The Rise and Fall of the Austrian Secret Police

Nine days after the smoking riots in Milan, a separate and wholly unrelated insurrection broke out on the island of Sicily. On January 12, 1848, they poured out into the streets wearing the green, white, and red cockade. They cheered Long Live Italy, the Sicilian constitution, and Pius IX. The government troops used grape shot to try to disperse the mobs but there were too many insurgents and too few soldiers.