Battle of Caldiero

Coordinates: 45 ° 25 ′ 26 ″  N , 11 ° 11 ′ 26 ″  E

Battle of Caldiero

Part of: Third Coalition War

Battle plan

date	October 29, 1805 to October 31, 1805
place	Caldiero , present-day Italy
output	not clear

Parties to the conflict
France	Austria
Commander
André Masséna	Karl of Austria-Teschen
Troop strength
~ 49,000 men	~ 49,200 men
losses
3,204 dead and wounded 525 prisoners	503 dead 2,209 wounded 1,509 prisoners another 5,000 taken prisoner at Cara Albertini

The battle of Caldiero took place between October 29 and 31, 1805 between the French Armée d'Italie under Marshal André Masséna and an Austrian army under the command of Archduke Karl von Österreich-Teschen near Caldiero 15 kilometers east of Verona during the Third Coalition War instead of. The Austrians succeeded with difficulty in repelling the attack by the French. The outcome is assessed differently, because not only did the French withdraw from the battlefield, but the Austrians also began to withdraw from Italy after the battle as a result of the defeat at Ulm . Therefore, in literature, the victory is partly claimed for the French, while others speak of a defensive victory for the Austrians.

prehistory

André Masséna

Archduke Charles at the Battle of Caldiero

It was planned that the Austrian army under Archduke Karl would march into Lombardy . But his troops were not strong enough for that in September. In addition, the Austrians greatly underestimated the strength of the French troops under Massena. In addition, the fortresses of Verona , Legnago , Mantua and Peschiera were in French hands. The Archduke therefore decided to wait for the French attack. He had stationed part of his troops for the occupation of Venice and a corps under Johann von Hiller near Trento . The Austrians concentrated the main army in a fortified position near Caldiero. The Austrians held the crest of a mountain range near the village. Her extreme right wing leaned against a deep gorge. The center was near the town of Caldiero. The left wing extended to the Adige . Various entrenchments have strengthened the most important points of the Austrian positions.

course

When Massena heard of Napoleon's victory near Ulm, he decided to attack. On the morning of October 29th, the French crossed the Adige. They broke the resistance of advanced Austrian units and advanced after some fierce fighting. The Austrian vanguard had to gradually withdraw towards Caldiero. The French achieved further successes. Massena decided, however, not to order the main attack on the positions near Caldiero until the next day. The Archduke was able to use the opportunity to secure the endangered points by reinforcements against attack. He hoped to be able to go on the counter-offensive himself and prepared appropriate units. For his part, Massena intended to break through the enemy center by bypassing the Austrian left wing. The other wing was to be cut off and driven into the nearby swamps. After that, the rest of the main French power would attack the weakened Austrians.

Because thick fog obstructed the view on the morning of the 30th, the Archduke postponed his plans of attack. Units that had already advanced became involved in combat. The French attack column to bypass the enemy was defeated by the Austrians after heavy fighting. The right wing of the Austrians was held by the Corps of the General of the Cavalry Count von Bellegarde . The defense of the Austrian trenches on the heights of Colognola Alta had been entrusted to the division of Major General Joseph Anton von Simbschen . Simbschen were subordinate to 8 infantry regiments, 5 border guard battalions and 8 squadrons of hussars, with which he successfully held the entrenchments between Belfiore di Porcile and Ilasi against the stubborn attacks of the French Molitor division for three days .

From the noise of the battle, Massena got the impression that the evasion was successful and attacked the Austrian center. The Austrians, in turn, advanced and there was heavy fighting for hours. Eventually the exhausted Austrians began to retreat and the French victory seemed certain. The intervention of the Archduke with a grenadier division restored the undecided situation. On the other hand, Massena ordered another attack on the Austrian center and placed himself at the head of the attack on the heights of Corsagnola , which he saw as the crucial point of the Austrian positions. The French did not achieve a decisive success. The French attacked the Austrian center again with all available forces. Again the victory of the French seemed imminent, a complete success failed because of reserve units of the Austrians. This forced Massena to withdraw. Another French attack a day later also failed.

consequences

The Austrians were able to hold out, but when the archduke received news of the defeat at Ulm, which made Napoleon's advance on Vienna possible, this forced him to retreat towards Laibach. Both sides could claim victory for themselves.

literature

• Alfredo Fierro, André Palluel-Guillard, Jean Tulard : Histoire et Dictionnaire du Consulat et de l'Empire. Editions Robert Laffont, ISBN 2-221-05858-5 .
• Alain Pigeard: Dictionnaire des batailles de Napoléon. Tallandier, Bibliothèque Napoléonienne, 2004, ISBN 2-84734-073-4 .
• Gunther E. Rothenberg : Napoleon's Great Adversaries, The Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army, 1792-1814 . Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Ind. 1982, ISBN 0-253-33969-3 .
• Frederick C. Schneid: Napoleon's Italian Campaigns: 1805-1815 . Praeger Publishers, Westport, Conn. 2002, ISBN 0-275-96875-8 .
• Hanns Eggert Willibald von der Lühe (ed.): Military conversation lexicon. Volume 2, Leipzig 1833, pp. 27-30.
• Francis Smith: The Wars from Antiquity to the Present. Berlin et al. 1911, p. 532.
• Caldiero, Second Battle of (1805). In: Carl Cavanaghlodge (ed.): Encyclopedia of the age of imperialism: 1800-1914. Volume 1: A-K. Westport 2008, p. 127f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Pigeard, 172
2. ↑ Pigeard, 170
3. ^ Johann Christoph Allmayer-Beck:  Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 242 f. ( Digitized version ).
4. ^ Caldiero, Second Battle of (1805). In: Carl Cavanaghlodge (ed.): Encyclopedia of the age of imperialism: 1800-1914. Volume 1: A-K. Westport 2008, p. 127.
5. ↑ Biography of Josef Anton Freiherr von Simbschen, from Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie Volume 54 (1908), pp. 346–348