4. Summary
Considering the forces engaged, especially on the Austrian side, the word battle seems far too overrated for the engagements described here. The term combat would be more appropriate. Anyway Napoleon called these engagements battles showing how important success at them was to him. His memoirs show that he believed that in the 2nd battle of Lonato he had faced part of Wurmser's forces which had come by the Adige valley: "3 August the battle of Lonato took place; she was given by the two (!?) divisions of Wurmser which had crossed the Mincio by the bridge of Borghetto; that of Liptay was among them, as well as the division of Bayalitsch which he (Wurmser, BV) had left in front of Peschiera, which with the cavalry formed a corps of 30,000 men; the French had 20 to 23,000. Success was never doubtful. Wurmser with the two divisions which of infantry and the cavalry whom he had lead to Mantua as well as Quosdanovich who already was on the retreat could not be there.
At daybreak the enemy went to Lonato which he attacked vividly; by that he tried to make his connection with his right about which by-the-way he started to feel uneasy. The advance-guard of Massena was thrown back, Lonato taken. The general in chief who was at Ponte di San Marco took the lead of the troops. Always with the intention to gain on his right in order to open his communications with Salo the Austrian general had extended himself too much. Thus his centre was broken, Lonato retaken au pas de charge and the enemy line cut. One part withdrew to the Mincio, the other one threw himself into Salo; yet confronted by general Sauret and taken in its back by the general Saint-Hilaire surrounded from all sides it was compelled to lay down arms."
That Napoleon's assumptions are not correct was shown by the short descriptions and the reports: 1) FML Quosdanovich that day was not on the retreat but repulsed Sauret and Despinoy in the almost unknown "combat of Gavardo", 2) only brigade Ocskay made up the Austrian side in the battle of Lonato, which 3) had come by Desenzano from Salo, 4) belonged to the right wing and not the centre, 5) thus didn't try to combine with the right wing ...
In fact in both combats the Austrian fielded no more than the equivalent of an infantry regiment. Not only due to the flaws in Wurmser's general plan but also to the bad dispersal and handling of his corps by Quosdanovich. In both engagements they had to face four and five times their numbers. The outcome of such inequality of force was clear from the beginning: the Austrians would be forced to withdraw or surrender.
5. A Personal Note
I have been an enthusiast of military history for years. Though many periods have attracted my interest during the last years it has narrowed to the French revolutionary and Napoleonic ones. In Austria this still is (and probably will always be) a quite lonely affair. Yet during one of my drop-ins into the Kriegsarchiv (March 1996) I mentioned "Castiglione" and one of the archive staff's ladies told me that a young Englishman had done research at the archive on that very battle and had just sent in four magazines containing the fruits of his efforts. The Englishman was Mr. John Walsh and the magazines were First Empires. I rejoiced that by such an accident I got to know an international Napoleonic forum. Obviously there were many more people in the world sharing my passion.
Mr.Walsh's articles issues 23, 24, 25 and 26 on the 1796 campaign ended up like this: "Although the battles are fairly well known by name, finding detailed information about them, especially orders of battle, proved almost impossible. It appears that very little has been written compared to the later battles of the Empire, especially when it comes to information about the Austrian army." (FE 23, page 4). Therefore I started to look for the missing information. I already knew that it is no use to look for that kind of information in books. Information can only be gathered from the original Austrian files. Thus I started to work though the 25 boxes of the 1796 campaign. Yet orders, even orders of battle, turned out to have not been executed, units disappeared ... .
Thus it took longer than I at first had thought and the answer drafted grew and grew in size: then by another accident I found French maps taken (stolen?) from French archives by the Austrians during their 1814 occupation of Paris. They are so beautiful and actually reveal the that I decided to make a whole book of my findings to put a scan of the maps into it. Castiglione will be out soon and I hope to be able to do all the battles of the 1796 Italian campaign.
More Lonato:
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