War Palace and Knee Pillow, Austria’s Destiny

The Kingdom of Sardinia has only 50,000 standing troops, while the Austrian army in northern Italy has at least 150,000 troops.

According to this ratio of troops, if the Kingdom of Sardinia plunged headlong into the battlefield in Northern Italy, it would be a complete loss of lives.

So Carlo Alberto wanted to change the military service system. After all, conscripts were much cheaper than recruiting soldiers, and it would be cheaper if they could die on the battlefield.

The compulsory military service system also has another advantage for Carlo Alberto, that is, it can take the opportunity to eliminate those unstable factors.

Young Italy, Carbonari, Mazzini, nationalists, university students, unemployed workers, landless peasants, vagabonds, radical aristocrats, constitutionalists

Carlo Alberto would not send all his cronies to die like Pius IX. He would send those who might affect his rule to the battlefield.

However, Carlo Alberto would not ignore the outcome of the war, so he sent his two strongest generals, Lieutenant General Eusebio and Lieutenant General Ettore de Sanaz.

Lieutenant General Eusebio had participated in the Anti-French War and was very senior, but had no actual achievements.

Lieutenant General Ettore de Sonnes is a young and energetic young man who is very enthusiastic about dynastic wars.

Carlo Alberto knew that his level was limited, so he found two retired French officers as his staff.

The three of them thought it was too dangerous to put all their eggs in one basket, so they decided to split into two groups.

One group, led by Lieutenant General Eusebio, crossed the Ticheno River and went straight to Milan, and the other group, led by Lieutenant General Ettore de Sonnazzi, attacked from Genoa through the Ligurian Pass and directly into the Austrian Po River defense line. .

As long as the rebels in Milan can hold back Radetzky, then the King of Sardinia's technique of dividing and attacking together can encircle the main force of the Austrian Empire in northern Italy. Under the combination of internal and external cooperation, there will be no more wars south of the Alps. .

Tyrol, on the other hand.

Before the Kingdom of Sardinia officially declared war, Franz had already received news that Carlo Alberto was going to join the war.

This news is not surprising, because the abnormal behavior of Queen Anna's lover Baron Slote has given Franz enough warning.

Baron Slote has been collecting information about the Austrian army since the war started. However, since the General Staff is located in Tyrol, he can only get the information through the Ministry of War.

It was not a very smart idea to directly shut him out, so Franz deliberately let people be bribed by Baron Slote. However, this information was sometimes true and false, and even some were true among the false, and some were false among the true.

Therefore, most of the news that Carlo Alberto knew was what Franz wanted him to know. As for Baron Slote, Franz will not let him go easily. After all, the revenge of two assassinations has not been avenged.

Due to the existence of telegraph lines, the General Staff could directly issue orders to the command system at the Milan and Venice levels.

Franz's order sounded strange to the ears of others on the General Staff.

"Evacuate!"

There are more than half a million civilians of other ethnic groups in Northern Italy, and the vast majority of them come here to make a living and do business.

In addition, in northern Italy, except for a few large industrial and commercial cities and some areas with extreme religious fanaticism, 80% of Italians did not participate in the rebellion at this time.

Farmers even came to the city to sell things as usual, and some able-bodied people hoped to get jobs like digging trenches.

The vast majority of people were indifferent to the so-called jihad, and the immigrants from southern Italy even scorned the devil Pius IX and the kings under him.

Now there is no guarantee that no inch of territory will be lost, so protecting civilians has become the top priority.

Franz prepared to relocate the war refugees to the Quatrefortress, the Venetian coastal city belt, the area north of the Alps, and even the Hungarian plains.

He wanted to take this opportunity to solve the problem of excessive gathering of Italians in the country.

In terms of density alone, the Italian population in northern Italy is much denser than the German population in Bohemia and Vienna.

If it were not for the opportunity of war, it would be a fool's errand to relocate so many people in normal times.

In fact, most people still would not choose to abandon their homes and flee to some safer areas. After all, this land has changed hands many times.

But those who are regarded as foreign nationalities by Italians must migrate, because nationalism actually amplifies the hatred between ethnic groups infinitely.

For safety reasons, this group of people will be very willing to follow the Austrian army into the designated safe area. If something bad happens later, Austrian officials will have every reason to drive the latecomers to other areas.

However, Franz's behavior seemed too weird in the eyes of people at the time. After all, no one thought that killing a few people in a battle would do anything.

In fact, Franz didn't know how to explain it. This time was actually similar to the Thirty Years War. If it was not controlled, it would be possible to bleed and leave people drifting.

Although there were slight differences among the general staff on the two issues of evacuation of overseas Chinese and protection of civilians, everyone still reached a consensus on the two top priorities of consolidating the Po River defense line and stabilizing the situation in Venice.

No matter how depleted the coalition forces in Northern Italy were, they still numbered more than 400,000 people, and the strength of the few regiments in the outpost fortress at this time was not enough in any case.

This matter will naturally fall on Albrecht. Although defensive warfare is not his specialty, this battle will inevitably be very fierce and protracted. Only the young and powerful Archduke Albrecht can handle it.

The Austrian Empire’s military configuration at this time is:

Italy 150,000, Salzburg 50,000, Vienna 100,000, Galicia 100,000, Bohemia 50,000, Belgrade 50,000 (the Hungarian local defense force Austria has no right to mobilize), and Small troops were stationed at various forts.

In fact, Austria cannot mobilize the troops in the Crown Territory of St. Stephen, but the central government of the empire has the power to appoint and remove personnel, so there is still some room for maneuver, such as letting Jelačić, Anton von Pinkley and other pro-Austrian forces Send on stage.

At this time, Albrecht could only mobilize troops from various military districts. The main force was naturally the border guards from Galicia, but the number of troops mobilized to guard against Prussia and Russia was still limited.

Therefore, he had to fight with less than 50,000 troops against the coming 450,000 Papal State troops.

Franz will also take action. He must put down the rebellion before Venice falls, and then pick up the pieces and fully support Albrecht's Po River defense line.

This situation was entirely the result of General Alois Palffy, considered the best graduate of the Theresa Military Academy ever.

He entered the military academy at the age of eight and graduated at the age of twelve. He was proficient in all tactics such as artillery, cavalry, and infantry. After graduation, he directly served as a lecturer at the Theresa Military Academy, the highest military academy in the Austrian Empire, responsible for teaching battle theory, war science, and artillery. Studies and a series of important subjects.

He has visited many foreign countries and received awards from monarchs of various countries. His medals and certificates can fill an entire room, and his honorary titles can fill two pages.

However, it was such a theoretically invincible killer who destroyed 50,000 garrison troops in Venetia in three days, forcing Franz to take action himself.