d put in the field, Austria and
Sardinia were evenly balanced, each having about 80,000 disposable
men. The request for a French marshal having been refused, the chief
command was given to Chrzanowski, a Pole, who did not know Italian,
had not studied the theatre of the war, and was so little favoured by
nature that, to the impressionable Italians, his appearance seemed
ludicrous. This deplorable appointment was made to satisfy the outcry
against Piedmontese generalship; as if it was not enough, the other
Polish general, Ramorino, accused of treachery by the revolutionists
in 1832, but now praised to the skies by the democratic party, was
placed in command of the fifth or Lombard division.

Though Radetsky openly gave the word 'To Turin!' Chrzanowski seems to
have failed to realise that the Austrians intended to invade Piedmont.
He ordered Ramorino, however, with his 8000 Lombards, to occupy the
fork formed by the Po and the Ticino, so as to defend the bridge at
Pavia, if, by chance, any fraction of the enemy tried to cross it.
What Ramorino did was to place his division on the right bank of the
Po, and to destroy the bridge of boats at Mezzana Corte _between_
himself and the enemy. The Austrians crossed the Ticino in the night
of the 20th of April, not with a fraction, but with a complete army.
Ramorino was deprived of his command, and was afterwards tried by
court-martial and shot. Whether his treason was intentional or
involuntary, it is certain that, had he stemmed the Austrian advance
even for half a day, the future disasters, if not averted, would not
have come so rapidly, because the Piedmontese would have been
forewarned. On the evening of the 21st, General D'Aspre, with 15,000
men, took a portion of the Sardinian army unawares near Mortara, and,
owing to the scattered distribution of the Piedmontese, who would have
outnumbered him had they been concentrated, he succeeded in forcing his
way into Mortara by nightfall. The moral effect of this first reverse
was bad, but Chrzanowski rashly decided staking the whole fate of the
campaign in a field-day, for which purpose he gathered what troops he
could collect at La Biccocca, a hill capped with a village about a
mile and a half from Novara. Not more than 50,000 men were collected;
some had already deserted, and 20,000 were doing nothing on the other
side of the Po.

Towards eleven o'clock D'Aspre arrived, and lost no time in beginning
the attack. He sent post-hast