pontida and the fabrication of history and Radetsky

The new "historians"  of italy. this is the lega lombarda political party in Italy . What is the last refuge of the fascist and the scoundrel ? Austrian Artillery by waterloo in 54mm

Well its to rewrite history and invent things that never were. It is par for the course that those who never did understand what history is feel free to invent any kind of fabrication to present their doctrine or party line. The Nazi did it with the idea of race and now the Lega Lombards are doing it with race as well. Garibaldi is anathema to them because he tried to unite Italy. Cavour is just a thief who never did much anyway (they forget that they are allied to one of the biggest thieves in history). This political party make up the present Italian government, incredibly! But history speaks to us in different ways and all must be explored to arrive at an answer. Apart from the liars of the Lega Lombard league who refuse to sing the Italian anthem and actively ignore the truth surrounding those patriots who fought the Austrians in the war of Independence also hurl abuse on anything that speaks the word Italy. Their aim is to create a seperate dominion in the North which will be something outside of what the Italian patriots fought for.They are supporting anyone who plays AGAINST Italy in the World Cup and hero of the hour Italian world cup player Daniele De Rossi said "As regards the anti Italian comments on Italy on the Radio Padana well we have millions of fans who want us to win and theres a small element who want us to lose in our country, its not a problem, do you what you feel, this means that if PANDANIA ever get to a world cup we'll support the other team ."De Rossi True Patriot

I for one will make a point of supporting any team even the French if they play against Pandania

most of these people like the person above refute the idea of Italy and will tell you their roots are not Italian.In the schools they are introducing their doctrines regarding their idea of Italy. This is after sacking most of their teachers especially their English teachers .

 Their voice in the school, that of the teachers sent for religous teaching seem on the verge of getting a pay rise but only for them because as the Lega Lombards said "We want to drive out of the schools the hedgemony of the left".

 The real reason is truth, the bitter pill of truth is hard to accept. Padania is a make believe fascist kingdom from the minds of a demented "Hans Christian Anderson "type on drugs.Another loony tunes called Benito mussolini wanted to rewrite history and got his arse kicked by a few honest citizen soldiers of the commonwealth muster.

But I believe that logic will finally triumph over absurdity and this is one of the reasons for this blog.Even if I'm read by only a few people.

 Notwithstanding the facts there are also revisionists in the South who are setting up great P.R for the Bourbons but this blog declares only this that all avenues are explored and will answer their accusations and fantasies .RADETSKY

In 1857, the Emperor of Austria relieved Field-Marshal Radetsky, then in his ninety-third year, of the burden of office. Radetzky von Radetz, FM Count Josef (1766-1858), perhaps the greatest soldier ever produced by Austria or anyone

He was considered too old to lead anymore and was shown the door. My own thinking on this was that even at 94 he could have gone on but who knows the true story.

He was given the right of living in any of the royal palaces, even in the Emperor's own residence at Vienna, but he preferred to spend the one remaining year of his life in Italy.

At the same time, the Archduke Maximilian was appointed Viceroy of Lombardy and Venetia. A more naturally amiable and cultivated Prince never had the evil fate forced upon him of attempting impossible tasks. Just married to the lovely Princess Charlotte of Belgium, he came to Italy radiant with happiness, and wishing to make everyone as happy as he was himself.

Not even the chilling welcome he received damped his enthusiasm, for he thought the aversion of the population depended on undoubted wrongs, which it was his full intention to redress.

Radetsky

He was to learn two things; firstly, that the day of reconciliation was past: there were too many ghosts between the Lombards and Venetians, and the House of Hapsburg. Secondly, that an unseen hand beyond the Brenner would diligently thwart each one of his benevolent designs.

Radetsky Teddy bear that plays the famous waltz

The system was, and was to remain, unchanged. It was not carried out quite as it was carried out in the first years after 1849.

The exiles were allowed to return and the sequestrations were revoked. It should be said, because it shows the one white spot in Austrian despotism, its civil administration, that on resuming their rights of ownership the proprietors found that their estates had not been badly managed.



But the depressing and deadening influence of an anti-national rule continued unabated.



Lombardy and Venetia were governed not from Milan, but from Vienna. Very small were the crumbs which the Viceroy obtained, though he went on a journey to Austria expressly to plead for concessions.

Queretaro mexico

It is sad to think what an enlightened heir to the great Austrian empire was lost, when Napoleon III. and his own family sent Maximilian of Hapsburg to Queretaro.
Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, standing before a firing squad, handed each of his executioners a gold coin and entreated them to shoot true… and preferably not in the head. The marksmen obliged, and on July 19, 1867, bullets ended Maximilian’s three-year career as Napoleon’s New World puppet
Before his overthrow, the emperor had lived lavishly in his colonial empire. An Austrian archduke by birth, he had expensive tastes. So did his wife, Carlotta, and the two were thought to possess great wealth. But Maximilian’s fortune disappeared with his life.Months before Maximilian’s execution he sent what was left of his personal fortune in Spanish, Austrian and American gold coin, gold and silver plate, and jewelry back to Austria According to one account, the Emperor, realizing his overthrow was imminent, had his personal fortune crammed into forty-five wooden barrels. The barrels were loaded onto a caravan of wagons guarded by a few trusted Austrian soldiers. The drivers were instructed to head for the Texas port of Galveston where the treasure would be loaded aboard a ship bound for Europe. Carlotta was already in Austria, and Maximilian would soon follow.But In wild Texas, troubles began along the trail when Maximilian’s men ran afoul of six former Confederate soldiers. The six had been hired to augment the guard, but when they learned the true nature of the cargo, the southerners killed the Austrians and stole the treasure.But In wild Texas, troubles began along the trail when Maximilian’s men ran afoul of six former Confederate soldiers. The six had been hired to augment the guard, but when they learned the true nature of the cargo, the southerners killed the Austrians and stole the treasure.The six bandits were not prepared to transport such a tell-tale store of valuables through hostile indian territory, so they agreed to take only enough coin to satisfy their immediate needs and then, after taking careful note of the landscape of rock and sand, they buried the treasure near the trail in the vicinity of Castle Gap near Horsehead Crossing.

While Cavour had come to the conclusion that the aid which he believed  essential for the expulsion of the Austrians could only come from the French Emperor, this sovereign was regarded by a not inconsiderable party of Italians as the greatest, if not the sole, obstacle to their liberation.
 All those, in particular, who came in contact with the French exiles, were impressed by them with the notion that France, the real France, was only waiting for the disappearance of the Man of December to throw herself into their arms.
Among the Italians who held these opinions, there were a few with whom it became a fixed idea that the greatest service they could render their country was the removal of Napoleon from the political scene.
They conceived and nourished the thought independently of one another; they belonged to no league, but for that reason they were the more dangerous; somewhere or other there was always someone planning to put an end to the Emperor's life.
It is not worth while to pause to discuss the ethics of political assassination; civilisation has decided against it, and history proves its usual failure to promote the desired object.
What benefit did the Confederate cause derive from the assassination of the good President Lincoln, or the cause of Russian liberty from that of Alexander II.?
 It is certain, however, that never were men more convinced that they were executing a wild kind of justice than were the men who plotted against Napoleon III.
 They looked upon him as one of themselves who had turned traitor. There is a great probability that, in his early days when he was playing at conspiracy in Italy, he was actually enrolled as a Carbonaro. At all events, he had conspired for Italian freedom, and afterwards, to serve his own selfish interests, he extinguished it in Rome. The temporal power of the Pope was kept alive through him.

Radetsky's war carraige above

.Radetzky was born into a noble family at Třebnice (Trebnitz) near Sedlčany in Bohemia (modern-day Czech Republic). Orphaned at an early age, he was educated by his grandfather, and after the count's death, at the Theresa Academy at Vienna. The academy was dissolved during his first year's residence in 1785, and Radetzky became a cadet in the Austrian Army

The following year he became an officer, and in 1787 was promoted to first lieutenant in a cuirassier regiment. He served as a galloper on Count von Lacy's staff in the Turkish War, and in the Austrian Netherlands from 1792 to 1795.

In 1795 Radetzky fought on the Rhine. Next year he served with Johann Beaulieu against Napoleon in Italy, but disliked the indecisive "cordon" system of warfare which Count von Lacy had instituted and other Austrian generals imitated. His personal courage was conspicuous. At the Battle of Fleurus (1794) he led a party of cavalry through the French lines to discover the fate of Charleroi, and at Valeggio sul Mincio in 1796, with a few hussars, he rescued Beaulieu from the enemy.Promoted to major, he took part in Dagobert Wurmser's Siege of Mantua campaign, which ended in the fall of that fortress. As lieutenant-colonel and colonel he displayed bravery and skill in the battles of Trebbia and Novi (1799). At the Battle of Marengo, as colonel on the staff of Melas, he was hit by five bullets, after endeavouring on the previous evening to bring about modifications in the plan suggested by the "scientific" Franz Zach. In 1801 Radetzky was created a Knight of the Military Order of Maria TheresaIn 1805, on the march to Ulm, he received news of his promotion to major-general and his assignment to a command in Italy under the Archduke Charles of Austria. He thus took part in the successful campaign of Caldiero. Peace provided a short leisure, which he used in studying and teaching the art of war. In 1809 he led a brigade in V Corps during the Battle of Eckmuhl.[1] Promoted lieutenant field marshal, he commanded a division in IV Corps at the Battle of Wagram.[2] In 1810 he was created a Commander of the Order of Maria Theresa and awarded the colonelcy of the 5th Radetzky Hussars. From 1809 to 1812, as chief of the general staff, he was active in reorganising the army and its tactical system, but unable to carry out the reforms he desired owing to the opposition of the Treasury, he resigned the position. In 1813 he was Schwarzenberg's chief of staff and had considerable influence on the councils of the Allied sovereigns and generals. Langenau, the quartermaster-general of the Grand Army, found him an indispensable assistant, and he had a considerable share in planning the Leipzig campaign. As a tactician he won praise in the battles of Brienne and Arcis sur Aube. He entered Paris with the allied sovereigns in March 1814, and returned with them to the Congress of Vienna, where he appears to have acted as an intermediary between Metternich and Tsar Alexander I of Russia, when the two were not on speaking terms.During the succeeding years of peace he disappeared from public view. He resumed his functions as chief of staff, but his ardent ideas for reforming the army came to nothing in the face of the general war-weariness and desire to "let well alone." His zeal added to the number of his enemies, and in 1829, after he had been for twenty years a lieutenant field marshal, it was proposed to place him on the retired list. The emperor, unwilling to go so far as this, promoted him general of cavalry and shelved him by making him governor of a fortress. But very soon afterwards the Restoration settlement of Europe was shaken by fresh upheavals, and Radetzky was brought into the field of war again. He took part under Frimont in the campaign against the Papal States insurgents, and succeeded that general in the chief command of the Austrian army in Italy in 1834.In 1836 he became a field marshal. He was now seventy, but still displayed the activity of youth in training and disciplining the army he commanded. But here too he was in advance of his time, and the government not only disregarded his suggestions and warnings but also refused the money that would have enabled the finest army it possessed to take the field at a moment's notice.

Thus the events of 1848 in Italy, which gave the old field marshal his place in history among the great commanders, found him, in the beginning, not indeed unprepared but seriously handicapped in the struggle with Charles Albert's army and the insurgents in Milan and elsewhere. By falling back to the Quadrilateral and there, checking one opponent after another, he was able to spin out time until reinforcements arrived, and thenceforward up to the final triumph at the Battle of Novara on March 23, 1849, he and his army carried all before them. He also commanded the Austrian troops who reconquered Venice after the year-long siege of the rebellious city in May 1848-August 1849.

 He became a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1848.His well-disciplined sense of duty to the superior officer had become more intense in the long years of peace, and after keeping his army loyal in the midst of the confusion of 1848, he made no attempt to play the part of Wallenstein or even to assume Wellington's role of family adviser to the nation. While as a patriot he dreamed a little of a united Germany, he remained to the end simply the commander of one of the emperor's armies.

French infantry .By me at Fixed Bayonet. Unpainted 5.95

After his triumph in Italy, he was made Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia - the first and last not of royal Habsburg blood. In spite of his success against Italian patriots, he is not remembered unkindly even in Italy: he was regarded as a fair ruler (for an enemy) and a gentleman who paid his debts.
There is also a memorable anecdote of his meeting the man responsible for one of the most significant checks in the 1848 campaign, General Cesare Launier, shaking his hand, and congratulating him on getting "a bunch of kids" (much of Launier's command was made up of volunteer university students) to fight so hard that Radetzky and his men seriously thought they were facing crack professional Sardinian troops.
 Politically, he worked to reconcile especially the lower classes to the Habsburg monarchy; he could see the Industrial Revolution coming and hoped to use the conflict of classes to isolate the patriotic party, made up mostly of the upper and middle classes, from the rising working class. He was ruthless in punishing rebellious soldiers - Hungarian troopers who had passed to the rebels' side in 1848 were not even shot, but hanged - and violent rebels, but very mild with unarmed opponents: patriot leaders of European renown, such as Giuseppe Verdi, Alessandro Manzoni and Antonio Rosmini, were allowed to live in peace in the kingdom, while Italy's other reactionary governments drove all their liberals into exile.
Already in 1849, at the end of the siege of Venice, he had allowed the local patriot leaders to quietly slip away, and avoided public martyrdoms.
 This was probably the best policy that Austria could possibly adopt in the circumstances, but it was doomed anyway; the events of 1848-49 had dug too deep a chasm between the Italians and the Austrian government, and - as events in 1859 showed - it was only the power of Austrian arms that kept Austria and her client states in Italy. It was part of Radetzky's good fortune that he died one year before his whole work dissolved like ice in an erupting volcano.
He died in harness, though in poor health. Josef Wenzel Graf Radetzky of Radetz died on January 5, 1858 after an accident in Milan.
On January 19, 1858, he was buried in Heldenberg in Lower Austria. The Emperor wished that he be buried in the Capuchin crypt (the Imperial Crypt in Vienna). Radetzky bequeathed his earthly remains, and the right to bury him, to Joseph Gottfried Pargfrieder, whom decades earlier had settled his debts.

In Heldenberg is an open-air pantheon with warrior statues, the Gedenkstätte Heldenberg (literally translated as the Hero Mountain Memorial.) Radetzky lies buried under a monumental obelisk. (above the funderal)












In 1798 he married Countess Francisca von Strassoldo Grafenberg, from Tržič. They would have five sons and three daughters.


 He came to prominence in the Habsburg army during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and in the aftermath of the failed Wagram campaign of 1809, he became COS to Count Karl Schwarzenberg when he replaced Archduke Charles as head of the army.

 In this capacity Radetzky directed the operations of the Austrian army at the battle of Leipzig in 1813 and throughout the subsequent campaign in Germany and western France the following year.

 Entrusted with the command of the Habsburg Italian army, he suppressed nationalist revolts on several occasions through the 1820s and 1830s.

 Made a field marshal in 1836, he maintained his army in the highest state of readiness, and conducted the first large-scale peacetime manoeuvres in the the history of the Habsburg army to keep the skills of officers and men honed.

This preparation bore fruit during the uprisings of 1848, when empire-wide insurrection threatened to topple the dynasty.

 Radetzky not only put down the Italian insurrection quickly, he also twice defeated the army of Sardinia-Piedmont, which had invaded Habsburg territory in the hope of unifying Italy under its banner.

 Radetzky retired from active duty in 1857 at the age of 91, forced out by imperial favourite Count Karl von Grünne, who replaced Radetzky with the much less capable Count Franz von Gyulai, loser of the Italian campaign of 1859.If Radetsky had been at Magenta then the tables may well have been turned on the French. Radetsky was a man with a capital M as the clichè goes.the Spring of 1848, revolution threatened to sweep away the old order throughout Europe. With iron will, the great personal affection of his men, and some luck, Field Marshall Radetzky maintained his army, and finally defeated his opponents. This book narrates the tale of how this old general quite possibly saved an empire.

Villa Reale Milan where Radetsky lived

 Commemorating his great victories in 1848-9, Austrian composer Johann Strauss ‘the Elder’ wrote the ‘Radetzky March’, probably the single piece of music most identified with old, imperial Austria and its army, and which is played each year as the finale to the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert.in the history of the Austrian army he is the frank and kindly "Vater Radetzky" whom the soldiers idolized. In the year following his death, another and greater Italian war broke out, and his beloved army disintegrated and was defeated in every encounter

Austrian Hussar in mexico. It is strange that only a few years after Solferiono Austrians and French fought side by side more or less in Mexico. This uniform hasnt changed much from the war in italy.