📅 On This Day in Military History

January 14

2 events across history

🔴The French Revolutionary Wars1797

Battle of Rivoli

Rivoli was Napoleon's masterpiece of the Italian campaign — and one of the greatest examples of interior lines in military history. Alvintzy advanced with 28,000 men in six separate columns through the mountains around Lake Garda, attempting to reach Mantua from multiple directions. Napoleon, with a central position and a smaller force, identified the main Austrian thrust at the Rivoli plateau and concentrated his entire army against it before the other Austrian columns could arrive. He destroyed Alvintzy's main body, then turned his army and defeated a second Austrian column that arrived behind him. A third Austrian column, arriving to find the battlefield lost, surrendered in its entirety. Mantua fell two weeks later.

Rivoli was the battle that completed the French conquest of northern Italy and forced Austria to negotiate the Treaty of Leoben, ending the First Coalition. It established Napoleon's reputation as the greatest operational commander of the age — his ability to concentrate decisive force against a divided enemy was exactly what his staff officers and contemporaries tried to teach their students for the next century.

Full battle details →

⚔️📍 Kiel, Denmark1814

Treaty of Kiel — Norway Ceded to Sweden

Denmark signed the Treaty of Kiel, ceding Norway to Sweden as a consequence of siding with Napoleon. The treaty ended centuries of Danish-Norwegian union and reshaped the political map of Scandinavia.

The Treaty of Kiel was part of the wider settlement dismantling Napoleon's European order and directly led to Norway's brief declaration of independence in 1814.

Outcome

Denmark surrenders Norway to Sweden