Battle of the Trebbia, 1799: Suvorov stops Macdonald

In the spring of 1799 the French position in Italy collapsed. The War of the Second Coalition opened there with French and Austrian armies facing each other on the Adige: on 26 March the French attacked at Verona and Legnago with mixed results, and on 5 April they were beaten at Magnano. A Russian corps of 18,000 to 20,000 men then joined the Austrians, and Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov took command of the allies. The allies forced the Adda at Cassano on 27 April and entered Milan, and the French, now under General Moreau, fell back toward the Apennines and Genoa.²

Two French armies

Further south, General Jacques Macdonald was ordered to evacuate the states of Naples and Rome and bring his Army of Naples north. Jomini writes that, for reasons unknown to him, Macdonald then stayed ten days completely inactive in Tuscany; he set out on 9 June, beat the Austrians at Modena on 12 June and moved up the Po through Parma toward Piacenza. Moreau was to advance from the mountains toward Tortona, and General Victor's division, coming down the Taro valley, was placed under Macdonald's orders. Jomini gives Macdonald 26,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry without Victor; Clausewitz reckons that with all his divisions he could have fought with 36,000 men.³ › Battle of Cassano, 1799

Among them was the Polish Legion of General Jan Henryk Dąbrowski, formed in 1797 from Poles who wanted to fight for the restoration of their partitioned country at the side of revolutionary France. Polish teaching materials of the national education portal ZPE note that by 1797 the legions in Italy numbered some 7,000 men and fought against Austria and Russia from 1799.⁴

Suvorov decided that the two French armies must not unite. Leaving Bellegarde's corps to blockade Alessandria and Tortona and to watch Moreau, he crossed the Bormida on the evening of 15 June and hurried east, sending his chief of staff Chasteler ahead to Stradella to support the Austrian General Karl Ott, who was falling back before the French advance guard behind the Tidone.⁵

17 June: the Tidone

The ground between the Po and the foothills of the Apennines was a plain cut up by canals, ditches and walls, crossed by rivers that run north into the Po: the Trebbia just west of Piacenza and the Tidone further west. On 17 June Victor crossed the Tidone and attacked Ott, with Salm, Rusca and Dąbrowski coming up in support. Ott was about to retreat when Melas arrived with reinforcements, followed by Bagration's Russian advance guard. Then Suvorov himself reached the field: he sent Prince Gorchakov with Cossacks and infantry against the flank of Dąbrowski's Poles while Ott attacked them in front, and the Poles were thrown back across the Tidone. Bagration attacked Victor and Salm, cavalry fell on Victor's flank and cut down part of his infantry formed in square near Castel Bosco, and the French withdrew behind the Trebbia.⁶

18 June: across the Trebbia

For 18 June Suvorov planned to turn the French left: Rosenberg, with Bagration's and Schweikowsky's divisions, was to cross the Tidone and then the Trebbia at Rivalta, near the hills. Macdonald, still waiting for Olivier's and Montrichard's divisions, meant to attack only on the 19th. In the afternoon Bagration fell on Dąbrowski's legion, Victor crossed the Trebbia to help, and after a hard fight the Russians prevailed and Victor fell back across the river at nightfall. Elsewhere the day ended mostly in a cannonade. At about nine that night, after a false alarm, three French battalions advanced into the riverbed; the allies took it for an attack, both sides sent in infantry and cavalry, and a confused fight by moonlight, with the artillery firing blindly into the mass, went on until eleven.⁷

19 June: the last attack

On 19 June Macdonald, hoping that Moreau would appear behind the allies, attacked to turn both enemy wings. Dąbrowski pushed out by Rivalta, but Bagration threw him back across the Trebbia; Victor and Rusca broke into the gap this left and drove Schweikowsky's division back toward Casaliggio, until Bagration and Chasteler counterattacked and forced them back over the river. In the center Olivier and Montrichard crossed the Trebbia, but the Austrian reserve under Prince Liechtenstein, which was marching to reinforce the allied right, turned and struck their flank, and Montrichard's men fled. On the French right Watrin reached Calendasco and pushed on toward Ponte Tidone, but with the rest of the army beaten he was recalled behind the Trebbia.⁸

Retreat and losses

Both armies were exhausted, but Macdonald had no reserves left, many of his generals were wounded, ammunition was short and there was no news of Moreau, so on the night of 19 to 20 June he withdrew toward the Nura. Jomini puts the losses of the three days at more than 12,000 on both sides, the allies admitting 5,600 men out of action and the French losing more than 7,000; Clausewitz estimates about 6,000 allied and 8,000 French. On 20 June, Jomini writes, Melas entered Piacenza and took about 5,000 wounded of the Army of Naples, among them Generals Olivier, Rusca and Salm, while at San Giorgio the 17th line infantry was surrounded and laid down its arms. Macdonald's army made its way back to the Genoese coast, and his headquarters reached the neighborhood of Genoa on 17 July. For the Poles, ZPE describes the battle as a near annihilation: covering the French retreat, Dąbrowski's legion was cut to pieces by Suvorov's army, and only about 1,500 men survived.⁹

After the Trebbia

Dąbrowski did not give up. Wounded at Bosco in October, he survived, ZPE recounts, only because the bullet lodged in a book in his breast pocket, and he rebuilt the legion: by late 1800 his first legion alone had more than 6,000 men. The same river had seen an older battle: in 218 BC Hannibal crushed a Roman army on the Trebia. For Dąbrowski's life, see our biography.¹⁰