The Battle of Verona was fought on 18 October 1805 between the French Army of Italy under the command of André Masséna and an Austrian army led by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen. By the end of the day, Massena seized a bridgehead on the east bank of the Adige River, driving back the defending troops under Josef Philipp Vukassovich. The action took place near the city of Verona in northern Italy during the War of the Third Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars.
In the fall of 1805, Emperor Napoleon I of France planned for his powerful to fall upon and crush the Austrian Empire army in southern Germany. The French emperor hoped to win the war in the Danube valley. To help accomplish this purpose, Napoleon wanted Masséna to hold Archduke Charles' large army in Italy for as long as possible.
In order for Masséna to grapple with his enemies, it was necessary to establish a bridgehead on the east bank of the Adige. During the battle, the French attacked across the river, cleared two suburbs, and seized some high ground on the opposite bank. The Austrians suffered considerably more casualties than the French in the encounter. This clash set the stage for the subsequent Battle of Caldiero on 29 to 31 October.
Background
Austrian plans
On 5 September 1805, Feldmarschall Archduke Charles, Feldmarschall-Leutnant Karl Friedrich von Lindenau, and General-Major Anton Mayer von Heldensfeld drew up the final Austrian strategic plan. This strategy largely conformed to an earlier plan worked out by Charles, Feldmarschall-Leutnant Karl Mack von Leiberich, and Feldmarschall-Leutnant Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg. However, Mayer convinced Charles and Lindenau to transfer troops from Italy to Germany, where Mack was pressing for an invasion of the Electorate of Bavaria.
The original plan put 120,000 troops in Italy, 70,000 in Germany, 25,000 in the Tyrol, and 20,000 for internal security. Mayer's revision reduced the force in Italy to 90,000, with 30,000 on the march for Germany.
Archduke Charles disagreed with Mack's aggressive strategy. When Emperor Francis I asked his opinion, Charles wrote him that Mack was making a serious blunder by invading Bavaria. Nevertheless, the emperor allowed Mack to pursue his course of action. Fearing the worst in Bavaria, Charles took up a defensive posture, even though he knew he outnumbered Masséna.
The archduke posted Feldmarschall-Leutnant Johann von Hiller's 22,000 troops in the Italian Tyrol, north of Rivoli Veronese. The archduke lined the east bank of the Adige from Verona to Legnago with 40,000 soldiers and he held a 30,000-man central reserve at Caldiero. Of these troops, Feldmarschall-Leutnant Count Heinrich von Bellegarde watched Verona, with the division of Vukassovich northeast of the city and the divisions of Feldmarschall-Leutnants Joseph Simbschen and Andreas O'Reilly von Ballinlough to the east. Feldmarschall-Leutnant Eugène-Guillaume Argenteau's six divisions manned the line at Caldiero. Feldmarschall-Leutnant Paul Davidovich with two divisions defended the Adige near Legnago.
French plans
At the beginning of August 1805, Napoleon gave up his plan for invading Great Britain across the English Channel. Instead, he decided to move his army from the channel coast to south Germany to smash the Austrian army. He hoped to be at the Austrian capital of Vienna in November, before the Russian army appeared on the scene. With corps numbering I through VII, a cavalry corps, the Imperial Guard, and Bavarian allies, Napoleon committed 194,000 troops to the campaign in Germany. In training, personnel, morale, and organization, the was the finest body of troops that Napoleon would ever command. On 26 August, he gave the order to march and a month later his troops were crossing the Rhine.
Thanks to an elaborate spy network, Napoleon was aware that the Austrians deployed their largest army in Italy. The emperor desired that Archduke Charles' army not be allowed to influence events in southern Germany. Masséna, whose army only counted 48,000 troops, first looked to his defenses. In 1805 the Adige was the boundary between French Lombardy and Austrian Venetia. On the west side of the Adige, Masséna placed 5,000 garrison troops in the fortresses of the Quadrilateral, that is, Verona, Legnago, Peschiera del Garda, and Mantua.