giovedì 26 aprile 2018


 


 

 
The Siege of Milazzo (1718/19)
Ten interminable months. The population of Milazzo was in the grip of terror and misery. It all began in July 1718, when the troops of Philip V - having arrived from Spain in order to re-conquer Sicily, that they had lost five years previously - set up camp on the edge of Milazzo, along what is now the state road-113, linking the villages of S. Filippo del Mela (Belvedere quarter) and Merì. Spanish domination of Sicily had no choice but to conquer Milazzo, one of the island’s strongholds at the time.
For some time, The Duke of Savoy, Vittorio Amedeo II - King of Sicily since 1713 - directing from Turin, had left the defence of the castle, and of other fortifications in Milazzo in the hands of the Piedmontese Saluzzo regiment, soon after assisted by their allies, the troops of the Emperor of Austria Charles VIth, in their turn backed by the powerful British fleet of King George 1st.
For the first two and a half months, the Spanish (represented by the Salamanca cavalry regiment and the Lusitanian Dragoons) attempted to prevent food and ammunition from reaching the town in order to cause a famine and to force the Piedmontese garrison to surrender. The continuous arrival of re-enforcements of Austrian troops from the sea, however, doomed this strategy (known as the “Milazzo blockade”) to failure and thus, after the bloody battle of the 15th October 1718 - where the Spanish army held sway having, during the previous few weeks, approached near enough as to set up camp on the plain close to the centre of the town - the population for the next seven months was subjected to what is referred to, in contemporary military documents, as the slow siege, consisting of continued artillery attacks from a distance using mortars and canons on both sides. The effects were devastating for the town and its inhabitants, its civil and religious buildings as well as for its economy.
 
Storehouses of the Milazzo tuna fishery  with the roofs removed by Austrian troops and the nearby Spanish gun battery.

George Olivier Wallis (1671-1743)
 

 
 
The wounded city: entire quarters destroyed and an economy on its knees
Innumerable houses and churches were destroyed by Spanish bombs and cannon fire. Further destruction was caused by the ruthless Austrian General George Olivier Wallis (1671-1743), who ordered that entire quarters in the centre of town, particularly along what is now via Umberto I, be razed to the ground in order to have a view across the town to prevent enemy attacks.
General Wallis also ordered that roofs, doors and windows that had escaped enemy fire, and his own destruction, be removed and used in the building of trenches and other military installations. Houses were thus left vulnerable to vandalism and theft at the hands of their own soldiers taking advantage of the fact that the owners had taken refuge in the surrounding hills, or on Capo Milazzo, in order to escape the horrors of war. 
One of the buildings to meet such a fate was that of the Tuna fishery now the site of a petrol station near the old railway station of Milazzo. The outbuildings were subsequently occupied by Spanish troops who set up a  gun battery there. These were subsequently occupied by the Spanish who set up an artillery battery. This battery, as well as that in the Albero quarter, spread terror in the area around the port and destroyed the Carmine church, that was rebuilt after the Siege (as is commemorated in Latin on a marble stone now inside the church). Considerable damage was also caused to the vast vineyards that made Milazzo one of the greatest wine areas in Italy. The devastation was so disastrous that when the owners returned to the plain after the Siege they could scarcely recognise their land that had been constantly trampled on by infantry and cavalry and dug up for trenches. The Milazzo aristocrat Marcello Cirino was to report, on his vast estate in S. Basilio beginning in the S. Marina quarter, the destruction of  16 hectares of vineyards amounting to a total of 102,000 uprooted vines that had previously produced 500 hectolitres of wine a year, counting for about a hundredth of Milazzo’s entire wine production, which at the time amounted to about 48,000 hectolitres.
 
 
 
 
 


 

 



A town divided

When the Siege began (October 1718) a large part of the population were harvesting the vines on the plain. The outbreak of warfare suddenly blocked the transit of people and Milazzo was split into two: the town centre, (at the time surrounded by defensive walls) and the Capo, were firmly under the control of the Piedmontese and Austrian troops, while the plain and the surrounding villages fell into the hands of the Spanish.
While during the months of the “blockade” (July-September) it was still possible to travel, by horse or on foot, from the town centre to the plain and vice-versa, albeit with increasing difficulty, from October such movements were strictly prohibited. Thus entire families suddenly found themselves divided: children were torn from their parents, husbands from wives. In order to be reunited with the loved ones who had moved to the plain for the grape harvest, they had to wait until the end of the Siege in May 1719. Some, in a desperate attempt to be with their families, endeavoured to reach them by sea, despite the dangers caused by Spanish bombing and rifle fire. Few, however, attempted such a risky journey.
 
 
 




Trenches, gabions and fascines

The Siege of Milazzo was a war played out in trenches. The Spanish built 2 trenches from one sea to another that were long enough to cut off the peninsular. These were the two “contravallation lines”, that were set up to prevent the enemy leaving the centre of the town. Before these trenches were built there had been an exodus from the centre that had led to a bloody battle which cost the lives of many Spanish troops.
The contravallation lines had to be built under a shower of enemy bombs and cannon balls and thus took the form of saps (in French sapes), narrow tunnels dug by expert sappers (sapeurs) used to working under enemy fire and thus well paid for their endeavour.
4 sappers were required to build a sap. The first began to dig under the protection of a small cart known as a mantelet, followed by the others that gradually dug deeper into the ground.
Dug up earth was then thrown into gabions that, placed side by side, formed a parapet for the sap. The mantelet protected the first sapper from enemy fire while the first gabion was filled. The long line of gabions acted as a defensive wall and was in turn further protected by fascines, earth and stones

The Siege of Milazzo: Austrian and Spanish trenches
red trench: first Spanish line of contravallation
yellow trench: second Spanish line of contravallation
light blu trench: Austrian trench
red circles: Spanish guns
orange circles: Spanish mortars
blue line: Massimiliano Regis street
violet line: XX Settembre Street

 
 








The process of sapping in the 17th century.


From Vauban, De l’attaque et de la defense des places, 1737


 
 
The hell of mortar fire
One of the most terrifying weapons used during the siege of Milazzo was the mortar, an indirect fire device used to bombard entrenched enemy soldiers with stones, (for this reason the saps were often covered with wooden planks) or to bring down roofs killing victims and unleashing terror among the civilian population under siege. They were also used for firing bombs and grenades. 
A similar weapon was known as the trabucco, the difference depending on the position of the trunnions, the two mounts positioned half-way down each piece, in the former, or on the breech, in the latter. Both, however, were usually referred to as mortars.
Mortars were charged by inserting gunpowder into the cavity, followed by earth and well-compressed hay and finally by a bomb or stones. They were fired by putting a fine powder in the tiny touch-hole that crossed the upper part of the piece and by lighting a slow burning wick on the end of a poker. 
 
 

 



 

 
 

 

Admiral Byng’s Fleet
The re-conquest of Sicily by Philip V of Spain had heavy costs, particularly concerning the defeat of the Spanish fleet in the waters off Capo Passero (naval battle of the  11th August 1718 in the extreme south east of Sicily). From then on the British fleet, that, under the orders of Admiral George Byng, had captured Philip’s ships in Capo Passero, had total dominance of the Mediterranean, thus being able to block and impede the arrival of weapons and ammunition destined for the Spanish troops in Milazzo and in other strongholds on the island. «The damage caused by the British ships is considerable», wrote the Spanish Viceroy, the Marchess of Lede, from Milazzo in December 1718: «it would be vain to hope in the withdrawal of the British fleet from the Mediterranean since the Parliament in London has just given its consent to the Sovereign».
The presence of British ships around Milazzo, and in particular of the flagship Barfluer (carrying Admiral Byng), was a constant threat throughout the siege. As well as controlling the Sicilian coasts, they also escorted food and ammunition supplies from Naples and Calabria to the allied Austrian troops in Milazzo. In order to avoid bombardments from the Spanish artillery, permanently overlooking the port, they moored along the coasts of Capo Milazzo.
 
Admiral George Byng
 

Deserters during the Siege
Despite being forbidden by the military authorities on both sides, desertions were tolerated during the Siege of Milazzo. In the autumn of 1718 the Spanish enlisted numerous Austrian troops – deserting due to a lack of pay – to re-enforce their ranks, depleted by death and injury. The Spanish Viceroy, however, was careful not to form entire battalions of deserters and spread them among the various regiments. The Austrian deserters were necessary to the Spanish army, particularly considering the overwhelming presence of British ships in the Mediterranean which prevented the arrival of fresh Spanish troops. The Spanish really had no choice but to enlist deserters.
The Spanish army itself also had to deal with the problem of desertion in its own ranks. In April 1719 British ships captured a vessel carrying money with which to pay the Spanish troops. The news reached the troops thanks to informative leaflets launched into enemy trenches from catapults, with the intention of encouraging the King of Spain’s troops to desert.  Some did by swimming from one camp to the other but not all managed: on the 19th of April 1719 the people of Milazzo witnessed the  brutal execution of a recaptured Austrian deserter who was hanged near the church of  S. Giuseppe.
 

 
 

The Battle of the 15th October 1718
The 15th October 1718 saw the bloodiest moment of the Siege. Taking advantage of the absence of enemy trenches (the contravallation that the Spanish built just two days later), the Austrian troops and the Saluzzo regiment left the urban centre to attack the Spanish encampment on the plain.
The first skirmish took place at the Spanish advance post in the quarter of S. Giovanni (casa de S. Juan). Despite the valorous defence on the part of about one hundred men under the orders of  the colonel of the Aragona regiment Manuel de Sada y Antillón and the commander of the Royal Walloon Guard the Count of Zueveghem, who on this occasion was taken prisoner, the Spanish succumbed, thus opening the way for enemy troops that in a short space of time managed to conquer the centre and the left side of the Spanish encampment between the Barone quarter and the beaches of the Ponente coast (Casazza quarter), the latter being under the control of the cavalry (Salamanca regiment and Lusitania dragoons) and by the nearby Milano regiment.
The capture of the Spanish camp was followed by raiding and plundering by Imperial troops made up of the infantry battalions of Guidobald von Starhemberg, Maximilian von Starhemberg, Lorena, Wallis, Wetzel and Toldo, all under the command of Generale George Olivier Wallis, and by the Tige horse dragoons, commanded by Count Giulio Veterani.
Theft in the Spanish camp (for the most part consisting of money but also weapons and ammunitions) allowed the Austrian troops to make up for their meagre salaries. This was described, years later, by a protagonist of the battle, Jaime Miguel de Guzmán y Dávalos Spinola, founder and Colonel of the Lusitanian dragoons.
While the enemy troops were thus distracted, the Spanish quickly managed to regain their lost positions, chasing the enemy away from the urban centre, thanks to the help of the Farnese cavalry regiment, that had recently arrived in Milazzo with the Viceroy, the Marquess of Lede, Supreme Commander of the troops of Philip V in Sicily. The rout of the enemy cavalry (the Tige dragoons) was magnified by the dramatic capture of Generale Giulio Veterani, imprisoned by a lieutenant of the Farnese, the Marquess of Bondad Real. At the orders of the future Viceroy of Peru, José de Armendáriz y Perurena, the advance post in S. Giovanni was re-conquered, forcing many Austrians to dive into the sea to save themselves.
The defeat came with a high price - 3,000 dead or wounded and more than a thousand prisoners - for the Neapolitan Giovanni Carafa, Supreme Commander of the Austrian troops in Milazzo, soon after relieved of his duties. In a report sent to Vienna on the  16th of  October 1718 he tried to justify himself by explaining  that both the Spanish cavalry (Lusitania dragoons) and his own (Tige dragoons) wore yellow uniforms, leading to a disastrous confusion. 
 
 Manuel de Sada y Antillón
 
Jaime Miguel de Guzmán y Dávalos Spinola,
founder and Colonel of the Lusitanian dragoons
 
 
Lusitania, 1769


 
 

 

The Castle and the walled town at the time of the Siege 
The Castle of Milazzo, already occupied by the Saluzzo regiment before the war, did not have enough room to accommodate their Austrian allies who were encamped between the church of S. Papino and the Grotta di Polifemo and in part at the Capo. The commander, General Zumjungen was an exception, residing for some time in the convent of S. Domenico, at the foot of the steps that lead up to the walls of the fortified town.
The intensification of the war forced the Piedmontese commander Missegla to move from his usual abode in the Governor’s Palace in the Borgo,  to the home of the aristocratic Lucifero family, near the Aragonese wall. It was Missegla who ordered the evacuation of the Cathedral in order to designate it for the storing of food and ammunition and above all as a military hospital. He also ordered the evacuation of the Benedectine Monastery to make way for food and ammunitions, transferring the nuns to the convent in the Borgo adjacent to the church of  SS. Salvatore, opposite the church of  S. Gaetano then used temporarily as a cathedral.
In February 1719, due to the large number of wounded soldiers in the Cathedral (260) and in order to prevent  an epidemic (sanitary conditions were dire and the smell in the church was nauseous), 75 patients, considered able to tolerate a journey across the sea, were transferred to Calabria. On the 25th of  March 1719 the Marquess of Andorno, Supreme Commander of the Piedmontese troops in Sicily, was buried in the Cathedral, having died of an illness in Milazzo. His death was commemorated on his tombstone. Soon after, the kitchen at the service of the military hospital, built under the new Sacresty in 1704, risked burning the fine wooden furnishings.
On the 23rd of May 1719 a soldier of the Saluzzo regiment, tragically died in his sleep, falling from the walls of the fortified town. Unable to sleep due to the fleas that infested his bed, he decided to leave the barracks and to sleep outside. His unfortunate decision to lie on the top of the wall proved to be fatal.
 
 

 


 
1. Cathedral - Duomo antico 

2. Ancient City Hall - Palazzo dei Giurati (Municipio)

3. Benedectine Monastery - Monastero delle Benedettine





 
 
 
The code used by the Spanish troops
In order to protect reserved information contained in war correspondence to and from Spain, in the event that it fell into enemy hands, the Spanish military authorities adopted an efficient code. From an examination of the correspondence  sent from Milazzo by the Viceroy, the Marquess of Lede in autumn 1718 and now preserved in the General Archives of Simancas, it has been possible to reconstruct most of the code, made up principally of numbers that correspond to syllables or to single letters of the alphabet. The list reproduced here shows the numbers used. Some of these indicated terms or expressions in common use: as is the case with, for example, “artillery regiment” or  Su Magestad”, that correspond respectively to the numbers 406 and 713.