A few among the French cavalry understood German. Hearing the battalion commander's shout, they immediately joined in and yelled at the top of their lungs.
Grouchy had merely wanted to bolster his own momentum, but he had never expected that one shout to produce such an unforeseen effect.
The Austrian Army had truly been scared out of its wits by Napoleon in the previous battles.
Nearly half the soldiers on the Austrian left wing, in particular, had taken part in the Battle of Toulon. They immediately recalled that every time the French suddenly charged out, their own side would swiftly collapse.
Thus, the "Toulon Veterans" were the first to flee.
When the soldiers Melas had brought from Switzerland saw this, they became even more convinced that they had been ambushed by a large French force and promptly fled along with them.
Just like that, more than 7,000 Austrian soldiers were chased into scattering in every direction by over 1,000 French Hussars, and the entire Austrian left wing began to collapse.
Augereau reacted swiftly, immediately concentrating all his troops to the north, further worsening the rout of the Austrian Army there.
Seeing the French suddenly withdraw, Melas's Central Route Army excitedly surged into San Giuliano Town and sent word of victory to Melas in the rear.
Outside Marengo Village, Melas received reports almost simultaneously that San Giuliano had been captured and that his left wing had suffered a large-scale French surprise attack.
Putting the two reports together, he could draw only one conclusion—that San Giuliano had been deliberately abandoned by the French.
Their purpose was to disperse his forces so they could launch a surprise attack from the north side.
He hurriedly sent Cervoni to lead the entire reserve force in establishing a defensive line northeast of Marengo, while ordering the