CASTIGLIONE DELLE STIVIERE, a town in Lom bardy, 22 miles N.W. of Mantua, was the scene of a battle on Aug. 5, 1796, between the French Army of Italy under Napoleon Bonaparte and the Austrians under Wurmser. The latter's attempt to relieve the fortress of Mantua, which had been besieged by the French since the middle of July, by an advance in two columns on both sides of Lake Garda, met with such initial success that Bonaparte had been compelled to raise the siege. Having defeated the Austrian right column at Lonato, he then turned eastwards against Wurmser, who with his left column had entered Mantua on Aug. I, and now deployed his 25,000 men for battle with his right at Solferino and his left at Medole. Bonaparte, who had in all some 31,000 men at his disposal, now made use for the first time of a plan of battle typically his own ; it consisted in a series of holding attacks along the whole of the enemy's front, to pin down his forward troops and induce him to engage his reserves; a thrust into the rear of one of his wings by a detached force called up from a distance to the battlefield designed to shake his morale and disorganize him ; and a decisive frontal assault on the hostile wing so threatened, which completed his defeat. On this occasion Bonaparte deployed Massena and Augereau against Wurmser's front, while Serurier's blockading troops, which after the raising of the siege of Mantua had retired to Marcaria, some 15 miles south of Medole, and had been ordered to march all night, struck into his rear at Guidizzolo. Wurmser was taken by surprise by the sudden appearance of this new enemy, and Bonaparte seized his opportunity to throw a picked force of grenadiers under Kil maine against the Austrian left centre.
The result was the complete defeat of the Austrian army, which having lost 2,000 men and 18 guns, retreated eastward over the Mincio into Tirol. Strategically Wurmser had in part achieved his object in securing an additional lease of life for the fortress he had been sent to relieve ; but he had failed to seize the chance offered him of decisively defeating the French, whose brilliant recovery from an apparently desperate situation and tactical victory on the battlefield left the honours of the campaign with them, and greatly enhanced their morale and prestige. (See further FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS.)