Italy. 17 August 1848. (Supplement.)

Supplement  
Italy.  
No. 77/78, 17 August 1848.  
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

* Milan, 7 August. How the traitors and constitutional haggling souls in Milan trembled before the people’s vengeance on 6 August is best shown by two letters that the Podestà sent to Radetzky with the request for speedy entry. The last of these two letters reads verbatim:

“Pursuant to what I had the honour to report to Your Excellency this morning, I hereby renew my most urgent request that a cavalry corps may hurriedly proceed to Milan in order to maintain order there, for I am only too much afraid that the mob could plunder the public treasuries.

Your Excellency will forgive me for troubling you once again, but the city entrusted to me, which in this interval is utterly powerless, would be left at the mercy of the malefactors to the greatest detriment of the well-disposed population.

I beg Your Excellency [to accept] the assurance, etc., etc.

Milan, 6 August 1848.  
At 8 1/2 o’clock in the morning.  
P. Bossi, manu propria Podestà.”

* Milan, 8 August. Besides the dissolution of the National Guard, the surrender of all weapons, the prohibition of all expressions directed in any way against the Austrian order of things, the freedom of the press too has naturally been abolished by decree of the new governor of Milan. After the entry of the Austrians, several houses, particularly those of persons who had most participated in the events since March, were plundered under the guidance of old agents of Austria.

* Milan, 9 August. The Austrians want to make themselves popular by reducing taxes. If only they had done that earlier; even the most distinguished would never have held it against them. The price of salt has been reduced. A reduction of the stamp duty, which is enormous, has indeed only been held out in prospect for the time being; doubtlessly it will also take place, for the Austrians keep their word. The poll tax has been abolished. Despite all these praiseworthy measures, things still look sinister here. The city is as if dead. One only now truly learns to understand the description of Milan during the plague in Manzoni’s Promessi Sposi. Only sorrow can be read on people’s faces. When acquaintances meet, they whisper in each other’s ears, looking about anxiously.  
(Zürcher Z.)

* Venice, 31 July. Yesterday evening after 10 o’clock, the people’s impatience could no longer be curbed; they streamed beneath the windows of the Gubernium and stormily demanded news from the theatre of war. “What are the ministers? They are ministers of the people, and the people want news!” Notizie! Notizie! everyone shouted in confusion. Then President Castelli appeared at the window and said, in a clear voice, among other things: “The only official news we have of the war is that communicated to us under the 27th inst. by the provisional government in Milan. It says that the Italian troops concentrated at Volta (murmurs of the people) have taken the offensive. The government of Lombardy has taken the most energetic measures; on the 26th it dispatched 6,000 men of regular troops, and on the following day a further 3,000 men of the National Guard with a battery. The Piedmontese army is intact (integra); it rested after three days’ fighting at Volta. Our troops have taken 2,500 prisoners; the enemy must have a large number of wounded and dead. Count Durini, a member of the Milanese government, travelled to Turin as late as the 27th to come to an understanding with the ministry there about an alliance with France.”

* Lugano, 8 August. Of the 150,000 inhabitants of Milan, nearly two-thirds have emigrated. The canton of Ticino is sheltering about 30,000 of these refugees. Lugano is so crammed that many must sleep in the open air. Most are without money and provided only with the most necessary clothing. Almost the entire male youth of Lombardy is in flight. The value of the houses destroyed by Charles Albert outside Milan amounts to thirty million. Everywhere the greatest fury against the traitor prevails.

Italy. 17 August 1848  
– From Padua it is reported on the 5th that the Duke of Modena has entered his states with a frontier regiment and a Hungarian regiment. He has issued a proclamation that he will keep his promise to grant a constitution. What one is to make of these promises is shown by the past of the cleanly Duke, by the Bourbon in Naples, by a hundred other examples of broken words “by the Grace of God”. From Verona it is reported on the 5th in the evening that cannon thunder was heard all day from the direction of Peschiera.

* Florence, 5 August. At the Grand Duke’s urging and after a vote of confidence from both chambers, the Ridolfi ministry allowed itself to be moved to withdraw its resignation.

* From the Italian frontier, 3 August. Cremona had shut its gates to the Sardinian king and his retreating army and erected formal barricades and entrenchments against the Spada d’Italia. The king therefore had to bypass Cremona, which on the approach of the Austrians hoisted the white flag and with great readiness cleared away the barricades and obstacles for them.  
(Wiener Zeitung.)

– The Ticino Republikaner of the 10th inst. reports from Italy: The Austrians have not yet occupied the whole of Lombardy and are already invading the Roman Legations. Brescia, Bergamo, Como and Lecco have up to now not yet seen the Austrians again. Brescia refuses to capitulate. General Griffini is at the head of 15–20,000 men. He set forth the difficulties of resistance, but soldiers and National Guards have declared that they will yield only before the impossible. Those at the Stelvio and the Tonale express themselves to the same effect.

– Garibaldi has crossed the Ticino and stands on Piedmontese soil. The Lombard troops which followed the Piedmontese are concentrated near Trecate, where a camp is to be formed.

– According to reports from Genoa, very many Lombard and Venetian refugees are also there. – From Vigevano, Charles Albert has again issued, under the 7th inst., two proclamations to the army and the peoples. He recommends discipline to the soldiers; to the peoples he announces that he was unable to defend Milan for lack of ammunition and provisions.

– Just now (reports the Züricher Zeitung) a letter from Milan of the 8th inst. is communicated to us, in which it says that Austria has declared war on Piedmont, and troops are moving off to occupy the frontiers.

– A little sample of the “mild sceptre” which Radetzky promises the Lombards. In the opening of an official report of F. M. L. Welden, it is related quite simply, as a matter of course:  
“This day Sermide was taken by storm with the aid of several cannon on the left bank of the Po and immediately set on fire, to punish the treason which the inhabitants had earlier practised. The house from which we had been fired upon was razed to the ground; only 22 men and 2 women, who were locked up in the church, were rescued from the flames.”

* Turin, 8 August. Regarding the dangerous situation in which Charles Albert found himself in Milan, we learn the following here: When his capitulation with the Austrians became known, the fury of the Milanese rose to the highest pitch. His son, the Duke of Genoa, went to the assembled crowd, spoke fine words and offered himself as a hostage for his father, who was being held prisoner in the Palazzo Grippi. He was answered with threats and had pistols held to his breast. Meanwhile, the adjutant de la Marmora, who was with Charles Albert, had made a rope out of bed sheets, by means of which he let himself down through a window of the rear building. He hurried as fast as possible to fetch several companies of tirailleurs and guards. The approaches to the palace were cleared and Charles Albert came out with his retinue to hasten away on foot. He was pursued with musket fire, as a crowned traitor deserves. Unfortunately, none of the bullets struck him, and in his stead three Piedmontese officers fell. His equipages were all, without exception, smashed to pieces by the mass of the people, his silver plate and his private purse (18,000 francs) were sequestrated. Charles Albert is at present in Vigevano. He has probably been ashamed or afraid to come to Turin straight away. The ministry here resigned en masse yesterday evening. The new cabinet will probably be formed under the influence of Merlo, hitherto President of the Chamber of Deputies and adherent of the juste-milieu party. Incidentally, an armistice for 45 days has been concluded between the Austrians and Charles Albert. From the proclamation that Charles Albert issued from Vigevano under the 7th inst. to his “beloved peoples”, it emerges that the Piedmontese in Milan had no ammunition for their artillery, because – well, because their ammunition had already been sent to Mortara. A pity that the cleanly Charles Albert forgets to say by whom and why the ammunition was transported to Mortara instead of to Milan. The Piedmontese troops are assembling at Trecate; General Olivieri has received the supreme command over them.