1848 Mincio Campaign Cartography

Wargamers unfamiliar with Italy may find it harder to pinpoint locations touched by the 1848-1849 campaigns and therefore maybe fail to appreciate the related aspects. In addition, wargamers may want to use real maps as basis for wargame maps and scenarios.

The Habsburg Military Survey is a good source for this. The 2^nd Survey in particular is what we’re looking for (you can find the Survey maps here). Northern Italy was mapped in 1818-1829, a bit earlier than what I’m looking for, but the Italian countryside and urban areas didn’t change much before the start of the XX Century, so it should still be a fairly good representation of reality in 1848. In addition, it’s georeferenced, meaning that it’s perfectly superimposed on a modern map – you can toggle between the two and, for example, have a better understanding of hills and heights. You can calculate distances too.

Here's a map of the Mincio Valley and area between it and Verona, Radetzky's main fortress during the 1848 campaign.

The Mincio Valley and nearby areas

If you zoom the map you could read the locations' names, but in order to help people unfamiliar with Northern Italy, I've added names using bigger "labels" in the image below. I've also noted the direction of other notable areas that fall outside the map.

Main 1848 locations

The Mincio river runs from Peschiera (on Lake Garda) in the north and flows roughly southwards touching Monzambano, Valeggio, Goito (all sites with major bridges) to Mantua just south of the map, and then ends up into the Po river. 

Custoza is located in the hill area east of Monzambano.

The Quadrilateral is made up of the fortresses of Peschiera, Verona, Mantua and Legnago. Legnago is roughly southeast off-map.

I'll use the Survey maps to see if I can create more realistic battlefields for the scenarios - but I'll keep playability over precise representation. I'll start with the Valeggio area.