Battle of Custoza, June 1866

Background

The Battle of Custoza took place on the 24 June 1866 during the Third Italian War of Independence in the Italian unification process.

The Austrian Imperial army, joined by the Venetian Army, jointly commanded by Archduke Albrecht of Habsburg, defeated the Italian army, led by Alfonso Ferrero la Marmora and Enrico Cialdini, despite the Italians’ strong numerical advantage.

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In June 1866, the German Kingdom of Prussia declared war on the Austrian Empire. The recently formed Kingdom of Italy decided to seize the opportunity and allied with Prussia with the intention of annexing Venetia and thus uniting the Italian Peninsula. The Italians rapidly built up a military force that was twice the size of their Austrian counterparts defending Venetia.

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The Austrians were victorious, both strategically and tactically. The Italians were driven back across the Mincio out of Venetia. It was, however, not a decisive defeat. To inflict a decisive defeat on the Italians, Albrecht’s forces needed to drive southwest to seize the bridges across the Mincio (which the Italians had neglected to fortify). Such a pursuit would have trapped the disbanded remnants of the two Italian corps on the east bank of the river and enabled Albrecht to invade the Kingdom of Italy itself.

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Instead, Albrecht did not order a pursuit because he thought the Austrians were too exhausted and the Austrian cavalry had been mauled by frivolous attacks in the morning. He thus squandered the possibility of destroying the demoralized Army of the Mincio. On the 26 June 1866, Albrecht shifted his headquarters back to Verona, because he was concerned about a possible French reply to an Austrian invasion of Lombardy. He should not have been: even the Emperor advised Albrecht to ignore all political considerations.

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After their loss at Königgrätz (3 July), the Austrians were forced to transfer one corps from South Army to Austria to cover Vienna, weakening their forces in the Veneto. The Italians, however, resumed their offensive only in mid-July. Cialdini crossed the Po and occupied Rovigo (11 July), Padua (12 July), Treviso (14 July), San Donà di Piave (18 July), Valdobbiadene and Oderzo (20 July), Vicenza (21 July) and finally Udine, in Friuli (22 July). In the meantime Garibaldi’s volunteers had pushed forward from Brescia towards Trento (see Invasion of Trentino) fighting victoriously at the battle of Bezzecca of the 21 July.

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Despite the victory at Custoza and a naval defeat of the Italians at Lissa, due to Königgrätz the Austrians were forced to surrender to the Prussians and were forced to cede Venetia.

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The Game

We set up the game using the scenario from BBB Big European Battles. The Austrians went with a conservative deployment, with the intent of countering the larger number of Italians. The Italian plan was to move very aggressively to try to fend off Austrian assaults with their defensive fire once in position. They fainted toward the right to draw in an many Austrians as possible, so the fast moving Italian columns could make ground on the center and left.

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The aggressive Italian movement paid off, as they were able to grab two of the three objectives early and deploy, while the right flank engaged the main Austrian army. The Austrians held on their own left and sent forces to the right to try to overwhelm the Italians through the power of cold steel. They continued these assaults and were repeatedly stopped by Italian fire. When they did close, they did manage to push the Italians back. However, the Italians were able to bring their reinforcements in faster and stretch the line. As usual, the game came down to the last turn, with the Austrians trying one last assault with fresh forces, but it was unable to close and the Italians were able to hold on to two objectives at steel the unhistorical victory! Viva Italia!

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• Manteuffel