Battle of Tolentino

Significance

The Battle of Tolentino was the decisive engagement of the Neapolitan War, fought as Joachim Murat attempted to retain the Kingdom of Naples throne in the face of the Congress of Vienna's deliberations. The battle took place during the Hundred Days, when Napoleon's return from exile had reopened the broader contest between Napoleonic France and the Seventh Coalition. Despite fielding a substantially larger force than the Austrian army under Frederick Bianchi, Murat's army suffered over 4,000 casualties and was effectively broken as a fighting force. The defeat ended Murat's bid to hold his kingdom, directly resulting in the restoration of the Bourbon monarch Ferdinand I. Like Waterloo, Tolentino demonstrated that the Coalition powers could suppress Napoleonic-aligned regimes across multiple theaters, foreclosing any prospect of a reconstituted Napoleonic order in the Italian peninsula.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (4)