generals. The particular
expedient adopted by General Zedwitz was to withdraw 15,000 men,
including six regiments of cavalry, from the field. At a critical
moment, Count Clam Gallas had the misfortune to lose his artillery
reserve, and sent everywhere to ask if anyone had seen it. The Prince
of Hesse, acting without orders, or against orders, separated his
division from Schwarzenberg's and brought it up at the nick of time to
save the Austrians, when they were threatened with actual destruction,
at two o'clock in the afternoon.

At that hour the French were in possession of the Spia d'Italia, and
of all the heights of Solferino. They had been engaged in attacking
them since eight in the morning, Napoleon having seen at once that
they were the key to the position, and must be taken, cost what it
might. The cost was great; if there is any episode in French military
history in which soldiers and officers earned all the praise that can
be given to brave men, it is the taking of these Solferino hills.
Again and again Forey's division and Bazaine's brigade returned to the
charge; the cemetery and streets of Solferino were piled up with their
dead, mingled with the dead of the defenders, who contested every inch
of ground. The individual valour of the French soldiers in that six
hours' struggle made it possible to win the battle.

The Austrians, however, after their desperate straits at two o'clock
recovered to so great an extent that, had Zedwitz returned with his
cavalry, as the Emperor was hoping that he would, the day might still
have been theirs. Even as it was, MacMahon's corps swerved under
Zobel's repulse of his attack on San Cassiano, and Niel, in the plain,
was dangerously hard pressed by Schwarzenberg. But, by degrees, the
French recommenced gaining and the Austrians losing ground, and at six
p.m., the latter were retreating in good order, defending each step
before they yielded it.

In the last stage of the battle the French limbered up their guns in
the belief that a vast reserve of Austrian cavalry was galloping into
action. What made them think so was a dense yellowish wall advancing
through the air. Had they been natives, they would have recognised the
approach of one of those frightful storms which bring devastation in
their train, and which, as they move forward in what appears a solid
mass, look to the inexperienced eye exactly like the clouds of dust
raised by innumerable horsemen. The bursting of the s