When was the Battle of Cassano?

The fighting on the Adda lasted from 26 to 28 April 1799, with the main crossing on 27 April. In the Julian calendar then used in Russia these were 15 to 17 April.

Who won the Battle of Cassano in 1799?

The Russian and Austrian army of Alexander Suvorov. It crossed the Adda, forced the French back and took Milan on 29 April.

Who commanded the French at Cassano?

Jean Victor Moreau, who had just replaced Barthélemy Schérer at the head of the Army of Italy. Jean Sérurier's division was cut off and surrendered on 28 April.

How many men were lost at Cassano?

John Rickard gives 4,886 allied casualties and at least 5,000 French. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia gives about 2,500 allied and 7,500 French, 5,000 of them prisoners.

Why did Suvorov command in Italy?

The Austrian government asked for him. He was appointed commander of the allied Russian and Austrian armies in northern Italy and took command at Valeggio on 15 April 1799.

Battle of Cassano, 1799: Suvorov forces the Adda and opens the road to Milan

Quick answer

What happened at the Battle of Cassano in 1799?

At Cassano, on 26 to 28 April 1799, a Russian and Austrian army under Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov forced its way across the Adda river east of Milan against the French Army of Italy, whose command had just passed to Jean Victor Moreau. The allies crossed at several points on a front of about fifteen miles, drove the French back toward Milan and trapped Sérurier's division, and on 29 April they entered Milan.¹

In the spring of 1799 the War of the Second Coalition brought a Russian army to northern Italy for the first time. According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Russia sent two corps, about 33,000 men, to fight alongside the Austrians there, and at the Austrian government's request Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov, the victor of Rymnik, was made commander of the allied armies. He took command at Valeggio on 15 April (4 April in the Julian calendar then used in Russia).²

On paper the allies were much the stronger. The same encyclopedia counts 86,000 Austrians under Michael von Melas and a Russian corps of 22,000 under Alexander Rosenberg in northern Italy, against Barthélemy Schérer's French Army of Italy of 58,000, with a second French army of 34,000 under Jacques Macdonald in central and southern Italy. The Russian squadron of Admiral Fyodor Ushakov, meanwhile, was in the Mediterranean.³

The French were already in trouble. John Rickard of HistoryOfWar.org recounts that they had lost two battles while trying to take Verona, on 26 March and at Magnano on 5 April, and had fallen back toward Milan. Their commander, Barthélemy Schérer, was replaced by Jean Victor Moreau, whose first task was to hold the line of the Adda.⁴

A river too long to hold

The Adda runs south from Lake Como to the Po, a natural moat in front of Milan. Moreau's problem was its length. Rickard writes that the French were spread along a very long front, from Lecco at the foot of the lake to Pizzighettone near the Po, and that Moreau had only about 27,000 men against some 50,000 allies free to move west. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia gives about 43,000 allies and 28,000 French.⁵

Suvorov left part of his army to blockade the fortresses of Peschiera and Mantua and set out from Valeggio with about 48,500 men on 19 April. The Soviet account stresses that he used the very stretch of the French front to his advantage: a feint on the right would draw their eyes while the main blow fell in the center.⁶

Lecco, Trezzo and Cassano

The fighting began on 26 April at Lecco, between Lake Como and Lake Garlate. A Russian force under Pyotr Bagration got across the river but was held for hours by the French garrison under General Soyez, Rickard writes, and was then sent south to Brivio, where the Austrian general Vukassovich had already crossed.⁷

The main attack came on 27 April. Three allied divisions, one Russian and two Austrian under Generals Zopf and Ott, gathered at San Gervasio opposite Trezzo. In the night allied engineers threw a pontoon bridge over the river, and in the morning the divisions crossed and began to push back Grenier's French division. General Victor came up with reinforcements in the afternoon but could not stop them, and by the end of the day the French were falling back toward Milan.⁸

Further south, at Cassano d'Adda itself, the Austrians of Michael von Melas were held up by the French 106th Demi-brigade, entrenched on the west bank. Rickard notes that only when Suvorov came in person to watch the fight did the Austrians drive the French out of their positions there.⁹

A division left behind

By evening the allies were over the river on a front of about fifteen miles, from Brivio in the north to Cassano in the south. Most of Moreau's army got away toward Milan, but Jean Sérurier's division had been left behind at Paderno, between Brivio and Trezzo. On 28 April it was surrounded and surrendered to Vukassovich.¹⁰

The figures for the cost differ widely. Rickard gives the Austrians and Russians 4,886 casualties, 761 dead, 2,913 wounded and 1,212 taken prisoner, and the French at least 5,000, with some estimates as high as 6,900. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia puts French losses at 2,500 killed and wounded and 5,000 prisoners, and allied losses at about 2,500.¹¹

Milan and after

The French army had escaped, but Moreau could not hold Milan. The allies entered the city on 28 and 29 April, and Moreau's remnants fell back toward Genoa. Turin followed on 26 May. In the Soviet view, the victory on the Adda made possible the allies' later successes in Italy.¹²

Those successes came quickly. When a second French army under Jacques Macdonald marched north in June to join Moreau, Suvorov turned on it, and the two met on the Trebbia.¹³