Battle of San Fermo

Overview

The Battle of San Fermo, which took place the 27 May 1859 at a pass near Como in the northern part of Lombardy, was an engagement of the Second Italian War of Independence in which the Italian volunteers of Giuseppe Garibaldi's Hunters of the Alps defeated an Austrian force, forcing the Austrians to abandon Como.

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

Significance

The Battle of San Fermo was an early engagement of the Second Italian War of Independence fought at a pass near Como in northern Lombardy. Garibaldi's Hunters of the Alps, numbering roughly 3,000 volunteers, defeated an Austrian force nearly twice their size under Karl von Urban, inflicting over 260 casualties and compelling the Austrians to abandon Como. The action demonstrated that irregular volunteer formations could achieve operational results against regular Habsburg troops, and it secured the Como area for the Sardinian-French coalition at a critical early stage of the campaign for Lombardy.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (4)