In the past year, Lord Palmerston, though he tried to localise the war, and to prevent the co-operation of the south, abounded in good advice to Austria.  He repeated till he was tired of repeating, that she would do well to retire from her Italian possessions of her own accord.  If the French did not come now, he said, they would come some day, and then her friends and allies would give her scanty support.  As for Lombardy, it was notorious that a considerable Austrian party was in favour of giving it up, including the Archduke Ranieri, who was strongly attached to Italy, which was the land of his birth.  As for Venice, Austria had against her both the principle of nationality, now the rallying cry of Germany, and the principle of ancient prescription which could be energetically invoked against her by a state to which her title went back no farther than the transfer effected by Buonaparte in the treaty of Campo Formio.  These were his arguments; but he was convinced, by this time, that arguments unsupported by big battalions might as well be bestowed on the winds as on the Cabinet of Vienna.  From the moment that Radetsky recovered Lombardy for his master, the Italian policy of the Austrian Government was entirely inspired by him, and he was determined that while he lived, what Austria had got she should keep.  It was thus that, in reply to Manin’s appeal to Lord Palmerston, he only received the cold comfort of the recommendation that Venice should come to terms with her enemy.

The Venetian army of 20,000 men was reduced by casualties and sickness to 18,000 or less.  It always did its duty.  The defence of Fort Malghera, the great fort which commanded the road to Padua and the bridge of the Venice railway, would have done credit to the most experienced troops in the world.  The garrison numbered 2500; the besiegers, under Haynau, 30,000.  Radetsky, with three archdukes, came to see the siege, but, tired with waiting, they went away before it was ended.  The bombardment began on the 4th of May; in the three days and nights ending with the 25th over 60,000 projectiles fell on the fort.  During the night of the 25th the Commandant, Ulloa, by order of Government, quietly evacuated the place, and withdrew his troops; only the next morning the Austrians found out that Malghera was abandoned, and proceeded to take possession of the heap of ruins, which was all that remained.

After the beginning of July, an incessant bombardment was directed against the city itself.  Women and children lived in the cellars; fever stalked through the place, but the war feeling was as strong as ever—­nay, stronger.  Moreover, the provisions became daily scarcer, the day came when hunger was already acutely felt, when the time might be reckoned by hours before the famished defenders must let drop their weapons, and Venice, her works of art and her population, must fall a prey to the savage vengeance of the Austrians, who would enter by force and without conditions.