FillyofDelphi
Banned
In principle, you might have a point. In practice, Austria was isolated diplomatically after their indecisive behaviour in the war of Crimea where they had managed to discontent both sides (and Prussia was still smarting from the humiliation of the Punctuation of Olmutz). France had also officially notified Austria that crossing the Ticino would be considered a casus belli. In this situation handing over an ultimatum to Piedmont was pure arrogance and declaring war was even worse. In many ways, it was a prequel of Austrian behaviour in June 1914, and probably with even less justification
But that's kind of my point: Austria was diplomatically isolated and would, by agreeing to the terms without reservation, be walking into a conference with no cards to play and every other power sans Britain intent on ruling against her. Does that, on the ground at the time, sound better than demonstrating their willingness and ability to defend their basic territorial integrity? This isen't the same as 1914, where there was no immediate military threat, demand to cede territory, and the demands were explicitly unreasonable. Austria has every right to say Lombardy is theres and Piedmont has no right to it, and that adding them to the Great Power fold is a gross unbalancing of the Concert of Europe. Thwy have no reason to expect to get better results from the Congress.