Battle of Arcole
Napoleon fought a three-day battle in the marshes east of Verona in November 1796 to hold the ground he had taken in Italy. The Austrians had sent a fourth army to relieve Mantua, where some 20,000 of their troops had been besieged since June, and Alvinczi's advance from the east had already beaten the French at Caldiero. Napoleon's position was that he had fewer men than the enemy, that Mantua required a besieging force he could not release, and that a defeat would end the campaign. His answer was to march round the Austrian left through the marshes of the Adige, aiming at the enemy's rear at Villanova, where the causeways forced the fighting into narrow fronts on which numbers could not be brought to bear. The bridge at Arcole was the choke point, swept by Croatian infantry for three days. The episode everyone paints is Napoleon seizing a standard and leading a column onto the bridge, which happened and failed; he was pushed into the marsh by the retreating troops and pulled out of the water by his brother and an aide. The bridge was eventually turned rather than taken, by a crossing downstream and a small detachment sounding trumpets in the Austrian rear. Alvinczi withdrew on 17 November with about 7,000 casualties. Rivoli in January finished the campaign, and Mantua surrendered in February. The painting by Gros, made months later with Napoleon sitting for it, is one of the founding images of his own legend. The Italian campaign is where the method that carried him through the next decade was assembled: separate the enemy, concentrate on the weaker part, and publish an account of it before anyone else can. He was twenty-seven when it ended.
- Year: 1796 CE
- Category: Military
