Abstract
Reviewed by: Michael V. Leggiere, University of North Texas, USA
Phillip Cuccia, a colonel in the US Army who has served for the past 14 years as a European foreign-area officer currently assigned to Rome, Italy, received his doctorate after completing studies at the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution at Florida State University. This book expands on his dissertation ‘The Key to the Quadrilateral: An Analysis of the Sieges of Mantua during the Napoleonic Wars’ and is the culmination of 15 years of research. In general, Napoleon in Italy sheds considerable light on the history of siege warfare, state-building in northern Italy, the grand strategy of Revolutionary France and Habsburg Austria, and military leadership. Specifically, the book demonstrates the decisive role played by the fortress of Mantua in the subsequent rise of Napoleon Bonaparte from General of the French Republic to dictator and later Emperor. Based on the manner in which Napoleon’s career skyrocketed in its aftermath, Cuccia maintains that the siege of Mantua in 1796–97 may have been the ‘most important siege of the eighteenth century’ (3).
Cuccia devotes seven of 10 chapters to the First Siege of Mantua, which lasted from 4 July 1796 to 2 February 1797. He tells the story of how on 26 March 1796, a 27-year-old general of the Republic of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, assumed command of the French Army of Italy: 63,000 demoralized, half-starved and exhausted men who had not been paid in six months and lacked food, clothing, ammunition, equipment and any financial resources needed to alleviate their suffering. Napoleon transformed this army of survivors into a first-class fighting force. By mid-May 1796, the Army of Italy had knocked the Kingdom of Piedmont-Savoy out of the war and had driven Austrian forces from the wealthy province of Lombardy and taken its sumptuous capital of Milan. From Lombardy, the Austrians retreated into the neutral Republics of Mantua and Venetia to the latter’s fortress of Peschiera to cover their withdrawal through the Brenner Pass to Austria. Along with Verona, Legnano and Mantua, Peschiera formed the Quadrilatero of medieval fortresses that guarded, blocked and commanded all vital road junctions and river crossings connecting Lombardy and Venetia between the Mincio, the Po and the Adige Rivers. Mantua, the strongest of the four and the capital of the Duchy of Mantua, an Austrian fief, was a large walled city on the west bank of the Mincio. Surrounded on three sides by the Mincio while the fourth was protected by marshland, Mantua’s main strength was derived mainly from the fact that around the city the river swells to the size of a lake ranging from 500 to 800 yards from bank to bank.
At Peschiera, the Austrian army split, with some 14,000 men seeking refuge in Mantua and another 10,000 retreating to Trentino and the Brenner Pass. Napoleon’s Army of Italy pursued, laying siege to Mantua. From July 1796 to January 1797, the Austrians launched four offensive operations to lift the siege of Mantua and drive the French from Italy. Situated in the rear of Napoleon’s army, Mantua, whose Austrian garrison swelled to 35,000 men after successive relief attempts, tied down almost one-quarter (9,000 men) of the French army. Malaria proved more deadly to the French than the Austrian garrison, which likewise suffered acutely from disease and starvation. The drama of the First Siege of Mantua came to an end when the Austrian commander, Field Marshal Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, surrendered with the honours of war on 2 February after losing 16,333 men, killed, wounded or dead from disease; some estimates place the death toll as high as 18,000 Austrians and 7,000 French. Only some 16,000 Austrians had the strength to march out under their own power. The French gained 485 pieces of artillery and an enormous store of small arms and ammunition (221–2).
In the smaller portion of the book – comprising only two chapters – Cuccia covers the lesser known Second Siege of Mantua, a four-month effort by the Austrians starting in April 1799 to take the fortress and re-establish their position in northern Italy during the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1801). After being under French control for two years, Mantua’s military strength had deteriorated. General François-Philippe de Foissac-Latour commanded a motley garrison of 10,000 French, Polish, Italian Swiss and German troops. Despite having over 600 pieces of artillery, Foissac-Latour, an engineer, did not believe Mantua could withstand a formal siege. In April 1799, some 8,000 Austrians blockaded the fortress with the intent of defeating the French through attrition. After their own losses from attrition in May and the first half of June, the Austrians and their Russian allies realized that they could not wait for the French to surrender. Being reinforced to 40,000 men, the Austrian commander, General Paul von Kray, an artillery expert, commenced a continuous bombardment on 4 July, attacking on 24–25 July. Two days later, on the 27th, Foissac-Latour asked for terms and the French surrendered on the 30th of July.
Although covering a rather obscure topic, Cuccia’s book is a significant contribution to military history. The research conducted in French, Austrian, Italian and private archives is unrivalled and extremely praiseworthy. Cuccia has left no stone unturned, conducting numerous topographical and archaeological research trips to Mantua itself. The maps provided in the book are superb. While the eighteenth-century sieges of Mantua are generally known in military history, the details of them, particularly those brought to light by Dr Cuccia, are not known. Primed with data that has not been touched in over 200 years, Cuccia’s book is truly a monument to research.