| Second Battle of Dego | |||||||
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| Part of theMontenotte campaign in theItalian campaign of 1796–1797 | |||||||
 The Second Battle of Dego | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 French Republic |  Habsburg monarchy Kingdom of Sardinia | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 14 April: 12,000[1] 15 April: 15,000 | 14 April: 5,700 15 April: 3,500 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 14 April: 1,500 casualties[2] 15 April: 938 casualties | 14 April: 3,000 casualties 15 April: 1,757 casualties | ||||||
  Second Battle of Dego (Europe) Show map of Europe | |||||||
TheSecond Battle of Dego was fought on 14 and 15 April 1796 during theFrench Revolutionary Wars between French forces and Austro-Sardinian forces. The battle was fought nearDego, a hamlet in northwesternItaly, and ended in a French victory.
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After successfully defeating the Austrian right wing at theBattle of Montenotte,Napoleon Bonaparte continued with his plan to separate the Austrian army of GeneralJohann Beaulieu from the army of theKingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia led by GeneralMichelangelo Colli. By taking the defences at Dego, the French would control the only road by which the two armies could link with each other. The town's defences comprised both a castle on a bluff and earthworks on rising ground, and were held by a small mixed force, consisting of units of both the Austrian and Piedmont-Sardinian armies.
Army of Italy:Napoleon Bonaparte (15,000)[3]
Austrian Forces
On 14 April,André Masséna, leadingAmédée Laharpe'sdivision and one brigade ofJean-Baptiste Meynier's division attacked the town. The French overran the defences, losing about 1,500 killed and wounded. The Austrians suffered 3,000 casualties, including a large number of prisoners.[4] Argenteau's survivors fled northeast to the town ofAcqui Terme. Bonaparte ordered Meynier to hold Dego, while he took Laharpe's division west to fight Colli's Sardinians.[5]
However, the French troops in Dego then gave themselves over to looting, and during the night they were mostly scattered in the nearby houses. At dawn on 15 April, under cover of fog, the defences were counter-attacked by an Austrian force under ColonelJosef Vukassovich. Beaulieu planned for Vukassovich to reinforce Argenteau the day before, but his orders were poorly written and his subordinate showed up at Dego a day too late. Nevertheless, taken by surprise, the French were rapidly driven out of Dego and back to their starting point of the day before. Allegedly, the surprise attack caught Masséna in bed with a woman and he escaped in his nightshirt.[6]
Historians note that the counter-attack at Dego highlighted the weaknesses of Bonaparte’s still-inexperienced command structure, as poor discipline and scattered deployments left French units vulnerable to sudden Austrian manoeuvres. Chandler points out that this episode was one of the first occasions where Bonaparte realised the strategic importance of maintaining concentrated reserves, a lesson he applied in later Italian battles.
Masséna took some time to take control of the situation again. He recalled Laharpe and organised a counter-attack, which was supported by other reinforcements brought up by Bonaparte. Vukassovich's force was heavily outnumbered, and was unable to defend for long before it was driven out, leaving Dego definitively in French hands.
The second day's action cost the Austrians a further 670 killed and wounded, plus 1,087 captured. The Preiss Infantry Regiment # 24 took particularly heavy losses. The French lost 621 killed and wounded, and 317 captured.[4] The second day surprise made Bonaparte anxious that Beaulieu might intervene from the east, so the French general reorganized his forces and sent out strong patrols on 16 April. But Argenteau's mauling at Montenotte and Dego shook Beaulieu's nerve and he stayed near Acqui. Satisfied that Beaulieu was out of the picture, Bonaparte turned on Colli with his main strength on 17 April.[6] On 21 April, The French beat Colli at theBattle of Mondovì and soon afterward the Sardinian government sued for peace.
