has been reckoned at as low a figure
as 63,000, certainly an understatement, as it appears that the
Archduke mustered not less than 70,000 at the battle of Custoza. That
he mustered on that day every man he could produce is probably a fact.
Had the Italian generals followed the same rule, however enormous
their other errors might have been, they would have won. Of all
conceivable faults in a military commander that which is the least
pardonable is the neglect to crush his antagonist by force of superior
numbers when he has them at his disposal. How many great military
reputations have been built up, and justly built up, on the care never
to meet an enemy without the odds being largely in your favour!

For obvious political reasons the King of Italy assumed the supreme
command of the army, with General La Marmora as chief of the staff.
Cialdini had been offered the latter post, but he declined it,
objecting, it is said, to the arrangement by which the real head of
the army has no guarantee against the possible interference of its
nominal head. When La Marmora went to the front, Baron Ricasoli took
his place as Prime Minister; Visconti-Venosta became Minister of
Foreign Affairs; and the Ministry of the Marine was offered to
Quintino Sella, who refused it on the ground that he knew nothing of
naval matters. It was then offered to and accepted by a man who knew
still less, because he did not even know his own ignorance, Agostino
Depretis, a Piedmontese advocate.

Before the commencement of hostilities a secret treaty was concluded
between Napoleon III. and the Austrian Government, according to which
Venetia was to be ceded to the Emperor for Italy, even if Austrian
arms were victorious both on the Mincio and on the Maine. Napoleon's
real purpose in this singular transaction is not perfectly clear; but
he was probably acting under a semi-romantic desire to have the
appearance of completing his programme of freeing Italy from the Alps
to the Adriatic which had been interrupted at Villafranca. In spite of
his enmity towards Italian unity, there is no reason to doubt that he
was in very few things as sincere as in the wish to see the Austrians
out of Italy. His reckonings at this time were all founded on the
assumption that Prussia would be defeated; he even seems to have had
some hopes of getting the Rhine bank in return for his good offices on
behalf of that Power with triumphant Austria. Be this as it may, he
inspired the