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

Battle of Novi Begins

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

During the night of 14/15 August four squadrons of light horse under Major Dobay cleared the way for Kray's advance by pushing back the outposts of the French left wing. Before first light Kray set his corps in motion by two wings, marching in multiple columns on half-company frontages. Kray in person accompanied his left-hand or eastern wing, which stood under the command of Lieutenant-General Karl Ott.

Lieutenant-General Friedrich Bellegarde commanded the powerful right-hand or western wing. To cover the far right-hand flank of his advance Kray detached Major-General Friedrich Seckendorf to take the route leading up the right side of the Riasco valley with a mixed force of regular infantry, Croats and hussars.

The first shots of the battle were exchanged at 3:20 in the morning. Much sooner than expected the advancing Austrians ran into the main force of the enemy left wing, provoking what is described as "a great patriotic clamor" in the French camp. In the light of the rising sun the Allies "could see at once how the heights to the right and left of Novi were occupied by long blue lines….their position was admirably chosen for a day of battle. They were sited on heights whose slopes descended to the plain, and from where they could detect our slightest movement." It was now clear that far from attacking a vulnerable flank of the French when they were already in motion, Kray had initiated an assault on an army which was still in position on advantageous ground. Joubert had not counted on fighting here (he had still been trying to make up his mind whether to advance on Tortona or retreat on Genoa), but in most respects his present positions were admirably suited for receiving an attack.

It is more helpful to consider the French deployments in terms of the individual divisions rather than the parent wings. Out on the right (east) the adventurous Watrin was still standing on the lower ground outside Novi. The northern edge of the plateau was held by Laboissière, while Novi town was garrisoned by Gardanne. Lemoine occupied the long edge of the plateau extending west from behind Novi, and the western side of the plateau was secured by the division of Grouchy, and the infantry (Clausel and Partouneaux) and cavalry (Richepanse) reserves of the left wing. The position was therefore strong, in terms of warding off an attack, but in the case of a retreat it was a potential death-trap, for the deep-cut valley of the Braghena stream and the steep banks of the Riasco formed a continuous barrier across the rear.

We return to Kray's command, which in twenty minutes deployed from its columns into two lines and set itself at the steep slopes of the western plateau. On the wing of Lieutenant-General Ott the successive efforts of Major Mamola's Szluiner Croats, the regular infantry of the first line and Kray's powerful artillery succeeded in pushing back the division of Lemoine from the edge of the heights before the French could put themselves in order. To the right Bellegarde's wing made even better progress, for his assault arrived at a time when Grouchy's troops were standing unprepared and well back from the slopes.

The advance of Kray's first line lost impetus when the troops had to re-form from line into column to negotiate the tangled terrain and steep gradients of the vineyards. The delays inevitably told to the advantage of the French, who were now coming to their senses. The infantry reserve under Clausel and Partouneaux was already located very conveniently for the enemy in compact masses near Pasturana, and Pérignon as overall commander of the left wing directed this uncommitted force against Bellegarde. The French cavalry under Richepanse joined in the general counterattack.

Moreau was in charge of the center, closer to Novi, and was meanwhile responding to the advance of Ott. Saint-Cyr (commanding on the right) sent the brigade of Colli to Moreau's aid, and before long the Austrians were coming under pressure from both their front and from their left flank. Joubert in person had helped to rally the fugitives during the first panic, and he was now leading the 26th Light Demi-Brigade in a counterattack when an Austrian volley threw him from his horse, mortally wounded. MacDermott records that "We saw the enemy carrying away a body escorted by chasseurs. It was covered with a cloak decorated in blue and gold, and taken to Novi….it transpired that this was their commander in chief Joubert."

Kray persisted in his attacks, but, as the Austrian archival sources state: "The terrain was cut into transverse terraces, which proved impassable to our fearless infantry. Only after sustaining terrible losses could the heads of the columns [two great columns, according to the contemporary Austrian maps] make their way up the narrow passages, and then the troops found it impossible to deploy into line. The enemy at the top were formed up into several lines, and were able to deliver repeated counterattacks. Our troops stormed forward with a courage which verged on desperation, but to no avail against the obstacles presented by nature and the advantageous position of the enemy."

One last effort by Ott's troops was turned back by the 26th Light Demi-Brigade and the 105th Demi-Brigade, and the entire first line of Kray's wing was soon falling back in disorder down the slopes. By nine in the morning Kray had just succeeded in rallying the debris of his first line behind his second when the order came from Suvorov to renew the assault, this time with the assurance that the main army would be attacking in support. Only the main features of what happened next can be retrieved from the contradictory accounts.

Ott and Bellegarde attacked Lemoine and Grouchy with the same initial success as before, but the help from the Russians was not forthcoming (they were being beaten back from Novi), and the French reserves were free to turn all their attention to the Austrians. The brigade of Partouneaux made for Ott's left flank, while Clausel and the cavalry under Richepanse once more took Bellegarde's command under attack.

Partouneaux was not content with his second success, and he led a number of his battalions down to the plain without support. In this open and level ground the French became a target for Major Dobay with his four squadrons of horse (two squadrons each from the Erzherzog Joseph Hussars and the Kaiser Dragoons). Dobay hit the French before they had time to form to meet his attack, and he chased them back to the plateau, Partouneaux himself being overhauled and captured before he could reach the shelter of the high ground. Kray and Bellegarde had by now deployed forty cannon in a single line, and they were able to shoot up the enemy French infantry every time they tried to show themselves along the crest.

Kray was disinclined to throw the Austrian right wing into a further general assault until he had further evidence that the main army was doing its part. However, the heights facing the Riasco valley to the south were now held weakly by the French, and Bellegarde took the opportunity to detach Dobay in this direction with his four squadrons and one battalion of the excellent Hungarian infantry regiment of Sztáray; this little force infiltrated to the wooded heights above Pas-turana, with consequences that were to be of some interest towards the end of the battle.

The reader will be wondering why so little has so far been heard of Suvorov, the hero of our story. The same thought occurred to Bagration, who by the original scheme of things was supposed to have cut around the French right flank with the advance guard and join Kray at Gavi. Now the French were immobile on the plateau, instead of moving down to the plain as expected, and the noise of the fighting on the right, together with repeated appeals from Kray, prompted Bagration to address himself to Suvorov at headquarters at Pozzolo Formigaro. Bagration said afterwards: "One of my adjutants came to see me on the way with the report that the field-marshal was lying wrapped up in his cloak and fast asleep.

This seemed impossible. The notion passed through my mind that he could actually be dead, and I spurred on. A number of the generals were standing in a circle in front of the column of Derfelden's corps. I hastened towards them, and not far from the group I saw that extraordinary man bundled up in an old cloak on the ground. I had scarcely got out a few words in answer to Derfelden's questions when Aleksandr Vasilevich threw his cloak aside, sprang up and declared; 'God — how I must have slept! Like a stone! Now it's time for action!' It was clear that Suvorov had not been asleep at all, but had been listening to the conversation of the generals and the various reports that arrived from the scene of the fighting, and had been ruminating deeply on how to conduct the coming battle. He asked me how the combat had gone, then took in the enemy position with a rapid glance, and ordered Miloradovich and me to open the battle immediately."

At ten in the morning Bagration advanced his jaeger and grenadiers directly against Novi. The French now had an excellent target. Austrian documents note: "In the center of the position they had placed three frightful batteries on the slopes of the hill; these now vomited forth flames and incessant thunder like an erupting volcano. They were deployed in such a way that the heaviest calibers were sited on the crest, the medium half-way down the hill, and the light pieces at the bottom."

The Russians drove back Gardanne's brigade through the outlying ditches, gardens and suburbs of Novi, but the high and solid town wall proved to be impervious to the Russian field artillery, and Bagration accordingly shifted the axis of his attack to the right of the town (as the Russians saw it) to hit the edge of the plateau to the west. The broken ground forced the Russians to move in compact columns — easy marks for the French tirailleurs (skirmishers) who were concealed in the vineyards and farm buildings — while the supporting fire from the Russian artillery ceased, for the pieces were still down on the plain, and the barrels could not be elevated sufficiently to reach the high ground with their shot and shell.

The Russians were checked frontally by Quesnel's brigade and the division of Laboissière, and hit in their left flank by two waves of attackers — Gardanne's troops surging from Novi, and then the division of Watrin, which was eager to gain its revenge for the defeat on the Trebbia, and which now came from the far French right and struck boldly across the plain.

The early morning of the 15th had found the greater part of the Allied army deployed in depth as far back as the neighborhood of Tortona, ready to bar the way to any French who might be seeking to escape after Kray and Bagration had cut across their rear. By the late morning both Kray and Bagration were instead engaged in battles of attrition on their respective sides of the plateau, and Suvorov concluded that he must commit all the troops within reach to an all-out attack on the French positions.

The brigade of Miloradovich was already on the way. It had been standing in front of Pozzolo Formigaro, and it now arrived on the scene of Bagration's action to build up the Russians fighting to the west of Novi to a strength of some 9,400 troops. The Miller Jaeger Regiment and the Lomonosov and Sanaev Grenadier Battalions succeeded in containing Gardanne's thrusts from Novi, but every Russian frontal attack against the edge of the plateau was still breaking up in disorder.

By now, the approach of green columns across the plain signified that all the rest of Derfelden's corps (about 6,100 troops) was arriving from Rivalta. This accession of force enabled the Russians to make a new assault, which beat back the division of Watrin, but their ranks wilted once more under the fire of the tirailleurs, and the survivors fell back down the hillside. Melas wrote that "upon this General Baron Kray made a new advance, and received a reinforcement in the shape of two [unidentified] battalions of Russians. He still could not break through, and so the field-marshal with his usual determination insisted that General Derfelden as well as Bagration and Miloradovich must deliver a new assault against the heights behind Novi."

As they looked over to their right the Austrians could see that the plain between Novi and Pozzolo Formigaro was covered with fugitives and confused knots of struggling French and Russians — the aftermath of one of the failed assaults — and at 11:30 in the morning Suvorov's adjutant Colonel Lavrov reached Melas with the order to move directly against Novi and launch a frontal attack. Melas was disinclined to break his teeth against the French where they were at their strongest, and "meanwhile a detailed examination of the enemy position revealed that their right flank was the key to the whole, and therefore the proper target for the attack. I concluded that I must depart from the field-marshal's orders."

Melas was concerned to secure himself against any French forces which might descend from the upper Scrivia, and so he detached a "first column" (two fusilier battalions of Stuart and two squadrons of the Lobkowitz Dragoons) under the command of Major-General Johann Nobili in the direction of Serravalle. The main force continued on its way up the west bank of the Scrivia. Major-General Anton Mittrowsky was marching closest to the river with a distinctly over-commanded little party, namely two squadrons of the Lobkowitz Dragoons and two fusilier battalions of the regiment of Fürstenberg. The rest of the force consisted of nine battalions of grenadiers, which arrived in an untidy heap about two kilometers to the east of Novi early in the afternoon. Here Melas sent Major-General Lusignan with five of the battalions (Paar, Fürstenberg, Weber, Pertusi, Morzin) to make for the edge of the plateau close behind Novi. Major-General Alexander Loudon continued on his way with the remaining four battalions (Hohenfeld, Schiaffinatti, Goeschen, Weissenwolff), and after two kilometers or so of marching he ascended the plateau in the company of Mittrowsky's dragoons and fusiliers, who had turned aside from the river.

We last encountered Watrin when he had moved his division from its original position on the far French right, and struck against the left flank of Bagration's columns as they advanced against Novi. By this time Watrin had returned to the right and climbed to a new station on the edge of the plateau south-east of the town, where a slight re-shuffling of his troops enabled him to place himself squarely in the path of Lusignan's grenadiers.

Franz Joseph Lusignan (1753-1832) hailed from an old family of Aragon, and his career hinted at a certain impulsiveness, for he had been captured at Rivoli in 1796, and taken prisoner again in the following year. He now brought the two battalions of his second line up in close support of the three battalions in the front, and set them at the slopes of the plateau: "I grasped at once that in such an attack any delay or half-heartedness would have been fatal, and in order to deny my brave troops any time for reflection I dismounted, drew my sword, placed myself at their head, and began to ascend the hill under a hail of canister and musket balls.

The enemy were putting up a hard fight, which augmented our casualties, but they were unable to withstand the desperate intrepidity of our troops. The hill was stormed and captured in fine style without a musket shot being fired."

So writes Lusignan. In fact three successive attacks by his grenadiers failed to dislodge the French from the vineyards and farmhouses where they were making their stand. What finally persuaded the enemy to fall back was the arrival of the rest of the Austrians, for Loudon and Mittrowsky had ascended the pla teau unopposed, and Loudon's four battalions of grenadiers were now striding along the edge to take Watrin in flank, while Mittrowsky was infiltrating along a lit tle valley against the French rear. Watrin's first line fled, carrying his second line with it, and the Austrians might have pushed straight on to Novi if Saint-Cyr had not interposed the 106th Demi- Brigade, which advanced resolutely against the Austrian grenadiers and the supporting Levenehr and Lobkowitz Dragoons. Lusignan tells us that he advanced with such speed that "I got several paces ahead of my grenadiers, and suddenly found myself completely unaided just twelve or fifteen feet from the enemy. I became the object of their undivided attention, and was thrown to the ground by two musket balls, one of which took me in the left arm, and the other which penetrated some way into my left ankle.

I tried to get up, but two French cavalrymen set upon me at the same instant. One of the cut at me from the right - I was fortunately able to ward off the blow with my sword, but the other gave such a mighty cut to my head that it sliced through the gold- laced hat and plume, bit deep into my skull, and laid me out flat on the ground. My brave grenadiers were following close behind, but they were too late to save me. The enemy seized me by the hand: and feet and dragged me off more dead than alive."

After this check the Austrian grenadiers resumed their advance, and by five in the afternoon they were pressing the outnumbered French back to Novi. Watrin judged that it was time for his division and the 106th Demi-Brigade to take their leave. His troops slipped adroitly past the advancing Austrians, and while the path of escape was still open reached safety on the far side of the Riasco.

Watrin had moved only just in time, for the two French flanks were now being beaten in. Over to the west Kray renewed his attack between three and four in the afternoon, on this occasion with the guarantee that the main army would be assailing the French right:

"I made the necessary arrangements [reported Bellegarde]. The troops had been under fire for hours on end, with nothing to drink - for there was not a drop of water to be had in the entire neighborhood - and were exhausted by ceaseless exhaustion on one of the hottest days of the summer. It therefore gave me immense satisfaction to see how the men took fresh heart from the example of our general [Kray], and pressed forward with every show of eagerness and courage. The enemy were holding their ground with equal bravery, but our troops attacked at the double ... and unhesitatingly climbed the steep slopes and drove the French from their position."

Outside Novi the Austrian grenadier battalion of Paar pushed the 68th Demi-Brigade from the high ground by the upper gate. The French were keeping up a heavy fire from the windows of the nearest houses of the town, but on their fourth attempt the Austrians penetrated Novi at the same time as Derfelden's Russians broke in from the east and north. Most of Gardanne's men contrived to fight their way out, but several hundred more were cut off in the course of the street battle and sought refuge in the houses.

By about 5:30 in the afternoon the French were giving way on every sector, and all cohesion broke apart when the two wings made for the steep river valleys across the rear of their position. The right wing fared best, for the division of Watrin had disengaged in the way we have just seen. The brigade of Quesnel and that of Gardanne were falling back from the neighborhood of Novi, and made off in the direction of Tassarolo. The right wing as a whole was ultimately reassembled by Moreau, but it lost contact completely with the left, of which there was not the slightest news until 18 August.

The whole of the French left wing was now piled up in and around Pasturana, while the artillery of the right wing, which had lost touch with its infantry, was brought at a gallop diagonally across the front of the advancing Allies to arrive on the scene of general chaos: -In the village there now ensued a frightful massacre, in which the Russians gave no quarter. The only French to save their lives were the ones who fell into the hands of the troops of Kray." The French were pressed back down the winding main street, through the central square, and out on the far side along the last stretch of the street to the sharp left-handed descent to the Braghena gorge.

In the process Grouchy had been unhorsed in the central square while seeking to rally his troops by waving an abandoned color; when the flag was snatched from him in the course of the melee he raised his hat on his sword as a new sign of defiance, but he was hacked down and captured. His fate was shared by Perignon (another future French marshal), who was wounded in the body and the forearm, and by a cut which left a spectacular diagonal scar across his left forehead.

While the issue of the battle was still in doubt, Bellegarde had detached a little force out on his right flank to infiltrate along the right bank of the Riasco towards Pasturana (two squadrons each of the Erzherzog Joseph Hussars and the Kaiser Dragoons, and the third battalion of the regiment of Sztaray, above). Major Kees assumed the command after Major Dobay was wounded, and he now struck to mortal effect against the French while they were struggling down the steep path to the bottom of the gorge.

Some of the French cannon were abandoned by their civilian drivers. Others were overturned in the panic, and the press of men, guns and vehicles was ultimately so great that General Colli was captured along with up to 2,000 of his troops and twenty-one of his guns.

"The night terminated the action [writes a Russian soldier]. Our army put itself in order, and pulled a little way back. Everything fell quiet. The moon shone brightly, though the powder smoke was hanging in the air. We had only two or three cartridges left in our pouches; we sent for more and filled out pouches with them. We lay in a contented calm, and two men out of every three were allowed to go to sleep. Everyone thanked the Lord God from the bottom of his heart for having preserved him from death. It was eleven or twelve at night. The silence continued to reign, and we luxuriated in the opportunity to snatch some rest. Musket shots rang out all of a sudden - one, two, then a mighty crescendo and then there was silence again."

The outburst was occasioned by fugitive French who had hidden themselves in Novi and were now trying to break out. The Russians worked through the town again, routed out the last of the French, and set to work wrecking the houses and belaboring the inhabitants. There were French dead scattered about the town, and outside their bodies lay in profusion, with the faces contorted into the most hideous expressions. "They were atheists, and it was evident that even at the moment of their deaths they had failed to invoke the name of Our Lord God, and thus perished as outcasts." The countenances of the Russian dead, by contrast, were calm and settled according to the Allied sources.

The Allies Strike Back: Suvorov Retakes Italy 1799

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