Chapter 55: Chapter 55 – Harsh Days in Milan

For political reasons, King Charles Albert had announced that General Franzini would receive the rank of Field Marshal. During this era, defeating Austria was a truly immense achievement for an Italian. If General, or rather, Marshal Franzini continued his victorious streak, it was certain that all the other Italian states would also award him the rank of Field Marshal.

However, not all was well in paradise. Due to his recent victory, Marshal Franzini had become a hero of the Italians, but his newfound fame came with increased scrutiny which no longer allowed him to act as he pleased. He now had to act humble and chivalrous publicly if he wished to maintain his fame. After all, fame was juxtaposed against infamy.  

As a result, after the hungry people of Milan rushed to find him, he had to provide them food since he had “promised them.” To maintain his reputation and the support of the people, he had to begrudgingly fulfill this promise which he had never made.

Due to the vastness of Lombardy, Marshal Franzini felt that it was impossible for the Austrian army to collect all the food in the short amount of time they had. Even though the grain stores of the grain merchants and the nobles in Milan had been ransacked, there must be something left in their manors located outside Milan.

Therefore, he coerced the local nobles in Milan into donating most of their grain from their manors located outside Milan. At the same time, he repeatedly sent requests back to Turin to speed up the transportation of grain from Piedmont-Sardinia.

Unfortunately for him, due to Milan being the industrial hub of the Italian Peninsula, the light industry here was quite developed, so it was standard practice among the nobles and farmers to sell most of their harvest to the grain processing factories which would fetch a higher price than unprocessed grain. As a result, no one had much grain on their hands.

After frantically looking everywhere, what Marshal Franzini had managed to scrounge up amounted to only a drop in the bucket.

“Lord Marshal, the food sent by Turin has not arrived yet. The food we managed to collect from the whole region is not nearly enough. Even after adding together all the food we collected and our military supply, it will last only three days,” Brigadier-General Farelli anxiously reported.