From Iron, Blood: A Bismark Assassinated TL
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Chapter VII: Italia Irredimibile (Part E)
FillyofDelphi
Banned
The Battle of Rovigo
Engagement
The 21st saw the first contact between the Austrian and Italian lines along the rive line. At the start of the day the Eastern Po Army, from their deployment in Baruchella just south of the river, sent out their first detachments to protect engineers who were working to repair the bridges which had been partially demolished at the start of the war. They had not taken into account, however, that since Cialidini's reconnoitring the Austrians had established outposts across the river to keep this section of the front under observation: made up of a brigade of forces restationed from minor regional forts and local reservists. These 2nd string troops, hardly prepared for the appearance of tens of thousands of Italian professionals, diden't even try to contest the crossing and instead retreated towards Castagriaro where the nearest post office and railway spur. While this did leave the narrow ford undefended: insuring the Italians could meet the requirements of their plan in terms of establishing a bridgehead, this had the critical impact of allowing them to dispatch a formal request for instruction to Rovigo. Regional military attention, which up until than had been divided between the eastern and western poritions of the southern front, was thus definantively focused towards the later with Albrechet's marching forces receiving word for the fort HQ of where Giacamo's men intended to cross the Po.
Had he received the dispatch before Mantua, the Archduke probably woulden't have made any change to his movements. Jumpy conscripts were liable to see enemy armies on every horizon after all, and military orthodoxy was clear that he shouldn't risk venturing too far from his defensable position unless the rear was absolutely secure. Growing suspicion that the the Italians had perhaps adopted a southern strategy; bolstered by the information he'd gained interrogating captured officers of the Western Po Army, the sheer size of the force he'd faced, news that a force under Garibaldi was investing Borgoforte, and the deafening silence from the route of invasion in the past two wars lended the report a deal of credibility. The commander of the Rivogina forces was counciled not to counterattack the foothold being established but rather blow the bridges to the south and check their advance only if the Italians attempted to circumvent the fortress. Cavalry could then be streched over their one route of retreat while the main mass pursued them into either exhaustion or an inescapable battle bagging a second full Italian force without venturing too far off the route Vienna had already approved.
Thanks to a dedicated and full bore effort by their pioneers, the Italian armies had fulled crossed out of Romagna by the 24th. With the Austrians withdrawing before them and the men treating the locals respectfully and keeping displine in terms of paying for services and supplies, they were able to gather excellent intelligence as to the location of the Austrian forces in the area; namely that they were widely seperated with the sole exception of the garrison at Rivogina. News on the whereabouts of the field army was much more sparse aside from a few folks with relatives in Legnago reporting they haden't seen anything, but this was largely seen by Giacamo as promising. In the worst case scenario, this meant his force still had a number of days head start before the enemy turned eastward, while in the best case the threat from the Mincio was actually working as planned and diverted the threat to his rear entirely. In either case, he was determined to make a rapid move to Rovigo in order to capture the northward rail and allow the addition of the Ferra-based crossings their supply system. As there were no reinforcements to wait for, nor any need to establish guarded depots any delay would only allow the Austrians time to respond and so a march was ordered to take place as quickly as possible. From the beginning this rate of advance was severely curtailed by the weather with unusually intense heat, even for July in the Mediterranean, beating down on the largely featureless landscape. To avoid exposing their men to the risk of heat exhaustion, sunburn, or other conditions that would affect their ability to conduct the storming of Rovigo and the follow up sweep north the officers coordinated new schedules so the army would move in from the evening to early morning rather than sunrise to sunset.
While successful in its intention, the Italian night movement had two big problems it failed to overcome. While the complaints were largely muffled behind pride: men chosing to "soldier through" the disruption to their sleep patterns, the shock to their internal clocks lead to a noticable drop in manual dexterity and focus. Far more ominously however, the need to light their way and the dispersal created as normal systems of signalling failed insured a constant flow of Intel to Albrecht's approaching force. Once privy to his enemy's vulnerable formation, the Austrian marshal countered it with a unique blend of early century thinking and mid century technology. Calling in rail cars from Verona that he'd been using to supply the forts and to move around small reserves, he loaded in as much cavalry as he could fit and shipped them via Padua to let of near the town of Mantagnana. From their bivouacks there they fell upon the loosely formed outer sections of the (generiously called) colums on the first night, easily locating and identifying them by their fires beforing scattering or capturing a few thousand in a series of hit and run ambushes.
Suffice to say, Giacamo was obliged by his startled men to keep his forces far tighter so they'd be able to repel any further raiding attempts: his own dearth of cavalry preventing him from hunting down or keeping under watch the source of the attacks. Slowdown in the advance from a combination of traffic and the need to keep units from straying off meant that, instead of the three days march he'd expected, it was nearly four and a half days before his troops got within range of the fortress Rivogina. With just over 2,000 men and a couple of dozen guns guarding its only semi-modern walls,the city would have could have been taken in a matter of hours if it didn't surrender when called upon. Unfortunately for the Po Army the Austrians had been pushing just as hard and, unspoiled by the tension of raids and kept in much more regular supply and rest, had closed the gap so those few hours were all they needed.
At 10 AM, the first skirmishers began spreading across the field to harry the Italians: obliging them to form up and stand in the miday sun just when their bodies had gotten used to settling into bed. The farmsteads surrounding the town were the site of most of the fighting, changing hands several times of the course of the mourning as the edge in drill the Italians enjoyed was dulled by their slow reflexes and lack of endurance. By noon, General Durando had managed to mass his limited artillery and tried lauch a breaking bombardment on the point of the Austrian offensive. Despite the skill and coordination of his gunners, however, they simply couldn't through up enough shot to beat back an Austrian bayonet charge by a core of fresh Magyar veterans. To avoid buckling the south of the line had to be thinned in order to bolster the center, leaving their flank vulnerable to turning had Albrecht"s subordinated had been left any fast cavalry to commit
Throughout the early afternoon the Italians were being pushed in on themselves across the front, but as they did it made further advances slower and more costly. Fueled by adrenaline and able to support one another in the melee, the seasoned been stubbornly formed into a defensive squares that acted as human redoubts for their guns. While a commitment of the heavy artillery to these easy targets could have potentially broken the line at several points during the day, Albrecht or his subordinates proved hesitant to unleash their full power while they men were mixed into close combat. Unwilling to conduct that killing blow; a choice the Austrians would be critiqued on in most analysis of Rovigo, the fight devolved into a bitter struggle for every point along the Italian lines. Neither side showed any mercy into the virtually medieval form of combat, few oppritunities for taking prisoners or surrendering coming about as cohesian of command broke down.
Pressure on the front so occupied the PO Army, drawing in reimforcement from the wings to the center that they failed to see until too late the arrival of the Austrian cavalry from the north. Having "marched to the sound of guns", their attack drove the thin line still watching the rear from the field as the men broke under stress. Though Giacamo made a wholehearted attempt to transfer men to plug the gap, he quickly found that any group that tried to disengage drew overwhelming fire from the Austrian batteries on the rises. Left without any other options, he ordered a fighting uniform retreat southward down the only road available towards the bridges at Canaro. Seven thousand men had to be left behind as a rear guard to ward the withdrawal, who would be annihlated but manage to allow around 11,000 of their comrades to make their way back into Italy
Engagement
The 21st saw the first contact between the Austrian and Italian lines along the rive line. At the start of the day the Eastern Po Army, from their deployment in Baruchella just south of the river, sent out their first detachments to protect engineers who were working to repair the bridges which had been partially demolished at the start of the war. They had not taken into account, however, that since Cialidini's reconnoitring the Austrians had established outposts across the river to keep this section of the front under observation: made up of a brigade of forces restationed from minor regional forts and local reservists. These 2nd string troops, hardly prepared for the appearance of tens of thousands of Italian professionals, diden't even try to contest the crossing and instead retreated towards Castagriaro where the nearest post office and railway spur. While this did leave the narrow ford undefended: insuring the Italians could meet the requirements of their plan in terms of establishing a bridgehead, this had the critical impact of allowing them to dispatch a formal request for instruction to Rovigo. Regional military attention, which up until than had been divided between the eastern and western poritions of the southern front, was thus definantively focused towards the later with Albrechet's marching forces receiving word for the fort HQ of where Giacamo's men intended to cross the Po.
Had he received the dispatch before Mantua, the Archduke probably woulden't have made any change to his movements. Jumpy conscripts were liable to see enemy armies on every horizon after all, and military orthodoxy was clear that he shouldn't risk venturing too far from his defensable position unless the rear was absolutely secure. Growing suspicion that the the Italians had perhaps adopted a southern strategy; bolstered by the information he'd gained interrogating captured officers of the Western Po Army, the sheer size of the force he'd faced, news that a force under Garibaldi was investing Borgoforte, and the deafening silence from the route of invasion in the past two wars lended the report a deal of credibility. The commander of the Rivogina forces was counciled not to counterattack the foothold being established but rather blow the bridges to the south and check their advance only if the Italians attempted to circumvent the fortress. Cavalry could then be streched over their one route of retreat while the main mass pursued them into either exhaustion or an inescapable battle bagging a second full Italian force without venturing too far off the route Vienna had already approved.
Thanks to a dedicated and full bore effort by their pioneers, the Italian armies had fulled crossed out of Romagna by the 24th. With the Austrians withdrawing before them and the men treating the locals respectfully and keeping displine in terms of paying for services and supplies, they were able to gather excellent intelligence as to the location of the Austrian forces in the area; namely that they were widely seperated with the sole exception of the garrison at Rivogina. News on the whereabouts of the field army was much more sparse aside from a few folks with relatives in Legnago reporting they haden't seen anything, but this was largely seen by Giacamo as promising. In the worst case scenario, this meant his force still had a number of days head start before the enemy turned eastward, while in the best case the threat from the Mincio was actually working as planned and diverted the threat to his rear entirely. In either case, he was determined to make a rapid move to Rovigo in order to capture the northward rail and allow the addition of the Ferra-based crossings their supply system. As there were no reinforcements to wait for, nor any need to establish guarded depots any delay would only allow the Austrians time to respond and so a march was ordered to take place as quickly as possible. From the beginning this rate of advance was severely curtailed by the weather with unusually intense heat, even for July in the Mediterranean, beating down on the largely featureless landscape. To avoid exposing their men to the risk of heat exhaustion, sunburn, or other conditions that would affect their ability to conduct the storming of Rovigo and the follow up sweep north the officers coordinated new schedules so the army would move in from the evening to early morning rather than sunrise to sunset.
While successful in its intention, the Italian night movement had two big problems it failed to overcome. While the complaints were largely muffled behind pride: men chosing to "soldier through" the disruption to their sleep patterns, the shock to their internal clocks lead to a noticable drop in manual dexterity and focus. Far more ominously however, the need to light their way and the dispersal created as normal systems of signalling failed insured a constant flow of Intel to Albrecht's approaching force. Once privy to his enemy's vulnerable formation, the Austrian marshal countered it with a unique blend of early century thinking and mid century technology. Calling in rail cars from Verona that he'd been using to supply the forts and to move around small reserves, he loaded in as much cavalry as he could fit and shipped them via Padua to let of near the town of Mantagnana. From their bivouacks there they fell upon the loosely formed outer sections of the (generiously called) colums on the first night, easily locating and identifying them by their fires beforing scattering or capturing a few thousand in a series of hit and run ambushes.
Suffice to say, Giacamo was obliged by his startled men to keep his forces far tighter so they'd be able to repel any further raiding attempts: his own dearth of cavalry preventing him from hunting down or keeping under watch the source of the attacks. Slowdown in the advance from a combination of traffic and the need to keep units from straying off meant that, instead of the three days march he'd expected, it was nearly four and a half days before his troops got within range of the fortress Rivogina. With just over 2,000 men and a couple of dozen guns guarding its only semi-modern walls,the city would have could have been taken in a matter of hours if it didn't surrender when called upon. Unfortunately for the Po Army the Austrians had been pushing just as hard and, unspoiled by the tension of raids and kept in much more regular supply and rest, had closed the gap so those few hours were all they needed.
At 10 AM, the first skirmishers began spreading across the field to harry the Italians: obliging them to form up and stand in the miday sun just when their bodies had gotten used to settling into bed. The farmsteads surrounding the town were the site of most of the fighting, changing hands several times of the course of the mourning as the edge in drill the Italians enjoyed was dulled by their slow reflexes and lack of endurance. By noon, General Durando had managed to mass his limited artillery and tried lauch a breaking bombardment on the point of the Austrian offensive. Despite the skill and coordination of his gunners, however, they simply couldn't through up enough shot to beat back an Austrian bayonet charge by a core of fresh Magyar veterans. To avoid buckling the south of the line had to be thinned in order to bolster the center, leaving their flank vulnerable to turning had Albrecht"s subordinated had been left any fast cavalry to commit
Throughout the early afternoon the Italians were being pushed in on themselves across the front, but as they did it made further advances slower and more costly. Fueled by adrenaline and able to support one another in the melee, the seasoned been stubbornly formed into a defensive squares that acted as human redoubts for their guns. While a commitment of the heavy artillery to these easy targets could have potentially broken the line at several points during the day, Albrecht or his subordinates proved hesitant to unleash their full power while they men were mixed into close combat. Unwilling to conduct that killing blow; a choice the Austrians would be critiqued on in most analysis of Rovigo, the fight devolved into a bitter struggle for every point along the Italian lines. Neither side showed any mercy into the virtually medieval form of combat, few oppritunities for taking prisoners or surrendering coming about as cohesian of command broke down.
Pressure on the front so occupied the PO Army, drawing in reimforcement from the wings to the center that they failed to see until too late the arrival of the Austrian cavalry from the north. Having "marched to the sound of guns", their attack drove the thin line still watching the rear from the field as the men broke under stress. Though Giacamo made a wholehearted attempt to transfer men to plug the gap, he quickly found that any group that tried to disengage drew overwhelming fire from the Austrian batteries on the rises. Left without any other options, he ordered a fighting uniform retreat southward down the only road available towards the bridges at Canaro. Seven thousand men had to be left behind as a rear guard to ward the withdrawal, who would be annihlated but manage to allow around 11,000 of their comrades to make their way back into Italy
FillyofDelphi
Banned
I plan on it. The next update will be covering the diplomacy around Italy as a result of all this: focusing especially on the Franco-Austrian dance to establish a mutually agreeable settlement. Napoleon III, of course, will tolerate no annexations, but he does have an interest in keeping Italy on a leash. I suppose my flag hint might have spoiled what that entails.
Simplest way would be to leave Italy intact territorially, but let Austria exact an exorbitant indemnity which Italy would have to borrow on the Paris Bourse, thus keeping her "in hock" to France for years to come.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
That will certainly be the main element of any peace, yes. The fly in the ointment would be, considering Italy's already overissue of securities in France and the further dropping in perceived credit worthiness from the consequences of the lose would be the monarchy being able to service the debt without triggering tax revolts and evasion. The last thing Nappy wants is a republican revolution on his doorstep or a default that would trigger a recession in France.
If you are interested a get a link about a french book that explain the history of the french debt and they talk about how the french reacted to the french loan after the franco-prussian war, you could draw some parrallel with the Italian situation.
unforutntealy it's in French but google translate could help you : https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Dette_française -->
IV. — LA GUERRE DE 1870 ET LA TROISIÈME RÉPUBLIQUE JUSQU’A LA GUERRE ACTUELLE
Concerning the Italian situation, France could have in exchange of this loan some right of scrutiny in Italian affair and advise the Italian economy, to help them to developp quickly their economy to support this loan, French companies could take the opportunity to developp their market in Italy.
unforutntealy it's in French but google translate could help you : https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Dette_française -->
IV. — LA GUERRE DE 1870 ET LA TROISIÈME RÉPUBLIQUE JUSQU’A LA GUERRE ACTUELLE
Concerning the Italian situation, France could have in exchange of this loan some right of scrutiny in Italian affair and advise the Italian economy, to help them to developp quickly their economy to support this loan, French companies could take the opportunity to developp their market in Italy.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
An Italian Public Debt Administration?I'll admit, I hadent considered that opition and it has alot of potential to lead the penninsula down a unique political route, and could set an interesting precedent reguarding the handling of international debts for other countries. Spain, for example.
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FillyofDelphi
Banned
I have to apologize for the delay... the weeks directly before election time are a real crunch period for me work-wise. The next update should be up sometime either late tommorow, or the middle of next week
However, I do have the rest of the Chapter sketched out, so here's a breif overveiw with the section headings so this post isent entirely empty
Part F: The Battle of Bologna, or The Battle of the Bloody Shirts
"Those who love their country with not just their lips, but their hearts, have followed me into the fires of hell. I have given to them only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battle, and death. Today, let the Lord judge me, and tommorow have history do the same"
-Giuseppe Garabaldi,eve of the Battle of Bologna
Part G: A Sumpter on Sicily: The Rivortu du Palermu
For everything to stay the same, everything had to change.
- The Leopard's Roar, Alfonso di Lampedusa (1956)
Footnote IV: Exert from Percular Instiutions: The Southern Counter-Revolutions of the 1860's and Particularism
Part H: The Peace of God?: Napoleon III and the Italian Crisis
A lamb that lives a hundred years may yet grow horns
While a dead lion remains forever a corpse
- Prime Minister Mamora
However, I do have the rest of the Chapter sketched out, so here's a breif overveiw with the section headings so this post isent entirely empty
Part F: The Battle of Bologna, or The Battle of the Bloody Shirts
"Those who love their country with not just their lips, but their hearts, have followed me into the fires of hell. I have given to them only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battle, and death. Today, let the Lord judge me, and tommorow have history do the same"
-Giuseppe Garabaldi,eve of the Battle of Bologna
Part G: A Sumpter on Sicily: The Rivortu du Palermu
For everything to stay the same, everything had to change.
- The Leopard's Roar, Alfonso di Lampedusa (1956)
Part H: The Peace of God?: Napoleon III and the Italian Crisis
A lamb that lives a hundred years may yet grow horns
While a dead lion remains forever a corpse
- Prime Minister Mamora
FillyofDelphi
Banned
Nothing directly. I do data analytics: compiling surveys, statistics, ect., distilling conclusions out of them, and providing suggested approches/course of action to achieve stated goals based on them and critiquing the effectiveness of ones already being taken. During the political season you can imagine the volume of stuff I have to work with goes up.
follow up one do you work in minnesota and what our polling showing right now?
FillyofDelphi
Banned
Yes, and it depends on the race or topic. However, such current political discussion belongs in Chat, so please keep questions related to the thread
Chapter VIII: Trinity of Trinities (Part A)
FillyofDelphi
Banned
"Those who love their country with not just their lips, but their hearts, have followed me into the fires of hell. I have given to them only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battle, and death. Today, let the Lord judge me, and tommorow have history do the same"
-Giuseppe Garabaldi,eve of the Battle of Bologna
The Priest, Part I: The Buildup to The Battle of Bologana
Though hesitation by his pursuers at this key moment allowed Giacamo to transport his men back into Italian territory uncontested, the two rapid defeats at Mantua and Rovigo came as a deep shock to the Italian government and population. In stark contrast to a month prior, when they'd sent the men off to the frontier with expectations of a later-day Roman Triumph through the streets of a liberated Venice, the survivors of the disastrous expedition returned to hard hearts and a newspaper articles lambasting them with accusations of cowardliness and having been tainted by the disloyal spirit of their officers. Mamora's ministeries eagerly fanned the flames of this scapegoating with the government press and highly public assurances that the Po army was still under orders to resume their offensive without delay, well aware that without an alternate target the popular outrage the large casualty figures alongside the speed and ease with which the Austrians had swatted away their invasion would fall on the regime or, worse, turn against the war effort entirely.. Without maintaining the public facade that a quick and dramatic turn-around was just over the horizon, it was feared, the chance of garnering sufficent funds from a warry international market to maintain full moablization was minimal, and the failing fortunes of the Lira; the intial cautious bump in its value from the surge of first-week patriotic subscriptions having transformed into a dip of 15% from pre-war value on the Paris Bourse a mere two days after Mantua, forshadowed the prospects of the nation if they were unable to pay to rebuild their shattered forces.
As might be expected, the soldiers of the Po army took deep offense to these measures. Knowing the harsh reality; that despite the grueling hardships of the march, cannibalizing of their supplies, and being outnumbered and outgunned they'd never the less been have to distinguish themselves with a steady and courageous preformance especially when compared to the Garibaldi's Legion and the Mantua expedition, the ignorance of the armchair strategists and firebrands being peddled to the public struck deeply at their regimental pride. Instead, they associated their lack of success with the political machinations and unresponsiveness of the centeral command. The combination of the removal of the army's favorite sons in Cialidini and other southern and eastern commanders, the failure of the Lombardy forces to take any action to support their offensive despite the strict orders to pursue it, and the constant silence in the face of petition for additional supplies fed into one another to produce rumors of a conspiracy on the part of Mamora and his Piedmontese clients to undercut their rivals and seize all the glory for themselves by hurling the southern army into a suicidal offensive and swooping in once the Austrian army was weakened and exposed. In this toxic environment, the officers found it increasingly difficult to command the respect or discipline from their men: the rank and file threatening to outright desert and insisting they be moved out of the shadow of the immediate Austrian threat looming just across the river, compelling Giacamo to call together his brass yet again to discuss which of the disagreeable options they'd have to take. Everyone was in grim agreement that to turn face and attempt to repel the Austrians as they tried to cross the river: as the orders obliged them to do, would require spreading their few remaining forces dangerously thin and could only result in them being overrun entirely. Concentrating their defense in Ferra would be equally fruitless, as the city was unfortified and had no defensable route of retreat, meaning the Austrians could simply march around them and physically cut them off from the railways that might bring in the men or material they'd need to close the numerical gap. Given the circumstances it was decided the whole available force would stage a retreat to the depot and regional army headquarters in Bologna, where it was hoped they could stage a delaying defense long enough either for events on other fronts to compel Albrecht to pull back or sufficent reinforcement and resupply to arrive from the Mincio or Bogoforte forces to replenish their ranks and allow for an organized counterattack.
Despite the indispline otherwise plaguing the lines, the August 2nd withdrawel went off relatively smoothly as the promise of camp comforts and relative protection was more than a sufficent lure even for the tired. But the reality of the situation was somewhat more troublesome than their sense of security caused them to feel. Bologna was designed to serve as a mustering and training center for offensives into Veneto rather than withstand assaults from armies itself. Unlike its counterparts on the border, the stockade was situated among the low lying croplands of the Emilian plains where there was sufficent space to enclose the several required acres of barracks and warehouses and protect the Florence Line and, thus, their connection to the west. While this carried with it some advantages: the turret-based batteries of heavy guns commanding a virtually unobstructed field of fire nearly two miles in every direction, in practice its biggest effect was dramatically limited the army's ability to expand those basic defenses with a proper trench network. The munitions dumps had also been neglected in favor of the expeditions, leaving little ammunition of the proper caliber for the artillery and the power magazine insufficent for multiple days of battle. Despite these inadequate conditions, few among the army argued for further retreat and instead did the best they could to strengthen their position by digging themselves in on what open land was available. This was not only the result of strong personal motivations; wanting to defend their pride and hometowns in the face of the hated Austrians, but a political nessecity in the face of word coming in from Turin. In an attempt to assure a nation facing the threat of Austrian invasion, King Emmanual had declared Bologna "The vital lynchpin binding together our old and new countrymen, from which we will take not one step back", making retreat tantamount to treason. Though nearly a quarter of the force would end up outright deserting, those that remained took on the grim determination of men for whom victory was the only alternative to death.
As the Italians prepared to make their final stand, the Austrians completed their landings on the Italian side of the river to little resistance. With the political leadership, wealthy, and military having all decamped upon learning of the enemy approach, local governance had largely fallen into the hands of the Church as the one of the few organizations with widely recognized legitimacy. Bishop Luigi Casolini, having been administering the diocese for over a decade more than the recently-evacuated secular officials, accepted the request to manage the distribution of local stocks that haden't been carried off and to negotiate terms of occupation with the Archduke in direct defiance of the Royal Decree. French, Swiss, and British journalists who'd been steadily trickling to the war fronts gave glowing reports on both the merits of his administration and the admiration shown to him by the peasant masses, regaling their public with his "Christlike temperance and Solomanic Wisdom" and willingness to endure alongside his flock rather than escape: giving a sympathetic light to the clerical perspective as readers were re-introduced to the background of Italy's seizure of the Legation territories five years prior. These reports starkly contrasted with stories of the furious backlash being shown in the cities of Piedmont upon their hearing of this "turning of the other cheek" where dissent was being channeled into harassment and vandalism against the people and property of the Church and southern German-speakers, including a particularly embarrassing case where a pair of befuddled Swiss watchmakers found their workshop burned down. Encouraged by the papers, which he made a effort to read every mourning to keep a good barometer of international opinion, the Archduke kept an orderly march and arrived on the outskirts of Ferra just before dawn on August 8th: welcomed by an envoy of the Bishop with a propsal for the dicussion of surrender terms.
Back came a reply that turned the diplomatic situation upside down. Rather than the usual demands for the establishment of a military administration, Luigi received a notice co-signed by both Albrechet and the Papal Nuncio to Vienna explaining in blunt terms that this was not, in fact, a hostile action and so surrender woulden't be nessicery. Citing the terms of agreements made at the Congress of Vienna as well as the Concordant between the Empire and Church, Austria was simply excersising it's standing invitation to intervene on behalf of the Papacy to secure her territory from "disloyal elements": renouncing even the thought of robbing legitmat authority from the "Legation" government even temporarily. Indeed, a very public statement: mirroring that of the Prussians in their own international showmanship in Kiel that had set the onset of this war in motion,the Austrian forces were lead by their Chaplins to swear a civil and religious oath to restore all territory "Recognized as the Patramony of St.Peter" and sheparded the former Papal administrators back into their pre-1860 offices...
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That last development is sounding like a break of the status quo. Napoléon III may have been protecting Latium for domestic policy motives, but that Austrian driven restauration of the Papal States would be endangering his whole work in the peninsula, or so he would feel I think. Knowing the man, the catholic lobby pressure would keep him from making it an overt motive, but I'm pretty sure he would still find a pretext to go around and stop that.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
The coming update is actually all about the international stances/reactions on the Italian situation. Suffice to say France and Austria both would love a return to and securing off the antibellium situation; the big sticking point is just how to restrict Italy from running around the powder keg with a lot match. Vienna has clearly concluded that only by securing the exposed southern front of Veneto can they head off another war, for which the Church is a convenient political football.
Now, would France tolerate that being the actual final terms? No, but it does oblige them to offer an alternative.
Chapter VIII: Trinity of Trinities (Part B)
FillyofDelphi
Banned
“What is the Fourth Estate? It is at once the whole of the nation and none at all. It is, in truth, the instrument by which the aggregate intelligence of the other three criticize and control the excesses of the individual divisions of the other three. As the First Napoleon feared the hostility of four printers more than a thousand bayonets, and the late Earl of Abderdeen admitted that a Minister must first please the newspapers, it has become clear that the era of the Dynastic War is fading away, and the War of Public Opinion entering into its dawn.”
-Post-war Editorial in the “The Times”: What is the Fourth Estate?, reflecting on the impact of mass media on The Ten Weeks War
The Prince, Part I: The Buildup to French involvement
As Vienna had been hoping, their endorsement of a pro-Papal reorganization of the Peninsula to a scandal-primed media produced an explosion in popular coverage and political agitation among the French citizenry. The official government position- a tepid endorsement of placing the “Italian Question: under the jurisdiction of the upcoming European Conference, was nearly drowned out by a chorus of calls to action in the press from all sides of society, though not exactly the same in sentiment. As might be expected, the Ultramontane and Catholic provincial press loudly backed this show of religious unity: amplifying the “outrage of the French Public” at continued neglect by their government to honor its claimed position as defender of the Faith abroad she had made during the Crimean War. Developing concepts pioneered during the American Civil War, the clerical lobby managed to tap into a previously untapped source of popular support: the illiterate country population, by introducing the “Political Cartoon” in a wonderful piece of propaganda: the Histoire Pittoresque dramatique et Sainte Peter an le Italian. Depicting a highly slanted history of the relations between secular powers in Italy and the Church: invoking images such as the 4th Crusade, Trial of Saint Peter, and corruption that had driven the Pope to Avigonon (As well as shoving some of the excesses of the Revolutionary Republicans on the influence of “The worst radicals of the Renaissance”… who were Italians), the simple picture-book style and language made it easy to publicly depict the armies of Italy as radical barbarians and invoke an idealic image of societies in which the Church played a central role in daily life: something the average French peasent was familiar with and supported. For them, the call for a holy crusade in defense of their religious heritage promised the security of that exact view of civilization against the constant expansion of the influence of revolutionary Liberals in Paris and their calls for enforcement of a market economy and increasing the authority of the central government over local affairs. Backed and facilitated by provincial governors, this combination of top-down coordination and bottom-up sentiments represented allowed for the divide in French society that dated back to the Revolution to finally take on a political dimension: the silent majoirty who stood “before the barracades” finally having the means to overcome the organizational advantage of those urbanites who’d stood “behind the barricades”
This groundswell of conservative political activity was an astonishment to many in the political establishment, who had long considered the rustic poor a mostly uninterested in national politics. Most of the Emperor’s political allies, however, took it as a positive surprise: seeing in this constituency the perfect tool to counter the myth being pushed by the reformists that liberalization of the regime really was a demand of the full swath of French society rather than their own suspicion that it was project mainly for upper middle class intellectuals who’d previously been ascendant under the July Monarchy. This resulted in a steady increase in, though not to the extent of pro-war, certainly interventionist voice in both the assembly and state councils. These were not limited to just pro-Church and pro-Habsburg politicians who wanted to use the situation as a way to chastise Italy for running off on forgien adventures that required French assistance to bail them out, but even many moderate statesmen who feared that the progressively worsening series of defeats and rising stakes would result in the Italian situation breaking down to the point the final settlement would go against French interests and critically undermine the large investments they’d made in the country. As factors in the North made the prospect of peace on both fronts being negotiated simultaneously to create a fair and balanced peace seem increasingly distant, the sense grew that the moment where France could make a decisive move that could maintain the status quo in Italy was rapidly slipping away: if not to Austria, than to regional revolts and Republicans.
It was a stark contrast to previous war debates of the 2nd Empire that the main indifferent party was the Emperor himself. Napoleon III’s, so often attracted to the possibility swift glorious wars gave to bolstering his regeime was oddly seen to be suddenly hesitant just as his support base seemed to be calling him to action. Some would attribute this to medical concerns: having expectations that as a “popular autocrat” he’d have an obligation to lead any expeditionary force in person and that rigors of campaigning would only harm any attempts to treat his ever-worsening kidney stones. A more popular school, however, places ideological and political concerns on the forefront: with Napoleon considering the project of Italian Unification a personal priority and desiring to complete it both for moral reasons and to keep Italy as a solid French ally. To avoid dissent towards his person, however, he coached these objections in the form of diplomatic and military concerns. The army was not set for mobilization, so he claimed, as it was caught up in the early stages of reorganization and the credit crisis and early bond-sales by the Germanic states meant there was little prospect of raising a war chest anyways. The move would also undermine France’s position as a honest broker in the Prussian-Austrian disagreements, which in practical terms was far more salient to French interests than minor territorial ships in Italy. These statements, however, did little to somber public opinion, which even on the left was increasingly calling for accommodation with Austria on the terms that they agree not to press for either annexing any territory or restoring any to the Papal States: which would inevitably render Italy indefensible.
Ultimately, it was that stance of “diplomatic settlement with pre-conditions” that would end up triumphing: not only as sermons from the village pulpits only added to the “Church Choir” but news of the situation in Sicily and the Bogoforte Expedition make it look increasingly like there may not be a unified Italy left to save if he dallied any longer. In the end, France needed Italy to favor them over the Prussians if she wanted to prevent a Berlin-dominated alliance from forming a permanent bulwark against any expansion of her influence on the continent (Possibly even prying the Ottomans out of their and Britain’s orbit), and feared she’d miss out on any voice in the final terms if he did not join in this war for the fate of the entire Central European world. By the end of August the conditions had been agreed upon and, with varying degrees of support, the Emperor and representatives of all the major political factions announced the offer to broker a cease-fire between the waring powers on the expectations of “No territorial gains for either belligerent”. While it was clear the exact terms would largely be an ultimatum dictated by Paris: Vienna and Italy both in too hard pressed a position to demand much of a say, they never the less accepted the mediation with expectations of their arguments being taken more seriously at the conference: Austria having the luxury of being able to pull the South Army back into a reserve position to serve as a backup in case conditions turned against them in the careful balance of the Bohemian Front.
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Chapter VIII: Trinity of Trinities (Part C)
FillyofDelphi
Banned
The Bourbon government had the great
merit of preserving our lives and subsistence,
a merit the present government can not claim.
We have neither personal nor political liberties.
-Neopolitan Deligate to the Italian Parlament, 1863
The Pauper: The Buildup to the Palermo Revolution
Mezzogiorini resistance to North Italian encroachment began essentially when Francis II surrendered his armies to Cialdini in Feburary of 1861. Physically isolated from the cutthroat commercial and military contests of Northern Italy by oceans and mountains and dominated together by a series of foreign overlords, the south of the Peninsula possessed a culture entirely alien to an intelligentsia raised in the mercantile traditions of Milan, Genoa, and Florence. Modest landowning elite, instead of being replaced by salaried bureaucrats appointed from the capital , were largely left to their own devises in dispensing justice and providing security provided the taxes came in on time in a continuation of centuries-old feudal relations with their distant sovereign. With little oversight or instruction from the political center, this system resulted in a series of unaffiliated and unofficial private police forces; appointed by the local authorities to enforce their local laws under their unique local methods and codes of honors. These same communities had developed a deep dependency on the Church a source of education and civil services that would be provide by the State in many other parts of Europe: driven in part by regional nobles, pleading poverty, unloading the responsibility and the fact the churchs were largely stocked by local sons who cared deeply for their neighbors and childhood home. Most often compared to the charitable presentations of the Antebellum American South, the gap between this Southern paternalism and Northern dynamism had resulted in a similar difference in economic development by the time the region was integrated into a United Italy. In most of the major measures of industrialization and move into the market economy; railway and road millage, iron and steel production, capital saved up in banks, the regions north of Rome outpaced the regions south of it over 10 to 1, adding a material dimension to the yawning moral gap that existed between the two populations. While the half-century since the abolition of journalism had planted the seeds of change into the system: raising high customs barriers and state capital being loaned to prospective merchants and manufacturers who previously couldn’t find starting funds, the preservation and continued growth of the infant industries was still dependent on the protection of the Bourbon regeime from competition from the much better established forgien firms.
The conquest of the region by the Kingdom of Sardinia provided a devastating blow to this gradual adaption of society. Suddenly awoken from their sleepy isolation and dream of land reform, few peasants could have imagined what life really would be like under the dictates of Turin and had no way of any idea of how to integrate into their new reality. Virtually overnight, through the signing of a few papers, their markets were thrown wide open to constant trade with the better-capitalized northern firms. Cheap goods came flooding into port cities, undercutting the price of local workshops just as the Bourbon assets they might have turned to for their investment or liquidity loans disappeared into the new central treasury. The resulting downsizing and closures produced a flood of newly-minted vagabonds who, squeezed by rising food prices just as they saw those same ships carrying away grain for consumption by the very workers who’d stolen their jobs, naturally took to blaming the Italian administrators and upper-class migrants coming down to make personal fortunes for their situation. With no work to be had in the larger towns and the municipal sources of charity and support being transferred from the church and sympathetic local nobles to political appointees indifferent to local suffering, these former apprentices and artisans scattered over the countryside to try to make new lives for themselves: often forming gangs with former co-workers for the sake of mutual security and support.
Here, these urban dissidents found a similar simmering unrest among the farmers. Under the light hand of the Bourbon regime, the right to the use of common land and practice of small-holding had survived the death of de juro feudalism as a result of informal understandings between the peasentry and gentry. With the proceeds of their land being too low to afford to become absentee landlords or invest in a diversified income, the later had a material position that differed from their tendents only in scale rather than substance: living on, directly working with, and dependent on their estates. With that much more work to do and a greater trust in (and ability to verify) the locals, along with the fact that its simply harder to ignore the suffering of people you see every day, this produced a system of co-operative management that, while limiting the ability to shift from subsistence to commercial farming, had in a way acted as a guarantee of work, food, and shelter from the vagaries of markets. With annexation into the Kingdom of Italy, however, came the consolidation of these estates as a combination of rising taxes and divestment of Bourbon loyalists opened up previously divided landholdings for purchase by Northern speculators and a handful of already established large-estate owners. With this change had come a rapid shift for the spirit of the agreement to enforcement only by the letter, the prospect of profit by providing their new internal markets with raw material at much higher than pre-annexation prices driving the rapid enclosure of land and the removal of tolerance for indebtedness. Far from shrinking in the face of these strict physical boundaries, however, the peasantry responded with roiling anger to what they perceived as “robbery” of their long-standing rights without compensation.
Less apparent, but no less difficult to live with changes, affected the region across these class and ideological lines. Under the terms of the 1859 Casati Act, Mezzogiorini children, were forced off the fields of families, in desperate need of the free labor to help weather the imposition of new taxes and servicing of back-rent. Unlike the parochial schools of the prior era; who were sensitive to the seasonal agricultural needs and spoke fluently in the regional dialects, the superintendents placed in charge by the new regime were selected from those locals who could curry favor with the Piedmontese educational establishment and, thus, get their license validated. Adherents the policy of assimilation, which believed the creation of a united Italy required crushing independent regional identities by removing them from the youth, were deaf to protests against the hard-handed methods used in pursuit of this greater good. Physical punishment was meted out for speaking in Naplese or Sicilian rather than the Florentine dialect all lessons were held in, including the kinds of forced marches usually reserved for military discipline, and the removal of theological courses and prayer breaks left many parents objecting for the fate of their family’s souls. More agrecious, however, was the transfer of land grants held by the Church for the operation and building of schools to provincial authorities approved of by the Savoyards. Whereas in the past the excess profits of these lands would go back into the community in the form of charity and social services, now (like every other tax) the revenues went not to the needs of the poor but the priorities of the Turin government; removing a vital safety net for the poor farmers.
At first, this unrest only simmered as the two tracts of resistance competed rather than cooperated with one another. Bourbon loyalists, clericals, and cottagers who’d been kicked off their land by enclosure retreated into the hills to engage in the time-honored tradition of briganda. A fact of life in most regions throughout the south, the Briganda was the practice of young men lashing out against perceived injustice (weather political or simply from poverty) by engaging in raids on the estates of the elites and waylaying of overland trade. While in times of peace the views of these figures by peasant communities was mixed, during occupation they took on a celebrity status as the keepers of the fires of resistance by filling for the Italians the trope of the “Peasent Folk Hero” for the locals that figures like Robin Hood, Joan of Arc, the Minutemen held in other countries. The generals occupying the region, realizing the job of surpressing so many bandit parties would be extremely expensive, had enlisted the large landowners and merchantile bougious to enforce marshal law. As the few benefitiaries of the Savoyard reforms, they were only too happy to lend a hand in maintaining law and order in the countryside while the Italian authorities and their regular garrisons stayed in the cities. To carry out their authority, they recruited the rowdy bands of migrant urbanites as rural police: providing these potential recruits for the resistance with a legal way to earn and living and vent their frustrations in a way that dident undermine the status quo. During the early years of occupation, this practice of putting these two factions of marshal dissent against one another while maintaining the privlages (and thus loyalty) of the wealthy elite was successful in preventing the formation of a proper popular uprising. By the outbreak of the Fraternal War, while there remained deep and broad ideological and material distaste with the policies established by the unification and no small amount of nostalgia for the days of independence, the lack of resources and a leader who could bridge the gaps between the mixture of agrarian, clerical, protectionist-provencial , reformer, and Legitimatist factions which made up the anti-government forces had reduced violent resistance to the occasional show of force against villages suspected of aiding and supplying the brigandi or an exchange of gunfire between supply colums and ambushers trying to secure ammunition.
Crucial events occurred during the summer of 1866 which would lead to these tensions finally boiling over. The first was the passage of marshal law at the outbreak of the war, obliging the local garrisons to take direct control of enforcing the Legge Pica legislation of 1863 which mandated the death penelty to relatives and supporters of the briganda . Until then the lands outside the patrol zones of each city were managed as they'd always been by the landlord,who was often willing to accept bribes in exchange for leiency and jealiously guarded his perogative against agents of the occupation.Post-Pronunciamiento paranoia against former clients of Cialidini disrupted this delicate balance the Duke had set in place by raising suspicion against any armed faction outside Royal control which might attempt a coup against the Prime Minister in favor of their patron. Immediately upon the transfer of juristiction of the region to the Inspector-Generals from civilan administrators, an ultimatium was sent out to the companies at arms demanding they turn in their rifles or report fot integration into "official" Italian police and military units manned and lead by Northern officers. Within days, over 15,000 troops were in the field, declaring any man who refused to surrender his firearm a brigand and thus subject to immediate execution.
If the intent of the military was to head off unrest in the region, they failed utterly. Infantry colums; largely made up of aged reservists as the veterans of the surpression and young patriotic conscripts had largely been transferred to the front, were ill suited to combating gureillas in the maze of narrow country lanes and shallow vallies of the Mezzogiorino landscape, which provided perfect hiding places for brigandi who'd been operating in them for years. Wherever the army appeared in strength, arms could simply be buried underground or in secret nooks of sympathetic locals; often in the graveyards and crypts of churches or old noble estates even the most secular commanders dident dare order their men to desicrate. Where troops were fewer, companies would openly resist efforts to confiscate their weapons or press them into service, often with the tact silent support of their employer. The fallout of losing the loyalty of the Gentry, who found the prospect of losing their own private police and thus independent authority unacceptable, deeply undermined the position of the military as they lost a previously vital source of trusted information: minor commanders now operating out of blind fear once stories of false leads directing units into traps started spreading.
Second was the fallout of a second, genuine Pronunciamiento in Spain. An insurection on June 22 by troops in Madrid itself, lead by several high profile figures in the military, had only barely been surpressed by swift and direct action on the part of Prime Minister O'Donnell. Far from being rewarded for his loyalty to the regeime, however, Queen Isabella had reacted to the revolt by turning against both the liberals and moderates in her regeime: dismissing O'Donnell due to his perceived threat as head of the left-center Union-Liberal and replacing him with the stauch conservative Duke of Valencia. Disgusted by this betrayal, the commander was preparing to join the coup plotters such as John Prim (Hero of the Spainish-Moroccan War and commander of the Spainish expedition to Mexico in 62') in a self-imposed exile in France, having finally lost faith in the Queen's willingness to adopt needed financial and political reforms. Then, however, came a message from the Austrians and a figure with the Spainish court: a man who's very name carried the echo of liberal refining of Bourbon Absolutism with a promise of funds and a place of power in a prospective state if he could lend his and his supporter's expertice to a plan...
Antoine de Orlean
- Status