Second Battle of Saorgio

• 1. Introduction

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  The Second Battle of Saorgio, fought from the 24th to the 28th of April 1794, is remembered today less for its tactical results than for the name attached to the plans that made it possible. A newly promoted General of Brigade named Napoleon Bonaparte drew up the offensive strategy that drove French republican forces deep into the Maritime Alps and along the Italian Riviera, outflanking a defensive line that had resisted capture since September 1792. The town of Saorgio sat in what is now France, about 70 kilometers northeast of Nice; at the time it belonged to Piedmont and guarded the Col de Tende, a mountain pass of strategic importance that both sides understood was a key to controlling the surrounding region. The French army that moved against it numbered 43,000 men in total, with 20,000 forming the actual strike force. The Austro-Piedmontese alliance on the other side was already fractured by distrust, personal rivalry, and the crippling gout of their joint commander, Joseph Nikolaus De Vins. What unfolded between late April and early May 1794 would end with the French holding the pass, the Italian Riviera, and a hard-won claim to momentum in the War of the First Coalition. The question worth following through this story is how an alliance that had held the mountain approaches for more than a year collapsed so quickly when one young artillery officer redirected the angle of attack.

• 2. A Kingdom on the Wrong Side of the Alps

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  King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia faced a geographic problem that no amount of diplomacy could fully solve. Two of Piedmont's territories sat on the French side of the Alps: the County of Nice along the Mediterranean coast, and the Duchy of Savoy to the north. When war broke out between the French First Republic and Sardinia in spring 1792, those lands were effectively hostages. Victor Amadeus frantically sought Austrian military backing while simultaneously holding talks with the French, a posture that satisfied neither side. Austria eventually agreed to provide an Auxiliary Corps of 8,000 troops under Feldmarschall-Leutnant Leopoldo Lorenzo, Count of Strassoldo, but the Convention of Milan that sealed this arrangement came too late to matter. On the 21st of September 1792, French General Montesquiou invaded Savoy and the defense collapsed almost immediately. The town of Chambery was occupied on the 24th. A second French force took Nice without bloodshed three days after that, then went on to capture Villefranche-sur-Mer. The speed of those losses was stunning; Sardinian General Lazary, described as a 70-year-old relic, could not mount a coherent response. By the 27th of November, Savoy had been formally incorporated into France. There was one moment of resistance: on the 18th of November, Sardinian troops repulsed a French force at Sospel. But the French simply retreated to L'Escarene and waited for spring, leaving the Piedmontese with the Col de Tende intact but surrounded on both flanks by French-controlled territory.

• 3. The Alliance That Barely Functioned

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  Feldzeugmeister Joseph Nikolaus De Vins arrived to command the combined Austrian and Piedmontese forces on the 21st of December 1792, appointed in response to King Victor Amadeus's plea for a competent general. The Austrian government was not enthusiastic about its own ally; it knew the French were trying to negotiate a separate peace with Sardinia, and that awareness bred suspicion at every level of the coalition. De Vins suffered badly from gout, and he proposed to run both a counter-invasion of Savoy and a drive toward Nice while remaining in Turin, 45 miles from the front. The arrangements were, by any standard, impractical. His chief of staff, Generalmajor Argenteau, managed to place himself on bad terms with most of the Piedmontese officer corps. The Austrian subordinate Colli-Marchi had a tense relationship with the Piedmontese commander Saint-Andre on the southern front. By late 1793, some Piedmontese officers had come to believe that De Vins was not merely incompetent but actively plotting to betray them. On the battlefield, the results were uneven. A French victory at Levens on the 28th of February 1793 cost both sides 800 casualties each. The French also captured 2 of 6 Sardinian cannons in that engagement. The First Battle of Saorgio, fought on the 12th of June 1793, reversed the trend: the French were repulsed, with their attack described afterward as "ill-conceived" and its outcome a "disaster." A subsequent Piedmontese counteroffensive showed early promise; six battalions of the Aosta, Guardia, and Piedmont Infantry Regiments defeated the French at Gilette on the 18th of October 1793. Heavy mountain snow ended the campaign before those gains could be consolidated, forcing the king to return to Turin in November and leaving the defensive line intact but the alliance no stronger than before.

• 4. Bonaparte's Geometry

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  Pierre Jadart Dumerbion commanded the Army of Italy at the start of 1794. He was described as competent but old, and he had watched two of his predecessors go to the guillotine: Brunet on the 15th of November 1793, Biron on the 31st of December 1793. Aware of that precedent, Dumerbion made a habit of consulting the representatives on mission before committing to any action. Those representatives, Augustin Robespierre and Antoine Christophe Saliceti, were both under the influence of a freshly promoted General of Brigade: Napoleon Bonaparte, the army's new artillery chief. Bonaparte built his plan on work by Pierre-Joseph Bourcet. Rather than striking directly at the formidable Piedmontese defensive line running from Roquebilliere through the Col de Raus, L'Aution Peak, and Colle Basse to Saorge, he proposed a drive northeast along the coast to seize Oneglia, a harbor that served as a base for Sardinian privateers preying on grain ships sailing between Genoa and Nice. From Oneglia, French forces would turn north to capture Ormea, arriving east of the entire defensive line. While that maneuver unfolded, the main army would advance directly toward Saorge to pin the defenders' attention. Of Dumerbion's 43,000-man force, 20,000 men were assigned to the operation, divided into three columns and a reserve. Auguste Marmont later claimed that the ailing Dumerbion never left Nice during the entire offensive, leaving tactical execution to others.

• 5. Oneglia and the Turning Move

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  Dumerbion opened the offensive on the 6th of April 1794. French troops crossed neutral Genoese territory and seized the port of Oneglia on the 9th. Argenteau, now commanding the local Piedmontese division, occupied Ormea and spread his 10 battalions thin in an attempt to connect the Saorge defenses in the west with the Austrian position at Dego in the east. That was the wrong response to what was coming. General of Division Andre Massena led the French advance north from Oneglia. His troops brushed aside Argenteau's stretched units and took Ormea around the 17th of April, then Garessio on the 19th. The moment before Ormea fell produced one of the stranger exchanges of the campaign. The old Sardinian officer commanding the outpost, seeing his position was hopeless, asked Massena to let him fire five or six shots into the air so that he could report an honorable defense. Massena refused, telling him he had no time for such out-of-date formalities. Colli, the newly appointed commander at Saorge, now realized that his entire position was outflanked from the east. De Vins advised him to hold but to send back any troops not immediately needed. Sardinian General Dellera had earlier warned that the French might target the Colle di Nava northwest of Oneglia; De Vins had refused to authorize preemptive moves to counter that threat. The alliance's internal dysfunction had created the opening Bonaparte's plan was designed to exploit.

• 6. The Days of Fighting

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  On the 24th of April 1794, the French main army advanced north and clashed with Colli's defenders at Saorge. Colli's force included three battalions of the Alvinczi Infantry Regiment Nr. 19, the 3rd Battalion of the Strassoldo Infantry Regiment Nr. 27, the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Archduke Anton Infantry Regiment Nr. 52, and the 2nd and 9th Battalions of the Karlstadt Grenz infantry regiment. On the same day, Massena successfully attacked the Col Ardente with General of Brigade Laharpe's division. On the 27th of April, the French seized La Brigue, inflicting heavy losses on Sardinian units that included the Cacciatori, Guardia, and Tortona Infantry Regiments, the 1st Grenadier Battalion, two companies of French volunteers, and the Cacciatori di Pandini company. On the French far left flank, General of Division Garnier advanced up the Vesubie valley past Lantosque, while his left brigade under General of Brigade Serurier occupied Isola and linked up with the right wing of the Army of the Alps. Saorgio fell on the 28th of April after Colli decided to withdraw rather than fight a battle his position could no longer support. He pulled back to Limone Piemonte, just north of the Col de Tende pass, and then in early May retreated further to Borgo San Dalmazzo, near the fortress of Cuneo. Historian Digby Smith recorded French losses in the fighting near Saorge as 1,500 killed and wounded; allied casualties were roughly 2,800.

• 7. What the Victory Opened and Closed

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  General of Division Macquard occupied the Col de Tende after Colli's retreat, while Massena deployed his troops across the ridges between Ormea and Loano to hold the gains. On the coast, French forces advanced as far as Albenga and Loano. The speed and completeness of the victory alarmed both Vienna and Turin; the defeat pushed the Austrians and Sardinians to sign a defensive treaty on the 29th of May, with Sardinia pledging to hold the Alpine passes while Austria committed to defending the coast. Bonaparte and the representatives on mission wanted to push further immediately, proposing a new operation to exploit the breakthrough, but Lazare Carnot vetoed it in Paris. The next major action in the same theater came on the 21st of September 1794, at the First Battle of Dego.