Original Franco-Austrian War Pattern 1850 Field Grade Austrian Cuirassier Officer Cuirass Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. We believe that this is a Franco-Austrian War Pattern 1850 Field Grade Austrian Cuirassier Officer Cuirass Breastplate. The armor is manufactured from iron, is magnetic and is finished in black. The breast plate incorporates a series of brass rivets around the perimeter. The rivets are affixed to five strips of brass: four on each side and one at the bottom. There are also two brass bolts that rise above the body of the breast plate and are placed on either side of the central vertical ridge on the chest, designed to receive the keyhole-shaped receptacles placed within the brass shoulder straps attached to the back plate. The center has a raised brass plate down the front of the chest tapering as it reaches the waist. The interior is lined in leather with red cloth trim. This lining is dray and delicate and has operated from the plate in multiple locations. Overall the condition of the breastplate is good with expected signs of wear from age and use. The hard-to-read, handwritten note indicating its use in “1859” suggests that it was used in the Franco-Austrian War which raged that year. A better condition but nearly identical Cuirass was sold at auction for close to $10,000 and can be seen at this link.

The Second Italian War of Independence, also called the Franco-Austrian War, the Austro-Sardinian War or Italian War of 1859, was fought by the French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia against the Austrian Empire in 1859 and played a crucial part in the process of Italian unification.

The background to the war was the Plombières Agreement between France and Sardinia on 21 July 1858, in which they agreed to carve up Italy between them, and the Franco-Sardinian military alliance signed in January 1859. Sardinia mobilized its army on 9 March 1859, while Austria mobilized on 9 April. On 23 April, Austria delivered an ultimatum to Sardinia, demanding Sardinia’s demobilization. Upon Sardinia’s refusal, the war began on 26 April. Austria invaded the Kingdom of Sardinia on 29 April and France declared war on Austria on 3 May.

The Austrian invasion was stopped by the arrival of French troops in Piedmont from 25 April onward. The Austrians were defeated at the Battle of Magenta on 4 June and pushed back to Lombardy, where the Franco-Sardinian victory at the Battle of Solferino on 24 June resulted in the end of the war and the signing of the Armistice of Villafranca on 12 July.

Austria ceded Lombardy to France, which in turn gave it to Sardinia. Sardinia exploited the defeat of Austrian power by annexing the United Provinces of Central Italy, consisting of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Parma, the Duchy of Modena and Reggio and the Papal Legations, to the Kingdom of Sardinia on 22 March 1860. Sardinia handed Savoy and Nice over to France at the Treaty of Turin on 24 March 1860.