Battle
Moreau deployed the divisions of MGs Paul Grenier, Claude Victor, Jean Sérurier, and Pierre de Laboissière to defend the line of the Adda River. The Austrians still made up the bulk of the allied army, since only three formations of Cossacks were present. The Austrian division commanders were FML Peter Ott, FML Johann Zoph, General-Major Franz de Lusignan (acting commander for FML Michael Fröhlich), and FML Konrad Valentin von Kaim. Even before the battle, a Russian force under Petr Bagration outflanked the French position by seizing a bridge over the Adda at Lecco on 26 April. This put Sérurier's division in an awkward position. On 27 April, General of Cavalry Michael von Melas with the divisions of Fröhlich and Kaim stormed the French positions at Cassano, while Ott and Zoph attacked 6 km farther north at Vaprio d'Adda. Suvarov's assault forced Moreau to retreat.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Cassano (1799)
Famous quotes containing the word battle:
“In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it’s more dangerous to lose than to win.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Each reaching and aspiration is an instinct with which all nature consists and cöoperates, and therefore it is not in vain. But alas! each relaxing and desperation is an instinct too. To be active, well, happy, implies courage. To be ready to fight in a duel or a battle implies desperation, or that you hold your life cheap.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth ... and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)