Battle of the Mincio River ( 1814 ) In the War of the Sixth Coalition , the Battle of the Mincio River was fought on 8 February 1814 and resulted in an inconclusive engagement between the French under Eugène de Beauharnais and the Austrians under Field Marshal Heinrich von Bellegarde . The battle was not as decisive as Eugène hoped , and in the end it had little significant impact upon the major campaign being waged in France . Strategic background . Following Napoleon ' s defeat at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 , French armies retreated westwards in a bid to save the Empire from the main Allied thrust . However , the 1814 campaign involved other theaters besides France , and one of these was Northern Italy , which the Austrians were making another attempt to recover . Murat , the King of Naples , had defected to the Allied side and was threatening the main French army under Napoleon ' s stepson , Eugène . An Austrian army commanded by Bellegarde advanced from the east and convinced Eugène that a battle was needed to eliminate one opponent before he could deal with the other . Since the Austrians were the more immediate threat , Eugène decided to make a stand on the Mincio River . Prelude . The battlefield was highly awkward for the armies involved ; roughly 70 , 000 men would be fighting on a north - south axis of 20 miles that stretched from Lake Garda all the way down to the fortress of Mantua . The low force - to - space ratio meant that it would take time for each commander to understand the developing situation and would hamper effective responses . The Mincio River that interposed itself between Lake Garda and Mantua was dotted with villages and bridges that would become major focus points as the battle progressed . Eugène had an army of 41 , 000 , but detached 7 , 000 troops to guard his southern flank on the Po River , leaving 34 , 000 for the upcoming battle . His army consisted of the Italian Royal Guards , a cavalry division , and two pseudo - corps ( not at full strength ) under generals Paul Grenier and Jean - Antoine Verdier . The former ' s troops were positioned around Mantua while those of the latter defended the fortress of Peschiera at the northern edge of the battlefield . Eugène ' s plan called for a double envelopment that would eventually unite Grenier ' s and Verdier ' s forces and allow them to drive the Austrians from the field . It was a good plan on paper , but double envelopment , especially on this scale , usually works with heavy numerical superiority or tactical mobility , neither of which the French had . Bellegarde ' s force was numerically equivalent to Eugène ' s , meaning rapid manoeuvring would be key if there was to be hope of success . His 35 , 000 soldiers were deployed in a manner that allowed for the observance of the French - controlled Peschiera and Mantua while still having enough troops to conduct an attack through Eugène ' s sadly depleted center around the village of Borghetto ; a brigade under General Franz von Vlasits guarded against Peschiera , a division under General Anton Mayer von Heldenfeld watched Mantua , and three divisions under generals Paul von Radivojevich , Franz von Pflacher , and August von Vecsey were supposed to be the main thrust through Borghetto and Pozzolo . Bellegarde initially assumed the French would be retreating , but when Austrian patrols spotted a strong ' rearguard ' presence across the Mincio , he decided not to commit as many troops as originally planned and ordered the reserve division under General Franz von Merville to remain on the east bank at Pozzolo , a decision which probably saved his army from disaster . Unknown to either side were each other ' s intentions , which would become all too clear once the battle commenced . Bellegarde expected Eugène to retreat while Eugène expected Bellegarde not to attack . So when the battle did start , Bellegarde discovering that his southern flank was collapsing and Eugène noticing his weakened center had disintegrated , both sides were stunned . The battle . Without any conflict , two brigades of Radivojevich ' s division began to arrive at Borghetto at 8 am on 8 February . The French had abandoned their outposts in the center overnight and this further convinced the Austrians that their enemy was in fact retreating . The Austrians pushed northwest and encountered several French detachments at the village of Olfino , about two miles from Borghetto . When General Verdier went to Olfino to personally assess the situation , he realized he ' d been cut off from the main French army in the south and cancelled his offensive . Verdier recalled the Italian division under General Giuseppe Palombini to Peschiera and ordered General Philibert Fressinet ' s division to face south and guard against possible Austrian drives from Borghetto . In the meantime , more and more Austrian troops poured into the west bank of the river . The final brigade of Radivojevich , three squadrons of uhlans , and two brigades of Pflacher ' s division crossed the Mincio between 9 and 10 am . The Austrian reserve division under General Merville arrived at Pozzolo and halted to await further instructions . But while the situation for the French appeared bleak in the center , their southern offensive proved far more successful . There were about 20 , 000 men being used for this double - pronged attack and there would be two main assaulting points : the fortress of Mantua , from which Grenier would begin , and the village of Goito , a bit further upstream from Mantua and where Eugène was commanding . The vanguard of Eugène ' s assault was led by General Bonnemains , who controlled the 31st Chasseurs à Cheval , two light infantry battalions , and four guns . General Mayer ' s outposts were easily overrun , over 500 became prisoners , and Grenier and Eugène finally linked up at the village of Roverbella . In danger of being outflanked , General Mayer retreated three - and - a - half mile north - eastwards to the village of Mozzecane . The French kept pursuing to the north and thought they would meet the main Austrian force around Villafranca , only to be bitterly disappointed . Around 10 am , Eugène heard gunfire on the western bank of the river and was astonished to see much of the Austrian army at a place where he completely did not expect them . At this point in the battle , the position of the two armies looked rather odd , since many of the troops on both sides occupied the riverbanks where their opponent had begun the fight . Eugène now made the critical and correct decision to keep pressing the attack and hope that his onrushing columns would scare the main Austrian army across the Mincio once more . He detached the Italian Royal Guard back to Goito in order to secure the bridge , reinforced his eastern flank against Mayer , and , with 13 , 000 men and 30 guns , advanced north to the village of Valeggio , hoping to cut his enemy ' s line of retreat . Bellegarde ' s earlier decision to leave his reserve now paid dividends ; Merville ' s dragoons routed General Perreymond ' s 1st Hussars and captured the brigade ' s six guns , only to be counter - attacked , driven back , and see the French reclaim five of those guns . Merville had deployed his men into three lines around Pozzolo : the first two were composed of 2 , 000 elite grenadiers under General Josef von Stutterheim and the third by the dragoons brigade . They awaited an attack by Eugène , who recalled the Royal Guard from Goito to bolster the two infantry divisions under generals François Jean Baptiste Quesnel and Marie François Rouyer . Eugène finally began a combined arms attack and only heroic resistance by Stutterheim ' s masses , who lost over 700 men , prevented a breakthrough . Realizing the danger of being outflanked , Merville fell back a mile north of Pozzolo . Eugène ' s men attacked Merville ' s division in its new position , but at this time sufficient reinforcements from Bellegarde permitted Merville to stem the French tide and ground the battle to a virtual halt . Renewed French drives took them to the hamlet of Foroni , but nightfall prevented the capture of the crucial Borghetto bridge . Meanwhile , Verdier ' s men to the north had been barely hanging on , but once the sounds of Eugène ' s guns were manifest , they became emboldened and managed to defeat the Austrian charges . Bellegarde presumed Eugène would continue his attack in the morning , so he ordered a retreat across the river . But , once again , Bellegarde misjudged , since Eugène wanted to establish contact with his northern wing and quickly pulled his forces back to where they ' d come from : Goito and Mantua . Aftermath . Eugène claimed a victory when writing to his wife after the battle , but in reality it had been a sloppy and inconclusive affair . Casualties were not particularly heavy , 3 , 500 for the French and 4 , 000 for the Austrians . Nevertheless , Eugène once again proved that he was a determined and competent commander , and he would do so many more times throughout this campaign ; he kept fighting all the way until Napoleon ' s abdication in April .