Danzig, was engaging Chasteler in Tyrol and relieving the menace to the Italian army from the Trentino. Chasteler was finally crushed at Kufstein on the 13th of May. In these circumstances the Archduke had no alternative but to break off the Italian campaign and retire to Austria. If he chose any other course Napoleon would probably isolate him in Italy, while Marmont threatened his rear from Dalmatia. Venice could, now, be reduced only by siege; he would still have to fight for Verona and the left bank of the Adige against Eugène, reinforced by Macdonald. With Chasteler fully engaged in Tyrol, Baraguay d'Hilliers, commanding the French forces detailed for the protection of Verona from the north, might attack his right rear from the Trentino, issuing at Bassano from the Val Sugana. Once again the Trentino menace proved decisive in the strategy of the campaign, and the Archduke began his retreat on May 1st.

Eugène lost not a moment in following. On May 2nd he reports a successful rear-guard action at the Montebello gap, and tells the Vicereine that he hopes to overtake the enemy on the Piave. The Emperor is not too angry with 'me,' he adds by way of postcript. The blockade of Venice was raised by May 5th, and the garrison, joining the relieving forces, seriously threatened the retiring enemy on his left flank, while the troops from the Trentino menaced his right from Primolano above Bassano. Johann received no respite and was thrown across the Piave at Vidor and Nervesa on the night of the 6th. He destroyed the bridges, and, as the river was in flood and rising rapidly, Eugène had little time at his disposal if he wished to catch up the enemy and force him to engage. The cavalry of Sahuc and Pully were hurried across the Piave at Lovadina and Cima d'Olmo, followed by the artillery and as many of the infantry as could be carried over, but owing to the rising flood the passage had to cease in the afternoon, and the battle of the Piave, which was a complete victory for Eugène, was won with half his army still on the right, or western, bank of the river. The enemy lost 10,000 men, 15 guns, and 30 caissons. Eugène pressed his success. The enemy was pursued across the Tagliamento, swept off the heights of S. Daniele, and the main body, under Johann, was shepherded up the Tagliamento valley past Osopo and Venzone towards the gorge of the Fella and

Pontebba. Another detachment pursued by Macdonald retired by Gorizia to cover Trieste; while still another took the line of Cividale and the Natisone valley to Caporetto, whence they had started. Their instructions were to push up to the head of the Isonzo gorge and hold the pass of Predil, protecting Tarvis and the road to Villach, and covering Johann's main retreat from Pontebba. Sèras was sent in pursuit of these.

In the wild gorge of the Fella, where the track is carried along the side of the torrent on ledges artificially cut in the rock, and crosses it many times, the Austrians so effectually destroyed road and bridges that Eugène was obliged to delay his pursuit, to recall his guns to Udine and send them by Cividale, the Natisone, and Caporetto to join Sèras in forcing the Predil pass, and attacking the retreating Austrians at Malborghetto and Tarvis. The Predil pass, strongly fortified and very bravely held, withstood Sèras for several days. With a view to turning the position detachments were sent up the Roccolana and Dogna side valleys from the main Tagliamento-Fella Valley. The operations proved difficult. The by-paths in those high regions were still blocked with snow; but at length concentration on Predil was effected. After twice rejecting honourable terms of capitulation the garrison in the fort was attacked. They resisted with admirable courage till their wooden block-houses and stockades took fire, their magazines blew up, and the heroic defenders perished to a man.

The fall of the Predil pass and the capture of Malborghetto made Eugène master of the road to Villach, and opened the way to his junction with the Emperor. From Ebersdorf Napoleon issued the following Proclamation to the army of Italy:

'Soldiers of the army of Italy, you have gloriously achieved the task I set you. You have effected, on the Semmering, your junction with the grand army. I am content with you. You had to retire on the Adige, but when, on the memorable field of Arcole, the order came to advance, you swore by the spirit of your heroes to triumph. You kept your word in the battle of the Piave, in the actions at S. Daniele, Tarvis, and Gorizia. You took by assault the forts of Malborghetto and Predil. . . . The Austrian army of Italy, that for a moment dared to defile my provinces by its presence, which pretended to break my Iron Crown, has

only served to prove the truth of my device, "Dio la mi diede ; guai a chi la tocca " (God gave it me, and woe to him who touches it).'

In the thirteenth bulletin to the army of Germany the Emperor paid a handsome tribute to his adopted son: 'Le 'Viceroy a montré dans toute cette campagne un sang-froid ' et un coup-d'oeil qui présagent un grand capitaine.' He had forgiven the battle of Sacile; and in his latter days at S. Helena he declared, 'Eugène ne m'a jamais causé aucun 'chagrin.'

Italy was once more free of the Austrians. The ItaloAustrian episode was closed. Eugène and the Archduke pass away to become absorbed in the wider operations which ended at Wagram. The extreme rapidity with which the whole Italian campaign, the Austrian attack, and the FrancoItalian counter developed between the 10th of April and the 18th of May, the extent of ground covered in this short space of time, from the Drave to the Adige, the loss and recovery of three large provinces-Friuli, Cadore, and the Venetothe menace to Venice itself, render this brief episode of the Napoleonic wars of considerable interest-an interest which is heightened for us now by the fact that it covered the same ground as the present defence of Italy. Twice has Austria invaded Italy from Caporetto, once has she been expelled; a second exit by the same door may not, perhaps, be long deferred.

HORATIO F. BROWN.

SPANISH TRADE WITH THE INDIES

I. Trade and Navigation between Spain and the Indies in the Time of the Hapsburgs. By CLARENCE HENRY HARING. Harvard University Press. 1918.

2. The Spanish Dependencies in South America. By BERNARD MOSES. Smith, Elder. 1914.

3. The Rise of the Spanish Empire in the Old World and in the New. By ROGER BIGELOW MERRIMAN. New York: Macmillan Company. 1918.

4. The Alcalde Entregador of the Mesta. By JULIUS KLEIN. Bulletin Hispanique, Vol. XVII. 1915.

IT

is a rare pleasure to meet with a piece of historical work which is at once so well worth doing and so well done as Mr. Haring's Trade and Navigation between Spain ' and the Indies in the Time of the Hapsburgs.' Before coming to the author's treatment of his subject we must pause for a moment to present our thanks to the American University which has made it possible for him to bring his work to fruition. Such a book as his dealing with the inception, the development, and the disastrous end of a commercial policy pursued through centuries, would but too probably have been rejected as manifestly unprofitable if it had been offered in the beaten way of a publisher's adventure. We have Mr. Haring's exhaustive study because it has been included in Vol. XIX. in the series of ' Harvard 'Economic Studies.' When, at no distant date we hope, Mr. Klein's doctoral dissertation on the history of the great Spanish corporation of cattle owners named the Mesta' is also published with aid from Harvard or from some American rival of Harvard, they will together form a most valuable body of fact and doctrine. The fragment already printed by the Bulletin Hispanique for 1915 (Vol. XVII.), though it deals only with the office of the Alcalde Entregador of 'the Mesta,' is by no means to be neglected. A certain harmony of spirit runs through the whole story of Spain's long struggle to regulate industry and trade. Nor is the matter merely part of the puzzling Cosas de España.'

To-day when, as we are assured fluently, laissez faire and laissez passer are old-fashioned follies which have not even the dignity of antiquity, there is real instruction to be found in the study of Spain's pertinacious 'regulation.' There we can see the virtuous opposite of laissez faire in all its beauty.

The poisonous thing was not unknown before Mr. Haring made it the subject of this careful study. Our ancestors had good cause for making themselves acquainted with the trade of the Spanish West Indies. In Queen Anne's time Captain Stevens, the most indefatigable of translators, was employed to make his abridgment of the standard authority, 'La Norte de la Contratación' of Don Josef Veitia Linage. He called it the Spanish Law of Trade to the West Indies,' which must be understood to mean all the possessions of Spain in America. And there were many others who told the world the indispensable facts. The Spanish dominion in America was always an object of curiosity as well as of desire to other nations. But writers of books have been mainly concerned with the conquests, the wars, the government of Spanish America. The trade has been a subordinate part of the whole for them. It is Mr. Haring's subject and he keeps it to the front, touching on the rest only when some notice of things political or administrative has been indispensable. He begins at the beginning:

'As the first voyage of Columbus was mostly at the expense of the Castilian Queen, all potential profits were expressly reserved to the Crown, save one-tenth of the net proceeds, which went to the discoverer. Columbus, however, was allowed in addition to contribute one-eighth of the cost of the cargo, and receive oneeighth of the returns of the venture. A similar provision was made for the second voyage in 1493. In the instructions issued by Ferdinand and Isabella to the admiral in May of that year, private individuals of any degree or condition were expressly prohibited from carrying merchandise on that or any other fleet for purposes of trade. All persons and goods accompanying the expedition had to be registered before an agent of the royal exchequer; and on arrival at the Indies be presented a second time for comparison with the original register. Anything found over and above what was declared in Castile was confiscated to the Crown. It was also provided that a custom-house (casa de aduana) be immediately created for the receipt of royal merchandise, and that every commercial transaction take place before the treasurer, comptroller, and a representative of the admiral, or deputies, to be entered in a book set apart for such business.