unmanageable. The Swiss
Guards, who had long been the butt of the people, put down the revolt
without mercy. Once more King Ferdinand was master. He hastened to dismiss
his Cabinet and dissolved the Parliament before it could come to order.
Orders were sent to General Pepe, who had marched to the front in northern
Italy with 14,000 men, to return at once. General Pepe, who had already
reached Bologna and had entered hostilities under Charles Albert's command,
declined to obey the orders of his sovereign. His rank and file trooped
back to Naples. Only fifteen hundred Neapolitan volunteers remained with
Pepe at the front. A number of the officers who returned felt their
disgrace so keenly that they committed suicide. The Neapolitan fleet, which
had already succeeded in raising the Austrian blockade of Venice, was
likewise ordered home. A more serious blow to the cause of Italy was Pio
Nono's apparent change of front. On April 29, without previous consultation
with his new Ministry, the Pope issued the famous "Allocution," in which he
declared that he had despatched his troops northward only for the defence
of the Papal dominions, and that it was far from his intentions to join
with the other Italian princes and peoples in the war against Austria. The
Papal Ministry immediately handed in its resignation. The Municipal Council
of Rome called upon the Pope to abstain from interference with his army.
General Durando, commanding the Papal troops at the front, had already
yielded to their entreaties by crossing the Po. Now he threw in his lot
with Charles Albert. Pio Nono sent a confidential messenger to Naples to
arrange for an asylum there, in case the people should turn against him at
Rome.

[Sidenote: Garibaldi]

[Sidenote: Battle of Goito]

[Sidenote: Cortatone]

[Sidenote: Surrender of Peschiera]

[Sidenote: Radetzky firm]

Charles Albert on the Mincio lost three precious weeks. His army now
numbered nearly one hundred thousand men, only sixty thousand of whom were
trained soldiers. About this time he was joined by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who
had just returned from the revolutionary battlefields of South America,
whither he had been driven an exile from Charles Albert's own dominions. He
was received with honor, and was put in charge of a volunteer corps which
he had raised at Milan. The Austrian commander profited by the delay of his
opponents to place his army between the strong fortresses of Verona,
Mantua, Legnano