Napoleon was playing for far larger stakes than one city; he wanted to kill or capture every Austrian west of Milan.21 It was Genoa’s resistance that allowed him to get behind Melas, who then had to abandon his plans of taking Toulon in conjunction with Admiral Keith and somehow get back east to re-establish his severed lines of communication. Piacenza and Valenza were now the last major crossing-points over the Po that were not in French hands, so Melas despatched several columns towards both cities.
In Milan, Napoleon questioned spies such as the double (or possibly triple) agent Francesco Toli as to Austrian dispositions. On June 4 he attended La Scala, where he received a huge ovation, and that night he slept with its star singer, the beautiful twenty-seven-year-old Giuseppina Grassini, with whom Berthier found him breakfasting the next morning.22 ‘I don’t invite you to come here,’ Napoleon told Josephine coolly in his next letter. ‘I shall be on my way back in a month. I hope that I shall find you very well.’23 Later on that day, presumably after Signorina Grassini had left, two hundred Catholic priests arrived at the palace to discuss theology. Napoleon asked them to allow him to ‘acquaint you with the sentiments which animate me towards the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion’.24 He made no reference to the view he had expressed to the Cairo diwan less than a year before, that ‘There is no other God but God; Mohammed is his prophet,’ but instead explained that Catholicism ‘is particularly favourable to republican institutions. I am myself a philosopher, and I know that, in no matter what society, no man is considered just and virtuous who does not know whence he came and whither he is going. Simple reason cannot guide him in this matter; without religion one walks continually in darkness.’25 Faith, for Napoleon, was an evolving concept, even a strategic one. When he said he adopted the faith of wherever he was fighting at the time he was quite serious, and in northern Italy that meant Roman Catholicism.
• • •
Melas had three routes to safety: via Piacenza and along the southern bank of the Po, towards Genoa and evacuation by sea courtesy of the Royal Navy, or crossing the Ticino river at Pavia. Returning to the field on June 9, Napoleon attempted to block all three, but in doing so he had to violate his own first principle of warfare: concentration of force. That day Lannes defeated Ott between Montebello and Casteggio, forcing the Austrians to withdraw westwards over the Scrivia to Alessandria, where he joined Melas. ‘Without exaggerating,’ Napoleon told State Councillor Claude Petiet the next day, ‘the enemy had 1,500 killed, one can imagine twice as many wounded.’ Of course he was exaggerating, as usual; 659 had been killed and 1,445 wounded.26
Over the next three days, Napoleon waited at Stradella to see what Melas intended. The night of June 11 he spent talking with Desaix, who had arrived from Egypt just in time for the coming clash, albeit without his men, having taken advantage of a brief armistice with the British signed by Sir Sidney Smith but not ratified by the British government. The previous month Napoleon had written to Desaix that theirs was ‘a friendship that my heart, which today is very old and knows men too profoundly, has for no other’.27 He immediately gave Desaix a corps made up of Monnier’s and Boudet’s divisions.
At 10 a.m. on the 13th Napoleon rode to San Giuliano Vecchio. Before him were the fields adjoining the village of Marengo, about 21/2 miles east of Alessandria near the confluence of the Tanaro and Bormida rivers. Three roads converge at Marengo, beyond which a bridge crosses the Bormida for Alessandria; a double bend in the Bormida created a natural bridgehead position. The villages of Castel Ceriolo, Marengo and Spinetta line the Bormida, and 4 miles to the east is San Giuliano. The ground between the Bormida and Marengo was broken by vineyards, cottages, farms and some marshland, but beyond it the plain was so broad and flat that the military historian Colonel Henri de Jomini, who, years later, was attached to Napoleon’s staff, described it as one of the few places in that part of Italy where masses of cavalry could charge at full speed. (The fields are much more cultivated today, but in 1800 the taller crops could still obscure vision.) In the pouring rain of June 13, the small numbers of French cavalry (generally put at 3,600) failed properly to scout the 140-square-mile plain and merely accompanied the infantry marching towards Tortona. It was to prove a costly error.
An hour after arriving at San Giuliano, Napoleon was informed that Melas was preparing to march to Genoa. It looked as if he had entirely abandoned the plain and was covering his retreat by holding Marengo. Napoleon left Lapoype’s division north of the Po with the task of seizing the crossing-point at Valenza, and allowed Desaix to take Boudet’s division and march for Novi, to head off Melas. Victor, commanding a corps in the vanguard, was ordered to take Marengo: at 5 p.m. General Gaspard Gardanne engaged some 3,000 Austrians there. As General Achille de Dampierre closed in from the south, Gardanne charged into the village. A heavy downpour of rain slowed the action for a while, filling up the streams and rivers before the French took the village, two guns and about a hundred prisoners. Though the Austrians halted the French pursuit by 7 p.m. with vigorous cannonading from the other side of the Bormida, which went on till 10 p.m., the French assumed that they had no intention of fighting there the next day.
There were no campfires visible and French patrols and their piquets (infantry) and vedettes (cavalry) did not report any unusual activity, so Napoleon was not expecting Melas’s major counter-attack across the river the next day. Intelligence was often scrappy. Cavalry patrols counting troops at a distance through telescopes, often under threat, couldn’t be exact, and in this case there was a major river in the way. ‘The Consul, with his horse guards,’ recalled Joseph Petit, a Consular Guard horse-grenadier, ‘skirted Marengo. We saw him almost the whole time, at a distance from us, traversing the plain, examining the terrain with attention, by turns profoundly meditating, and giving orders.’28
Napoleon questioned deserters, including an émigré officer wearing the Bourbon cross of St Louis, ‘with considerable earnestness’, and, as Petit recalled, ‘All the prisoners were astonished when they learned that the person they had just been speaking with was Bonaparte.’29 Yet nothing he was told led him to expect that the Austrian rearguard had secretly turned around and been joined by the rest of the Austrian army, or that Melas had decided to use his numerical advantage over Napoleon in cavalry and artillery to attack in force. So on the morning of Saturday, June 14, 1800, Napoleon had only around 15,000 men in three infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades on the field of the battle of Marengo. Monnier and the Consular Guard were a full 71/2 miles in the rear around the farmhouse of Torre Garofoli, about 21/2 miles further east along the main road from San Giuliano where Napoleon had spent the night and from where he viewed the terrain from the bell-tower of the sixteenth-century church of St Agnes (which is still there today). Victor was in Marengo, but Desaix was 5 miles back behind San Giuliano, heading off towards Novi, and Lapoype was marching towards the north bank of the Po.30
The Bormida river has very steep sides, but the Austrians built floating bridges and tethered them into place on the night of the 13th, established bridgeheads and then slept without bivouac fires to lull the French into misapprehending their positions and numbers. When the sun came up at 4.30 a.m. on what was to be a very hot day, 15,000 French soldiers with only 15 guns faced 23,900 Austrian infantry, 5,200 cavalry and 92 guns.31 Yet even at daybreak Victor failed properly to warn Napoleon, who recognized the seriousness of the situation only when the Austrian artillery opened fire at 9 a.m., as Gardanne’s pickets were thrust back. An early and vigorous French attack on the bridgehead might have halted the Austrian debouchment, but by 9 a.m. that was impossible. If the Austrians had simply surged forward as each unit crossed the bridge, instead of wasting an hour forming up in order to move off together, they might well have overwhelmed Victor. A major defeat at Marengo could have toppled the Consulate, as Sieyès and others were already plotting in Paris.
Murat ordered the cavalry brigade of François-Étienne Kellerm
ann (the son of the victor of Valmy) forward from San Giuliano, as Berthier, who had a fine view from a small hill at Cascina Buzana, ordered Victor to offer stubborn resistance and sent word to Napoleon to bring up the troops from Torre Garofoli as quickly as possible. By 9.30 a.m. Gardanne was under heavy artillery fire, which on that hard and flat plain involved much ricocheting, but as the French fought this battle in line their losses were minimized. The firefight raged for two hours, the French firing steadily by platoon volley, but Gardanne’s six battalions were pounded by the Austrian guns and had to fall back slowly to the Fontanone brook, whose steep sides can be seen today outside the Marengo museum. Dampierre’s small force on the Austrian right, well hidden in ditches and ravines, wasn’t overwhelmed until 7 p.m. when he surrendered, having fired off all his ammunition and finding himself surrounded by hussars.
By 10 a.m. on June 14 Napoleon had ordered Lannes towards Cascina La Barbotta to shore up Victor’s right. Singing the ‘Marseillaise’, the 6th Légère and 22nd Line launched attacks that pushed the Austrians back over the Fontanone, swollen from the rains of the previous night. ‘The Austrians fought like lions,’ Victor later acknowledged. The French refused to abandon the Fontanone line when the Austrians counter-attacked; soldiers urinated on muskets that had become too hot to handle from the constant firing. By noon the French line was being pounded by forty guns and incessant musketry, and was running low on ammunition. ‘Bonaparte advanced in front,’ recalled Petit, ‘and exhorted to courage and firmness all the corps he met with; it was visible that his presence reanimated them.’32
At this point the Austrian Archduke Joseph, Archduke Charles’s younger brother, crossed the Fontanone with his infantry – the sides were too steep for cavalry or artillery. The French failed to dislodge him and his men started building a trestle bridge, covered by artillery firing canister shot which flayed the French brigade sent to stop them. By 2 p.m. Marengo had fallen: the Austrians had brought eighty guns into play, the Fontanone was being crossed everywhere and Gardanne’s division was broken, fleeing the field, though not before it had bought Napoleon 31/2 hours’ respite with which to organize his counter-attack. Only Kellermann’s cavalry brigade, carefully retiring squadron by squadron, intimidated the Austrians from releasing their numerically superior cavalry force. As the Austrians deployed into line of battle beyond Marengo, Victor was forced to retreat almost to San Giuliano before he could re-form his ranks, which he did across the plain in squares, suffering severe losses from a battery of fifteen guns that the Austrians brought well forward. By this point the Austrians were taunting the French, twirling the bearskins of dead French grenadiers around on their sabres.33
Meanwhile, Lannes was thrown on to the defensive by Ott’s infantry advance, his right bent back and short of ammunition. With no artillery, almost surrounded, and pounded by enemy guns, he ordered a retreat over the plain at less than a mile per hour, retiring by echelon in a disciplined but expensive movement in front of the Austrian guns. Napoleon, who now had only Monnier’s division and the Consular Guard in reserve, had sent desperate word to Desaix at 11 a.m. to return with Boudet’s division as quickly as possible. ‘I had thought to attack the enemy, instead it is he who has attacked me,’ went his message; ‘in the name of God, come back if you still can!’ Luckily for Napoleon’s consulship, Desaix had been severely delayed by the swollen Scrivia. He sent a messenger back at 1 p.m. telling Napoleon to expect him at about 5 p.m. He and Boudet had to halt the division, turn it around and march it back 5 miles in the searing heat to the sound of guns, but they managed it in the nick of time. Napoleon’s similar message recalling Lapoype from much further afield didn’t reach him until 6 p.m., by which time it was too late.
When Napoleon and Monnier arrived at the battlefield, at 2 p.m., the situation could hardly have been more serious, with the French slowly retreating in the centre, broken on the left and seriously menaced on the right.34 Napoleon knew he had to defend the Tortona road but couldn’t do so frontally, so he deployed his reserves off to the right. Lannes could be relied upon to hold the line there, which if necessary could be used as an alternative line of retreat. Ott was the foremost problem: he was only held back by six hundred men. In order to help disengage Lannes, Monnier sent General Claude Carra Saint-Cyr and seven hundred men of the 19th Légère into a thinly held Castel Ceriolo while the 70th Line moved to take Ott in the rear and the 72nd Line was held in reserve. Ott was initially driven back into the Bormida marshes, but he retook the village after an hour-long firefight with Saint-Cyr.
This was therefore emphatically not the time for Melas, who had had two horses shot from under him and had suffered a slight contusion to his forearm, to quit the battlefield, return to Alessandria, announce a victory to Vienna and give orders for his deputy to take over, capture San Giuliano and send cavalry to pursue the routed French. Yet, astonishingly, that is what he did.
At 3 p.m., as more Austrian cavalry rode out onto the plain to threaten Lannes’ flank, Napoleon decided to commit nine hundred infantry of the Consular Guard, who were deployed between La Poggi and Villanova in column, singing ‘On va leur percer le flanc’ (We’ll pierce their flank). The 96th Line later said they had saved the day by handing over some of their ammunition as they marched up. When one of Ott’s dragoon regiments charged them they formed a square, and beat them off aided by their skirmishers and four regimental guns. The Guard were then attacked by infantry, with whom they traded volleys for forty minutes at ranges from 50 to 100 yards; 260 of them were killed that day, and roughly the same number wounded. They beat off three cavalry charges, but, as the Austrian infantry fixed bayonets and charged home, they were forced to make a fighting retreat in square back towards La Poggi. This sacrifice by the Guard nonetheless bought the time Monnier needed to complete his manoeuvres, which, in turn, bought time for the whole army to reorganize. Napoleon later spoke of the ‘fortress of granite’ that had been his Consular Guard that day, and awarded twenty-four decorations to their infantry, eighteen to their cavalry and eight to their artillery.
By 4 p.m. both the Consular Guard and Monnier’s division were in controlled retreat as the Austrians closed in on San Giuliano. The French moved backwards in good order, one battalion at a time, fighting as they went. It was an utter test of discipline not to succumb to the temptation to break ranks under those circumstances, and it paid off. The day continued very hot, with no water, little artillery support, and sustained attacks from the Austrian cavalry, but some units retreated steadily from 9.30 a.m. to about 4 p.m. over 5 miles, never breaking ranks.
Napoleon calmly called out encouragement and exuded leadership ‘with his accustomed sangfroid’, in the words of one of his guards, ensuring that his infantry, cavalry and paltry artillery each supported one another.35 ‘The Consul seemed to brave death,’ recalled Petit, ‘and to be near it, for the bullets were seen more than once to drive up the ground between his horse’s legs.’36 He had now completely used up his reserves, had barely 6,000 infantry across a 5-mile front, with 1,000 cavalry and only 6 usable guns, and his army was exhausted, desperately thirsty, low on ammunition and one-third hors de combat, but he behaved as if victory were certain.37 He even managed to be light-hearted; noticing that the horse Marbot was riding was slightly wounded in the leg, he ‘took me by the ear and said, laughing, “You expect me to lend you my horses for you to treat them in this way?”’38
With a dense mass of Austrian infantry preparing to advance, Napoleon ordered Berthier to organize a safe retreat while he went to the Villa Gholina to scout for Desaix from the roof. Seeing the dust rising from Desaix’s column, he rode over to speed them up and then quickly countermanded his retreat order to Berthier. When the army saw Desaix arrive, riding a little ahead of his men who were on foot, their morale was reignited. Once Boudet reached San Giuliano, and Lannes, Monnier and Watrin got their men into something like a line of battle, the Austrians halted their columns and started to deploy into lin
e for what they assumed would be a final triumphant assault. ‘We have gone back far enough today,’ Napoleon harangued his men. ‘Soldiers, remember it is my custom to bivouac on the field of battle!’39
With the six still-usable guns on the field joined by five from the reserve and eight from Boudet, Marmont now had a respectable battery to deploy on a slight elevation. Boudet deployed his 4,850 infantry in the ordre mixte onto the main road, partly hidden by hedges and vineyards. Napoleon rode along the line encouraging the men; he now had 11,000 infantry and 1,200 cavalry for his long-awaited counter-attack.
When the Austrians came forward at 5 p.m., the front of their centre regiments were ripped apart by canister fire from Marmont’s battery. As at Rivoli, a lucky shot hit an ammunition wagon that exploded and caused chaos. The Austrians recoiled sharply and the shock effect was serious, especially once Boudet’s division advanced upon them. Aggressive Austrian charges soon threw Boudet on the defensive, but just as nearly 6,000 Austrian infantry fired a musket volley and then charged with their bayonets, Kellermann unleashed his cavalry, which had moved up concealed by vines in the trees. As a result, the Austrians’ muskets were unloaded when four hundred men of the 2nd and 20th Cavalry regiments crashed into the left flank of the central column of Hungarian grenadiers. The 2nd Cavalry sabred three battalions, taking 2,000 prisoners and sending 4,000 men fleeing. Immediately afterwards, Kellermann turned the 200 men who had been at the rear of the last charge and attacked some 2,000 Austrian cavalry that were standing inactive, routing them as well.
The French army then advanced across the whole front. It was at this triumphant moment that Desaix was struck in the chest and killed. ‘Why am I not allowed to weep?’ a grief-stricken Napoleon said on being told the news, but he had to concentrate on directing the next assault.40 Kellermann’s next attacks sent Austrian cavalry charging back into their own infantry, completely disorganizing them and giving Lannes, Monnier and the Consular Guard the chance to complete the victory by moving forward on all fronts. ‘The fate of a battle is the result of a single instant – a thought,’ Napoleon was later to say about Marengo. ‘The decisive moment comes, a moral spark is lit, and the smallest reserve accomplishes victory.’41 Austrian troops who had fought bravely all day simply cracked under the shock and strain of seeing victory snatched from them, and fled back to Alessandria in disorder.
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