"War of the Polish Succession: Battle of Bitonto" Topic

Is anyone familiar with this battle? Are there any wargames or scenarios available for it?

Wikipedia's article link makes it sound like a fairly interesting encounter of about 10,000 per side. But a quick Google didn't find much else, and nothing like an Order of Battle.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Ed

Ed,

You might want to check out the following book on Google Books:

link

Page 434 begins the discussion of Bitonto.

I've got the Guastella OB if you want it, but that's from up north between the Austrian-Imperial and the Franco-Sardinians. I don't know if the same Austrians would have been involved in both theatres.

Thanks for the information.

Andygamer, I don't think they were the same troops.

The Austrian forces present at Guastalla were from the army of Lombardia. At Bitonto the austrian troops were from the army of Naples, reinforced by troops lead by Traun from the Sicily. Moreover, the battle ended in a real disaster from the Austrian, which lose almost all the army.
I have found this spanish link:

link

However I shall try to obtain more informations from italian sources.

Here are the Spanish mounted troops who were present in the southern army from "La cavalerie et les dragons espagnols en Italie pendant la Guerre de Succession de Pologne (1734-1736)" by G.C. Boeri, J.L. Mirecki, and J. Palau from the French-language Nec Pluribus Impar website. [See my note below.]

Les régiments de la cavalerie de ligne et de dragons espagnols présent en Italie de 1731 à 1736 et qui participèrent à la guerre de succession de Pologne représentaient la majeure partie des unités montés de l'armée espagnole en Europe.

Cavalerie: Alcantara, Alicante, Andalucia, Barcelona, Borbon, Brabante, Estremadura, Farnesio, Flandes, Granada, Milan, Malta, Murcia, Ordenes, Reyna, Rossellon, Santiago, Carabiniers royaux.

Dragons: Batavia, Edimburgo, Francia, Frisia, Lusitania, Pavia, Tarragona, Grenadiers royaux.

[The NPI site is no longer active. I accessed the old page through the "Wayback Machine" and found a link to the article (it's filed under the "Espagne" section of the "Archives" if you want to go looking for it yourself), but in my deleted post, above, the link didn't work linking to the archived page but to the current 404 error page instead. The article featured full uniform details and some period uniform illustrations.]

I was just at the Nafziger Collection Orders-of-Battle site, and it has one potentially-useful OB for the Austrian-Imperialists, but none that I noticed for the Spanish:
734HAA: Imperial Army in Italy, 9 August 1734 – 2 pgs

From the spanish site of my previous post and from the following german site:

link

I was able to gather the following data:

Austrian army (G.d.C. Joseph Anton, Fürst Pignatelli Belmonte),
6230 Infantry, 1234 Cavalry, 700 Hussars.
1 Btn. IR Alt-Wallis (disbanded 1748)
1 Btn. IR Traun (disbanded 1748)
1 Btn. Valparaiso
1 Btn. IR Carl v. Lothringen (IR Nr. 15)
2 Recruits bns.
1 Grenadier coy of IR Monteleone
2 coy National Militia
Cuirassier regt Pignatelli
Cuirassier regt Kokorzowa
Hussar regt Csáky (HR Nr. 11)

losses; 1000 dead, 1000 wounded, 2000 prisoniers. In the following capitulation of Bari the Austrians surrendered the remains of the army, 23 guns, 15 flags and the 24 standards of the Cuirassier regiments Pignatelli and Kokorzawa. Only 200 Hussars escaped capture.

Spanish army (Don Joseph de Carillo Montemar), 14000 men in 12 Infantry btns, 22 Grenadier coys and 24 Cavalry sqdns.
Left
first line: Carabineros Reales
second line Extremadura, Malta and Andalucía Cavalry
Center
first line: 12 infantry btns: Guardias Españolas 3, Guardias Valonas 3, Lombardía 2, Corona 2, Besber (Swiss) 2.
22 Grenadier coys from the Regiments of Guadalajara, África, Sevilla, Navarra, Soria, Nápoles, Real de Borbón, Castilla, Amberes, Namur, Guardias, Zamora and Borgoña.
second line: Borbón, Milán and Flandes Cavalry.
Right
Granaderos Reales Coy (Horse), Pavía and Francia Dragoons, 4 Horse Grenadier coys from four Dragoon regiments

losses; 300 dead and wounded,

Again,excellent material Altefritz. It is probably me, but I could not find the Spanish infantry listed on the Spanish site.

No, it's my fault. The Infantry regiments are listed on the spanish wikipedia entry:

link

Thanks guys! Great information!

Further details in Streffleurs, Militarische Zeitschrift, vol.1, pages 25-39:

link

For the austrian army there is an OoB with the strenght of each single unit:
1 Btn. IR Alt-Wallis (760)
1 Btn. IR Traun (640)

1 Btn. Valparaiso
(680)
1 Btn. IR Carl v. Lothringen (560)
2 Recruits bns.
(1200 together)
1 Grenadier coy of IR Monteleone (200)

2 coys National Militia, Alcaudete and Carasquete
(360)
6 sqdns. Cuirassier regt Pignatelli
(620)
6 sqdns.Cuirassier regt Kokorzowa
(910)
5 sqdns. Hussar regt Csáky (300)

The text, in gothic german, describes then in details the arrangement of army in the field and the names of commanding officers. Notice that the total strenght of the army amounts to 6230! However the author quotes other contemporary sources which give (6500 men and 1500 horses and 7000 men and 2500 horses respectively)

For the spanish army the Oob is detailed to the Brigadiers and is slightly different from the one I found: The Army is deployed in 3 lines, the infantry (14 battalions) in the first, 26 grenadiers coy in second and the cavalry (61 squadrons) in the third.
So we have
First line:
G.L. Duke of Liria
1st Swiss regt. (2 bns.)
Grenadier regt. (1 btn.; probably the Grenadiers of the Guardias Españolas)
Guardias Españolas (2 bns.)
G.L. Marquis Davi (my family name!)
Lombardía regt. (2 bns.),
Corona regt. (2 bns.)
G.L. Count Maceda
2nd Swiss regt. (2 bns.)
Guardias Valonas (2 bns.)
Grenadier regt. (1 btn.; probably the Grenadiers of the Guardias Valonas)
Second line (under Montemar)
26 Grenadier coys
Third line:
G.L. Pozzobianco
Carabineros Reales (8 sqns.)
G.L. Duke of Castropignano
Milán (6 sqdns.)
Flandres (6 sqdns.)
Andalucía (6 sqdns.)
G.L. Castelforte
Extremadura (6 sqdns.)
Malta (6 sqdns.)
Bourbón (6 sqdns.)
G.L. Marquis de las Minas
Granaderos Reales (1 sqn.)
Pavía Dragoons (6 sqdns.)
Francia Dragoons (6 sqdns.)
Carabinier (a.k.a.Horse Grenadiers) 4 sqdns.

As ever, sources disagrees in some details, but I think that the OoB is detailed enough.