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Battle of Marengo

Battle of Marengo
Part of the War of the Second Coalition, War of the French Revolution
Scene of the battle in which Napoleon, followed by some generals, advances on horseback from the left towards the centre of the image. Behind him, a regiment confronts in line the head of the Austrian pursuit column, while Desaix is being mortally wounded at the head of his men. Further to the right, General Zach is captured by some cavalrymen and General Saint-Julien tries to escape the same fate. In the background General Kellermann conducts his famous cavalry charge in the flank of the Austrians. Behind all the action lies the village of Spinetta, in front of the Apennines.
Louis-François Lejeune: The Battle of Marengo
Date 14 June 1800
Location Spinetta Marengo, Alessandria, Piedmont, present-day Italy
44°53′N 8°41′E / 44.883°N 8.683°E / 44.883; 8.683Coordinates: 44°53′N 8°41′E / 44.883°N 8.683°E / 44.883; 8.683
Result French victory
Belligerents
France French Republic Habsburg Monarchy Austria
Commanders and leaders
Napoleon Bonaparte
Louis Desaix † 		Michael von Melas
Peter Ott
Strength
24,000
24 guns 		31,000
100 guns
Casualties and losses
1,100 killed
3,600 wounded
900 missing or captured
Total: 5,600 		6,000 dead or wounded
8,000 captured
40 guns captured
15 colours captured
Total: 14,000

The Battle of Marengo was fought on 14 June 1800 between French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte and Austrian forces near the city of Alessandria, in Piedmont, Italy. Near the end of the day, the French overcame General Michael von Melas's surprise attack, driving the Austrians out of Italy, and enhancing Napoleon's political position in Paris as First Consul of France in the wake of his coup d’état the previous November.

Surprised by the Austrian advance toward Genoa in mid-April 1800, Bonaparte had hastily led his army over the Alps in mid-May and reached Milan on 2 June. After cutting Melas’s line of communications by crossing the river Po and defeating Feldmarschallleutnant (FML) Peter Karl Ott von Bátorkéz at Montebello on 9 June, the French closed in on the Austrian army, which had massed in Alessandria. Deceived by a local double agent, Bonaparte dispatched large forces to the north and south, but the Austrians launched a surprise attack on 14 June against the main French army under General Louis Alexandre Berthier.

Initially, their two assaults across the Fontanone stream near Marengo village were repelled, and General Jean Lannes reinforced the French right. Bonaparte realised the true position and issued orders at 11:00 am to recall the detachment under Général de Division (GdD) Louis Desaix, while moving his reserve forward. On the Austrian left, Ott’s column had taken Castel Ceriolo, and its advance guard moved south to attack Lannes’s flank. Melas renewed the main assault and the Austrians broke the central French position. By 2:30 pm the French were withdrawing and Austrian dragoons seized the Marengo farm. Bonaparte had by then arrived with the reserve, but Berthier’s troops began to fall back on the main vine belts. Knowing Desaix was approaching, Bonaparte was anxious about a column of Ott’s soldiers marching from the north, so he deployed his Consular Guard infantry to delay it. The French then withdrew steadily eastward toward San Giuliano Vecchio as the Austrians formed a column to follow them in line with Ott’s advance in the northern sector.


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