The history of the Sardinian campaign has been hitherto a history of skirmishes. The Piedmontese troops have advanced, and Radetski has retired. The Austrian position is memorable for its strength, and has been successively adopted by every defender of the Austro-Italian provinces. Peschiera, Verona, and Mantua form the three angles of an irregular triangle, of which the line of the Mincio forms the base. Charles Albert, by crossing the Mincio at Goito, is now _within_ the triangle. The three fortresses are strong, and he has already made some attempts on Peschiera, which commands the head of the Lake of Garda. Those attempts have failed, and Verona is now his object; and there too he appears to have already undergone some failures. The true wonder is, that he has been suffered to remain a moment making these experiments, and that Austria, with 300,000 men under arms, should allow an Italian army, of 50,000 men at the most, to shut up her general, and lord it over half of her Italian territory. All this is an enigma. It is equally an enigma, that the Austrian commander-in-chief should have allowed himself to be driven out of the capital of Lombardy by the rabble of the streets, and have marched out with a garrison of 15,000 men, before a mob of half their number. He ought to have fought in Milan to his last battalion. If he had been embarrassed by orders from home, he ought to have resigned at once. A heavy blow at the insurrection in Milan would have extinguished Italian rebellion. He has now a position in which he might fight with perfect security for his flanks and rear; with the strongest fortress in Italy, Mantua, for his place of refuge, if defeated; and, if successful, with the certainty of ruin to his adversary;--yet he stands still. It was by a brilliant movement in this position that the Austrian Kray gave the French that tremendous defeat which ultimately drove them over the Alps. The surrounding country is of the most intricate kind--a perpetual intersection of large rivers, guarded at every passage by _têtes de pont_, and all the means known to military science. A war of this order may be carried on for years; and, unless the Italian population shall rise _en masse_, it must be a mere waste of blood and time.