Battle of Carpi

Battle of Carpi
Part of the War of the Spanish Succession
Date 9 July 1701 Location Carpi, near Legnago 45°08′13.90″N 11°23′41.50″E / 45.1371944°N 11.3948611°E / 45.1371944; 11.3948611 Result Austrian victory
Belligerents
Habsburg Monarchy	Kingdom of France
Commanders and leaders
Prince Eugene of Savoy	Nicolas Catinat
Strength
About 17,000 (1,500-2,000 used)	About 11,400 (about 11,300 used)
Casualties and losses
Approximately 42 dead (2 officers), and 50-60 wounded (7 officers)	Approximately 350 casualties (50 officers), and 109 taken prisoner (9 officers)

The Battle of Carpi was a series of manoeuvres in the summer of 1701, and the first battle of the War of the Spanish Succession that took place on 9 July 1701 between France and Austria.

In Italy the emperor took the initiative, and an Austrian army under Prince Eugene, intended to overrun the Spanish possessions in the Peninsula, assembled in Tyrol in the early summer, while the opposing army (French, Spaniards, and Piedmontese), commanded by Marshal Catinat, was slowly drawing together between the Chiese and the Adige. But supply difficulties hampered Eugene, and the French were able to occupy the strong positions of the Rivoli, defile above Verona. There Catinat thought himself secure, as all the country to the east was Venetian and neutral.

But Eugene, while making ostentatious preparations to enter Italy by the Adige or Lake Garda or the Brescia road, secretly reconnoitred passages over the mountains between Rovereto and the Vicenza district. On 27 May, taking infinite precautions as to secrecy, and requesting the Venetian authorities to offer no opposition so long as his troops behaved well, Eugene began his march by paths that no army had used since Charles V's time, and on the 28 May his army was on the plains.

His first object was to cross the Adige without fighting, and also by ravaging the duke of Mantua Charles IV's private estates (sparing the possessions of the common people) to induce that prince to change sides. Catinat was completely surprised, for he had counted upon Venetian neutrality, and when in the search for a passage over the lower Adige, Eugene's army spread to Legnago and beyond, he made the mistake of supposing that the Austrians intended to invade the Spanish possessions south of the Po River. His first dispositions had, of course, been for the defence of the Rivoli approaches, but he now thinned out his line until it reached to the Po.

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Wikipedia