Battle of Marengo (1800)

Battle of Marengo
Part of the War of the Second Coalition and the French Revolutionary Wars
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 Decisive French victory
Belligerents
French Republic	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.

...
Wikipedia