Chapter Summaries

The Kingdom of Sardinia raced to defeat Austria at Venice before fifty thousand reinforcements arrived, while Radetzky prepared to fight without waiting for them. The Battle of Venice began on May 9, 1848, with Tuscan troops caught in a sudden Austrian attack and counterattacking confidently.

• Badoglio learned that Austria had sent fifty thousand reinforcements toward Venice and ordered an offensive for the next morning.
• Radetzky received news of the reinforcements and decided to continue his current deployment, as the troops had already engaged and the reinforcements were marching without baggage.
• On May 9, the Battle of Venice began when Morkes's Austrian Sixth Division attacked the Tuscan troops, who had marched ahead of the allied force.
• Maherd's Tuscan soldiers, convinced the Austrians were weak, immediately counterattacked, with young officers leading the charge.

The Tuscan and Sardinian forces struggled against Austrian defenses, with soldiers feigning death and commanders unable to make progress. As both sides misread the battlefield, the Sardinians halted their assault on Trento and Lieutenant Colonel Grigi wondered what the enemy was planning.

• Maherd's Tuscan troops crumpled under Austrian fire, so he requested reinforcements from Marshal Badoglio and ordered a strategic withdrawal.
• Messe halted the assault on Trento until heavy artillery arrived after the Second Division suffered heavy casualties.
• Will ordered a retreat, and soldiers who had pretended to be dead stood up, angering him when he discovered the division had lost few men but over 1,300 rifles.
• Grigi realized that many enemy soldiers he had counted as dead had returned, and a young officer speculated that they might be luring the Austrians out of their positions.

Grigi dismissed Amburich’s plan to collect abandoned weapons and urged him to seek military merit, while the Sardinian army fought more fiercely after Major General Will punished soldiers who had feigned death. Franz’s Battlefield Survival Manual was revealed as a deliberate scheme to help Sardinian troops avoid casualties and let the Lombardy Republic pursue independence.

• Grigi rejected Amburich’s suggestion to recover enemy weapons and warned him that a night raid against a force far larger than their own would be suicidal.
• Amburich explained that he wanted money and land because he was a second son, while Grigi urged him to earn a title through military service.
• Major General Will punished Sardinian soldiers who had played dead, and the afternoon battle became more brutal as the troops fought harder.
• Tom and Raul discussed using the Battlefield Survival Manual to survive the war while letting Sardinians and Austrians wear each other down for Lombardy’s independence.
• Franz was revealed as the manual’s author, having prepared thirty-six rules that taught Sardinian soldiers how to avoid danger on the battlefield.

The Sardinian army’s morale collapsed as the Battlefield Survival Manual spread, while Marshal Badoglio delayed aid to the Tuscan forces under Austrian attack. General Maherd recognized that Sardinian reinforcements were unlikely to arrive and ordered his retreating troops to hurry onward.

• Major General Will intensified the Sardinian offensive, then reported more than three hundred dead and eight hundred wounded to cover the army’s earlier false claims.
• The Battlefield Survival Manual spread through the Sardinian army, and soldiers began questioning whether they should die for the capitalists, weakening their fighting spirit.
• Marshal Badoglio’s officers argued over whether to aid Tuscany, and Badoglio told the Tuscans to hold out while Sardinia sent reinforcements as soon as possible.
• General Maherd learned that the Sardinians had spent an hour discussing the request before promising aid, realized they were unlikely to come, and ordered his troops to move faster.

With Austrian forces closing in on Budapest, Kossuth rejected calls to negotiate and insisted Hungary could still win, while his government faced growing unrest after siding with the wealthy against workers and peasants. The chapter leaves Hungary besieged, politically divided, and alienated from its common people.

• Görgei warned Kossuth that Croatian forces would join the Austrian siege and make Budapest impossible to defend, while Szemere urged peace talks.
• Petőfi opposed negotiations, arguing that Austria planned to divide Hungary into provinces, and Kossuth claimed that Polish general Henryk Dembiński could help turn the war around.
• As the siege disrupted supplies, prices rose sharply and workers and impoverished citizens protested in Budapest on April 18, 1848; the Kossuth government brutally suppressed them.
• After Austria abolished serfdom, peasants in Kiskőrös revolted, seized a manor, killed overseers, and divided the land; Kossuth's government again suppressed the uprising.
• By crushing workers' and peasants' movements, the Hungarian Republican government won the support of capitalists and nobles but broke with ordinary people.

Julius’s land policies and Franz’s intelligence network weakened the Hungarian Republic as Austrian forces prepared to attack Budapest. Franz approved plans to divide Hungary into provinces and fund compulsory education through a new tax and confiscated Church assets.

• Julius’s land distribution won support from farmers around Budapest, and volunteers joined the government forces against the rebellion.
• Franz’s intelligence organization gained cooperation from local nobles while the Kossuth Government remained unaware of its activities.
• Prince Windisch-Grätz urged an immediate attack after the Croatian and Bohemian Legions joined forces in Budapest, and Franz ordered the assault with strict discipline.
• Prime Minister Felix outlined plans to divide Hungary into three provinces and promote assimilation through education.
• Felix proposed replacing the church tithe with a compulsory education tax and investigating Church personnel to confiscate illegal assets, and Franz endorsed the plan.

As Austria began the siege of Budapest, its leaders aimed to destroy the Hungarian revolutionaries rather than merely capture the city. Inside Budapest, Szemere and Görgei discussed whether they could act against the revolutionaries, but Görgei could mobilize only a little over five hundred men discreetly.

• Felix advised Franz to postpone action against Austria's Church and use aid to Pope Pius IX to gain leverage over it.
• Lieutenant General Julius and Governor Josip Jelačić discussed encircling the Hungarian rebels and preventing their escape to the Ottoman Empire.
• On May 24, 1848, Julius's forces surrounded Budapest and began the siege, cutting the city off and bombarding it.
• Görgei told Szemere that Kossuth had sidelined him and that he could mobilize only a little over five hundred men without attracting attention.

Szemere and Görgei delayed their plan to betray the revolutionaries until they could recruit more supporters, while Kossuth and his generals discussed Budapest’s defenses. The chapter ended with Kossuth realizing that Austria might flood the city despite the enormous consequences.

• Szemere and Görgei agreed to gather more supporters before acting against the provisional government and reassured each other that the Austrians would negotiate with them.
• Henryk Dembinski told Kossuth that Budapest could resist through street fighting but could not defeat the Austrian army in a decisive battle.
• Kossuth recognized that the provisional government lacked broad popular support and could not quickly win over ordinary citizens.
• General Bem warned that Budapest’s isolation made a prolonged defense untenable despite its food stores.
• Henryk Dembinski dismissed flooding as an implausible Austrian tactic, but Kossuth feared the Vienna government might resort to it.

Kossuth debated how to save the Hungarian Revolution as the threat of flooding Budapest loomed, pinning his hopes on foreign intervention despite warnings from Henryk Dembinski and Petőfi. Meanwhile, the Italian advance stalled at Trento as Sardinian soldiers increasingly avoided combat.

• Henryk Dembinski urged Kossuth to prepare an escape and preserve the revolution if Austria flooded Budapest, while Petőfi proposed attacking to spare the city's civilians.
• Kossuth rejected a direct attack and hoped Italian victories and French mediation would change the situation, but Henryk Dembinski warned that the Italian states were unlikely to defeat Austria or aid Hungary.
• Kossuth proposed seeking Ottoman intervention and was willing to cede Transylvania, while Petőfi objected that Hungary's centuries of conflict with the Ottomans made cooperation dangerous.
• At Trento, Marshal Badoglio's forces failed to capture the city despite repeated assaults and reinforcements, and Sardinian troops reduced casualties by avoiding battle.

General Borkin’s Papal Army was ordered both to return to Rome for the Pope and to advance alongside Sardinia, but it collapsed in an ambush by Austrian troops. Borkin used the defeat to justify abandoning the campaign and withdrew, leaving the Sardinians to fight while he waited for the political struggle at home to resolve.

• Borkin struggled to choose between the Pope’s order to return to Rome and the cabinet’s order to capture Venice with Sardinia.
• After Austrian troops ambushed the Papal Army’s vanguard, Borkin sent the Second Regiment to reinforce it, but the vanguard and reinforcements fled without a fight.
• Borkin gathered his scattered soldiers and delayed his advance while waiting for supplies and watching the battlefield.
• When Marshal Badoglio ordered him to attack the Austrians in support of Sardinia, Borkin refused and claimed his army was engaged with the enemy’s main force.
• Borkin ordered the Papal Army to withdraw from the battlefield, using its defeat to satisfy the cabinet and buy time amid the political crisis.

Colonel Grigi persuaded Buck and Ham to join him in attacking the Sardinian forces at Trento, believing their rapidly expanded divisions were poorly trained. On May 20, he assembled an eight-hundred-man raiding force, including Amburich, who hoped to earn a noble title.

• Grigi regretted not attacking the Sardinian camp earlier, then received two Austrian regiments as reinforcements from Marshal Radetzky.
• Buck praised Grigi for holding off the Sardinians, and Grigi explained that their three divisions had been rapidly expanded and were likely weak.
• Grigi proposed that he, Buck, and Ham join forces to wipe out the Sardinian troops facing them, and Ham agreed to follow Grigi's command.
• Grigi gathered eight hundred men in the Austrian camp before dawn on May 20 for a night raid.
• Amburich refused to withdraw, hoping to become a great noble, while Grigi's promised land and noble titles motivated the men to join.

Colonel Grigi led an Austrian night raid on the Sardinian camp near Trento, where darkness and confusion turned the attack into a massacre. The Sardinian army descended into chaos, and the battle continued as officers struggled to regain control.

• Grigi led the death squad out under cover of darkness and wind, then ordered the units to eat and attack after waiting to confirm they had not been discovered.
• A signal flare and horn woke the Sardinian army as the Austrian assault began, scattering the inexperienced recruits into confusion.
• General Messe hurried to headquarters and ordered his officers to command their units, but Major General Will was struck by friendly fire outside.
• Sardinian soldiers mistook one another for enemies, while many extinguished the camp’s oil lamps and hid in the darkness.
• The Austrian army poured into the camp, and fighting spread as Sardinian officers struggled to find their units.

After the Austrian victory at Trento, Grigi’s army buried its dead while the Sardinian command learned that General Messe had been defeated. Marshal Badoglio discovered that the Austrians at Trento had fielded at least five divisions, not one regiment, and demanded to know why the intelligence had been wrong.

• Grigi ordered the battlefield cleared and allowed priests among the prisoners to take part in the dead’s farewell rites.
• The Austrian victory at the Battle of Trento caused the front’s balance to shift and encouraged the Austrian forces to counterattack.
• Major General Mantua told Marshal Badoglio that the Papal States and Tuscan armies had withdrawn or were no longer useful to Sardinia.
• A guard reported that General Messe was retreating toward Bergamo after Sardinian forces besieging Trento suffered heavy losses.
• Marshal Badoglio struck the guard and demanded an explanation after hearing that the Austrians at Trento numbered at least five infantry divisions.

After the Battle of Trento, Marshal Badoglio mistook the Austrian reinforcements’ destination and ordered the Sardinians onto the defensive. Meanwhile, Messe concealed his shattered divisions by press-ganging men and looting Bergamo, while Cesare warned him that the abuse could bring consequences.

• Marshal Badoglio suspected Austria had secretly concentrated forces in the Venice region and ordered scouts to determine the enemy’s strength.
• A guard reported that the three Sardinian divisions at Trento had suffered at least ten thousand casualties, and Major General Mantua urged the army to halt its offensive.
• Marshal Badoglio ordered Sardinian units to dig in and sent Mantua with the Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Divisions to watch Trento, though the Austrian reinforcements were actually heading for Vicenza.
• Lieutenant General Messe, whose three divisions had been reduced to less than one full-strength division, press-ganged men in Bergamo to hide his losses.
• Cesare warned Messe that Sardinian troops’ abuse of Bergamo’s residents could cause trouble, but Messe dismissed his concerns and focused on protecting himself from blame.

Marshal Radetzky used the Battle of Trento to conceal the arrival of Austrian reinforcements at Vicenza, where the Austrians routed the Sardinian forces. Austria then recaptured key cities and encircled the troops at Ala, ending Sardinia’s Battle of Venice in defeat.

• Marshal Radetzky ordered the Austrian army to attack Vicenza, where its reinforcements had reversed the balance of forces.
• Major General Otus ordered the First Division to return fire and build defenses, while the Sardinian Thirteenth Division under Major General Cobott was routed in a volley-fire exchange.
• Otus ordered the First Division to retreat after the Thirteenth Division’s collapse exposed its flank, and the Austrian army broke through the Sardinian line at Vicenza.
• On May 22, the Austrians recaptured Padua and encircled three Sardinian divisions at Ala.
• Austrian forces took the initiative at Bergamo and Brescia, forcing Lieutenant General Messe and Marshal Badoglio to withdraw.
• The Sardinian troops at Ala failed to break out and surrendered the next day, bringing the Battle of Venice to a complete defeat.

After the defeat at Venice, Charles-Albert ordered Sardinia to conceal the loss, mobilize more troops, and seek British mediation while leaving Badoglio in command. In Budapest, Kossuth defended looting and proposed destroying the city, claiming Austria planned to flood it, while Petőfi protested.

• Charles-Albert learned that Sardinia had lost nearly a hundred thousand troops at Venice and feared the kingdom could not withstand Austria’s advance.
• Ricci urged Charles-Albert to rely on Lombard resistance and British mediation, but Charles-Albert warned that Sardinia first had to hold off the Austrians.
• Azeglio urged the government to suppress news of the defeat, and Charles-Albert ordered officials to spread false reports of a stalemate, enlist able-bodied men, and contact Britain.
• Charles-Albert decided not to replace Badoglio, leaving him in command so he could try to redeem himself.
• Petőfi asked Kossuth to restore discipline in Budapest’s National Guard, but Kossuth defended the looting because the government could not pay the soldiers.
• Kossuth proposed destroying Budapest, claiming the Austrians planned to release upstream waters and flood the city; Petőfi called him insane.

Kossuth realized that Austria might be using the siege to provoke violence and destroy Budapest’s elite, but political infighting and opportunism continued to undermine the Hungarian Republic. Its provisional government descended further into repression and looting as the Austrian army advanced.

• Petőfi warned Kossuth that Austria might be pressuring the revolutionaries into destroying Budapest and its influential population.
• Kossuth accepted Petőfi’s warning and concluded that the Austrians intended to wipe out Hungary’s national elite.
• News of the Battle of Venice strengthened the provisional government’s pro-Austrian faction and increased pressure on Kossuth.
• Gang members and opportunists exploited the Revolutionary Party’s weakness to loot and secure positions in the provisional government.
• Capitalists used murder and counterrevolution accusations to eliminate rivals, while the government executed more than three thousand people, mostly striking workers.
• National Guard troops broke into homes, branded residents counterrevolutionaries, murdered them, and seized their property.

British leaders debated how to protect their interests in Italy without fighting Austria, and Palmerston proposed steering Austrian ambitions toward the Balkans. In Vienna, Franz asked Metternich when France would send troops, hoping to draw it into the conflict and distract Britain.

• John Russell asked Palmerston what stance Britain should take as the Austro-Sardinian War neared its end.
• Henry John Temple warned that Austria might destroy Sardinia with French support, citing reports of a secret treaty.
• Palmerston argued that France's unstable governments might prevent it from acting and that Britain should limit itself to diplomatic pressure.
• Palmerston proposed offering Austria interests in the Balkans to redirect its attention toward the Ottoman Empire and exploit future tensions with Russia.
• Franz asked Metternich what France had said and when it would send troops.

Franz rejected Austria’s proposal to seize the Kingdom of Sardinia alone, wary that Britain and France could unite against it while France delayed its promised intervention. Meanwhile, Prussia’s war against Denmark over Schleswig and Holstein drew Russia into the conflict, leaving Austria with a better diplomatic position as the chapter ended.

• Metternich told Franz that France’s Parliament was still debating how many troops to send, who would command them, and which units to deploy, while British allies opposed the intervention.
• Franz instructed the Foreign Ministry to watch Britain and declined Archduke Louis’s suggestion that Austria break its agreement with France and annex the Kingdom of Sardinia alone.
• Franz explained that Austria risked joint suppression by Britain and France if it took Sardinia without French support.
• After the Berlin Revolution, Prussian liberals led by Baron Arnim pursued an anti-Russian policy and pressed Denmark to incorporate Schleswig and Holstein into Germany.
• Prussia declared war on Denmark and advanced into Jutland, prompting the Danish government to seek Russia’s help.

Franz decided Austria would publicly praise and support Prussia’s campaign for Schleswig and Holstein while withholding practical help, hoping to trap Prussia in a confrontation with the other powers. He left Austria room to delay assistance even after its domestic rebellion was suppressed, and the chapter ended with his offer to pay Prussia’s expenses only if it succeeded.

• Metternich reported that Prussia had gained German public support by presenting itself as the defender of Schleswig and Holstein, while Austria had been reduced to a backdrop.
• Felix called for Austria to teach Prussia a lesson, but Metternich warned that opposing Prussia would make Austria appear to betray the German nation.
• Franz recognized Prussia’s strategy and ordered Austria to support it publicly, praise its efforts, and promise future help once Austria’s domestic troubles were settled.
• Metternich warned that backing Prussia would create diplomatic problems with Britain, France, and Russia, and Franz instructed him to explain that Austria’s support would be limited to words.
• Felix asked what Austria would do if Prussia prolonged the conflict until the rebellion was over, and Franz said Austria could keep delaying or offer money only if Prussia recovered the duchies.