The hope of Austria was now the Archduke Charles, who had so
brilliantly forced the two French armies on the Rhine to retreat. He
was a young man, younger even than Napoleon, being but twenty-five
years of age. The Aulic Council at Vienna decided to pit youth against
youth, and the Archduke was ordered to take chief command in Italy.
Aware of the fact that the Archduke was waiting for reënforcements from
the army of the Rhine, Napoleon decided to take the initiative, and
strike his enemy before the succors arrived.
Masséna was ordered up the Piave, to attack a separate division under
Lusignan, while Napoleon moved against the Archduke on the Tagliamento.
By forced marches, the French reached the river before they were
expected (March 16, 1797). Making as if they meant to force a passage,
they opened upon the Austrians, who awaited them upon the other side,
and gave them a soldierly reception. Then, as if he had suddenly
changed his mind and meant to bivouac there, Napoleon drew back his
troops, and preparations for a meal were made. The Archduke, deceived
by this, drew off also, and returned to his tent. Suddenly the French
sprang to arms, and dashed for the fords. Bernadotte’s division led,
and before the Austrians could get into line, the French were safely
over, and prepared for action. The Austrians fought, and fought well;
but they were outnumbered, as they had been outgeneralled, and they
were beaten, losing prisoners and cannon. Masséna, equally successful,
had defeated and captured Lusignan, and was nearing the Pass of Tarvis,
which leads into Germany from the Italian side. The Archduke hurried
to the defence of this vital point, gathering in all his forces as he
went. Taking position in front of the pass, he awaited Masséna. By
forced marches that intrepid soldier, “the pet child of victory,” came
up, battle was joined, and desperately contested. Masséna won; and the
road to Vienna was cleared. The Archduke fell back to Villachi; Masséna
waited at Tarvis, hoping to capture an Austrian division which was
advancing to the pass, pursued by General Guieu. Not till the Austrians
reached Tarvis did they perceive that they were enclosed, front and
rear. Demoralized, they surrendered after feeble resistance.
Bernadotte and Sérurier took Gradisca and its garrison, after the
former had sacrificed several hundred men in reckless assault upon the
ramparts.
On March 28, 1797, Napoleon, with the main body of his army, passed
into Corinthia by the Col de Tarvis. Pressing on, he reached
Klagenfurth, from which he wrote to the retreating Archduke a letter
suggesting peace, March 31, 1797. In reply, the Austrian commander
stated that he had no authority to treat. The French continued a
vigorous advance, and near Newmarket the Archduke, having received
four battalions of the long-expected reënforcements, stood and fought.
He was beaten with a loss of three thousand men. He then asked for an
armistice, which was refused. Napoleon would treat for peace, but a
truce he would not grant. At Unzmark the Archduke was again worsted,
and his retreat became almost a rout. On April 2, 1797, the advance
guard of Napoleon was at Leoben, and the hills of Vienna were in sight
from the outposts. Then came officers to ask a suspension of arms to
treat for peace; and the preliminaries of Leoben, after some delays,
were signed.
Many reasons have been suggested for Napoleon’s course in tendering
peace when he was apparently carrying all before him. It is said that
he became alarmed at non-coöperation of the armies of the Rhine; again,
that he was discouraged by Joubert’s want of success in the Tyrol;
again, that he feared insurrection in his rear. Whatever the motive,
it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he made a huge mistake.
The French on the Rhine had moved. Desaix was driving one Austrian army
through the Black Forest; Hoche had beaten and was about to surround
the other. Austria’s situation was desperate, and Vienna must have
fallen. There are those who suggest that Napoleon hastened to suspend
the war to deprive rival generals, Hoche especially, of a share in his
glory. This is far-fetched, to say the least of it. Month after month
he had done all in his power to get those rival generals to move. To
the Directory he sent appeals, one after another, to order the Rhine
armies to cross and coöperate. He even sent money from his own army
chest; and for fear the funds might lodge somewhere in Paris, he sent
them directly to the Rhine.
Bourrienne is not an authority friendly to Napoleon, and yet Bourrienne
states that when Napoleon, after the truce, received the despatches
announcing the progress of Desaix and Hoche, he was almost beside
himself with chagrin. He even wanted to break the armistice, and his
generals had to remonstrate. This testimony would seem to conclusively
prove that Napoleon offered peace because he had lost hope in the
coöperation which had been promised him, and which was necessary to his
triumph. Singly he was not able to hold disaffected Italy down, guard
a long line of communications, and overthrow the Austrian Empire. The
preliminaries of Leoben and the treaty of Campo Formio will always be
subject of debate. The part which Venice was made to play--that of
victim to the perfidy of Napoleon and the greed of Austria--aroused
pity and indignation then, and has not ceased to be a favorite pivot
for Napoleonic denunciation. Austria was very anxious to hold Lombardy.
Napoleon was determined to hold both Lombardy and Belgium. Venice was
coldly thrown to Austria as compensation, because it was easier to
seize upon decrepit Venetia than to meet another effort of the great
Empire whose courage and resources seemed inexhaustible. Perhaps a
clearer case of political hard-heartedness had not been seen since
Russia, Prussia, and Austria cut up Poland and devoured it.
But after this has been said, let the other side of the picture be
viewed. Venice had undertaken to maintain neutrality, and had not
maintained it. She had allowed both belligerents to take her towns,
use her fortresses, eat her supplies, and pocket her money. Trying to
please both, she pleased neither; and they united to despoil her.
Again, there was the quarrel between the city of Venice and the
Venetian territories on the mainland. Venice had its Golden Book
in which were written the names of her nobles. Aristocrats on the
mainland craved the writing of their names in this Golden Book, and
were refused that bliss; hence heartburnings, which were referred to
Napoleon. He advised the Venetian Senate to write the names in the
book, and the Senate refused. Venice had long been governed by a few
families, and these few had the customary obstinacy and prejudice of a
caste. They treated Venetia simply as a fief--an estate belonging to
the nobles.
Again, republican leaven had been at work throughout Venetia, and
Napoleon had advised the Senate to remodel its mediæval institutions.
Other states in Italy were yielding to the trend of the times, and
Venice should do likewise. The Senate refused, until its consent came
too late to avert its doom.
Again, Napoleon had warned Venice that she was too weak to maintain
neutrality, and had advised her to make an alliance with France. She
had refused.
Again, as Napoleon was about to set out to join his army for the
invasion of Germany, he warned Venice to make no trouble in his rear.
Things he might forgive were he in Italy, would be unpardonable if
done while he was in Germany. Venetia could not, or would not, profit
by this warning. While Napoleon was in Germany, tumults arose in the
Venetian states, and the French in considerable numbers were massacred.
At Verona the outbreak was particularly savage, three hundred of the
French have been butchered, including the sick in the hospitals. To
leave nothing undone which could be done to give Napoleon the excuses
he wanted, a French vessel, which, chased by two Austrian cruisers, had
taken refuge in the harbor at Venice, was ordered to leave (according
to the law of the port), and when she refused, was fired upon. Her
commander and others were killed, and some horrible details aggravated
the offence.
Napoleon may have had his intentions from the first to sacrifice
Venetia. He may have been insincere in offering the weak old oligarchy
the protection of liberal institutions and a French alliance. Letters
of his, inconsistent with each other, have been published. They prove
his duplicity, his craft, his cunning, his callousness; but this was
long after Venice had provoked him.
However cold-blooded Napoleon’s treatment of Venice may have been, the
European conscience could not have been as much shocked as royalist
writers pretend, for after Napoleon’s overthrow, Venice, which he had
reformed and regenerated, was thrown back as a victim to Austria.
* * * * *
It was a brilliant gathering which surrounded Napoleon and Josephine
in the summer of 1797. Diplomats, statesmen, adventurers, soldiers,
men of science and literature, thronged Milan, and paid court at
beautiful Montebello, the palatial country-seat where Napoleon had
taken up his residence after the preliminaries of Leoben. Many subjects
of importance needed his thought, his fertile resources, his ready
hand. His republics needed guidance, the affairs of Genoa and Venice
were unsettled, German princelets from along the Rhine had a natural
curiosity to know just who they belonged to, and details of the coming
treaty of Campo Formio needed to be worked out. It was a busy and a
glorious season for Napoleon. He stood on the highest of pinnacles,
his renown blazing to the uttermost parts of Europe; and to him was
drawn the enthusiastic admiration which turns so warmly to heroes
who are young. He had, as yet, made few enemies. All France was in
raptures over him; even Austrians admired him. The aristocrats, lay and
clerical, in Italy doubtless wished him dead; but the masses of the
people looked up to him in wonder and esteem. Of Italian extraction, he
spoke their language, knew their character, despised it, imperiously
dominated it, and was therefore loved and obeyed.
Miot de Melito, an unfavorable witness, declares that Napoleon already
harbored designs for his own sovereignty, and made no secret thereof.
“Do you think I am doing all this for those rascally lawyers of the
Directory?” He may possibly have said so, but it is not probable. A
man like Napoleon, meditating the seizure of power and the overturn of
government, does not, as a rule, talk it to the Miots de Melito. Had
Napoleon had any such clearcut design as Miot records, he would not
have allowed the wealth of Italy to roll through his army chest, while
he himself was left poor. Like Cæsar, he would have returned laden with
spoil, to be used in furthering his plans. Napoleon doubtless took
something for Napoleon out of the millions which he handled, but the
amount was so inconsiderable that he keenly felt the burden of debt
which Josephine had made in furnishing his modest home in Paris. And
when the time _did_ come to overturn the “rascally lawyers,” he had
to borrow the money he needed for that brief campaign. No; the simple
truth is that Napoleon indulged no sordid appetites in his Italian
campaign. He made less money out of it than any of his lieutenants,
than any of the army contractors, than any of the lucky spoilsmen who
followed in his wake. If he had harbored, the designs attributed to
him by Miot, it was obviously a mistake for him to have declined the
$800,000 in gold secretly offered him by the Duke of Modena. At St.
Helena he uttered something which sounds like an admission that, in
view of his subsequent necessities in Paris, he should have accepted
the money. For wealth itself Napoleon had no longing--glory, power,
fame, all these stood higher with him. The 7,000,000 francs Venice
offered were as coolly refused as the smaller sum tendered by Modena,
and the principality offered by the Emperor of Germany.
* * * * *
The elections of 1797 were not favorable to the Directory. Many
royalists found seats in the Assembly, and the presiding officer of
each legislative body was an opponent to the government. Two of the
Directors, Carnot and Barthélemy, joined the opposition.
Openly and boldly, the malcontents, including royalists,
constitutionals, and moderates, declared their purpose of upsetting
the Directory. Barras, Rewbell, and Larévellière were united, and
Barras still retained sufficient vigor to act promptly at a crisis.
Seeing that bayonets were needed, he called on Hoche for aid. Hoche was
willing enough, but he involved himself in a too hasty violation of
law, and became useless. Then Barras turned to Napoleon, and Napoleon
was ready. Angry with the legislative councils for having criticised
his high-handed conduct in Italy, and feeling that for the present
his own interest was linked with that of the Directory, he did not
hesitate. He sent Augereau to take command of the government forces
at Paris, and Augereau did his work with the directness of a bluff
soldier. “I am come to kill the royalists,” he announced by way of
public explanation of his presence in town. “What a swaggering brigand
is this!” cried Rewbell when he looked up from the directorial chair
at Augereau’s stalwart, martial figure. Augereau marched thousands of
troops into Paris at night, seized all the approaches to the Tuileries
where the councils sat, and to the guard of the councils he called out
through the closed gates, “Are you republicans?” and the gates opened.
Augereau broke in upon the conspirators, seized with his own hand
the royalist commander of the legislative guard, tore the epaulettes
from his shoulders, and threw them in his face. Roughly handled like
common criminals, the conspirators were carted off to prison. Carnot
fled; Barthélemy was arrested at the Luxembourg palace. With them
fell Pichegru, the conqueror of Holland. While still in command of
the republican army, he had entered into treasonable relations with
the royalists, and had agreed to use his republican troops to bring
about a restoration of the monarchy. This plot, this treason, had not
been known when Pichegru, returned from the army, had been elected to
one of the councils and made its president. Moreau had captured the
correspondence from the Austrians, and had concealed the facts. After
Pichegru’s arrest by Augereau, the secret of the captured despatches
came to light. Moreau himself made the report, and the question
which sprang to every lip was, Why did he not speak out before? This
universal and most natural query became the first cloud upon the career
of the illustrious Moreau. As Napoleon tersely put it, “By not speaking
earlier, he betrayed his country; by speaking when he did, he struck
a man who was already down.” After having saved the government, as
Augereau fancied he alone had done, that magnificent soldier’s opinion
of himself began to soar. Why should he not become a director, turn
statesman, and help rule the republic? Very influential people, among
them Napoleon and all the Directors, were able to give good reasons
to the contrary, and Augereau was compelled to content himself with
remaining a soldier. Although he bragged that he was a better man than
Bonaparte, he yielded to the silent, invisible pressure of the little
Corsican, and he went to take command of the unemployed army of the
Rhine. In a few months the same fine, Italian hand transferred him to
the command of the tenth division in Perpignan, where he gradually, if
not gracefully, disappeared from the political horizon.
The negotiation for final peace between Austria and France continued
to drag its slow length along. Diplomats on either side exhausted
the skill of their trade, each trying to outwit the other. How many
crooked things were done during those weary months, how many bribes
were offered and taken, how many secrets were bought and sold, how much
finesse was practised, how many lies were told, only a professional
and experienced diplomatist would be competent to guess. Into all
these wire-drawn subtleties of negotiation Napoleon threw a new
element,--military abruptness, the gleam of the sword. Not that he
lacked subtlety, for he was full of it. Not that he was unable to
finesse, for he was an expert. Not that he scorned to lie, for he
delighted in artistic deception. But on such points as these the
veteran Cobentzel and the other old-time diplomats could meet him on
something like an equality. To throw in a new element altogether,
to hide his perfect skill as a machinator under the brusque manners
of a rude soldier, was to take the professionals at a disadvantage.
Just as the Hungarian veteran had complained that Napoleon would not
fight according to rule, Cobentzel and his band were now embarrassed
to find that he would not treat by established precedent. Wearied with
delays, indignant that they should threaten him with a renewal of the
war, and determined to startle the antiquated Austrian envoys into a
decision, Napoleon is said to have sprung up from his seat, apparently
in furious wrath, exclaiming, “Very well, then! Let the war begin
again, but remember! I will shatter your monarchy in three months, as
I now shatter this vase,” dashing to the floor a precious vase which
Catherine II. of Russia had given Cobentzel.
This story, told by so many, is denied by about an equal number.
Cobentzel himself contradicted it, but he makes an admission which
almost amounts to the same thing. He says that Napoleon became
irritated by the delays, worked himself into a passion, tossed off
glass after glass of punch, became rude to the negotiators, flung out
of the room, and required a good deal of pacification at the hands of
his aides. Says Cobentzel: “He started up in a rage, poured out a flood
of abuse, put on his hat in the conference room itself” (an awful thing
to do!), “and left us. He behaved as if he had just escaped from a
lunatic asylum.”
Between this Austrian admission and the Austrian denial the substantial
difference is not great. Reading between Cobentzel’s lines, one sees
that the brutal young soldier ran over Austria’s delicate old diplomat
just as he had been running over a lot of Austria’s delicate old
generals.
The next day after this violent scene, the treaty of Campo Formio was
signed. By its terms Austria ceded Lombardy, Belgium, and the German
principalities on the Rhine. It recognized the Italian republic; the
Cisalpine, composed of Lombardy, Modena, Ferrara; the Romagna, Mantua,
Massa-e-Carrara; the Venetian territory, west of the Adige and the
Valtelline. It also recognized the Ligurian republic, recently formed
by Napoleon out of Genoa and its states. France kept the Ionian Isles,
and the Venetian factories opposite on the mainland. To Austria was
given the Italian lands eastward from the Adige. Within this concession
was embraced the venerable city of Venice.
In the treaty of Campo Formio, Napoleon insisted that Austria should
liberate the prisoner of Olmutz, Lafayette, who had been lying in a
dungeon since 1793.
To regulate the redistribution of German territory, made necessary by
the treaty, a congress was to be convened at Rastadt. It may as well be
stated in this place that the congress met, remained in session a long
while, and could not reach an agreement. Napoleon having gone to Egypt,
Austria renewed the war, broke up the congress, and murdered the French
envoys.
The Directors were strongly opposed to the terms of the Campo Formio
treaty, but they were powerless. Napoleon disregarded their positive
instructions, relying for his support upon the enthusiasm with which
the French would hail peace. His calculations proved correct. The
nation at large welcomed the treaty as gladly as they had done his
victories. It seemed the final triumph and permanent establishment of
the new order. Against so strong a current in Bonaparte’s favor, the
Directory did not venture to steer.
Setting out for Paris, November 17, 1797, Napoleon passed through
a portion of Switzerland, where he was encouraging the democratic
movement which led to the formation of the Helvetian republic. At
Geneva and Lausanne he was given popular and most hearty ovations. He
put in appearance at Rastadt, where the congress was in session, and
remained just long enough to exchange ratifications of the Campo Formio
treaty with Cobentzel; and to hector, insult, and drive away Count
Fersen, the old friend of Marie Antoinette. Count Fersen had come as
Swedish envoy; and to Napoleon his presence seemed improper, as perhaps
it was.