Battle of Castiglione

• 1. Introduction

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  The Battle of Castiglione was fought on the 5th of August 1796. General Napoleon Bonaparte's French Army of Italy attacked a Habsburg force under Feldmarschall Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser that day. The outnumbered Austrians lost the fight. Castiglione delle Stiviere, the town at the center of it all, sits 10 km south of Lake Garda in northern Italy. This clash stands alongside Bassano, Arcole, and Rivoli as one of four victories that made Bonaparte's name during the War of the First Coalition. Wurmser had marched south with a plan built on four converging columns. His goal was to break the French siege of Mantua, the Habsburg monarchy's key fortress in the region. The plan worked well enough that Bonaparte had to lift the siege just to find enough soldiers to meet the threat. What followed was a week in which speed, not numbers, decided the outcome. Even the final flank attack, launched a beat too early, still ended in a French victory. Castiglione closed out four months of French advances across Northern Italy. Even so, the front line would hold around Mantua until the fortress finally fell in February of 1797. How did Bonaparte turn a four-pronged Austrian attack into four separate defeats?

• 2. A Fortress Under Siege

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  Feldzeugmeister Johann Peter Beaulieu had already lost the battles of Fombio, Lodi, and Borghetto when he retreated north toward Trento, leaving almost 14,000 soldiers behind in Mantua. Mantua was one of four fortresses known as the Quadrilateral; the French already held the other three, Legnago, Verona, and Peschiera. On the 31st of May, Bonaparte tried to rush Mantua outright, but the attempt failed. By the 3rd of June, the French had invested the city, held by Joseph Franz Canto d'Irles's garrison behind 316 cannons. That same month, Bonaparte forced the Papal States, Tuscany, Parma, and Modena into peace, extracting heavy contributions from each. He stripped artillery from those subdued territories to build a siege train of 179 cannons, and the formal siege began on the 4th of July. Protecting that siege took 46,000 of Bonaparte's soldiers, spread across a wide defensive ring. Pierre François Sauret held Brescia and the western shore of Lake Garda. André Masséna guarded the northern approaches from the upper Adige valley and also garrisoned Verona. Pierre Augereau covered the lower Adige around Legnago, and Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier commanded the troops actually besieging Mantua. Hyacinthe Despinoy split his demi-brigades between Peschiera and Masséna's force, with more still marching in. Charles Edward Jennings de Kilmaine held his cavalry reserve at Villafranca di Verona, southwest of the city. Wurmser, meanwhile, was drawing up a plan of his own, one that would test that ring from four different directions at once.

• 3. Four Columns Converging

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  Michael von Melas led the Right-Center column, 14,000 soldiers marching south down the west bank of the Adige. Paul Davidovich took the Left-Center column, 10,000 men moving down the river's east bank, while Wurmser retained personal command of both central forces. West of Lake Garda, Peter Quasdanovich commanded the Right column and its 18,000 men, the largest single force in the attack. Johann Mészáros von Szoboszló waited at Vicenza with the Left column's 5,000 troops, ordered to occupy Verona and Legnago the moment the French pulled out. By late July, all four columns were finally moving south from Trento.

• 4. A Week Of Shattered Columns

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  On the 29th of July near Rivoli Veronese, Wurmser's two central columns overwhelmed Masséna's men in rough, difficult terrain. The Austrians lost 800 men but inflicted 1,200 killed and wounded, and captured 1,600 prisoners along with nine cannons. West of Lake Garda, one of Quasdanovich's brigades drove Sauret's troops out of Salò, and a second pushed the French from Gavardo. The next day, the 30th of July, two more of Quasdanovich's brigades surprised and seized Brescia outright. Augereau fell back toward Mantua while Masséna retreated to the southern tip of Lake Garda. On the 31st of July, Bonaparte pulled back to the west bank of the Mincio to concentrate his forces against Quasdanovich. That evening he ordered Sérurier to lift the siege of Mantua and bring his troops into the fight. Between the 31st of July and the 2nd of August, fighting swirled through Brescia, Montichiari, Gavardo, Lonato del Garda, and Salò. Bonaparte massed Augereau, Masséna, Despinoy, and Kilmaine together and retook Brescia on the 1st of August, reopening his supply line to the west. Wurmser, meanwhile, detached General-major Adam Bajalics von Bajahaza to besiege Peschiera. His central columns reached Mantua and dragged the abandoned French siege guns back into the city. Bonaparte briefly considered retreating west, but when Wurmser failed to press his advantage quickly, he chose to stand and fight. Mészáros occupied Legnago on the 1st of August, as ordered. On the 2nd of August, Wurmser's 4,000-strong advance guard under GM Anton Lipthay de Kisfalud pushed BG Antoine Valette's brigade out of Castiglione. Augereau struck back the next day with 11,000 troops, forcing Lipthay to Solferino, where Davidovich reinforced him. Wurmser then arrived with his full field army and halted Augereau's advance, at a cost of 1,000 Austrian casualties and GM Franz Nicoletti wounded. French losses may have topped 1,000 as well, including BG Martial Beyrand killed in the fighting. At that moment, Wurmser and Quasdanovich's forces sat only about eight kilometers apart. On the 3rd of August the French crushed the Austrian Right Column at the Battle of Lonato, forcing Quasdanovich to order a retreat north. Bonaparte sent General Guieu to chase the retreating column while he massed the rest of his army against Wurmser. On the 4th of August, as both sides skirmished, Wurmser had Bajalics send four battalions under Oberst Franz Weidenfeld as reinforcement. He also ordered Mészáros to keep Sérurier from rejoining Bonaparte. That same day, the French captured 2,000 of Quasdanovich's men still trapped around Lonato. The next day, Wurmser would concentrate every man he had at Castiglione for one decisive stand.

• 5. The Trap At Monte Medolano

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  Wurmser had by then concentrated 20,000 men at Castiglione, including GM Josef Philipp Vukassovich's brigade pulled from the Mantua garrison. He drew his army into two lines, anchoring the right flank on high ground near the village and castle of Solferino. The Austrian left held Monte Medolano, a hilltop crowned with a redoubt and heavy guns. Bonaparte's own forces had grown to 22,500 across the divisions of Masséna and Augereau, with Despinoy expected to arrive during the day. While Bonaparte pinned Wurmser's line with a frontal attack, he sent 5,000 of Sérurier's men to strike the Austrian left rear. Those troops were commanded that day by BG Pascal Antoine Fiorella. Once the Austrian lines bent into a V shape, General Verdier would lead the assault that broke the hinge at Monte Medolano. That day Napoleon tested what he called the manoeuvre sur le derrières, a tactic that would define his later victories. To pull Wurmser deeper into the trap, Bonaparte ordered Masséna and Augereau to fall back, and the Austrians followed. Fiorella's troops then appeared behind the Austrian line, led by the 5th Dragoons, forcing Wurmser to shift his second line to meet them. With both Austrian lines now pulled back, Bonaparte launched his masse de rupture straight at Monte Medolano. Chef de battalion Auguste Marmont galloped his horse artillery up to point blank range and opened fire before grenadiers stormed the hill. As Masséna and Augereau pressed the front, two of Despinoy's demi-brigades under Chef de Brigade Charles Leclerc seized Solferino. Wurmser ordered a retreat to escape encirclement, while Weidenfeld's reinforcements arrived just in time to block Masséna from turning the Austrian right flank. Covered by cavalry under GM Anton Schübirz von Chobinin, the Austrians crossed the Mincio at Borghetto that evening. Wurmser had escaped with his army, but he did not yet know how many men and guns he had left on the field.

• 6. Counting The Cost

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  The battle cost the Austrians 2,000 killed and wounded, along with 1,000 men and 20 cannons captured. French losses ran between 1,100 and 1,500 men, and GM Anton Lipthay de Kisfalud was left severely wounded. Bonaparte refused to let Wurmser settle near Mantua, so he staged a feint with Augereau's division against Borghetto. The real blow came from Masséna, who pushed through Peschiera and forced back Bajalics and GM Anton Ferdinand Mittrowsky. With his supply line to the County of Tyrol now under threat, Wurmser ordered a full retreat north. Before leaving, he reinforced Mantua with two fresh brigades under GM Ferdinand Minckwitz and GM Leberecht Spiegel. He also sent in badly needed food and evacuated the garrison's sick. Wurmser then withdrew up the east bank of the Adige back to Trento. Bonaparte reinvested Mantua, but having no siege guns left, he could only blockade the fortress and wait for hunger to do the work. Across the whole campaign the French lost 6,000 killed and wounded, plus 4,000 men and their entire siege train captured. Austrian casualties for the campaign totaled 16,700. One historian would later trace the outline of battles Napoleon hadn't fought yet inside this single afternoon at Castiglione.

• 7. A Blueprint For Austerlitz

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  Historian David G. Chandler wrote, "The form of the battle proves beyond any doubt that Napoleon's master battle plan was already clear in his mind as early as 1796." He added that Napoleon would go on to refine his timing in later years. Even so, every element of his winning formula was already active at Castiglione, the same elements later used at Austerlitz, Friedland, and Bautzen. Castiglione's afternoon of feints and flank attacks was about to resurface somewhere far stranger than a history book.

• 8. A Cameo In Time Bandits

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  The battle turns up early in Time Bandits, a humorous fantasy film from 1981, watched there by the story's time-traveling title characters. It's an unlikely encore, one afternoon of Napoleonic maneuvering still surfacing on screen more than two centuries later.