Battle of Veillane | |||||||
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Part of War of the Mantuan Succession | |||||||
![]() The Battle of Avigliana by Jacques Callot | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Henri II de Montmorency | Carlo Doria | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
10,000 to 12,000 | 18,000 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
400 killed and wounded | 1,000 killed and wounded |
The Battle of Veillane (or the Battle of Avigliana) was fought on 10 July 1630 between a French army under the command of Henri II de Montmorency and a Spanish army under the command of Don Carlo Doria. The result was a French victory. [1] [2]
During the war of the Mantuan Succession, Cardinal Richleu sent a French army under the command of Montmorency to invade Savoy to attempt to influence the Mantuan succession. [2] This was the cause casus belli but his primary motive was to force Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy from his alliance the Habsburgs (Philip IV of Spain and Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor) and hence sever the land link between Habsburg lands in Italy and those in Germany and the Spanish Netherlands. [3]
The French commander, General Montmorency, led the royal gendarmes in a charge across a ditch, capturing Doria with his own hand and reportedly fighting like a common soldier until the Spanish withdrawal from the field. [4] The French inflicted about 700 on the enemy and captured 600. [2]
Although this victory did not prevent Savoy and its allies from capturing Mantua a week later, [2] the French victory was followed by the raising of the siege of Casal and the taking of Saluzzo. For his achievements during the Piedmont Campaign Montmorency was appointed a Marshal of France later the same year. [4] [5]
The outcome of the Piedmont Campaign reversed earlier French strategic losses and the Treaty of Cherasco signed in 1631 was largely favourable to France. [3]
The House of Savoy-Carignano originated as a cadet branch of the House of Savoy. It was founded by Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano (1596–1656), an Italian military commander who was the fifth son of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy. His descendants were accepted as princes étrangers at the court of France, where some held prominent positions. Upon the extinction of the main Savoy line they eventually came to reign as kings of Sardinia from 1831 to 1861, and as kings of Italy from 1861 until the dynasty's deposition in 1946. The Savoy-Carignano family also, briefly, supplied a king each to Spain and Croatia, as well as queens consort to Bulgaria and Portugal.
Thomas Francis of Savoy, 1st Prince of Carignano was an Italian military commander and the founder of the Carignano branch of the House of Savoy, which reigned as kings of Piedmont-Sardinia from 1831 to 1861, and as kings of Italy from 1861 until the dynasty's deposition in 1946.
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Henri de Montmorency, 4th Duke of Montmorency was a French nobleman and military commander. Made Grand admiral in 1612, governor of Languedoc in 1614, and by 1620 was viceroy of New France. Despite defeating a Protestant fleet and seizing islands of Re and Oleron, Cardinal Richelieu kept him from taking advantage of these victories. Henri defeated the Duke of Rohan in Languedoc during 1628-1629. He gained notoriety as a military commander in Piedmont during the War of the Mantuan Succession in 1630. Joining the forces of Gaston, Duke of Orleans, Henri raised an army and was severely wounded at Battle of Castelnaudary. Captured, he was executed on 30 October 1632, by a guillotine-like device.
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The War of the Mantuan Succession (1628–1631) was a conflict related to the Thirty Years' War and was caused by the death in December 1627 of Vincenzo II, the last male heir in the direct line of the House of Gonzaga and the ruler of the duchies of Mantua and Montferrat. Those territories were key to control of the Spanish Road, an overland route that allowed Habsburg Spain to move recruits and supplies from Italy to their army in Flanders. The result was a proxy war between France, which supported the French-born Duke of Nevers, and Spain, which backed a distant cousin, the Duke of Guastalla.
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