The Battle of Rivoli 14 January 1797

At war with most of its neighbours, revolutionary France gave command of the Italian front to a 26-year-old inexperienced commander: Napoleon Bonaparte. In what turned out to be an unprecedented display of brute force, the Italian Campaign of 1796 – 1797 catapulted the hitherto unknown Napoleon onto Europe’s centre stage, showing him to be a military genius and political force to be reckoned with.

Two weeks at the front and Napoleon had defeated Piedmont. Another month and he had defeated the Austrian forces. Austria, however, was not out of the game and she was to launch another three offensives in Italy - all of which Napoleon crushed - before she was forced to enter peace negotiations. The Battle of Rivoli exhausted the Austrian war effort in northern Italy. The huge fortress of Mantua capitulated two weeks later on 2 February and on 18 April 1797 the peace preliminaries were concluded at Leoben.

Austrian troops at Rivoli: 28,000

French troops at Rivoli: 20,000

Located in the rugged border district between the mountains and the plain, the small town of Rivoli, highly raised above the Adige, fronts onto a sudden drop in the otherwise steep valley slope, a drop so dramatic that it has furnished the valley with an exit route, the old highway the Pontare. Coming from Trent this was the most important point allowing for access to the open plain of the Po. Hence its strategic importance.

In Napoleonic literature the Pontare is often referred to as the Osteria gorge. In reality the road is less dramatic and to describe it as a steep sunken road would be somewhat closer to the topographical truth.

On the northern rim of the valley outlet, the Pontare swirls around the foot of Mt. Magnone, a mountain that commands the road’s ascent to the plateau of Rivoli – obviously a key military point even to the untrained eye.

While the Pontare did indeed provide a perfect way out of the Adige valley it was too much of a bottleneck to allow an entire army to pass through and any attack on Rivoli would have to include advances in the mountains bringing into play the military importance of the heights forming a semi-circle around Rivoli. Known collectively as the Trombasore heights, these hills merged with Mt. Magnone protecting the inner, lower but far from flat plateau of Rivoli. Since the mountain tracks converged on the upper half of the Trombasore heights (some 2 km in length) the best way for the defence to use the terrain to its advantage would be to occupy these heights, the key to the defences.

The road in the Adige valley also continued down the left bank but as the fort of La Chiusa a bit further down presented too big an obstacle for any attacker this route had never been part of the Austrian plan.

Weighing the pros and cons of the different approach routes, the Austrian commander in chief, Alvinczy, eventually decided to launch his main thrust from the Tyrol down through the mountainous terrain of Monte Baldo and the Adige valley while a diversionary force swept across the plain.