United States or Pakistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Thus, while Victor Emmanuel, at the head of his men, flung himself from Vercelli on Palestro meriting, by the skill of his military tactics, the acclamations of a regiment of zouaves whom he headed as corporal the French, taking ad vantage of the Alessandria, Casale, and Novara Railway, made for the bridge of Buffalora over the Ticino.
Nor are the Alps themselves ever more imposing than when seen from Milan or the church-tower of Chivasso or the terrace of Novara, with a foreground of Italian cornfields and old city towers and rice-ground, golden-green beneath a Lombard sun. Half veiled by clouds, the mountains rise like visionary fortress walls of a celestial city unapproachable, beyond the range of mortal feet.
In 1848, Mieroslawski had been carried like a triumphant hero through the streets of Berlin; the Baden rebels put themselves under the leadership of a Pole, and it was a Pole who commanded the Viennese in their resistance to the Austrian army; a Pole led the Italians to disaster on the field of Novara.
Victor Emmanuel could say what few men have been able to say of so large a promise: 'I have kept my word. He gathered up the Italian flag from the dust of Novara, and carried it to the Capitol.
He had already missed one opportunity; there was no other conveyance than mine; and he expressed himself exceedingly happy that I permitted him to avail himself of it. This carabineer in disguise was very good-humoured, and kept me company as far as Novara.
Novara and its beaten king, in '49; the ten years of waiting, when a whole people bode its time, in a gay, grim silence; the grudging victory of Magenta; the fivefold struggle that wrenched the hills of San Martino from the Austrians; the humiliations and the rage of Villafranca of all these had this wasted graybeard made a part.
The cowardly Neapolitans fled without firing a shot, and the Piedmontese, who unexpectedly revolted to Frimont's rear, were, after a short encounter with the Austrians under Bubna at Novara, defeated and reduced to submission. The Greeks, whom Russia now no longer ventured openly to uphold, had, in the meantime, also risen in open insurrection.
Solferino and San Martino may sometimes redeem Novara and Waterloo, but the apostasies of princes are always irreparable. I am moved to the bottom of my soul by the faith and love which this noble and unfortunate people has reposed in me, and rather than be unworthy of it, I will break my sword and throw the crown away as did my august father.
This regiment was so thoroughly routed by the Italians that it was pursued as far as Villafranca, and had two squadrons put hors de combat, whilst the Novara regiment only lost twenty-four mounted men.
It was at Vigevano that winter, on the 28th of January, that Lodovico drew up the deed of gift by which he endowed his wife with his palace lands of Cussago, as well as the Sforzesca and other lands in the district of Novara and Pavia.
Word Of The Day