In 1800, First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte began a new military campaign in Italy against the Austrians. After crossing the Alps, his army captured the fort of Bard and continued its march towards Milan, where it entered on June 2.
After the capture of Milan, Bonaparte developed his offensive towards the south. The so-called reserve army is officially placed under the orders of General Berthier, but it is the consul who leads the operations. The vanguard commanded by General Lannes pushes towards Belgioioso to cross the Po and seize the Stradella parade. On June 9, Lannes, helped by General Victor, won the battle of Montebello-Casteggio (1). The fierceness of the fighters is at its peak; according to Lannes himself, “the bones cracked in my division like hail falling on windows.” The enemy's rout was complete, as grenadier Jean-Roch Coignet observed: “They no longer fired at us, they ran away like rabbits. »
The victory at Lannes allowed the French to block the route from Stradella to Plaisance from the Austrians, commanded by the septuagenarian cavalry general Michael von Melas. Bonaparte arranged his forces in such a way as to deal the coup de grace to the enemy; However, based on false information, he dispersed his troops too much in different directions. Underestimating his adversary, he does not believe him capable of rushing like a wild boar to make his way on Stradella and Piacenza and resume his line of operation on Mantua, instead attributing to him the intention of escaping the net by bypassing the French. Two directions are possible: either cross the Po and march on Milan to get ahead of the French army and cut off its line of communication, or rush to Novi to rely on Genoa where General Masséna has just capitulated. For their part, the Austrians, according to the plan of Quartermaster General Zach, intended to attract the French to the plain located between the Bormida and Scrivia rivers, to make use of their numerous cavalry. On June 12, they concentrated in Alexandria (Alessandria). On the 13th, as the enemy did not move, Bonaparte decided to attack him. But at noon, the plain east of Alexandria is empty. Thinking that the Austrians were preparing to move on to Genoa, the consul changed his plan by sending General Desaix, just returned from Egypt (2), with Boudet's division (around 5,000 men) and a cavalry party to the south of Tortona. Around 6 p.m., the French chased an Austrian detachment from the village of Marengo; this one did not put up any strong resistance and disappeared behind the Bormida. According to Victor, this abandonment of “such an essential post” is proof that the enemy wants to leave without fighting. Bonaparte shares this opinion.
In the evening, the French bivouacked in the mud, the result of heavy rain. Mounted on the Marengo tower, Bonaparte scans the horizon; not seeing anything abnormal, he convinces himself of the enemy's departure and neglects to establish a bridgehead. But a big surprise awaits him the next day...
1
Behind the walls of Alexandria, Melas holds a war council. The Austrians decided to attempt a breakthrough towards Mantua, pinning their hopes on the superiority of their cavalry and artillery. Moreover, their soldiers were rested and well-supplied, while the French were wet and on empty stomachs. The attack must be made in three columns: the one on the right will monitor the road to Novi, the one on the left will go to Sale to fix the French, while the central column, the main one, will fall on the left flank of the army of Bonaparte. According to the idea of Zach, the author of this battle plan, if luck is favorable to the Austrians, the French, overwhelmed on their flanks, will be "thrown into the Po" without the possibility of retreat. The morale of the soldiers is excellent, as reported by Baron de Crossard, a French émigré serving on the staff of Melas: “The good spirit with which the Austrian troops were animated could only inspire them with audacity, a presage of victory. . They had been abundantly provided for; fatigue had not weighed on them; their number equaled that which the enemy could have: all the probabilities were therefore in favor of Melas. »
2
On the morning of June 14, Bonaparte believed that the Austrian army was planning to attack Milan. He is reinforced in this false belief by a spy, Carlo Gioelli, without knowing that he works for both camps at the same time. His army was dispersed, large detachments under the orders of generals Lapoype and Desaix having been sent respectively to the north and south to stop the enemy on the roads to Milan and Genoa. Above all, Bonaparte feared that the enemy would escape by refusing battle: thus, “the war, instead of being ended at once, would drag on and bring new military and political chances; doubts would arise about the infallibility of his triumphs, and his emerging power would be shaken” (Victor). But between 8 and 9 a.m., under a radiant sun, the Austrians emerged en masse via the Bormida bridgehead. The left wing under the orders of Field Marshal-Lieutenant Ott moved towards Sale where, according to Zach's erroneous assessment, the bulk of the French army must be located. Field Marshal-Lieutenant O’Reilly’s right detachment heads towards Novi. The central column commanded by Field Marshal-Lieutenant Hadik marches on Marengo. Victor, whose troops were the first to be engaged, wrote that the Austrian army “appeared to be 25,000 infantry and 6 to 7,000 cavalry; his artillery was formidable.” The Austrian generals ordered their soldiers not to attempt to fight the French as skirmishers and to remain in tight formations. “These columns were not covered, as usual, by a cloud of skirmishers; but numerous artillery preceded them, and they advanced with a firm and rapid step, determined to pass over the body of everything they encountered” (Victor).
3
Attacked by the main column of the enemy, Victor clings to Marengo with the Gardanne and Chambarlhac divisions. The resistance of the French was tenacious, making their adversaries regret having abandoned Marengo the day before and underestimating the obstacle represented by the Fontanone stream, swollen by rainwater. But the Austrians are too numerically superior. General Rivaud, commander of a brigade, wrote in his report: “The attack had barely begun half an hour before Gardanne's small division was overwhelmed by numbers and was giving way inch by inch. from the ground to the enemy. » Victor recounts: “The first two columns attacked General Gardanne with artillery fire to which ours responded with advantage; the most terrible shooting then began; it supported itself on both sides with incredible determination for almost two hours, after which the Gardanne division, pressed by a much superior enemy, ceded this first battlefield in order of echelons to take a line oblique linking from the right to the village of Marengo, and from the left to Bormida, to defeat the two communications which cross it. There, a fight even more deadly than the first began, the interval that separated us from the enemies was only a few fathoms; all weapons were in action; infantry and cavalry charges supported by the most violent fire multiplied for almost two hours. » Lannes comes to the aid of his comrade at full speed with the Watrin division and the Mainoni brigade. His troops deployed on the right of Victor's divisions pushed the enemy back onto the Fontanone and temporarily restored the situation. However, the Austrians led by Ott and O'Reilly threatened to outflank Lannes' right and Victor's left. The Gardanne and Chambarlhac divisions, lacking ammunition, slowly retreated, in echelons, under cannonade, protected by the cavalry of the Kellermann and Champeaux brigades; this cavalry “contains, drives away the enemy bodies which press too hard on our battalions, gives them time to rally when they are shaken, and does not allow the enemy to take a single prisoner” (Victor). General Champeaux is mortally wounded. Many French cannons are already out of service, dismantled by enemy artillery fire.
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Warned of the Austrian attack, Bonaparte rushed to the battlefield from his headquarters at Torre Garofoli, followed by Monnier's division and the Consular Guard on foot. It's 2 p.m. Marengo is already evacuated by French troops, but the consul has every reason to believe that the arrival of Boudet's division is near, having been warned of his situation by Savary, Desaix's aide-de-camp. The French take the village of Castelceriolo, the key to the battlefield, without being able to hold on there. The terrain is stubbornly contested. Petit, the quartermaster of the Consular Guard's horse grenadiers, admires the countenance of the grenadiers on foot: "Charged three times by the cavalry, shot by the infantry, at fifty paces, they surround their flags and they are wounded, in a square battalion [ sic], exhaust their cartridges, hurry slowly and orderly, and join our astonished rearguard. » But the Guard ended up retreating in turn, the grenadiers having suffered severe losses and lost their artillery. The Austrian cannons were unleashed, cutting the men and trees in two, the branches of which crushed the wounded as they fell. Coignet remembers: “Looking behind us, we saw the consul sitting on the ditch of the main road to Alexandria, holding his horse by the bridle and making small stones flutter with his whip. And he didn't see the cannonballs rolling down the road. When we were near him, he mounted his horse and galloped behind the ranks: “Courage, soldiers, the reserves are coming, hold firm!” »
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Lannes' troops covered the retreat of those of Victor, retreating three kilometers for two hours through wheat and vineyards. Lannes wrote in his report: “There was not a single moment of disorder; I withdrew in echelons under the fiercest artillery fire and charged by formidable cavalry on several occasions. I did not have a single cannon or a man on horseback to support my retreat, and despite this, it ended in the greatest order. » Lannes asks brigade chief Bessières, commander of the cavalry of the Consular Guard, to carry out a charge. But the sight of two Austrian battalions waiting with weapons in their arms and the opposing cavalry preparing to execute a turning movement prompted Bessières to turn around. Is this one of the reasons for the animosity between Lannes and Bessières, which reached its climax at the Battle of Essling in 1809?
6
Deeming the battle won, Melas, tired and slightly wounded, returned to Alexandria to write his report, having tasked Zach with finishing the pursuit of the retreating French. The Austrian soldiers share the conviction of their commander-in-chief and behave, according to Victor, “with a nonchalance and disorder which would hardly have been forgivable in full peace; the soldiers left their ranks and amused themselves by stripping the dead; the officers were only busy congratulating each other.” But at that moment, the situation suddenly changed, because Desaix returned with Boudet's division to the battlefield, after receiving the urgent order from the First Consul to turn around. Bonaparte had also sent the order to return to Lapoype in the north, but he received it too late.
As for Desaix, he had stopped the march of his troops before midday in a direction that seemed erroneous to await further instructions, no enemy being found in Novi while a cannonade rumbled from the side of Alexandria. It is therefore not correct to assert that he “marched to the cannon” on his initiative, as some authors do. Bonaparte welcomed him warmly and said, laughing: “Well! General Desaix, what a scuffle! - Well! General, Desaix replies, I am coming, we are all fresh, and, if necessary, we will be killed. » According to Bourrienne, an eyewitness, Desaix then took out his watch, looked at the time, and declared to the consul: “The battle is lost, but we still have time to win one today. » The historian Eugène Titeux casts doubt on this reply, finding it unlikely that Desaix, “whose modesty matched his talent, bringing with him only 5,300 men and 7 cannons, to the aid of a completely beaten army, could have believed one's means sufficient to restore balance and win a battle.” The quartermaster Petit sees him passing, “dressed all in blue, without any embroidery; he wore his hat without feathers, without braid, and riding boots […]. How majestic was its simple exterior, in this circumstance! How encouraged his soldiers were, how delighted to find themselves commanded by him! »The retreat stops, and the drums beat the charge along the entire line. The French troops regrouped around San Giuliano Vecchio. Bonaparte rode through the ranks of his soldiers, saying: “My friends, this is going backward enough; remember that I am used to sleeping on the battlefield. » At 5 p.m., the French opened a cannonade then counterattacked the enemy who was far from expecting it: “The very lively fire of the 9th Light greeted their head of column at the outlet of the vineyards, which surprised them, but without disconcerting them too much; they wonder what else these people want” (Victor). Savary, Desaix's aide-de-camp and future minister of Napoleon, describes this episode: "A fire of musketry, starting from the left of the houses of Marengo, was heard: it was General Desaix who opened the attack. He moved quickly, with the 9th Light, on the head of the Austrian column: the latter responded with weakness, but we paid dearly for his defeat since the general was shot down with the first shots. He was riding behind the 9th Regiment when a bullet passed through his heart; he perished at the moment when he decided victory. » An eyewitness heard him cry out: “Dead! ”, before collapsing. Desaix had probably advanced with the skirmishers to reconnoiter the enemy troops hidden by the vines; during this reconnaissance, a bullet hit him above the heart and exited through the right shoulder. According to legend, Desaix declared to General Boudet, before dying: “Hide my death, because it could shake the troops. » As he was not generally dressed that day, the soldiers did not notice his disappearance and continued their advance. His body stripped of his clothes was only found in the evening by his aides-de-camp, recognized, if Savary is to be believed, “by his voluminous hair, from which the ribbon that bound it had not yet been removed.”. A version widely spread at the time, invented by Bonaparte himself, attributes to Desaix these highly improbable words which were engraved under the Consulate on the pedestal of a Parisian fountain decorated with the bust of the general: "Go and tell the First Consul that I die with the regret of not having done enough for posterity. » This fountain is today in Riom in Auvergne, not far from the native village of Desaix. In 1805, Napoleon decided to have his remains transported from Milan to the Great Saint Bernard: “The tomb of Desaix will have the Alps as its pedestal and the monks of Saint Bernard as guardians. » The sarcophagus is still visible in the hospice; a bas-relief represents the death of Desaix in Marengo. On the other hand, a statue of the general, inaugurated in 1810 on the Place des Victoires in Paris and deemed indecent by the public because of the nudity of the character, was melted down under the Restoration to forge the new statue of Henri IV on the Pont Neuf.
7
Driven back, the Austrians managed to pull themselves together. It was then that they were charged into the flank by part of the French cavalry led by General Kellermann. They are buried and lose many people killed, wounded, and prisoners. According to Savary, Kellermann “rushed upon this formidable column, crossed it from left to right, and cut it into several sections; Assailed at the head, broken by its flanks, it dispersed and was pursued, sword in its loins, as far as Bormida. Zach is taken prisoner. Victor congratulates Kellermann in his report: “General Kellermann, commanding the cavalry attached to the left of the army, displayed, in this battle, as much intrepidity as military knowledge; several charges, made at the right time, powerfully supported my dispositions and did great harm to the enemy. » There is controversy over the initiator of this charge: would Desaix and Bonaparte have sent a formal order, as Savary asserts, or would Kellermann have had a happy inspiration, as he suggests? ? According to Bourrienne, Bonaparte's secretary, the latter would have recognized on the evening of the battle: "This little Kellermann made a successful charge, he made a timely attack; we owe him a lot. See what the deal is! » Several authors will subsequently contest Kellermann's merit, some going so far as to declare that he could not have decided on this charge by himself due to his drunken state on the day of the battle! Bonaparte only coldly congratulated him for his success, did not award him a saber of honor – which was nevertheless given to generals Victor, Lannes, Watrin, Gardanne, and Murat – and minimized his role in the official accounts of the battle. Bitterly disappointed by Napoleon's attitude, Kellermann held a stubborn grudge against him and repeated to everyone: "It was I who put the crown on this man's head! "The best appreciation of this decisive charge is found in the memoirs of the future Marshal Marmont, an eyewitness: "If the charge had been made three minutes later, our pieces would have been taken or withdrawn and perhaps, being no longer under the influence of the surprise caused by the grapeshot cannon shots, the enemy column would have better received the cavalry. It would perhaps have been the same if the charge had preceded the salvo. So this precise combination was necessary to ensure such complete and, it must be said, such unexpected success. Never has fortune intervened more decisively, and never has a general shown more insight, vigor, and aptness than Kellermann in this circumstance. […] Kellermann had been placed under the orders of General Desaix; he was instructed to follow the movement of the troops and to charge when he saw the enemy in disorder and the opportunity favorable. He recognized, as a skillful man, the urgency of the circumstances, because it was when the disorder began among us, and not among the enemy, that he charged and executed his resolution with incomparable vigor. It is absurd and unfair to contest the glory acquired in this memorable circumstance and the immense service he rendered. »
8
Taking advantage of Kellermann's success, Lannes and Victor's men advance. They are followed by the rest of the army. Lannes reports: “I have never seen troops attack with more courage and composure, everything that was in front of them was pushed back and overthrown beyond the Bormida. » His divisional officer Watrin announced to Berthier: “I could not tell you the number of prisoners taken by the division; the troops left them behind and only occupied themselves with impetuously repelling the enemy. » The final blow is delivered by a French cavalry charge led by Murat, Bessières, and Kellermann: an irony of fate according to historian Terry Crowdy, Zach having precisely wanted to attract the French into a plain to advantageously use the numerous cavalry there. Austrian!
9
The Austrians disband and flee towards Alexandria: “Infantry, cavalry, artillery, everything is pell-mell; all this now forms only helpless and confused masses, which are driven before us, like timid herds, all the way to Bormida” (Victor). Melas lamented this in his report to Archduke Charles: “This sudden and terrible change of fortune ended by completely breaking the courage of the troops; the disorder of the cavalry, which had disorganized the groups, precipitated the retreat of our infantry, which, particularly on that day, had fought so valiantly. » The Austrians lost around 6,500 men killed or wounded and 3,000 prisoners, compared to a comparable number among the French: between 6 and 8,000 killed, wounded, and prisoners. According to Captain de Cugnac, a military writer, “the forces engaged amounted to approximately 30,000 men for the Austrians, and the French to 22,000 during the afternoon and to approximately 28,000 when Boudet joined in the evening. ; but the former had more than 100 cannons, while the First Consul had only about fifteen guns for most of the day.” The final cannon shots were fired around 10 p.m., “like the last rumblings of a storm” to use Victor’s expression. The latter declared in his report to Berthier: “For a long time, there has not been such a bloody affair; the enemies, drunk on brandy and desperate for their position, fought like lions; our soldiers, knowing the necessity of a vigorous defense, performed prodigies of valor; all the troops covered themselves with glory. » Bourrienne paints in his Memoirs the contrast of this memorable day: “Never had fortune, in such a short time, shown itself under two such diverse faces; at two o'clock it was the desolation of a defeat, and all its disastrous consequences; at five o'clock, it was victory, once again faithful to the flag of Arcole; it was Italy reconquered in one fell swoop, and the crown of France in perspective. »
10
On June 15, at daybreak, an Austrian parliamentarian came to propose a suspension of weapons. The same day, Melas and Berthier signed the Alexandria Convention which handed over to the French all of northern Italy up to Mincio, with Genoa and all the strongholds of Piedmont and Lombardy. The Austrian army can return behind Mantua, without being captured. The French prisoners are returned; many of them were mishandled in Alexandria on the day of the battle. But the war is not yet over. After several months of hostilities in Italy and Germany, including the great victory of General Moreau at Hohenlinden on December 3, 1800, Austria concluded a peace treaty at Lunéville on February 9, 1801, which marked the end of the Second Coalition.
(1) Currently the municipality is called Montebello della Battaglia. Napoleon subsequently gave Marshal Lannes the title of Duke of Montebello, still worn by his descendants. This name also commemorates another battle, that of 1859, under the Second Empire.
(2) Desaix joined the headquarters of the reserve army on June 11, accompanied by his aides-de-camp. Witnesses report his words proving that he was agitated by sinister forebodings: “It has been a long time since I fought in Europe, the cannonballs no longer know us; Something will happen to us..."
Bonaparte's proclamation
“Soldiers! One of our departments was in the power of the enemy; consternation was throughout the south of France. Most of the territory of the Ligurian people, the republic's most faithful friend, was invaded. The Cisalpine Republic, destroyed in the last campaign, had become the toy of the grotesque feudal regime. Soldiers! You walk… and already French territory is delivered! Joy and hope follow, in our homeland, dismay and fear. You will restore freedom and independence to the people of Genoa; he will be forever delivered from his eternal enemies. You are in the capital of Cisalpine! The enemy, terrified, only aspires to regain the borders. You took away its hospitals, its stores, its reserve parks. The first act of the campaign is over. Millions of men, you hear it every day, send you acts of gratitude. But will we have violated French soil with impunity? Will you let the army that brought the alarm to your families return to their homes? You run to arms!… Well! March to meet him, oppose his retreat; tear away from it the laurels with which it has adorned itself, and thereby teach the world that the curse is on the fools who dare to insult the territory of the great people. The result of all our efforts will be, Glory without cloud and solid peace” (proclamation of the First Consul Bonaparte, 17 Prairial Year VIII-6 June 1800, in Milan).
After the fights
For the record, the end of this historic day saw the birth of a famous dish, prepared for Bonaparte by his cook Dunan: “Marengo chicken”.
During this meal, the song Fanchon, nicknamed La Madelon de Marengo and so prized by the re-enactors of the First Empire, was sung for the first time by the future general Lasalle, to whom his authorship is attributed. legend.
One of Napoleon's favorite horses, the one whose skeleton belongs to the collections of the National Army Museum in London, was called Marengo.
The name of this battle was given to the brown color dotted with small white dots.
Finally, on Saint Helena, on May 2, 1821, three days before his death, filled with the memory of Marengo, the dying Napoleon cried out in his delirium: “Desaix! Ah! Victory is decided! »
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