I met Edward Mildmay the other day, who gave me some account of his own personal experiences during the last Italian campaign, when he was attached to the Austrian Army. He confirmed all previous accounts of the excellence of that army and the incompetency of its chiefs; that nothing could have saved the French Army at Magenta if the Austrians had been tolerably commanded; that Giulai, who had never seen any service, had been allowed to retain the command by the influence of General Grünne, whose friend he is, and that the indignation and disgust of the army at having been thus sacrificed to Court favour and partiality had been extreme. He told me that at Solferino the Austrian loss was (within a fraction of) 20,000, the French 19,000, and the Sardinians 9,000 men; Benedek is the ablest of the Austrian generals, and if he had had the command probably affairs would have taken a very different turn. Mildmay has no doubt that peace was much more necessary to the French than to the Austrians, and he still believes that if the war had continued the tide of victory would have been rolled back, as the latter had 90,000 fresh troops coming into line. It is probably better as it is than if the Austrians had recovered all their losses; the Emperor Napoleon seems likely to be satisfied with his military exploits, and to be really intending to revert to his peaceful policy. He is certainly doing all he can to persuade the world that such is his intention, and there seems a disposition here to take him at his word. Footnote 1: [I think it was at this time that Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell proposed to the Cabinet that England should enter into a Treaty of Alliance with France and Sardinia, but the proposal was negatived by their colleagues. The feelings of these Ministers, however, speedily changed when the cession of Savoy and Nice, and the manner in which it was brought about, were known, and their language became so hostile that it gave great offence to the Emperor Napoleon. See Lord Malmesbury, 'Autobiography,' vol. ii. p. 225.]