The Battle of Mantua
Engagement and Aftermath
The site the Italians had chosen for the siege camp was, from a tactical standpoint, well suited for repelling an attack from the Austrians. The wide bend in the Mincio; with what few major crossings their were funneled through the urban center of Mantua proper, served as a natural bottleneck which drastically shrunk the depth and breath of the potential battlefield and so neutralized the Austrians ability to exploit their superior numbers for either an encircling maneuver or line-shattering charge. The suburb itself had no shortage of buildings that could serve as hardpoints and cover in the event of a small arms duel, while its position in a low valley with the fortress-city imposed between them and the heights to the north and east of town would frustrate any attempts to reduce them with artillery. Even the regional population served as an asset; the peasantry in the surrounding villages, having a proud tradition of passively resistance to Austrian authority, being more than willing to provide material for additional field-works and beds for their sick countrymen. There simply wasn't a better position on this side of the Po where they'd stand a better chance of fighting a successful battle: a fact the command staff, meeting in Cerese's church, quickly recognized as they weighed their options for what to do next. No matter how good of a place to take a stand, however, there were those who suggested using the delay created by the Austrian need to get their men across the river in fighting order to stage a quick withdrawal while they could still avoid it being contested. Such a plan would require abandoning a solid chunk of the heavier artillery and the illness casulties dispersed into civilian care, if they were to move out fast enough to reach the marsh ford before the Austrians could head them off, but this could be seen as a nessicery sacrifice if it saved the Po Army from destruction.
General Bixio ultimately rejected this proposal, choosing instead to use the precious few hours to prepare a loose network of dikes and shallow trenches to close off the outer streets and allyways of the town and provide cover for troops needing to reload. In later debreifings defending the iniative he asserted that they'd simply been operating under the official campaign plan, where the Northern army ought to already be storming past Pischera without any major Austrian field army to blunt their advance. In those conditions, it was obvious they'd only need to hold their ground for a day or two before the Archduke would turn around to find his nation's position in Western Venetia hopelessly compromised and HE'D be the one forced to retreat in poor order and run a losing race to avoid getting surrounded. Wether or not this was his actual motivation or a wise decision, the man ordered his men to disperse into loose formations in the rooftops, windows, and secured alleys of the eastern outskirts of town and the gaps between the northern batteries. While this meant his officers were spread relatively thin, the simplicity of the approach made him believe this wouldn't be a real weakness: they were to hold every building as long as feesable so long as it wasn't struck by heavy artillery, turning to fire into the interior streets if a barracade was overrun and the Habsburgs tried to break in.
What this sacrificed was any possability of harassing the Austrian deployment, and Hartung wasted no time in informing his superior of this golden opportunity. Having marched only a few days along good roads and country, the Austrian soldiers were much fresher and in better spirits than their Italian counterparts and so could conduct a hasty advance if ordered. The field guns were hauled ahead of the main troop body; screened by the cavalry and skirmishers who'd driven away any threat from the Pictole Bridge, to set up a line against the fortifying infantry. This was followed up by the cavalry, who rode out of shot range and towards the southward facing roads. While Albrecht's men took up their position, the city garrison kept up a steady, low intensity bombardment that, while dealing only negligible damage, kept the civilian work teams too skittish to approach the already deployed guns and so keeping them locked in engaging the fortress rather than being redirected to counter the new threat.
By around 6, the Italian morale was already slipping as the colums of camp smoke rising from the south and the scarcity of orders and absence of organized allies around them made it clear the window for a general retreat had closed. It was at that time that the Southern Army began it's assult: beginning with a coordinated, high density, ten minute barrage now that thered been oppritunities to get all the guns layed. The small squads: isolated and only able to hear the crashing and snapping of iron smashing into wood and stone and the muffled screams of comrades falling beneath the rubble, were absolutely terrified and many of fresher recruits firing off into the smoke and dust. Those that managed to keep their nerve found they still had suitable cover by the time the hellish rain ended, croaching behind their new hiding places to prepare for the inevitable Austrian assult. This would come soon after as the field commanders, following classical military doctrine, conducted a main line advance against what they assumed would be an exposed position. If the Po forces had been able to close ranks and conduct a proper rotating volley,this could have been a disaster, but faced with relative stroms of fire from the larger Austrian formations the isolated pockets of Italians quickly broke under the pressure.
The cascading collapse of the thin outer shell of the invader's position; each building or strech of road lost opening up it's neighbor to unexpected flanking fire, lead to rapidly mounting casulty and prisoner counts; the later often throwing themselves on a common Catholic piety to beg for merciful captivity rather than death. This only lead to further breakdown in command as routs and surrenders lead to more and more of those formations brace or foolhardy enough to hold their strong points as ordered fell behind Austrian lines to be engulfed by steadily arriving renforcements. The artillery and men facing Mantua, though wanting to aid their brothers, were held by the threat of Hartung's garrison who menaced them from the slope above; the commander having assembled his crack infantry into an assult formation and making a very loud show of demonstrating they were ready to be committed if the siege line tried to redeploy. Those men who didn't willingly yeild,by most accounts, did fight as bravely and compitently as any other nation's regulars (despite the infamious reputation commonly associated with them), but quickly lost their ability to resist either to enemy bullets or a shortage of their own.
Those who had shed ammunition on the hard march, suffice to say, must have regretted their decision.
The big breathrough came as night fell over the wreckage of dissident suburb, most of the small units who still had an opening falling victim to the temptation and using the cover of darkness to sneak away from the main battfield through the rubble. The latest wave of Austrian troops arriving from across the Mincio: stepping in to replace their tired comrades who'd been fighting earlier in the evening, finally pushed through the last organized resistance of the north-eastern corner of the suburbs thus splitting off the reserves in the town center from the artillery lines. Bixio, facing the threat of his front losing coherence and the enemy fortress guns being freed up to bombard their fallback position around the field command before he could salvage some kind of evacuation from there,ordered his veteren guard forces forward to try to plug the gap. With only a small stockpile of munitions this small body could only counter the march with a bayonet charge against the flank of the advance with the hope of breaking their moral. But it was already too late; the field artillery had been dispersed back into the smaller units and as the men concentrated into a dense block for the attack they faced a withering strike from a cannister shell, wounding so many that the remainder quickly broke against the dense Austrian rectangles. The noise of the clash drew in more of the enemy which quickly lead to the cream of the Savoyards being cut down as they were given no space in which to yield.
While not able to respond with an official capitulation until the next mourning, the Battle effectively ended with the capture of the rear of the Italian gun line. In addition to the many bands of deserters who's fall into the hands of local farmers of Austrian cavalry patrols over the next couple of days and the formations who'd formally conceded in the field, Albrecht also found himself in possession of thousands of intestinally-troubled prisoners and just over 100 pieces of artillery. The greater half of the Army of the Poor had effectively been removed from the board with Bixio and his staff transfered to Verona for comfortable captivity. Most importantly for the Archduke, however, was the fact the path into Italy proper had been left wide open, giving him the tempting offers of striking at either the remaining Royal forces to his east or the radicals of the troublesome Republicans in their rears. Not wanting to make a foolish decision and needing time to process this POW's and restock on supplies, he decided to have his men make camp to the north, carefully considering which way he should go...
