Battle of Custozza

“ The Austrian arms had been successful in Italy, that drill ground for the Austrian general staff officers, the battle of Custozza had been won, and new confidence filled the Viennese, as to their success in Germany. ”

“ On July 20 the Italian navy suffered an overwhelming defeat at Lissa in the Adriatic, and these two great misfortunes plunged Victor Emmanuel into the deepest grief. He felt disabled from continuing the war: all the sacrifice of life had been in vain: national unity was as far off as ever. ... Meantime the Prussian arms were everywhere victorious over Austria, and about ten days after the battle of Custozza it was announced in the Moniteur that Austria had asked the Emperor Napoleon's mediation, offering to cede him Venice, and that he was making over that province to the King of Italy. ”

“ However, the latter were nearer than was supposed, and an encounter-battle promptly began for the possession of Somma-Campagna and Custozza. The king’s army was unable to use its superior numbers and, brigade for brigade, was much inferior to its opponents. The columns on the right, attempting in succession to debouch from Villafranca in the direction of Verona, were checked by two improvised cavalry brigades under Colonel Pulz, which charged repeatedly, with the old-fashioned cavalry spirit that Europe had almost forgotten, and broke up one battalion after another. ”

“ THE LITTLE SARDINIAN DRUMMER BY EDMONDO DE AMICIS
Translated by Clou. E. Hard. Copyright, 1898, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.
On the 24th of July, 1848, the first day of the battle of Custoza, sixty soldiers belonging to one of our regiments of infantry, ordered to garrison a lonely house on a height near by, were suddenly attacked by two companies of Austrians, who, assaulting them on several sides, scarcely gave them time to take refuge within the house, and hastily barricade the door, leaving their dead and wounded on the field. ”

“ On the 11th, on his motion, a decree was passed by acclamation for a levy of 200,000 men and the raising of £4,500,000 for the defence of the independence of the country. Desultory fighting, in which Austrian officers with the tacit consent of the minister of war took part against the Magyars, had already broken out in the south. It was not, however, until the victory of Custozza (July 25) set free the army in Italy, that the Austrian government ventured on bolder measures. ”

“ At Custozza we have gained a victory, children, more glorious than any but one. I have always said it: Lombardy must become ours! Are you not delighted? I regard the war as already decided; for if we get done with the Italians, who do at any rate set a regular trained army in the field against us, we shall not find it hard to deal with these ‘tailors’ apprentices’. This Landwehr—it is really an impudence—but it is just of a piece with the whole Prussian{222} conceit to take the field against regular armies with such stuff. ”

“ The needle-gun, the cursed needle-gun, mows our troops down by whole ranks at a time. The two great army corps of the enemy, that commanded by the Crown Prince and that under Prince Fr. Karl, have joined, and are pressing forward against Münchengrätz.” Thus sounded the terrible news, and my father communicated it with as great a degree of lamentation as he had shown joy in telling us the victorious news from Custozza. But his confidence was not yet shaken.
“Let them come, all of them, all, into our Bohemia, and be annihilated there, to the last man. ”

“ The result of Custozza was the retreat and complete immobilization of the whole Italian army, so that Albert was able to despatch the greater part of his troops to reinforce the Bohemian army, when, after being defeated by the Prussians, it fell back on Vienna. On the 10th of July the archduke was summoned to Vienna to take supreme command of the forces which were being collected to defend the capital, but peace was made before further hostilities took place. ”

“ The Austrian mobilised army has been reckoned at as low a figure as 63,000, certainly an understatement, as it appears that the Archduke mustered not less than 70,000 at the battle of Custoza. That he mustered on that day every man he could produce is probably a fact. Had the Italian generals followed the same rule, however enormous their other errors might have been, they would have won. Of all conceivable faults in a military commander that which is the least pardonable is the neglect to crush his antagonist by force of superior numbers when he has them at his disposal. ”

“ Cuesta’s unaccommodating temper aggravated the evil. He was applied to after the battle for ninety mules to draw the British artillery in place of those lost in the action; there were at that time hundreds in his army employed in drawing empty carts, and yet he refused to part with any. Five guns belonging to Alburquerque’s division having been taken at Arzobispo, the Duke endeavoured to make over to the British army the mules attached to them; but Cuesta took them for himself. His own cavalry were plentifully supplied with barley, while hundreds of the British horses died for want of it. ”

“ Weeks passed. We heard of Pastrengo, Goito, Rivoli; of Radetsky hemmed into the Quadrilateral, and our troops closing in on him from Rome, Tuscany and Venetia. Months passed—and we heard of Custozza. We saw Charles Albert’s broken forces flung back from the Mincio to the Oglio, from the Oglio to the Adda. We followed the dreadful retreat from Milan, and saw our rescuers dispersed like dust before the wind. But all the while no word came to us of Roberto. ”

“ If, instead of advancing in one long and weak line, without a reserve, Cuesta had held the greatest part of his troops in solid columns, and thrust them between Lassalle and Latour Maubourg’s divisions, which were pushed out like horns from the main body of the French, those generals would have been cut off, and the battle commenced by dividing the French army into three unconnected masses, while the Spaniards would have been compact, well in hand, and masters of the general movements. ”

“ In the centre the leading brigades fought in vain for the possession of Custozza and the edge of the plateau, and on the left the divisions that had turned northward from Valeggio into the hills were also met and defeated. ”

“ In the name of the Army of the North, I have despatched the following telegram to the commander of the Army of the South: Field-Marshal Benedek and the whole northern army to the glorious and most{224} illustrious Commander-in-chief of the brave southern army with joyful admiration, sends most hearty congratulations on the news of the famous day of Custozza. The campaign in the south is opened with a new and glorious victory for our arms. Glorious Custozza shines on the escutcheon of the imperial army. ”

“ The artillery sent to aid the British was manfully worked and did good service. But if only the Spanish army had been able to manœuvre, what a difference there must have been in the battle! When Leval, Sebastiani, and Lapisse fell back in disorder at 4 P.M., what would have been the fate of the French if Cuesta could have led out 25,000 men upon their flank and rear? He did not attempt to do so, and probably he was right. Yet it was hard for a British army to have to fight in line with allies who were perfectly useless for any large offensive movement. ”

“ Castelnau’s army, marching behind the front from Nancy, crashed into battle in Picardy, striving to turn the German right, and was itself outreached on its left. Foch’s army, corps after corps, hurried by road and rail to prolong the fighting front in Artois; but round the left of this again lapped the numerous German cavalry divisions of von der Marwitz—swoop and counter-swoop. On both sides every man and every gun were hurled as they arrived into the conflict, and the unceasing cannonade drew ever northwards and westwards—ever towards the sea. ”

“ So unaccountable was this conduct in Cuesta, that it has been supposed he scrupled at fighting upon a Sunday. Whatever his reasons were, they have never been explained, and could not have been more valid than this would have been: but thus the fair occasion was let pass; for when, on the morning of the 24th, he was ready to offer battle, it appeared that Victor, profiting by the precious time which had been given him, had decamped during the night, and retired to St. Olalla, and from thence towards Torrejos, to effect that meditated junction which Sir Arthur’s measures would have frustrated. ”

“ The whole Spanish army was scattered to the winds. It was some days before the Aragonese and Catalans began to rally at Tortosa, and the Valencians at Morella. The total loss in the battle had not been large—Suchet says that only one regiment was actually surrounded and cut to pieces, and only one flag taken [536] . But of the 25,000 men who had formed the ‘Army of the Right’ on June 1, not 10,000 were available a month later, and these were in a state of demoralization which would have made it impossible to take them into action. ”

“ It lives as one of those moments in a nation's history that will only die with the nation that inspired it. The peasants turned the tide of the hotly fought battle. "Peasants, take those cannon for me. God and our country!" was Kościuszko's cry of thunder. Urging each other on by the homely names they were wont to call across their native fields, the peasants swept like a hurricane upon the Russian battery, carrying all before them with their deadly scythes, while Kościuszko rode headlong at their side. They captured eleven cannon, and cut the Russian ranks to pieces. ”

“ His dexterous resistance to the superior forces of the Austrians with the left wing of Masséna’s army, when the right and centre were shut up in Genoa, not only prevented the invasion of France from this direction but contributed to the success of Napoleon’s crossing the Alps, which culminated in the battle of Marengo on the 14th of June. He took a prominent part in the Italian campaign till the armistice of Treviso. ”

“ The English commissaries went off with their animals, the paymasters carried away their money-chests, the baggage was scattered, and the alarm spread along the rear even to the frontier of Portugal. Cuesta indeed, having recovered his presence of mind, sent several thousand horsemen to head the fugitives and drive them back, and some of the artillerymen and horses were thus recovered; many of the infantry also, but in the next day’s battle the Spanish army was less by six thousand fighting men than it should have been, and the great redoubt in the centre was silent for want of guns. ”

“ Cuesta never issued any proper return of his casualties. He stated in one of his dispatches that they amounted to 1,201 men. This figure cannot possibly represent killed and wounded alone. Only one cavalry regiment, five or six battalions, and three batteries were engaged, none of them heavily. The British troops which fought in their neighbourhood had very modest losses, which made it incredible that the comrades in line with them should have suffered to the extent of more than 400 or 500 men. ”

“ Ordal so as to render a night surprise impossible, and the natural difficulties of the other roads delayed the flanking columns. Hence when the French reached Villafranca, Sarzfield was in full march for Igualada, and the Anglo-Sicilians, who had only three men wounded at one of the advanced posts, were on the strong ground about Arbos, where being joined by the supporting divisions they offered battle; but Suchet retired to the Llobregat apparently so mortified by his failure that he has not even mentioned it in his Memoirs. ”

“ This battle and the pursuit, in which Suchet took about four thousand prisoners, and all the artillery, ammunition, and baggage of the Spaniards, not only made him master of the operations in Aragon, but also rendered the fifth corps, under Mortier, who were now at Valladolid, completely disposable for offensive operations. Thus, on the 1st of July, there were, exclusive of Kellerman’s and Bonnet’s divisions, three complete corps d’armée, furnishing six thousand cavalry and fifty thousand infantry, collected between Astorga, Zamora, and Valladolid. ”

“ Sir John Murray had failed at Taragona. He had lost the honoured battering-train intrusted to his charge, and his artillery equipage was supposed to be ruined. The French fortresses in Catalonia and Valencia were numerous, the Anglo-Sicilian army could neither undertake an important siege, nor seriously menace the enemy without obtaining some strong place as a base. Suchet was therefore free to march on Zaragoza, and uniting with Clauzel and Paris, to operate with a powerful mass against the right flank of the allies. ”

“ When the campaign changed to guerilla warfare Kościuszko fought as a soldier, not as an engineer. At the battle of Eutaw Springs, where the licence of the American soldiers pillaging the British camp and murdering the prisoners lost Greene a decisive victory, we hear of Kościuszko as making desperate attempts to restrain a carnage which horrified his humane feelings, and personally saving the lives of fifty Englishmen. Peace and the defeat of Great Britain were in the air, but hostilities still dragged on, and Kościuszko fought through 1782 near Charleston with distinction. ”

“ A dozen cavalrymen dashing in at the northern and western end of the village could have carried everything before them.
Not forty yards away from the prison lodge, some ten or twelve warriors were clustered, being wounded braves unable to take part in the great battle.
So interested were these worthies in what was passing before their eyes (for, standing on a little elevation, they could see the fight with Reno now drawing to an end, and the gallop to death of brave Custer and his men) , that the little episode in their rear did not serve to attract their attention. ”