Emmanuel II of Savoy, supported by Alfonso Ferrero la Marmora. The Austrian Army fielded more men with 220,000 soldiers, 824 guns and 22,000 horsemen. It was led by Field Marshal Ferenc Graf Gyulay. The newly-formed United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia also supported the Franco-Italian alliance. Their ruler, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, was given 10,000 rifles and ammunition by Napoleon III. Napoleon III, with his unwavering and very genuine sympathy, also sent a military mission to Bucharest. Encouraged, Cuza formed a new military camp at Ploiești. As a result, Austria had to keep 30,000 troops in Transylvania, which could ill be spared from Italy. War The French Army, under Marshal François Certain Canrobert, moved into Piedmont in the first massive military use of railways. The Austrian forces counted on a swift victory over the weaker Sardinian Army before French forces could arrive in Piedmont. However, Count Gyulai, the commander of the Austrian troops in Lombardy, was very cautious and marched around the Ticino River in no specific direction until he crossed it to begin the offensive. Unfortunately for him, very heavy rains began to fall, which allowed the Piedmontese to flood the rice fields in front of his advance and slowed his army's march to a crawl. The Austrians, under Gyulai, captured Novara on 30 April and Vercelli on 2 May and advanced on Turin from 7 May onward. The Franco-Sardinian move to strengthen the Alessandria and Po River bridges around Casale Monferrato forced the Austrians to halt their advance on 9 May and to fall back on 10 May. Napoleon III left Paris on 10 May, landed at Genoa on 12 May and arrived in Alessandria on 14 May. He took the command of the operations of the war, whose first major clash was at Montebello on 20 May, a battle between an Austrian Corps under Stadion and a single division of the French I Corps, under Forey. Although the Austrian contingent was three times as large, the French were victorious, which made Gyulai still more cautious. In early June, Gyulai had advanced to the rail centre of Magenta and left his army spread out. Napoleon III attacked Ticino head on with part of his force and sent many other troops to the north to flank the Austrians. The plan worked and caused Gyulai to retreat east to the quadrilateral fortresses in Lombardy, where he was relieved of his post