Chapter 859: Leaving the Mountain

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

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

So Carlo Alberto wanted to change the military service system. After all, conscripts were much cheaper than recruits, and if they could die on the battlefield, it would save even more money.

The conscripted military service system also had another advantage for Carlo Alberto, which was that he could take the opportunity to eliminate those unstable factors.

Young Italy, Carbonari, Mazzinians, nationalists, college students, unemployed workers, landless peasants, vagrants, radical nobles, constitutionalists

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

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

Lieutenant General Eusebio had participated in the anti-French war and had a long career, but he had no actual achievements.

Lieutenant General Ettore de Sannaz was a young and energetic young man who was very enthusiastic about the dynastic war.

Carlo Alberto knew that his level was limited, so he found two retired French officers to serve 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 their forces into two groups.

One group, led by Lieutenant General Eusebio, crossed the Ticino River and headed straight for Milan, while the other group, led by Lieutenant General Ettore de Sannaz, attacked from Genoa through the Ligurian Pass and directly attacked the Po River defense line of Austria.

As long as the insurgents in Milan could hold back Radetzky, the King of Sardinia's strategy of dividing and attacking together could encircle the main force of the Austrian Empire in northern Italy in one fell swoop, and there would be no more war south of the Alps with the cooperation of the inside and the outside.

On the other hand, Tyrol.

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

This news was not unexpected, because the abnormal behavior of Queen Anna's lover Baron Slote had given Franz enough warning.

Baron Slote had been collecting relevant information about the Austrian army since the war began, but because the General Staff was located in Tyrol, he could only get the news through the Ministry of War.

It was not a very smart approach to directly reject him, so Franz deliberately let someone be bribed by Baron Slote, but this information was true and false, and even false and true.

So most of the news that Carlo Alberto knew was what Franz wanted him to know. As for Baron Slote, Franz would not let him go easily, after all, there were two assassination revenges that had not been avenged.

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

Franz's orders sounded a little strange to other people in the General Staff.

"Evacuate the overseas Chinese!"

There are more than 500,000 civilians of other nationalities in northern Italy, most of whom come here to make a living and do business.

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

Farmers even come to the city to sell things as usual, and some strong people hope to get some jobs such as digging trenches.

The vast majority of people are indifferent to the so-called holy war, and those immigrants from southern Italy sneer at the devil Pius IX and his kings.

Now that there is no way to guarantee that an inch of land will be lost, protecting civilians has become the top priority.

Franz plans to relocate war refugees to the Four Corners Fortress, the coastal urban belt of Venice, the area north of the Alps, and even the Great Hungarian Plain.

He wants to take this opportunity to solve the problem of excessive concentration of Italians in the country.

In terms of density alone, the Italians in northern Italy are much more densely populated than the Germans in Bohemia and Vienna.

If it weren't for the war, it would be a pipe dream to migrate so many people.

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

But those who are regarded as foreigners by Italians must migrate, because nationalism actually amplifies the hatred between nations infinitely.

For safety reasons, these people will be willing to follow the Austrian army into the designated safe area. If something bad happens later, Austrian officials will have sufficient reasons to drive the latecomers to other areas.

However, Franz's behavior seemed too weird in the eyes of people at that time. After all, no one thought that a few people died in the war.

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 kill and blew.

Although the general staff had slight differences on the two issues of evacuating overseas Chinese and protecting civilians, everyone reached a consensus on the two issues of consolidating the Po River defense line and stabilizing the situation in Venice.

No matter how weak the coalition forces in northern Italy were, they still numbered more than 400,000 people. The strength of the few regiments in the outpost fortress was not enough in any way.

This matter naturally fell on Albrecht. Although defensive warfare was not his specialty, this battle would inevitably be very fierce and protracted, and only the young and strong Archduke Albrecht could handle it.

The Austrian Empire's military deployment at this time:

Italy 150,000, Salzburg 50,000, Vienna 100,000, Galicia 100,000, Bohemia 50,000, Belgrade 50,000 (Austria had no right to mobilize the Hungarian local defense forces), and some small troops stationed in various fortresses.

In fact, Austria could not mobilize the troops of the Crown of St. Stephen, but the central government of the empire had the power to appoint and dismiss personnel, so there was still some room for operation, such as letting some pro-Austrian factions such as Jelachich and Anton von Pinkrey come to power.

At this time, the only troops that Albrecht could dispatch were those drawn from various military regions, of which the main force was naturally the border guards from Galicia, but the number of people drawn to guard against Prussia and Russia was still limited.

So he had to fight the upcoming 450,000 Papal Army with less than 50,000 troops.

And Franz would also start to act. He had to quell the rebellion before Venice fell, and then clean up the mess and fully support Albrecht's Po River defense line.

The reason for this situation was entirely due to General Alois Palffy, who was known as the best graduate of the Theresa Military Academy in history.

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 of the Austrian Empire, responsible for teaching a series of prominent subjects such as campaign theory, war science, and artillery science.

He had been rewarded by monarchs of various countries for many visits abroad. His medals and certificates could fill the entire room, and his honorary titles could fill two pages.

However, such a theoretically invincible man ruined the 50,000 garrison troops in the Venetia region in three days, forcing Franz to go out in person.