major of infantry
alighted and hastened to a wooden hut where the two Italian officers
were waiting. Colonel Bariola, who was trained in the Austrian military
school of Viller Nashstad, and regularly left the Austrian service in
1848, acquainted the newly-arrived major with his mission, which was
that of delivering the sealed despatch to the general in command
of Mantua and receiving for it a regular receipt. The despatch was
addressed to the Archduke Albert, commander-in-chief of the Austrian
army of the South, care of the governor of Mantua. After the major had
delivered the receipt, the three messengers entered into a courteous
conversation, during which Colonel Bariola seized an opportunity
of presenting the duke, purposely laying stress on the fact of his
belonging to one of the most illustrious families of Naples. It happened
that the Austrian major had also been trained in the same school where
Colonel Bariola was brought up--a circumstance of which he was reminded
by the Austrian officer himself. Three hours had scarcely elapsed from
the arrival of the two Italian messengers of war at Le Grazie, on the
Austrian frontier, when they were already on their way back to the
headquarters of Cremona, where during the night the rumour was current
that a telegram had been received by Lamarmora from Verona, in which
Archduke Albert accepted the challenge. Victor Emmanuel, whom I saw at
Bologna yesterday, arrived at Cremona in the morning at two o'clock, but
by this time his Majesty's headquarters must have removed more towards
the front, in the direction of the Oglio. I should not be at all
surprised were the Italian headquarters to be established by to-morrow
either at Piubega or Gazzoldo, if not actually at Goito, a village, as
you know, which marks the Italian-Austrian frontier on the Mincio. The
whole of the first, second, and third Italian corps d'armee are by this
time concentrated within that comparatively narrow space which lies
between the position of Castiglione, Delle Stiviere, Lorrato, and
Desenzano, on the Lake of Garda, and Solferino on one side; Piubega,
Gazzoldo, Sacca, Goito, and Castellucchio on the other. Are these three
corps d'armee to attack when they hear the roar of Cialdini's artillery
on the right bank of the Po? Are they destined to force the passage
of the Mincio either at Goito or at Borghetto? or are they destined to
invest Verona, storm Peschiera, and lay siege to Mantua? This is more
than I