The fruits of a victory are gathered in pursuing the enemy. The 
more active the pursuit, the more decisive the victory. Prisoners, 
artillery, baggage, flags are not taken so much in the battle itself as 
in the pursuit afterwards. Further, the intensity of a victory is 
measured by the vigour of the pursuit. From this point of view, 
what are we to say of the “grande victoire’ at Magenta? On the 
following day we find the French liberators “resting and 
reorganising”’.* Not the slightest attempt at pursuit. Through the 
march to Magenta the allied army had in fact concentrated all its 
forces. The Austrians, on the other hand, had some of their 
troops at Abbiategrasso, some on the road to Milan, others again 
at Binasco, and finally others at Belgiojoso—a heap of columns, so 
scattered, slogging along so disconnectedly as to extend a virtual 
invitation to the enemy to fall on them, to make a single effort and 
disperse them in all directions and then capture, with no great 
exertion, entire brigades and regiments that had been cut off from 
their line of retreat. Napoleon, the genuine Napoleon, would have 
known in such a case how to employ the 15 or 16 brigades that, 
according to the official French communiqué, had not taken part 
in the battle on the preceding day. What did the Brummagem” 
Napoleon do, the Napoleon of Herr Vogt, of the cit ie 
Olympique, of St. James’s Street and the Astley Amphitheatre ° 
He had dinner on the battlefield. 

The direct road to Milan was open to him. The stage effect was 
assured. That of course sufficed for him. June 5, 6 and 7, three 

4 From Napoleon III’s telegram to the Empress Eugénie, June 5, 1859, Le 
Moniteur universel, No. 157, June 6, 1859.— Ed. 

whole days, were presented to the Austrians so that they could 
extricate themselves from their dangerous positions. They 
marched down towards the Po and moved along the north bank of 
the river towards Cremona, advancing on three parallel roads. At 
the northernmost point of these roads General Benedek covered 
the retreat with three divisions as he moved next to the line of 
march of the enemy. From Abbiategrasso, where he was on the 
6th, he marched via Binasco to Melegnano. There he left two 
brigades to hold the position until the baggage and supply train of 
the central column had moved far enough ahead. On June 8 
Marshal Baraguay d’Hilliers was ordered to drive these two 
brigades out, and to make things quite safe, MacMahon’s corps 
was also placed under his command. Ten brigades against two! 
Close by the Lambro MacMahon’s corps was detached to cut off 
the Austrians’ retreat, while Baraguay’s 3 divisions attacked 
Melegnano; two brigades attacked the city frontally, two turned it 
on the right flank and two on the left. Only one Austrian brigade, 
Roden’s, stood in Melegnano, and General Boér’s brigade stood on 
the opposite, east side of the Lambro River. The French attacked 
very vigorously, and their sixfold superiority in numbers forced 
General Roden, after stubborn resistance, to evacuate the city and 
pull back under the protection of Boér’s brigade. It was just for 
that purpose that the latter had taken up a position in the rear. 
After achieving its purpose, it likewise fell back in perfect order. 
Boér was killed on this occasion. The loss of the one Austrian 
brigade mainly engaged was undoubtedly considerable, but the 
figures (about 2,400) given by the Decembrising crapauds* are pure 
fantasy since the total strength of the brigade before the action 
was not over 5,000. Once more, the French victory bore no fruits. 
No trophies, not a single cannon! 

In the meantime, Pavia was evacuated by the Austrians on the 
6th, then for reasons unknown reoccupied on the 8th and 
evacuated again on the 9th, while Piacenza was abandoned on the 
10th, only six days after the battle at Magenta. The Austrians 
retired in easy marches, following the Po until they reached the 
Chiese. Here they turned north and marched to Lonato, 
Castiglione and Castelgoffredo, where they took up a defensive 
position, in which they appear to await a new attack by the 
“liberators”. 

During this march by the Austrians, first southwards from 
Magenta to Belgiojoso, then east to Piadena and then north again 

to Castiglione—describing a complete semicircle—the liberators 
marched in a straight line along the diameter of this semicircle 
and thus had only about two-thirds of the distance to cover. 
Nevertheless, they never caught up with the Austrians, except at 
Melegnano and once near Castenedolo, where Garibaldi carried out 
an insignificant skirmish. Such indolence in pursuit is unheard of in 
military history. It is typical of the Quasimodo, who travesties his 
uncle (his uncle according to the principle of the Code Napoléon: “La 
recherche de la paternité est interdite”*), even in his successes. 
At the same time as the main body of the Austrians took up 
their positions behind the Chiese, between June 18 and 20, the 
Allies’ advance guard reached the Chiese front. They will need 
one or more days to bring up their main forces. If the Austrians 
actually accept battle, a second general engagement may be 
expected about June 24 or 26. The liberators cannot hesitate for 
long in the face of the Austrians if they want to keep the impetus 
of the victory alive in their troops and not give the enemy an 
opportunity of beating them in smaller encounters. The position 
of the Austrians is very favourable. A plateau runs to the Mincio 
from the southern end of Lake Garda at Lonato; its edge towards 
the plain of Lombardy is formed by the line Lonato-Castiglione- 
San Cassiano-Cavriana-Volta, a splendid position in which to lie in 
wait for an enemy. The plateau rises gradually towards the lake 
and provides a series of various good positions, each superior to 
its predecessor in strength and concentration, so that winning the 
height of the plateau does not yield a victory but only marks the 
end of the first act of a battle. The right wing is covered by the 
lake, and the left is bent back considerably, so that it leaves almost 
ten miles of the Mincio line unprotected. Instead of being a 
drawback, this is the most favourable aspect of the position, 
because at the Mincio the marshlands begin that lie enclosed 
between the four fortresses of Verona, Peschiera, Mantua and 
Legnago and in which no enemy can venture without overwhelm- 
ing superiority in numbers. Since the line of the Mincio is 
controlled by Mantua at its southern end and the terrain beyond 
the Mincio is within the range of action of Mantua and Verona, 
any attempt to leave out of account the Austrians on the plateau 
and advance past them to the Mincio would soon be forced to a 
halt. The advancing army would see its lines of communication 
destroyed, without being able to endanger those of the Austrians. 
In addition, they would find nothing to attack on the other side of 

the Mincio (since there could be no question of siege operations 
under these circumstances) and would have to turn back again for 
lack of an objective. But the real danger of such a movement 
would be that it would have to be carried out in full view of the 
Austrians on the plateau, who would merely have to set their 
whole line in motion and fall on the enemy column, from Volta 
against Goito, from Cavriana against Guidizzolo and Ceresara, 
from Castiglione against Castelgoffredo and Montechiaro. The 
liberators would be fighting any such battle under frightfully 
unfavourable conditions, and it could end in a second Auster- 
litz,°°> but with the roles reversed. 

Magenta-Gyulay has been relieved of his command. Schlick has 
taken his place as commander of the Second Army, while 
Wimpffen remains at the head of the First Army. The two armies, 
massed at Lonato and Castiglione, make up the Austro-Italian 
army under the nominal command of Francis Joseph and with 
Hess as chief of the General Staff. Schlick seems, from his past in 
the war in Hungary, to be an able run-of-the-mill general. Hess is 
undoubtedly the greatest living strategist. The danger is the 
personal interference of the notorious Francis Joseph. He, like 
Alexander I at the time of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, has 
surrounded himself with an assortment of old, philistine, 
hidebound know-alls, some of whom may be directly in the pay of 
Russia. If the French army left the Austrians undisturbed in their 
positions and marched past them directly to the Mincio, they could 
be seen most clearly indeed, regiment by regiment, from the 
plateau. The sense impression that the enemy was on the shorter 
road to the line of retreat might easily bewilder such a brain as 
Francis Joseph’s. The fretful comments of his know-alls in 
‘ epaulettes might soothe his weak nerves and lead him to give up 

the well-chosen position and withdraw to between the fortresses. *”° 

When silly youths are at the head of an Empire, everything 
depends on their nerve-thermometer. The best-laid plans are at 
the mercy of subjective impressions, accidents, whims. With a 
Francis Joseph in the Austrian headquarters, there is hardly any 
other guarantee of victory than the Quasimodo in the enemy 
camp. But he at least has steeled his nerves among the professional 
gamblers in St. James’s Street and, although he is not a man of 
iron, as his admirers would have it, he is one of gutta-percha.