posted 04-06-09 05:32 AM EDT (US)
This is my first AAR, and after this campaign is done, I'll be making a full campaign AAR of another faction. Enjoy the read.
Firstly, in an effort to induce financial recovery after the long and costly Ottoman-Austrian conflict, Leopold I launched an Empire-wide program of development, channeling military resources towards improving roads and industries that had heretofore been long-neglected. This decision led to the disbandment of troops along the Croatian and Transylvanian border, allowing the Ottoman forces deployed along that frontier to be deployed elsewhere: to the regions surrounding the Venetian holdings in Greece, the fortified city of Patras in the Morea region. This decision significantly strained relations between the allies, endangering the long-standing trade agreement that brought much-needed Venetian gold to Austrian lands.
Secondly, to improve relations with the Turks, Leopold I allowed a lucrative trade route to be established between Austrian and Ottoman lands. The powerful Venetian navy, who had long raided - and profited from - Turkish commercial interests in Europe, was forced to let by several Ottoman trade fleets that sailed under the protection of the Austrian Emperor.
Lastly, and perhaps the most significant, the gifts of goodwill that the Emperor showered on the Turkish Sultan Mustafa II - jewels and fine horses – even as Venice became more vulnerable to the Turks, became, in the Venetian Doge’s eyes and unforgiving Italian pride, a grave insult and a danger to the prosperous city-state.
When the emerging kingdom of Poland-Lithuania declared war on the Austrian Empire in 1703 (perhaps for the same reasons as the Venetians, as the Polish themselves shared a border with the Turks, once also defended by Austria), a Venetian armada blockaded the port of Triest, Austria’s only access to the sea. With an economy teetering on the brink, owing to Polish raids across the border on Austrian towns and industries, Leopold fought a defensive war of skirmishes along the Polish-Austrian border even as he massed his troops to march on Venice.
Spring, 1705:
The vanguard of the Austrian Army, sent to raid lightly-defended Venetian towns and industry, crosses the border into Venetia. Villages are burnt, farms put to the torch (see “The Sack of Undine , p.117), to cut off the lifeblood that had kept Venice alive and influential over the centuries: gold.
Perhaps in their eagerness, the vanguard found itself significantly ahead of the main army, and besieged Venice itself, confident in the belief that reinforcements were close behind.
It was not. When the Venetians sallied forth, the regular army has been greatly fortified by the addition of several companies of hastily-trained citizens. The once-outnumbered Venetian army has swollen to more than 1,600 fighting men and cavalry, and were poised to overwhelm the Austrians, who numbered only 1,200, with many of its own soldiers being irregulars and militia, with only one unit of cavalry to bring to the field. Outnumbered and trapped, the Austrian vanguard deployed, stood their ground, and watched the Venetian army approach.
The Austrian forces were composed of:
-six companies of Foot, with one company, the 125th, below strength owing to casualties sustained before joining the vanguard
-two companies of the Vienna Militia
-a battery each of sakers and demi-cannon
-the 28th Irregular Company, comprised of Pandours;
-and a regiment of provincial cavalry, used primarily for scouting, led by a young Captain Adalbert Bauer
The Venetian forces arrayed against them were:
-three companies of Foot;
-seven companies of Irregulars, armed Venetian citizenry;
-four companies of militia;
-two companies of pikemen;
-and four regiments of cavalry, led by the Venetian general Antonio Galvani.
Despite his age and relatively low rank, the young Captain Bauer had an uncanny grasp of strategy. Adalbert had arrayed his forces two-to three men deep, stretching his lines to make his army difficult to flank. The 28th Irregulars hid in a forest on the leftmost flank, deployed there to ambush and fire upon any flankers that approach, their longer ranged muskets ideal for sniping. The army’s weak spot was its rightmost flank: there, hidden among the trees and brush, hid the two companies of militia: these would ambush anyone attempting to break through that flank, and would have to hold against a large number of cavalry while the companies of Foot adjusted and fired upon any cavalry engaged thus.
Antonio Galvani, confident in his superior numbers and in the Austrians’ lack of sufficient cavalry, ordered his entire army forward, uphill on a slight incline to where the Imperials had deployed.
“The Venetian commander,” wrote, Lieutenant Hans Pffeifer, one of the Austrian officers of the battle afterwards in a memoir, “did not trouble himself with arraying his troops properly: in a long, disciplined line to envelop our flanks. This may have been due to the fact that the bulk of his army was comprised of barely-trained rabble. But his intentions were clear: he would use his inferior but much more numerous troops to engage our main line, and then send a large cavalry force on a flank, secure in the knowledge that we had no cavalry to match his own. And it seemed, as we watched his army march, that we were powerless to prevent his doing so. “
As the long march uphill would have tired his soldiers, the Venetian general was content to march upwards at a brisk pace, with minimal casualties sustained from cannonfire from the Austrians’ inexperienced artillery crews. When the venetians were well in musket range, the right flank opened fire, decimating a company of Venetian militia with a well-timed ambush.
Thus revealed, the 18th and 19th Militia were vulnerable to the Venetian cavalry, which promptly charged into the forest to halt the fire that had proven so effective in the first volleys of the battle.
The militia, quickly overwhelmed by a superior mounted force in melee, began to break. Captain Bauer then committed his own unit to the fight, bolstering the beleaguered militia companies. As word must have reached General Galvani of the young Captain’s presence, he ordered the entire Venetian army to turn and mass on the right flank, hoping to kill the Captain and demoralize the already outnumbered Austrians. The General himself led the charge, joining his cavalry in the effort.
The Captain led his outnumbered and understrength unit of light cavalry against the better-trained Regiments of Horse, charging again and again, sustaining heavy losses, into their lines as they sought to break the militia. An errant cannonball then exploded in the confused melee, killing militiamen and Venetian cavalry, and then killing the horse under Galvani. The General was killed, trampled under the confused hooves and crowded confines of the forest , which had become choked with charging infantry.
Shortly after, the young Captain Bauer’s unit was overwhelmed and killed, to the last man.
By this time, the Venetian army had broken its lines in its long charge into the forest on the Austrian army’s last flank. As the left Imperial flank had been suddenly left free, it swung around and formed a line to the rear of the mess of Venetian soldiers and poured heavy fire into the melee.
Finally, the right Austrian flank crumbled. The militia, after five minutes of intense fighting, finally broke. Barely a handful of men from those companies survived, but their sacrifice- and that of Captain Bauer- had left the Venetian army leaderless, their lines in disarray.
Lt. Pffeiffer's account from the battle relates thusly: “They’d taken that flank, but in doing so had unraveled their lines to the point of mass confusion. We could see the Venetian companies milling around, struggling to form firing lines, but in the confusion of that forest their lines had overlapped each other, and individual men got lost in the smoke of gunfire. Their cavalry , or what remained f it, tried to regroup, running through the already-muddled infantry lines, making a grand, spectacular mess.”
The concentration of men in so small an area was also ideal for cannonfire- even with relatively inexperienced crews, the Austrian artillery killed scores of Venetian citizenry, even as the Austrians had formed two lines enveloping the Venetian army.
The more disciplined professional soldiers of the Austrians, though outnumbered, found ideal targets in the confused ranks of Venetian infantry. Volleys were exchanged, with friendly fire rife amongst the Venetians, with the poorly-trained companies firing in all directions in a panic.
However, even in their state of disarray and the casualties inflicted upon themselves, the Venetians thinned the ranks of the Austrians after ten minutes of exchanged volleys.
Despite all their successes, all the Imperial army achieved was barely a stalemate with the still numerically-superior Venetian force. As every Venetian soldier fell, the Veentian lines thinned, the confused mass eventually condensing into organized firing lines. Against this onslaught, the Austrian army- leaderless, low on ammunition and exhausted, would not last long.
Debate still rages as to the resons the Venetians, despite their superior numbers, began to rout. Most likely, the deaths of the General Antonio Galvani and the majority of the regular troops in the army had weakened their morale to a point at which a few routers would have triggered a massive wave of routing. These were, after all, ordinary citizens of Venice- armed, but not trained as soldiers were to stand steady even as their comrades died around them.
The massive losses inflicted upon the citizens, finally, broke the Venetian army. While one massive charge into the depleted Imperial ranks would have finished the Austrians, the Venetians were unwilling to take further losses, and instead retreated to the safety of their city walls- soldiers no longer, but a rabble of panicked men running to their families.
Less than 400 men remained of the original 1,200 that marched on Venice. When these men entered the city with no resistance, the main army finally caught up with them and found the city they had come to take had already surrendered.
Captain Bauer, along with several officers (among them men from the militias), post-humously received the highest Imperial military honors.
The fall of Venice sealed the fate of the Doge, who had managed to depart for Greece before the arrival of the vanguard into the city. There, the Ottoman Turks, who in a few years became allies of the Austrian Empire, laid siege to his city, before razing it to the ground.
With his southern borders safe and with the opening of an immensely-profitable new trading port, Emperor Leopold I turned his attention to the Polish border, where several raids and skirmishes were fought with the Poles every season. The full offensive against the nation of Poland-Lithuania and the Russian lands beyond was launched in 1709, and is discussed in the chapter "The Fall of Krokow and Muscovy," on page 213.
[This message has been edited by wyzr (edited 04-06-2009 @ 08:08 AM).]
