Battle of Voltri

Overview

The Battle of Voltri was fought on 10 April 1796 in Voltri, Italy, during the War of the First Coalition. The battle saw two Habsburg Austrian columns under the overall direction of Johann Peter Beaulieu attack a reinforced French brigade under Jean-Baptiste Cervoni. After a skirmish lasting several hours, the Austrians forced Cervoni to withdraw west along the coast to Savona. Voltri is now part of the western suburbs of the major Italian port of Genoa. The battle was the opening engagement of the Montenotte campaign and the broader Italian campaign of 1796-1797, which would ultimately end the war a year later.

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

Significance

The Battle of Voltri on 10 April 1796 opened the Montenotte campaign and the broader Italian campaign of 1796–1797, making it the first engagement of a sequence that would ultimately end the War of the First Coalition a year later. Two Habsburg Austrian columns under Johann Beaulieu attacked a reinforced French brigade under Jean-Baptiste Cervoni near the port approaches of Genoa. After a skirmish lasting several hours, Cervoni's force was compelled to withdraw westward along the coast to Savona. Though the Austrians held numerical superiority of roughly 7,200 to 5,200 and succeeded in pushing the French back, the engagement set in motion a campaign whose eventual outcome would decisively shift the balance of the wider Revolutionary Wars in France's favor.

Tactics

Forces & casualties

Commanders (4)