he Lake of Garda, drove him up the Adige Valley to Trent,
and then round the side track already named, the Brenta Valley, by
Bassano back to Mantua. In 1848 the Piedmontese Army advanced upon the
famous quadrilateral of fortresses, then Austrian, covering the
entry--Mantua and Peschiera on the Mincio, Verona and Legnago on the
Adige. Charles Albert was far from being another Napoleon; and the
three days' battle of Custoza, when four weary and ill-found Italian
brigades held out against Radetzky's five army corps, did not serve to
turn the tide of the national fortunes. That year saw the first
appearance of Garibaldi as a military leader and the accession of the
present Austrian Emperor; and it is strange now to recall that in the
war of 1859, when Lombardy was liberated by the French and Sardinian
Armies, this same Francis Joseph was actually in command of the
Austrian forces. The battle of Solferino, fought on a front of five
leagues, along the hills to the south of Lake Garda, was a terrible
butchery, even by the worst of modern standards, for in twelve hours
25,000 of the 300,000 combatants were killed or wounded. In the war of
1866 Garibaldi took a body of volunteers up the Adige; but the treaty
which gave Venetia to the new Kingdom of Italy left the Trentino still
to be recovered.

The Adige and Brenta Valley roads to Trent and Botzen are, then,
clearly marked out for Italian effort in the present juncture; and if
the Austrians have the advantage of innumerable defensive positions on
the mountain heights, they have the disadvantage of very long and
frail lines of supply and reinforcement. It may be supposed that the
Alpine regiments, which are in some ways the flower of the Italian
Army, will also attempt the lesser approaches to Tyrol from the west,
by the Val di Sole and the Valtelline, and from the east from Belluno
and Pieve. The Brenner railway, with its twenty-two tunnels and sixty
large bridges, is peculiarly vulnerable. With many cities and good
railways behind them, and a popular welcome in front, the Italian
troops, on the other hand, will face the hill roads, now generally
free from snow, with confidence.

Very different are the natural conditions on the only other part of
the frontier where the hostile forces can well come to grips. The Alps
gradually fall and break up into separate ridges as we pass east; and
beyond Udine there is a flat gap, 50 miles wide, beyond which lies
Trieste, with its fine ha