Battle of Rivoli
The Battle of Rivoli was a military engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars. It was fought between the French Army, under Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Austrian Army, led by Field Marshal Jozsef Alvinczi. It took place on January 14, 1797, in Rivoli Veronese, Veneto, northern Italy, during the military campaign conducted by Napoleon in that country from 1796 to 1797. Despite of being outnumbered, the French Army, composed of 23,000 men, thoroughly defeated the Austrian forces, which attempted to relieve the Austrian fortress of Mantua that was being besieged by the French. The Austrian Army comprised more than 28,000 soldiers.
Summary
The Battle of Rivoli began on the early morning of January 14, 1797, when an Austrian column commanded by Prince Heinrich of Reuss-Plauen tried to outflank the French right wing via the Rivoli gorge on the Trambasore Heights. At the beginning, things did not look good for Bonaparte, with the Austrian dragoons forcing their way through the gorge and another Austrian column under Colonel Franz Lusignan cutting off his retreat south of Rivoli. The Austrian commander was on the Trambasore Heights urging his battalions to keep moving forward, though they were not well organized for combat, straggling over the rough terrain. The outnumbered French troops of General Barthelemy-Catharine Joubert’s division held on until reinforcements under Massena and Rey arrived, bringing Bonaparte’s total to 23,000 men.
The French managed to take advantage of the uncoordinated movement of the Austrian forces by a series of actions. Bonaparte, Joubert, and Louis Alexandre Berthier put together a well co-ordinated combined attack. A battery of 15 guns blasted the dragoons, while two columns of infantry, one for the gorge and one for the Trambasore Heights were led forward supported by cavalry under Charles Leclerc and Antoine Lasalle. The packed masses in the gorge fled when their own dragoons were driven them over in panic. And likewise the dispersed infantry on the Heights were unable to hold once French cavalry got in their midst. Lastly, Gabriel Rey’s division and Claude Victor’s brigade arrived and broke Lusignan’s southern column with the loss of 3,000 prisoners.
Below, Napoleon Bonaparte right after the Battle of Rivoli. Painting by Henri Philippoteaux
