refused. They gently reminded her of her recent policy with regard to Denmark and the Duchies of the Elbe; she turned a deaf ear to all such remonstrances. They warned her of the danger of a conflict in which she ran the risk of being attacked at the same time by Prussian ambition and Italian patriotism; she pointed to her army and to the Quadrilateral. She had trusted to them in 1859, and the result was Solferino; but that lesson was not enough. Again she trusted to them in 1866, and the result was-Königgrätz.

This attitude on the part of Italy and Austria respectively takes away all real interest from the question which of the two powers first armed. The exact point of time at which the respective armaments commenced, or Italian negotiations with Prussia began, furnishes admirable ground for diplomatic fencing. Two skilful practitioners in that art would be able to sustain a very able and almost endless defence of their respective clients upon such a question. But similar discussions have but little value as regards the real cause of the hostilities which broke out to the south of the Alps. That cause was the possession of Venetia by Austria. It was the question of treaties as against national independence. On the one side were the artificial rights created by the treaties of Campo-Formio and of Vienna, which for their own purposes disposed, each in their own way, of a people who had enjoyed centuries of a great and glorious independence, without deigning to consult that people; on the other was the mighty senti

ment of national liberty, the profound conviction that the stranger must be ejected from every part of Italy, if Italy were to be indeed free. That conviction arose from no mere abstract principle, but from the bitter experience of centuries. The occupation of some portion or portions of Italy by one or more foreign powers was ever giving rise to the intervention of others. Germany, France, and Spain had made her the battle-field of their endless quarrels about Italian possessions. Her neighbours fomented her internal discords. Her petty governments were perpetually invoking the aid of the stranger to suit their own purposes. Such had been the fate of Italy up to the end of the eighteenth century; the nineteenth has beheld her first under the dominion of imperial France, next under that of the Hapsbourgs. The curse of foreign domination had eaten into her very soul, and had aroused a deep and universal hatred of the stranger's rule, such as is known to those alone. who have been subjected for long years to its galling yoke.

She

At length, the Italian policy inaugurated by Napoleon III. in 1859-a policy which, despite all its shortcomings, was truly noble, and really worthy of the ruler of a great people-gave Italy the opportunity of establishing her national independence. turned that opportunity to such good account that friends and foes remained equally astounded at the results. The quarrels of the two German powers, who had hitherto united in oppressing her, offered her, in 1866, an opportunity of completing the work

of her unity and freedom. She hastened to seize upon it by forming an alliance with Prussia against Austria. A more compact and better-united Germany, under the direction of the Hohenzollerns, was the object of Count Bismarck; the completion of Italian independence was that of the government and people of Italy. Austria determined to oppose both. She tried to break down the newly-formed alliance by disarming in Bohemia and arming to the full in Venetia. But the Prussian statesman was not the man to be blinded by so transparent a manœuvre. He demanded a complete disarmament on the part of Austria on her southern as well as on her northern frontier. The latter refused, upon which all three powers placed their respective forces on a war footing. France, England, and Russia endeavoured to bring about a Congress for the settlement of the three questions in dispute,—that of the Elbe Duchies, of Venetia, and the reform of the German Bund. Prussia and Italy accepted the proposal, the terms of which were carefully drawn up, so as not to wound the susceptibilities of Austria. This latter power, however, declined the proposal, unless a formal promise was given beforehand that the Congress "should exclude from its deliberations every combination which should tend to give to any one of the states to-day invited to the Congress a territorial aggrandisement, or an augmentation of power." With such questions pending as those of Schleswig-Holstein and Venetia, such a proposition simply rendered all negotiation useless. The three intervening powers, France,

England, and Russia, naturally took that view, and the proposed Congress fell to the ground. Austria, confident in her military strength, preferred an appeal

to arms.

On the 20th of June 1866, the King of Italy put forth a proclamation declaring war against Austria. In so far as it referred to the monarch's past devotion to the cause of Italian independence, to his desire to liberate Venice, to his determination to seize again the sword of Goito, Palestro, and San Martino, the proclamation was suited to the occasion; but to refer in such a document to the armaments that had been made by Austria was a mistake. It was fitting enough that that question should be discussed in the despatches of diplomatists, but it had really little to do with the cause of the war, which arose from the desire of the Venetians to be united to Italy, and the determination of the Italians to effect that union, thereby completing their national independence. Austria was determined to prevent that work; Italy was equally determined to accomplish it. All the rest was a mere secondary question of time, policy, and opportunity. The ministers of the crown were, therefore, ill-advised in touching upon the question of armaments in a proclamation which bade the nation rally around the soldier-king, and called his people to arms in the name of the liberties and independence of their country.

Never did such an appeal meet with a more unanimous and enthusiastic reply from an entire people. The Parliament received with shouts of applause the

announcement that war had been declared against Austria. The Senate and the Chamber hastened to vote the special powers demanded by the government. The ranks of the army were speedily filled up by soldiers eager to bear a part in the war universally regarded as the final and victorious struggle for the independence of Italy. The National Guard hastened to bear its part in the national armament. The bureaux for the enrolment of the volunteer corps were literally besieged by the youth, chiefly of the middle and lower classes, proud to enrol themselves under the command of Garibaldi. Among the young men of the upper classes, those who had quitted the army hastened to return to the military service; many of those who had never entered it volunteered as common soldiers. Thus it was that some twenty or more young Neapolitans of rich and noble families entered in a body the regiment of the Guides. That of the Lancers of Aosta, quartered at Milan when the war broke out, received into its ranks over eighty recruits, all of whom were members either of the aristocracy or of the wealthy families of the Lombard capital. Nor were the two Italian provinces still subject to foreign rule behindhand in responding to their country's call. Upwards of 2000, belonging to the strip of territory which was then still garrisoned by the French in the interest of the Papal temporal power, joined the ranks of the regular army or those of the Garbaldians; and among them were to be found not a few members of rich or aristocratic Roman families. The number of Venetians in the