On Sunday they retire, but early yesterday they
cross the Mincio, at Goito and Monzambano, and begin to throw two bridges
over the same river, between the last-named place and the mills of Volta.
At the same time they erect batteries at Goito, Torrione, and Valeggio,
pushing their reconnoitring parties of hussars as far as Medole,
Castiglione delle Stiviere, and Montechiara, this last-named place being
only at a distance of twenty miles from Brescia. Before this news
reached me here this morning I was rather inclined to believe that they
were playing at hide-and-seek, in the hope that the leaders of the
Italian army should be tempted by the game and repeat, for the second
time, the too hasty attack on the quadrilateral. This news, which I have
from a reliable source, has, however, changed my former opinion, and I
begin to believe that the Austrian Archduke has really made up his mind
to come out from the strongholds of the quadrilateral, and intends
actually to begin war on the very battlefields where his imperial cousin
was beaten on the 24th June 1859. It may be that the partial disasters
sustained by Benedek in Germany have determined the Austrian Government
to order a more active system of war against Italy, or, as is generally
believed here, that the organisation of the commissariat was not perfect
enough with the army Archduke Albert commands to afford a more active and
offensive action.
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