Battle of Veillane

The Battle of Veillane (or the Battle of Avigliana) was fought on 10 July 1630 between a French army under the command of Henri II de Montmorency and a Spanish army under the command of Don Carlo Doria. The result was a French victory.[1][2]

The Battle of Avigliana by Jacques Callot.

Prelude

During the war of the Mantuan Succession, Cardinal Richleu sent a French army under the command of Montmorency to invade Savoy to attempt to influence the Mantuan succession.[2] This was the cause casus belli but his primary motive was to force Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy from his alliance the Habsburgs (Philip IV of Spain and Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor) and hence sever the land link between Habsburg lands in Italy and those in Germany and the Spanish Netherlands.[3]

Battle

The French commander, General Montmorency, led the royal gendarmes in a charge across a ditch, capturing Doria with his own hand and reportedly fighting like a common soldier until the Spanish withdrawal from the field.[4] The French inflicted about 700 on the enemy and captured 600.[2]

Aftermath

Although this victory did not prevent Savoy and its allies from capturing Mantua a week later,[2] the French victory was followed by the raising of the siege of Casal and the taking of Saluzzo. For his achievements during the Piedmont Campaign Montmorency was appointed a Marshal of France later the same year.[4][5]

The outcome of the Piedmont Campaign reversed earlier French strategic losses and the Treaty of Cherasco signed in 1631 was largely favourable to France.[3]

Notes

1. "On July 10, 1630, in the Piedmont campaign, he won the crucial victory of Veillane" (Burckhardt 1970, p. 73).
2. Jaques 2007, p. 85.
3. Tucker 2009, p. 579.
4. Traill 1858, p. 520.
5. Chisholm 1911, p. 787.

References

• Burckhardt, Carl Jacob (1970). Richelieu and his age. 2. Allen & Unwin. p. 73.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Montmorency" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 787.
• Jaques, Tony (2007), Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: A-E, Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity Through the Twenty-first Century, 1, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 85, ISBN 978-0-313-33537-2
• Tucker, Spencer (2009), A global chronology of conflict: from the ancient world to the modern Middle East, 2 (illustrated ed.), ABC-CLIO, pp. 579, 587, ISBN 978-1-85109-667-1

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Traill, Thomas Stewart, ed. (1858). "Montmorency, Henri II". The Encyclopædia Britannica: or, Dictionary of arts, sciences and general literature. 15 (8 ed.). A. and C. Black. p. 520.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)