Battle of Marengo - Forces

Forces

The 30,000 Austrians and their 100 guns were opposed by 22,000 French and their 15 guns. Meanwhile, after the arrival of Desaix, 6,000 men would reinforce Bonaparte's army.

The 1799 campaign had exhausted the Austrian army in Italy, casualties and disease reducing some regiments to 300 men. The largest component of the army was in Piedmont and the neighbouring Po valley; only a few units were moved to winter quarters in better-supplied areas. Long distances from the home bases, from which the regiments drew reinforcements, meant that troop transports had to endure miserable conditions, so only about 15 per cent reached the field army. The army of March 1800 was scarcely larger than at the conclusion of the 1799 campaign. Equipment and uniforms were improved and updated. Although a simpler uniform, with a leather helmet and smaller calibre muskets, was introduced, little had reached the field armies by 1800. Efforts were made to standardise equipment, but many units used a variety of musket and sabre patterns. Melas split his army into three corps facing the Bormida, in front of Alessandria. In the north FML Ott (Friedrich Heinrich von Gottesheim's advance guard plus Joseph von Schellenberg and Ludwig von Vogelsang's divisions), in the south FML O'Reilly's division, while himself commanded in the centre the most important formation (the divisions of Karl Joseph Hadik von Futak, Konrad Valentin von Kaim, Ferdinand Johann von Morzin and Anton von Elsnitz).

In 1799 the 36,000 French troops in Italy were in a desperate state similar to that at the end of 1795. Supplies of all sorts were inadequate, discipline was breaking down, desertion was increasing, and on a few occasions, whole formations marched to the rear in search of food. The survivors would be of limited combat value. In establishing the Army of the Reserve in France, Bonaparte's first move was to overhaul the supply system to provide the troops with regular food and decent uniforms. Lacking the large superiority in infantry and artillery enjoyed in many Republican campaigns, the core of Bonaparte's reserve was 30,000 men, mostly from the Batavian Republic, who had been used under Guillaume Marie Anne Brune to crush the rebellion in the Vendée. Additional veteran troops came from the remains of the former Army of England. The new mililary doctrine emphasised the offensive, mobility and the bayonet, over linear firepower. In front of the Austrian army were stationed, in and to the south of Marengo, the corps of Victor (Jacques-Antoine de Chambarlhac de Laubespin and Gaspard Amédée Gardanne's divisions), supported on the left by François Étienne de Kellermann's cavalry and, further to the northeast, by the corps of Lannes (François Watrin's division, Mainoni's brigade) together with two cavalry brigades. To the east of Castel Ceriolo took position Jean-Charles Monnier's division, supported by the Guard, which formed the reserve. Victor was the one who would bear the brunt of the Austrian attack.