1866 AUSTRIAN TACTICS - ERRATA CORRIGE

 After a little of bit of misunderstanding and a lot of help from the good fellows of TMP I went back and I finally understood how an Austrian Battalion in 1866 was actually deployed for its Stosstaktik. 

I went back to a 3 divisions formations, each division on 2 companies (one after the other) and each division deployed on 3 ranks of about 55 men each.

So pratically an Austrian Battalion could act through its 3 divisions, that could split or adapt to the surrounding terrein.

What changed was the emphasis on the mass formations (often confusing called "columns" in English language sources) in the assault, and the near-extinction of the line except in purely defensive fights. Two company masses abreast, each of of four double ranks, formed the Division mass (about 25m wide by 22m deep), while three Divisions made a battalion mass--formed as six double ranks (about 50m wide by 40m deep). The division mass was the normal fighting formation.

DIVISION MASS

BATTALION MASS

1866 FROM PRUSSIAN OFFICER TO ITALIAN OFFICER

 I was trying to imagine a new posture for an Italian officer during the campaign 1866. The final result is as follows:

but to understand how I did it I prepared a little template with the mutation from a Prussian Officer in 1870 to the Italian Second Lieutenant. The main change is the passage of the sword from one side to the other.

1866 BATTLE OF CUSTOZA. THE SOURCES

 Many times,when you start a project, what is really lascking is the possibility to investigate with access to the original sources.

Reproducing the Battle of Custoza of 1866 is the same.

To be able to understand the dynamic of that huge battle I found - for the moment - 2 interesting book about the battle.

1) CUSTOZA (1866) written by General ALberto Pollio, for the Ministero della Guerra. I decided to go for the fourth edition dating 1935 - A. XIII, even though the cover is a little bit misleading and you will understand why.

This book has 300 pages with 5 maps. I publish here 2 maps of the Battle. As far as I know this are the best ever done and the first time they are published on internet.

Obvioulsy, to have details of the battle is not enough. I bought a lot of book concerning uniforms of that period:

The second book I bought concerning the Battle of Custoza is "Custoza 1866 - La via italiana alla sconfitta" written by Marco Gioannini and Giulio Massaro for Rizzoli.(2003)

385 pages and just one map of the battle (!)

1866 - THIRD ITALIAN INDIPENDANCE WAR - BATTLE OF CUSTOZA - Reg. Nr. 49 "PARMA"

 I always studied at school about the 3rd Italian Indipendence War as a weird war for Italy (the first) where a disomogenous Army fought and lost against Austria at the Battle of Custoza. The idea you get when you don't go to deep in the info yhey "pass" to you is that the Italian Army did not fight with honour and value at that huge battle. Well, nothin more wrong than that: if you look at the episodes and at the decorations that the Italian units got, if you look at the Austrian report of the Battle, if you are able to go deeper in history and research the orginal sources  - as usual - you will get a total different vision of that war and above all of that Battle (Custoza) and of the Italian Army.

And in fact I chose the Infantry Regiment 49 "PARMA" to explain this, not by chance. This regiment, during the Battle, by the village of Villafranca, deployed itself in square, protecting the Hereditary Prince Umberto di Savoia (future King Umberto I) against a valliant attach of Austrian (Polish) Uhlans.

I do like the uniforms of the period, and the Italian fashion is already visible in uniforms (those of the years 1880's will be even better!).

So I took a template from the 1887 Uniform of the Battle of Dogali and I transformed it. For the Kepy pf infatry and the right colours I took the famous (in Italy) paintings of Fattori, celebrating that episode. But let me show you.

Here (picture nr.  1) bottom a private of the 49th Infantry Regiment "PARMA". I left - bottom right - the kepy taken from the painting of Fattori. I did change the face, according to my taste.

Picture Nr.1 - Regiment Nr. 49 "Parma"

Picture nr 2. Here the painting of Fattori celebrating the episode. I did due versions: the original and one with a circle indicating from where I took the kepy.

Picture nr 3 the transformation from the Colonial Uniform to the 1866 Infantry pattern

Picture nr. 3: how to transform a 1887 Colonial Uniform to a 1866 Infantry uniform

In picture nr. 4 (bottom) I show the Fattori's painting and the template I did starting from that 

and I would like to show also how many books you need (and not just Ospreys) to reach a level of details and information to share on this blog.

I was also asked on TMP how similar are the uniforms of the Italian Army in 1866 and the French Army in 1870. This gave me the idea to use a French soldier and to transform it into Italian one: