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Only then did Gyulai perceive this clever stratagem which threw Lombardy open to the allies, and he was consequently obliged to cross the Ticino to block the enemy's way to Milan. On June 4th, at Magenta, nearly the whole of the Austrian army engaged the French forces; the battle, which was most desperate, lasted all day, and was remarkable for the prodigies of valor performed.
Gyulai then, aroused by the danger of Milan, began his retreat across the Ticino, which he had so uselessly crossed. The road to Milan crossed both the Ticino River and the Naviglio Grande, a broad and deep canal, a few miles east of the river. Some distance farther on lies the village of Magenta, the seat of the first great battle of the war.
After Montebello the whole French army executed a secret flank movement, changing its position from Voghera, where Gyulai believed it to be, and whence he expected it to move on to Piacenza, to the line of the Sesia, between Cameriano and Casale. To mask the main operations, the Sardinian forces were sent to Palestro, on the other side of the Sesia.
It was expected that the Austrians would renew the attack, but on the 5th, Gyulai ordered the retreat, which was the last order he had the opportunity of giving, as he was deprived of his command immediately after. At mid-day on the 5th, Milan, which was trembling on the verge of revolution, made the pleasurable discovery that there were no Austrians left in the town.
Being quite ignorant of the position of the foe, he sent Count Stadion, with 12,000 men, on a reconnaissance. An encounter took place at Montebello on May 20th, in which, after a sharp engagement, Stadion was forced to retreat. Gyulai directed his attention to that quarter, leaving Napoleon to march unmolested from Alessandria to the invasion of Lombardy.
Gyulai, who at first looked upon the Garibaldian march as a simple diversion intended to draw off his attention, now became concerned, and dispatched Urban with 10,000 men to destroy the volunteers, and stem the insurrection which everywhere followed in their wake.
They were confident of success, for they knew what a good stand they had made at Magenta, and now that Gyulai was got rid of, and the young Emperor had taken the field, they did not doubt that fortune would turn her wheel.
Gyulai had all the advantages of position, and might have concentrated his army and crushed the advanced corps of the French if he had known his situation and his business. As it was, between ignorance on the one hand and indecision on the other, the battle was fought with about equal forces in the field on either side.
The Austrian troops covered a long tract, from Novara to Vercelli, then extended down the line of the Sesia as far as the Po, and thence reached the mouth of the Tanaro. Gyulai, seeing the enemy concentrated on the right bank of the Po, believed that Napoleon. III intended crossing that river in the direction of Piacenza as Napoleon I had crossed in 1796 and so massed his troops to the south.
There is reason to think that after Palestro, Gyulai, having at last realised what Napoleon was about, wished to evacuate Lombardy, but was prevented from doing so by strong protests sent by the Emperor Francis Joseph, who was at Verona.
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