Milan, March 4, 1848.

The streets were unusually quiet, and according to the informant's intelligence, today would be the day of the Milan uprising.

Marshal Radetzky declared martial law at the first time, in fact, it was still very painful for him personally, after all, the old marshal loved this land deeply.

In fact, in the previous week, Marshal Radetzky had dismissed quite a few Lombard officers and soldiers.

This is not only the benevolence of the old marshal to prevent fratricide, but also the elimination of unstable factors in the army, after all, the knife stabbed by one's own people is often the deepest.

"Kids, take the money and leave with your family. At least don't be an enemy of the Empire, this is not a request, it's advice. ”

As a high-ranking senator and the main person in charge of the Lombardy region, Radetzky knew very well what Franz was going to do, and he would resolutely carry out the orders of the General Staff.

It's just that he doesn't want to ruin this beautiful city unless he has to.

However, as the alarm bells rang out, the fighting was on the horizon, and the populace began to flock to the town hall and armory in a frenzy.

On one side is the people with rudimentary weapons in the tricolor flag, and on the other side is the army that has been prepared for a long time, and the battle between the two sides can be imagined.

In just two hours, blood and corpses covered the entire street, and the narrow streets greatly limited the numerical superiority of the insurgents, while at the same time infinitely magnifying the power of the artillery.

No carbon-based creature could withstand the direct fire of the cannon at close range, the shotgun exploded above the heads of the crowd, and countless small steel balls embedded in the human body under the impetus of gunpowder.

The wails and screams were endless, but this was only the beginning, and the solid, flowering, and chaining bullets completely destroyed the morale of the insurgents.

The young soldier began to vomit, and the veteran comforted the new soldier while vomiting.

"If we don't fight back, then it's us who die. And I promise you, if they had done it, we would have been ten thousand times worse than those corpses. ”

Faced with the corpses strewn all over the ground, the rebels in Milan were divided among themselves, with some feeling that they should continue to crush the enemy with a strong force, and others feeling that they should surrender as soon as possible because the gap between the two sides was too large.

In fact, before the uprising began, Carlo Cataneo, the leader of the republicans, opposed the armed uprising, because the Austrian army in and around Milan combined was 50,000 men and disciplined.

Marshal Radetzky was not a mediocre man and had a high status in the eyes of the soldiers. In addition, all the commanding heights and communication arteries of Milan had been occupied by the Austrian army.

And the leaders of the rebel side were a group of Jesuit gods and a few intellectuals who were dizzy at the sight of blood, and the rebels cut bread the most with their knives, they had no weapons, and they did not have a qualified leader.

Carlo Catanio felt that it was more effective to persuade the Austrians with his mouth than by force.

However, the other rebel leaders disagreed, believing that Catanio was a capitulator and wanted to lock him up.

In the end, it was the moderate boss, Count Casarte, who intervened to stop it, and prevented the republicans from imprisoning their future leader.

Casarte himself was a traditional aristocrat, and he bet left and right between the Kingdom of Sardinia and Austria, allowing his eldest son to serve in the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the second son to study in Austria.

This was not uncommon among the traditional aristocracy, but the incursions of Pius IX and the republicans did disrupt his plans.

Pius IX wanted to unify Italy, which was a crazy idea for Casarte, and the republicans wanted independence, which was even more crazy for Casarte.

But as a nobleman's survival wisdom for thousands of years, he told him that he should preserve his strength now, not only the strength of his own family but also the strength of Lombardy, after all, a family is too insignificant in front of a country.

Casarte's suggestion was to negotiate peace, which may sound naïve, but historically Casarte used the opportunity to convince Heinrich O'Donnell, the governor of Lombardy, that only the lifting of martial law could put an end to the rebellion.

When O'Donnell forced Radetzky's army to leave, the Lombards launched a short but effective raid to capture the naïve governor.

After O'Donnell signed a series of humiliating treaties, he was imprisoned by the Lombards in a moldy wine cellar.

When the Austrian army recaptured the city of Milan, people remembered the hapless governor, who by this time had long since been reduced to a dried corpse.

In fact, O'Donnell can't be blamed for being too naïve, after all, the Count of Casarte was an Austrian official, and he was an Austrian nobleman, and he was the mayor of Milan.

At this time, there were not too many such people in the bureaucracy of Northern Italy, but fortunately, the General Staff was established, and Franz announced the order to enter the wartime mechanism directly through Vienna.

At the very least, this would ensure that Radetzky's army would not be constrained from within, and secondly, the constant inward-running of delegated officials and local officials would prevent the two sides from converging.

As a result, the duplicitous identity of Count Casarte was exposed, and Governor O'Donnell naturally would not be stupid enough to rely on the other party's dispatch.

In fact, Governor O'Donnell still has some integrity and intelligence, and after seeing the other party's true face, he angrily reprimanded the other party and then walked away.

Knowing that he was limited in his ability to cope with the impending crisis, Governor O'Donnell resigned from his position as governor and prepared to retire to his old age.

For such a big nobleman, it is not realistic to ask them to be loyal to the country, and it is already very good to be able to do this without causing chaos to the country or taking the opportunity to make war money.

These people have a big business, and no country will refuse to accept them as long as they want to. Early retirement is decent, and if Governor O'Donnell makes the same mistakes as in history, Franz doesn't mind helping him decently.

Count O'Donnell's guard was heavily embedded by Franz, which was not a difficult task for the latter, and the former could not do anything even if he knew about it.

Without O'Donnell, the governor, dragging behind, the Austrian army crushed the rebels in Milan on a one-sided basis.

However, due to the influence of religion and nationalism, anti-Austrian uprisings began to occur in other cities.

Seeing the smoke in northern Italy and the 450,000 Italian coalition troops in the arm, Carlo Alberto felt that the time had come.

On March 6, 1848, the Kingdom of Sardinia officially declared war on the Austrian Empire.

Carlo Alberto was well aware that the Austrian Empire was not a weak opponent, and he knew that even if it seemed that the Austrian Empire's rule in northern Italy was shaky, he would have to give it his all to have the slightest chance of winning.

But at the same time, as an old coward, he has already found a way out for himself.

Carlo Alberto first installed a naïve liberal politician as Prime Minister Giovanni Glonci, and then directly promulgated a castrated version of the constitution.

The Constitution did little to counter authoritarianism, but it did give the state the right to impose additional war taxes and compulsory military service.

(End of chapter)