Battle of Novi

Overview

The Battle of Novi, which took place on 15 August 1799, was a battle between a combined army of the Habsburg monarchy and the Imperial Russians under Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov and a Republican French army under General Barthélemy Catherine Joubert. As soon as Joubert fell during the battle, Jean Victor Marie Moreau immediately took overall command of the French forces. After a prolonged and bloody struggle, the Austro-Russians broke through the French defenses and drove their enemies into a disorderly retreat, while French division commanders Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon and Emmanuel Grouchy were captured. Novi Ligure is in the province of Piedmont in Northern Italy a distance of 58 kilometres (36 mi) north of Genoa. The battle occurred during the War of the Second Coalition which was part of the French Revolutionary Wars.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

The Battle of Novi on 15 August 1799 was a significant engagement in the Italian theater of the War of the Second Coalition. A combined Austro-Russian force under Field Marshal Suvorov, numbering around 50,000, confronted a French Republican army of roughly 35,000 near Novi Ligure in Piedmont, northern Italy. The French suffered a decisive defeat: their commander Joubert was killed early in the fighting, forcing Moreau to assume overall command, and the Austro-Russians ultimately broke through French defensive positions and drove their opponents into a disorderly retreat. The capture of French division commanders Pérignon and Grouchy compounded the collapse of French leadership. With casualties on the French side reaching between roughly 9,600 and 12,000, the battle further eroded French control of northern Italy at a critical juncture in the coalition's campaign to reverse French gains on the peninsula.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (21)