The Battle of Novi (15 August 1799) saw a combined army of the Habsburg monarchy and Imperial Russians under Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov attack a Republican French army under General Barthélemy Catherine Joubert. As soon as Joubert fell during the battle, Jean Victor Marie Moreau immediately took overall command of the French forces. After a prolonged and bloody struggle, the Austro-Russians broke through the French defenses and drove their enemies into a disorderly retreat, while French division commanders Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon and Emmanuel Grouchy were captured. Novi Ligure is in the province of Piedmont in Northern Italy a distance of north of Genoa. The battle occurred during the War of the Second Coalition which was part of the French Revolutionary Wars.
Novi was a strong defensive position situated on steep heights. An old fortress wall from the 15th century surrounded the city. This medieval wall served as a good defense for the French chasseurs. It was damaged in many places, there were breaks, but the French had barricaded all these breaches.
In 1799, Russian and Austrian forces swept across the Po River valley, recapturing lands taken by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1796. The French troops in Italy were badly defeated at the major battles of Magnano, Cassano and the Trebbia. Subsequently, French and Cisalpine Italian troops retreated into Genoa and the Ligurian Republic. A new French government placed Joubert in command of the reformed Army of Italy and ordered him to take the offensive. Accordingly, the French army moved north across the mountain crests and assembled on high ground at Novi Ligure on 14 August. To Joubert's dismay, it was clear that large Coalition forces were nearby. The next morning Paul Kray's Austrian corps assaulted the French left flank and the battle was on. After a delay, Suvorov committed a Russian corps to attack the center and Michael von Melas' Austrian corps to attack the French right flank. Kray's troops suffered heavy losses but by evening the French army was badly beaten and the French hold on the Italian Riviera was gravely weakened. Cavalry proved ineffective in such terrain and was hardly used by either the Allied or French sides. The Russo-Austrians deployed it en masse only to pursue. However, the Coalition planners proceeded to throw away their advantage by sending Suvorov's Russians to Switzerland, a change of strategy that ended badly.
Background
The 1799 campaign in Italy began with the Battle of Verona, a series of costly but indecisive clashes around Verona on 26 March. At the Battle of Magnano on 5 April, the Habsburg Austrian army of Paul Kray triumphed over the Republican French army of Barthélemy Louis Joseph Schérer. While suffering losses of 4,000 killed and wounded and 2,000 captured, Kray's Austrians inflicted casualties of 3,500 killed and wounded and captured 4,500 men, 18 artillery pieces and seven colors from the French. Two days later, a distraught Schérer begged to be relieved of command, but before that happens, he would be defeated again in the small battle with Alexander Suvorov at Lecco on 26 April. Michael von Melas arrived to take command of the Austrian army from Kray on 9 April. Hearing that 12,000 Austrians were approaching from the Tyrol to the north, Schérer abandoned the line of the Mincio River on 12 April. Leaving 12,000 troops in the fortress of Mantua and 1,600 more in Peschiera del Garda, the demoralized French commander ordered his crippled army to withdraw. As the soldiers fell back, the skies opened up and turned the retreat into a sodden nightmare.