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The Battle of Montenotte was fought on 12 April 1796, during the French Revolutionary Wars, between the French army under General Napoleon Bonaparte and an Austrian corps under Count Eugène-Guillaume Argenteau. The French won the battle, which was fought near the village of Cairo Montenotte in the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. The modern town is located in the northwestern part of Italy. On 11 April, Argenteau led 3,700 men in several assaults against a French mountaintop redoubt but failed to take it. By the morning of the 12th, Bonaparte concentrated large forces against Argenteau's now-outnumbered troops. The strongest French push came from the direction of the mountaintop redoubt, but a second force fell on the weak Austrian right flank and overwhelmed it. In its hasty retreat from the field, Argenteau's force lost heavily and was badly disorganized. This attack against the boundary between the Austrian and Sardinian armies threatened to sever the link between the two allies. This action was part of the Montenotte Campaign. ==Background== ''See Montenotte 1796 Campaign Order of Battle for the organization of the French, Austrian, and Sardinian armies.'' On 27 March 1796, a young General Bonaparte arrived in Nice to take over the Army of Italy, his first army command. His army included 63,000 troops, but of these, only 37,600 men and 60 artillery pieces were capable of being put into the field. The soldiers were badly fed, months behind in pay, and poorly equipped. Consequently, morale in many units was low and in a few cases this had led to mutiny.〔Chandler ''Campaigns'', 53-54〕 Bonaparte's Austrian opponent, Feldzeugmeister Johann Peter Beaulieu was also new to the Italian theater of operations. Beaulieu directly controlled 19,500 Austrians of whom half were still in winter quarters. Beaulieu's subordinate Argenteau commanded an additional 11,500 Austrians who were deployed farther to the west around Acqui Terme. A Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont army of about 20,000 men was west of Argenteau's corps.〔Chandler ''Campaigns'', 62〕 Bonaparte planned to advance from the Ligurian coast to drive a wedge between Beaulieu's Austrian army to the northeast and Feldmarschall-Leutnant Michelangelo Alessandro Colli-Marchi's 21,000-strong Austro-Sardinian army to the northwest.〔Fiebeger, 5〕 Colli, an Austrian on loan to the Sardinian army, shared a personal friendship with Beaulieu. However, the Austrian government secretly warned Beaulieu not to trust his Sardinian ally. This made it difficult for the two allied leaders to agree on a joint strategy.〔Boycott-Brown, 136-137〕 Colli feared an attack that would split the allied armies, which was exactly the plan that Bonaparte was contemplating. He argued for the allied armies to concentrate in the center.〔Boycott-Brown, 148-149〕 But Beaulieu became convinced that the French intended to seize Genoa, and he intended to thwart that possibility with an attack of his own.〔Boycott-Brown, 160〕 Based on a muster roll from 9 April, Bonaparte's field army consisted of four divisions under Generals of Division Amédée Emmanuel Francois Laharpe, Jean-Baptiste Meynier, Pierre Augereau, and Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier. Laharpe and Meynier's divisions formed the advance guard under André Masséna. Laharpe's 8,614 soldiers were divided between the 17th and 22nd Light Infantry Demi-Brigades and the 32nd and 75th Line Infantry Demi-Brigades. Meynier commanded 9,526 men in the 11th and 27th Light and the 25th, 51st, old 51st, and 55th Line. Augereau led 10,117 troops in the 4th and 29th Light and 4th, 14th, and 18th Line. Sérurier directed 9,448 men in the 69th Light, 39th Line, and 85th Line. General of Brigade Jean-Baptiste Cervoni was detached at Voltri with the 3,181 troops of the 75th Line and 2,000 soldiers of the 51st Line.〔Boycott-Brown, 195-196〕 Beaulieu planned to fall on Cervoni with two columns under General-major Philipp Pittoni von Dannenfeld and Feldmarschall-Leutnant Karl Philipp Sebottendorf. Pittoni had infantry five battalions and four cavalry squadrons totalling 3,350 foot soldiers and 624 horsemen. Sebottendorf led 3,200 troops in five battalions. Argenteau counted 9,000 infantry and 340 cavalry in 11 battalions and two squadrons. These were scattered, with four battalions near Sassello, one at Acqui Terme, two at Mioglia, one at Dego, one at Cairo Montenotte, and two others nearby.〔Boycott-Brown, 194-195〕 Pittoni was ordered to move through the Bocchetta Pass north of Genoa while Beaulieu accompanied Sebottendorf's column through the Turchino Pass, northwest of Genoa.〔Boycott-Brown, 196-197〕 On 10 April, the left wing of the Austrian army under Beaulieu, Sebottendorf, and Pittoni attacked Cervoni's French brigade in the Battle of Voltri. Cervoni made a fighting retreat and escaped intact to Savona down the coast.〔Chandler ''Campaigns'', 64〕 Beaulieu belatedly realized that he was now dangerously separated from his right wing under Feldmarschall-Leutnant Argenteau. He made arrangements to shift his left wing west to support his colleague and directed reinforcements from Lombardy to concentrate at Acqui.〔Boycott-Brown, 212〕 The road net in the vicinity of the Montenotte battlefield resembled a triangle (Δ). The village of Altare, which was on the main east-west road from Savona to Ceva, lay at the bottom of the left leg, to the west. Altare was on the important Cadibona Pass road. The village of Madonna di Savona was located at the bottom of the right leg, to the east. Montenotte Superiore could be found at the top of the triangle. From Montenotte Superiore, the road continued north from the top of the Δ to Montenotte Inferiore. Three peaks were spaced at intervals along the right leg on the triangle. Starting from the top of the Δ, they were Monte San Giorgio, Monte Pra, and Monte Negino (or Monte Legino).〔Boycott-Brown, 203-204 and map after 256〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Montenotte」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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