The Allies Strike Back:
Field Marshal Suvorov
Retakes Italy in 1799

Movements

by Christopher Duffy
with artwork by
Keith Rocco, Ray Rubin, Steven Palatka and John Pomeroy

Suvorov was the unknowing author of the vengeance which the French Republic now wished to visit on his head. Month upon month of disappointments and defeats, above all in Italy, had discredited the old leadership of the Directory, which fell from grace in the coup d'état of 30 Prairial.

The new chiefs Paul Barras and Emmanuel Joseph Siéyès were dedicated to pursuing the war more energetically, and their credibility was enhanced by the fact that the date of their coup (18 June) coincided with the opening of the Battle of the Trebbia, the outcome of which justified them in identifying General Macdonald and other officers with the old order, and summoning them to Paris to render account. By the beginning of August the French combatants amounted to 150,000 men, which was admittedly well short of the 270,000 intended, but the new Directory pressed for decisive measures, and in two of the theaters (Switzerland and Italy) it had leaders who were willing to put them into effect.

Four Armies

There were four armies altogether:

    1) The Army of the Rhine (20,000 troops). This was a feeble body, scarcely up to maintaining a defensive before it was reinforced;

    2) The Army of the Danube (70,000). Commanded by the enterprising André Masséna [one of Napoleon's key subordinates during the Italian campaign of 1796-97], the Danube Army was well placed to attack Austrian Archduke Charles (weakened by the departure of the two corps of Bellegarde and Hadik to Italy) and drive him from Switzerland;

    3) The Army of the Alps (15-19,000). This army was supposed to take the offensive from the French Alps into Piedmont; in any event its forces were too few to amount to more than a nuisance, and in the second half of August this formation became the left wing of the Army of Italy;

    4) The Army of Italy (40,713). The reformed Directory invested most of its hopes in the reinforced army in the Ligurian (Genoese) Republic and its new commander Barthélemy Catherine Joubert, who was ordered to take the offensive, and triumph where Schérer, Moreau and Macdonald had so signally failed.

After the early successes by Suvorov, the Allies were divided in both the military and the political dimensions, and the French utilized the lull in operations to concentrate their scattered forces. It was a coming-together in more than just the geographical sense, for "a happy sense of brotherhood" now reigned in the Army of Italy; the experienced Moreau showed no resentment at being ousted from command, and Joubert was glad on his side to accept Moreau's offer to stay with the army and help in any way he could.

On 4 August the Allies learned that Joubert had reached Genoa, and that Moreau had handed over the command of the Army of Italy. A mood of excitement, extraordinarily enough, now spread among the Allied generals. Suvorov testified that: "...for several weeks now the enemy army along the Riviera had been demoralized and racked by hunger….with the arrival of Joubert as the new commander it was inspired with new courage....and held out the prospect of a single battle that would transform its present miserable life in the mountains."

Joubert had disembarked with about 5,000 conscripts, who were badly clothed and equipped. His new army even now amounted to little more than 40,000 men, and his cavalry was particularly weak, at about 2,000 poorly-mounted troopers, which would put him at a disadvantage if he ventured into the north Italian plain. His great assets were the restored morale of his troops, and the quality of his senior officers. Moreau was happy to serve the new chief, as we have seen, and four future marshals held important posts or commands: Emmanuel Grouchy as a divisional commander, Louis Gabriel Suchet as chief of staff, and the two wing commanders — Catherine Dominique Pérignon (left wing) and Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr (right wing).

The consensus among these generals was that Joubert must stay his hand until reinforcements had time to come up on the far left wing from the so-called Army of the Alps, which was well below strength, but would have augmented the total force to about 57,000 troops. However, these troops would be unable to arrive before 20 August, and Joubert believed that he must obey his orders from the Directory and advance down from the Genoese mountains without delay. Even so he was not going to be fast enough, for he did not know how skillful was Suvorov at re-concentrating his forces, and he did not think it possible that Austrian General Paul Kray von Krajova und Topolya would make such short work of the siege of Mantua.

Suvorov and Austrian General Michael Friedrich Melas, commanding the Austrian forces under Suvorov, were aware in general terms of Joubert's brief from the Directory, but siege work was occupying their immediate attention.

By 10 August it was clear that the French activity in the mountains signified more than reconnaissances in force, and by the evening of the 12th the enemy were obviously bent on reaching the plain in two main bodies.

© by Steven Palatka: Austrian grenadier (left) wears the new style uniform with the regiment distinguished by cuff and collar. The French grenadier (right) of a line regiment wears the tall bearskin cap that is sometimes confused with soldiers of the Imperial Guard (years away from being formed). In many battles, the grenadier companies were detached to form provisional battalions to provide extra "punch" for attacks.

The routes of the two French wings were dictated by the direction and capacity of the mountain roads:

Right (eastern) Wing.

Here Saint-Cyr commanded the divisions of Watrin, Dabrowski and Laboissière. He advanced over the Bocchetta Pass, and he was now descending by way of Voltaggio and Gavi; the French blockaded the four Austrian companies in Serravalle Castle, and the division of Watrin hastened ahead in the direction of Novi.

Left (western) Wing

Under the overall command of Pérignon, the divisions of Grouchy and Lemoine advanced on parallel routes down the valleys of the Spigno and Erro against the Austrian corps of Bellegarde. They evicted his troops from Terzo on the Bormida, and veered west to approach Novi by way of Acqui and Rivalta Bormida. Melas wrote to Vienna on 13 August that "the enemy pressed on with their [locally] superior forces, which prompted us to abandon the mountain exits to them, and by pulling back our outposts lure them into the plain, where we could fight to much better advantage…and frustrate the enemy designs by putting our superiority in artillery and cavalry to effective use." The wording suggests a decision taken under the pressure of circumstances, but Suvorov rightly emphasized that he had been "long determined to await the enemy in the plain between Novi and Alessandria, if they plucked up the courage to take the offensive."

For that reason he had rejected the opportunity to strike at Saint-Cyr while the Frenchman was waiting unsupported for Pérignon (who had much further to go) to join him in the neighborhood of Novi.

On 13 August the two French wings re-established a loose contact in the low hills between Capriata and Novi. The Allies reported: "Towards noon a number of French appeared on the hills — how their columns multiplied! Every now and again an outburst of firing could be heard from various spots, and it would last for a few minutes. Our outposts fell back calmly, drawing the enemy towards our main army, which was arrayed below. In front of our line of battle we caught glimpses of our father Aleksandr Vasilevich, rushing from one place to the next."

General Kray was hastening up with his 17,200 troops from Mantua to support Bellegarde (who was falling back from Fresonara), and thus build up a strong right (western) wing of the Allied army. Derfelden's corps of Russians made up the center of the Allied deployment, and the left (eastern) wing comprised the main Austrian concentration of 20,000 troops on the Scrivia at Rivalta, blocking the direct route to the French garrison in Tortona citadel. The Austrian corps of Alcaini was besieging the fort, covered by Rosenberg with the smaller of the two Russian corps.

All of this made sense in the context of the scheme to allow the French into the plain and do battle with them there. The emphasis had changed by the evening of the same 13 August, for the French advance had lost something of its impetus. Melas explained that "the enemy were still scattered and divided, since it had been impossible for them to bring their attacking columns into the plain at the same speed and at the same time. It was decided to attack the columns in question before they could unite, and so destroy them in detail."

Kray's troops had reached Alessandria on 12 August, after long and hard marching from Mantua, and they were now expected to pick themselves up again and attack the western grouping (Pérignon's) at Capriata at two in the morning of the 14th. The enterprise was a physical impossibility. It was already first light on 14th before Kray could set off from Alessandria, and his march came to an end when his troops reached those of Bellegarde at Fresonara in a state of prostration from the heat. On his own initiative he proposed a new attack for the 15th.

Novi

Thus in the morning of 14 August the French were able to occupy the walled town of Novi and consolidate their main forces on the hills to the north. However, the vigorous Watrin kept up the momentum of the original advance by pushing his division directly towards Tortona. This isolated, unsupported thrust was in keeping with the independent way Watrin had behaved on the last day of the Battle of the Trebbia, but it gave Suvorov every reason to believe that the main French force would abandon the Novi camp and plunge on to relieve Tortona.

In fact Joubert was disinclined to follow Watrin's example, for he had accompanied his wing commanders Saint-Cyr and Pérignon to the edge of the hills, from where they counted enemy formations to the equivalent of 36,000 troops in the plain, together with further groupings in the distance which could not be made out clearly through the heat haze. This amounted to a considerable shock. Joubert had at first hoped to find no more than 8,000 troops between himself and Tortona, but there could no longer be any doubt that he was facing a whole wing of an army, including Kray's troops from Mantua, which for unknown reasons had fallen to the Austrians much sooner than had been expected.

Saint-Cyr and Pérignon argued with new conviction that Joubert must recoil into the mountains and wait for the Army of the Alps. Joubert was only half convinced, and replied that he would postpone his final decision. Suvorov made (uncharacteristically) a personal reconnaissance of the French deployments. He sent forward two battalions of Russian jaeger [light troops], who lay down in the barley, and behind this screen he rode up and down in front of his troops, conspicuous in his white shirt and pantaloons. The view from the plain was uninformative, and Suvorov and Melas could not establish the numbers of the French, though they knew that a column (Watrin's) was making for Tortona down the Scrivia, that another column had occupied Novi, and that the column (Pérignon's) which had been advancing against Lieutenant-General Bellegarde had drawn over to its right towards that town.

By the late morning of 14 August the march of Kray's exhausted troops was coming to an end well short of their target. It was not from any lack of goodwill or energy on the part of their chief, and Kray wrote to Suvorov at 11:15 a.m. that he had decided to throw the united forces of the Austrian right wing (the two corps of Kray and Bellegarde) into a right-flanking attack on Novi at first light on the 15th, whereby he hoped to hit the French when they were on the march to Tortona and so cut their communications with Genoa.

Strategy

Joubert's reputation and most of his conduct so far indicated that he would abandon the Novi camp and be on the move again to relieve Tortona citadel, and Suvorov intended to turn the man's impetus against him by allowing the French to come on a certain distance (though not as far as originally intended) and turn their flanks. The most active role fell to the 27,000 or so troops of the combined Austrian right wing under Kray, which was to march from Fresonara, turn aside from the Novi road at Basaluzzo, and move at speed to attack the French rearward elements behind Serravalle, "and by this rapid maneuver cut off the enemy from their only possible path of retreat over the Bocchetta Pass by way of Gavi." The other jaw of the pincers was represented by the 5,700-odd troops of the advance guard under Bagration, assigned to thrust "to the left of Novi" and unite with Kray in the area of Serravalle.

For the time being the other Allied formations were to hold their present positions. Melas was still down the Scriva with the Austrian left wing (8,800 troops) blocking the way to Tortona at Rivalta. Derfelden was positioned behind Pozzolo Formigaro with the 9,850 troops remaining with his corps after Bagration was detached with his advance guard (5,705). Rosenberg with the rest of the Russians (8,270) was still containing the garrison of Tortona citadel, while the Austrian siege corps under Alcaini (5,260) had detached some of its units to Spineto and other locations to the south to confront any French forces marching to the relief.

It is evident that the French were inferior in quantity of infantry, and very weak in cavalry — a disadvantage to some degree offset by the broken terrain. The French as a whole were exhausted and thirsty, and so short of food that by the time of the battle they were reduced to eating leaves and grass.

The Allies Strike Back: Suvorov Retakes Italy 1799

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