Turin, the royal palace of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
Bellevue, seated on the throne, hurled the battle report to the floor, then swept the entire table beside him over.
"What are these useless fools even doing?"
Of the five armies that had once marched in five directions, only Bellevue remained. It seemed he would have to restore France's glory himself.
The easy victory he had imagined had become an easy defeat. Not only had Radetzky failed to split his forces; more and more Austrian troops were arriving on the Italian battlefield.
Worst of all, France's defeat in the naval battle in the Mediterranean had cost her control of those waters, completely sealing off the French Army's original sea route.
Nearly three hundred thousand troops had become a burden overnight. Supplying them by land meant crossing the Alps, which took a long time and was highly inefficient.
After all, the people responsible for transport needed food and drink too. And France, already caught in a double economic and political crisis, had no capacity to organize large-scale supply convoys.
Only transport by sea offered a theoretical chance of solving the expeditionary army's supply problem—and even that was merely a possibility. The French Second Republic's finances were a complete mess, and its debts had reached an absurd level.
After all, even an old-fashioned muzzle-loading rifle with a rifled barrel could cost more than a hundred francs. A pair of military boots was worth eighty francs, and a single coffee bean cost one sou.
With one outrageously expensive supply after another, it was almost impossible for the French Second Republic not to go into debt.
Feeding and clothing three hundred thousand troops was no small expense. And since the French Army had taken the Kingdom of Sardinia with such ease, its soldiers' arrogance was