Battle of Montenotte

• 1. Introduction

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  By 9:30 on the morning of the 12th of April 1796, the Battle of Montenotte was already over. It was fought near the village of Cairo Montenotte, in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. The modern town lies in the northwest of Italy. On one side stood General Napoleon Bonaparte, in his first army command during the French Revolutionary Wars. On the other stood an Austrian corps under Count Eugène-Guillaume Argenteau. How did an army that could barely feed itself move so fast? Why did two allied armies prove so easy to pry apart? And what did Argenteau mean when he wrote to his commander that his corps was gone?

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• 2. A Hungry Army

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  On the 27th of March 1796, a young General Bonaparte arrived in Nice to take over the Army of Italy. On paper it held 63,000 troops. Only 37,600 men and 60 artillery pieces could actually be put into the field. The soldiers were poorly fed, months behind in pay and badly equipped. Morale had sunk in many units, and in a few it had led to mutiny.

  A muster roll of the 9th of April shows how Bonaparte organized the men who could fight. Four divisions were led by Generals of Division Amédée Emmanuel Francois Laharpe, Jean-Baptiste Meynier, Pierre Augereau and Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier. Laharpe and Meynier formed the advance guard under André Masséna. Laharpe commanded 8,614 soldiers, Meynier 9,526, Augereau 10,117 and Sérurier 9,448.

  General of Brigade Jean-Baptiste Cervoni was detached at Voltri with the 3,181 troops of the 75th Line and 2,000 soldiers of the 51st Line. That small force stood directly in the path of the first Austrian blow.

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• 3. Uneasy Allies

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  Feldzeugmeister Johann Peter Beaulieu, the Austrian commander, was as new to the Italian theater as Bonaparte. He directly controlled 19,500 Austrians, and half of them were still in winter quarters. Argenteau commanded another 11,500 Austrians, deployed farther west around Acqui Terme. Beyond Argenteau stood a Sardinian army of about 20,000 men.

  Feldmarschall-Leutnant Michelangelo Alessandro Colli-Marchi led a 21,000-strong Austro-Sardinian army to the northwest. Colli was an Austrian on loan to the Sardinians, and he shared a personal friendship with Beaulieu. Yet the Austrian government had secretly warned Beaulieu not to trust his Sardinian ally. That warning made it hard for the two men to settle on a joint strategy.

  Bonaparte meant to advance from the Ligurian coast and drive a wedge between Beaulieu to the northeast and Colli to the northwest. Colli feared exactly that blow and argued for concentrating the allied armies in the center. Beaulieu was convinced instead that the French wanted Genoa. He decided to thwart them with an attack of his own, and it fell on the 10th of April.

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• 4. Strike at Voltri

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  Beaulieu built his attack on Voltri around two columns. General-major Philipp Pittoni von Dannenfeld led five battalions and four cavalry squadrons, totalling 3,350 foot soldiers and 624 horsemen. Feldmarschall-Leutnant Karl Philipp Sebottendorf led 3,200 troops in five battalions. Pittoni was ordered through the Bocchetta Pass north of Genoa, while Beaulieu rode with Sebottendorf through the Turchino Pass to the northwest.

  The Battle of Voltri was fought on the 10th of April, when this left wing fell on Cervoni's brigade. Cervoni made a fighting retreat and escaped intact down the coast to Savona. Beaulieu then realized, belatedly, that he was dangerously separated from his right wing under Argenteau.

  That right wing was scattered. Argenteau counted 9,000 infantry and 340 cavalry in 11 battalions and two squadrons. Four battalions were near Sassello, one at Acqui Terme, two at Mioglia, one at Dego and one at Cairo Montenotte, with two others nearby. Beaulieu began shifting his left wing west to support Argenteau. He also directed reinforcements from Lombardy to concentrate at Acqui.

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• 5. Triangle of Peaks

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  The roads around Montenotte formed a rough triangle, which the sources draw as the Greek letter delta. Altare sat at the bottom of the left leg, on the main east-west road from Savona to Ceva. It also stood on the important Cadibona Pass road. Madonna di Savona lay at the bottom of the right leg, to the east.

  Montenotte Superiore marked the top of the triangle. From there the road continued north to Montenotte Inferiore. Three peaks stood at intervals along the right leg. Starting from the top they were Monte San Giorgio, Monte Pra and Monte Negino, which is also spelled Monte Legino.

  On the summit of Monte Negino stood an old redoubt, a small earthen fort, built years earlier by the Austrians themselves.

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• 6. The Redoubt Holds

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  Poor staff work delayed the attack of Argenteau's right wing until the 11th of April. That day he advanced with 3,700 soldiers against the French on Monte Negino. Argenteau led one battalion of Alvinczi Infantry Regiment Nr. 19 and two of Archduke Anton Infantry Regiment Nr. 52 to a position near Montenotte Superiore. There he met General-major Mathias Rukavina von Boynograd, who brought a battalion each of Stein Infantry Regiment Nr. 50 and Pellegrini Infantry Regiment Nr. 49, plus three companies of Grenz infantry from the Gyulai Freikorps.

  The Austrians pressed southeast down the right leg of the triangle, driving in French outposts on Monte San Giorgio and Monte Pra. Colonel Henri-François Fornésy held the redoubt with about 1,000 men of the 17th Light Infantry Demi-Brigade. Colonel Antoine-Guillaume Rampon joined them and took overall command. A further 1,192 men of the 32nd Line came up from Madonna di Savona.

  The road to Monte Negino followed the crest of the Apennines, and Croats of the Gyulai Freikorps led the assaults in skirmish order. When the French wavered, Rampon rallied them by making them swear to "conquer or die", according to one eyewitness. Every Austrian attack failed, and Rukavina was shot in the shoulder.

  Argenteau called a halt about 4:00 PM. That evening he sent a courier to Oberstleutnant Karl Leczeny in Sassello, asking for reinforcements. Rampon guessed Austrian losses at 200 to 300, though they were probably nearer 100. The French reported 57 casualties. Bonaparte answered the attack at once.

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• 7. Fog and Flanks

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  At 2:00 AM on the 12th of April, Masséna's soldiers began a march through a rain storm to reach their jumping-off positions. Bonaparte, satisfied that Beaulieu was too far east to interfere, was determined to crush Argenteau. He moved Masséna's two divisions from Savona to the Cadibona Pass area. Laharpe's division joined Rampon, which put 7,000 soldiers on Monte Negino. Masséna marched from Altare up the left leg of the triangle with General of Brigade Philippe Romain Ménard's 4,000-man brigade. Augereau's division and other units gathered near the Cadibona Pass.

  The 3rd battalion of the Terzi Infantry Regiment Nr. 16 marched all night to reach Montenotte at dawn. Argenteau placed it, some Croats and several detached companies to guard the Altare road. The rest of his men still faced Monte Negino. One battalion of the Preiss Infantry Regiment Nr. 24 arrived nearby but never entered the next day's fight.

  Fog covered the ground at dawn. When it cleared, French cannons on Monte Negino opened fire on the Austrians below, and Argenteau saw how large a force he faced. Masséna's men then struck the weakly held Austrian right flank and swamped it with numbers. Argenteau sent the Stein and Pellegrini battalions under Oberstleutnant Nesslinger to hold the center. He put the two Archduke Anton battalions on Monte Pra and led the Alvinczi battalion to rescue the Terzi men.

  Laharpe fell on the defenders of Monte Pra, who at first held out stoutly. Masséna's assault moved so quickly that Argenteau ordered a retreat. The Terzi battalion was nearly destroyed, and Nesslinger's two battalions were badly cut up. The Alvinczi battalion served as rear guard and had to fight its way out, losing its color and many soldiers. Argenteau's men barely cleared Montenotte Inferiore before the flanking forces of Masséna and Laharpe converged on the hamlet.

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• 8. Counting the Cost

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  The morning after the battle, Argenteau could report only 700 men with the colors. The rest had been killed, wounded, captured or scattered. This was Bonaparte's first victory in the Montenotte campaign. The Austrians admitted to 166 killed, 114 wounded and 416 missing, a total of 696. Historian Martin Boycott-Brown presented French losses as light. A sampling of reports shows the 32nd Line, 51st Line, 75th Line and 17th Light losing 10, 8, 27 and 19 casualties respectively.

  Three other historians put the losses far higher. Digby Smith wrote that the French lost 800 killed, wounded and missing from 14,000 troops and 18 guns. He gave the Austrians 9,000 men, of whom 2,500 were killed, wounded or captured, along with 12 guns. Most of those casualties were prisoners. Gunther E. Rothenberg counted 2,500 Austrian losses and 12 guns from 4,500 engaged, against 880 French losses from 10,000 available. David G. Chandler gave Austrian losses as 2,500 out of 6,000, but listed no French losses from a total of 9,000.

  A badly shaken Argenteau pulled his survivors back to cover Acqui, while Rukavina held Dego, about 7.5 km northwest of Montenotte Superiore. Argenteau sent Beaulieu an alarming dispatch saying that his command was "almost completely destroyed". Bonaparte ordered a thrust west toward Millesimo and north toward Dego to widen the gap between the Austrian and Sardinian armies. The Battle of Millesimo followed on the 13th of April, and the Second Battle of Dego on the 14th and the 15th of April.

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