A great event now happened across the Alps; one of the decisive battles of the world was lost and won on the 5th of July at Sadowa near Königgrätz in Bohemia. The fate of Europe was shaped on that day for decades, if not for centuries. Of the immediate results, the first was the scattering to the wind of all calculations based upon a long continuance of the war, the issue of which, as far as Prussia was concerned, could not be regarded as doubtful. In respect to Italy, Austria's first thought was to prevent her from taking a revenge for Custoza. She attempted to compass this by ceding Venetia to Napoleon two days after Sadowa. It was making a virtue of necessity, as she was bound in any case to cede it at the conclusion of the war; but as the secret of the treaty had been well kept, the step caused great surprise, and in Italy, where the public mind had leapt from profound discouragement to buoyant hope, the impression was one of embarrassment and mortification. Italy was distinctly precluded by her engagement with Prussia from accepting Napoleon's invitation to conclude a separate peace. Meanwhile, Austria gained by the move, as it set her at liberty to recall the larger part of her troops from Venetia for the defence of Vienna. Her honour did not require her to contest the ground in a province which she had already given away. When Cialdini, at the head of the reorganised Italian army of which he now held the chief command, advanced across the Po to Padua, he found the path practically open. It was still possible for Italy to accomplish two things which would have in a great measure retrieved her _prestige_. The first was to occupy the Trentino; the second was to destroy the Austrian fleet. With the means at her disposal she ought to have been able to do both.