the first. The French journals spoke gratefully of the fact that no Frenchmen were compromised in these attempts at assassination ; the emperor himself, alarmed for Ids personal safety, and also sympathizing to some degree with the aspirations of Italy, began to think that he could secure himself from these secret and successive attacks only by satisfying the irritated feelings of Italy. The first result of it, however, was a period of terrorism at home, and of swaggering menace on the part of the army, unchecked by the Government, against England, that &quot;lair of these monsters who are sheltered by its laws.&quot; England, dis abused since the peace of its admiration for the imperial rule, replied by the volunteer movement, and the construc tion of defences on the coasts. But the emperor s mind was not set on war with England. New Year s Day 1859 dis closed to the diplomatic world his schemes against Austria, and showed that Italy would be the scene of warfare and change. The empress was known to be averse to a war which must be against the instincts of Catholicism. Prince Napoleon, who in January 1859 married the Princess Clotilde, daughter of Victor Emmanuel, king of Sardinia, was known to be in favour of an alliance with the Pied- montese for the liberation of Italy. The emperor hoped to steer between the two; hoped to satisfy the Italians and to escape the alarms of conspiracy, and at the same time to satisfy the empress and the Catholic party by constructing an Italian federation of states under pre sidency of the pope. The current of affairs, the strength of the &quot;doctrine of nationalities,&quot; the definite and heroic attitude of Italy herself, proved too strong for him. A federation in Italy, a federation in Switzerland, and a third in Germany, would have left France in the centre of the world, compact and powerful among weak and divided neighbours on every hand. This was the imperial policy; united Italy and united Germany destroyed the plan, and brought the empire with it to the ground. In July 1858 Cavour and Napoleon had agreed on the terms of an alliance ; Victor Emmanuel should be king of Italy, with possession of the north ; Nice and Savoy, the cradle of his race, he agreed to surrender to France. With this understanding war began, after delusive talk respecting a congress, in April 1859, Austria at the last moment forcing it on by ordering the cabinet of Turin to reduce its army and dismiss the volunteers. On the 3d of May the French Government also declared war, amidst the plaudits of Paris, and the enthusiasm of the army. The French at once entered Italy, by the Mont Cenis pass, and by sea, landing at Genoa. The emperor himself took the command in chief; King Victor Emmanuel placed himself under his orders. The affairs of Montebello and Palestro, in which the Piedmontese fought well, secured for France the safe passage of the Po. On June 4 the battle of Magenta, fought to open the passage of the Ticino, was won, after a very doubtful struggle, by the arrival of MacMahon, whom the emperor named marshal of France and duke of Magenta. The Austrians fell back, and the allies at once entered Milan. Baraguay-d Hilliers pushed the Germans out of Marignano ; and Garibaldi, with his chasseurs of the Alps, dislodging the Austrians from their positions round the Lago Maggiore, threatened their communications with Tyrol, their only sure line of retreat in case of ultimate disaster. Giulay, who commanded the Austrians, drew back within the Quadrilateral, as it was called, formed by the four fortresses of Peschiera, Mantua, Legnago, and Verona, a square within which, ever since 181 5, the Austrians had been accumulating all their means of resistance. This Quadrilateral, well held, could effectually block the passage through North Italy ; for Peschiera stands on the Lago di Garda, which runs up into the mountains, while Mantua is not far from the Po ; an enemy venturing down southwards could never leave these great strongholds on his flank ; their siege and reduction would give their holders time to recover from any disasters. To the attack of this strong position the allies now advanced ; and on June 24 they met the Austrians to the west of the Mincio, and, therefore, just in advance of Peschiera and Mantua, in the broken ground which lies about the town of Solferino. The B battle which then took place was fought with great Ol gallantry by the allies, and some tenacity by the Austrians, e who were on the defensive, and had the great advantage of the position, and of a thorough knowledge of the ground. French historians themselves allow that there was little strategy shown on either side : &quot; At Solferino, as through out the campaign, the command-in-chief WPS below its proper level.&quot; The defeat of the Austrians, without being crushing, was complete ; they fell back to the neighbour hood of Verona, the rally-point of the Quadrilateral, and the allies laid siege to Peschiera. These successive victories, and the release of the Milanese from Austrian domination, had an immediate effect on the rest of Italy. The duke of Tuscany had fled, and his terri tories were occupied by French troops under Prince Napoleon. The duke of Modena, after Magenta, also made his escape, and his duchy proclaimed Victor Emmanuel in his stead. The same took place in Parma. The &quot;Legations,&quot; the northern portion of the States of the Church, threw off the papal government, and joyfully proclaimed their adhesion to the national cause. A French fleet in July appeared be fore Venice, and the Queen of the Adriatic was burning to throw off the Austrian yoke. Still, every one thought that the war was scarcely begun, and, considering the strength of the Quadrilateral and the proverbial tenacity of the Austrians under defeat, it seemed not unlikely that changes in the fortune of war might yet favour the reactionary cause, when Europe was astonished to hear that the two emperors, in a conference at Villafranca, had agreed on the bases of a peace. There should be an Italian confederation i under presidency of the pope ; Lombardy (with exception i of Peschiera and Mantua) should be surrendered to Napoleon, who should present it to the king of Sardinia; Venice should be allowed to enter the Italian confederacy, though it was still to be an Austrian possession ; the dukes of Tuscany and Modena were to be replaced: reforms to be introduced into the papal states ; not a word about the south of Italy. These terms agreed on, viva voce, between the 18