Opening Moves.

The Austrian 2^nd Army was commanded by Feldzeugmeister Ferenc Graf Gyulai. At 65 years of age he was certainly not in the same league as Radetzky. By moving swiftly he would have had the chance of knocking out the much smaller Piedmontese army before the arrival of the French. But Gyulai erred on the side of caution. On April 29^th, with close to 120,000 men and over 300 cannon the Austrian commander crossed the Ticino River and spread out his men along the Sesia, pushing troops out as far as Vercelli. Here he wasted precious time for no apparent reason other than the fact that he was in awe of the name of Bonaparte. He was aware that the French were already pushing forward towards the Mont St. Cenis pass, as well as sending troops to the port of Genoa in steamships. This threat alone caused Gyulai to become obsessed with any turning movement that might occur on his left flank.[1]

What Gyulai was not aware of was the chaotic state of the French mobilisation and concentration. With no idea of how to deal with the mass movement of troops and supplies by rail or ship, with no forward planning being made beforehand, or study of the complexities of the logistics involved, it was only by sheer good fortune, coupled with the equally disorganised state of her opponent that the whole campaign did not turn into a fiasco. McElwee gives a graphic account of the chaotic state of the French army and administration when it was known that war had been declared:

On 26^th April the harassed marshal, who had since been ordered to proceed at once to Turin with General Niel to co-ordinate movements with the King of Sardinia, sent a telegram to the War Ministry which summed up all the frustration and grievances of his brother generals: They have forgotten to provide for my Army Corps operational staff, Q staff, provost, medical services, artillery, and engineers…’ The only satisfaction he got was a postscript to a personal letter from the Minister of War transmitting the Emperor’s orders for his preliminary movements on arrival in Italy: ‘I note with distress.’ Marshal Vaillant wrote, ‘that your troops are not organised for war. You will be putting this right.’

The pattern was everywhere the same. The army arrived in Italy well ahead of all the equipment and supplies needed for a campaign which had already begun –‘ the opposite,’ as the Emperor telegraphed to Marshal Randon, the new Minister of War, ‘of what we should have done.’ He added that he held the Ministry ‘very much to blame.’ But he himself shared with his ministers and officials the cheerful French belief that somehow things would sort themselves out. When he gave out his first orders, for the general advance of the Allied Army, and Marshal Baraguay-d’Hilliers protested that neither I nor II Corps had yet got artillery, he shrugged the matter off: ‘On s’organisera en route.’ That might have stood as the motto of the whole supply service, the “Intendence.” The ammunition and rations piled up at Genoa because there were no officers with experience or energy to get such large masses of material moving on the largely one-track railway lines. By local purchase or requisition, and with the help of hastily organised civilian transport columns, the army was somehow fed and kept on the move, though at the cost of great hardship to the troops. Worst of all, on the final day of the battle of Solferino, where the horrible suffering of the wounded precipitated the foundation of the Red Cross, the French medical supplies were still piled up on the docks. The much-vaunted professionalism justified itself in that the French troops outfought the Austrians and by the narrowest of margins won both the great battles for their Emperor. The commanders and staffs were saved from total discredit only by the French genius for improvisation and the still greater incompetence of the Austrians.’[2]

Arriving ahead of his troops Canrobert met with Victor Emmanuel and at once advised the king to move his army from covering the capitol and concentrate with the French forces at strong fortified positions around Alessandria. Between the 1^st and 3^rd of May this concentration was implemented, with the Piedmontese being joined by the French III corps, and on the 7^th of May by the IV corps. Thus if Gyulai still persisted with an advance on Turin his lines of communication could be threatened by a turning movement on his left flank. All of this gave the Austrian commander the jitters, and possibly recalling the campaign of 1796 when the young general Bonaparte had used similar tactics in defeating the Austrians, Gyulai pulled his forces back across the Sesia River from their advanced position around Vercelli, regrouping around Mortara. He knew that another Austrian army was being formed, The First, consisting of the 1^st, 2^nd and 11^th corps, and that these troops were now mobilizing with some units already arriving in Italy, therefore a defensive stance seemed in order while awaiting events.

By the 16^th May the French I corps was concentrated around Voghera and Pontecurone, with the II corps at Sale and Bassingana. The III corps took position at Tortona, and the IV corps at Valenza. The Imperial Guard where grouped around Alessandria. The Piedmontese army took ground between Valenza and Casale. Prince Napoleon’s V corps, which acquired the sobriquet, “The Fifth Wheel” because it never seemed to do much, was away in the duchies of central Italy on a diplomatic mission, with the exception of one division still with the main French army.[3] Thus when the French Emperor arrived to take command, he had at his disposal close to 200,000 men against Gyulai’s 120,000.

Solferino tower and castle seen from the west.

Believing that the concentration of the French and Piedmontese armies portended a thrust in the direction of Piacenza, Gyulai ordered a reconnaissance to be carried out towards Voghera. This force, commanded by Count Stadion, comprised of the Austrian 9^th corps together with elements of 5^th corps, some 25,000 men and 60 cannon. On 20^th May the Austrians pushed back the Piedmontese cavalry outposts at Casteggio and moved forward through the village of Montebello towards Genestrello. Here they encountered the forward elements of the French division under General Forey (I corps), numbering 8,000 men and 12 guns. Forey’s aggressive tactics, in which he fed fresh battalions into the battle as they came on the field, caused the eventual withdrawal of Stadion’s battered columns with the loss of over 1,300 men, at a cost to the Allies of 700. Despite having superior forces in close proximity to the battlefield, the Austrian used only half of their available manpower, and never even managed to deploy more than 16 of their 60 cannon.

Rather like two people bumping into one another in a dark room, both the French and Austrians fell back on the defensive. It became obvious to Napoleon III that the cautious nature of his opponent meant that any chance of turning the Austrian left flank would be met with strong resistance, since Gyulai had piled up considerable forces to cover such an eventuality. Therefore a new plan was set in motion whereby the Franco-Sardinian armies were to move towards Novara, and from there make a push to take the Lombardian capitol of Milan. On 30^th May the Piedmontese crossed the Sesia River taking the town of Palestro after a hard struggle. The following day the Austrians counter attacked, but after a bitter see-saw battle were repulsed. It was during this encounter that Victor Emmanuel, showing conspicuous bravery in leading the French 3^rd Zouaves, was awarded the rank of corporal in the regiment. What the king thought of this “honour” does not seem to have been recorded.

The Battle Of Magenta (Edward Lang collection)

By the 2^nd of June the allied armies had moved forward with the French IV corps occupying Novara where it was joined by the II corps and the Imperial Guard. The Piedmontese army, together with the French I and III corps were at Vercelli, pushing out cavalry patrols toward Vespolate. Suddenly realising that he had been outmanoeuvred, on the evening of the 3^rd of June Gyulai pulled back across the Ticino River to positions around Magenta, covering the approaches to Milan. For his part the French Emperor, without any clear knowledge of the whereabouts of the Austrian army, ordered the crossings of the Ticino to be secured, and placed his forces on both sides of the river so as to meet any threat towards Mortara or Vigevano.

On the afternoon of the 4^th of June the advancing French columns once again collided with Gyulai’s advance posts, who were as surprised at the sudden meeting as their adversaries. Soon a full-blown engagement had developed in which both sides were unable to deploy either their artillery or cavalry to good effect owing to the closed nature of the terrain. The poor coordination of the various Austrian corps allowed the French to finally gain the upper hand, and by nightfall Magenta was in their hands. The battle cost the Austrians almost 10,000 men in killed wounded and missing, while the French losses numbered close to 5,000.

After the battle of Magenta the Austrians began to withdraw towards the Quadrilateral - their old enclave of the mutually supporting fortresses of Mantua, Peschiera, Verona and Legnago. On June the 8^th Victor Emmanuel and Napoleon III entered Milan in triumph. On the same day the French attacked the Austrian rearguard at Melegnano, but due to a total lack of coordination in planning their attack they allowed the Austrians to retire in good order.

The general consensus of opinion for the French and Piedmontese was that since the Austrians had fallen back across the Mincio River to the shelter of the Quadrilateral, they would remain there and offer battle on more favourable ground to themselves. However, when the young Emperor Franz Joseph joined his troops he immediately dismissed Gyulai and took overall command himself, and having now collected together seven army corps in two armies; the 1^stArmy, with the 3^rd, 9^th and 11^th corps, together with the cavalry division of Count Medtwitz, and commanded by Feldzeugmeister von Wimpffen; the 2^nd Army consisting of the 1^st, 5^th, 7^th and 8^th corps with Baron von Mensdorff ‘s cavalry division was commanded by Count Schlick. It would appear that although Franz Joseph himself was content to await the advance of the allied armies behind the Mincio, he was persuaded by his chief of staff Feldzeugmeister Count von Hess to go back on the offensive. The bridges over the Mincio were still intact and further pontoon bridges were also laid across the river to facilitate the advance of the Austrians. Unfortunately what the Austrian Emperor was unaware of was that the French and Piedmontese had also decided on offensive operations. On the 22^nd June Napoleon III was at Monte Chiaro with Victor Emmanuel’s army to the north, covering his left flank west of San Martino, with the main bodies of both armies already moving to the crossing points of the Chiese River.