However, the moment Bernard's two infantry regiments deployed into horizontal formation before the Austrian Army, they were met with ferocious fire from the opposite side.
Though Argento's troops were in disarray due to their carelessness, they still numbered more than fifteen thousand.
More than five times the French Army's numbers, they also held the defensive position and had time to adjust their formation.
Major Bernard bravely went to the very front of the battle line himself, raising his saber high and loudly rallying his soldiers.
His two infantry regiments also drove the enemy directly ahead steadily backward with several volleys, but because their numbers were too small, the Austrian Infantry Line soon formed a semi-encirclement around them from both flanks.
French soldiers began taking gunfire from the sides, at a fire density several times greater than their own.
In barely ten minutes, Bernard's troops had suffered over a thousand casualties.
The French soldiers' initial momentum rapidly shattered, replaced by fear brought on by the heaps of fallen comrades.
When Bernard was shot in the left arm, the French troops at the front began to collapse.
Augereau worshipped offense, so he had kept fewer than three hundred men in reserve, with absolutely no ability to provide support.
Driven by more than ten thousand Austrian soldiers, Augereau retreated from Marengo Village in a miserable state.
At the same time, the Bonnet Skirmisher Battalion, carrying out a surprise attack on the right flank, ran headlong into the Argentau Legion.
The French Skirmisher Battalion, with fewer than a thousand men, made only brief contact with the more than seven thousand Austrian troops before immediately choosing to retreat.
Augereau fled with the routed soldiers until he reached a point two kilometers east of the village, where he encountered the Marmont Legion, which had come as