Battle of Marsaglia

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Battle of Marsaglia
Part of the War of the Grand Alliance
Date October 4, 1693 Location Marsaglia, near Cuneo, present-day Italy Result French victory
Combatants
France	Piemont Spain
Commanders
Nicolas Catinat	Victor Amadeus II of Savoy
Strength
35,000	30,000
Casualties
1,800 dead or wounded	10,000 dead, wounded, or captured

War of the Grand Alliance
Bantry Bay – Walcourt – Fleurus – Beachy Head – Staffarda – Cuneo – Leuze – Barfleur-La Hogue – 1st Namur – Steenkirk – Lagos – Landen – Marsaglia – Charleroi – Torroella – 2nd Namur – Barcelona

The Battle of Marsaglia was a battle in the War of the Grand Alliance, fought in Italy on October 4, 1693 between the French army of Marshal Nicolas Catinat and the Allied army of Duke Victor Amadeus II of Savoy .

Catinat, advancing from Fenestrelle and Susa to the relief Pinerolo, defended by the count of Tessé and which the duke of Savoy was besieging, took up a position in formal order of battle north of the village of Marsaglia, near Orbassano.

Here on 4 October the duke of Savoy attacked him with his whole army, front to front. But the greatly superior regimental efficiency of the French, and Catinat's minute attention to details in arraying them, gave the new marshal a victory that was a not unworthy pendant to Neerwinden.

The Piedmontese and their allies lost c. 10,000 killed, wounded and prisoners, as against Catinat's 1800.

Marsaglia is, if not the first, at any rate, one of the first, instances of a bayonet charge by a long deployed line of infantry. Hussars figured here for the first time in western Europe. A regiment of them had been raised in 1692 from deserters from the Austrian service.