Battle of Arcole
The Battle of Arcole nearly ended Napoleon Bonaparte's career in a muddy ditch. On the 15th of November 1796, Bonaparte grabbed a flag and walked to within about 55 paces of a defended bridge in northern Italy. His aide-de-camp, Jean-Baptiste Muiron, was shot dead at his side. An unnamed officer had to drag the French commander out of the line of fire. Bonaparte fell into the mud of a dike while the battle hung in the balance. Three days later, French artists and newspapers had already begun turning that moment into legend.
Arcole was the pivot of a larger struggle. Austria was trying for the third time to relieve the siege of Mantua, where Feldmarschall Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser was trapped with a large garrison. If the relief succeeded, the French Army of Italy faced catastrophe. If it failed, the Austrian effort in northern Italy would be broken. The questions the next hour will answer: how did Bonaparte outmaneuver a larger Austrian force, why did the fighting drag on for three brutal days, and what did a single forgotten cavalryman, a pair of panicking infantry brigades, and a ship named after a dead aide-de-camp have to do with the birth of the Napoleonic legend?
Wurmser reached Mantua with 16,000 soldiers on the 12th of September 1796, only to be driven into the fortress by the French three days later. By November, disease and hunger were grinding down the trapped garrison. Emperor Francis II of Austria appointed Feldzeugmeister József Alvinczi to assemble a new field army and try once more.
Alvinczi's Friaul Corps numbered 26,432 men and carried 54 line and 20 reserve artillery pieces. Feldmarschall-Leutnant Paul Davidovich's Tyrol Corps added 18,427 infantry and 1,049 cavalry on the 1st of November. Together with roughly 3,000 men under General-major Anton Ferdinand Mittrowsky linking the two wings, Austria fielded a formidable force. Wurmser still commanded 23,708 soldiers inside Mantua, though only 12,420 were fit for field duty.
Bonaparte's resources were stretched thin across multiple fronts. General of Division Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois held 10,500 men watching Davidovich. André Masséna's 9,540 soldiers defended the Brenta River line. Pierre Augereau's 8,340 troops covered the Adige River. Charles Edward Jennings de Kilmaine blockaded Mantua with 8,830 men. Historian David G. Chandler compared Bonaparte to a juggler keeping three balls in the air, balancing dangers on three sectors simultaneously. A failure on any one of them, Chandler wrote, could spell catastrophe and the destruction of the Army of Italy.
The Austrians worked hard to conceal Davidovich's true strength. The deception worked well enough that Bonaparte ordered Vaubois to advance and defeat his opponent so that 3,000 troops could be freed for the main fight. That miscalculation would cost the French dearly in the opening rounds.
On the 2nd of November, Vaubois attacked Davidovich near Cembra and inflicted 1,116 casualties while suffering only 650 of his own. Among those French losses were 280 soldiers of the 85th Line Infantry Demi Brigade, a unit whose morale appears to have broken under the strain. The next day Vaubois pulled back to Calliano.
On the 6th of November, both Austrian wings struck simultaneously. At the Second Battle of Bassano, the Friaul Corps held off Bonaparte's full assault. The French lost 3,000 killed, wounded, and missing that day, plus 508 captured and a howitzer. The Austrians suffered 2,823 casualties in what was a hard fight for both sides.
At Calliano the same day, Davidovich attacked Vaubois and was initially repulsed. He struck again at daybreak on the 7th. After holding out all day, French morale collapsed in the late afternoon. Vaubois' men fled in a panic, and between the 2nd and the 7th of November the division lost 4,400 killed, wounded, and missing along with six artillery pieces. Bonaparte publicly vented his fury at the performance of the 39th and 85th Line Infantry Demi Brigades in a formal announcement.
The Austrians also had serious internal problems. Poor communications plagued both wings, a direct consequence of the wide separation between them. A message Alvinczi sent on the 9th of November did not reach Davidovich until the 11th. Many of Alvinczi's men were raw recruits who straggled badly, and the force suffered a significant shortage of officers. On the 11th, Alvinczi's advance guard under General-major Friedrich Franz Xaver Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen ran into Masséna near Verona and lost 400 men in a sharp fight. The following day, a sleet storm, Hohenzollern repulsed Bonaparte's attacks at the Battle of Caldiero. After Austrian reinforcements arrived later that day, Bonaparte called off his assaults and retreated inside Verona's walls, having lost roughly 1,000 killed and wounded plus 800 men and two guns captured.
Even Bonaparte "became very despondent about his chances of survival" after Bassano and Caldiero. He left 3,000 men under François Macquard to hold Verona and an enlarged Vaubois force of about 8,000 to bottle up Davidovich's 14,000 men in the Adige valley. To blockade Mantua, Kilmaine could muster only 6,626 soldiers after sending reinforcements elsewhere. That left Bonaparte a field force of roughly 18,000 to face Alvinczi's approximately 23,000.
What Bonaparte planned next was audacious. He would force-march Masséna and Augereau south along the west bank of the Adige to a bridging site at Ronco all'Adige, behind Alvinczi's left flank. Once across, he intended to drive north and cut the Austrian line of retreat, capturing the enemy's supply trains and artillery park.
The terrain was both a challenge and an opportunity. On the far bank, marshy ground made movement impossible except along dikes and causeways. The Alpone River, a small tributary flowing into the Adige from the north, was only 20 yards wide and 5 feet deep. The dikes along the Alpone near the village of Arcole stood 26 feet high with very steep faces. A north-bound road followed a dike for about 1.5 miles from Ronco to a bridge at Arcole, beyond which the road continued to San Bonifacio near the main highway. In such ground, the Austrians would not be able to bring their superior numbers to bear. Bonaparte had unknowingly chosen a killing ground that would frustrate both sides for three punishing days.
By dawn on the 15th of November, Bonaparte's troops reached the crossing site at Ronco. Colonel Antoine-François Andréossy's engineers had a pontoon bridge in operation shortly afterward. Augereau's division crossed first, heading toward Arcole, where Oberst Wenzel Brigido defended with two battalions and two cannons. The Austrians repulsed Augereau's lead brigade under General of Brigade Louis André Bon. Most French soldiers soon lay in the lee of the causeway, sheltering from the intense fire. By mid-day, Austrian reinforcements under Mittrowsky had arrived. Bon, Verdier, Verne, and Jean Lannes were all wounded, and the attack stalled completely.
On the western flank that first day, the brigades of Alois von Gavasini and Adolf Brabeck tried to seize the French pontoon bridge. They collided with Masséna near Bionde. Initially successful, the Austrians panicked when Brabeck's troops accidentally fired on Gavasini's men. The Austrians fled back beyond Belfiore, and the French watched as the Austrian supply trains rolled east on the main highway, out of reach.
Bonaparte's flag-bearing charge near the bridge, which cost Muiron his life, failed to break the deadlock. Guieu crossed the Adige lower down at Albaredo d'Adige and eventually flushed the Austrians from Arcole that evening. By midnight, worried about Davidovich threatening his rear, Bonaparte withdrew Guieu and pulled most troops back across the river.
The second day, the 16th, went no better. Provera attacked Masséna from Belfiore with six battalions and was driven back with the loss of five cannons; Brabeck was killed in the fighting. Mittrowsky and Augereau fought a see-saw engagement that ended with the Austrians retreating to Arcole. Joseph Hercule Domingue, a former slave serving as a French cavalry lieutenant, executed a surprise attack on the Austrian cavalry that day and was promoted to captain and given a ceremonial sword by Bonaparte.
On the third day, the 17th of November, Bonaparte's engineers floated pontoons down the Alpone overnight and built a new bridge near the river's mouth. Augereau crossed and fought up the eastern dike. At 3:00 pm, a large Austrian column surged out of Arcole and drove back General of Brigade Jean Gilles André Robert's men on the western dike; Augereau's troops on the east bank fell back as well. By 4:00 pm, Augereau's entire division had retreated across the pontoon bridge.
Masséna then appeared from the western flank with reinforcements and ambushed the Austrians on the western dike, sending them reeling. Augereau recrossed to the east bank and renewed the fight. Around 5:00 pm, Masséna and Augereau fought their way into Arcole. A lieutenant and just 25 Guides delivered the decisive final push, riding into the Austrian rear and blowing bugles to simulate a large force. The ruse worked. Alvinczi threw in Schübirz's brigade to cover the retreat, allowing Provera's division to escape east.
French losses at Arcole totaled 3,500 dead and wounded plus 1,300 captured or missing. The Austrians lost fewer men in killed and wounded, roughly 2,200, but 4,000 men and 11 guns fell into French hands. General Jean Gilles André Robert died of his wounds, while Austrian General-major Gerhard Rosselmini died in Vicenza on the 19th of November.
On the 17th, the same day Arcole fell, Davidovich finally struck Vaubois at Rivoli. Ocskay's brigade from Monte Baldo linked up with Vukassovich's brigade from the Adige gorge and drove the French back all morning. In the afternoon, the French again stampeded. The 85th Line was again among the first to break. The French lost 800 killed and wounded plus 1,000 captured, including Generals of Brigade Pascal Antoine Fiorella and Antoine Valette. Davidovich pursued as far as Castelnuovo del Garda. Vaubois retreated toward Peschiera del Garda.
Bonaparte sent his cavalry to shadow Alvinczi's retreat and turned his main force on Davidovich. On the 19th of November, Davidovich heard of the Austrian defeat at Arcole and saw signs that the French were about to fall on him in strength. He pulled back to Rivoli on the 20th and continued retreating the next morning. Then an encouraging letter arrived from Alvinczi and Davidovich halted. The French caught him at Rivoli. In the ensuing clash, the French suffered 200 casualties while inflicting 250 killed and wounded plus 600 prisoners, three guns, and a bridging train. Davidovich fell back north in haste. Altogether, his retreat from Rivoli cost him as many as 1,500 men and nine guns.
Alvinczi held a council of war on the morning of the 18th of November at Olmo. His generals resolved to return to the field with their 16,000 remaining troops. By the 21st, Alvinczi occupied Caldiero again but could advance no farther. On the 23rd he learned of Davidovich's defeat and that evening began retreating to the Brenta River.
Wurmser, trapped inside Mantua, could hear cannon fire throughout the three days of battle. Observers in the fortress even noticed French camps appearing empty, yet Wurmser did not move. On the 23rd of November he finally assaulted the siege lines, capturing 200 Frenchmen and demolishing some earthworks, at a cost of almost 800 Austrian casualties. By then Davidovich was in full retreat, and Wurmser withdrew into the city. The third relief attempt had failed by the narrowest of margins.
In November 1796, while the campaign's final moves played out, French forces seized Venice and two 44-gun frigates under construction in the shipyard. One of those warships was named the Muiron, in honor of the aide-de-camp killed at Bonaparte's side on the bridge dike on the 15th of November.
Artists and newspapers moved fast. Napoleon's actions at the bridge of Arcole were turned legendary while the campaign was barely over, and the story made his name a household word across France. Arcole is widely regarded as the moment when the Napoleonic legend was born, a legend that would not end until Napoleon's final downfall in 1815.
The Muiron would carry that origin story forward in a concrete way. When Bonaparte returned from Egypt in 1799, it was aboard that same frigate bearing his dead aide's name that he escaped back to France.
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Common questions
When and where did the Battle of Arcole take place?
The Battle of Arcole was fought from the 15th to the 17th of November 1796, near the village of Arcole, approximately 25 km southeast of Verona in northern Italy. It was part of the War of the First Coalition during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Who commanded the opposing forces at the Battle of Arcole?
Napoleon Bonaparte commanded the French Army of Italy, while Austrian forces were led by Feldzeugmeister József Alvinczi, with Feldmarschall-Leutnant Paul Davidovich commanding a separate corps operating in the Adige valley.
What was the strategic purpose of the Battle of Arcole?
The battle was Austria's third attempt to relieve the siege of Mantua, where Feldmarschall Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser was trapped with a garrison of 23,708 soldiers. Alvinczi planned a two-pronged offensive to break through the French lines and free Wurmser's force.
What happened to Napoleon at the bridge during the Battle of Arcole?
Bonaparte grabbed a flag and stood within about 55 paces of the defended bridge to inspire his troops. His aide-de-camp Jean-Baptiste Muiron was killed at his side, and an unnamed officer had to drag Bonaparte out of the line of fire. The general ended up in a muddy ditch.
What were the casualties at the Battle of Arcole?
French losses totaled 3,500 dead and wounded plus 1,300 captured or missing. Austrian killed and wounded numbered roughly 2,200, but 4,000 men and 11 guns were captured by the French.
Why is the Battle of Arcole significant in Napoleon's history?
Arcole is widely regarded as the beginning of the Napoleonic legend. French artists and newspapers rapidly turned Bonaparte's actions at the bridge into a celebrated story, making him a household name in France. The legend born at Arcole persisted until Napoleon's final downfall in 1815. One of the frigates seized in Venice afterward was named the Muiron, after the aide killed at Arcole, and it was aboard this ship that Bonaparte later escaped from Egypt to France in 1799.