Battle of Villafranca (1744)

Battle of Villafranca
	Part of the War of the Austrian Succession
Date	20 April 1744
Location	Villafranca Marittima, Sardinia ; (present-day France)
Result	Franco-Spanish victory [1]
Belligerents
Kingdom of Spain ; Kingdom of France	Kingdom of Sardinia ; Great Britain
Commanders and leaders
Infante Philip ; Prince of Conti	Vittorio Francesco Filippo of Savoy (POW) ; Thomas Mathews
Strength
30,000	8,000
Casualties and losses
2,820 casualties	1,500 dead or wounded; 1,830 captured

Last updated March 13, 2019

The Battle of Villafranca unfolded on 20 April 1744, during the War of the Austrian Succession. The armies of Spain and France, advancing into Kingdom of Sardinia, unsuccessfully attacked entrenched positions at the pass of Villafranca, defended by Anglo-Sardinian forces. Because of the high losses incurred, the defenders were forced to leave the harbour of Villafranca two days after the battle (22 April 1744).

The War of the Austrian Succession involved most of the powers of Europe over the issue of Archduchess Maria Theresa's succession to the Habsburg Monarchy. The war included peripheral events such as King George's War in British America, the War of Jenkins' Ear, the First Carnatic War in India, the Jacobite rising of 1745 in Scotland, and the First and Second Silesian Wars.

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain, is a country mostly located on the Iberian Peninsula in Europe. Its territory also includes two archipelagoes: the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, and the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla make Spain the only European country to have a physical border with an African country (Morocco). Several small islands and a peninsula bordering Morocco in the Alboran Sea are also part of Spanish territory. The country's mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with British dependency Gibraltar; to the north and northeast by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean.

France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.

Situation in Italy

1744 had opened bleakly for the Spaniards in Italy. To the south the Austrians were steadily driving back General Montemar's army. Naples was threatened. Britain, boasting naval superiority in the Mediterranean, intervened on the side of Austria, and the Royal Navy everywhere harassed Spain's allies and frustrated Spanish war shipping. Genoa was blocked off by a British squadron, and Switzerland kept her borders closed to the passage of troops. Marching overland through allied France, the Infante Philip had easily conquered Savoy, but, starved of supplies, had been unable to advance against the Sardinians in the Alps.

José Carrillo de Albornoz y Montiel, 1st Duke of Montemar, 3rd Count of Montemar, GE, KOGF, KOS was a Spanish nobleman and military leader, who conquered the Two Sicilies, Oran and Mazalquivir. He was a member of the Carrillo family, a Spanish noble house, and was Viceroy of Sicily from 1734 to 1737.

Naples is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest municipality in Italy after Rome and Milan. In 2017, around 967,069 people lived within the city's administrative limits while its province-level municipality has a population of 3,115,320 residents. Its continuously built-up metropolitan area is the second or third largest metropolitan area in Italy and one of the most densely populated cities in Europe.

The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years War against the Kingdom of France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is known as the Senior Service.

On 22 February, the Bourbon navies defeated the British off the coast of Toulon. The retreat of Admiral Matthews' fleet left the sea lanes temporarily under French and Spanish control. Supplies poured into Philip's camp. 20,000 Frenchmen under Louis François I, Prince of Conti were then dispatched to combine with Philip's 20,000 Spaniards, their goal being to force a passage into Lombardy and to unite with the Spanish army in the south.

The House of Bourbon is a European royal house of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Spain and Luxembourg currently have monarchs of the House of Bourbon.

The naval Battle of Toulon or Battle of Cape Sicié took place on 22–23 February 1744 (NS) in the Mediterranean off the French coast near Toulon. A combined Franco-Spanish fleet fought off Britain's Mediterranean Fleet. The French fleet, not officially at war with Great Britain, only joined the fighting late, when it was clear that the greatly outnumbered Spanish fleet had gained the advantage over its foe. With the French intervention, the British fleet was forced to withdraw.

Thomas Mathews was a British officer of the Royal Navy, who rose to the rank of admiral.

On 1 April, the allies crossed the Var and advanced into Nice, which fell without a fight. Villafranca lay before them.

Nice is the seventh most populous urban area in France and the capital of the Alpes-Maritimes département. The metropolitan area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of about 1 million on an area of 721 km² (278 sq mi). Located in the French Riviera, on the south east coast of France on the Mediterranean Sea, at the foot of the Alps, Nice is the second-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast and the second-largest city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region after Marseille. Nice is approximately 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) from the principality of Monaco and 30 kilometres (19 mi) from the French-Italian border. Nice's airport serves as a gateway to the region.

The battle

The Sardinians led by Vittorio Francesco Filippo di Savoia, Marquis of Susa, the brother of the King Charles Emmanuel III, entrenched themselves along the heights of Villafranca. Their natural defences were formidable: the attackers, hemmed in by cliffs and precipices, faced a difficult climb up over rocks and boulders, in plain sight of Sardinian guns. The fortified camp was equipped with more than 80 guns of all calibres, landed from English ships stationed in the harbor, which were arranged in eleven batteries. Sardinian forces counted fourteen battalions of infantry.

Admiral Matthews, meanwhile, had returned to the area and landed a contingent of British regulars, marines, and artillery specialists to bolster the Sardinian defence. This force joined the Sardinians on the heights, their guns bearing down on the French against whom they had only recently declared war (Britain had been fighting a war against Spain since 1739). Voltaire would later quip, "even in the Alps we could still find Englishmen to fight us."

The War of Jenkins' Ear was a conflict between Britain and Spain lasting from 1739 to 1748, with major operations largely ended by 1742. Its unusual name, coined by Thomas Carlyle in 1858, refers to an ear severed from Robert Jenkins, a captain of a British merchant ship. There is no evidence that supports the stories that the severed ear was exhibited before the British Parliament.

François-Marie Arouet, known by his nom de plumeVoltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and separation of church and state.

Conti's first attack was launched the 14 April, but was suspended because of a storm. Finally Conti gave the assault on the fortified camp of Villafranca on the night of 19 to 20 April 1744. In the early stages of the battle the French and the Spaniards were able to immediately gain the position of the collet de Villefranche, capturing or destroying five Sardinian battalions. Even the commander in chief, the Marquis of Susa, was taken prisoner and he had to be replaced by the Knight of Cinzano. The French and Spanish forces moved to conquer the positions of Mont Gros, Mont Rouge and Mont Leuze, the keys of the defensive perimeter of Villafranca. However, led by their new commander, the defenders were able to contain the attack. In particular, the regiment Kalbermatten, a Swiss unit in Sardinian service, was able to develop a magnificent defensive action to hold the position of Mont Leuze. At four in the afternoon the situation was restored and Conti had now exhausted all the forces at his disposal. The Cinzano had the opportunity to launch an assault on the collective Villefranche and reoccupy the position, which is crucial as it allowed the transit of the road to Nice. This operation, conducted by principally by companies of grenadiers, achieved a complete success. In the evening the Sardinians were again deployed on the positions of the morning.

Aftermath

The defenders had suffered heavy losses. There were over 1,000 dead and wounded and 1,500 prisoners, compared to less than 3,000 losses of Spaniards and French, who counted among their ranks 433 men held captive. With only 5,000 men fit to fight, Cinzano preferred to abandon the fortified camp of Villafranca with the help of the British navy. On the evening of 21 April, in the dock of Villafranca, the garrison was shipped aboard 33 ships escorted by four British warships. At the dawn of the 22 April the fleet left the port. The fort of Montalbano had been abandoned, but Cinzano had left a garrison of 340 soldiers in the Citadel of Villafranca, who surrendered on April 27. The Prince de Conti realized that the conquest of the Ligurian Riviera would cost several months of combat. He then preferred to attack the Alps in July, an action that allowed the breakthrough of the Italian front and the siege of the city of Cuneo.

Notes

↑ A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East, Vol. II, ed. Spencer C. Tucker, (ABC-CLIO, 2010), 743.

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References

Nicola Brancaccio, L'esercito del vecchio Piemonte dal 1540 al 1861, Roma 1922.
Dario Gariglio, Mauro Minola, Le Fortezze delle alpi Occidentali, Vol. II, Cuneo 1995, pp. 291–194.
Bartolomeo Giuliano, La campagna militare del 1744 nelle Alpi occidentali e l'assedio di Cuneo, Cuneo 1967.

External links

A short history of the swiss regiment Kalbermatten in Sardinian service

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[1] A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East, Vol. II, ed. Spencer C. Tucker, (ABC-CLIO, 2010), 743.