Battle of Palestro

Overview

The Battle of Palestro was fought on 30–31 May 1859 between the Austrian Empire and the combined forces of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont and France. The Franco-Piedmontese forces were victorious. It was fought just south to Palestro, a town in what is now the province of Pavia in northern Italy. It was believed that the Battle of Palestro was the last European battle in which a European Monarch rode into battle, that being King Victor Emmanuel II, who directly entered the fray with the Austrians.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

The Battle of Palestro, fought on 30–31 May 1859, was a Franco-Piedmontese victory against Austrian forces in the Second Italian War of Independence. With equal force sizes of roughly 14,000 men on each side, the Austrian Empire suffered approximately 2,000 casualties, a result that contributed to the erosion of Austrian military strength in northern Italy during the campaign. The engagement is noted as the reputed last occasion on which a European monarch personally rode into battle, King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia-Piedmont having directly entered the fighting against Austrian forces. This dimension of the battle fixed it in the symbolic record of the war, linking the Sardinian crown to the physical conduct of the struggle for Italian unification.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (2)