Five Days of Milan

The Five Days of Milan were a major event in the Revolutionary Year of 1848 and the start of the First Italian War of Independence. On March 18, a rebellion arose in the city of Milan, and in five days of street fighting drove Marshal Radetzky and his Austrian soldiers from the city.

In 1848, the Milanese launched an anti-Austrian campaign as early as the first of January. On New Years Day the Milanese started to boycott gambling and tobacco products, which were Austrian monopolies and brought in over 5 million lire a year. Archduke Rainer Joseph of Austria, viceroy of Lombardy and Venetia, retaliated by ordering out police with cigars to provoke the crowd.
The boycott culminated in a bloody street battle on the third of January, when Austrian soldiers, in batches of 3 were being insulted and pelted with stones by an angry crowd. Now, the soldiers gathered together in groups of a dozen and charged the crowd with swords and bayonets, killing 5 and wounding another 59.
Radetzky was horrified at the doings of his troops and confined them to five days barracks. The protests were over, but two months later, when news reached Milan of the uprising in Vienna and the fall of Metternich, the Milanese took to the streets again, on 18 March.