Who won the Battle of Caldiero in 1805?
Historians disagree. The Napoleon Series lists Caldiero as a French victory while noting that some sources call it indecisive, the Larousse encyclopedia says the French held their ground, and John Rickard of HistoryOfWar.org calls it an indecisive Austrian victory. What is not in doubt is the result: Archduke Charles withdrew eastward after the battle, with the French following him.1
Caldiero is a village in the Veneto, east of Verona. In the autumn of 1805, while Napoleon's main army was fighting on the Danube, the French and Austrian armies in Italy met here in a three-day battle that both sides could claim.2
Background: the War of the Third Coalition in Italy
According to the Fondation Napoléon, Archduke Charles had tried in vain to dissuade the Austrian emperor Francis from joining the Third Coalition in 1805, and was given what it calls the secondary command, in Italy. There he led the Austrian army, while the French Army of Italy was commanded by Marshal André Masséna.3
The war was decided elsewhere. On 20 October 1805 Napoleon forced the surrender of the Austrian general Mack at Ulm. According to FrenchEmpire.net, when Masséna learned of the success at Ulm, he went over to the attack to drive the Austrians out of Italy.4
29 to 31 October: the fighting at Caldiero
The fighting lasted from 29 to 31 October. The accounts do not even agree on who attacked whom. According to the Larousse encyclopedia, Archduke Charles launched a surprise attack on the French at Caldiero on 30 October, and Nathan Jensen of FrenchEmpire.net also writes that Charles attacked the French there and that a fierce battle followed. John Rickard tells it the other way round: General Duhesme's division took part in the main French attack at the start of the battle, the French attacks ended in failure, and Masséna pulled back. The Austrian grenadiers under Colloredo-Mansfeld, in Rickard's account, helped beat off several French attempts to take the village.5
The painting at the top of this page, by Karl von Blaas, shows Austrian grenadiers charging French infantry, with the dates 29, 30 and 31 October 1805 written in gold beneath. Among the Austrian commanders was Count Heinrich Bellegarde, who led part of the army and received the Commander's Cross of the Order of Maria Theresa for the battle.6
Who won? Three verdicts
The Napoleon Series, a long-running reference site, lists the second battle of Caldiero as a French victory but adds that some sources call it indecisive. The Larousse encyclopedia says the French held their ground successfully, but that the Austrians had time to prepare their withdrawal to the east. John Rickard of HistoryOfWar.org goes the other way and calls it an indecisive Austrian victory, one that was canceled out by Mack's surrender at Ulm. The Fondation Napoléon's biography of Charles agrees that he won a minor victory at Caldiero, in what it calls his secondary command in Italy.7
The verdicts differ on the fighting itself, but they agree on what happened next: it was Charles who left.8
Casualties
The casualty figures are uncertain, and no single total is reliable. The sources used for this page do not give numbers they stand behind, so none is quoted here.
Why Caldiero mattered: the retreat
Charles did not renew the battle. Rickard writes that news of the surrender at Ulm had reached him and that he, too, had to retreat. He withdrew eastward, and the French followed. According to FrenchEmpire.net, the French kept harassing his forces, which prevented them from joining the Austrians in the Danube theater. That was the strategic point of the campaign in Italy. With Mack's army gone at Ulm, the war would be decided north of the Alps, at Austerlitz, without the Austrian army of Italy.9
Caldiero is also called the second battle of that name: the same ground had been fought over before, in November 1796.10
