Battle of Casteggio - Montebello
9th June 1800
The French Evening Advance
to Montebello
by Dave Hollins, UK
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By 5 p.m., Casteggio had been cleared and the French right set off in pursuit of the retreating Austrians. About 1700 m farther west, a track turned off towards Montebello. Amongst the trees and hedgerows, O'Reilly's scattered Grenzers took up sharpshooting positions, from where they could fire on the 96è advancing in open order either side of the track. Out in the fields, Schustekh's Hussars and Jaeger zu Pferd were doing what they could to cover the retreat of the battered Austrian infantry from the hills. The troops from the Austrian left were falling back along the main road, but most were headed for the relative safety of Montebello. Located on a key crossroads on the local tracks, 600 m south of the main road, this village became the next Austrian line of defence, to where the hill tracks also led Vogelsang's men. Seeing his demoralised troops falling apart under the continuous pursuit, Ott ordered Schellenberg to set up a new rearguard position at Montebello to allow the rest to escape towards Voghera, where they could be re-formed. This rear guard comprised the battle hardened Transylvanians of IR 51 Splenyi and the surviving formed units from Vogelsang's men. Having reorganised themselves, the 96è continued it's advance down the roadway towards Montebello. Seeing the Austrian line reestablishing itself at the village, two battalions dissolved en tirailleur to the left and right of the local road and engaged the Austrians with musketry. It was now around 8 pm in the evening, but some of the hardest fighting had yet to be done. Desperate to hold Montebello while their comrades escaped, IR51 and the remains of the two Austrian wings bravely held the line in reasonable order, sustaining severe casualties from the 96è and the growing number of French troops arriving in the vicinity. Darkness began to close in and the shooting started to subside, as the rearguard began to pull out of Montebello. The soldiers of the 96è, still out skirmishing as night fell were so scattered that they could not be re-formed until sunrise. Farther north along the hard surface road to Voghera and Alessandria, Schellenberg was hastily establishing defensive lines. Despite being pushed steadily back, three companies of 3rd Battalion IR40 fought a determined and lengthy rearguard action on the Gamberi stream to guard the troops withdrawing down the main road. By nightfall, Ott's force had coalesced in to two groups, which retreated on Voghera, 8 km west down the main road. The action had cost the Austrians about 2100 casualties, 2,500 prisoners and two 3pdr guns with comaparable casualties on the French side. (Berthier admitted only 40 killed and 800 wounded, however, a comparison of the troop returns shows a deficiency of around 3000 men!) As dawn broke on 10th June, the two columns marched back through Tortona and Castelnuovo across the Scrivia. The campaign would end at Marengo on 14th June, where Lannes returned the favour of support to Victor. Lannes would be made a Marshal in 1804 and was awarded the title of Duke of Montebello. Victor would have to wait until 1807 for appointment to the Marshalate and the title of Duke of Belluno, not such a famous action. Select BibliographyI should like to thank Terry Crowdy and Marco Gioannini for their assistance in providing French sources and Italian maps.
More Battle of Casteggio-Montebello 9th June 1800
Outpost Clashes East of Casteggio 1400: The Second French Line Arrives French Evening Advance to Montebello Order of Battle Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #53 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com |