The dawn of Italian independence Author:William Roscoe Thayer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VII. FROM GOITO TO PASTRENGO. When in youth we first read of great wars, our attention is so absorbed by the chronicles of exciting and valiant dee... more »ds that we fall readily into the blunder of supposing that in war-time every one was a patriot, and that the great issues were wholly decided in the camp or on the field. We overlook the fact that the army of fighters constituted but a small minority of the population, and that those who stayed at home were busy at their accustomed labors; that the gay world had its theatres and balls just as though no thousands were dying in battle and in hospitals, and as though another army of civilians were not amassing provisions, clothes, ammunition, and money for the sustenance and success of the campaign. Historians encourage us in this half view, doubtless because it is easier, if not more agreeable to them, to describe martial exploits than to interrupt their narrative with unheroic details. In cases where a war was practically the expression of a single ruler's will,— of an Alexander, a Charlemain, a William the Conqueror, — it is right and sufficient to keep his gleaming helmet always in sight; but in modern times the political situation often determines the military, and cannot be ignored. Yet to blend the two, to show how a victory in the field reacted on the policy of the government and on the enthusiasm of the citizens, or how the lukewarmness or dissensions or incapacity of the civilians chilled the ardor of the soldiers, — this is no easy task. Yet, although we have now got far enough away from the Revolution of 1848 to see thatthe military operations then were of secondary importance compared with the political causes which conditioned them, nevertheless, obedient to the human tendency to idealize the Past, — to worship ...« less