The Kingdom of Sardinia had a standing army of only 50,000, while the Austrian army in northern Italy had at least 150,000.

According to this ratio of troops, if the Kingdom of Sardinia plunged headlong into the battlefield of northern Italy, it would be a complete send-off.

So Carlo Alberto wants to change the military service system, after all, compulsory soldiers are much cheaper than recruitment, and if they can die on the battlefield, it will be cheaper.

Compulsory military service has the advantage of being able to get rid of the instability.

Young Italians, Charcoal Party, Mazzini, Nationalists, University Students, Unemployed Workers, Landless Peasants, Tramps, Radical Aristocrats, Constitutionalists

Carlo Alberto was not going to send all of his cronies to death like Pius IX, he was going to send those who might influence his rule into battle.

However, Carlo Alberto did not care about the outcome of the war, so he sent two of his strongest generals, Lieutenant General Osepio and Lieutenant General Ettore de Sannaz.

Lieutenant General Osebio had participated in the war against France and was very old, but he had no actual achievements.

Lieutenant General Ettore de Sannaz was a young and vigorous young man who was very fanatical about dynastic warfare.

Carlo Alberto knew that his level was limited, so he hired two retired French officers to be his staff.

The three of them felt that it was too dangerous to put all their eggs in one basket, so they decided to split up.

One route was led by Lieutenant General Ousebio across the Ticeno River to Milan, and the other route was led by Lieutenant General Ettore de Sannaz from Genoa through the Ligurian Pass to the Po River defense line in Austria.

As long as the rebel army in Milan could hold Radetzky back, then the king of Sardinia's combined attack could encircle the main force of the Austrian Empire's northern Italy in one fell swoop, and there would be no more fighting south of the Alps under the combination of the inside and the outside.

On the other hand, Tyrol.

Even before the Kingdom of Sardinia officially declared war, Franz had received news that Carlo Alberto was going to war.

The news was not unexpected, as the erratic behavior of Empress Anna's lover, Baron, had already given Franz enough warning.

Baron had been collecting information about the Austrian army since the start of the war, but since the General Staff was located in Tyrol, he could only obtain information through the War Department.

It was not too clever to keep it out, so Franz deliberately let people be bribed by Baron Sluth, but this information is true and false, and even true and false.

So most of what Carlo Alberto knew, Franz wanted him to know. As for Baron Sluter, Franz would not let him go easily, after all, there were two assassinations that had not yet been avenged.

Thanks to the telegraph line, the General Staff could give orders directly to the chain of command at the level of Milan and Venice.

Franz's order was somewhat strange to the ears of the rest of the General Staff.

"Evacuate!"

There are more than half a million civilians of other nationalities in northern Italy, the vast majority of whom come to earn a living and do business.

In addition, in northern Italy, with the exception of a few large industrial and commercial cities and some areas with extreme religious fanaticism, 80% of Italians did not participate in the rebellion at this time.

Farmers even went to the cities as usual to sell their wares, and some able-bodied people hoped to get some work digging trenches and the like.

The vast majority of the population was indifferent to the so-called jihad, and the immigrants from southern Italy turned their noses up at Pius IX and his kings.

Now that there is no guarantee that not an inch of land will be lost, the protection of civilians has become the first priority.

Franz was ready to relocate war refugees to the fortresses of the Four Corners, to the coastal urban belt of Venice, to the region north of the Alps, and even to the Great Hungarian Plain.

He wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to solve the situation of excessive concentration of Italians in the country.

In terms of density alone, the Italians in Northern Italy were much denser than the Germans in Bohemia and Vienna.

If it weren't for the opportunity of the war, it would have been a fool's dream to relocate such a large number of people in peacetime.

In fact, most people still do not choose to abandon their homes and flee to safer areas, after all, the land has changed hands many times.

But those who are considered alien by Italians will have to migrate, because nationalism actually magnifies the hatred between peoples.

This group of people would be willing to follow the Austrian army into the designated safe area for security reasons, and if something bad happened in the future, the Austrian officials would have good reason to drive the latecomers to other areas.

However, Franz's behavior seemed too strange in the eyes of people at the time, after all, no one thought that a few people would die in a war.

In fact, Franz didn't know how to explain it, this time was actually similar to the Thirty Years' War, and if it was not controlled, then it was possible to kill bloodshed.

Although there were slight differences among the members of the General Staff on the two matters of evacuation and the protection of civilians, there was a consensus on the two matters of the urgent task of consolidating the Po line of defense and stabilizing the situation in Venice.

No matter how useless the allied army in northern Italy was, it was more than 400,000 men after all, and the strength of the regiments in the outpost fortress alone was not enough in any case.

Naturally, this matter fell to Albrecht, and although defensive warfare was not his specialty, it was bound to be fierce and protracted, and only the young and powerful Archduke Albrecht could handle it.

The Austrian Empire's troop disposition at this time:

150,000 in Italy, 50,000 in Salzburg, 100,000 in Vienna, 100,000 in Galicia, 50,000 in Bohemia, 50,000 in Belgrade (Austria was not authorized to transfer the Hungarian local guards), and a number of small troops were stationed in various forts.

In fact, Austria could not mobilize the army of St. Stephen's Crown Territory, but the central government of the empire had the right to appoint and dismiss personnel, so there was still some room for maneuver, such as letting some pro-Austrian factions such as Jelačić and Anton von Pincre come to power.

At this time, Albrecht was able to deploy only troops drawn from various military districts, the main force of which was naturally the border guards from Galicia, but the number of troops drawn for Prussia and Russia was still limited.

So he had to fight with less than 50,000 troops against the coming army of 450,000 in the Papal States.

Franz would also be on the move, he would have to put down the rebellion before Venice fell, and then pick up the pieces and fully support Albrecht's Po line.

The reason for this is entirely due to General Alois Palfe, who is hailed as the best graduate of the Teresa Military Academy ever.

He entered the military academy at the age of eight, graduated at the age of twelve, and was proficient in all tactics such as artillery, cavalry, and infantry.

He has been honored by monarchs on many foreign visits, and his medals and certificates can fill an entire room, and his honorary titles can fill two pages.

However, it was such a theoretically invincible man who buried the 50,000 garrisons in the Venetian region in three days, forcing Franz to go out in person.

(End of chapter)