Tuesday, June 02, 2020

Marengo Campaign: Battle of Alessandria part 2

Tonight we picked up where we left off last Tuesday.
On the northern front Suchet & Moncey are advancing on the Austrian position on & around Castello Montferrato.  
In the south much of the Austrian army has marched from their starting point behind the Castello Montferrato line into a position where they could deploy to cover their line of communication & supply to Alessandria (which goes to the left of pic).
While both ends of the battle line settle into long range skirmishing & bombardments, Victor's & Bessieres' Corps have advanced out of the wooded hills to advance on the weakly held Austrian centre.
On the southern flank a French grand battery is dominating the ground, discouraging the superior Austrian cavalry from attacking.  Further along Austrian lines face French columns separated by a screens of Grenz & Legere.
On the far right Suchet's cavalry made a bit of a foray forward but was beaten off.  Suchet & Moncey's infantry is slowly whittling away the Austrians in the village.  But the decisive action is to the left of the village where Bessiers & Victor are attacking in massed columns.  Bessieres has taken the orchard but the line to the left of it still holds.  
On the southern front, after the Austrian Grenz had been driven off by the French skirmishers the Austrians made a move forward.  Duhesme immediately counterattacked a weak spot in the Austrian line of battle & made a local breakthrough disrupting the attack.   
In the centre the French have punched a hole in the Austrian line & are wrapping around the village as Moncey & Suchet close in from the north.   A counterattack by Austrian Grenadiers from left of pic has been stopped by a counterattack in column.
We had to leave it there until next week, but it it is not looking good for the Austrians.

3 comments:

Gonsalvo said...

Looks super! How big is the table?

Jim Gandy said...

16' long, 8' wide at the ends & 6' wide in the middle.

Marche Creationville Franche said...

This is a great post thanks for writing it.