Battle of Piave River (1809)

Part of the War of the Fifth Coalition

Date	8 May 1809
Location	Nervesa della Battaglia, modern-day Italy
Result	Franco-Italian victory

Belligerents

First French Empire

Italy

Austrian Empire

Commanders and leaders

Viceroy Eugène

Archduke John

Strength

44,800

24,120 to 28,000

Casualties and losses

2,000

3,896, 15 guns

The Battle of Piave River was fought on 8 May 1809 between the Franco-Italian army under the command of Eugène de Beauharnais and an Austrian army led by Archduke John of Austria. The Austrian commander made a stand behind the Piave River but he suffered a defeat at the hands of his numerically superior foes. The combat took place near Nervesa della Battaglia, Italy during the War of the Fifth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars.

The initial Austrian invasion of Venetia succeeded in driving the Franco-Italian defenders back to Verona. At the beginning of May, news of Austrian defeats in Bavaria and inferiority in numbers caused Archduke John to begin retreating to the northeast. When he heard that his enemies were crossing the Piave, the Austrian commander turned back to give battle, intending to slow Eugène's pursuit of his army.

Eugène ordered his vanguard across the river early in the morning. It soon ran into vigorous Austrian resistance, but the arrival of French cavalry stabilized the situation by mid-morning. Rapidly rising waters hampered the buildup of French infantry reinforcements and prevented a significant portion of Eugène's army from crossing at all. In the late afternoon, Eugène launched his main attack which turned John's left flank and finally overran his main line of defense. Damaged but not destroyed, the Austrians continued their withdrawal into Carinthia (in modern-day Austria) and Carniola (in modern-day Slovenia).

At the beginning of the 1809 conflict between the Austrian Empire and the First French Empire, General of Cavalry Archduke John led his Army of Inner Austria in an invasion of northeastern Italy. Emperor Napoleon I appointed his stepson Eugène to be Viceroy of Italy and commander of the Army of Italy. On 16 April, John defeated Eugène at the Battle of Sacile near the Livenza River. During this time an Austrian force led by Feldmarschall-Leutnant Johann Gabriel Chasteler de Courcelles advanced south from the Tyrol, capturing Trento on 23 April and Roveredo on 26 April. In the face of these two threats, Eugène's Franco-Italian army withdrew 130 kilometres (81 mi) from Sacile to the Adige River.

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