Custoza, Fields of Doom 1866

The Operational Game System “Risorgimento” simulates the battles and campaigns of the Wars of the Italian Independence (1848 – 1866) at regimental and battalion level. The system does not deal with the tactical formations of the period, instead it highlights the command systems and capacities, the fog of war, and the consequent operational and strategic decisions, keeping the game complexity at middle to low level.

Historical Note: Custoza is a small town at the edge of low hills between Verona and the Mincio river, an area that always saw the passage, and the fighting, of armies struggling for the domain of Veneto. And the same hills were the theater of two fierce battles between the rising Italian Kingdom and the Austrian Empire.

In July 1848, the battle between the Piedmomtese Army under King Carlo Alberto and the Austrian Imperial Army under Field Marshall Joseph Radetzky signed the turning point of the First Independence War, and the defeat of the Piedmontese dream of an Italian Crusade against Austria.

In 1866, on 24th of June (the recurrence of the Battle of Solferino), a far bigger, but inconclusive, battle was fought between the new Italian Kingdom Army under Vittorio Emanuele II, son of Carlo Alberto, and the Austrian Imperial Army of South led by Archduke Albrecht. The battle started as a meeting engagement, ending in a massive fighting. It was a crushing defeat of the Italian colours, but the Third Independence War still finally gave Veneto to the Kingdom of Italy, because of its alliance with Prussia, who was winning the Austro-Prussian War of 1866.