The armies of Spain and France advancing towards the Kingdom of Sardinia and attacked the entrenched positions in the Villafranca pass, defended by Anglo-Sardinian forces.

Britain, boasting naval superiority in the Mediterranean, intervened on the side of Austria, and the Royal Navy everywhere harassed Spain's allies and frustrated Spanish war shipping.

Marching overland through allied France, the Infante Philip had easily conquered Savoy, but, starved of supplies, had been unable to advance against the Sardinians in the Alps.

20,000 Frenchmen under Louis François I, Prince of Conti were then dispatched to combine with Philip's 20,000 Spaniards, their goal being to force a passage into Lombardy and to unite with the Spanish army in the south.

The Sardinians led by Vittorio Francesco Filippo di Savoia, Marquis of Susa, the brother of the King Charles Emmanuel III, entrenched themselves along the heights of Villafranca.

Their natural defences were formidable: the attackers, hemmed in by cliffs and precipices, faced a difficult climb up over rocks and boulders, in plain sight of Sardinian guns.

Admiral Matthews, meanwhile, had returned to the area and landed a contingent of British regulars, marines, and artillery specialists to bolster the Sardinian defence.

In the early stages of the battle the French and the Spaniards were able to immediately gain the position of the collet de Villefranche, capturing or destroying five Sardinian battalions.