Friedrich Engels

The War

Written May 12, 1859.

From the English.

[“New-York Daily Tribune,” No. 5643, May 23, 1859, leading article]

Napoleon III left Marseilles by water for Genoa on the 11th inst., to take command of the French forces there; preparations had been made to receive him with extraordinary pomp. Whether his military exploits will equal the indisputable triumphs of his diplomacy is a question on which we shall probably soon have a reliable answer; so far the only proof of his strategic ability given by himself is his plan of operations in the Crimea, the outdated essentials of which were derived from the military school of Bülow, of whom the great Napoleon said that his science was the science of defeat, not of victory.

There is no question that the French Emperor enters Italy with the prestige of an unprecedented moral success. After having driven the Austrians, by superior cunning and craft, to take upon themselves the heavy responsibility of declaring war, he had the great good fortune that they, by fourteen days of pronounced inactivity, threw away the only advantage they hoped to gain by this momentous step. Instead of smashing the Piedmontese army by numerical superiority and rapidity of movement before French reinforcements could arrive, Austria has missed her chance and now faces an allied army which is already fully a match for her own and is becoming superior every day. Instead of carrying out offensive operations and a campaign of conquest, it will most probably soon be forced to abandon even Milan, to fall back on the Mincio line, and there, under the protection of its great fortresses, to assume a purely defensive posture. Thus Louis-Napoleon begins his career as a general with the advantage that his opponent has committed great and almost inexplicable blunders. His lucky star is still in the ascendant.

The first fourteen days of the war present to us, on the Austrian side, a singular, though monotonous, story, similar to the famous couplet on the King of France. On April 29, the Austrian advanced guard crossed the Ticino without meeting much resistance, and the main body of the army followed the next day. After the first movements in the direction of Arona (on Lake Maggiore), Novara, and Vigevano, the attack appeared to be aimed at Vercelli and the road to Turin. The occupation of Vercelli, which took place on May 1 or 2, and telegrams from Switzerland asserting that the forces of the invading army were concentrated on the Sesia, served to confirm this view. However, the demonstration seems to have been merely a feint, designed to levy contributions upon the whole country between the Ticino and the Sesia and to destroy the telegraphic communication between Piedmont and Switzerland. The real point of attack is shown by a bulletin of General Gyulay, according to which Cozzo and Cambio were the main points of concentration, and on the evening of May 2 his headquarters were at Lomello. Now, the first-named place is near the confluence of the Sesia and the Po (a little to the east of it), the second on the Po, a little east of the mouth of the Tanaro where it falls into that river, and the third somewhat further to the rear, but at an equal distance from both; a glance at the map shows that the Austrians are marching toward the front of the Piedmontese position, which stretches along the Po from Casale to Alessandria and has its centre in the neighbourhood of Valenza. Further intelligence, received via Turin, states that on the 3rd the Austrians threw bridges across the Po near Cambio and sent scouting parties to Tortona on the south bank of the river, and that they also reconnoitred nearly the whole front of the Piedmontese position, especially near Valenza, where they engaged the enemy at several points in order to induce him to show his forces. There were also rumours that an Austrian corps, coming from Piacenza, was marching along the south bank of the Po toward Alessandria, but these have not been confirmed; in view of the construction of bridges across the Po at Cambio, this movement would, however, not be probable.

Such was the aspect of the campaign up to May 5. Up to that time, and ever since, the Austrian manoeuvres have been characterised, to say the least, by an extraordinary degree of slowness and caution. From the Ticino to the Po near Valenza it is certainly not more than 25 miles, or two easy marches; and as hostilities began on April 29, the entire invading army could have been concentrated opposite Valenza by midday on May 1, the advanced guard completing its reconnaissance on the same day, and during the night the decision for decisive operations on the following day could have been arrived at. We are still unable to account for the delay which has occurred, even after having received the mail brought by the “Vanderbilt”. But since rapidity of action was imperatively forced upon the Austrians by the circumstances, and as General Gyulay has the reputation of a resolute and dashing officer, the presumption is that unforeseen circumstances must have compelled them to this cautious mode of proceeding. Whether a march on Turin by way of Vercelli was really at first intended, and was only abandoned because intelligence arrived that the French had reached Genoa in such numbers as to make a flanking movement dangerous; whether the state of the roads, which had everywhere been broken up and barricaded by the Piedmontese, had something to do with it; or whether General Gyulay, of whose qualities as a commander-in-chief nothing at all is known, found himself hampered by the unwieldiness of the masses he had to command – all this is difficult to decide. A glance at the position of the other side may, however, throw some light on the situation.

The French began to pour into Piedmont before a single Austrian had crossed the frontier. On April 26 the first troops arrived at Genoa. On the same day General Bouat’s division reached Savoy, crossed the Mont Cenis, and arrived at Turin on the 30th. On that day there were 24,600 French at Alessandria and about 16,000 at Turin and Susa. Since then the influx has continued uninterruptedly, but with far greater rapidity to Genoa than to Turin, and from both points troops were sent to Alessandria. The number of French thus forwarded to the front cannot, of course, be stated, but from circumstances to which we shall directly refer, there can be no doubt that, by May 5, it was apparently considered sufficient to render the allied armies effective and to prevent any flanking movement of the Austrians by way of Vercelli. The original plan was to hold the line of the Po from Alessandria to Casale with the bulk of the Piedmontese and the French troops coming from Genoa, while the remainder of the Piedmontese (the guards of the Savoy brigade), together with the French coming over the Alps, were to hold the Dora Baltea line from Ivrea to Chivasso, and thus cover Turin. Any Austrian attack on the Dora line could then be taken in flank by the Piedmontese debouching from Casale, and the invaders would be forced to divide their forces. But for all that, the allied position was a mere makeshift and a decidedly bad one. It extended from Alessandria to Ivrea a distance of nearly fifty miles, with a salient and a re-entering angle. Although considerably strengthened by the facilities it presented for flank attacks, so long a line nevertheless offered favourable opportunities for feint attacks, and could offer no serious resistance to a determined onslaught. As soon as the Dora line was conquered, and simultaneously a flank attack of the Piedmontese had been paralysed for the moment by a smaller Austrian corps, the victorious Austrians could at pleasure return to either bank of the Po and, with superior numbers, drive back the army of Alessandria under the guns of that fortress. This could easily have been accomplished had the Austrians acted with vigour during the first two or three days of the war. At that time, no forces had yet been concentrated between Alessandria and Casale that could endanger their operations. On May 3, 4, and 5, however, the case was different; the number of French that had arrived in the position, and were still coming from Genoa, must have been great enough to raise the force to about 100,000 men, of whom 60,000 could have been used for an attack from Casale. That this strength was considered sufficient to cover Turin is indirectly proved by the fact that even as early as the 3rd, French and Sardinian troops were sent from the Dora line to Alessandria. Thus the slowness of the Austrians allowed the allies quietly and safely to complete this dangerous manoeuvre, namely, the concentration of their forces in the position of Alessandria. By this, the whole purpose and aim of the Austrian offensive was brought to nought, and that which we have called a moral victory of the allies was consummated.

The Austrian general thus appears to have acted upon at least three different plans of campaign, one after the other. First, it seemed as if, on crossing the Ticino, he contemplated a direct march on Vercelli and the Dora; then, when he heard of the arrival of many French troops at Genoa, and considered the flank march round Casale too dangerous, he changed his attack and turned toward Lomello and the Po; and finally he again changes his mind, gives up the offensive altogether, fortifies his position on the Sesia, and awaits the advance of the allies, in order then to attack them. Our information about his movements is, indeed, very imperfect, as it comes almost exclusively from French and Sardinian telegrams, but this appears to be the only conclusion to be drawn from the persistent inactivity of the main body of the Austrians and the various insignificant and apparently irresolute movements of their advanced detachments between the 5th and 11th of May.

Should the Allied advance be delayed by a few days through some incident, it is not impossible that we may yet witness a further change of Austrian strategy in the form of a retreat to the Ticino, even without a battle. Gyulay’s army cannot remain inactive for any length of time in the pestilential rice swamps where, according to our latest information, it was situated. It must either risk an attack against a very serious numerical superiority or take up a new position in a less unhealthy area. However, an immediate advance of the Allies and a battle are to be expected; we shall probably receive news of it by the next post. Under these circumstances, it is not astonishing to hear from Vienna that Heß, the natural successor of Gyulay in command, disapproves of his operations. It is also fairly certain that the Austrians, should they not win the forthcoming battle, will have a new commander-in-chief before the first month of the war is over. That, however, is no extraordinary event in the history of their wars.