On 24 June 1859, in the hills south of Lake Garda, the French and Sardinian armies of Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II defeated Emperor Franz Joseph's Austrians at Solferino and San Martino. Henry Dunant's book about the wounded inspired the Geneva group that became the ICRC. On the same date in 1866 the Austrians won at Custoza.
Battle of Solferino
24 June 1859 · 167 years ago
Both sides attack
In June 1859 the Austrian army fell back behind the Mincio to concentrate its forces. Franz Joseph, who had taken supreme command, chose not to wait there. The Austrian official history records that on 22 June, when cavalry reported strong allied forces around Rivoltella, Lonato and Castiglione, he brought the crossing forward to 23 June; his orders opened: "Die k. k. Armee wird am 24. Juni die Offensive ergreifen" ("The imperial and royal army will take the offensive on 24 June", our translation).1
Napoleon III, who, in Dunant's words, "commandait en chef" (held the chief command), had meanwhile ordered his own armies forward for the morning of 24 June: Victor Emmanuel's Sardinians toward Pozzolengo, the French toward Solferino, Cavriana, Guidizzolo and Medole. The armies met in the morainic hills south of Lake Garda, between the Chiese and the Mincio. Treccani's Enciclopedia Italiana calls the result a battle of encounter in which both sides were equally surprised.2
The French official history gives the Austrians 217,324 combatants available, infantry and cavalry, of whom 163,124 fought on 24 June, and the allies 187,956 available, of whom 135,234 fought. The Austrian official history puts the imperial army on 22 June at 189,648 men, 22,631 horses and 752 guns. Dunant writes of 150,000 allied men with 400 guns, of 170,000 Austrians with about 500 guns entering the line, and of "more than three hundred thousand men" face to face (our translation). Treccani, counting only the Solferino sector, gives about 80,000 French with 240 guns against 90,000 Austrians with 309.3
Solferino falls
According to Treccani, the French set off at about 3 a.m., and Marshal Baraguey d'Hilliers's I Corps met the Austrian V Corps northwest of Solferino after some three hours' march. The Austrians held the village all morning. Around noon the French command saw a gap between the two Austrian armies and sent the Imperial Guard with the I Corps against Solferino, which fell at about 2 p.m.; Mac-Mahon's II Corps, helped by the Guard, drove the Austrians from San Cassiano toward Cavriana, while Niel's IV Corps held off the Austrian III and IX Corps in the plain. Franz Joseph ordered a general retreat at about 4 p.m., in Treccani's account.4
The French official history says Napoleon reached Monte Fontana soon after its capture, was caught there by a storm, and at nightfall set up his headquarters at Cavriana, in the house the Austrian emperor had used during the day.5
The king at San Martino
A few kilometers north, a separate battle was fought at the same time. Treccani describes how a gap opened between the French and the Piedmontese, so that two distinct battles followed. The Sardinian divisions of Mollard, Durando and Cucchiari attacked piecemeal, against Benedek's VIII Corps on the heights around San Martino and an Austrian V Corps brigade on Madonna della Scoperta, and were driven back; from about 11 a.m. Fanti's division was sent in as well. Shortly before sunset Victor Emmanuel, who was in the front line, coordinated one simultaneous assault, and by sunset, at 8 p.m., the heights were clear.6
On the VIII Corps' front, the Austrian official history records, firing stopped only at 9 p.m., "nach beinahe 14stündigem Kampfe" ("after almost 14 hours of fighting", our translation). Dunant wrote that the fighting lasted more than fifteen hours; Napoleon's proclamation said twelve.7
"Tutti fratelli"
Dunant called himself "Simple touriste, entièrement étranger à cette grande lutte" ("a mere tourist, wholly a stranger to this great struggle", our translation). After the battle he cared for the wounded at Castiglione, and wrote that its women, "seeing that I make no distinction of nationality, follow my example, showing the same kindness to all these men of such different origins, who are all equally foreigners to them. 'Tutti fratelli', they repeated with emotion" (our translation). The ICRC says he helped wounded soldiers at Solferino.8
The French official history says the allies spent the night of 24 June and the day of 25 June burying the dead and gathering the wounded. Dunant wrote that the burials took three days and three nights.9
The cost
The official totals count the missing and prisoners as well as the killed and wounded. The Austrian official history, using returns made a few days after the battle, gives 639 officers and 21,098 men: 94 officers and 2,198 men killed, 500 officers and 10,307 men wounded, and 45 officers and 8,593 men prisoners or missing. It adds that many of those listed as prisoners or missing later rejoined, but that most of them had been left dead or wounded on the field. The French official history prints the Austrian military gazette's figures of July 1859: 2,386 killed, 10,634 wounded and 9,290 missing, 22,310 in all.10
For the allies the same French table gives 17,191: 2,313 killed, 12,102 wounded and 2,776 missing. Treccani, for the Solferino sector alone, gives about 11,500 French killed and wounded and about 21,500 Austrians. Dunant gives 1,566 officers killed or wounded, 630 Austrian and 936 allied, and about 40,000 soldiers and NCOs, and wrote that within two months more than 40,000 more were sick or dead of disease.11
From Villafranca to Geneva
The French army did not pursue: its official history blames a lack of food supplies. Overnight the Austrians recrossed the Mincio, and by the evening of 25 June, the Austrian history records, every unit stood where it had been on the morning of 23 June. At Cavriana on 25 June Napoleon told his army: "Soldiers! The enemy thought to surprise us and throw us back beyond the Chiese; it is he who has recrossed the Mincio. ... For twelve hours you repelled the desperate efforts of more than 150,000 men. ... We have taken 2 flags, 30 guns and 6,000 prisoners" (our translation). According to the French official history, delegates of the three powers settled an armistice at Villafranca on 8 July, and the two emperors met there on 11 July.12
Dunant's book appeared in Geneva in 1862. In it he asked: "Would there not be some means, in a time of peace and quiet, of forming relief societies whose aim would be to have the wounded cared for in wartime by zealous, devoted volunteers well qualified for such a work?" (our translation). According to the ICRC, the Public Welfare Committee of his home town, Geneva, took up his ideas; it formed a working group, the embryo of the ICRC, with Dunant as secretary, which first met in February 1863, and in August 1864 delegates from a dozen countries adopted the first Geneva Convention.13
Battle of Custoza, 1866: Italy's defeat by Archduke Albrecht
24 June 1866 · 160 years ago
In the Third Italian War of Independence, Archduke Albrecht's Austrian army met La Marmora's Italian army near Custoza in Venetia. The Austrians won, although Italy had raised a much larger army for the war.
Read the full story of Battle of Custoza, 1866: Italy's defeat by Archduke Albrecht ›Also on this day
1314: Robert Bruce's Scots defeated the army of Edward II of England at Bannockburn, near Stirling, in a battle that Historic Environment Scotland dates to 23 and 24 June; the Bridlington chronicler writes that they fought on the Sunday, the vigil of St John the Baptist, and the next day. The Lanercost chronicler describes the English horses charging the Scottish pikes "as it were into a dense forest" (Maxwell's translation). Lanercost's Latin text and Bridlington both list Robert de Clifford among the English dead. Historic Environment Scotland estimates about 6,000 to 7,000 Scottish spearmen and 500 cavalry, and an English army of no more than about 20,000. See the Battle of Bannockburn.14
