On 4 September 1796 Napoleon Bonaparte's Army of Italy broke an Austrian corps under Lieutenant Field Marshal Davidovich in the narrow Adige valley north of Lake Garda. The battle that took the name of Rovereto ran from post to post: Masséna's division drove Major General Vukassovich's brigade from the heights of Marco and out of Rovereto, while Vaubois stormed the entrenched camp at Mori across the river. At four in the afternoon, by two Austrian accounts, French troops burst into the camp at Calliano and scattered the men there. Bonaparte claimed six or seven thousand prisoners; a historian working from the Austrian archives called that figure much exaggerated. On 8 September Bonaparte beat Wurmser at Bassano.
The second relief of Mantua
After the fighting at Lonato and Castiglione in August 1796, Jomini writes, Field Marshal Wurmser fell back up the Adige to Trento. Under a new plan from Vienna, in Jomini's account, Davidovich was to hold the Tyrol with 20,000 men in four divisions, the brigades of Vukassovich and Sporck forming his main body of about 8,600 in the valley of Rovereto, while Wurmser was to march with about 26,000 down the Brenta toward Bassano and Mantua. Erwin Honig, writing in 1908 from the Austrian field records, places Vukassovich's brigade furthest forward, at Marco and Serravalle, with Sporck's behind it around Rovereto.1
On 6 September Bonaparte wrote to the Directory that the French would be at Bozen as soon as the Army of the Rhine had advanced on Innsbruck, but that this plan, good in June, was worth nothing at the end of September. Jomini describes Bonaparte's own plan as helping the Rhine army take the capital of the Tyrol, then turning toward Friuli to throw a corps on Trieste if events allowed. His rise is told in our biography of Napoleon.2
A fight from post to post
On 3 September, write Jomini and Honig, Masséna's leading troops drove the Austrian outposts from Ala and took Serravalle, while Vaubois came by Torbole toward Mori. The editors of Bonaparte's Correspondance date his letters of the next day "18 fructidor an IV (4 septembre 1796)".3
On the 4th, in Bonaparte's report, General Pijon took the heights to the left of Marco with part of the light infantry, Adjutant General Sornet's 18th light demi-brigade attacked as skirmishers, and Brigadier General Victor's 18th of the line broke through along the main road in close column. Jomini gives the same order of attack, names the defender, Vukassovich, and calls his resistance stubborn. Bonaparte speaks of two hours of very lively fighting, Honig of one hour. Meanwhile Vaubois attacked and carried the entrenched camp at Mori on the right bank.4
Davidovich ordered a retreat to Rovereto, Honig writes. Bonaparte sent General Rampon with the 32nd between the town and the Adige while Victor went up the main street at the charge, and the Austrians fell back again. It was one in the afternoon, Bonaparte writes; the French had so far taken only three guns and made about a thousand prisoners, "C'était ne pas avoir vaincu", that was not yet victory (our translation).5
"I die for the Republic"
When the Austrians gave way at Marco, Bonaparte sent his aide-de-camp Lemarois to order General Dubois forward with the 1st Hussars. Dubois led the charge himself and was hit by three balls; one of his aides had just been killed at his side, Bonaparte writes. Jomini and Honig also have Dubois killed at the head of the 1st Hussars. Bonaparte found him dying moments later: "Je meurs pour la République, dit-il, faites que j'aie le temps de savoir si la victoire est complète", I die for the Republic, he said, let me live long enough to know whether the victory is complete (our translation).6
Surprise at Calliano
Davidovich made a new stand at Calliano, where, in Bonaparte's words, the Adige almost touches sheer mountains in a gorge less than 40 toises wide, closed by a village, a high castle and a wall from the river to the mountain. The Austrian accounts of Major Johann Baptist Schels, in the Oestreichische militärische Zeitschrift of 1832, and of Honig name the post La Pietra and say that the regiment Preiss under Colonel Waydenfeld (Weidenfeld in Schels) held it.7
Bonaparte writes that General Dommartin brought up eight pieces of light artillery to rake the gorge, Pijon's light infantry went round on the right, 300 skirmishers opened fire from the river bank and three demi-brigades in close column passed the defile. Schels gives eight guns, Honig eight mountain guns. Both Austrian accounts have Waydenfeld's regiment driven from La Pietra and off the main road, to fall back by Besenello toward Trento.8
Behind the pass lay the Austrian camp. Schels adds up Sporck's brigade, less the regiment at La Pietra, and the rest of Vukassovich's to about 4,800 men assembled at Calliano on the afternoon of the 4th. Honig, who cites Schels's article elsewhere, also gives about 4,800 for the rest of the troops, whom Davidovich had pitch camp behind the pass. The commanders, Schels writes, had probably relied on the pass and believed themselves quite safe; the men were allowed to put down their arms and scattered to cook, and the loss of the pass remained unknown in the camp. "Da drang plötzlich, um vier Uhr Nachmittags, Massena mit Infanterie und Reiterei in das Lager ein": then suddenly, at four in the afternoon, Masséna broke into the camp with infantry and cavalry (our translation). Honig has French hussars break in at 4 p.m.; generals, officers and men, he writes, fled pell-mell to Trento.9
Counting the prisoners
Bonaparte claimed "6 ou 7,000 prisonniers, 25 pièces de canon, 50 caissons, 7 drapeaux" as the fruit of the battle of Rovereto and put his own loss at under 200 killed or wounded. Jomini writes that Davidovich's corps fled to Trento leaving "environ 3 mille blessés ou prisonniers", about three thousand wounded or prisoners, on the road (our translation).10
Schels counts by brigade. Vukassovich's 2,700 men lost about 1,000 dead, wounded and prisoners in the actions of 3 and 4 September, and some 1,200 more, cut off in the mountains, fell back into the Valsugana. Sporck's brigade of 6,000 lost more than two thirds of its strength, mostly as stragglers, on the retreat from Rovereto, at La Pietra and above all in the surprise at Calliano. Honig, who records 25 guns, 50 ammunition wagons and 7 colors taken, calls Bonaparte's six to seven thousand "freilich sehr übertrieben", admittedly much exaggerated (our translation).11
From Trento to Bassano
Masséna entered Trento at eight the next morning, write Bonaparte, Jomini and Honig. Wurmser had left the town the day before for Bassano, Bonaparte and Honig write. On 6 September Bonaparte told the Directory that the snows would soon close the mountains, that the enemy had thrown himself on the Brenta, and that he could not tangle himself in the Tyrol while the whole enemy army at Bassano threatened his flank and rear; he was marching down the Brenta that day.12
In the same letter he imagined that once he had beaten the enemy at Bassano and the Rhine army stood at Innsbruck, "les quatre mille hommes, débris de la division qui gardait Trente", the four thousand men left of the division that had held Trento, would retreat by Brixen and Lienz into Friuli (our translation). He beat Wurmser at Bassano on 8 September, the date given by the Fondation Napoléon and Honig. Jomini ends the chapter with Wurmser thrown back into Mantua and invested there.13
Also on 4 September
1260: At Montaperti, south-east of Siena, the Sienese, the Ghibelline exiles of Florence under Farinata degli Uberti and Guido Novello, and the German cavalry of Giordano, Manfred's vicar in Tuscany, routed the Florentines and their allies, writes Attilio Bartoli Langeli in the Enciclopedia Dantesca. Giovanni Villani and Bartoli Langeli date the battle to 4 September 1260; the Sienese annal writes "2. Non. Sept. 1260". Villani and Langton Douglas tell how Bocca degli Abati, riding in the Florentine ranks, cut off the hand of Jacopo de' Pazzi, who carried the cavalry's standard, and the Florentines broke; both add that the carroccio and the war bell Martinella were lost.14
Villani counts more than 2,500 dead on the field and more than 1,500 prisoners. The Sienese annal gives "ultra decem milia", over ten thousand, Florentine dead and more than 15,000 captured, and a Paduan annal more than 10,000 dead and 7,000 captured. Bartoli Langeli notes that contemporary chronicles range from 2,500 to 10,000 Florentine dead. In Dante's Inferno the poet answers Farinata with "Lo strazio e ’l grande scempio / che fece l’Arbia colorata in rosso", the havoc and the great slaughter that dyed the Arbia red (our translation), and in canto XXXII he tears hair from Bocca's head.15
