The Austrian Field Marshal Who Ordered the Unilateral Occupation of Ferrara

Joseph Radetsky von Raditz was 80 years old when he ordered the occupation of Ferrara in 1847. He had been orphaned at an early age, and basically raised in an Austrian military academy. By the late 1820s he fell from grace thanks to some scandalous debts incurred by his wife. When trouble kept flaring up in Italy, the aging emperor Francis tapped Radetsky to take over the military command in Lombardy, Vanesia.