Alfonso La Marmora’s Italy signed a treaty of alliance with Otto von Bismarck’s Prussia, as an anti-Austrian measure and with the tacit consent of France and Russia. In reality, Italy, with an army of 250,000 men, had prepared too hastily for the conflict, unlike Prussia’s lengthy and scientific preparation. Italy had three supreme commanders: the King, La Marmora, and Cialdini, the latter two of whom did not see eye to eye. Eventually, Cialdini obtained a virtually independent command with the armies in Romagna, south of the Po River. La Marmora commanded the bulk of the armies east of the Quadrilateral (Peschiera-Mantua-Verona-Legnago), and finally, Garibaldi, with thousands of new volunteers, would once again bypass Lake Garda to attack the Adige Valley. On the Mincio, together with the Piedmontese, there are the Spanish, two Neapolitan ex-Bourbons (Pianell and Nunziante) and two ex-Garibaldians (Bixio and Sirtori).
