Armistice of Treviso

Armistice of Treviso
Type	Ceasefire treaty
Context	Ended fighting between France and Austria in the War of the Second Coalition
Signed	16 January 1801
Location	Treviso, Venetian Province of the Habsburg Empire
Expiration	Supplanted by the Treaty of Lunéville on 9 February 1801
Original; signatories	Guillaume Brune (France); Heinrich von Bellegarde (Austria);
Parties	French First Republic ; Habsburg Empire (Austria);

Last updated February 07, 2023

The Armistice of Treviso was a ceasefire signed on 16 January 1801, in Treviso, Italy, between French General Guillaume Brune and the Austrians during the War of the Second Coalition. Brune had defeated Austrian General Heinrich von Bellegarde at the Battle of Pozzolo on 25 December 1800 and drove Generals Josef Philipp Vukassovich and Johann Ludwig Alexius von Loudon from a succession of defensive positions in the mountains. Bellegarde retreated to Treviso and prepared for its defence but agreed to a ceasefire. Under the terms the Austrians ceded many towns in northern Italy but retained Mantua. Napoleon desired the city, which was within striking distance of a French force, and as a result was displeased with Brune, who had promised that Mantua would form part of any armistice deal. However, following French victories in Tuscany and Germany, the French were able to negotiate the ceding of Mantua as part of the Treaty of Lunéville of 9 February 1801.

Background

The French were engaged in a campaign in northern Italy against the Archduchy of Austria, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Kingdom of Naples as part of the War of the Second Coalition. French General Guillaume Brune won a hard-fought victory over the Austrians, under General Heinrich von Bellegarde, at the Battle of Pozzolo on Christmas Day 1800. This allowed Brune to cautiously advance across the Mincio River.^[1]

Brune was able to cross the Adige river unopposed as Bellegarde pulled back, keen to join Josef Philipp Vukassovich and Johann Ludwig Alexius von Loudon whose 20,000 troops were moving down the Brenta river to the plain of Bassano.^[1] Bellegarde held his forces at Caldiero, intending to provide time for Laudon and Vukassovich to assemble, but was driven from that position by Brune.^[2]

A French force under Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey pursued Laudon and drove him from successive positions at Alta, St Marco and Roveredo to La Pietra. Laudon was isolated there by the capture of Trent from Vukassovich by a force of 9,000 men under French General Jacques MacDonald.^[2] Laudon's only line of retreat was a mountain path to Levico, passable only by a single man at a time. He was threatened by Moncey's force who could now be reinforced at short notice by MacDonald. Laudon sent an emissary to Moncey stating falsely that Bellegarde had agreed an armistice with Brune. Moncey did not suspect foul play and allowed Laudon to withdraw via the pass to Levico. In return Laudon granted Moncey un-contested possession of the pass to Trent, Moncey not being aware that that town was already occupied by MacDonald.^[3]

In Germany, a French victory at the Battle of Hohenlinden on 3 December and the subsequent capture of Steyr left Jean Victor Marie Moreau's forces only 65 kilometres (40 mi) from the Austrian capital at Vienna.^[4] On 18 December, the Habsburg foreign minister, Johann Amadeus von Thugut, drafted new instructions for his ambassador in Paris, Philipp von Cobenzl.^[5] Although Thugut opposed an armistice and preferred to fight "to the knife",^[6] he instructed Cobenzl to seek a preliminary peace agreement in order to obtain an armistice.^[5] On 23 December, Thugut drafted a formal imperial rescript to Cobenzl authorizing peace negotiations, which has been called the "epitaph" of his policy and which he called the "epitaph of the Monarchy and the glory of Austria".^[6] By the time the instructions of the 18th reached Cobenzl on 26 December, the armistice of Steyr had already been signed the day before. That agreement, however, was only binding in Germany. Fighting continued in Italy while Cobenzl in Paris and the generals on the ground each sought an armistice.^[5]

Agreement

Bellegarde was isolated by the retreats of his subordinates and his 35,000 men were outnumbered by the 45,000 under Brune.^[7]^[8] He withdrew to a point in front of Treviso and began to prepare a defensive position. However, before battle was joined the Armistice of Treviso was signed on 16 January 1801.^[8]

Brune had on 13 January promised Napoleon that he would not conclude an armistice with the Austrians that did not hand Mantua, a key objective of Napoleon, to the French.^[8] However, with his army weakened by the mountain crossings, combat losses and detachments to blockade towns in the rear, Brune agreed to a treaty that excluded Mantua.^[9] His fear was that otherwise the Austrians, reinforced with troops from Tyrol, could attack the French on the open plains near Treviso with fresh cavalry forces.^[8] The armistice of Treviso handed Peschiera, Verona, Legnago, Ancona and Ferrara to France.^[8] Austrian forces would remain in control of Mantua, which the Emperor Francis II called "the bulwark of the Empire". The French blockade of the city would remain in force, but it would be receive ten days' worth of supplies at a time.^[5]

Aftermath

Cobenzl was not informed of the armistice of Treviso before, around noon on 25 January, he began a marathon session of negotiations to extended the armistice of Steyr, which was set to expire the following day, and to procure an armistice for Italy. The following morning, the two sides in Paris agreed to an armistice covering both Italy and Germany.^[5] This agreement took into account the possibility that the commanders in Italy had already signed an armistice and gave such an agreement precedence with one exception:

Dans le cas où les généraux en chef des armées respectives en Italie auraient arrêté une convention d'armistice avant que la présente parvienne à leur connaissance, celle conclue par lesdits généraux sera seule exécutée, bien entendu que l'évacuation des cinq places stipulée dans l'article I^er aura lieu dans tous les cas.^[5]

In the case where the generals in command of the respective armies in Italy have concluded an armistice convention before the present one comes to their knowledge, that concluded by the aforementioned generals shall alone be executed, understanding that the evacuation of the five places stipulated in the first article shall take place in any case.

The five fortresses to be surrendered were Mantua, Peschiera, Legnano, Ferrara and Ancona. This had been a longstanding demand of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, resisted by Cobenzl until the very end. In light of the news of Treviso, the concession of Mantua was an "irretrievable blunder" caused by poor Habsburg communications.^[5]

General Joachim Murat defeated the Neapolitan army in Tuscany. The latter country was saved from occupation by the intervention of the pro-French Russian Tsar, but in the subsequent Armistice of Folgano was forced to withdraw from the coalition and close its ports to British ships. Austria was therefore isolated and under great pressure concluded the Treaty of Lunéville with France on 9 February 1801.^[10] This included the ceding of Mantua to France and the withdrawal of Austria from the war of the second coalition.^[9] This left the British to continue the war alone until they themselves concluded peace in the 1802 Treaty of Amiens.^[10]

Napoleon was displeased with the armistice, which came as a surprise to him. Murat's troops were almost within striking distance of Mantua at the time it was concluded.^[8] Napoleon's disapproval was such that he never again granted Brune an important command.^[9]

Related Research Articles

The Treaty of Lunéville was signed in the Treaty House of Lunéville on 9 February 1801. The signatory parties were the French Republic and Emperor Francis II, who signed on his own behalf as ruler of the hereditary domains of the House of Austria and on behalf of the Holy Roman Empire. The signatories were Joseph Bonaparte and Count Ludwig von Cobenzl, the Austrian foreign minister. The treaty formally ended Austrian and Imperial participation in the War of the Second Coalition and the French Revolutionary Wars.

The Battle of Pozzolo also known as the Battle of the Mincio River and Monzambano was fought during the War of the Second Coalition. A French army under General Guillaume Brune crossed the Mincio River and defeated an Austrian force under General Heinrich von Bellegarde. The Austrians were subsequently pushed back to Treviso where the Armistice of Treviso was signed. This truce would lead to the Treaty of Lunéville and the withdrawal of Austria from the war.

The Battle of Rivoli was a key victory in the French campaign in Italy against Austria. Napoleon Bonaparte's 23,000 Frenchmen defeated an attack of 28,000 Austrians under General of the Artillery Jozsef Alvinczi, ending Austria's fourth and final attempt to relieve the siege of Mantua. Rivoli further demonstrated Napoleon's capability and deftness as a military commander and led to the French consolidation of northern Italy.

The War of the Second Coalition was the second war on revolutionary France by most of the European monarchies, led by Britain, Austria and Russia, and including the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Naples and various German monarchies. Prussia did not join this coalition, and Spain supported France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ludwig von Cobenzl</span>

Johann Ludwig Joseph, Graf von Cobenzl was a diplomat and politician of the Habsburg monarchy.

The Réveillon riots between 26 and 29 April 1789 centered in the St. Antoine district of Paris where a factory which produced luxury wallpaper was owned by Jean-Baptiste Réveillon. The factory employed around 300 people. The riots were one of the first instances of violence during the French Revolution. The factory where the riot took place was unusual in pre-revolutionary France as the factory was guild-free in an era where guilds controlled quality standards.

Baron Paul Davidovich or Pavle Davidović became a general of the Austrian Empire and a Knight of the Military Order of Maria Theresa. He played a major role in the 1796 Italian campaign during the French Revolutionary Wars, leading corps-sized commands in the fighting against the French army led by Napoleon Bonaparte. He led troops during the Napoleonic Wars and was Proprietor (Inhaber) of an Austrian infantry regiment.

The Treaty of Fontainebleau was an agreement established in Fontainebleau, France, on 11 April 1814 between Napoleon and representatives of Austria, Russia and Prussia. The treaty was signed in Paris on 11 April by the plenipotentiaries of both sides and ratified by Napoleon on 13 April. With this treaty, the allies ended Napoleon's rule as emperor of the French and sent him into exile on Elba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Nicholas Dorsaz</span>

Pierre Nicholas Dorsaz, was an inhabitant of the village of Bourg-Saint-Pierre who acted as Napoleon Bonaparte's guide when he crossed the Alps in 1800, by way of the Great St Bernard Pass, as part of his plan to make an unexpected arrival in Italy, and surprise the Austrian army.

Franz von Weyrother was an Austrian staff officer and general who fought during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He drew up the plans for the disastrous defeats at the Battle of Rivoli, Battle of Hohenlinden and the Battle of Austerlitz, in which the Austrian army was defeated by Napoleon Bonaparte twice and Jean Moreau once.

The 1814 campaign in north-east France was Napoleon's final campaign of the War of the Sixth Coalition. Following their victory at Leipzig in 1813, the Austrian, Prussian, Russian, and other German armies of the Sixth Coalition invaded France. Despite the disproportionate forces in favour of the Coalition, Napoleon managed to inflict some defeats, especially during the Six Days' Campaign. However, the campaign ended in total defeat for Napoleon as the Coalition kept advancing towards Paris as Napoleon was out of position to defend the capital, which capitulated in late March 1814. When Napoleon proposed the army march on Paris, his Marshals decided to unanimously overrule Napoleon in order to save the city from further destruction. As a result, the victorious Coalition negotiated the Treaty of Paris, under which Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba and the borders of France were returned to where they had been in 1792.

Baron Josef Philipp Vukassovich was a Croatian soldier who joined the army of Habsburg monarchy and fought against both Ottoman Empire and the First French Republic. During the French Revolutionary Wars, he commanded a brigade in the 1796–1797 Italian campaign against Napoleon Bonaparte. He led a division during the Napoleonic Wars and received a fatal wound in action.

The Allied sovereigns' visit to England occurred in June 1814 to celebrate the peace following the defeat of France and abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte in April 1814. The sovereigns and generals of the Coalition Allies – comprising Austria, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and a number of German States – took part in a state visit and various peace celebrations in London before progressing to the Congress of Vienna later that year.

The Battle of Verona was fought on 18 October 1805 between the French Army of Italy under the command of André Masséna and an Austrian army led by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen. By the end of the day, Massena seized a bridgehead on the east bank of the Adige River, driving back the defending troops under Josef Philipp Vukassovich. The action took place near the city of Verona in northern Italy during the War of the Third Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars.

In the siege of Belgrade a Habsburg Austrian army led by Feldmarschall Ernst Gideon von Laudon besieged an Ottoman Turkish force under Osman Pasha in the fortress of Belgrade. After a three-week leaguer, the Austrians forced the surrender of the fortress. During the campaign which was part of the Austro-Turkish War, the Austrian army was greatly hampered by illness. Austria held the city until 1791 when it handed Belgrade back to the Ottomans according to the terms of the peace treaty. Several Austrian soldiers who distinguished themselves during the siege later held important commands in the subsequent French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Belgrade is the capital of modern Serbia.

Sir Archibald Alison, 1st Baronet, was an England-born Scottish advocate (attorney) and historian. He held several prominent legal appointments. He was the younger son of the Episcopalian cleric and author Archibald Alison. His elder brother was the physician and social reformer William Alison.

The 1813 Treaty of Stockholm was a "treaty of concert and subsidy" between Great Britain and Sweden. It was signed on 3 March 1813 by Alexander Hope and Edward Thornton for Great Britain and by Lars von Engeström and Gustaf af Wetterstedt for Sweden. The treaty secured Swedish military cooperation against Napoleon. In return, Great Britain would support the union of Sweden and Norway and pay subsidies to Sweden.

The Congress of Châtillon was a peace conference held at Châtillon-sur-Seine, north-eastern France, from 5 February to 5 March 1814, in the latter stages of the War of the Sixth Coalition. Peace had previously been offered by the Coalition allies to Napoleon I's France in the November 1813 Frankfurt proposals. These proposals required that France revert to her "natural borders" of the Rhine, Pyrenees and the Alps. Napoleon was reluctant to lose his territories in Germany and Italy and refused the proposals. By December the French had been pushed back in Germany and Napoleon indicated that he would accept peace on the Frankfurt terms. The Coalition however now sought to reduce France to her 1791 borders, which would not include Belgium.

The Armistice of Steyr was a ceasefire agreement between the forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the French Republic that ended active hostilities in the War of the Second Coalition in Germany. It was signed on 25 December 1800 in the Austrian town of Steyr by Archduke Charles of Austria and the French commander, Jean Victor Moreau.

The Italian Campaign of 1813-1814 was the series of military operations fought during the War of the Sixth Coalition, mainly in northern Italy between the French Empire and the Coalition led by Austrians and British. It represented the last time of the so-called "French period", precisely from the campaign of 1796-1797, in which a French and an Austrian army confronted each other for control of the Italian peninsula. The Austro-Neapolitan War of 1815 was essentially a clash between only Italians and Austrians.

References

1 2 Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 455.
1 2 Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 456.
↑ Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 459.
↑ Alexander Mikaberidze, The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History (Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 82.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 L. M. Roberts, "The Negotiations Preceding the Peace of Lunéville", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, New Series, Vol. 15 (1901), pp. 47–130, esp. 101–108. doi : 10.2307/3678081 JSTOR 3678081
1 2 Richard Bassett, For God and Kaiser: The Imperial Austrian Army, 1619–1918 (Yale University Press, 2015). pp. 227–228.
↑ Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 457.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 460.
1 2 3 Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 461.
1 2 Franceschi, General Michel; Weider, Ben (2008). Wars Against Napoleon: Debunking the Myth of the Napoleonic Wars. Savas Beatie. p. 91. ISBN 978-1-61121-029-3.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[alison455-1] 1 2 Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 455.

[alison456-2] 1 2 Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 456.

[alison459-3] Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 459.

[4] Alexander Mikaberidze, The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History (Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 82.

[Roberts-5] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 L. M. Roberts, "The Negotiations Preceding the Peace of Lunéville", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, New Series, Vol. 15 (1901), pp. 47–130, esp. 101–108. doi : 10.2307/3678081 JSTOR 3678081

[Bassett-6] 1 2 Richard Bassett, For God and Kaiser: The Imperial Austrian Army, 1619–1918 (Yale University Press, 2015). pp. 227–228.

[alison457-7] Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 457.

[alison460-8] 1 2 3 4 5 6 Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 460.

[alison461-9] 1 2 3 Alison, Sir Archibald (1860). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. W. Blackwood. p. 461.

[wars-10] 1 2 Franceschi, General Michel; Weider, Ben (2008). Wars Against Napoleon: Debunking the Myth of the Napoleonic Wars. Savas Beatie. p. 91. ISBN 978-1-61121-029-3.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]