| 1848: War in Italy, Part II
Retreat to the Quadrilateral
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
July 2009
From its origin point in southern Italy, revolutionary fervor swept across Europe. Open insurrection broke out in Milan on 18 March. Radetzky's troops numbered 75,000 across the Italian provinces, about one-third of them Italian soldiers from Lombardy and Venetia. Poorly armed rebel forces seized key positions and trapped Radetzky's 14,000-man garrison in 52
separate locations. Many Italian soldiers in the Austrian ranks deserted. Radetzky gathered his leading officers on the morning of the 22nd and informed them of what he called "the most terrible decision of my life." The Austrian army withdrew from Milan later that day, with Radetzky pausing at the Porta Tosa to shout "We'll be back!" at the rebels before leaving the city.
Radetzky and his small army — constantly shrinking due to desertions — headed for the fortress district known as the "Quadrilateral." Two massive fortresses at Verona and Mantova could each shelter Radetzky's entire force. Two smaller fortresses at Peschiera and Legnano rounded out the position. Each fortress lay within one day's march of its neighbor, making it difficult for any invading army to bypass them (since there would always be one fortress in front of the enemy and at least one other astride his lines of supply and communications). Though designed to thwart a French invasion, the Quadrilateral fulfilled its designed function against Italian enemies in both 1848 and 1866. Criticized as outmoded and overly expensive by many later historians, the Quadrilateral fortress district like many later fortifications was not intended to actually face an enemy assault. Rather, the fortresses would channel an invader into predictable paths. Both Radetzky in 1848 and Albrecht in 1866 could be reasonably sure of where their foe would cross the Mincio — somewhere around Valleggio — and of their line of march, whether advancing or retreating. Like the Maginot Line of a century later, the Quadrilateral fortresses crumbled under determined attack. And like Andre Maginot's vision, enemies avoided the Quadrilateral, and unlike the French in 1940, the Austrians in 1848 and 1866 took advantage of this.
As Radetzky fell back, things went badly for the Austrians all over northern Italy. In Venice, the military governor armed the city's National Guard in hopes of maintaining order, while the navy commander surrendered the Arsenal. Venice fell to the rebels without a fight.
The Piedmontese, whose intervention in case of a rising in Lombardy had long been taken for granted, did nothing to help the Milanese insurgents or to interfere with the Austrian retreat. Most of the Piedmontese regular army was arrayed along the Alps in case the French revolutionaries of 1848 chose to export their doctrine in a repeat of 1792. Charles Albert declared war on Austria on 23 March, but his troops did not cross the Ticino River into Austrian territory until two days later. The bulk of the Piedmontese infantry did not arrive in Lombardy until the 29th. Charles Albert's army of about 50,000 Piedmontese followed Radetzky's troops slowly, occupying Lombardy in the wake of the Austrian evacuation. Townspeople usually greeted them with enthusiasm, peasants with sullen and sometimes open hostility.
"Resenting our camping in their fields," wrote Enrico Della Rocca, in 1848 a colonel and chief of staff to division commander and crown prince Vittorio Emanuele, "the peasants prepared to open the sluices of the canals to flood the country. I ... threatened to burn the village if my men were not allowed to sleep in peace on dry land."
Not until reaching Cremona, well inside Austrian territory, did Charles Albert stop to organize his army into two corps each of two divisions, plus one division in reserve. As chief of staff he chose Carlo Canera di Salasco, a disciplinarian with little else to recommend him. This
selection would have great effects on the campaign. In several battles the Piedmontese and their Italian allies outfought the Austrians, but ultimately lost when poor staff work prevented their exploiting their successes.
The Austrians crossed the Mincio River into Venetia on 4 April. Energetic action by Radetzky's subordinates had kept nationalist risings from cutting off the main Austrian army. Corps commander Constantin Baron d'Aspre collected five infantry battalions plus assorted cavalry and artillery units in Padova and marched quickly to relieve the lone company of Grenzers (Croatian border guards) holding out in Verona, the key fortress of the Quadrilateral.
In Mantova, the other large Quadrilateral fortress, General Karl Ritter von Gorzkowski cowed the citizenry with a show of force, though it is debatable whether or not this was accompanied by his famous lines of pidgin Italian. Austrian and Piedmontese troops brushed with one another at 4 a.m. on April 6, when Col. Ludwig von Benedek personally led a small group of Kaiserjäger in a successful ambush which captured a patrol of Piedmontese lancers after a short firefight, according to the Austrian staff history, though according to Della Rocca he surprised them while they slept in a dairy barn.
Radetzky's moved his headquarters to Verona, with his army ranged in a semi-circle to the west and south of the city, a position it would retain for most of the next two and a half months (and which Albrecht would copy in 1866). Perhaps more importantly, Radetzky's outstanding chief of staff, Heinrich Hess, had returned to Italy. The field marshal made sure each fortress garrison included at least some Grenzers, apparently counting on the Croatian-Serbian border guards' political loyalty as insurance against a nationalist coup.
The first serious clash between Austrian and Piedmontese troops came that afternoon at Goito, where an Austrian Kaiserjäger battalion (about 1,000 men) held the bridge over the Mincio for several hours against 5,000 Piedmontese spearheaded by a battalion of tough marines. For the next several days the Piedmontese probed Austrian outposts along the Mincio, but on April 10th the Austrians fell back from the river line. Reinforced by large contingents from Naples and Tuscany, the Piedmontese launched an unsuccessful attack on the fortress of Peschiera on 13 April, followed by another against Mantova on the 19th.
Both sides would soon receive new strength. Along the Isonzo, Feldzuegmeister (FZM) Laval Nugent, Austrian commander in southern Austria, collected regiments from nearby provinces in preparation to march to join Radetzky. At Verona, Radetzky had received much less useful assistance: no fewer than six archdukes had joined his staff. From the other Italian states troops marched northward to join Charles Albert's anti-Austrian crusade. Lombard volunteers poured into the Piedmontese camps as soon as Charles Albert's men crossed the Ticino, enough to form a Lombard division. Parma and Modena, after their conservative rulers fled, sent many volunteers including most of their small regular armies. Tuscany had actually declared war against Austria two days before Piedmont, and dispatched large numbers of volunteers along with the small Tuscan regular army.
The masses of volunteers severely strained the Piedmontese staff and logistical system. The Piedmontese distributed many of them among their own regiments, hoping to instill some discipline and skill by example. For the most part these were, Della Rocca wrote, "men who knew nothing of warfare, and hindered us more than they helped. Before we could discipline them, they disbanded and vanished."
By late April the Piedmontese began to move across the Mincio, hampered by poor logistics and the timidity of Charles Albert's two corps commanders, Eusebio Bava and Ettore Gerbaix de Sonnaz. Civilian contractors moved the Armata Sarda's food and supplies, a slow and
expensive system that could prove disastrous in a retreat. While the Piedmontese and their allies advanced, Radetzky moved to secure his communications with Peschiera, the most exposed of the four Quadrilateral fortresses. At Pastrengo just east of Lake Garda, 14,000 Piedmontese turned back 8,000 Austrians but could not force their way across the Adige toward Verona. The Piedmontese fought bravely, but their commanders fed them into battle piecemeal, one brigade at a time.
Radetzky's initial attempt to fight the revolution had ended in abject failure. His army melted away, and he lost both his first battle and along with it one of the empire's richest provinces. On the positive side, he had kept his army in the field, but so far he had done little to merit study as an example. This would soon change.
Santa Lucia
Charles Albert had won the war's first battle, and five days after the battle at Pastrengo, on 3 May, the king told Bava he had "secret intelligence" that the people of Verona would rise against the Austrians if only the Piedmontese drew Radetzky's army away from the city. Led by Bava, four of the five Piedmontese divisions advanced on Verona on the 6th in a "reconnaissance in force." The Austrians learned of the coming Piedmontese attack on 4 May, and Bava's troops found their enemies ready and waiting. On the heights of Santa Lucia west of Verona the Austrians assembled 12 battalions, nine in the front line and three more in reserve. Another seven waited to the north on the opposite side of the Adige at Ponton (across from Pastrengo), guarding the bridge there. Twelve more battalions occupied Verona itself.
"Seeing this the king wished to postpone the engagement," Della Rocca wrote, "but Radetzky, as usual, perfectly informed as to our movements, opened fire, and from an offensive ours became a defensive movement."
Fighting began between outposts at about 9 a.m., and by 10 a.m., as the Austrian staff history put it, "the battle was already burning hot" around the cemetery and church of Santa Lucia. The elite Granatieri de Sardegna regiment attacked the church position and drove off the Austrian artillery, but a vicious bayonet fight with the Austrian 10th Feldjäger Battalion and several grenadier companies stopped the Piedmontese advance. As at Pastrengo, the Piedmontese fought tenaciously, but without much coordination. Though they pressed Radetzky's I Corps very hard, the II Corps faced little interference and easily detached numerous reinforcements.
"It was a fatal mistake," wrote Della Rocca, "and most painful for us to see victory always elude us when half won, more especially at Santa Lucia, which had been taken at so great a sacrifice."
By 1 p.m. the attack had been blunted, and the Piedmontese withdrew slightly to try again. Bava massed his troops into three columns and this time drove the Austrians out of Santa Lucia. The Piedmontese threatened to break through the Austrian positions, but long-range artillery fire from Verona began to fall among their leading units. Austrian artillery superiority — far more and better-served guns than the Piedmontese — made a major difference, allowing the troops ejected from Santa Lucia to re-form and prepare a counter-attack. Calling out most of the Verona garrison, Radetzky ordered a general assault all along his line. Caught unawares by the attack of Radetzky's seemingly defeated army, the Piedmontese recoiled, leaving behind weapons and, the Austrian staff history claimed, a number of mutilated Austrian wounded. The Austrian cavalry launched no pursuit of the retreating Piedmontese; though the staff history argued that the terrain was unsuitable for large bodies of cavalry, the Austrians seem to have had no problems maneuvering their reserve cavalry over the same ground on the approach to both battles of Custoza.
At age 81, Radetzky had won his first major field battle. Santa Lucia held Verona for the Austrians, keeping their base of power in Italy and helping Radetzky keep his job. As a tactical exercise, Santa Lucia represents Radetzky's most extreme reliance on reserves — half of his troops in the immediate vicinity began the battle in Verona; two thirds of his army began in reserve counting those at Ponton. Radetzky offered battle with his back to a river (though the Adige at Verona is not very deep) with his crossings secured by a major fortress, setting an example his favorite officers long remembered. Benedek's repeat of this formula on the Elbe at Königgrätz led to a major disaster 18 years later.
Re-fight Radetzky’s triumph at Santa Lucia in Battles of 1866: Custoza. Pre-order it today! |
