troops, whatever might be the sacrifice this important operation
requires. Cialdini is a man who knows how to keep his word, and, for
this reason, I have no doubt he will do what he has already made up his
mind to accomplish. I am therefore confident that before two or three
days have elapsed, these 110,000 Italian troops, or a great part of them,
will have trod, for the Italians, the sacred land of Venetia.

Once the river Po crossed by Cialdini's corps d'armee, he will boldly
enter the Polesine and make himself master of the road which leads by
Rovigo towards Este and Padua. A glance at the map will show your
readers how, at about twenty or thirty miles from the first-mentioned
town, a chain of hills, called the Colli Euganei, stretches itself from
the last spur of the Julian Alps, in the vicinity of Vicenza, gently
sloping down towards the sea. As this line affords good positions for
contesting the advance of an army crossing the Po at Lago Scuro, or at
any other point not far from it, it is to be supposed that the Austrians
will make a stand there, and I should not be surprised at all that
Cialdini's first battle, if accepted by the enemy, should take place
within that comparatively narrow ground which is within Montagnana, Este,
Terradura, Abano, and Padua. It is impossible to suppose that Cialdini's
corps d'armee, being so large, is destined to cross the Po only at one
point of the river below its course: it is extremely likely that part of
it should cross it at some point above, between Revere and Stellata,
where the river is in two or three instances only 450 metres wide. Were
the Italian general to be successful--protected as he will be by the
tremendous fire of the powerful artillery he disposes of--in these
twofold operations, the Austrians defending the line of the Colli Euganei
could be easily outflanked by the Italian troops, who would have crossed
the river below Lago Scuro. Of course these are mere suppositions, for
nobody, as you may imagine, except the king, Cialdini himself, Lamarmora,