Five Days of Milan
밀라노 5일
Part of First Italian War of Independence
The rising of 18–22 March 1848 in which the citizens of Milan drove Radetzky's Austrian troops from the city in five days of street fighting. It set off the First Italian War of Independence.
In depth
After the tobacco and lottery boycott of January and the news of Metternich's fall on 17 March, a peaceful demonstration before the governor's palace on the 18th turned into an assault. Citizens raised some 1,700 barricades, the archbishop and priests joined in, and the tricolour was hoisted on the cathedral spire. A council of war of Cattaneo, Cernuschi and others directed the fighting, and a provisional government formed under Casati.
Over Radetzky's offer of a truce the moderates wanted the King of Sardinia to intervene, while Cattaneo's democrats refused. When citizens led by Manara took the Porta Tosa on the 22nd, the Austrians withdrew that night to the Quadrilateral. The plaques of 1861 name 352 fallen. Historians note that the fighters were the city's patriots, and that the peasants of the surrounding countryside took little part.