"Neue Rheinische Zeitung" – The Defeat of the Piedmontese

The Defeat of the Piedmontese

["Neue Rheinische Zeitung" No. 260, 31 March 1849]

*
Cologne
, 30 March. The treachery of Ramorino has borne its fruits. The Piedmontese army has been
completely defeated
at Novara and driven back to Borgomanero, to the foot of the Alps. The Austrians have occupied Novara, Vercelli and Trino, and the road to Turin lies open to them.

All detailed information is so far lacking. But this much is certain, that without Ramorino, who allowed the Austrians to push between the various Piedmontese divisions and isolate a part of them, the victory would have been impossible.

That Charles Albert has likewise practised treachery cannot be doubted. Whether, however, only through the mediation of Ramorino or in other ways as well, we will only learn later.

Ramorino is the same adventurer who, after a more than equivocal career in the Polish war of 1830/31, in the Savoy expedition of 1834, on the very day when the affair assumed a serious character, disappeared with the entire war chest, and who later, in London, made the ex-Duke of Brunswick a plan for the conquest of Germany for £1,200 sterling.

That such an industrialist could only be employed proves how much Charles Albert, who fears the republicans of Genoa and Turin more than the Austrians, was intent on treachery from the very outset.

After this defeat a revolution and the proclamation of the republic are expected in Turin; this is shown by the fact that an attempt is being made to forestall it through the abdication of Charles Albert in favour of his eldest son <Victor Emmanuel II.>.

The defeat of the Piedmontese is more important than all the German imperial farces put together. It is the defeat of the entire Italian revolution. After Piedmont has been vanquished, it will be the turn of Rome and Florence.

But, if all signs do not deceive, it is precisely this defeat of the Italian revolution that will be the signal for the outbreak of the European revolution. The French people sees the armed counter-revolution of foreign countries drawing nearer its frontiers in the same proportion as it is itself ever more subjected to the bondage of the counter-revolution at home. The June victory and the dictatorship of Cavaignac in Paris corresponded to Radetzky's victorious march as far as the Mincio; the presidency of Bonaparte, Barrot and the law on clubs corresponds to the victory at Novara and the march of the Austrians to the Alps. Paris is ripe for a new revolution. Savoy, which has for a year been preparing its defection from Piedmont and its union with France, which resisted taking part in the war, Savoy will want to throw itself into the arms of France; Barrot and Bonaparte will have to reject it. Genoa, perhaps Turin, if there is still time, will proclaim the republic and appeal for France's help; and Odilon Barrot will reply to them with solemn gravity that he will know how to protect the integrity of the Sardinian territory.

But if the ministry will not know it, the people of Paris knows that France cannot tolerate the Austrians in Turin and Genoa. And the people of Paris will not tolerate them there. It will answer the Italians by a victorious rising, and the French army, the only one in Europe that has not stood on an open battlefield since 24 February, will join itself to it.

The French army burns with eagerness to cross the Alps and measure itself against the Austrians. It is not accustomed to confront a revolution that promises it new glory and new laurels, one that takes the field with the banner of war against the coalition. The French army is not “My glorious army”.

The defeat of the Italians is bitter. No people, except the Poles, has been so shamefully crushed by the force of over-powerful neighbours, none has so often and so courageously tried to shake off the pressure. And each time this unfortunate people must again succumb to its oppressors; the goal of all efforts, all struggles is nothing but new defeats! But if this defeat results in a revolution in Paris and brings about the outbreak of the European war, whose portents are showing themselves on every side; if it is the impulse for a new movement across the entire

continent, a movement that this time will have a different character from that of last year – then even the Italians have cause to congratulate themselves on it.

["Neue Rheinische Zeitung" No. 261, 1 April 1849, Second Edition]

*
Cologne
, 1 April. According to the latest reports arriving from Italy, the defeat of the Piedmontese at Novara is by no means as decisive as the telegraphic dispatch sent to Paris had reported.

The Piedmontese are beaten, they have been cut off from Turin and thrown into the mountains. That is all.

If Piedmont were a republic, if the Turin government were revolutionary and had the courage to resort to revolutionary means – nothing would be lost. But Italian independence is being lost – not through the invincibility of the Austrian arms, but through the cowardice of the Piedmontese monarchy.

How did the Austrians win? Through the fact that, owing to Ramorino's treachery, two divisions of the Piedmontese army were separated from the remaining three, and these three, isolated, were beaten by the Austrian superior numbers. These three divisions have now been driven back to the foot of the Valais Alps.

It was an enormous error from the outset that the Piedmontese confronted the Austrians with merely a regular army, that they wanted to wage an ordinary, bourgeois, honourable war against them. A people that wants to win its independence must not confine itself to the
ordinary
means of war. Mass insurrection, revolutionary war, guerrillas everywhere – that is the only means by which a small people can overcome a large one, by which a less powerful army can be put in a position to resist a stronger and better organised one.

The Spaniards proved it in 1807-[18]12, the Hungarians are proving it even now.

Chrzanowski was beaten at Novara and cut off from Turin; Radetzky stood 9 miles from Turin. In a
monarchy
, such as Piedmont, even a constitutional one, the campaign was thereby decided; peace was sued for from Radetzky. But in a republic,
nothing at all
was decided thereby. Had it not been for the inevitable cowardice of monarchies, which never has the courage to resort to the most extreme revolutionary means, had this cowardice not held it back, Chrzanowski's defeat could have become a piece of good fortune for Italy.

If Piedmont were a republic that had no regard for monarchical traditions, a path would have been open to it to end the campaign quite differently.

Chrzanowski had been driven back to Biella and Borgomanero. There, where the Swiss Alps make any further retreat, where the two or three narrow river valleys make any dispersal of the army all but impossible, it was easy to concentrate the army and, by a bold march, render Radetzky's victory fruitless.

If the chiefs of the Piedmontese army possessed revolutionary courage, if they knew that in Turin there sat a revolutionary government, prepared for the utmost, their course of action would have been very simple.

On Lake Maggiore, after the battle of Novara, there stood 30[.000] to 40,000 men of Piedmontese troops. This corps, concentrated in two days, could throw itself into Lombardy, where not 12,000 Austrians are stationed; it could occupy Milan, Brescia, Cremona, organise the general insurrection, beat one after the other the individual Austrian corps advancing from the Venetian territory, and thereby blow Radetzky's entire operational base into the air.

Instead of marching on Turin, Radetzky would have had to turn round at once and return to Lombardy, pursued by the mass levy of the Piedmontese, which would naturally have had to support the Lombard insurrection.

This genuine national war, a war such as the Lombards waged in March 1848, with which they drove Radetzky back behind the Oglio and the Mincio, this war would have driven the whole of Italy into the struggle and instilled quite different energy into the Romans and Tuscans.

While Radetzky still stood between the Po and the Ticino and considered whether to advance or retreat, the Piedmontese and Lombards could have marched as far as Venice, relieved Venice, drawn La Marmora and Roman troops to themselves, harassed and weakened the Austrian field marshal by countless swarms of guerrillas, split up his forces and finally defeated him. Lombardy was only waiting for the entry of the Piedmontese; it had already risen without waiting for it. Only the Austrian citadels held the Lombard cities in check. Ten thousand Piedmontese were already in Lombardy; had another 20[.000]-30,000 marched in, Radetzky's retreat would have been impossible.

But mass insurrection, the general uprising of the people, these are means from the application of which monarchy recoils in terror. These are means that only the republic applies – 1793 furnishes proof of this. These

are means whose
execution
presupposes
revolutionary terrorism
, and where is the monarch who has ever been able to resolve upon that?

What has ruined the Italians, therefore, is not the defeat of Novara and Vigevano, it is the cowardice and moderation into which monarchy forces them. The lost battle of Novara brought merely a
strategic
disadvantage: they were cut off from Turin, while the way there lay open to the Austrians. This disadvantage was utterly meaningless if the lost battle was immediately followed by
real revolutionary war
, if the remainder of the Italian army at once declared itself the core of the national mass rising, if the honourable, strategic
army
war was transformed into a
people's
war, such as the French waged it in 1793.

But to be sure! Revolutionary war, mass rising and terrorism – monarchy will never agree to that. It will sooner conclude peace with its most bitter, its equal-born enemy than ally itself with the people.

Charles Albert may be a traitor or not – the
crown
of Charles Albert, the
monarchy
alone would have sufficed to ruin Italy.

But Charles Albert is a traitor. The report of the great European counter-revolutionary plot between all the great powers, of the counter-revolution's plan of campaign for the eventual suppression of all European peoples, runs through all the French papers. Russia and England, Prussia and Austria, France and Sardinia have signed this new Holy Alliance.

Charles Albert had the order to begin a war with Austria, to let himself be beaten and thereby give the Austrians the opportunity to restore “order” in Piedmont, in Florence, in Rome and to have constitutions under martial law imposed everywhere. For this Charles Albert was to get Parma and Piacenza; the Russians pacified Hungary; France was to become an empire, and thus the peace of Europe was restored. That, according to French papers, is the great plan of the counter-revolution; and this plan explains Ramorino's treachery and explains the defeat of the Italians.

Monarchy, however, has received a new blow through Radetzky's victory. The battle of Novara and the subsequent paralysis of the Piedmontese proves that a people, in the most extreme cases when it needs the exertion of all its strength to save itself, is hampered by nothing more than by monarchy. If Italy is not to perish through monarchy, then monarchy in Italy must first of all perish.

["Neue Rheinische Zeitung" No. 263, 4 April 1849]

Now at last the events of the Piedmontese campaign up to the victory of the Austrians at Novara lie open and clear before us.

While Radetzky deliberately had the false rumour spread that he would remain on the defensive and fall back towards the Adda, he was quietly concentrating all his troops around Sant Angelo and Pavia. Through the treachery of the Austrian reactionary party in Turin, he was fully informed of all Chrzanowski’s plans and dispositions, of the entire position of his army, whereas he succeeded in completely deceiving the Piedmontese about his own. Hence the deployment of the Piedmontese army on both sides of the Po, which was calculated solely to advance simultaneously from all directions with a concentric movement upon Milan and Lodi.

But nevertheless, had there been serious resistance in the centre of the Piedmontese army, the rapid successes which Radetzky has now achieved were by no means to be thought of. Had Ramorino’s corps barred his way at Pavia, there would still have been time enough to dispute his crossing of the Ticino until reinforcements could be brought up. Meanwhile the divisions stationed on the right bank of the Po and at Arona could also arrive; the Piedmontese army, drawn up parallel to the Ticino, covered Turin and was more than sufficient to drive Radetzky’s army to rout. That Ramorino would do his duty had, of course, to be counted on.

He did not do it. He permitted Radetzky to cross the Ticino, and with that the Piedmontese centre was broken through, the divisions stationed beyond the Po were isolated. With that the campaign was in fact already decided.

Radetzky now drew up his entire force of 60,000–70,000 men with 120 cannon between the Ticino and the Agogna, and took the five Piedmontese divisions deployed along the Ticino in the flank. With his colossal superior numbers he beat back the four divisions stationed nearest at Mortara, Garlasco and Vigevano on the 21st, took Mortara, thereby forced the Piedmontese to fall back on Novara, and threatened the only road to Turin still open to them, that from Novara via Vercelli and Chivasso.

But this road was already lost to the Piedmontese. In order to concentrate their troops and, in particular, to be able to draw in Solaroli’s division stationed on the extreme left wing at Arona, they had to make Novara the nodal point of their operations, whereas otherwise they could have taken up a new position behind the Sesia.

Already as good as cut off from Turin, they had no choice but either to accept battle at Novara or to throw themselves into Lombardy, organise the people’s war and leave Turin to its fate, the reserves and the National Guards. In that case Radetzky would have been wary of advancing further.

But this eventuality presupposes that the uprising in mass had been prepared in Piedmont itself, and that was precisely not the case. The bourgeois National Guard was armed; but the mass of the people was weaponless, however loudly it demanded the weapons that lay in the arsenals.

The monarchy had not dared to appeal to that same irresistible force which saved France in 1793.

The Piedmontese therefore had to accept the Battle of Novara, however unfavourable their position and however great the enemy’s superiority.

40,000 Piedmontese (ten brigades) with relatively weak artillery faced the entire Austrian force, at least 60,000 men with 120 cannon.

The Piedmontese army was drawn up on both sides of the Mortara road under the walls of Novara.

The left wing, under Durando, two brigades, rested on a rather strong position, La Bicocca.

The centre, under Bès, three brigades, leaned on a farmstead, La Cittadella.

The right wing, under Perrone, two brigades, leaned on the plateau of Corte Nuove (Vercelli road).

Two reserve corps, one of two brigades under the Duke of Genoa, stationed towards the left, the second of one brigade and the Guards, stationed towards the right wing, under the Duke of Savoy, the present king.

The deployment of the Austrians, according to their bulletin, is less clear.

The second Austrian corps under d’Aspre attacked the left wing of the Piedmontese first, while behind it the third corps under Appel, as well as the reserve and the fourth corps, deployed. The Austrians succeeded in fully unfolding their battle line and in executing a concentric attack upon all points of the Piedmontese order of battle simultaneously with such superior force that the Piedmontese were crushed by it.

The key to the Piedmontese position was the Bicocca; if the Austrians took possession of it, the centre and the left wing of the Piedmontese would be hemmed in between the (unfortified) town and the canal, and could either be dispersed or forced to lay down their arms.

The main attack was therefore directed against the Piedmontese left wing, whose chief support was the Bicocca. Here the fighting was very fierce, but for a long time without result.

The centre was also very vigorously attacked. The Cittadella was lost several times, and several times retaken by Bès.

When the Austrians saw that they were encountering too strong a resistance here, they again turned their main strength against the Piedmontese left wing. The two Piedmontese divisions were thrown back on the Bicocca, and finally the Bicocca itself was stormed. The Duke of Savoy threw himself with the reserves upon the Austrians; in vain. The superior numbers of the Imperial troops were too great, the position was lost, and with it the battle decided. The only retreat left to the Piedmontese was that towards the Alps, to Biella and Borgomanero.

And this battle, prepared by treachery and won by superior force, is called by the *Kölnische Zeitung*, which has so long pined for a victory of the Austrians,

“a battle that will shine for all time in the annals of war (!), since the victory gained by old Radetzky is the result of such skilfully combined movements and such truly magnificent bravery that nothing of the kind has occurred since the days of that great battle-demon Napoleon” (!!!).

Radetzky, or rather Hess, his chief of staff, carried out his conspiracy with Ramorino quite well, we admit. That, however, so magnificent an act of baseness as Ramorino’s has not occurred since Grouchy’s betrayal at Waterloo is also true. But it is not with the “battle-demon” (!) Napoleon, but with Wellington that Radetzky belongs in the same class: their victories have always cost both of them more ready money than bravery and skill.

We shall not even go into the other lies spread yesterday evening by the *Köln[ischen] Z[ei]t[un]g*, such as that the democratic deputies of Turin had run off, that the Lombards had behaved like “cowardly rabble”, etc. The latest events have already given them the lie. These lies confirm nothing but the joy of the *Kölnische Zeitung* over the fact that great Austria, and with the aid of treachery to boot, has crushed the comparatively small Piedmont.