#7: Le Gloire!
Solefino(1), Lombardy June 1859:
Louis-Napoléon felt… he did not in truth know what he felt. It was a mixture of ecstasy and bone numbing terror. He had commanded troops before but never in battle, never such huge masses of men. Yet now he, like his glorious uncle, was leading 150,00 men directly in the field against his counterpart emperor Franz Josef. Nor was he alone. The left wing of his host, confronting the was commanded by King Victor Emanuel of Piedmont While his right wing (at his own hand!) King Leopold of the new central Italian kingdom (2) commanded, albeit with the support and "advice" of General Niel and nearly half of of the 4th French corps (3) . Even Leipzig lacked this concentration of crowned heads taking the field! (4)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Solferino.
http://www.battlefieldanomalies.com/solferino/12_solferino_today.html. They outnumbered the Austrians by nearly three to two (5). He could smell glory in the air. He could taste it. He could feel it coming together. All his plans, all his dreams of equaling, even exceeding his uncle (6). So far the piedmontese had failed to effect a breakthrough at San Martino, while the Tuscan forces were maintaining the defensive east of Medole with Niel's support. Everywhere the Austrian forces were fully engaged, while he retained a large reserve, centered around the Imperial guard, prepared to exploit any opportunity. That opportunity had now arrived.
On the other side of the battlefield the belaguered Franz Josef received the dire news. The French had broken through at Cavriana (7). His generals stood mute at his side (8). Biting the insides of his cheeks hard enough to draw blood the Austrian emperor tersely ordered a fighting withdrawal to the Northeast and the fortification of Peschiera.
They're withdrawing! Exclaimed Louis Napoleon before gaining control of himself. His brain worked feverishly. He had just gained the field and a minor tactical victory. The Austrian's next step was obvious. Their army was defeated but not, yet, broken. They would withdraw to the forts of the Quadrilateral and wait for diplomatic intervention by Prussia and Britain to ameliorate their defeat. Cracking the shell of those forts would be the work of several months of siege. Pursuit across the hilly terrain would be unlikely to break the Austrian army and would severely tax his own men. He could allow the enemy to withdraw and then move to confine the bulk of the Austrian army in those forts, and the Russians to paralyze most of the remainder on the Carpathian front, thereby enabling Garibaldi and Kossuth to wreck havoc in Venetia and Hungary (9).
Unless…. "Send my regards to Victor Emanuel and general d'Hilliers. they are to maintain contact with the Austrian Ist army, and pursue, but not vigorously using skirmisher screens and cavalry only. The main forces are to entrench on the San Martino-Pozzolenga riverline." His Aide stiffened. Napoleon's initial order could have but one possible meaning- but the risk! "Marshal Regnaud is to halt pursuit, save for a skirmisher screen and to leave the defense of the Pozzolenga-Cavriana line to the 3rd Corps and lead the imperial guard, 2nd corps, and the detached elements of the 4th corps in an envelopment on the Austrian 2nd army elements at Medole. Aim at Faresto and block them from reaching Volta. 3rd corps is to be prepared to detach the first and second division in support of Regnaud should Austrian 1st army maintain the retreat. General Ney is to maintain his position and be prepared to advance in support of Regnaud as the Austrian 2nd army falls back. He is to reassume command of 4th Corps detached divisions as they link up". Napoleon paused before issuing his final order. "The rear elements at Castell Gofreddo and any Tuscan reinforcements en-route are to force march in the direction of Ceresara and Goito, aiming at a wide enveloping movement.".
Battles of the second Napolonic wars, Encyclopeida Brittanica
Battle of Cerliagi: While this "battle" would be triumphed in the French press of "a display of the imperial genius which descended from the first Bonapharte to his successor" the planned pursuit and envelopment of the I, V, and VII corps of the Austrian Second army was in fact a demonstration of the chaos of warfare. The first French attempt at envelopment failed as Regnaud was unable to effect a sufficiently rapid pivot of the northern wing of this effort. He did however, succeed in deflecting the angle of General Clam-Gallas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Clam-Gallas withdrawal and maintaining constant pressure on his flanks as he withdrew towards Goito and the bridge over the Minea river. Napoleon's order to maintain pursuit even as the developing storm broke out around 16:00 and to continue after nightfall was, by the standards of those age, amateurish as the professional view was that it was impossible to maintain unit cohesion under such conditions.
This view was proved correct as gaps appeared in the French line as advance and as the bewildered "Right wing", composed of third rate French rear guard and Fatigued Tuscan reinforcements separated into battalion sized clumps who randomly engaged both French and Austrian forces as the "front" moved southeastwards.
However, if the French-Tuscan forces suffered from lack of organization as they advanced, the retreating Austrian forces, locally outnumbered 2:1 and demoralized in defeat, broke up completely. The Hungarian origin of the soldiers of the 2nd army may have contributed to the total breakdown as the common soldiers were both less enthusiastic about fighting for the Austrian empire and less able to communicate with their German, Czech and Croat officers under the high stress conditions of the nighttime battlefield.
Louis Napoleon's second (or third…) plan after the initial attempts at envelopement floundered seems to have been to maintain contact with the Austrians until they reached the river Mineia and there use artillery to break them up as their retreat bottlenecked against the bridges. In the event this proved unnecessary. The series of night-time engagements (in which the Bayonet played a much larger role than the rifle) which were grandiosely labeled the "battle" of Cerliagi ended at dawn with both the French southern wing and the Austrian armies demolished as fighting forces. The French however were able to largely reorganize during the following day. The Austrian corps simply melted away, never to reform.
The bridge at Goito was captured by a bewildered and late arriving Tuscan battalion around dawnbreak (which had apparently arrived at it's intended destination purely by mistake). They proceeded to gather more than 10,000 ragged prisoners over the following day.
The number of those killed and wounded on each side is estimated to have been roughly equal with 6,000 French fatal casualties, more than twice the fatal casualties in the earlier battle of Soleferino, being counted. However, while the French wounded were eventually treated, however inadequately, Austrian wounded either died untended or were murdered by Lombard peasants and Tuscan regulars. No effort was made to aid them as the French Medical Thus, of the 45,000 Austrians engaged in the battle some 15,000 are estimated to have died, and 15,000 taken prisoner. A small force of some 800 men under General Clam-Gallas escaped across the river and rejoind Franz Joseph in the north. The remainder however simply melted away into the countryside. While the French were rather closed lip about it it appears that as many as 5,000 Tuscan and 3,000 French troops used the opportunity to go AWOL as well, though many returned over the following week as a "no questions asked" policy was instituted.
Together with the 1600 fatalities and 10,000 other casulties of the first battle of Solefino and the 6,000 casulties inflicted by Franz Josef's desperate attempt to counterattack in the second Battle of Solefino once he realized what was occurring to the south France had lost nearly a third of it's force in this engagement, a staggering loss for a "victorious" army. Reports of these casualties may have contributed to Louis Napoleon's post battle breakdown and decision to return to Paris, leaving the continued prosecution of the war to Marshal Regnaud.
Therefore, In the purely military sense, in spite of the disproportionate casualties inflicted on the Austrians this battle cannot be viewed as an unqualified French success as they required over a week to recover before they could resume advance. However, it was portrayed as a decisive victory in the French and Italian press, leading both the Pope and the Kingdom of Naples to declare war on Austria and ameliorating much of Napoleon's domestic difficulties. More significant was the domestic effect in Austria as word of the "massacre" of the Largely Hungarian 2nd Army, "abandoned" by their emperor spread to Budapest, concurrently with the capture of several Dalmatian Islands by the French navy and the landing of Kossuth's Hungarian legion on the Dalmatian mainland…
(1) It's the last good defensive position before the quadrilateral forts
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/485931/Quadrilateral. I'm not going to be heavy on parrarelism but the Austrians have to make a stand somewhere and this place is as good as any.
(2) OTL Grand Duke Leopald II of Tuscany waffeled between supporting the Habsburgs and throwing in with the nationalists. As a result he's thrown out and Piedmont ends up annexing the duchy. TTL the declaration of war by Russia shows which way the wind is blowing and he jumps on the bandwagon (as he initially did in 1848) of an anti-Austrian war… by attacking Padema and Morena before joining the main army. His troops aren't as well trained or armed as the other combatants but they're good for line of communication work and holding positions. The battle is close enough that an extra 12,000 second rate men can make a difference.
(3) Yeah, it's weird. Not sure why it happened this way OTL- god knows Napoleon and Franz Jozef had political shop to mind in their capitals and none of them were incredible Military commanders either.
(4) OTL General Niel held off three Austrian Corps with a single French Corps. TTL his forces are supplemented by the lately arriving Tuscans allowing him to detach two of his divisions to support the French center.
(5) OTL it was 138,000 Franco-Sardinian troops Vs 129,000 Austrians. TTL, The need to ward off the Russians on the Carpathians and greater Hungarian unrest means that Franz Jozef didn't have as many troops to start with and he's been getting fewer replacements. So he only has 112,000 troops to oppose Napoleon and they're in worse shape. And Napoleon has an extra 12,000 Tuscan troops. As well as promises as additional reinforcements from Tuscany. That's one reason why Franz Jozef is trying to make a set piece battle NOW, before he's ridiculously outnumbered and before the pope jumps on the bandwagon and declares war as well- which will relieve Napoleon III of a domestic headache.
(6) Napoleon III OTL is a bit of a sad story. He kept on trying to launch one fanciul scheme after another but France under his rule lacked the advantages Napoleon I had (massive demographic advantage over it's adversaries and a technological/organizational/ideological edge over the continental adversaries) to pull it off. TTL he gets the lucky break his diplomatic talents were never able to create OTL.
(7) OTL. TTL it happens around 13:30, an hour earlier than OTL, BEFORE the storm breaks out to cover the Austrian retreat.
(8) As in OTL Franz Jozef has sacked his (Hungarian) Marshal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferencz_Gyulai. His ethnicity, and the Hungarian composition of hapless Left wing of the Austrian army will lead to the "stap in the back" narrative of the Austrian empire. In any event the Generals are not going to take responsibility for further botching up the battle.
(9) Which is what he did OTL. Except the Austrian position was not as bad with neither an active rebellion in Hungary or a Russian army in Galicia to contend with. Napoleon, on the other hand, had to contend with Papal condemnation of the war (which affected the French domestic situation) as well as the imminent threat of Prussian mobilization. So he waffeled.
- Somehow I thought AJP Taylor started publishing a decade earlier. So I've edited the 1922 edition of "The second Napoleonic wars" to 1934 (which is when he published his frist work OTL- focusing on Italy in European diplomacy)