Great Battles
Napoleon had only just taken hold of post-revolutionary France when a clash with an Austrian army almost tore it from his grasp
When Austrian troops advanced to attack two French divisions near Marengo, Italy, on 14 June 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte was shocked. Fully expecting the Austrians to avoid a fight, he had detached several of his divisions to block potential escape routes, and he didn’t arrive at the battlefield himself until the French situation was almost lost.
The French and Austrian armies were evenly matched, each numbering around 31,000, although the Austrians held a significant advantage in artillery (100 guns to just 40), but Napoleon’s decision to disperse his forces meant he was facing the full strength of his enemy with just 22,000 men and 20 guns.
Disaster loomed as he tried to slow the Austrian advance, buying time for the return of his scattered divisions. Whether or not any of them could get back to the battlefield before the Austrians won a decisive victory would determine Napoleon’s fate. He stood on the brink of a humiliating failure from which he might never recover.
Prelude to battle
Napoleon had built his reputation in Italy. Taking command of a bedraggled and listless Army of Italy in 1796, he reinstilled fighting vigour and led it to a series of sweeping victories that announced the arrival of a bold and innovative commander. By the end of the year, most of Italy was under French control and in 1797 Napoleon took the offensive into Austria, eventually persuading his exhausted enemy to accept a peace treaty, the short-lived Peace of Campo Formio.
Napoleon then embarked on a daring campaign in Egypt, before returning home to take a position in a new three-man consulate to rule France. Quickly establishing himself as First Consul, he recognised the need for a period of peace after years of fighting. The Second Coalition against France had all but collapsed, but Austria remained hostile and needed to be persuaded to accept peace once more. Most of his gains in Italy had subsequently been lost back to the Austrians, and Napoleon now set about recovering them and forcing peace upon his principal enemy.
Planning for the Italian campaign included the adoption of a new corps system for his armies. The use of corps (self-contained, allarms units of two or three divisions, able to operate independently as small armies) was not a new idea, having been tried over the previous decade, but now Napoleon made their adoption general through the entire army.
Although the leader of the republic, Napoleon did not yet have dictatorial powers. He was not technically allowed to command an army, but wasn’t about to let such a minor detail hold him ba
