Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars
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Italian campaigns | |||||||||
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Part of the War of the First Coalition and the Second Coalition | |||||||||
French troops entering Rome in 1798 | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
First Coalition:
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First Coalition: Second Coalition: Habsburg Monarchy Russian Empire (until 1799) Naples (until 1801) Tuscany (until 1801) | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Francis II Dagobert von Wurmser József Alvinczi Paul I (1798–1799) Alexander Suvorov Ferdinand IV Ferdinand III Michelangelo Alessandro Colli-Marchi |
The Italian campaigns of the
The campaign of 1796-1797 brought prominence to Napoleon Bonaparte, a young, largely unknown commander, who led French forces to victory over numerically superior Austrian and Sardinian Armies.[1]
First Coalition (1792–1797)
The
The conflict soon escalated with
A further offensive, also designed by General Bonaparte to exploit the victory at Saorgio, was called off under orders from war minister
The main focus of the war then shifted north to the Rhine, until 29 June 1795, when the Austrians launched an attack against the depleted and poorly supplied French Army of Italy. Nominally 107,000-strong, the Army of Italy could only manage to field an effective force of about 30,000. Kellermann, who had resumed command, appealed to Carnot for reinforcements. Instead, General Bonaparte was appointed to the general staff where he devised a third plan for an attack towards Vado and Ceva. Kellermann was replaced by General Schérer soon after and he carried out the attacks, gaining victory at Loano.
Bonaparte's war
Following a short respite in hostilities Schérer resigned[
Bonaparte launched attacks almost immediately after he arrived on the front on 27 March. His 37,000 men and 60 guns were facing more than 50,000 Allied troops in the theatre. His only chance of support came from Kellermann's Army of the Alps, which was faced by a further 20,000 Allied troops. Bonaparte had no chance of gaining reinforcements as the Republican war effort was being concentrated on the massive offensives planned on the Rhine.
At the Battle of Montenotte Bonaparte defeated the Austrians and fought a second engagement around Dego soon after. Following these battles he launched an all-out invasion of Piedmont and won a further victory at Mondovì. Sardinia was forced to accept the Armistice of Cherasco on 28 April, knocking it out of the war and the First Coalition. It had taken Bonaparte just a month to defeat Sardinia (between his arrival and the armistice), a country which had resisted the French armies for over three years. Total losses during the lightning campaign were 6,000 French troops and over 25,000 Allied.
Bonaparte reorganised his newly enthused army following the short let-up in operations that followed Sardinia's defeat. Following this he manoeuvred his army into more opportune positions along the
The Army of Italy was now reinforced to almost 50,000 men and Bonaparte continued on the offensive, striking at Austrian forces mobilising in the vicinity of the fortress of
Wurmser was reinforced once again to compensate for some 20,000 losses sustained in the past two months and made an attempt to relieve the siege of Mantua. Some 45,000 Austrian troops were left behind to guard against any new French offensive whilst the main body of the Austrian army moved on Mantua. At Rovereto on 4 September, Bonaparte inflicted a heavy defeat on the Austrians and was then well-placed to strike at the rear of Wurmser's army. Reacting slowly to this new threat, the Austrians were again defeated at the Battle of Bassano, where their army was reduced to just 12,000. The remaining troops marched rapidly towards Mantua, but became trapped there by General Masséna's advance party.
Additional Austrian forces arrived whilst Bonaparte's army was weakened by disease and his supply lines threatened by rebellion. Government political commissars, especially
Following this a new Austrian commander,
Both sides were reinforced before Alvinczy launched another attack in January. Bonaparte defeated this renewed assault at the
Campaigns in Central Italy (1797–1799)
Napoleon's invasion of Northern Italy caused disorder in the Papal States. Under the Treaty of Tolentino, Pope Pius VI was forced to cede the Romagna region to the newly founded Cisalpine Republic, and recognize Joseph Bonaparte as the ambassador to Rome.[5] Following the dissolution of the First Coalition, a Republican Revolt staged by General Bonaparte and Brigadier General Mathurin-Leonard Duphot led to the killing of Duphot at Joseph's palace by Papal State troops.
An apology was issued by the Pope on December 29, 1797, however it was rejected by the Republic soon after. Napoleon then declared war on the Papal States for a second time, sending 9,000 troops under General Louis-Alexandre Berthier to occupy Rome and dissolve the state.
Refusing to renounce his temporal authority, Pius VI was exiled from Rome, and later died in
In April, Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo marched into Calabria with an army of 17,000 soldiers and reinstated the Monarchy, initiating a siege of Naples in June. With British assistance, the Parthenopeans collapsed soon after. A Neapolitan invasion in September led to the dissolution of the Roman Republic which was subsequently replaced by the Papacy until the Napoleonic Wars.
Second Coalition (1799–1800)
The second phase of the war in Italy began in 1799 as part of the War of the
Some 60,000 French troops under Schérer faced off against an equal number of Austrians. An additional 50,000 Russians were expected to arrive shortly. The French were occupied with the pacification of Naples and this halved their effective strength to face the Austrians. In order to avoid a completely untenable situation arising, Schérer attacked as soon as possible in an attempt to preempt Austrian attacks.
Austrian commander
Schérer too was soon replaced by General
An initial Allied attack across the Po failed on 11 May. Moreau's army was in tatters with just 9,000 men remaining. An attempted counter-attack was beaten back by Russian General
.The Army of the Alps engaged the Austro-Russian forces in a series of minor skirmishes, but did not come to the rescue of the Army of Italy. Suvorov overran a number of French garrisons and continued his relentless advance. Macdonald engaged Suvorov in the
Suvorov, acting under orders from the Coalition high command, paused to gather his strength for an offensive in autumn. On 9 August, the French launched offensive of 38,000 men called the
However at that time the Allied high command in Vienna ordered Suvorov to move out of Italy and concentrate on breaking through the Swiss front. The respite thus given the reeling Army of Italy led to a turning point in the war. Melas, who resumed command of Coalition forces in Italy, now almost exclusively Austrian, paused the offensive and consolidated his forces, now that the Russians had been removed from Italy.
By the spring of 1800 Russia had withdrawn entirely from the Coalition. The situation in Italy, however, was still very much on the side of the Coalition. Melas had some 100,000 men under his command, opposed by just 50,000 French troops who were thoroughly dispersed. The Allies prepared for a thrust into southern France and across the Rhine, much further north. Melas moved forward slowly, laying siege to Genoa and halting his advance elsewhere.
It was at this time that the
Genoa fell before the First Consul could reach it. He concentrated his army and struck at the Austrians in an attempt to beat them before they too concentrated their forces again. The Reserve Army fought a battle at
Marengo was the last major engagement on the Italian front during the Revolutionary Wars. Following it the massive Battle of Hohenlinden brought the Austrians to the negotiating table (signing the Armistice of Treviso) and the war ended shortly after.
Notes and references
Notes
- ^ Lockhart[citation needed] phrases this elliptically, "It was commonly said—indeed it was universally believed—that Josephine, whose character was in some respects indifferent, possessed more than legitimate influence over the First Director."
Citations
- ISBN 978-1-108-41766-2
- ^ a b John Gibson Lockhart, Napoleon Buonaparte, new edition, (London: Bickers & Son, 1927).
- ^ McLynn 1998, p.94
- ^ Dodge, Theodore Ayrault Dodge (1904). Napoleon: A History of the Art of War. Volume 1: From the beginning of the French Revolution to the end of the eighteenth century, with a detailed account of the wars of the French Revolution. New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company. p. 351.
- ^ Imperial City: Rome under Napoleon. Susan Vandiver Nicassio. p. 20.
Bibliography
- Clausewitz, Carl von (2018). Napoleon's 1796 Italian Campaign. Trans and ed. Nicholas Murray and Christopher Pringle. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-2676-2
- Clausewitz, Carl von (2020). Napoleon Absent, Coalition Ascendant: The 1799 Campaign in Italy and Switzerland, Volume 1. Trans and ed. Nicholas Murray and Christopher Pringle. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-3025-7
- Clausewitz, Carl von (2021). The Coalition Crumbles, Napoleon Returns: The 1799 Campaign in Italy and Switzerland, Volume 2. Trans and ed. Nicholas Murray and Christopher Pringle. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-3034-9
- McLynn, Frank (1998). Napoleon. Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-6247-2.