page_title: Josef Philipp Vukassovich
section_title: First Coalition
hierarchical_section_title: Josef Philipp Vukassovich / French Revolutionary Wars / First Coalition
context_page_description: Baron Josef Philipp Vukassovich was a Croatian soldier who joined the army of Habsburg Monarchy and fought against both Ottoman Empire and the First French Republic. During the French Revolutionary Wars, he commanded a brigade in the 1796–1797 Italian campaign against Napoleon Bonaparte. He led a division during the Napoleonic Wars and received a fatal wound in action.
  While serving in the Grenz infantry from the Croatian Military Frontier, Vukassovich received a coveted military award for notable actions in battle against the Ottomans. Still leading his Grenzers, he fought against the French in Italy. While still a colonel, he was entrusted with the command of an infantry brigade in early 1796. Finally appointed a general officer, he participated in nearly every battle in Italy that year, including all four Austrian attempts to raise the Siege of Mantua. In 1799, he led troops in Italy against the French with success. The following year saw him leading troops against Bonaparte again.
  Appointed to lead a division in Italy in 1805, Vukassovich was soon sacked for failing to halt a French attack. The year 1809 found him leading a division in the invasion of Bavaria.
context_section_description: Vukassovich fought in Italy during the War of the First Coalition, being promoted to Oberst in 1794. At the Battle of Loano in November 1795, he and his troops conducted a stout defense in a monastery. During the Montenotte Campaign in April 1796, he commanded a brigade in Johann Beaulieu's Austrian army. He led the Austrian vanguard across the Turchino Pass on 10 April to attack Jean-Baptiste Cervoni's brigade near Genoa.
  On 12 April, Bonaparte defeated Eugène-Guillaume Argenteau's Austrian force at the Battle of Montenotte. The next day, Beaulieu directed Vukassovich to take his brigade to Sassello to establish contact with Argenteau's right wing, but due to a poorly written order, he started a day late and missed the 14 November fighting in the Second Battle of Dego. The next day, he marched his 3,500-man brigade from Sassello to Dego. By good fortune, Vukassovich caught a brigade of André Masséna's troops plundering the town and routed them. By the time Bonaparte and Masséna appeared with heavy reinforcements, "Wukassovitch intelligently seized the opportunity offered by this success and promptly put the village into a state of defense." He only withdrew from the town after giving the French a tough fight.
  Appointed Generalmajor (brigadier general) on 2 May 1796, Vukassovich soon fought in the Battle of Lodi on 10 May. At Lodi, he led a rear guard consisting of two battalions of the Carlstädter Grenz Infantry Regiment. After the Grenzers fell back to the east end of the bridge, they were employed in the first line of defense. Subjected to continual cannon fire and a frontal attack by skirmishers and a column of elite troops, the Austrians were defeated. Such was his notoriety that the French falsely claimed to have killed him during the fighting. He commanded a 2,400-man brigade at the Battle of Borghetto on 30 May and during the Siege of Mantua. When the siege was lifted on 1 August, he led 2,000 men from the garrison to reinforce the main army before the Battle of Castiglione. During the second attempt to relieve the Siege of Mantua, he joined Paul Davidovich's Tyrol Corps. He was badly injured in a fall the night before the Battle of Rovereto, which occurred on 4 September. Nevertheless, he led his brigade during the day's fighting. His troops bravely tried to stop Masséna's advance, but they were finally routed by superior numbers.
  During the third attempt to relieve Mantua, Vukassovich participated in the Tyrol Corps' victories at Cembra on 2 November and the Battle of Calliano on 6–7 November. On the 17th, his troops battled their way out of the Adige River gorge to link up with Joseph Ocskay von Ocsko's column on the heights. Together they routed the French at Rivoli Veronese. After Bonaparte won the Battle of Arcole, the French army commander drove the Tyrol Corps back to Trento. During the fourth attempt to relieve Mantua, Jozsef Alvinczi directed Vukassovich to lead his 6th Column down the east bank of the Adige River. His artillery supported the attack of Prince Heinrich XV of Reuss-Plauen on the west bank of the river, but he exerted little other influence on the disastrous result of the Battle of Rivoli because his troops were on the wrong side of the river.
caption: Vukassovich led the rear guard at the Battle of Lodi.
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