The Battle of Cassano (French: Bataille de Cassano, German: Schlacht bei Cassano) was fought in 1799 from 27 to 28 April (O.S.: 16 to 17 April) near Cassano d'Adda, which about 28 km (17 mi) ENE of Milan. The clash is part of the battle of the Adda River (Russian: Сражение на реке Адда, German: Schlacht an der Adda) or the so-called forcing of the Adda, which on the first day of 26 April (O.S.: 15 April) resulted in a minor victory for the Russians under the Count Suvorov over Barthélemy Schérer's French forces at Lecco. Then, on the second day, Suvorov's Austrians and Cossacks prevailed over Jean Moreau's army, who replaced Schérer as supreme commander, and trapped his isolated division on the third. The action took place during the War of the Second Coalition, as part of the larger conflict known as the French Revolutionary Wars. Moreau was not entirely responsible for his defeat, much of the responsibility for which lies with Schérer, who overextended his troops and failed to exploit the advantages of his position.
The battle of the Adda River was four separate combats. Lecco was a victorious combat for Suvorov's Russians, but it was only a diversionary attack. Tactically, the Russian victory at Lecco is attributable to generals Bagration and Rosenberg. They fought against General Soyez. The key engagement on 27 April was the combat at Vaprio d'Adda (at the end there were about 11,000 Austrians and Cossacks and 7,000 French), which is north of Cassano; and on the same day, at Cassano itself, the Austrian Reisky regiment (1,911 men) successfully stormed the bridge-head fortifications—Moreau was thrown back everywhere. Suvorov himself directed the battle at Vaprio. At Cassano, it was Michael von Melas who was in command, though he acted indecisively until he received instructions from Suvorov. The French detachment under Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier cut off by the combat of Vaprio was afterwards surrounded at Verderio by Josef Philipp Vukassovich, who overcame the weakest French defenses in Brivio. Thus, the Allied army was able to overcome the river and the enemy obstacle simultaneously.
Background
While General Napoleon Bonaparte campaigned in Egypt (see French campaign in Egypt and Syria), the Second Coalition launched an invasion of French-occupied Italy. General of Division (MG) Barthélemy Schérer fought inconclusive actions the Austrians at Pastrengo, Verona, and Legnago on 26 March 1799. Feldmarschal-Leutnant (FML) Pál Kray and his Austrians then defeated Schérer at the Battle of Magnano on April 4. This defeat forced the French army into a long retreat. Attempts by Schérer to hold the lines of the Mincio and Oglio rivers failed when an Austrian force led by FML Josef Vukassovich turned his northern flank. Austria's Russian allies, led by Field Marshal (FM) Suvorov, soon began appearing at the front. Back in Vicenza, when reporting on the state of affairs, the Austrians tried to find out the new commander-in-chief's plan, but the commander absentmindedly repeated: 'bayonets, bayonets,' pointing out his main method of action.
Suvorov took the fortress of Brescia without a fight. The Cossacks seized Bergamo and Prince Bagration's vanguard pushed back the French outposts in Caprino Bergamasco.
When FM Suvorov joined the allied army, he took over the top command from Kray, though the latter had just been promoted to Feldzeugmeister. The arrival of General of the Cavalry Michael von Melas displaced Kray the top Austrian field command. Therefore, Kray was assigned to capture the fortress of Mantua, while Melas and Suvorov pursued the French. The siege of Mantua lasted from April until the garrison surrendered on 28 July.
Forces
French Army
Schérer deployed the divisions of MGs Paul Grenier, Claude Victor, Jean Sérurier (each of the three divisions had around 8,000 men), and Pierre de Laboissière (4,000 men; from Villa Pompeiana to the Po River) to defend the line of the Adda River. Victor's and Grenier's divisions included the Polish and Helvetic legions.
Coalition Army
The Russian advance guard was led by Pyotr Bagration (~3,000 men), and the corps by General of the Infantry Andrei Rosenberg (9,000 men of General of the Infantry Povalo-Shveikovsky's division on its way from Caprino to Lecco). The Austrians still made up the bulk of the allied army: 20,000 Russians and 30,000 Austrians at Suvorov's disposal, according to Christopher Duffy. There were the following formations of irregular Cossack cavalry: the regiments of Adrian Denisov (ataman), Pyotr Matveyevich Grekov, and Molchanov: a total of 1,500 men. The Austrian division commanders were FML Peter Ott, FML Johann Zopf (each of the two divisions had around 5,000 men), General-Major Franz de Lusignan (acting commander for FML Michael von Fröhlich), FML Konrad Valentin von Kaim (Kaim and Fröhlich's joint force was 13,000 men), and Josef Philipp Vukassovich (7,000 men). Michael von Melas was sent to Cassano and was nominally commander of all Suvorov's Austrian forces.
Battle of the Adda River
Schérer relied on the advantages of his defensive position, as the river is wide and deep, has very few fords and in its upper part, as far as Cassano, flows in elevated steep banks, of which the right, occupied by the French, prevails over the left. But Schérer failed to take all the advantages of this natural defensive line. He scattered 28,000 men over 100 kilometres (62 mi) along the river, nowhere having sufficient forces for defense. Suvorov separated Hohenzollern with 6,000 men to Pizzighettone and Seckendorff to Lodi to conduct diversionary operations, and with a main body of 35,000 to 36,000 men concentrated offensive on the bulk of the French line. The disposition for April 26 instructed Ott's division to organize the crossing at Capriate San Gervasio.
The Adda battle on 26 and 27 April was divided into three different clashes: the combat of Lecco, where Suvorov sent Bagration's Russians, most likely as a distraction, and Rosenberg's corps was also on its way there; the combats near Trezzo sull'Adda and Vaprio d'Adda, where mostly Austrians were concentrated,—these fights proved decisive for the allied victory; and the combat around the fortified position of Cassano, where Melas' Austrians had been sent, they would go to the rear of the French at an end of battle with their flanking maneuver; it would be by the time the fight at Vaprio is won by the Allies, however, this manoeuvre will force Moreau to retreat in a different direction. On 28 April, at Verderio, a French detachment cut off from the main army would lay down its arms after a brief battle.
Lecco
On the night of April 26, Prince Bagration reported that Lecco was heavily occupied by the French. Assuming the entire division of Sérurier there, Suvorov stopped Vukassovich at Caprino and the entire Russian division in order, if necessary, to support Bagration, who moved to Lecco with his regiment of jaegers, Lomonosov combined battalion and all Cossack regiments.
On the same date, Bagration, following a mountain gorge, at 8 o'clock in the morning met a small advanced French unit 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from Lecco, overturned it and approached the city, occupied by 4 battalions, 1 squadron (108th demi-brigade) under the command of Brigadier General Soyez; on the right bank of the Adda, opposite the bridge dismantled by the French, there were 6 guns on the heights. In all, the French had 12 guns under Soyez. The Cossacks surrounded the stone-fortified city; a company with 2 licornes was placed against the bridge. Bagration divided the rest of the forces into 3 columns; one went straight to the city, the other bypassed, and the 3rd remained in reserve. The first two columns broke into the city, reached the square, but here they met stubborn resistance; Bagration brought a reserve into action and drove out the French, who, having left the city, scattered thick chains of chasseurs over the surrounding mountains and vineyards. From the heights, they noticed the numerical insignificance of the Russian detachment, went on the offensive, drove the Russians out of the city and began to bypass them with mountains on the right in order to cut off the retreat along the gorge. Bagration also covered himself with a dense chain of jaegers and dismounted Cossacks, sending to Rosenberg to ask for help.
Mikhail Miloradovich took out carts and rushed with Dendrygin grenadier battalion at a time when the French were flanking Bagration from the village of Germanedo. Being higher in rank than Bagration, he refused to accept command over the detachment, saying:
"There is no place to be considered ranks here."
and left Bagration to finish the job, which he had begun so successfully. The arriving battalion stopped the detour movement of the French; soon 2 battalions approached with the head of the division, Povalo-Shveikovsky, and the city was again occupied by the Russians; the French cavalry, crashing into the Russian column, was slaughtered. Meanwhile, the French, standing on the right bank of the Adda, began to cross in boats between Olginate and Brivio, to the rear of the Russian troops. Due to the difficulty of moving along the gorge road, the Russian artillery was left under the cover of a battalion (Baranovsky); the artillery met the French troops, and General Shveikovsky himself rushed there; the French were overwhelmed. The battle lasted 12 hours, from 8 am to 8 pm. The French fought hard, but left 100 prisoners behind, the number of killed and wounded is unknown; the Russians lost 385 men KIA or WIA; Bagration was among the wounded. It was impossible to start the crossing on the same day. However, the Russians managed to seize the bridgehead, as well as the town of Lecco; although Alexander Mikaberidze notes that Bagration took the city, but did not "secure the crossing". If counting Lecco and Olginate–Brivio, then a total of 6 battalions and 4 squadrons (which belonged to Sérurier's division) were involved on the French side.
Meantime, Vukassovich approached Brivio, which was very weakly occupied, beginning to arrange a crossing, and therefore the Russians moved away from Lecco, settling down for the night between Lecco and Brivio. Waiting for a report on the outcome of the battle on the right flank, Suvorov postponed the crossing at San Gervasio until the night of April 27. In all, 4,993 Russians including approached reinforcements, and 5,000 French participated in this clash.
Eventually the French withdrew on rafts northwards from Lecco territory (night of 27–28 April), knowing that Adda had already been forced by the Allies elsewhere and that the road behind them would soon be cut off.
Vaprio & Cassano
On April 27, on orders from Paris, Schérer, completely out of his depth, handed over army command to the more capable MG Moreau. When news of the change in command reached Suvorov he remarked:
Here too I can see the hand of Providence. There would have been no great glory in fighting it out with a charlatan. But to beat Moreau — that would be something worth doing.
At midnight on 27 April, Ott began building a pontoon bridge at Trezzo. The point for crossing was very inconvenient from the theoretical point of view: the steepness of the bank made it difficult to launch the pontoons on the water; the winding, fast flow of the river and the rocky bottom prevented the convenience of the bridge; but the French did not pay attention to this inconvenient place (the 2nd Battalion of the 33rd Line Demi-Brigade, left by Sérurier at Trezzo, occupied the castle but had no posts on the bank itself), the night darkness covered the work, the river was not wide, so that only 7 pontoons were needed. The pontooner officer reported the impossibility of making a bridge at this place. Then Marquess Johann Gabriel Chasteler, chief of staff, who had already learnt Suvorov's notions of intransigence in overcoming obstacles, arrived at the crossing point and took decisive measures.
It was already tough for the French to rectify the situation: the Russians and Austrians surreptitiously pass through Adda in the centre of the French position near San Gervasio, in a places considered unsuitable for crossing. A number of jaegers and volunteers from Nádasdy battalion crossed by boat and occupied the right bank to secure the bridge. They started putting in pontoons; the work was done in perfect silence, and by daybreak the bridge was ready. Only in the morning did the French battalion notice its blunder, but it was too late: 6 companies of d'Aspré's jaegers and several Cossack sotnias crossed the bridge, followed by Ott's division, then Denisov, Molchanov, and Grekov Cossack regiments that arrived very quickly from Lecco; at last Zopf's division also moved. The Cossack regiment of Denisov overtook the French battalion from the rear; pursued by Ott's head battalions, it had barely time to retreat. Suvorov was at this point crossing the river with might and main across the Trezzo sull'Adda Bridge and its vicinity. At the same time Allied forces crossed at Brivio; but, nevertheless, Moreau gave orders for the immediate concentration of forces. Grenier and Victor were bringing troops from the south. General of the Cavalry Melas having the divisions of Fröhlich and Kaim would storm the French positions at Cassano in the afternoon: the eastern bank of the river was held by the French demi-brigade, to the aid of which Victor already rushed.