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Draft:Suvorov's Italian campaign

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The Italian campaign of Suvorov took place in Northern Italy between April and September 1799 and saw the Russo-Austrian army, led by Russian general Alexander Suvorov, fighting devisively against French revolutionary troops. The campaign was part of the War of the Second Coalition and ended with the temporary victory of Russia and the fall of the pro-French sister republics in the region.

Suvorov's Italian campaign
Part of the War of the Second Coalition

Map of Suvorov's campaign in Italy and Switzerland
Date15 April – 11 September 1799
Location
Northern Italy
Result

Russo–Austrian victory[1]

Full results:
Belligerents
Foreign legions:
 Russian Empire Russian Empire
Habsburg monarchy Habsburg monarchy
Commanders and leaders
French First Republic Barthélemy Joubert †
French First Republic Jean Moreau
French First Republic Étienne Macdonald
French First Republic Barthélemy Schérer
Luigi Colli Ricci
Jan Dąbrowski		 Russian Empire Alexander Suvorov
Russian Empire Pyotr Bagration
Habsburg monarchy Michael von Melas
Habsburg monarchy Paul Kray
Strength
28,000 men (Initially)[6]
20,000 (May)[7]
26,000 + 44,000 (June)[8][9]
45,000 (August)[10][11][12]		 76,000 men (Initially)[13][14]
44,000 (May)[15]
65,000 + 35,000 (June)[16]
50,000 (August)[17]
Casualties and losses
Unknown killed or wounded
80,000 captured, 3,000 cannons, 200,000 guns[18]		 Unknown

Following the French invasion of Switzerland in 1798, Russia, an ally of the Austrians, sent an army to liberate the Swiss territories occupied by the French, who from that country controlled the Alpine passes to Italy and directly threatened the Habsburg Monarchy. The allies insisted that the Austro-Russian troops be led by General Suvorov, who however had fallen into disgrace at home for having criticized Tsar Paul I; the latter therefore decided to rehabilitate him and sent him with 20,000 men to Italy, where the Austrians appointed him field marshal.[19][20]

General Suvorov's participation was decisive: the Russians emerged victorious in many battles, defeating the french over and over and forcing two of their armies to retreat to the hills around Genoa,[21] and causing the collapse of French predominance in Italy. With his Austro-Russian army of over 70,000 men, in clear numerical superiority compared to the approximately 27,000–28,000 French men initially available,[6][22] Suvorov forced General Jean Moreau to abandon the defense of the Adda and retreat westwards.[23] The French then evacuated Milan and concentrated the remains of their forces in Alessandria, while the Austro–Russians invaded the Cisalpine Republic[2] and entered Milan on 29 April.[20] In the meantime, the French Army of Naples led by General Étienne Macdonald was approaching from the south in an attempt to rejoin General Moreau; Suvorov managed to block his path and destroy his army in the Battle of the Trebbia (17–19 June 1799),[24] forcing him to retreat along the coast and reach Genoa, where the forces of General Moreau soon converged. Moreau, having learned of Macdonald's defeat, had also retreated.[25]

A.V. Suvorov by Joseph Kreutzinger

Having also occupied Turin and defeated the last French army in the subsequent Battle of Novi, Suvorov remained at a certain point in control of the situation in Northern Italy and even decided to march towards France,[26] but the divisions and rivalries of the coalition powers would soon favour a recovery of the revolutionary armies: fearing that Russian influence in Italy would become excessive, the allies, also taking advantage of Paul I's ambitions to present himself as the liberator of Switzerland,[27] as the Tsarist troops interrupted their operations and were redeployed in the Confederation, leaving the initiative in the peninsula to the Austrians.[28] Suvorov was then ordered to march through the St. Gotthard Pass to meet up with the other body of Russian troops just led on the Limmat by General Alexander Korsakov[29] and then face the army of General André Masséna.[30]

The political and military precursors of the campaign

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Main articles: French Revolutionary Wars and War of the Second Coalition

The historical context

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General Louis Alexandre Berthier enters Rome with the troops of the Army of Italy on 11 February 1798.

After the surprising victories of General Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy in 1796–1797 the Austrian Empire had been forced to conclude the Treaty of Campo Formio,[31] following which revolutionary France dominated with its representatives being the new sister republics and could also direct its new ambitions towards Switzerland, the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples,[32] aiming to subject the whole Italian peninsula to its influence.[33] At the beginning of 1798 General Louis Alexandre Berthier occupied Rome and on 15 February a Republic was proclaimed, while the Pope (at that time Pius VI)[34] was taken prisoner[35] and transferred to Siena;[36] while the Parthenopean Republic was proclaimed[37] on 23 January 1799.[38] At first the Kingdom of Sardinia was spared and a treaty was signed in Paris, giving french free passage through Piedmont.[39] Then, the Directory limited itself to installing a French garrison in the citadel of Turin on 27 June 1798,[40] but finally the pretext of war in Naples was used to declare war also on the King of Sardinia (at that time Charles Emmanuel IV),[41] considered to be conniving with the enemies of the Republic: the kingdom was occupied by French troops and the king fled to island of Sardinia.[42] Without giving space to independence currents, the Directory itself had a popular petition voted in February 1799 in favour of the annexation of Piedmont to France.[43]

A portrait of General Barthélemy Schérer.

Great Britain, Austria and Russia, worried by French expansionism, then joined the Second Coalition; the British financed the Russian and Austrian armies with huge capitals,[44] but the lack of effective cohesion between the great powers and the persistent conflicts linked to the divergent war objectives weakened the solidity of this alliance from the beginning. The Austrian Chancellor Johann Amadeus von Thugut did not conclude any precise agreement with the allies, however he began vast war preparations and authorised Russian troops to cross Austrian territory: this event triggered the reaction of the French Directory, which decided to take the initiative and declare war on Austria on 12 March 1799 and also invade Tuscany, chasing out the Grand Duke Ferdinand III.[45]

The Battle of the Pyramids, part of the Egyptian campaign, by Louis-François Lejeune.

The opposing armies faced each other on a very wide front that went from Bavaria, to the modern territory of Switzerland to the former Venetian Republic.[46] The French had mobilised almost 390,000 soldiers against about 250,000 Austrians, 80,000 Russians and over 20,000 British, but the situation for France was very precarious since the Directory was constantly busy dealing with plots and countering conspiracies aimed at overthrowing it; but above all because its best general, Napoleon Bonaparte, and his most experienced troops were engaged in a daring expedition to Egypt.[47] The real hostilities began at the end of March when the French general Jean-Baptiste Jourdan decided to attack in Germany while at the same time General Barthélemy Louis Schérer in Italy was moving eastwards towards Verona.[48]

The initial forces in the field in Italy

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At the beginning of the campaign in 1799, Austria deployed in the north-east of Italy, between the Adige, Verona and Venice, about 69,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry and 3,000 artillerymen for a total of 84,000 men under the command of General Paul Kray von Krajowa,[49] against whom General Barthélemy Louis Schérer, commander in chief of the Army of Italy , could oppose six divisions for a maximum of about 46,400 men.[50] Schérer suffered several reverses: after reaching the Adige river on 26 March, he was defeated by the Austrians at Verona, and finally at Magnano on 5 April;[51] to defend the connecting routes to Milan, on 15 April he had to retreat to the left bank of the Adda river, where he was cautiously pursued by General Kray:[52] the French army left garrisons in the fortresses of the Quadrilateral fortresses (including Peschiera del Garda, Mantua, Legnago and Verona), between the Mincio, the Po and the Adige.[19] Although the French command still formally remained with Schérer, strategic control passed to General Jean Victor Moreau who organised a "cordon defence" along the Adda.[14][53].

Notes

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References

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  1. ^ Suvorov 2023, p. 356.
  2. ^ a b Novitsky et al. 1911, pp. 134–137.
  3. ^ Phipps 2011, p. 268–269.
  4. ^ Phipps 2011, p. 271.
  5. ^ Mikaberidze 2003, p. 158.
  6. ^ a b Mikaberidze 2003, p. 29.
  7. ^ Mikaberidze 2003, p. 43.
  8. ^ Mikaberidze 2003, pp. 65–66.
  9. ^ Mikaberidze 2003, p. 38.
  10. ^ Botta 1834, p. 356.
  11. ^ Coppi 1824, pp. 272–273.
  12. ^ Coppi 1824, pp. 274–275.
  13. ^ Mikaberidze 2003, p. 24.
  14. ^ a b Spencer C. Tucker 2009, p. 1007.
  15. ^ Coppi 1824, p. 257.
  16. ^ Mikaberidze 2003, pp. 63–64.
  17. ^ Mikaberidze 2003, pp. 117–118.
  18. ^ Suvorov 2023, p. 164.
  19. ^ a b Mikaberidze 2003, p. 19.
  20. ^ a b Mathiez & Lefebvre 1992, p. 476.
  21. ^ Mathiez & Lefebvre 1992, p. 490.
  22. ^ Chandler 1988, p. 611.
  23. ^ Eggenberger 1985, p. 80.
  24. ^ Duffy 1999, pp. 109–110.
  25. ^ Mathiez & Lefebvre 1992, pp. 476–477.
  26. ^ Mikhail Presnukhin (20 June 2011). "La spedizione russa in Italia contro Napoleone". Russia Beyond the Headlines. Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Archived from the original on 24 May 2014. Retrieved 21 July 2024.
  27. ^ Mathiez & Lefebvre 1992, p. 583.
  28. ^ Rettificazioni 1857, pp. 42–43.
  29. ^ Mathiez & Lefebvre 1992, p. 491.
  30. ^ Giulio Rossi (9 January 1908). "Suwaroff in Svizzera". Corriere del Ticino (in Italian). Archived from the original on 18 October 2014.
  31. ^ "Treaty of Campo Formio, France-Austria [1797]".
  32. ^ Mathiez & Lefebvre 1992, pp. 386–400.
  33. ^ Mathiez & Lefebvre 1992, pp. 408–410.
  34. ^ "Pope Pius VI". Berkley Center, Georgetown University. Archived from the original on 27 January 2019. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
  35. ^  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pius". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  36. ^ Gaetano Moroni (1840). Dizionario Di Erudizione Storico-Ecclesiastica Da S. Pietro Sino Ai Nostri Giorni (etc.). Venice: Dalla Tipografia Emiliana. p. 98.[ISBN missing]
  37. ^ Colletta 1863, p. 8.
  38. ^ Rose, John Holland (1911). "Italy" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 44.
  39. ^ Botta, Carlo Giuseppe G. (1825). Supplementi alla Storia d'Italia contenente la corrispondenza del governo francese col General Bonaparte (in Italian). Pisa: Nistri e Capuso.
  40. ^ Mathiez & Lefebvre 1992, pp. 432–434.
  41. ^ "Carlo Emanuele IV, King of Sardinia", The British Museum
  42. ^ Mathiez & Lefebvre 1992, pp. 472–473.
  43. ^ AA. VV. Storia d'Italia, vol. 6, De Agostini, 1980
  44. ^ Mikaberidze 2003, pp. 15–16.
  45. ^ Mathiez & Lefebvre 1992, p. 473.
  46. ^ Mikaberidze 2003, p. 17.
  47. ^ Roberts (2001), p. xviii
  48. ^ Mikaberidze 2003, p. 18.
  49. ^ Clausewitz 1833, p. 167.
  50. ^ Clausewitz 1833, p. 170.
  51. ^ Clausewitz 1833, pp. 172–204.
  52. ^ Clausewitz 1833, p. 205.
  53. ^ Nicola Zotti. "Cassano d'Adda 27 aprile 1799". warfare.it. Archived from the original on 1 November 2019.

Sources

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