The Greville Memoirs, Part 3 (of 3), Volume 2 (of 2): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1852 to 1860Greville, Charles
History
The Greville Memoirs, Part 3 (of 3), Volume 2 (of 2): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1852 to 1860
Greville, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901
Footnote 1: [The conclusion of the peace after the battle of Solferino
was creditable to the Emperor Napoleon, but was no indication of
a great character. His motives were that he had not the means of
undertaking a siege of the great fortresses of the Quadrilateral,
and that if the war had been prolonged it was not improbable that
the forces of the Germanic Confederation, including Prussia, would
have taken the field against France. He therefore acted wisely in
terminating the war, and if the Austrians had withdrawn within the
Quadrilateral and refused to treat, the Emperor Napoleon might have
been placed in great difficulties. As it was, he broke his engagement
to Cavour to liberate Italy from the Alps to the sea, and to Kossuth to
support a Hungarian insurrection. Italy eventually owed the liberation
of Venice, not to France, but to Prussia, as the reward for her
combined action with that Power in the war of 1866.
Cf. the account of the manner in which the peace was concluded in Lord
Malmesbury's 'Autobiography,' vol. ii p. 200.]
Footnote 2: [M. de Cavour bitterly resented the prompt conclusion of
peace, and for a time quitted the Ministry of which he was the head.]
Footnote 3: [It was proposed by the Sovereigns to place the Pope at the
head of an Italian Confederation--a wild scheme, which entirely failed.]
Footnote 4: [This was so. The details of Kossuth's negotiations with
the Emperor have been published by Kossuth himself in his memoirs.]
_July 15th._--The news of the peace took everybody so much by surprise,
that people had no time to arrange their thoughts upon it; but in the
midst of the general satisfaction that the war is over, it is already
apparent that there is an explosion of disappointment and resentment to
come. All the Italian sympathisers here are in despair, Palmerston is
much dissatisfied, and the anti-Austrian Press is indignant. The King
of Sardinia has not openly testified any ill-humour, and has published
an Address to his new Lombard subjects in a joyful style, but it is
impossible he should not deeply feel and resent the contemptuous way in
which he has been treated by his Imperial ally, and the resignation of
Cavour is a clear manifestation of _his_ feelings on the subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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