Lombard Legion

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Cacciatori a Cavallo
detachment.

The Lombard Legion (Legione Lombarda) was a military unit of the

France.[1]
The Lombard Legion was the first Italian military department to equip itself, as a banner, with an Italian tricolor flag.

History

It was formed on 8 October 1796 by

river Senio. The Legion's fourth cohort joined Cisalpine troops to put down insurrections at Pesaro then at Urbino
.

By February 1797 it was stationed in Brescia and on 26 February 1797 it was reorganised into two demi-brigades of three cohorts, an artillery company and a hussar company and at the end of that year the Cisapadane Legion merged into it - that unit had been made up of 6 cohorts of 1,000 men and became the Lombard Legion's third demi-brigade. By then the Legion had been moved to Verona in support of French forces fighting in the Veneto before being divided up between Corfu, Peschiera and Friuli - the elements of the Legion still in Italy on the treaty of Campo Formio of 17 October 1797 returned to Lombardy.

The Lombard Legion became part of the Cisalpine Army in April 1798, then made up of eight demi-brigades, though this had fallen to four by the following November. The Legion's fourth cohort was attached to General

army of Rome sent to attack the Kingdom of Naples under General Domenico Pino
.

It broke up after the Republic's fall in 1799 but some survivors from the unit moved to France, where they joined survivors from the armed forces of the

second Italian campaign and fought the Austrians at Lecco
.

References

External links

  • "Francesco Frasca, L'esercito del primo tricolore, in Informazioni della Difesa, n°6, 2001, Roma: Stato Maggiore della Difesa, pp. 49-53" (PDF) (in Italian).