Italy. 24 September 1848
Italy.
* “The events in Sicily,” says l’Alba, “are the most striking proof of what trust one can place in governments and at the same time what a people can achieve that is resolved to defend its freedom to the utmost. Of what avail to Sicily have been the salutes of the French and English cannon? Of what help the peace-loving whisperings of Lord Palmerston and Lord Minto? Of what use the backed election of a king? The day of ordeal has dawned upon Sicily, and no one called out to it a word that would have pointed to the approaching danger and warned against the deception of diplomacy. The expedition of the King of Naples fell upon Messina as if from the sky, and the cannons which saluted independent Sicily had not one threatening note for the hirelings of tyranny. Those satellites, on the contrary, passed unmolested between the ships of a republic and those of a constitutional government, in order to destroy on the island the edifice of those political liberties which have become the right of all mankind. – Whoever built upon diplomatic fidelity and upon governments, for him the catastrophe of Messina is a sure cure; international law appears in this event as treachery and civilisation as a lie. After such occurrences, all reliance on the loyalty of governments is at an end. France and England come forward as mediators in the question of Italian independence only because their interests compel them to do so.” 
Now, after Messina has been turned into a heap of rubble, the Franco-English diplomacy arrives and demands that Ferdinand should content himself for the time being with this heroic deed. In the meantime, General Filangieri writes to Naples that he needs at least another 30,000 men to be able to continue attacking the Sicilians. What losses he must have suffered is evident from the fact that he concluded a brief armistice, which the Sicilians were foolish enough to grant. The Neapolitan warships have for the most part sailed away to the south to attempt there on a miniature scale what has been carried out with regard to Messina.
In Florence, on 9 September, the Venetian deputies issued an appeal to all Tuscans to impose upon themselves a voluntary national tax in order thereby to support Venice and thus to equip it for further resistance against Austria.
* Genoa, 14 September. The municipality assembles today in an extraordinary session to deliberate on a loan of one million lire in favour of hard-pressed Venice. In the two clubs collecting boxes have been set up with the heading: “Assistance for Venice”. If Genoa’s example is imitated in the other cities of Italy, the loan of 10 million, deemed indispensable by Venice, could soon be raised. Moreover, committees have been formed here which are collecting contributions for the numerous Lombard refugees. The latter already amount to a very considerable sum.
Milan, 12 September. Field Marshal Radetzky had for several days already been on the track of an insurrection against the army which the fanatics in the towns and in the capital itself were planning at the expiry of the armistice. As early as the 10th the most serious rumours spread, and a few attacks on military personnel showed only too clearly the irritated mood. Consequently, on the evening of the 11th and the morning of the 12th, all the exits from the city were occupied with cannon and mortar batteries, and the whole of Milan is at this moment threatened from outside with heavy artillery for the security of the army.