Chapter 65: Chapter 65 – Charles Albert’s Troubles

Late at night, at a grocery shop inside a small alley in Turin, three men were gathered and spoke in a hushed tone.

The older man asked, "Aldo, how did it go?"

The middle-aged code-named Aldo replied with a smile, "The plan went very smoothly. The people are very patriotic and have begun to appeal to the government. Even without our encouragement, they would've likely rushed to protest."

"Did anyone notice you? You can't get careless now. The closer we get to our goal, the more carefully you should act," warned the older man.

Aldo replied, "Relax, Carmelo! My current identity is that of a patriotic small businessman from Venice. My current behavior is in line with my identity.

Even from a non-patriotic viewpoint, if Sardinia occupies Venice, my business will expand. Therefore, it's only natural that I would be hostile to Austria."

For their own benefit, there were numerous capitalists who advocated for an attack on Venice. Aldo was just a slightly more active advocate, which was not enough to arouse anyone's suspicions.

The old man code-named Carmelo said, "That's good. The most important thing for us is to carefully and steadily complete our tasks. We don't need to take risks."

Then, he looked at another man and asked, "Cecilio, how did your mission go?"

The young man code-named Cecilio shook his head and replied, "It didn't go too well. I lack fame and the large papers have no shortage of manuscripts. At present, my articles can only appear on street tabloids."

He is a young writer, so the articles he writes can only be said to be passable. Italians have a great heritage of art and history which has led to a high concentration of skilled artists and writers amongst them. Thus, Cecilio's articles are a dime a dozen.

Fortunately, the article he is about to publish suits the current atmosphere as the Sardinians have begun to look down upon Austria and blindly idolize their nation. Many such articles have appeared in recent days, however, the contents of Cecilio's article is more explicit and radical, which is perfectly aligned with the taste of the impetuous and rebellious university students.

Carmelo comforted him, "Don't worry, just take your time. The nationalistic sentiment in Sardinia is greater than we imagined. Even without our influence, the public opinion will eventually force the government to attack Venice. Our goal is simply to accelerate the attack.

We will focus our propaganda on propagating the news about the brutal rule of Austria. You can write whatever you want in the article. In essence, the article just needs to spread the word about the Austrian tyranny and atrocities.

If you can't think of something, just use the secret crimes committed by the Sardinian nobles and capitalists that we uncovered, and change the perpetrator to Austria."

Having said that, Carmelo suddenly wanted to laugh. He will likely set a record as a spy. After he spreads these lies about his motherland, it is almost certain that no one would ever suspect him of being an Austrian spy.

Even his two lackeys who grew up in Turin were unaware that he was working for Austria. Carmelo had told them that he was a British secret intelligence officer and that his mission was to instigate Sardinia to attack Venice and fulfill the British strategy of establishing a unified Italy.

Through the use of his eloquent words to appeal to their sense of patriotism, he managed to convince the two that there was nothing wrong with their actions. They were under the false misconception that they were working for the unification of Italy.

This was the command given to the Agency and many other Austrian spies by the Viennese government. In order to force Sardinia to attack Venice as soon as possible, the spies need to work hard to stir up the people's nationalistic sentiments and put pressure on their king.

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There were many other people besides him who were performing this task. Like him, most of them pretend to be British or French intelligence officers, while some have even gotten involved with the extremists and the revolutionaries.

During this era, there was no unified record system for checking identities. In addition, communication between the various towns and cities was a very troublesome task. It would be even tougher to verify the identity of people from different regions on the Italian peninsula due to the divided kingdoms.

Furthermore, nationalism has reached its peak in Sardinia. As long as one identifies as a patriot and acts politically correct, even if their false identity is discovered, the Sardinian government cannot easily arrest such a person, lest the others start a riot.

 

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As the influence of the nationalists grew in Sardinia, King Charles Albert, once again, grew worried for his throne. Faced with the pressure of public opinion, he finally had to give in. Since the outbreak of the February Revolution in France, the revolutionaries in Sardinia had begun to multiply. If he hadn't distracted them by declaring war on Austria, he would've already lost his throne.

In fact, King Charles Albert had never expected that Marshal Franzini would defeat Austria. Originally, he just planned to have his army fight a few battles before slowly retreating. The occupation of Lombardy has already more than fulfilled his goal. Moreover, it is too risky to attack Venice since the probability of victory is very low.

King Charles Albert turned to the second-most powerful man in Sardinia and asked, ", where is our allied army?"

Prime Minister Massimo d'Azeglio's face turned somber. After Sardinia swallowed up the entirety of Lombardy in one bite, can they still count on help from the other Italian nations? They had only participated in the war due to public opinion. Now that the situation had changed, they had started having other thoughts.

"The 5,000 volunteers from Tuscany are already on the way. They are expected to reach Lombardy by the end of the month. The 7,000 troops from the Papal States have reached the southern tip of the Adige river. Also, the 40,000 soldiers from Naples are expected to arrive in May."

King Charles Albert quickly said, "Urge them to hurry up, and continue to ask them to increase the number of reinforcements. In May, we must launch an attack on Venice!"

This is already the public's bottom line. In fact, he had regretted announcing the annexation of Lombardy prematurely. Otherwise, he could've used the attack on Lombardy to urge his allies to make haste. In an era when Italians demanded reunification, dividing up Lombardy would be nothing short of political suicide.

Minister of War Ferrere advised, "Your Majesty, it is not the time for a decisive battle with the Austrians, yet. We must at least wait until the escalation of the Austrian civil war and the arrival of the 40,000 soldiers from Naples!"

Austria has not yet begun the suppression of the Hungarian rebellion. If we attack Venice before that and stimulate the Viennese government, perhaps, the main Austrian army would be deployed to Italy.

King Charles Albert replied, helpless, "This may be the correct military approach, but, politically, we can no longer delay this war. There is also the financial matter. The cost of continuing to occupy Lombardy is enormous and we can't afford it for too long."

 

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