If Bonaparte has occasionally been criticized for his defensive
measures, Wurmser's attack procedure has received almost universal
condemnation, as to the justice of which it may be pointed out[12]
that the object of the expedition was not to win a battle by falling
on the disunited French with a well-concentrated army, but to
overpower one, any one, of the corps covering the siege, and to press
straight forward to the relief of Mantua, i.e. to the destruction of
Bonaparte's batteries and the levelling of his trench work. The old
principle that a battle was a grave event of doubtful issue was
reinforced in the actual case by Beaulieu's late experiences of French
elan, and as a temporary victory at one point would suffice for the
purpose in hand, there was every incentive to multiply the points of
contact. The soundness of Wurmser's plan was proved by the event. New
ideas and new forces, undiscernible to a man of seventy-two years of
age, obliterated his achievement by surpassing it, but such as it
was--a limited use of force for a limited object--the venture
undeniably succeeded.
The Austrians formed three corps, one (Quasdanovich, 18,000 men)
marching round the west side of the Lake of Garda on Gavardo, Salo and
the Brescia road, the second (under Wurmser, about 30,000) moving
directly down the Adige, and the third (Davidovich, 6000) making a
detour by the Brenta valley and heading for Verona by Vicenza.
On the 29th Quasdanovich attacked Sauret at Salo, drove him towards
Desenzano, and pushed on to Gavardo and thence into Brescia. Wurmser
expelled Massena's advanced guard from La Corona, and captured in
succession the Monte Baldo and Rivoli posts. The Brenta column
approached Verona with little or no fighting. News of this column led
Napoleon early in the day to close up Despinoy, Massena and Kilmaine at
Castelnuovo, and to order Augereau from Legnago to advance on Montebello
(19 m. east of Verona) against Davidovich's left rear. But after these
orders had been despatched came the news of Sauret's defeat, and this
moment was one of the most anxious in Napoleon's career. He could not
make up his mind to give up the siege of Mantua, but he hurried Augereau
back to the Mincio, and sent order after order to the officers on the
lines of communication to send all convoys by the Cremona instead of by
the Brescia road. More, he had the baggage, the treasure and the sick
set in motion at once for Marcaria, and wrote to Serurier a despatch
which included the words "perhaps we shall recover ourselves ... but I
must take serious measures for a retreat." On the 30th he wrote: "The
enemy have broken through our line in three places ... Sauret has
evacuated Salo ... and the enemy has captured Brescia. You see that our
communications with Milan and Verona are cut." The reports that came to
him during the morning of the 30th enabled him to place the main body of
the enemy opposite Massena, and this, without in the least alleviating
the gravity of the situation, helped to make his course less doubtful.
Augereau was ordered to hold the line of the Molinella, in case
Davidovich's attack, the least-known factor, should after all prove to
be serious; Massena to reconnoitre a road from Peschiera through
Castiglione towards Orzinovi, and to stand fast at Castelnuovo opposite
Wurmser as long as he could. Sauret and Despinoy were concentrated at
Desenzano with orders on the 31st to clear the main line of retreat and
to recapture Brescia. The Austrian movements were merely the
continuation of those of the 29th. Quasdanovich wheeled inwards, his
right finally resting on Montechiaro and his left on Salo. Wurmser drove
back Massena to the west side of the Mincio. Davidovich made a slight
advance.
Relief of Mantua.
In the late evening Bonaparte held a council of war at Roverbella. The
proceedings of this council are unknown, but it at any rate enabled
Napoleon to see clearly and to act. Hitherto he had been covering the
siege of Mantua with various detachments, the defeat of any one of which
might be fatal to the enterprise. Thus, when he had lost his main line
of retreat, he could assemble no more than 8000 men at Desenzano to win
it back. Now, however, he made up his mind that the siege could not be
continued, and bitter as the decision must have been, it gave him
freedom. At this moment of crisis the instincts of the great captain
came into play, and showed the way to a victory that would more than
counterbalance the now inevitable failure. Serurier was ordered to spike
the 140 siege guns that had been so welcome a few days before, and,
after sending part of his force to Augereau, to establish himself with
the rest at Marcaria on the Cremona road. The field forces were to be
used on interior lines. On the 31st Sauret, Despinoy, Augereau and
Kilmaine advanced westward against Quasdanovich. The first two found the
Austrians at Salo and Lonato and drove them back, while with Augereau
and the cavalry Bonaparte himself made a forced march on Brescia, never
halting night or day till he reached the town and recovered his depots.
Meantime Serurier had retired (night of July 31), Massena had gradually
drawn in towards Lonato, and Wurmser's advanced guard triumphantly
entered the fortress (August 1).
Lonato and Castiglione.
The Austrian general now formed the plan of crushing Bonaparte between
Quasdanovich and his own main body. But meantime Quasdanovich had
evacuated Brescia under the threat of Bonaparte's advance and was now
fighting a long irregular action with Despinoy and Sauret about Gavardo
and Salo, and Bonaparte, having missed his expected target, had brought
Augereau by another severe march back to Montechiaro on the Chiese.
Massena was now assembled between Lonato and Ponte San Marco, and
Serurier was retiring quietly on Marcaria. Wurmser's main body, weakened
by the detachment sent to Mantua, crossed the Mincio about Valeggio and
Goito on the 2nd, and penetrated as far as Castiglione, whence Massena's
rearguard was expelled. But a renewed advance of Quasdanovich, ordered
by Wurmser, which drove Sauret and Despinoy back on Brescia and Lonato,
in the end only placed a strong detachment of the Austrians within
striking distance of Massena, who on the 3rd attacked it, front to
front, and by sheer fighting destroyed it, while at the same time
Augereau recaptured Castiglione from Wurmser. On the 4th Sauret and
Despinoy pressed back Quasdanovich beyond Salo and Gavardo. One of the
Austrian columns, finding itself isolated and unable to retreat with the
others, turned back to break its way through to Wurmser, and was
annihilated by Massena in the neighbourhood of Lonato. On this day
Augereau fought his way towards Solferino, and Wurmser, thinking rightly
or wrongly that he could not now retire to the Mincio without a battle,
drew up his whole force, close on 30,000 men, in the plain between
Solferino and Medole. The finale may be described in very few words.
Bonaparte, convinced that no more was to be feared from Quasdanovich,
and seeing that Wurmser meant to fight, called in Despinoy's division to
the main body and sent orders to Serurier, then far distant on the
Cremona road, to march against the left flank of the Austrians. On the
5th the battle of Castiglione was fought. Closely contested in the first
hours of the frontal attack till Serurier's arrival decided the day, it
ended in the retreat of the Austrians over the Mincio and into Tirol
whence they had come.
Thus the new way had failed to keep back Wurmser, and the old had
failed to crush Napoleon. Each was the result of its own conditions.
In former wars a commander threatened as Napoleon was, would have
fallen back at once to the Adda, abandoning the siege in such good
time that he would have been able to bring off his siege artillery.
Instead of this Bonaparte hesitated long enough to lose it, which,
according to accepted canons was a waste, and held his ground, which
was, by the same rules, sheer madness. But Revolutionary discipline
was not firm enough to stand a retreat. Once it turned back, the army
would have streamed away to Milan and perhaps to the Alps (cf. 1799),
and the only alternative to complete dissolution therefore was
fighting.
As to the manner of this fighting, even the principle of "relative
superiority" failed him so long as he was endeavouring to cover the
siege and again when his chief care was to protect his new line of
retreat and to clear his old. In this period, viz. up to his return
from Brescia on the 2nd of August, the only "mass" he collected
delivered a blow in the air, while the covering detachments had to
fight hard for bare existence. Once released from its trammels, the
Napoleonic principle had fair play. He stood between Wurmser and
Quasdanovich, ready to fight either or both. The latter was crushed,
thanks to local superiority and the resolute leading of Massena, but
at Castiglione Wurmser actually outnumbered his opponent till the last
of Napoleon's precautionary dispositions had been given up, and
Serurier brought back from the "alternative line of retreat" to the
battlefield. The moral is, again, that it was not the mere fact of
being on interior lines that gave Napoleon the victory, but his
"tact," his fine appreciation of the chances in his favour, measured
in terms of time, space, attacking force and containing power. All
these factors were greatly influenced by the ground, which favoured
the swarms and columns of the French and deprived the brilliant
Austrian cavalry of its power to act. But of far greater importance
was the mobility that Napoleon's personal force imparted to the
French. Napoleon himself rode five horses to death in three days, and
Augereau's division marched from Roverbella to Brescia and back to
Montechiaro, a total distance of nearly 50 m., in about thirty-six
hours. This indeed was the foundation of his "relative superiority,"
for every hour saved in the time of marching meant more freedom to
destroy one corps before the rest could overwhelm the covering
detachments and come to its assistance.
Wurmser's plan for the relief of Mantua, suited to its purpose,
succeeded. But when he made his objective the French field army, he
had to take his own army as he found it, disposed for an altogether
different purpose. A properly, combined attack of convergent columns
framed _ab initio_ by a good staff officer, such as Mack, might indeed
have given good results. But the success of such a plan depends
principally on the assailant's original possession of the initiative,
and not on the chances of his being able to win it over to his own
side when operations, as here, are already in progress. When the time
came to improvise such a plan, the initiative had passed over to
Napoleon, and the plan was foredoomed.
By the end of the second week in August the blockade of Mantua had been
resumed, without siege guns. But still under the impression of a great
victory gained, Bonaparte was planning a long forward stride. He thought
that by advancing past Mantua directly on Trieste and thence onwards to
the Semmering he could impose a peace on the emperor. The Directory,
however, which had by now focussed its attention on the German campaign,
ordered him to pass through Tirol and to co-operate with Moreau, and
this plan, Bonaparte, though protesting against an Alpine venture being
made so late in the year, prepared to execute, drawing in reinforcements
and collecting great quantities of supplies in boats on the Adige and
Lake Garda. Wurmser was thought to have posted his main body near Trent,
and to have detached one division to Bassano "to cover Trieste." The
French advanced northward on the 2nd, in three disconnected columns
(precisely as Wurmser had done in the reverse direction at the end of
July)--Massena (13,000) from Rivoli to Ala, Augereau (9000) from Verona
by hill roads, keeping on his right rear, Vaubois (11,000) round the
Lake of Garda by Riva and Torbole. Sahuguet's division (8000) remained
before Mantua. The French divisions successfully combined and drove the
enemy before them to Trent.
There, however, they missed their target. Wurmser had already drawn over
the bulk of his army (22,000) into the Val Sugana, whence, with the
Bassano division as his advanced guard, he intended once more to relieve
Mantua, while Davidovich with 13,000 (excluding detachments) was to hold
Tirol against any attempt of Bonaparte to join forces with Moreau.
Thus Austria was preparing to hazard a second (as in the event she
hazarded a third and a fourth) highly trained and expensive professional
army in the struggle for the preservation of a fortress, and we must
conclude that there were weighty reasons which actuated so notoriously
cautious a body as the Council of War in making this unconditional
venture. While Mantua stood, Napoleon, for all his energy and
sanguineness, could not press forward into Friuli and Carniola, and
immunity from a Republican visitation was above all else important for
the Vienna statesmen, governing as they did more or less discontented
and heterogeneous populations that had not felt the pressure of war for
a century and more. The Austrians, so far as is known, desired no more
than to hold their own. They no longer possessed the superiority of
_moral_ that guarantees victory to one side when both are materially
equal. There was therefore nothing to be gained, commensurate with the
risk involved, by fighting a battle in the open field. _In Italien siegt
nicht die Kavallerie_ was an old saying in the Austrian army, and
therefore the Austrians could not hope to win a victory of the first
magnitude. The only practicable alternative was to strengthen Mantua as
opportunities offered themselves, and to prolong the passive resistance
as much as possible. Napoleon's own practice in providing for secondary
theatres of war was to economize forces and to delay a decision, and the
fault of the Austrians, viewed from a purely military standpoint, was
that they squandered, instead of economizing, their forces to gain time.
If we neglect pure theory, and regard strategy as the handmaiden of
statesmanship--which fundamentally it is--we cannot condemn the Vienna
authorities unless it be first proved that they grossly exaggerated the
possible results of Bonaparte's threatened irruption. And if their
capacity for judging the political situation be admitted, it naturally
follows that their object was to preserve Mantua _at all costs_--which
object Wurmser, though invariably defeated in action, did in fact
accomplish.
Bassano.
When Massena entered Trent on the morning of the 5th of September,
Napoleon became aware that the force in his front was a mere detachment,
and news soon came in that Wurmser was in the Val Sugana about Primolano
and at Bassano. This move he supposed to be intended to cover Trieste,
being influenced by his own hopes of advancing in that direction, and
underestimating the importance, to the Austrians, of preserving Mantua.
He therefore informed the Directory that he could not proceed with the
Tirol scheme, and spent one more day in driving Davidovich well away
from Trent. Then, leaving Vaubois to watch him, Napoleon marched
Augereau and Massena, with a rapidity he scarcely ever surpassed, into
the Val Sugana. Wurmser's rearguard was attacked and defeated again and
again, and Wurmser himself felt compelled to stand and fight, in the
hope of checking the pursuit before going forward into the plains. Half
his army had already reached Montebello on the Verona road, and with the
rear half he posted himself at Bassano, where on the 8th he was attacked
and defeated with heavy losses. Then began a strategic pursuit or
general chase, and in this the mobility of the French should have
finished the work so well begun by their tactics.
But Napoleon directed the pursuers so as to cut off Wurmser from
Trieste, not from Mantua. Massena followed up the Austrians to Vicenza,
while Augereau hurried towards Padua, and it was not until late on the
9th that Bonaparte realized that his opponent was heading for Mantua via
Legnago. On the 10th Massena crossed the Adige at Ronco, while Augereau
from Padua reached Montagnara. Sahuguet from Mantua and Kilmaine from
Verona joined forces at Castellaro on the 11th, with orders to interpose
between Wurmser and the fortress. Wurmser meantime had halted for a day
at Legnago, to restore order, and had then resumed his march. It was
almost too late, for in the evening, after having to push aside the head
of Massena's column at Cerea, he had only reached Nogara, some miles
short of Castellaro, and close upon his rear was Augereau, who reached
Legnago that night. On the 12th, eluding Sahuguet by a detour to the
southward, he reached Mantua, with all the columns of the French, weary
as most of them were, in hot pursuit. After an attempt to keep the open
field, defeated in a general action on the 15th, the relieving force was
merged in the garrison, now some 28,000 in all. So ended the episode of
Bassano, the most brilliant feature of which as usual was the marching
power of the French infantry. This time it sufficed to redeem even
strategical misconceptions and misdirections. Between the 5th and the
11th, besides fighting three actions, Massena had marched 100 m. and
Augereau 114.
Feldzeugmeister Alvintzi was now appointed to command a new army of
relief. This time the mere distribution of the troops imposed a
concentric advance of separate columns, for practically the whole of the
fresh forces available were in Carniola, the Military Frontier, &c.,
while Davidovich was still in Tirol. Alvintzi's intention was to
assemble his new army (29,000) in Friuli, and to move on Bassano, which
was to be occupied on the 4th of November. Meantime Davidovich (18,000)
was to capture Trent, and the two columns were to connect by the Val
Sugana. All being well, Alvintzi and Davidovich, still separate, were
then to converge on the Adige between Verona and Legnago. Wurmser was to
co-operate by vigorous sorties. At this time Napoleon's protective
system was as follows: Kilmaine (9000) investing Mantua, Vaubois
(10,000) at Trent, and Massena (9000) at Bassano and Treviso, Augereau
(9000) and Macquard (3000) at Verona and Villafranca constituting, for
the first time in these operations, important mobile reserves. Hearing
of Alvintzi's approach in good time, he meant first to drive back
Davidovich, then with Augereau, Massena, Macquard and 3000 of Vaubois's
force to fall upon Alvintzi, who, he calculated, would at this stage
have reached Bassano, and finally to send back a large force through the
Val Sugana to attack Davidovich. This plan practically failed.
Caldiero.
Instead of advancing, Vaubois was driven steadily backward. By the 6th,
Davidovich had fought his way almost to Roveredo, and Alvintzi had
reached Bassano and was there successfully repelling the attacks of
Massena and Augereau. That night Napoleon drew back to Vicenza. On the
7th Davidovich drove in Vaubois to Corona and Rivoli, and Alvintzi came
within 5 m. of Vicenza. Napoleon watched carefully for an opportunity to
strike out, and on the 8th massed his troops closely around the central
point of Verona. On the 9th, to give himself air, he ordered Massena to
join Vaubois, and to drive back Davidovich at all costs. But before this
order was executed, reports came in to the effect that Davidovich had
suspended his advance. The 10th and 11th were spent by both sides in
relative inaction, the French waiting on events and opportunities, the
Austrians resting after their prolonged exertions. Then, on the
afternoon of the 11th, being informed that Alvintzi was approaching,
Napoleon decided to attack him. On the 12th the advanced guard of
Alvintzi's army was furiously assailed in the position of Caldiero. But
the troops in rear came up rapidly, and by 4 P.M. the French were
defeated all along the line and in retreat on Verona. Napoleon's
situation was now indeed precarious. He was on "interior lines," it is
true, but he had neither the force nor the space necessary for the
delivery of rapid radial blows. Alvintzi was in superior numbers, as the
battle of Caldiero had proved, and at any moment Davidovich, who had
twice Vaubois's force, might advance to the attack of Rivoli. The
reserves had proved insufficient, and Kilmaine had to be called up from
Mantua, which was thus for the third time freed from the blockaders.
Again the alternatives were retreat, in whatever order was possible to
Republican armies, and beating the nearest enemy at any sacrifice.
Napoleon chose the latter, though it was not until the evening of the
14th that he actually issued the fateful order.
The Austrians, too, had selected the 15th as the date of their final
advance on Verona, Davidovich from the north, Alvintzi via Zevio from
the south. But Napoleon was no longer there; leaving Vaubois to hold
Davidovich as best he might, and posting only 3000 men in Verona, he had
collected the rest of his small army between Albaro and Ronco. His plan
seems to have been to cross the Adige well in rear of the Austrians, to
march north on to the Verona-Vicenza highway, and there, supplying
himself from their convoys, to fight to the last. On the 15th he had
written to the Directory, "The weakness and the exhaustion of the army
causes me to fear the worst. We are perhaps on the eve of losing Italy."
In this extremity of danger the troops passed the Adige in three columns
near Ronco and Albaredo, and marched forward along the dikes, with deep
marshes and pools on either hand. If Napoleon's intention was to reach
the dry open ground of S. Bonifacio in rear of the Austrians, it was not
realized, for the Austrian army, instead of being at the gates of
Verona, was still between Caldiero and S. Bonifacio, heading, as we
know, for Zevio. Thus Alvintzi was able, easily and swiftly, to wheel to
the south.
Arcola.
The battle of Arcola almost defies description. The first day passed in
a series of resultless encounters between the heads of the columns as
they met on the dikes. In the evening Bonaparte withdrew over the Adige,
expecting at every moment to be summoned to Vaubois's aid. But
Davidovich remained inactive, and on the 16th the French again crossed
the river. Massena from Ronco advanced on Porcile, driving the Austrians
along the causeway thither, but on the side of Arcola, Alvintzi had
deployed a considerable part of his forces on the edge of the marshes,
within musket shot of the causeway by which Bonaparte and Augereau had
to pass, along the Austrian front, to reach the bridge of Arcola. In
these circumstances the second day's battle was more murderous and no
more decisive than the first, and again the French retreated to Ronco.
But Davidovich again stood still, and with incredible obstinacy
Bonaparte ordered a third assault for the 17th, using indeed more
tactical expedients than before, but calculating chiefly on the fighting
powers of his men and on the exhaustion of the enemy. Massena again
advanced on Porcile, Robert's brigade on Arcola, but the rest, under
Augereau, were to pass the Alpone near its confluence with the Adige,
and joining various small bodies which passed the main stream lower
down, to storm forward on dry ground to Arcola. The Austrians, however,
themselves advanced from Arcola, overwhelmed Robert's brigade on the
causeway and almost reached Ronco. This was perhaps the crisis of the
battle, for Augereau's force was now on the other side of the stream,
and Massena, with his back to the new danger, was approaching Porcile.
But the fire of a deployed regiment stopped the head of the Austrian
column; Massena, turning about, cut into its flank on the dike; and
Augereau, gathering force, was approaching Arcola from the south. The
bridge and the village were evacuated soon afterwards, and Massena and
Augereau began to extend in the plain beyond. But the Austrians still
sullenly resisted. It was at this moment that Bonaparte secured victory
by a mere ruse, but a ruse which would have been unprofitable and
ridiculous had it not been based on his fine sense of the moral
conditions. Both sides were nearly fought out, and he sent a few
trumpeters to the rear of the Austrian army to sound the charge. They
did so, and in a few minutes the Austrians were streaming back to S.
Bonifacio. This ended the drama of Arcola, which more than any other
episode of these wars, perhaps of any wars in modern history, centres on
the personality of the hero. It is said that the French fought without
spirit on the first day, and yet on the second and third Bonaparte had
so thoroughly imbued them with his own will to conquer that in the end
they prevailed over an enemy nearly twice their own strength.
The climax was reached just in time, for on the 17th Vaubois was
completely defeated at Rivoli and withdrew to Peschiera, leaving the
Verona and Mantua roads completely open to Davidovich. But on the 19th
Napoleon turned upon him, and combining the forces of Vaubois, Massena
and Augereau against him, drove him back to Trent. Meantime Alvintzi
returned from Vicenza to San Bonifacio and Caldiero (November 21st), and
Bonaparte at once stopped the pursuit of Davidovich. On the return of
the French main body to Verona, Alvintzi finally withdrew, Wurmser, who
had emerged from Mantua on the 23rd, was driven in again, and this
epilogue of the great struggle came to a feeble end because neither side
was now capable of prolonging the crisis.
Alvintzi renewed his advance in January 1797 with all the forces that
could be assembled for a last attempt to save Mantua. At this time 8000
men under Serurier blockaded Mantua, Massena (9000) was at Verona,
Joubert (Vaubois's successor) at Rivoli with 10,000, Augereau at Legnago
with 9000. In reserve were Rey's division (4000) between Brescia and
Montechiaro, and Victor's brigade at Goito and Castelnuovo. On the other
side, Alvintzi had 9000 men under Provera at Padua, 6000 under Bayalic
at Bassano, and he himself with 28,000 men stood in the Tirol about
Trent. This time he intended to make his principal effort on the Rivoli
side. Provera was to capture Legnago on the 9th of January, and Bayalic
Verona on the 12th, while the main army was to deliver its blow against
the Rivoli position on the 13th.
Rivoli.
The first marches of this scheme were duly carried out, and several days
elapsed before Napoleon was able to discern the direction of the real
attack. Augereau fell back, skirmishing a little, as Provera's and
Bayalic's advance developed. On the 11th, when the latter was nearing
Verona, Alvintzi's leading troops appeared in front of the Rivoli
position. On the 12th Bayalic with a weak force (he had sent
reinforcements to Alvintzi by the Val Pantena) made an unsuccessful
attack on Verona, Provera, farther south, remaining inactive. On the
13th Napoleon, still in doubt, launched Massena's division against
Bayalic, who was driven back to San Bonifacio; but at the same time
definite news came from Joubert that Alvintzi's main army was in front
of La Corona. From this point begins the decisive, though by no means
the most intense or dramatic, struggle of the campaign. Once he felt
sure of the situation Napoleon acted promptly. Joubert was ordered to
hold on to Rivoli at all costs. Rey was brought up by a forced march to
Castelnuovo, where Victor joined him, and ahead of them both Massena was
hurried on to Rivoli. Napoleon himself joined Joubert on the night of
the 13th. There he saw the watch-fires of the enemy in a semicircle
around him, for Alvintzi, thinking that he had only to deal with one
division, had begun a widespread enveloping attack. The horns of this
attack were as yet so far distant that Napoleon, instead of extending on
an equal front, only spread out a few regiments to gain an hour or two
and to keep the ground for Massena and Rey, and on the morning of
January 14th, with 10,000 men in hand against 26,000, he fell upon the
central columns of the enemy as they advanced up the steep broken slopes
of the foreground. The fighting was severe, but Bonaparte had the
advantage. Massena arrived at 9 A.M., and a little later the column of
Quasdanovich, which had moved along the Adige and was now attempting to
gain a foothold on the plateau in rear of Joubert, was crushed by the
converging fire of Joubert's right brigade and by Massena's guns, their
rout being completed by the charge of a handful of cavalry under
Lasalle. The right horn of Alvintzi's attack, when at last it swung in
upon Napoleon's rear, was caught between Massena and the advancing
troops of Rey and annihilated, and even before this the dispirited
Austrians were in full retreat. A last alarm, caused by the appearance
of a French infantry regiment in their rear (this had crossed the lake
in boats from Salo), completed their demoralization, and though less
than 2000 had been killed and wounded, some 12,000 Austrian prisoners
were left in the hands of the victors. Rivoli was indeed a moral
triumph. After the ordeal of Arcola, the victory of the French was a
foregone conclusion at each point of contact. Napoleon hesitated, or
rather refrained from striking, so long as his information was
incomplete, but he knew now from experience that his covering
detachment, if well led, could not only hold its own without assistance
until it had gained the necessary information, but could still give the
rest of the army time to act upon it. Then, when the centre of gravity
had been ascertained, the French divisions hurried thither, caught the
enemy in the act of manoeuvring and broke them up. And if that
confidence in success which made all this possible needs a special
illustration, it may be found in Napoleon's sending Murat's regiment
over the lake to place a mere two thousand bayonets across the line of
retreat of a whole army. Alvintzi's manoeuvre was faulty neither
strategically in the first instance nor tactically as regards the
project of enveloping Joubert on the 14th. It failed because Joubert and
his men were better soldiers than his own, and because a French division
could move twice as fast as an Austrian, and from these two factors a
new form of war was evolved, the essence of which was that, for a given
time and in a given area, a small force of the French should engage and
hold a much larger force of the enemy.
The remaining operations can be very briefly summarized. Provera,
still advancing on Mantua, joined hands there with Wurmser, and for a
time held Serurier at a disadvantage. But hearing of this, Napoleon
sent back Massena from the field of Rivoli, and that general, with
Augereau and Serurier, not only forced Wurmser to retire again into
the fortress, but compelled Provera to lay down his arms. On the 2nd
of February 1797, after a long and honourable defence, Mantua, and
with it what was left of Wurmser's army, surrendered.
Leoben.
The campaign of 1797, which ended the war of the First Coalition, was
the brilliant sequel of these hard-won victories. Austria had decided
to save Mantua at all costs, and had lost her armies in the attempt, a
loss which was not compensated by the "strategic" victories of the
archduke. Thus the Republican "visitation" of Carinthia and Carniola
was one swift march--politically glorious, if dangerous from a purely
military standpoint--of Napoleon's army to the Semmering. The
archduke, who was called thither from Germany, could do no more than
fight a few rearguard actions, and make threats against Napoleon's
rear, which the latter, with his usual "tact," ignored. On the Rhine,
as in 1795 and 1796, the armies of the Sambre-and-Meuse (Hoche) and
the Rhine-and-Moselle (Moreau) were opposed by the armies of the Lower
Rhine (Werneck) and of the Upper Rhine (Latour). Moreau crossed the
river near Strassburg and fought a series of minor actions. Hoche,
like his predecessors, crossed at Dusseldorf and Neuwied and fought
his way to the Lahn, where for the last time in the history of these
wars, there was an irregular widespread battle. But Hoche, in this his
last campaign, displayed the brilliant energy of his first, and
delivered the "series of incessant blows" that Carnot had urged upon
Jourdan the year before. Werneck was driven with ever-increasing
losses from the lower Lahn to Wetzlar and Giessen. Thence, pressed
hard by the French left wing under Championnet, he retired on the
Nidda, only to find that Hoche's right had swung completely round him.
Nothing but the news of the armistice of Leoben saved him from
envelopment and surrender. This general armistice was signed by
Bonaparte, on his own authority and to the intense chagrin of the
Directory and of Hoche, on the 18th of April, and was the basis of the
peace of Campo Formio.