March then, confident of success, and wreathe
with fresh laurels that standard which, rallying from all quarters the
flower of Italian youth to its threefold colors, points out your task of
accomplishing that righteous and sacred enterprise--the independence of
Italy, wherein we find our war-cry."
The Austrian army to the number of one hundred seventy thousand
men--besides those remaining in the Lombardo-Venetian fortresses--was
commanded by General Gyulai, the successor of Radetzky, who had died the
year before, at the age of ninety-one. Gyulai meant to attack and rout
the Sardinian army before it could join its French allies. On April 29th
he crossed the Ticino; then spreading out his forces along the Sesia, he
reconnoitred as far as Chivasso. These districts abound in cultivated
rice-fields and are intersected by many canals: it was therefore easy,
by flooding the ground, to hinder the march of the Austrian troops on
Turin.
Meanwhile, the Sardinian army, composed of sixty thousand men, awaited
the arrival of the French forces on the right bank of the Po.
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