The arrival of the Persia last night puts us in possession of a 
variety of highly interesting documents concerning the battle of 
Magenta, for which we refer our readers to the proper place. 
Their substance may be summed up very briefly*: The battle of 
Magenta was a decisive defeat of the Austrians and a pregnant 
victory for the French; the Allies have entered Milan amid 
popular rejoicings; the Austrians are in full retreat, and the corps 
of Benedek has been signally defeated by Baraguay d’Hilliers (of 
whose disgrace no more is heard) at Marignano and 1,200 
prisoners taken; and the Allies are flushed with confidence and 
the Austrians are dispirited and desponding. 

Our London cotemporaries generally treat the battle as a 
surprise on the part of the Austrians; and such was our own 
judgment until the present testimony came into our hands. It now 
appears to us that Gyulay was not.so much surprised, as caught in 
a fatal blunder; and our reasons for this opinion we proceed to set 
forth. When the Austrians took their position some thirty miles in 
advance of Milan, it was not to be expected that they could cover 
every possible avenue to that capital. There were three roads open 
to the Allies: they could march right through the Austrian center 
by Valenza, Garlasco, and Bereguardo; on the Austrian left by 
Voghera, Stradella, and across the Po between Pavia and Piacenza; 
and finally on the Austrian right by Vercelli, Novara, and 
Boffalora. Now, if the Austrians wanted to defend Milan, they 
could defend only one of these three routes by placing their army 
across it; to defend every one of them by placing a corps on each, 

a This passage is added by the editors of the New-York Daily Tribune— Ed. 

The Austrian Defeat 369 

would have been to scatter their strength and incur certain defeat. 
But it is recognized as a rule in modern warfare, that a road is 
quite as well, if not better, defended by a lateral position than by a 
mere front defense. An army of 150,000 to 200,000 men, 
concentrated on a small space of ground, ready to act in every 
direction, cannot be passed by with impunity by a hostile army, 
unless immensely superior in force. When, for instance, Napoleon, 
in 1813, marched toward the Elbe, and the Allies, though vastly 
inferior? in numbers, had reasons of their own to seek a battle, 
they took position at Lutzen, a few miles south of the road leading 
from Erfurt to Leipsic. Napoleon’s army had in part passed by 
already, when the Allies gave notice to the French of their 
proximity. The consequence was that the march of the whole 
French army was stopped, the advanced column recalled, and a 
battle fought, which left the French, although superior by 60,000 
men, barely in possession of the battle-field. The next day both 
the hostile armies marched on parallel lines toward the Elbe, and 
the retreat of the Allies was not even molested. Had the forces 
been more equally balanced, the lateral position of the Allies 
would have stopped Napoleon’s march as effectively, at least, as an 
occupation in front of the direct road to Leipsic. General Gyulay 
was in exactly such a position. With a force which it certainly 
depended upon him alone to increase to more than 150,000 men, 
he stood between Mortara and Pavia, stopping the direct road 
from Valenza to Milan. He might be turned by either wing, but 
that wds the very nature of his position, and if that position was 
worth anything, he ought to have been able to find an effective 
remedy for that contingency in the very facilities the position gave 
him for counteracting such movements. But leaving the Austrian 
left entirely out of consideration, we will confine ourselves to the 
wing that has actually been turned. On the 30th and 31st of May, 
and Ist of June, Louis Napoleon concentrated the mass of his 
troops at Vercelli. He had there, on the 31st, 4 Piedmontese 
divisions (56 battalions), Niel’s corps (26 battalions), Canrobert’s 
corps (39 battalions), and the Guards (26 battalions). In addition 
he also drew there McMahon’s corps (26 battalions), in all the 
enormous force of 173 battalions of infantry, beside cavalry and 
artillery. Gyulay had six Austrian army corps; they were weakened 
by detachments left as garrisons, sent against Garibaldi, to 
Voghera, &c., but would still average 5 brigades each, giving 30 
brigades or 150 battalions. 

a The newspaper has a mistake here: “superior”.— Ed. 

370 Frederick En gels 

Now, such an army, if it has confidence in itself, no general 
dare leave on his flanks or rear. This army, besides, was so placed 
that it could not be turned on its right except by a flank march 
within reach of it, and such a flank march is a very dangerous 
maneuver. An army in marching order always requires a great 
deal of time to come into proper fighting order. It is never fully 
prepared for a battle. But if this be even the case when it is 
attacked in front, where the marching order is made as much as 
possible subordinate to the chances of resistance, it is far more the 
case when the marching columns are attacked in flank. 

It is, therefore, a standing rule of strategy to avoid a flank 
march within reach of the enemy. Louis Napoleon, relying upon 
his masses, deliberately violated that rule. He marched toward 
Novara and the Ticino without heeding, apparently, the Austrians 
on his flank. Here was the moment for Gyulay to act. His business 
was to concentrate his troops, by the night of the 3d June, about 
Vigevano and Mortara, leaving a corps on the Lower Agogna to 
observe Valenza, and on the 4th fall with every available man on 
the flank of the advanced Allies. The result of such an attack, 
made with some 120 battalions, on the long, disconnected columns 
of the Allies, could scarcely have been doubtful. If part of the 
Allies had crossed the Ticino, so much the better. This attack 
would have recalled them, but they would have scarcely been in 
time to restore the fight. And supposing even the attack to have 
been unsuccessful, the retreat of the Austrians to Pavia and 
Piacenza would have been quite as safe afterward, as it has now 
proved since the affair of Magenta. There is reason to suppose 
that this was Gyulay’s original plan. But when he found, on the 2d 
June, that the French were accumulating their masses on the 
direct road to Milan, on his right, his resolution seems to have 
forsaken him. The French could be at Milan quite as soon as 
himself, if he chose to let them—there was scarcely a man there to 
block the direct road; the entry of even a small body of French 
into Milan might set all Lombardy in a blaze, and although most 
probably all these considerations had been weighed over and over 
again in his councils of war, and a march upon the flank of the 
French insisted upon as quite sufficient to cover Milan; yet when 
the case came actually to pass, and the French were as near Milan 
as the Austrians, Gyulay faltered, and at last retreated behind the 
Ticino. That sealed his doom. While the French marched on a 
straight line toward Magenta, he made a large circuit, descending 
along the Ticino and passing it at Bereguardo and Pavia, and then 
reascending along the river to Boffalora and Magenta—and thus 

The Austrian Defeat 371 

attempting, too late, to block up the direct road to Milan. The 
consequence was that his troops arrived in small detachments, and 
could not be brought up in such masses as was required to oppose 
successfully the bulk of the allied forces. That they fought well 
there is no doubt; and as to the question of tactics and strategy in 
the fight, we propose to recur to that on another occasion. But it 
is useless for their bulletins* to attempt to palliate the fact that 
they were beaten, and that the battle has decided the fate of 
Milan, and must have its influence in deciding the fate of the 
campaign. Meanwhile, the Austrians have three more army-corps 
concentrating on the Adige, which will give them a considerable 
superiority in numbers. The command has also been taken from 
Gyulay, and given to Gen. Hess who has the reputation of the first 
strategist in Europe; but he is said to be such an invalid as to be 
incapacitated from protracted attention to business. 

Our readers will notice that the reports of Austrian outrages 
in the Lomellina are contradicted on French as well as English 
authority.” We call attention to this fact also, not only to do justice 
to all parties, but because our own disbelief in the reports has 
been construed into an expression of sympathy with the cause of 
Francis Joseph—a potentate whose overthrow we have no desire 
to see postponed for a day. If he and Napoleon could but go 
down together, and by each other’s hands, the perfection of 
historical justice would be attained. 

Written about June 9, 1859 Reproduced from the New-York 

Tribune, No. 5669, June 22, 1859 as a 

leading article; reprinted in the New-York