turned on them, completely defeated the Sardinian King at Custozza and
the next year at Novara, and therby restored Austrian supremacy in
Northern Italy.

Meanwhile Rome, from which Pius IX had fled in horror, proclaimed itself
a republic. Mazzini, the earliest hero of Italian unity, and Garibaldi,
its greatest champion, were both members of the Government. The
Austrians marched against them; but French troops had also been
despatched to defend the Pope, and it was the French who, first reaching
Rome, stormed and captured it. The republic was overthrown by a
republic. [Footnote: See _Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic_.] Venice
was the last Italian city to hold out, and surrendered to the Austrians
only after a siege of many months had reduced it to starvation.

The Austrian revolution had also collapsed at home. In October, 1848,
Government troops stormed the city of Vienna as if it had been a foreign
capital, and defeated the students and citizens, who fought the soldiers
from street to street.

Only in Hungary were the royal armies baffled. There a regular
republican government was established under Louis Kossuth. Hungarian
armies were raised, and, defeating the Austrians in pitched battles,
drove them from the land. The Austrian Emperor in despair appealed to
Russia for aid; and the Czar having just trampled out an incipient
Polish rebellion of his own, came willingly to the aid of his brother
autocrat. Just as Austrian troops had so often done in Italy, so now a
huge Russian horde poured over Hungary, beat down all resistance, and
having reduced the land to helplessness returned it to the angry grip of
its insulted sovereign. [Footnote: See _The Revolt of Hungary_.]