005. Montenotte: Napoleon's First Victory in Italy - WDS Campaign Marengo

12 April 1796 - Historical - Intended to be played Head to Head - Bonaparte began his victorious Northern Italian campaign by driving down the coast and then marching north to divide the two Allied armies (Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrians). He had studied the terrain in this region of Italy and was familiar with the ground. Rampon's brigade moved north on Montenotte and collided with the Austrians under Argentau, who was following the Allied plan of sending several columns down on the French flank as the army marched along the coast. A strong redoubt had been built by the Austrians at the hill known as Monte Negino and Rampon put it to good use. The Austrian's attack was blunted at this location. Once Bonaparte knew that the Austrians were in the region he chose to send a flanking column under Massena to strike at their rear while La Harpe and more troops went to reinforce Rampon for an assault on the 12th. Initially, La Harpe's attack was slow due to the numbers of Austrians but Massena's flank attack caused the Allied line to give way and after only two hours of combat the Austrians were put to flight. The French were in Montenotte Inferiore by 9am. Bonaparte had won his first victory of the campaign. Note: the trees had no foliage and both sides could see further through the woods and orchards as a result. As a result the PDT file for this scenario uses different height values than in the rest of the game.