Austro-Neapolitan War
Map of war
| date | March 15, 1815 to May 20, 1815 |
|---|---|
| place | Italy |
| output | Victory of the Austrians Treaty of Casalanza |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
|
|
| Troop strength | |
| 120,000 soldiers | 82,000 soldiers |
| losses | |
|
Dead: about 5,000 |
Dead: about 10,000 |
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The Austro-Neapolitan War was a military conflict between the Kingdom of Naples and Austria in 1815. It began on March 15, 1815 with Naples declaring war on Austria and ended on May 20, 1815 with a victory for the Austrians and the signing of the Treaty of Casalanza .
prehistory
The French Emperor Napoleon I had created a system of satellite states in Europe , which also included the Kingdom of Naples; initially Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte ruled here. From 1808 Napoleon's brother-in-law, Joachim Murat , was King of Naples. Murat introduced a modern state, legal and social order based on the French model, but he became increasingly estranged from Napoleon, and when his defeat became apparent, Murat sought a compromise with the Habsburgs . However, when Napoleon returned from exile during the Congress of Vienna and the excited congress participants saw Murat as a security risk, Murat rejoined him, making Austria an enemy. The Italian population was also largely hostile to the Habsburgs, as they only had to expect the restoration of the princes expelled during the Napoleonic period or direct foreign rule by Austria in Lombardy . In Naples the anti-Napoleonic coalition had planned the re-establishment of the Bourbons .
course
Joachim Murat declared war on Austria on March 15, 1815, five days before Napoleon reached Paris and the rule of the Hundred Days began. The Austrians had already prepared militarily, however, as Murat had already applied for permission weeks beforehand to cross Habsburg territory with troops, ostensibly to fight Napoleon in southern France. Austria refused permission to march through and reinforced its troops in Lombardy . At the beginning of the war, Murat announced that he had 82,000 soldiers, 7,000 horses and 90 cannons.
Murat left an "Army for Home Affairs" in the Kingdom of Naples to prevent a military invasion behind him and quell any uprising in his absence, and then marched north. The rest of the army was divided into six divisions , which advanced separately. Four divisions consisted of 12,000 to 15,000 soldiers each, two divisions were significantly weaker and only consisted of a total of 10,000 men. Murat demanded the right to march through the Papal States , which he refused. Thereupon the two weaker divisions marched into the Papal States on March 22nd, which led to the Pope's flight to Genoa . Murat himself took the right flank, set up his headquarters in Ancona and advanced along the Adriatic coast.
At first, the offensive of the Neapolitans advanced quickly across the board. On April 29th, Murat conquered Rimini , where on April 30th he called on all Italians in the "Proclamation of Rimini" to fight for him and promised them independence, national representation and a constitution that guaranteed them freedom and property rights . In fact, the Habsburg rule was rather unpopular with the northern Italian population at the time, as a victory by the Austrians would only have meant the continued existence of the absolute monarchy . However, this did not apply to the northern Italian aristocrats, who feared for their privileges and were therefore mostly loyal to the Habsburg castle. The Austrians cracked down on uprisings and expressions of sympathy for Italian independence or against noble privileges. Numerous military tribunals were held, many people were imprisoned and insurgent Lombard and Venetian troops were sent to Germany under guard.
On March 30, the Austrians under General Bianchi had to retreat between Savignano and Cesena before the Neapolitans, who in turn were able to occupy Faenza on April 1 and Bologna on April 2 . General Bianchi withdrew behind the Panaro River via Modena . But he also had to vacate this position after a combined attack by two Neapolitan divisions under Murat's and General Carrascosa's command and finally retreat behind the Bentivoglio Canal and into the Borgoforte bridgehead over the Po . This victory enabled the Neapolitans to take Carpi and Reggio under Carrascosa , while Murat's division, together with two other divisions , wanted to conquer Ferrara and the Po crossing at Occhiobello .
A major destination for Murat was the city of Milan , where he hoped to recruit up to 40,000 soldiers who had served in Napoleon's army. That is why the Austrians tried above all to thwart an advance in this direction, which is why the Austrian Commander-in-Chief Baron Frimont set up his headquarters near Piacenza . From the beginning of April the fortunes of battle began to turn. The citadel of Ferrara could not be conquered by the Neapolitans, and two attacks by Murat on April 8 and 9 to conquer the Po crossing at Occhiobello also failed. The Austrians under General Mohr inflicted heavy losses of around 2,000 men on the Neapolitans there through well-positioned defense and artillery.
In the meantime, the two divisions that had conquered the Papal States had also occupied Florence and most of Tuscany on April 8th . However, the Austrian-Florentine troops there under General Nugent managed to stop them at Pistoia after receiving reinforcements. The Neapolitans were now stopped on all fronts, on the right flank by General Mohr, in the center by General Frimont and on the left flank by General Nugent. The Commander-in-Chief General Frimont decided to go on the offensive, knowing that the citadel of Ferrara could not withstand the siege for very long. In addition, two additional corps under General Bianchi and General Neipperg had arrived and were ready to attack. The Bianchi corps attacked through Carpi and forced the Neapolitans to retreat and evacuate Modena and Reggio. The troops of Mohr and Neipperg pushed forward from the bridgehead of Occhiobello and there, too, drove the Neapolitans back. Only the advance of Frimont's troops to fight for a crossing over the Panaro on April 13th initially failed. However, since Murat had to fear being encircled by the other Austrian advances, he finally withdrew there and also vacated Bologna on April 16, pursued by the Austrians.
The two Neapolitan divisions on the left flank now withdrew without having faced a major battle. On April 15, the Austrian troops were able to take Florence again. General Frimont had the Bianchi corps turn off to Florence in order to march from there towards Foligno and so cut off Murat and the Neapolitans on the right flank from their retreat to Naples, while the Neipperg corps took the Neapolitans along the Adriatic coast towards Ancona followed.
The Bianchi corps reached Arezzo on April 20th, Perugia on April 23rd and Foligno on April 29th , which enabled them to interrupt the enemy's retreat to Naples. Murat then decided to attack the Bianchi corps. He left a smaller force under General Carrascosa to hold out the Neipperg corps and marched on the road towards Tolentino , where the decisive battle took place on May 2nd and 3rd . Murat had to break off the battle after high losses because he did not succeed in driving the Bianchi corps from its defensive positions. In addition, the Neipperg corps had defeated the Neapolitans under Carrascosa in the battle of Scapezzano on May 1st and now threatened to stab Murat in the back.
The Austrians then advanced on all fronts and quickly captured L'Aquila , Benedetto and Spoleto . The Corps Nugent had in the meantime retaken Rome on April 30th and marched on towards Naples. The last battle of the war took place near San Germano from May 15 to May 17, 1815, when Murat faced the Nugent Corps with a last contingent of around 15,000 men and was defeated. Murat then fled to Corsica disguised as a Danish sailor ; the commander-in-chief of the Neapolitans, General Carrascosa, applied for peace.
On May 20, the Treaty of Casalanza was signed, in which the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was established and Ferdinand I was installed as king by the Bourbons . Joachim Murat gathered a few followers in Corsica and landed in Calabria in October to restore his rule. He was arrested and shot dead on October 13, 1815 in Pizzo .
aftermath
The discontent of the population of the kingdom continued, however, as Ferdinand reintroduced the absolutist system as part of the Restoration. In 1820 there were violent unrest, as a result of which Ferdinand was forced to approve a constitution based on the model of the Spanish constitution of Cadiz and to swear an oath on it. However, he did everything in his power to reverse these concessions, so that in 1821 he traveled to Austria and there, at the Congress of Laibach, enforced the intervention of the Habsburgs; Metternich saw the intervention as a legitimate action within the framework of the " Holy Alliance " to suppress liberal ideas in Europe, as France was to carry out shortly afterwards against the liberals in Spain. As in 1815, the Neapolitans had little to oppose the superior power of the Austrians. The uprising collapsed quickly, its leaders, mostly officers of the Neapolitan army, were sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress or had to emigrate. The intervention of the Austrians left considerable bitterness in Italy, which broke out again in the context of the Risorgimento and provided an important impetus for Italian unification.
swell
- Edmund Burke : The Annual Register or A View of the History, Politics, and Literature for the Year 1815. J. Dodsley, 1816, Chapter VII (digitized).
- Robert Batty : An Historical Sketch of the Campaign of 1815. London 1820 (digitized).
- Pietro Colletta : History of the Kingdom of Naples: 1734-1825. Translated into English by Susan Horner. Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1858.
Web links
- Neapolitan War
- The Rimini Proclamation ( Memento of February 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive )