The Battles of Livenza and Oderzo
Finally some real action!
In the Italian League camp the feelings were mixed: there was dismay at the loss of Udine, and nobody had expected that the Austrians could mobilize so quickly on the Isonzo, but on the other hand there was elation for the arrival of the Papal and Neapolitan expedition (the latter bringing the promise that stronger forces would follow them) as well as the numerous volunteers who had just crossed the Po, under the leadership of general Ferrari. In this climate the Consiglio delle Province Unite decided to pass a law ordering the conscription of a quota of able men from each province, to serve for the defense of the Republic from enemy invasion. This would in time give a regular army to Venice for its defense, but to fight this peculiar invasion it still had to rely on a mix of volunteers and former Austrian soldiers: during the past month no more than 5.000 men had been equipped. This force was commanded by the Piedmontese general La Marmora, and had been tasked with covering Vicenza from a possible attack by Radetzky’s forces from the Quadrilateral.
The delegates from Padua, Vicenza and Venezia argued that the chief danger came from Radetzky, as the Piedmontese appeared unwilling to commit more troops in Lombardy, and wanted the just arrived Neapolitan contingent to be used in the west, to bolster the mostly green troops of the Guardia Nazionale. The Papal army, together with local volunteers would be enough to stop the Austrian advance in the East.
The Friulan delegates had however fearsome stories of the cruelty of the Austrian soldiery, that made a strong impression on all the delegates, especially those from Belluno and Treviso (who were the closest to the advancing Austrians), and the relatively quick fall of Udine convinced many that the main danger lied in Nugent’s advance. The initial idea was then to use Pepe’s troops in support of Durando’s force, but the Neapolitan general proposed an alternative course of action, involving the combined Neapolitan and Venetian naval squadron and the Venetian Marine Infantry battalion.
Durando reached Treviso on the 29th with his ten thousand men, closely followed by seven thousand volunteers under general Ferrari. On the same day Nugent crossed the Tagliamento with 15.400 men, having left a reserve of about 8.000 men to control Palmanova, Udine and Osoppo, to avoid a sally from the besieged troops or a descent from the insurgents who had taken refuge in the Alpine part of Friuli that would have endangered his supply route.
Finally, on that fateful 29th April, the Pope, pressured since the start of the revolutions by the opposed factions inside the Curia, decided to recall his army inside the Papal borders, not wishing to enter the fight against the Catholic Austrian Empire and fearful of the risk of a schism among the German Catholics. He therefore made an allocution to the Consistory, in which he clarified that his army was only meant for the defense of the borders of his temporal realm, denying any ambition over the rest of Italy. The allocution however contained also a condemnation of the violence in Friuli, where several priests had been targeted by the Austrians as leaders in the villages that had resisted their occupation, and an exhortation to find a peaceful resolution to the quarrels between the “hallowed rights of Princes” and the “natural aspirations of the Nations”. Finally Pius IX strongly denied the insistent voices that had proposed him as President of a future Italian Confederation.
This allocution would have a grave political significance, and disillusion the then still strong “neo-guelph” faction on the real intentions of Pius IX, but was still ambiguous enough that the Italian liberals mostly read into it a tacit support for the Italian cause, or at least an acquiescence to its ideals, as it didn’t contain any open condemnation of the new regimes in Milan and Venice, instead auspicating a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
It’s not clear what motivated the Pope to hold such a conciliatory stance, to the horror of the more conservative cardinals, but it is possible that it was in large part due to a fear of further disorders in Rome itself and that a genuine discomfort at the harshness of the Austrian repression in Friuli could have contributed to it.
In any case the recall orders sent to Generals Durando and Ferrari were not listened to. The volunteers were by now to much inflamed with patriotic fervor, and the regulars, even the two swiss regiments, decided to follow their general in battle, rather to “dishonourably” retreat in front of the advancing Austrians.
Nugent’s Corps had occupied Pordenone on the 1st of May, after having been slowed for some hours by the defense opposed by the local guardia civica. From there, it had two possible routes, the northern one would cross the alpine valleys from Belluno to Feltre and then either descending along the Piave valley, or continuing to Trento and Verona, and the southern and most straightforward one, towards Oderzo and then crossing the Piave, occupying Treviso and the rest of Veneto.
In that moment General Durando was camped in Conegliano with the regular Papal division, while Ferrari’s volunteer division was stationed around Oderzo. Advanced detachment had been put in a defensive stance all along the Livenza river some miles to the East, tasked with resisting as much as possible the enemy crossing and waiting for reinforcements as soon as the main enemy thrust could be individuated.
This came on the 2nd, with an attack on the village of Settimo on the road to Oderzo. Settimo and his bridge were defended by a battalion of Roman Guardie Civiche with a cannon, no more than three hundred men in total. They were attacked by the whole von Culoz brigade, with a strength of 2200 men and an artillery battery. The Romans resisted bravely to the enemy onslaught, calling in reinforcements from Ferrari, who sent in his reserve, about 1500 infantry and a cavalry squadron. Reinforcements arrived to the Austrian side too, but they were bottlenecked by the small bridge, as during spring the Livenza is not easily fordable. On the rest of the front there was calm, interrupted only by sporadic skirmishes. At this point Ferrari was certain that the enemy had chosen the way of Oderzo for his attack, and sends messengers to Durando, urging him to send reinforcements. The Roman general however dithered for several hours, convinced that Nugent wants to attack further north and join with the forces that are descending the valleys of Cadore, where several small engagements had been reported. After noon the exhausted, and short on ammo, Guardie Civiche finally retreated from Settimo, and von Culoz was able to cross the Livenza.
The Austrians were steadily enlarging the bridgehead and the volunteers’ retreat was starting to turn into a rout, when a detachment of around fifty mounted Papal Carabinieri charged straight into the Austrian lines, causing great mayhem before being cut down almost to a man (1). This heroic action was not completely futile, as the Austrians, fearing it might be the start of a counterattack in force, stop to consolidate on the right side of the Livenza, advancing only very cautiously and giving time to most of the volunteers to regroup in Oderzo.
Many detachments along the Livenza were outflanked and taken prisoner, other dispersed or retreated towards Oderzo or Conegliano. Durando sent towards Ferrari two cavalry squadrons, and another one, with the two Roman chasseurs battalions towards Bassano, where he thought a big enemy advance was going on.
Sensing the possibility of destroying a significant part of the “rebel” army, Nugent ordered to press on the advance on Oderzo during the late afternoon, but Ferrari managed to keep his positions from collapsing, while sending increasingly desperate pleas of assistance to Durando. In truth he was saved by the incipient night, as Durando appeared still hesitant to commit his forces, fixed on the idea that the southern attack was a diversion.
During the night Ferrari decided to abandon Oderzo and retreat towards more defensible positions along the Piave. All in all the battle of the Livenza claimed ninetifive dead for the Italians, along with two hundred wounded and 340 prisoners, while the Austrians had lost about two hundred and fifty dead or wounded. Morale was low on the Italian side, and they had consumed much of their ammo, but at least they had not collapsed, and were reinforced by the almost two thousand men that had remained in Treviso.
On the following day even Durando couldn’t deny anymore that Nugent had chosen the southern way of advance. The general received also messengers from Cortina, saying that the Austrian forces in Cadore were limited in number, certainly not a second invasion force, therefore he decided to turn south with his army, hoping to catch Nugent in the flank and sent to Ferrari his famous message “vengo correndo” [I come running].
Nugent, thanks to his good scouting parties, was soon aware of this advance and, after leaving a four thousand strong blocking force to confront Ferrari, marched with the remaining nine thousand men against the onrushing forces of Durando, also about nine thousand strong. After the initial élan of the volunteers had exhausted itself on the disciplined Austrian lines, the battle started to swing in Nugent’s favour, and only the timely countercharge of the Swiss brigade saved Durando’s left flank when the Guardie Civiche had been almost routed. The University battalions instead distinguished themselves, repelling two Uhlan charges after forming in squares almost as well as any professional infantry.
The battle continued indecisively, with neither force able to decisively overcome the other, until General Thurn-Valsassina, in command of the Division tasked to control Ferrari’s force, was spooked by the volunteers’ sudden and unexpected assault, and reported to Nugent that the Italians must have been greatly reinforced, as he couldn’t imagine that the troops already beaten the day before could have still any fighting spirit in them. At this point Nugent, fearing to get outflanked, decided to consolidate his lines and interrupt the attacks, slowly retreating towards the crossings on the Livenza.
The Italians, on their part, were in no shape to pursue them, and the battle soon died out, with the Austrians firmly in control of bridgeheads at Sacile and Settimo, having retreated most of their army in good order towards Pordenone. Losses had been relatively high on both sides, with the Italians suffering almost eight hundred casualties and the Austrians about 600. Still, the Italian League’s army was in control of the battlefield, and could rightly claim victory, although the Austrian army was far than beaten, and in fact it was probable that a new attack could have defeated the Italians, if they didn’t receive some reinforcement.
Notes:
1-This happened IOTL at the battle of Cornuda, and was a moment of such unexpected bravery that I wanted to include it here too, forgive the poetical license...
Finally some real action!
In the Italian League camp the feelings were mixed: there was dismay at the loss of Udine, and nobody had expected that the Austrians could mobilize so quickly on the Isonzo, but on the other hand there was elation for the arrival of the Papal and Neapolitan expedition (the latter bringing the promise that stronger forces would follow them) as well as the numerous volunteers who had just crossed the Po, under the leadership of general Ferrari. In this climate the Consiglio delle Province Unite decided to pass a law ordering the conscription of a quota of able men from each province, to serve for the defense of the Republic from enemy invasion. This would in time give a regular army to Venice for its defense, but to fight this peculiar invasion it still had to rely on a mix of volunteers and former Austrian soldiers: during the past month no more than 5.000 men had been equipped. This force was commanded by the Piedmontese general La Marmora, and had been tasked with covering Vicenza from a possible attack by Radetzky’s forces from the Quadrilateral.
The delegates from Padua, Vicenza and Venezia argued that the chief danger came from Radetzky, as the Piedmontese appeared unwilling to commit more troops in Lombardy, and wanted the just arrived Neapolitan contingent to be used in the west, to bolster the mostly green troops of the Guardia Nazionale. The Papal army, together with local volunteers would be enough to stop the Austrian advance in the East.
The Friulan delegates had however fearsome stories of the cruelty of the Austrian soldiery, that made a strong impression on all the delegates, especially those from Belluno and Treviso (who were the closest to the advancing Austrians), and the relatively quick fall of Udine convinced many that the main danger lied in Nugent’s advance. The initial idea was then to use Pepe’s troops in support of Durando’s force, but the Neapolitan general proposed an alternative course of action, involving the combined Neapolitan and Venetian naval squadron and the Venetian Marine Infantry battalion.
Durando reached Treviso on the 29th with his ten thousand men, closely followed by seven thousand volunteers under general Ferrari. On the same day Nugent crossed the Tagliamento with 15.400 men, having left a reserve of about 8.000 men to control Palmanova, Udine and Osoppo, to avoid a sally from the besieged troops or a descent from the insurgents who had taken refuge in the Alpine part of Friuli that would have endangered his supply route.
Finally, on that fateful 29th April, the Pope, pressured since the start of the revolutions by the opposed factions inside the Curia, decided to recall his army inside the Papal borders, not wishing to enter the fight against the Catholic Austrian Empire and fearful of the risk of a schism among the German Catholics. He therefore made an allocution to the Consistory, in which he clarified that his army was only meant for the defense of the borders of his temporal realm, denying any ambition over the rest of Italy. The allocution however contained also a condemnation of the violence in Friuli, where several priests had been targeted by the Austrians as leaders in the villages that had resisted their occupation, and an exhortation to find a peaceful resolution to the quarrels between the “hallowed rights of Princes” and the “natural aspirations of the Nations”. Finally Pius IX strongly denied the insistent voices that had proposed him as President of a future Italian Confederation.
This allocution would have a grave political significance, and disillusion the then still strong “neo-guelph” faction on the real intentions of Pius IX, but was still ambiguous enough that the Italian liberals mostly read into it a tacit support for the Italian cause, or at least an acquiescence to its ideals, as it didn’t contain any open condemnation of the new regimes in Milan and Venice, instead auspicating a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
It’s not clear what motivated the Pope to hold such a conciliatory stance, to the horror of the more conservative cardinals, but it is possible that it was in large part due to a fear of further disorders in Rome itself and that a genuine discomfort at the harshness of the Austrian repression in Friuli could have contributed to it.
In any case the recall orders sent to Generals Durando and Ferrari were not listened to. The volunteers were by now to much inflamed with patriotic fervor, and the regulars, even the two swiss regiments, decided to follow their general in battle, rather to “dishonourably” retreat in front of the advancing Austrians.
Nugent’s Corps had occupied Pordenone on the 1st of May, after having been slowed for some hours by the defense opposed by the local guardia civica. From there, it had two possible routes, the northern one would cross the alpine valleys from Belluno to Feltre and then either descending along the Piave valley, or continuing to Trento and Verona, and the southern and most straightforward one, towards Oderzo and then crossing the Piave, occupying Treviso and the rest of Veneto.
In that moment General Durando was camped in Conegliano with the regular Papal division, while Ferrari’s volunteer division was stationed around Oderzo. Advanced detachment had been put in a defensive stance all along the Livenza river some miles to the East, tasked with resisting as much as possible the enemy crossing and waiting for reinforcements as soon as the main enemy thrust could be individuated.
This came on the 2nd, with an attack on the village of Settimo on the road to Oderzo. Settimo and his bridge were defended by a battalion of Roman Guardie Civiche with a cannon, no more than three hundred men in total. They were attacked by the whole von Culoz brigade, with a strength of 2200 men and an artillery battery. The Romans resisted bravely to the enemy onslaught, calling in reinforcements from Ferrari, who sent in his reserve, about 1500 infantry and a cavalry squadron. Reinforcements arrived to the Austrian side too, but they were bottlenecked by the small bridge, as during spring the Livenza is not easily fordable. On the rest of the front there was calm, interrupted only by sporadic skirmishes. At this point Ferrari was certain that the enemy had chosen the way of Oderzo for his attack, and sends messengers to Durando, urging him to send reinforcements. The Roman general however dithered for several hours, convinced that Nugent wants to attack further north and join with the forces that are descending the valleys of Cadore, where several small engagements had been reported. After noon the exhausted, and short on ammo, Guardie Civiche finally retreated from Settimo, and von Culoz was able to cross the Livenza.
The Austrians were steadily enlarging the bridgehead and the volunteers’ retreat was starting to turn into a rout, when a detachment of around fifty mounted Papal Carabinieri charged straight into the Austrian lines, causing great mayhem before being cut down almost to a man (1). This heroic action was not completely futile, as the Austrians, fearing it might be the start of a counterattack in force, stop to consolidate on the right side of the Livenza, advancing only very cautiously and giving time to most of the volunteers to regroup in Oderzo.
Many detachments along the Livenza were outflanked and taken prisoner, other dispersed or retreated towards Oderzo or Conegliano. Durando sent towards Ferrari two cavalry squadrons, and another one, with the two Roman chasseurs battalions towards Bassano, where he thought a big enemy advance was going on.
Sensing the possibility of destroying a significant part of the “rebel” army, Nugent ordered to press on the advance on Oderzo during the late afternoon, but Ferrari managed to keep his positions from collapsing, while sending increasingly desperate pleas of assistance to Durando. In truth he was saved by the incipient night, as Durando appeared still hesitant to commit his forces, fixed on the idea that the southern attack was a diversion.
During the night Ferrari decided to abandon Oderzo and retreat towards more defensible positions along the Piave. All in all the battle of the Livenza claimed ninetifive dead for the Italians, along with two hundred wounded and 340 prisoners, while the Austrians had lost about two hundred and fifty dead or wounded. Morale was low on the Italian side, and they had consumed much of their ammo, but at least they had not collapsed, and were reinforced by the almost two thousand men that had remained in Treviso.
On the following day even Durando couldn’t deny anymore that Nugent had chosen the southern way of advance. The general received also messengers from Cortina, saying that the Austrian forces in Cadore were limited in number, certainly not a second invasion force, therefore he decided to turn south with his army, hoping to catch Nugent in the flank and sent to Ferrari his famous message “vengo correndo” [I come running].
Nugent, thanks to his good scouting parties, was soon aware of this advance and, after leaving a four thousand strong blocking force to confront Ferrari, marched with the remaining nine thousand men against the onrushing forces of Durando, also about nine thousand strong. After the initial élan of the volunteers had exhausted itself on the disciplined Austrian lines, the battle started to swing in Nugent’s favour, and only the timely countercharge of the Swiss brigade saved Durando’s left flank when the Guardie Civiche had been almost routed. The University battalions instead distinguished themselves, repelling two Uhlan charges after forming in squares almost as well as any professional infantry.
The battle continued indecisively, with neither force able to decisively overcome the other, until General Thurn-Valsassina, in command of the Division tasked to control Ferrari’s force, was spooked by the volunteers’ sudden and unexpected assault, and reported to Nugent that the Italians must have been greatly reinforced, as he couldn’t imagine that the troops already beaten the day before could have still any fighting spirit in them. At this point Nugent, fearing to get outflanked, decided to consolidate his lines and interrupt the attacks, slowly retreating towards the crossings on the Livenza.
The Italians, on their part, were in no shape to pursue them, and the battle soon died out, with the Austrians firmly in control of bridgeheads at Sacile and Settimo, having retreated most of their army in good order towards Pordenone. Losses had been relatively high on both sides, with the Italians suffering almost eight hundred casualties and the Austrians about 600. Still, the Italian League’s army was in control of the battlefield, and could rightly claim victory, although the Austrian army was far than beaten, and in fact it was probable that a new attack could have defeated the Italians, if they didn’t receive some reinforcement.
Notes:
1-This happened IOTL at the battle of Cornuda, and was a moment of such unexpected bravery that I wanted to include it here too, forgive the poetical license...
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