Battle of Rovereto

• 1. Introduction

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  The Battle of Rovereto, fought on the 4th of September 1796, is remembered partly for a dinner. Austrian troops at Calliano were cooking a meal when French soldiers burst into their camp. The battle, also spelled Roveredo, set Napoleon Bonaparte against the Austrian general Paul Davidovich near the town of Rovereto, in the upper Adige River valley of northern Italy. It belonged to the War of the First Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars. Why were Davidovich's men so exposed? What had Bonaparte been planning to do that week instead? And why did one day's fight in an Alpine valley matter so much to a besieged fortress?

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• 2. The Siege of Mantua

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  On the 5th of August 1796, the Austrian army under Feldmarschall Wurmser lost the Battle of Castiglione and retreated north to Trento. The French promptly resumed their siege of the fortress of Mantua. In pre-dawn attacks on the 24th of August, General of Division Jean-Joseph Sahuguet and General of Brigade Claude Dallemagne pressed the Austrian garrison back inside its walls.

  Two days later, orders arrived from Emperor Francis II. Wurmser was to make a second attempt to relieve Mantua at once. His new chief-of-staff, Feldmarschall-Leutnant Franz von Lauer, drew up the plans for an offensive.

  Lauer judged that the French army "had suffered badly during the recent combats, and had not properly recovered, nor received significant reinforcements." One account of the plan calls the conclusions he drew from this dangerous. He confidently expected the French to stay quiet long enough for the relief effort to get well underway. The plan he produced would leave Feldmarschall-Leutnant Davidovich holding Trento with nearly 20,000 troops.

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• 3. The Austrian Plan

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  Feldmarschall-Leutnant Johann Mészáros had a division near Bassano, and the new plan reinforced it to 10,700 troops. Wurmser would lead two divisions from Trento into the Brenta River valley, a route that ran east and then south to Bassano. From there the army would turn southwest, join Mészáros, and march to Mantua by way of Legnago. It was a clockwise sweep around the French.

  The 17,300 men inside Mantua were ordered to attack the besiegers once the relief army drew close. Davidovich's job was different. If the French forces facing him weakened, he was to move south on Mantua. Until then, his presence in the upper Adige valley would threaten a descent from the north and distract the French.

  The marching began on the 1st of September, when Feldmarschall-Leutnant Karl Philipp Sebottendorf's division of 4,100 men moved out. Feldmarschall-Leutnant Peter Quasdanovich followed with 4,600 soldiers. Davidovich's own corps numbered 19,555 on paper, yet only 13,695 were immediately available.

  He placed the brigades of General-majors Josef Philipp Vukassovich and Johann Rudolf von Sporck near Rovereto. The brigade of General-major Prince Heinrich XV of Reuss-Plauen held Trento and some positions west of the Adige. Two more brigades, under General-major Johann Loudon in the Valtelline and General-major Johann Grafen in the Vorarlberg, were too far away to lend support. Prince Heinrich's men would be the first to feel the French advance at Nago-Torbole.

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• 4. Bonaparte Turns North

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  The French government had approved a very different strategy for the Army of Italy. It would march north across the Brenner Pass and link up with General of Division Jean Moreau's army in Bavaria. To begin that move, Bonaparte planned to mass 33,000 soldiers from the divisions of Generals of Division Claude Belgrand de Vaubois, André Masséna and Pierre Augereau, then advance to Trento. His remaining 13,500 men covered the blockade of Mantua and the line of the Adige near Verona and Legnago.

  What Bonaparte did next ran against Austrian expectations. He sent three divisions north, a force that greatly outnumbered Davidovich. Vaubois, with 10,000 men, lay west of Lake Garda. He put General of Brigade Jean Joseph Guieu and his brigade into boats, while his other two brigades marched north past Lake Idro to Riva del Garda. Joined by Guieu, Vaubois then turned east toward Rovereto.

  Masséna's 13,000 troops advanced directly up the Adige valley. Augereau's 9,000 men struggled through the mountains north of Verona.

  Behind them, Bonaparte had given General of Division Charles Kilmaine and Sahuguet a fallback order. If they could not resist an Austrian attack from the east, they were to leave a garrison in Peschiera del Garda and retire behind the Oglio River.

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• 5. The Day at Rovereto

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  On the 3rd of September, Masséna attacked 1,500 of Vukassovich's troops near Ala and drove them back to Marco, on the east bank of the Adige. Vukassovich tried to warn Davidovich, but his superior was away at a conference with Wurmser in Trento. At Nago-Torbole, Vaubois brushed aside some of Reuss's men and stood ready to strike the Austrian position at Mori on the west bank. Wurmser learned of the threat to Trento. He still kept to his plan of moving through the Brenta valley.

  At dawn on the 4th, Masséna's division attacked the Austrians at Marco. General of Brigade Claude Perrin Victor led one demi-brigade straight up the main road. General of Brigade Jean Joseph Magdeleine Pijon seized the high ground on one flank. After sturdy resistance, the Austrians pulled back to avoid being cut off, and Masséna pursued vigorously, breaking up a number of their formations.

  Vukassovich made a second stand at Rovereto and held until noon. He then fell back toward Calliano with the remnant of his brigade and Sporck's troops. By then Vaubois had captured Mori on the west bank.

  Davidovich had placed Colonel Karl Weidenfeld and the Preiss Infantry Regiment 24 in a formidable position in the Adige gorge to cover the retreat. The regiment's morale was poor after suffering casualties and being hustled out of several defensive lines. Artillery fire directed by General of Brigade Elzéar Auguste Cousin de Dommartin prepared the way. Masséna's troops then attacked in heavy columns and broke through.

  Vukassovich and Sporck believed themselves well covered by Weidenfeld's force. The French reached them without warning, and the surviving Austrians were routed. Only the casualty lists would show how complete that rout had been.

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• 6. Cost and Consequences

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  The French lost 750 casualties during the day. Austrian losses were somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 killed, wounded and prisoners, a range wide enough to show how uncertain the count remains. The French also captured 25 cannon and 7 colours.

  During the night, Davidovich evacuated Trento and fell back to Lavis, a village on the river Avisio at the southern frontier of Austrian territory. There he joined Reuss. Masséna entered Trento on the morning of the 5th of September, with Vaubois following him in.

  At this point Bonaparte learned that Wurmser was marching east into the Brenta valley. That news ended the plan to join Moreau in Bavaria.

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• 7. A Bold Gamble

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  Bonaparte replaced the Bavarian plan with a very bold one. He ordered Vaubois to block the gorges north of Trento with 10,000 men. The remaining 22,000 soldiers would chase Wurmser down the same pass the Austrians were using, rather than retire down the Adige with the whole army.

  The risk was severe. During the pursuit, the Army of Italy would depend wholly on whatever supplies it could seize locally. Even a temporary check on the Brenta might leave it starving in the middle of the Alps.

  On the 5th of September, Vaubois crossed the bridge over the river Avisio, attacked Davidovich at Lavis, and drove him farther north. Satisfied that Davidovich was no longer a threat, Bonaparte sent Augereau's division to Levico Terme on Wurmser's trail. Masséna's troops followed in Augereau's wake.

  That pursuit led to a skirmish at Primolano on the 7th of September and the Battle of Bassano on the 8th. It ended with Wurmser trapped inside the walls of Mantua.

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