Adjusting the Record: Napoleon and Marengo, Part I

The dramatic events that took place near the River Bormida on June 14th, 1800 occupy a special place in Napoleonic history—and myth. That this is the case can largely to attributed to Napoleon’s determination to adjust—a less charitable word would be ‘fake’—the official record in order to present his contemporaries and posterity with the impression of a personal triumph in which everything was foreseen and nothing went seriously wrong from the French point of view.

The intention of these articles is to examine what really took place at the Battle of Marengo, and then to trace the various steps taken by Napoleon as First Consul, then Emperor, and ultimately as an exile, to pull the wool over men’s eyes by misrepresentation of the facts.