ntre of the enemy, and felt convinced that he had guessed the latter's
intention; he therefore caused his army to pursue its march southward.

By this movement Vercelli was abandoned by the Austrians and it was
immediately reoccupied by the Sardinians.

Napoleon now prepared a bold flank movement, by leaving the Po for the
Ticino, and to mask this manoeuvre ordered the Sardinians to make an
advance. Thus, while Victor Emmanuel, at the head of his men, flung
himself from Vercelli on Palestro--meriting, by the skill of his
military tactics, the acclamations of a regiment of zouaves whom he
headed as corporal--the French, taking ad vantage of the Alessandria,
Casale, and Novara Railway, made for the bridge of Buffalora over the
Ticino. Only then did Gyulai perceive this clever stratagem which threw
Lombardy open to the allies, and he was consequently obliged to cross
the Ticino to block the enemy's way to Milan.

On June 4th, at Magenta, nearly the whole of the Austrian army engaged
the French forces; the battle, which was most desperate, lasted all day,
and was remarkable for the prodigies of valor performed. The Austrians,
driven back into Magenta itself, maintained, even in that village, such
a stout resistance that they had to be dislodged by house-to-house
fighting.

On June 8th Victor Emmanuel and Napoleon III made their triumphal entry
into Milan--now freed from the Austrian yoke. On the same day a French
corps repulsed the Austrians at Melegnano, while Garibaldi entered
Bergamo from the other side. Garibaldi, who had been the last to leave
Lombardy in 1848, was now the first to set foot in its territory in
1859. Since May 23d he had led his own Cacciatori to the Lombard shores
of Lake Maggiore, had defeated the Austrians at Varese, entered Como,
routed the enemy afresh at San Fermo, and was now proceeding to Bergamo
and Brescia, with the intention of reaching the Trentine Alps, to cut
off the enemy's retreat.

After the Battle of Magenta, Gyulai had been dismissed from the command,
and his post was assumed by the Emperor Francis Joseph himself, assisted
by the aged Marshal Hess. On the night of June 23d the retreating
Austrians crossed the Mincio, but a few hours after retraced their steps
and took up their position on the hills to the south of the Lake of
Garda. On the morning of the 24th the Franco-Sardinian army began their
march at dawn, and shortly afterward, to their great amazement,
encountered the Aust