The French gunners rose up, still half hidden by the reeds, and two tongues of flame ripped out, disgorging two cones of lead shot into the face of the Austrian column. The guns had been well laid and almost every man on the bridge was cut down to lie in twisted heaps, splattered with blood. The front of the column halted, dumbstruck, and then bulged forward as the men behind pressed into them. The men nearest the hidden guns had nowhere else to go and stumbled over the bodies of their comrades as they pressed on over the bridge.

Cervoni’s guns discharged more grapeshot, adding further carnage to the scene on the bridge. The commander of the Austrian battery was frantically giving orders to his men to redirect their fire on to the French guns but they were obscured by the bridge and the gunners could not see their target. A third blast of grapeshot decided the issue and the Austrian column backed away, leaving at least forty of their comrades littered across the small span of ancient stones.

‘Fine work.’ Napoleon smiled with satisfaction as he turned his horse back towards the ridge and the road that led to his headquarters. Berthier was waiting for him when Napoleon reached Savona shortly before noon.

‘What news?’

‘Augereau’s division are moving towards Montenotte, General. His forces have been sighted by the Austrians and the enemy are already turning to face him.’

‘Excellent!’ Napoleon slapped his hand down on the map. ‘And Masséna?’

‘Cutting round their flank, as ordered. He estimated that he would be ready to strike no later than four o’clock.’

‘Then we should have trapped our Austrian friends very nicely.’ Napoleon smiled excitedly. ‘Our first victory!’

It was not until the following morning that the scale of the Austrian defeat at Montenotte was evident. Over fifteen hundred Austrians had been killed and wounded and another two and a half thousand were taken prisoner.The survivors fled towards the town of Dego, abandoning cannon, muskets and other equipment. The French seized the enemy’s weapons eagerly. Over a thousand men in Augereau’s division had had no muskets and these now shouldered Austrian weapons, ready for use against their former owners.