14 June in military history: Battle of Marengo, 1800

14 June 1800 · 226 years ago

Caught off guard

Don Barry, writing for the Fondation Napoléon, recalls that Bonaparte had overthrown the Directory and become First Consul, and that in the war against the Second Coalition all his plans depended on "a rapid and decisive triumph on the battlefield". In May 1800 he led the Army of the Reserve over the Great St Bernard Pass and on 2 June entered Milan, behind the Austrian army in Italy.¹

Expecting Melas to try to escape, Bonaparte spread out his forces, and he sent Desaix, who had come back from Egypt and joined the army only a few days earlier, south with a division, toward Novi in Sargent's account and toward Genoa in Rose's; Barry writes of two divisions sent south. According to Sargent, Melas held a council of war in Alessandria, and his officers chose to cross the Bormida and fight their way through rather than make for the Ticino or shut themselves up in Genoa.²

Sargent puts the Austrian army at Alessandria at 32,000, with 200 guns, and counts Bonaparte's scattered forces, Desaix's division among them, at 28,000. Rose writes that for the greater part of the day the French had only 18,000 men to oppose the onset of 31,000 Austrians.³

A morning lost

At daybreak the Austrians began to cross the Bormida. In Sargent's account, Victor's troops held the line of the Fontanone stream in front of Marengo, Lannes brought his corps up at about ten, and an Austrian column under Ott swung out toward Castel Ceriolo against the French right; he sets a French line of about 15,000 against 29,500 Austrians.⁴

Bonaparte reached the field at about eleven. He formed the grenadiers of the Consular Guard into squares against the Austrian cavalry; the army's bulletin, dated the next day, says that at three in the afternoon they were placed "comme une redoute de granit au milieu de cette immense plaine" ("like a granite redoubt in the middle of this immense plain", our translation).⁵

Victor's corps was finally driven out of Marengo and back toward San Giuliano. Melas, who according to Rose had two slight wounds, believed the battle won; he left his chief of staff, General Zach, in charge and returned to Alessandria.⁶

Time to win another

The accounts disagree on how Desaix came back. Sargent writes that he halted on hearing the first cannon shots, before Bonaparte's order reached him, marched toward the sound, and that the head of his column appeared near San Giuliano at about four o'clock. Barry has Desaix arrive by three o'clock with news that reinforcements would soon appear, Rose at about five in the afternoon. Berthier's relation of 1805 mentions no recall: in it Desaix's division marches as the second echelon of the reserve to take up position at San Giuliano, and Bonaparte halts the retreat at six in the evening.⁷

According to Sargent, most of the French officers favored a retreat, but Desaix, though he saw that the battle was lost, "did not despair of yet gaining another". Rose gives the words "The battle is lost, but there is time to gain another" only as what vague rumors report, and adds that Marmont, who heard the conversation, denies that they were uttered. In the bulletin Bonaparte tells the troops "souvenez-vous que mon habitude est de coucher sur le champ de bataille" ("remember that it is my habit to sleep on the battlefield", our translation), addressing them as "Enfants" ("Children"); Berthier's relation gives the same words but has him begin "Soldats" ("Soldiers").⁸

French guns opened on the advancing column: twelve in Sargent's account, fifteen firing for ten minutes in Berthier's, while the bulletin places eight light guns in front of Desaix's division; Barry has Marmont assemble a battery of eighteen guns, and Rose has him reinforce his own five guns with thirteen others. Desaix's fresh division, about 6,000 men according to Sargent, then attacked; Sargent puts the Austrian column at about 5,000 and Berthier at 5,000 grenadiers. Desaix fell at the start of the attack.⁹

Kellermann's cavalry brigade charged the flank of the shaken column. Rose writes that Kellermann charged on his own initiative; Berthier has Bonaparte order the cavalry forward. Zach was captured, with 2,000 men according to Sargent and 6,000 grenadiers according to the bulletin. By ten that night, Sargent writes, all the Austrian troops had recrossed the Bormida.¹⁰

Last words

The bulletin says that Desaix, hit by a bullet, died on the spot, with time only to tell young Lebrun: "Allez dire au Premier Consul que je meurs avec le regret de n’avoir pas assez fait pour vivre dans la postérité" ("Go and tell the First Consul that I die regretting that I have not done enough to live on in posterity", our translation). Berthier's relation has him regret with his last breath that he had not lived long enough for glory. Barry, for his part, writes of the "instantaneous death" of Desaix during the charge.¹¹

In the bulletin, Bonaparte's only words on hearing the news were "Pourquoi ne m’est-il pas permis de pleurer ?" ("Why am I not allowed to weep?", our translation). On 15 June he wrote to the Consuls of the Republic that he could say no more: "je suis dans la plus profonde douleur de la mort de l’homme que j’aimais et que j’estimais le plus" ("I am in the deepest grief at the death of the man I loved and esteemed most", our translation).¹²

Counting the cost

The figures differ from account to account. The bulletin reports 600 French killed, 1,500 wounded and 900 taken prisoner, and claims 15 flags, 40 guns, 6,000 to 8,000 prisoners and more than 6,000 enemy left on the field. Berthier's relation gives the French 1,100 killed, 3,600 wounded and 900 prisoners, and the Austrians 4,500 dead, 8,000 wounded and 7,000 prisoners, with 12 flags and 30 guns lost.¹³

Sargent puts the Austrian loss at 7,000 killed or wounded and 3,000 captured, and the French killed and wounded at the same number, with 1,000 captured. Barry gives the French more than 5,000 casualties, and the Austrians 6,000 dead and 8,000 prisoners, with forty guns lost.¹⁴

Behind the Mincio

On the morning of 15 June Melas sent an officer to the French, and the same day Berthier and Melas signed a convention at Alessandria. The Austrian army was to hold the country between the Mincio, the Fossa Maestra and the Po, and to hand over Genoa, Milan, Turin, Alessandria, Tortona and other fortresses. In Sargent's words, Melas was "to evacuate the whole of northern Italy as far as the Mincio".¹⁵

The victory did not end the war. Barry calls Marengo "a very costly and inconclusive win". Rose writes that it took Moreau's victory at Hohenlinden, which he dates to 2 December 1800, and Macdonald's crossing of the Splügen to compel Austria to make peace. At home, Barry writes, Marengo raised Bonaparte's popularity, prestige and power in France to their zenith while solidifying his regime. Sargent, writing in 1897, held that the campaign "fixed ultimately upon the head of Bonaparte an emperor's crown".¹⁶