Napoleon's Italian Campaign of 1796

Background. The Army of Italy had been at war with the Kingdom of Sardinia of Victor Amadeus III since 1794, its troops blocked between the Piedmontese army to the north and the Royal Navy to the south. In 1796 the army numbered roughly 63,000 personnel, though only about 37,600 were ready for immediate use. On 2 March 1796 Napoleon was entrusted with command of the Army of Italy.

Taking Command and Opening Moves. On 27 March 1796 the young General Bonaparte arrived in Nice to take over the Army of Italy, his first army command. Two battalions had mutinied in Nice on 25 March, and Bonaparte immediately summoned his senior divisional generals through his chief of staff Louis Alexandre Berthier to give orders for the upcoming campaign. The Directory, on 6 March 1796, had corrected its orders at his insistence that the conquest of Piedmont was indispensable.

Montenotte and the Defeat of Piedmont-Sardinia. The campaign opened with the Montenotte campaign on 10 April 1796. Despite the limitations of his means, Bonaparte descended from the Alps into Italy and achieved a rapid series of victories that decisively knocked Piedmont-Sardinia out of the First Coalition. The fighting from 11 to 21 April marked a decisive turning point in the war and in the career of the young general, whose propaganda boasted of 'immortal victories'.

Lodi, Milan, and the Shift to Mantua. After Montenotte, Napoleon chased the Austrian army across Lombardy, culminating in the French victory at Lodi on 10 May 1796, where French forces under Bonaparte defeated an Austrian rear guard commanded by Karl Philipp Sebottendorf. After putting down revolts in Pavia and Milan, the focus of the war in Italy shifted in June 1796 to the long and difficult siege of Mantua, where the French would blockade the city and defeat successive Austrian relief efforts.