Success followed success, and this to the popular imagination is the
all-and-all of war. Milan was freed, though the battle of Magenta was
not unlike a drawn one; Lombardy was won, though the fight for the
heights of Solferino could hardly have resulted as it did if the
Austrians had not blundered into keeping a large part of their forces
inactive. Would the same fortune be with the allies to the end?
Cavour does not appear to have asked the question. He watched the war
with no misgivings. It was to him a supreme satisfaction that the
Sardinian army, which he had worked so hard to prepare, did Italy
credit. He took a personal pride in the romantic exploits of the
volunteers, though for political reasons he carefully concealed that
he had been the first to think of placing them in the field. He made
an indefatigable minister of war (having taken the office when La
Marmora went to the front). The work was heavy; the problem of finding
even bread enough for the allied armies was not a simple one. On one
occasion the French Commissariat asked for a hundred thousand rations
to make sure of receiving fifty thousand; the officer in charge was
surprised to see one hundred and twenty thousand punctually arrive
on the day named.
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