Northern Italy, Kingdom of Sardinia.
Carlo Alberto was not a king content to sit idle. He had always wanted to expand his territory through a dynastic war.
The Swiss civil war was undoubtedly an opportunity, so Carlo Alberto sent a batch of weapons and supplies to the League of Orthodoxy at the earliest chance.
After delivering the supplies to Ticino, the Sardinian soldiers left. After all, the Free League had threatened to blow up the mountain roads.
It would do the Kingdom of Sardinia no good to drive those people into a corner, where they might fight like cornered dogs. Besides, Carlo Alberto was even more worried that his two powerful neighbors might seize the opportunity to attack.
What he did not know was that Ticino had seized all the supplies. He also had no idea that Ticino had already joined the Free League.
That's right! As long as the money was right—or they had no shame—Catholic cantons could join the Protestant Union and beat up the Catholic League.
Prince Metternich had pulled the same stupid stunt in the past. Just as the Austrian Empire's economy had been on the verge of collapse, he had somehow scraped together thirty million florins and twenty thousand rifles to send to Ticino in support of the League of Orthodoxy.
The result was that the Free League used the money His Highness the Prince had sent to recruit soldiers, then used Austrian weapons to beat the stuffing out of his allies.
But Franz had already sent that money and those weapons to Galicia, where he could use them to train another army.
This army was made up mainly of former refugees and serfs. They had just been given land and had at last managed to build new lives for themselves. They were most eager