retired to rest at his country house at Rueil, but the Emperor could not
spare him long. In April, 1810, within eight months, he was once again
hurried off on active service, this time to Spain, where Soult had been
driven out of Portugal by Sir Arthur Wellesley, and Jourdan and Joseph
defeated at Talavera. The Emperor promised the Prince of Essling ninety
thousand troops for the invasion of Portugal, and placed under his
command Junot and Ney. The Marshal did his best to refuse the post; he
knew the difficult character of Ney and the jealousy of Junot, and he
pointed out that it would be better to reorganise the army of Portugal
under generals appointed by himself. Berthier replied that "the orders
of the Emperor were positive, and left no point in dispute. When the
Emperor delegated his authority obedience became a duty; however great
might be the pride of the Dukes of Elchingen and Abrantes, they had
enough justice to understand that their swords were not in the same line
as the sword of the conqueror of Zurich." Still, the Prince foresaw the
future, and appealed to the Emperor himself, but the Emperor was
obdurate. "You are out of humour to-day, my dear Massena. You see
everything black, yourself and your surroundings. To listen to you one
would think you were half dead. Your age? A good reason! How much older
are you now than at Essling? Your health? Does not imagination play a
great part in your weakness? Are you worse than at Wagram? It is
rheumatism that is troubling you. The climate of Portugal is as warm and
healthy as Italy, and will put you on your legs.... Set out then with
confidence. Be prudent and firm, and the obstacles you fear will fade
away; you have surmounted many worse." Unfortunately for the Marshal,
his forebodings were truer than the Emperor's optimism. On arriving at
Salamanca his troubles began. Delays were inevitable before he could
bring into order his unruly team. Junot and Ney were openly
contemptuous, Regnier hung back, and was three weeks late in his
arrangements. Meanwhile, all that Massena saw of the enemy, whom the
Emperor had in past years stigmatised as the "slow and clumsy English,"
confirmed him in his opinion that the campaign was going to prove the
most arduous he had ever undertaken.
In spite of everything, operations opened brilliantly for the French.
Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida fell without the English commander making any
apparent effort to relieve them. On September 16th the invasion of
Portugal commenced. But losses, disease, and garrison duty had already
reduced his troops to some seventy thousand men, and the French found
"an enemy behind every stone"; while, as the Prince of Essling wrote,
"We are marching across a desert; women, children, and old men have all
fled; in fact, no guide is to be found anywhere." Still the English fell
back before him, and he was under the impression that they were going to
evacuate Portugal without a blow, although he grasped the fact that it
was the immense superiority of the French cavalry which had prevented
the "sepoy general" making any effort to relieve the fortresses. But on
September 26th Massena found that the English had stayed their retreat,
and were waiting to fight him on the rocky ridge of Busaco.
Unfortunately for his reputation, he made no reconnaissance of the
position, and, trusting entirely to the reports of Ney, Regnier, and
Junot, who asserted the position was much less formidable than it
looked, sustained a heavy reverse. After the battle his lieutenants
urged him to abandon the invasion of Portugal; but the veteran refused
such timorous advice, and, rousing himself, soon showed the energy which
had made his name so famous at Zurich and Rivoli. Turning the position,
the French swept down on Portugal, while the English hurriedly fell back
before them. What caused Massena most anxiety was the ominous desertion
of the countryside. He was well aware of the bitter hatred of the
Portuguese, and knew that his soldiers tortured and hung the wretched
inhabitants to force them to reveal hidden stores of provisions, but it
was not until October 10th, when the French had arrived within a few
miles of the lines of Torres Vedras, that he learned of the vast
entrenched camp which the English commander had so secretly prepared for
his army and the inhabitants of Portugal. Massena was furious, and
covered with accusations the Portuguese officers on his staff. "Que
diable," he cried, "Wellington n'a pas construit des montagnes." But
there had been no treachery, only so well had the secret been kept that
hardly even an officer in the English army knew of the existence of the
work, and as Wellington wrote to the minister at Lisbon on October 6th,
"I believe that you and the Government do not know where the lines are."
For six weeks the indomitable Marshal lay in front of the position,
hoping to tempt the English to attack his army, now reduced to sixty
thousand men. But Wellington, who had planned this victorious reply to
the axiom that war ought to feed war, grimly sat behind his lines, while
the English army, well fed from the sea, watched the French writhe in
the toils of hunger. Massena was now roused, and as his opponent wrote,
"It is certainly astonishing that the enemy have been able to remain in
this country so long.... It is an extraordinary instance of what a
French army can do." At last even Massena had to confess himself beaten
and fall back on Santarem. The winter passed in a fruitless endeavour on
the part of the Emperor and the Marshal to force Soult, d'Erlon, and
Regnier to co-operate for an advance on Lisbon by the left bank of the
Tagus. Meanwhile, in spite of every effort, the French army dwindled
owing to disease, desertion, and unending fatigue. So dangerous was the
country that a despatch could not be sent along the lines of
communication without an escort of three hundred men. The whole
countryside had been so swept bare of provisions that a Portuguese spy
wrote to Wellington saying, "Heaven forgive me if I wrong them in
believing they have eaten my cat."
By March, 1811, it became clear that the French could no longer maintain
themselves at Santarem; but so skilful were Massena's dispositions that
it was three days before Wellington realised that at last the enemy had
commenced their retreat. Never had the genius of the Marshal stood
higher than in this difficult retirement from Portugal. With his army
decimated by hunger and disease, with the victorious enemy always
hanging on his heels, with his subordinates in open revolt, and a
Marshal of France refusing to obey orders in the face of the enemy, he
lost not a single gun, baggage-wagon or invalid. Still, the morale of
his army was greatly shaken; as he himself wrote, "It is sufficient for
the enemy to show the heads of a few columns in order to intimidate the
officers and make them loudly declare that the whole of Wellington's
army is in sight." When the Marshal at last placed his wearied troops
behind the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, he found his
difficulties by no means at an end. The Emperor, who "judged men only by
results," wrote him a letter full of thinly-veiled criticism of his
operations, while he found that the country round the fortresses was
now included in the command of the northern army under Bessieres.
Accordingly he had to apply to that Marshal for leave to revictual and
equip his troops. Meanwhile Wellington proceeded to besiege Almeida.
By the end of April, after a vigorous correspondence with Bessieres,
Massena had at last reorganised his army and was once again ready to
take the field against the English. Reinforced by fifteen hundred
cavalry of the Guard under Bessieres, at Fuentes d'Onoro he surprised
the English forces covering the siege of Almeida; after a careful
reconnaissance at dawn on May 5th he attacked and defeated the English
right, and had it not been for the action of Bessieres, who spoiled his
combination by refusing to allow the Guard to charge save by his orders,
the English would have been totally defeated. Massena wished at all
hazards to continue the fight on the morrow, but his principal officers
were strongly opposed to it. Overborne by their counsels, after lying in
front of the position for three days he withdrew to Ciudad Rodrigo. It
was through no fault of his that he was beaten at Fuentes d'Onoro;
Wellington himself confessed how closely he had been pressed when he
wrote: "Lord Liverpool was quite right not to move thanks for the battle
of Fuentes, though it was the most difficult I was ever concerned in and
against the greatest odds. We had nearly three to one against us
engaged: above four to one of cavalry: and moreover our cavalry had not
a gallop in them, while some of that of the enemy were quite fresh and
in excellent order. If Bony had been there we should have been beaten."
Soon after the battle Massena was superseded by Marmont, and retired to
Paris. The meeting with the Emperor was stormy. "Well, Prince of
Essling," said Napoleon, "are you no longer Massena?" Explanations
followed, and the Emperor at last promised that once again he should
have an opportunity of regaining his glory in Spain. But Fate willed
otherwise. After Salamanca, when Marmont was recalled, Massena set out
again for Spain, only to fall ill at Bayonne and to return home and try
to restore his shattered health at Nice. In 1813 and 1814 he commanded
the eighth military district, composed of the Rhone Valley, but he was
getting too old to take strenuous measures and was glad to make
submission to the Bourbons.
Very cruelly the new Government placed an affront on the Marshal by
refusing to create him a peer of France under the plea that he was an
Italian and a foreigner, but in spite of this the Prince remained
faithful during the first part of the Hundred Days, and only went over
to Napoleon when he found that the capital and army had recognised the
Emperor. At Paris the Emperor greeted him with "Well, Massena, did you
wish to serve as lieutenant to the Duke of Angouleme and fight me ...
would you have hurled me back into the sea if I had given you time to
assemble your forces?" The old warrior replied: "Yes, Sire, inasmuch as
I believed that you were not recalled by the majority of Frenchmen."
Ill-health prevented the Marshal from actively serving the Emperor. But
during the interval between Napoleon's abdication and the second
restoration it fell to the Marshal's lot to keep order in Paris as
Governor and Commander of the National Guard. The new Government, to
punish him for the aid he had given to the Emperor, nominated him one of
the judges of Marshal Ney. This was the last occasion the Prince of
Essling appeared in public. Suspected as a traitor by the authorities,
weighed down by the horror of Ney's death and the assassination of his
old friend Brune, and racked by disease, after a lingering painful
illness the conqueror of Zurich breathed his last at the age of
fifty-nine on April 4, 1817. Even then the ultra royalists could not
conceal their hatred of him. The War Minister, Clarke, Duke of Feltre,
his old comrade, now turned furious legitimist, had hitherto withheld
the Marshal's new baton, and it was only the threat of Massena's
son-in-law, Reille, to place on the coffin the baton the Marshal had
received from the Emperor which at last forced the Government to send
the emblem.
Great soldier as he was, Massena's escutcheon was stained by many a
blot. His avarice was disgusting beyond words, and with avarice went a
tendency to underhand dealing, harshness, and malice. During the Wagram
campaign the Marshal's coachman and footman drove him day by day in a
carriage through all the heat of the fighting. The Emperor complimented
these brave men and said that of all the hundred and thirty thousand men
engaged they were the bravest. Massena, after this, felt bound to give
them some reward, and said to one of his staff that he was going to give
them each four hundred francs. The staff officer replied that a pension
of four hundred francs would save them from want in their old age. The
Marshal, in a fury, turned on his aide-de-camp, exclaiming, "Wretch, do
you want to ruin me? What, an annuity of four hundred francs! No, no,
no, four hundred francs once and for all"; adding to his staff, "I would
sooner see you all shot and get a bullet through my arm than bind myself
to give an annuity of four hundred francs to any one." The Marshal never
forgave the aide-de-camp who had thus urged him to spend his money. His
harshness was also well known, and the excesses of the French troops in
Switzerland, Naples, and Portugal were greatly owing to his callousness;
in the campaign in Portugal he actually allowed detachments of soldiers
to set out with the express intention of capturing all girls between
twelve and twenty for the use of his men. But while oblivious to the
sufferings of others, as a father he was affectionate and indulgent. As
he said after Wagram of his son Prosper, "That young scamp has given me
more trouble than a whole army corps;" so careful was he of his safety
that he refused during the second day of the battle to allow him to
take his turn among the other aides-de-camp; but the young Massena was
too spirited to endure this, and Napoleon, hearing of the occurrence,
severely reprimanded the Marshal. Staunch republican by profession,
blustering and outspoken at times, he was at bottom a true Italian, and
knew well how to use the delicate art of flattery. Writing in 1805 to
the Minister of War, he thus ends a despatch: "I made my first campaign
with His Majesty, and it was under his orders that I learned what I know
of the trade of arms. We were together in the Army of Italy." Again,
when at Fontainebleau he had the misfortune to lose an eye when out
pheasant shooting, he attacked Berthier as the culprit, although he knew
full well that the Emperor was the only person who had fired a shot.
But in spite of all this meanness and his many defects, he must always
be remembered as one of the great soldiers of France, a name at all
times to conjure with. Both Napoleon and Wellington have paid their
tribute to his talents. At St. Helena the fallen Emperor said that of
all his generals the Prince of Essling "was the first," and the Duke,
speaking to Lord Ros of the French commanders, said, "Massena gave me
more trouble than any of them, because when I expected to find him weak,
he generally contrived somehow that I should find him strong." The
Marshal was a born soldier. War was with him an inspiration; being all
but illiterate, he never studied it theoretically, but, as one of his
detractors admits, "He was a born general: his courage and tenacity did
the rest. In the best days of his military career he saw accurately,
decided promptly, and never let himself be cast down by reverses." It
was owing to this obstinacy combined with clear vision that his great
successes were gained, and the dogged determination he showed at Zurich,
Loano, Rivoli and Genoa was no whit impaired by success or by old age,
as he proved at Essling, Wagram, and before the lines of Torres Vedras.
Like his great commander, none knew better than the Prince of Essling
that fortune must be wooed, and, as Napoleon wrote to him, "It is not to
you, my dear general, that I need to recommend the employment of
audacity." In spite of his ill success in his last campaign, to the end
the Prince of Essling worthily upheld his title of "The spoilt child of
victory."
IV
JEAN BAPTISTE JULES BERNADOTTE, MARSHAL, PRINCE OF PONTE CORVO, KING OF
SWEDEN
Gascony has ever been the mother of ambitious men, and many a ruler has
she supplied to France. But in 1789 few Gascons even would have believed
that ere twenty years had passed one Gascon would be sitting on the
Bourbon throne of Naples and a second would be Crown Prince of Sweden,
the adopted son of the House of Vasa.
Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, the son of a petty lawyer, was born at Pau on
January 26, 1763. At the age of seventeen he enlisted in the Royal
Marine regiment and passed the next nine years of his life in garrison
towns in Corsica, Dauphine and Provence. His first notable exploit
occurred in 1788, when, as sergeant, he commanded a section of the
Marines whose duty it was to maintain order at Grenoble during the
troubles which preceded the outbreak of the Revolution. The story goes
that Bernadotte was responsible for the first shedding of blood. One
day, when the mob was threatening to get out of hand, a woman rushed out
of the crowd and caught the sergeant a cuff on the face, whereon the
fiery Gascon ordered his men to open fire. In a moment the answer came
in a shower of bricks. Blood had been shed, and from that moment the
people of France declared war to the death on the old regime. Impetuous,
generous, warm-hearted and ambitious, for the next three years Jean
Baptiste pursued a policy which is typical of his whole career. Ready
when at white heat of passion to take the most extreme measures, even to
fire on the crowd, in calmer moments full of enthusiasm for the Rights
of Man and the well-being of his fellows; spending long hours haranguing
his comrades on the iniquity of kingship and the necessity of taking up
arms against all of noble birth, yet standing firm by his colonel,
because in former days he had done him a kindness, and saving his
officers from the mutineers who were threatening to hang them; watching
every opportunity to push his own fortunes, Bernadotte pursued his way
towards success. Promotion came rapidly: colonel in 1792, the next year
general of brigade, and a few months later general of division, he owed
his advancement to the way in which he handled his men. Naturally great
neither as tactician or as strategist, he could carry out the orders of
others and above all impart his fiery nature to his troops; his success
on the battlefield was due to his personal magnetism, whereby he
inspired others with his own self-confidence. But with all this
self-confidence there was blended in his character a curious strain of
hesitation. Again and again during his career he let "I dare not" wait
upon "I would." Gascon to the backbone, full of craft and wile, with an
eye ever on the future, at times he allowed his restless imagination to
conjure up dangers instead of forcing it to show him the means to gain
his end. When offered the post of general of brigade, and again when
appointed general of division, he refused the step because he had
divined that Jacobin would persecute Girondist, that ultra-Jacobin would
overthrow Jacobin, and that a reaction would sweep away the
Revolutionists, and he feared that the generals of the army might share
the fate of those who appointed them. After his magnificent attack at
Fleurus, he was at last compelled to accept promotion by Kleber, who
rode up to him and cried out, "You must accept the grade of general of
brigade here on the field of battle, where you have so truly earned it.
If you refuse you are no friend of mine." Thereon Bernadotte accepted
the post, considering that he could, if necessary, prove that he had not
received it as a political favour. The years 1794-6 saw Bernadotte on
continuous active service with the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, now in
the Rhine valley, now in the valley of the Danube. Every engagement from
Fleurus to Altenkirchen added more and more to his reputation with the
authorities and to his hold on the affection of his men. "He is the God
of armies," cried his soldiers, as they followed him into the fire-swept
zone. His courage, personality and physical beauty captivated all who
approached him. Tall, erect, with masses of coal black hair, the great
hooked nose of a falcon, and dark flashing eyes indicating Moorish blood
in his veins, he could crush the soul out of an incipient revolt with a
torrent of cutting words, and in a moment turn the mutineers into the
most loyal and devoted of soldiers. During the long revolutionary wars
he always kept before him the necessity of preparing for peace, and
found time to educate himself in history and political science. It was
with the reputation of being one of the best divisional officers of the
Army of the Sambre and Meuse, and a political power of no small
importance, that, at the end of 1796, Bernadotte was transferred with
his division to the Army of Italy, commanded by Bonaparte. From their
very first meeting friction arose. They were like Caesar and Pompey, "the
one would have no superior, the other would endure no equal." Bonaparte
already foresaw the day when France should lie at his feet; he
instinctively divined in Bernadotte a possible rival. Bernadotte,
accustomed to the adulation of all with whom he came in contact, felt
the loss of it in his new command, where soldiers and officers alike
could think and speak of nobody save the conqueror of Italy. Yet neither
could afford to break with the other, neither could as yet foretell
what the future would bring forth, so amid an occasional flourish of
compliments, a secret and vindictive war was waged between the two. As
commander-in-chief, Bonaparte, for the time being, held the whip hand
and could show his dislike by severe reprimands. "Wherever your division
goes, there is nothing but complaints of its want of discipline."
Bernadotte, on his side, anxious to win renown, would appeal to the
"esprit" of his soldiers of the Sambre and Meuse, and would spoil
Bonaparte's careful combinations by attempting a frontal attack before
the turning movement was effected by the Italian divisions. By the end
of the campaign it was clear to everybody that there was no love lost
between the two. After Leoben Bonaparte was for the moment the supreme
figure in France. As plenipotentiary at Leoben and commander-in-chief of
"the Army of England" he could impose his will on the Directory.
Bernadotte, in disgust at seeing the success of his rival, for some time
seriously considered withdrawing from public life, or at any rate from
France, where his reputation was thus overshadowed. Among various posts,
the Directory offered him the command of the Army of Italy, but he
refused them all, till at last he consented to accept that of ambassador
at Vienna. Vienna was for the time being the pole round which the whole
of European politics revolved, and accordingly there was great
possibility there of achieving diplomatic renown. But scarcely had the
new ambassador arrived at his destination when he heard of Bonaparte's
projected expedition to Egypt. He at once determined to return to
France. He felt that his return ought to be marked by something which
might appeal to the populace. Accordingly he adopted a device at once
simple and effective.
[Illustration: JEAN BAPTISTE BERNADOTTE, KING OF SWEDEN
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY HILAIRE LE DRU]
Jacobin at heart when his interest did not clash with his principles, he
had from his arrival at Vienna determined to show the princes and
dignitaries of an effete civilisation that Frenchmen were proud of their
Revolution and believed in nothing but the equality of all men; he
refused to conform to court regulations and turned his house into a club
for the German revolutionists. His attitude was of course resented, and
there was considerable feeling in Vienna against the French Embassy. It
only required, therefore, a little more bravado and a display of the
tricolour on the balcony of the Embassy to induce the mob to attack the
house. Immediately this occurred Bernadotte lodged a complaint, threw up
his appointment, and withdrew to France as a protest against this
"scoundrelly" attack on the honour of his country and the doctrine of
the equality of men.