The French cross the Po at Placenza--The Battle of Fombio--The
Bridge of Lodi--Napoleon occupies Milan--Resigns, and resumes his
command--Insurrection of Pavia--Military Executions--The French
pass the Mincio at Borghetto--Beaulieu retreats behind the
Adige--Mantua besieged--Peace with the King of the Two
Sicilies--The Pope buys a Respite.
Piedmont being now in the hands of Buonaparte, the Austrian general
concentrated his army behind the Po, with the purpose of preventing the
invader from passing that great river and making his way to the capital
of Lombardy.
Napoleon employed every device to make Beaulieu believe that he designed
to attempt the passage of the Po at Valenza; and the Austrian, a man of
routine, who had himself crossed the river at that point, was easily
persuaded that these demonstrations were sincere. Meanwhile his crafty
antagonist executed a march of incredible celerity upon Placenza, fifty
miles lower down the river; and appeared there on the 7th of May, to the
utter consternation of a couple of Austrian squadrons, who happened to
be reconnoitring in that quarter. He had to convey his men across that
great stream in the common ferry boats, and could never have succeeded
had there been anything like an army to oppose him. Andreossi
(afterwards so celebrated) was commander of the advanced guard; Lannes
(who became in the sequel Marshal Duke of Montebello) was the first to
throw himself ashore at the head of some grenadiers. The German hussars
were driven rapidly from their position. Buonaparte himself has said
that no operation in war is more critical than the passage of a great
river; on this occasion the skill of his arrangements enabled him to
pass one of the greatest in the world without the loss of a single man.
Beaulieu, as soon as he ascertained how he had been outwitted, advanced
upon Placenza, in the hope of making the invader accept battle with the
Po in his rear, and therefore under circumstances which must render any
check in the highest degree disastrous. Buonaparte, in the meantime, had
no intention to await the Austrian on ground so dangerous, and was
marching rapidly towards Fomboi, where he knew he should have room to
manoeuvre. The advanced divisions of the hostile armies met at that
village on the 8th of May. The Imperialists occupied the steeples and
houses, and hoped to hold out until Beaulieu could bring up his main
body. But the French charged so impetuously with the bayonet, that the
Austrian, after seeing one-third of his men fall, was obliged to
retreat, in great confusion, leaving all his cannon behind him, across
the Adda; a large river which, descending from the Tyrolese mountains,
joins the Po at Pizzighitone--and thus forms the immediate defence of
the better part of the Milanese against any enemy advancing from
Piedmont. Behind this river Beaulieu now concentrated his army,
establishing strong guards at every ford and bridge, and especially at
Lodi, where as he guessed (for once rightly) the French general designed
to force his passage.
The wooden bridge of Lodi formed the scene of one of the most celebrated
actions of the war; and will ever be peculiarly mixed up with the name
of Buonaparte himself. It was a great neglect in Beaulieu to leave it
standing when he removed his headquarters to the east bank of the Adda:
his outposts were driven rapidly through the old struggling town of Lodi
on the 10th; and the French sheltering themselves behind the walls and
houses, lay ready to attempt the passage of the bridge. Beaulieu had
placed a battery of thirty cannon so as to sweep it completely; and the
enterprise of storming it in the face of this artillery, and the whole
army drawn up behind, is one of the most daring on record.
Buonaparte's first care was to place as many guns as he could get in
order in direct opposition to this Austrian battery. A furious cannonade
on his side of the river also now commenced. The General himself
appeared in the midst of the fire, pointing with his own hand two guns
in such a manner as to cut off the Austrians from the only path by which
they could have advanced to undermine the bridge; and it was on this
occasion that the soldiery, delighted with his dauntless exposure of his
person, conferred on him his honorary nickname of _The Little Corporal_.
In the meantime he had sent General Beaumont and the cavalry to attempt
the passage of the river by a distant ford (which they had much
difficulty in effecting), and awaited with anxiety the moment when they
should appear on the enemy's flank. When that took place, Beaulieu's
line, of course, showed some confusion, and Napoleon instantly gave the
word. A column of grenadiers, whom he had kept ready drawn up close to
the bridge, but under shelter of the houses, were in a moment wheeled to
the left, and their leading files placed upon the bridge. They rushed
on, shouting _Vive la Republique!_ but the storm of grape-shot for a
moment checked them. Buonaparte, Lannes, Berthier, and Lallemagne,
hurried to the front, and rallied and cheered the men. The column dashed
across the bridge in despite of the tempest of fire that thinned them.
The brave Lannes was the first who reached the other side, Napoleon
himself the second. The Austrian artillerymen were bayoneted at their
guns, before the other troops, whom Beaulieu had removed too far back,
in his anxiety to avoid the French battery, could come to their
assistance. Beaumont pressing gallantly with his horse upon the flank,
and Napoleon's infantry forming rapidly as they passed the bridge, and
charging on the instant, the Austrian line became involved in
inextricable confusion, broke up, and fled. The slaughter on their side
was great; on the French there fell only 200 men. With such rapidity,
and consequently with so little loss, did Buonaparte execute this
dazzling adventure--"the terrible passage," as he himself called it, "of
the bridge of Lodi."
It was indeed, terrible to the enemy. It deprived them of another
excellent line of defence, and blew up the enthusiasm of the French
soldiery to a pitch of irresistible daring. Beaulieu, nevertheless,
contrived to withdraw his troops in much better style than Buonaparte
had anticipated. He gathered the scattered fragments of his force
together, and soon threw the line of the Mincio, another tributary of
the Po, between himself and his enemy. The great object, however, had
been attained: the Austrian general escaped, and might yet defend
Mantua, but no obstacle remained between the victorious invader and the
rich and noble capital of Lombardy. The garrison of Pizzighitone, seeing
themselves effectually cut off from the Austrian army, capitulated. The
French cavalry pursued Beaulieu as far as Cremona, which town they
seized; and Napoleon himself prepared to march at once upon Milan.
It was after one of these affairs that an old Hungarian officer was
brought prisoner to Buonaparte, who entered into conversation with him,
and among other matters questioned him "what he thought of the state of
the war?" "Nothing," replied the old gentleman, who did not know he was
addressing the general-in-chief,--"nothing can be worse. Here is a young
man who knows absolutely nothing of the rules of war; to-day he is in
our rear, to-morrow on our flank, next day again in our front. Such
violations of the principles of the art of war are intolerable!"
The Archduke, who governed in Lombardy for the Emperor, had made many a
long prayer and procession; but the saints appeared to take no
compassion on him, and he now withdrew from the capital. A revolutionary
party had always existed there, as indeed in every part of the Austrian
dominions beyond the Alps; and the tricolor cockade, the emblem of
France, was now mounted by multitudes of the inhabitants. The
municipality hastened to invite the conqueror to appear among them as
their friend and protector; and on the 14th of May, four days after
Lodi, Napoleon accordingly entered, in all the splendour of a military
triumph, the venerable and opulent city of the old Lombard kings.
He was not, however, to be flattered into the conduct, as to serious
matters, of a friendly general. He levied immediately a heavy
contribution (eight hundred thousand pounds sterling) at Milan,--taking
possession, besides, of twenty of the finest pictures in the Ambrosian
gallery.
The conqueror now paused to look about and behind him; and proceeded
still farther to replenish his chest by exactions, for which no
justification can be adduced from the ordinary rules of international
law. With Sardinia he had already reckoned; of the Austrian capital in
Italy he had possession; there was only one more of the Italian
governments (Naples) with which the French Republic was actually at war;
although, indeed, he had never concealed his intention of revenging the
fate of Basseville on the court of Rome. The other powers of Italy were,
at worst, neutrals; with Tuscany and Venice, France had friendly
relations. But Napoleon knew or believed, that all the Italian
governments, without exception, considered the French invasion of Italy
as a common calamity; the personal wishes of most of the minor princes
(nearly connected as these were, by blood or alliance, with the imperial
house of Austria) he, not unreasonably, concluded were strongly against
his own success in this great enterprise. Such were his pretences--more
or less feasible; the temptation was, in fact, great; and he resolved to
consider and treat whatever had not been with him as if it had been
against him. The weak but wealthy princes of Parma and Modena, and
others of the same order, were forthwith compelled to purchase his
clemency not less dearly than if they had been in arms. Besides money,
of which he made them disburse large sums, he demanded from each a
tribute of pictures and statues, to be selected at the discretion of
Citizen Monge and other French connoisseurs, who now attended his march
for such purposes.
In modern warfare the works of art had hitherto been considered as a
species of property entitled in all cases to be held sacred; and
Buonaparte's violent and rapacious infraction of this rule now excited a
mighty clamour throughout Europe. Whether the new system originated with
himself, or in the commands of the Directory, is doubtful. But from this
time the formation of a great national gallery of pictures and statues
at Paris was considered as an object of the first importance; and every
victorious general was expected to bring trophies of this kind in his
train. Whether the fine arts themselves are likely to be improved in
consequence of the accumulation in any one place of such vast treasures
as the Louvre were long exhibited, there has been, and will no doubt
continue to be, much controversy. It is certain that the arts of France
derived no solid advantage from Napoleon's museum. The collection was a
mighty heap of incense for the benefit of the national vanity; and the
hand which brought it together was preparing the means of inflicting on
that vanity one of the most intolerable of wounds, in its ultimate
dispersion.
The Duke of Modena would fain have redeemed the famous St. Jerome, of
Correggio, at the price of L80,000; and Buonaparte's lieutenants urged
him to accept the money. "No," said he, "the duke's two millions of
francs would soon be spent; but his Correggio will remain for ages to
adorn Paris, and inspire the arts of France." The prophecy was not
inspired. Of one thing there can be no doubt; namely, that the
abstraction of these precious monuments of art from the Italian
collections was deeply and permanently resented by the Italian people.
This sacrilege, as those enthusiastic and intelligent lovers of all the
elegant arts considered it, turned back many a half-made convert from
the principles of the French Revolution.
Buonaparte remained but five days in Milan; the citadel of that place
still held out against him; but he left a detachment to blockade it, and
proceeded himself in pursuit of Beaulieu. The Austrian had now planted
the remains of his army behind the Mincio, having his left on the great
and strong city of Mantua, which has been termed "the citadel of Italy,"
and his right at Peschiera a Venetian fortress, of which he took
possession in spite of the remonstrances of the Doge. Peschiera stands
where the Mincio flows out of "its parent lake," the Lago di Guarda.
That great body of waters, stretching many miles backwards towards the
Tyrolese Alps, at once extended the line of defence, and kept the
communication open with Vienna. The Austrian veteran occupied one of the
strongest positions that it is possible to imagine. The invader hastened
once more to dislodge him.
The French Directory, meanwhile, had begun to entertain certain not
unnatural suspicions as to the ultimate designs of their young general,
whose success and fame had already reached so astonishing a height. They
determined to check, if they could, the career of an ambition which they
apprehended might outgrow their control. Buonaparte was ordered to take
half his army, and lead it against the Pope and the King of Naples, and
leave the other half to terminate the contest with Beaulieu, under the
orders of Kellerman. But he acted on this occasion with the decision
which these Directors in vain desired to emulate. He answered by
resigning his command. "One half of the army of Italy," said he, "cannot
suffice to finish the matter with the Austrian. It is only by keeping my
force entire that I have been able to gain so many battles and to be now
in Milan. You had better have one bad general than two good ones." The
Directory durst not persist in displacing the chief whose name was
considered as the pledge of victory. Napoleon resumed the undivided
command, to which now, for the last time, his right had been questioned.
Another unlooked-for occurrence delayed, for a few days longer, the
march upon Mantua. The heavy exactions of the French, and even more
perhaps the wanton contempt with which they treated the churches and the
clergy, had produced or fostered the indignation of a large part of the
population throughout Lombardy. Reports of new Austrian levies being
poured down the passes of the Tyrol were spread and believed. Popular
insurrections against the conqueror took place in various districts: at
least 30,000 were in arms. At Pavia the insurgents were entirely
triumphant; they had seized the town, and compelled the French garrison
to surrender.
This flame, had it been suffered to spread, threatened immeasurable evil
to the French cause. Lannes instantly marched to Benasco, stormed the
place, plundered and burnt it, and put the inhabitants to the sword
without mercy. The general in person appeared before Pavia; blew the
gates open; easily scattered the townspeople; and caused the leaders to
be executed, as if they had committed a crime in endeavouring to rescue
their country from the arm of a foreign invader. Everywhere the same
ferocious system was acted on. The insurgent commanders were tried by
courts-martial, and shot without ceremony. At Lugo, where a French
squadron of horse had been gallantly and disastrously defeated, the
whole of the male inhabitants were massacred. These bloody examples
quelled the insurrections; but they fixed the first dark and indelible
stain on the name of Napoleon Buonaparte.
The spirit of the Austrian and Catholic parties in Lombardy thus
crushed, the French advanced on the Mincio. The general made such
disposition of his troops, that Beaulieu doubted not he meant to pass
that river, if he could, at Peschiera. Meantime he had been preparing to
repeat the scene of Placenza;--and actually, on the 30th of May, forced
the passage of the Mincio, not at Peschiera, but further down at
Borghetto. The Austrian garrison at Borghetto in vain destroyed one arch
of the bridge. Buonaparte supplied the breach with planks; and his men,
flushed with so many victories, charged with a fury not to be resisted.
Beaulieu was obliged to abandon the Mincio, as he had before the Adda
and the Po, and to take up the new line of the Adige.
Meanwhile an occurrence, which may be called accidental, had nearly done
more than repay the Austrians for all their reverses. The left of their
line, stationed still further down the Mincio,--at Puzzuolo, no sooner
learned from the cannonade that the French were at Borghetto, than they
hastened to ascend the stream, with the view of assisting the defence of
their friends. They came too late for this; the commander at Borghetto
had retreated before they arrived. They, however, came unexpectedly;
and, such was the chance, reached Valleggio after the French army had
pursued the Austrians through it and onwards--and, at the moment when
Buonaparte and a few friends, considering the work of the day to be
over, and this village as altogether in the rear of both armies, were
about to sit down to dinner in security. Sebetendorff, who commanded the
Puzzuolo division, came rapidly, little guessing what a prize was near
him, into the village. The French general's attendants had barely time
to shut the gates of the inn, and alarm their chief by the cry "To
arms." Buonaparte threw himself on horseback, and galloping out by a
back passage, effected the narrowest of escapes from the most urgent of
dangers. Sebetendorff was soon assaulted by a French column, and
retreated, after Beaulieu's example, on the line of the Adige.
Buonaparte, profiting by the perilous adventure of Valleggio, instituted
a small corps of picked men, called _Guides_, to watch continually over
his personal safety. Such was the germ from which sprung the famous
Imperial Guard of Napoleon.
The Austrian had, in effect, abandoned for the time the open country of
Italy. He now lay on the frontier, between the vast tract of rich
provinces which Napoleon had conquered, and the Tyrol. The citadel of
Milan, indeed, still held out; but the force there was not great, and,
cooped up on every side, could not be expected to resist much longer.
Mantua, which possessed prodigious natural advantages, and into which
the retreating general had flung a garrison of full 15,000 men, was, in
truth, the last and only Italian possession of the imperial crown,
which, as it seemed, there might still be a possibility of saving.
Beaulieu anxiously waited the approach of new troops from Germany, to
attempt the relief of this great city; and his antagonist, eager to
anticipate the efforts of the imperial government, sat down immediately
before it.
Mantua lies on an island, being cut off on all sides from the main land
by the branches of the Mincio, and approachable only by five narrow
causeways, of which three were defended by strong and regular fortresses
or entrenched camps, the other two by gates, drawbridges, and batteries.
Situated amidst stagnant waters and morasses, its air is pestilential,
especially to strangers. The garrison were prepared to maintain the
position with their usual bravery; and it remained to be seen whether
the French general possessed any new system of attack, capable of
abridging the usual operations of the siege, as effectually as he had
already done by those of the march and the battle. His commencement was
alarming: of the five causeways, by sudden and overwhelming assaults, he
obtained four; and the garrison were cut off from the main land, except
only at the fifth causeway, the strongest of them all, named, from a
palace near it, _La Favorita_. It seemed necessary, however, in order
that this blockade might be complete, that the Venetian territory, lying
immediately beyond Mantua, should be occupied by the French. The power
of this ancient government was no longer such as to inspire much
respect, and Buonaparte resolved that the claim of neutrality should
form no obstacle to his measures. The French Directory had already most
ungenerously trampled on the dignity of Venice, by demanding that she
should no longer afford a retreat to the illustrious exile, the Count of
Provence, eldest surviving brother of Louis XVI.[9] That unfortunate
prince had, accordingly, though most reluctantly, been desired to quit
the Venetian states, and had already passed to the Rhine, where his
gallant cousin, the Prince of Conde, had long been at the head of a
small and devoted army composed of the expatriated gentry of France.
Buonaparte, however, chose to treat the reluctance with which Venice had
been driven to this violation of her hospitality, as a new injury to his
government: he argued that a power who had harboured in friendship, and
unwillingly expelled, the _Pretender_ to the French monarchy, had lost
all title to forbearance on the part of the Revolutionary forces. This
was a gross and ungenerous insult, and it was a gratuitous one; for he
had a far better argument behind. The imperial general had, as we have
seen, neglected the reclamations of the Doge, when it suited his purpose
to occupy Peschiera. "You are too weak," said Buonaparte, when the
Venetian envoy reached his headquarters, "to enforce neutrality on
hostile nations such as France and Austria. Beaulieu did not respect
your territory when his interest bade him violate it; nor shall I
hesitate to occupy whatever falls within the line of the Adige." In
effect, garrisons were placed forthwith in Verona, and all the strong
places of that domain. The tricolor flag now waved at the mouth of the
Tyrolese passes; and Napoleon, leaving Serrurier to blockade Mantua,
returned to Milan, where he had important business to arrange.
The King of Naples, utterly confounded by the successes of the French,
was now anxious to procure peace, almost on whatever terms, with the
apparently irresistible Republic. Nor did it, for the moment, suit
Buonaparte's views to contemn his advances. A peace with this prince
would withdraw some valuable divisions from the army of Beaulieu; and
the distance of the Neapolitan territory was such, that the French had
no means of carrying the war thither with advantage, so long as Austria
retained the power of sending new forces into Italy by the way of the
Tyrol. He concluded an armistice accordingly, which was soon followed by
a formal peace, with the King of the Two Sicilies; and the Neapolitan
troops, who had recently behaved with eminent gallantry, abandoning the
Austrian general, began their march to the south of Italy.
This transaction placed another of Napoleon's destined victims entirely
within his grasp. With no friend behind him, the Pope saw himself at the
mercy of the invader; and in terror prepared to submit. Buonaparte
occupied immediately his legations of Bologna and Ferrara, making
prisoners in the latter of these towns four hundred of the papal troops,
and a cardinal, under whose orders they were. The churchman militant was
dismissed on parole; but, being recalled to headquarters, answered that
his master, the Pope, had given him a dispensation to break his promise.
This exercise of the old dispensing power excited the merriment of the
conquerors. The Vatican, meanwhile, perceived that no time was to be
lost. The Spanish resident at the Roman court was despatched to Milan;
and the terms on which the holy father was to obtain a brief respite
were at length arranged. Buonaparte demanded and obtained a million
sterling, a hundred of the finest pictures and statues in the papal
gallery, a large supply of military stores, and the cession of Ancona,
Ferrara, and Bologna, with their respective domains.
He next turned his attention to the grand duke of Tuscany,--a prince who
had not only not taken any part in the war against the Republic, but had
been the very first of the European rulers to recognise its
establishment, and had kept on terms of friendship with all its
successive authorities. Buonaparte, however, in pursuance of his system,
resolved that the brother of the emperor should pay for his presumed
inclinations. For the present, the Florentine museum and the grand
duke's treasury were spared; but Leghorn, the seaport of Tuscany and
great feeder of its wealth, was seized without ceremony; the English
goods in that town were confiscated to the ruin of the merchants; and a
great number of English vessels in the harbour made a narrow escape. The
grand duke, in place of resenting these injuries, was obliged to receive
Buonaparte with all the appearances of cordiality at Florence; and the
spoiler repaid his courtesy by telling him, rubbing his hands with glee,
during the princely entertainment provided for him, "I have just
received letters from Milan; the citadel has fallen;--your brother has
no longer a foot of land in Lombardy." "It is a sad case," said Napoleon
himself long afterwards--speaking of these scenes of exaction and
insolence,--"it is a sad case when the dwarf comes into the embrace of
the giant; he is like enough to be suffocated--but 'tis the giant's
nature to squeeze hard."
In the meantime the general did not neglect the great and darling plan
of the French government, of thoroughly revolutionising the North of
Italy, and establishing there a group of Republics modelled after their
own likeness, and prepared to act as subservient allies in their mighty
contest with the European monarchies. The peculiar circumstances of
Northern Italy, as a land of ancient fame and high spirit, long split
into fragments, and ruled, for the most part, by governors of German
origin, presented many facilities for the realisation of this design;
and Buonaparte was urged constantly by his government at Paris, and by
a powerful party in Lombardy, to hasten its execution. He, however, had
by this time learned to think of many idols of the Directory with about
as little reverence as they bestowed on the shrines of Catholicism; in
his opinion more was to be gained by temporising with both the
governments and the people of Italy, than by any hasty measures of the
kind recommended. He saw well the deep disgust which his exactions had
excited. "You cannot," said he, "at one and the same moment rob people
and persuade them you are their friends." He fancied, moreover, that the
Pope and other nerveless rulers of the land might be converted into at
least as convenient ministers of French exaction, as any new
establishments he could raise in their room. Finally he perceived that
whenever the Directory were to arrange seriously the terms of a
settlement with the great monarchy of Austria, their best method would
be to restore Lombardy, and thereby purchase the continued possession of
the more conveniently situated territories of Belgium and the
Luxembourg. The general, therefore, temporised; content, in the
meantime, with draining the exchequers of the governments, and cajoling
from day to day the population. The Directory were with difficulty
persuaded to let him follow his own course; but he now despised their
remonstrances, and they had been taught effectually to dread his
strength.
Napoleon, it is clear enough, had no intention to grant these Italian
governments anything but a respite; nor is it to be doubted that their
disposition to take part with Austria remained as it had been before
they entered into these treaties with France. That the purpose of deceit
was mutual, affords, however, no plea of justification--least of all to
the stronger party. "It will be well," says Sir Walter Scott, "with the
world, when falsehood and finesse are as thoroughly exploded in
international communication as they are among individuals in civilised
countries."
[Footnote 9: The same who became afterwards Louis XVIII. of France.]