Battle of Marengo
Tactical representation of the Battle of Marengo
(map from 1871)
| date | June 14, 1800 |
|---|---|
| place | Marengo in Piedmont |
| output | French victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 28,000 soldiers 24 cannons |
31,000 soldiers 100 cannons |
| losses | |
|
up to 7,000 dead and wounded |
6,400 dead and wounded, |
Ostrach - Feldkirch - Stockach I - Verona - Magnano - Cassano d'Adda - Frauenfeld - Winterthur - Zurich I - Trebbia - Mantua - Novi - Vlieter - Bergen - Zurich II - Muotatal - Egmont - Genola - Wiesloch - Genoa - Stockach II - Engen - Meßkirch - Biberach II - Montebello - Marengo - Höchstädt - Oberhausen - Hohenlinden - Walserfeld - Pozzolo - Copenhagen - Algeciras I - Algeciras II
The Battle of Marengo took place on June 14, 1800 in the Second Coalition War near Marengo , a village in what is now the Italian province of Alessandria , and brought Napoleon the decisive victory over the Austrians .
Historical background
The so-called second coalition from 1798 to 1801 was directed against revolutionary France and consisted of Russia , Great Britain , Austria , the Ottoman Empire , Portugal , Naples and the Papal States . Austria and Russia were successful in northern Italy under the command of the Russian general Count Alexander Suvorov . The coalition occupied Milan and dissolved the Cisalpine Republic . In May 1798, Napoléon Bonaparte began his campaign in Egypt to break British supremacy in the Mediterranean. In the naval battle of Abukir on August 1 and 2, 1798, the French fleet was sunk by the British under Horatio Nelson . Napoléon returned to Paris surprisingly and became first consul of the republic through a coup on November 9, 1799 . He offered the coalition the conclusion of a peace treaty, which was rejected. He then had a new army of 40,000 men and began a campaign against Austria and her German allies.
Campaign to Northern Italy
In May 1800 Napoléon crossed the Alps with his army over snow-covered passes near the Great St. Bernard and reached the Po Valley at the end of May . General Melas , the Austrian commander in chief, was unknown to Napoleon's Alpine crossing. He was with his soldiers on the upper Po to cover the siege of Genoa . The French had meanwhile turned east, crossed the Ticino , conquered Milan and restored the Cisalpine Republic.
After the attack by the Austrians on Casteggio on June 9, which Lannes successfully repulsed, Napoléon had taken up a permanent position at Stradella. However, when there was no attack here, he advanced on June 13th into the plain of the Tanaro near Alessandria , assuming that Melas would retreat to Genoa, which has since been conquered, to embark there on the British fleet. For this reason Napoléon sent a division under Desaix to Novi Ligure on the road to Genoa to investigate the situation there, while two divisions under Claude-Victor Perrin called Victor occupied the village of Marengo . A division under Jean Lannes stopped in the open plain between Marengo and Castel Ceriolo and Napoléon himself withdrew with a division to Torre di Garofalo .
Course of the battle
Melas, who was in Alessandria itself, had meanwhile decided to break through to Piacenza through the enemy army and began to cross the river Bormida on three bridges at daybreak on June 14th . At 9 o'clock the Austrians attacked the French, who were not prepared for battle in their fragmentation, in Marengo. Field Marshal Lieutenant Hadik , leader of the center's first main column (6 battalions and 9 squadrons), was fatally wounded in the attack across the Fontanone stream.
The French, protected by a deep, swampy trench, repulsed the Austrian attacks twice. Around noon the Austrians managed to storm Marengo on the third attempt and force the French to retreat. Only now did Napoleon appear with the Monnier division and the consular guard , thereby strengthening the wings. However, the center of the French had been completely breached, and Napoleon's troops initially slowly withdrew.
Seventy-one year old Melas was convinced of his victory and, exhausted by the exertion and a slight wound, retired to Alessandria to announce his success. He left the pursuit of the enemy to his chief of staff, General Zach . At three o'clock in the afternoon Desaix suddenly appeared on the battlefield, who had been summoned by Napoleon to the battlefield at Marengo on his march to Novi. Without hesitation, he and his 5,000 men attacked the Austrians, while Marmont had the guns aimed at the front column of the enemy under Zach.
Desaix was fatally hit by a bullet and died on the battlefield. The Austrians tried to advance again, but Kellermann broke through the enemy flank with his dragoons and was able to cut off Zach and 2,000 men, who then surrendered. At that point the battle turned for good. The French gathered their forces and were able to launch another attack, which the Austrians could not withstand and backed off. Their cavalry fled openly and also tore the infantry with them, so that finally complete panic broke out and the troops of the Austrians tried to save themselves in confused disorder over the Bormida . Almost all of the Austrian artillery fell into the hands of the French. In addition, the Austrians lost 6,400 dead and wounded, and around 3,000 soldiers were taken prisoner. The French had about 7,000 dead and wounded.
The consequences
The victory in the Battle of Marengo brought Northern Italy back under French control. In the meantime, French troops under General Jean-Victor Moreau had advanced across the Rhine to southern Germany and occupied Munich . In the Battle of Hohenlinden on December 3, 1800, Moreau had defeated the last Austrian army under Archduke Johann and marched into Austria. The French threatened Linz , and Austria eventually agreed to a peace treaty. On February 9, 1801, Emperor Franz II of Austria confirmed in the Treaty of Lunéville the cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France. He also recognized the existence of the Batavian , Helvetic , Cisalpine and Ligurian Republic and the new Kingdom of Etruria . Peace agreements followed between France and Naples , Portugal , Russia and the Ottoman Empire . On March 27, 1802, the Amiens peace with Great Britain was finally reached .
Miscellaneous
The battle of Maréngo forms the historical background of Victorien Sardou's drama La Tosca and the opera Tosca by Giacomo Puccini based on it .
After the battle of Marengo there was also a meal. Since the French had lost all their food supplies, Napoléon's chef Dunant had to improvise and sent soldiers to get something to eat. One soldier brought a chicken, the next some tomatoes, the third a couple of eggs and a fourth two crabs: the ingredients for Dunant's chicken Marengo .
To glorify the victory at Marengo, the French Bernard Viguerie composed the program music Bataille de Maringo (Pièce Militaire et Historique pour le Forte Piano avec accompagnement de violon et basse) , which was very popular at the time , with spoken subtitles about the course of the battle. The pianist should suddenly throw his outstretched forearm lengthways at the keys several times in order to bring them all together to the stop and thus imitate the thunder of cannons.
See also
literature
- James R. Arnold: Marengo and Hohenlinden: Napoleon's Rise to Power. Pen & Sword, 2005
- François-Christophe-Edouard Kellermann, Duc de Valmy : Histoire de la campagne de 1800: écrite d'après des documents nouveaux et inédits par m. le duc de Valmy, fils du général Kellermann. - Paris: J. Dumaine, 1854
Web links
- General Berthier: "Report of the battle of Marengo fought on June 14, 1800 by Napoleon Bonaparte" (French / English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Battle of Marengo. Retrieved May 17, 2010 .
- ↑ a b c d e Battle of Marengo. Archived from the original on October 7, 2007 ; Retrieved May 17, 2010 .
- ↑ Jürgen Hotz, editor: The Brockhaus - Lexicon of world history in 2 volumes . FA Brockhaus, Leipzig, Mannheim 2003.
- ^ Herbert Henck : Piano Cluster: History, Theory and Practice of a Sound Shape , LIT Verlag Münster, 2004, pp. 38–40, ISBN 3825875601 ; Digital view
- ↑ Bataille de Maringo by Bernard Viguerie, 1800, on YouTube, with an English foreword and spoken text in between