NAPOLEON.
The years that followed the peace of Hubertsburg were a period of
repose, if not for mankind, at least for five-sixths of Continental
Europe. Russia, indeed, half an Asiatic Power, carrying out the designs
of Peter the Great, under the rule of a bad but most able woman,
advanced beyond the Tanais to the heads of the Euxine; and Austria,
deprived of the genius of Eugene, was more than once engaged in a
doubtful contest with Islam, formidable even in decay. But France was
scarcely involved in war, apart from a naval struggle with England;
hardly a shot was fired in despoiling Poland; save for demonstrations
that came to nothing, Germany was at peace from the Rhine to the Oder;
and though England founded an Empire in Hindustan, and the Great
Republic of the Far West was born, the conflicts that led to these
mighty events were outside the pale of the European world. As happened
after the peace of Utrecht, few occasions arose during this long season
of comparative rest for the illustration of the military art, by
examples in the field; the chiefs of the Seven Years’ War passed slowly
away; and their successors in the direction of armies, for the most
part men of the third order, were generally content to adhere stolidly
to the traditions and methods of that great contest. The attack in
oblique order was assumed to be an infallible method to win a battle
by theorists who did not understand the difference between Kolin,
Rossbach, and Leuthen; and Napoleon has described, with sarcastic
pleasantry, how pedants were wont to flock to Potsdam to behold the
manœuvres of the Prussian army engaged in movements to turn a flank at
reviews; the great King who still commanded in person, laughing quietly
at their shallow conceits. It is remarkable, however, that on the one
occasion when Germany was seriously threatened with war, from 1762 to
1791, the strategy and even the tactics of Daun prevailed over those
of his renowned antagonist. In 1778 Frederick put two armies in motion
to invade Bohemia, by the double line of the operations of 1866; but
Loudon and Lacy formed a great entrenched camp. In this position they
awaited an attack, interposing between the divided enemy; and the King
did not venture even to offer battle.
Meanwhile, changes fraught with momentous results, in the approaching
era of world-wide conflict, were gradually making themselves felt
in Europe. The armed strength of Russia was immensely increased;
and her armies growing with the expanding Empire, though still
imperfectly equipped and organized, became instruments of war in the
hands of Suvóroff, very different from the half-barbarian hosts which
had displayed their savage constancy at Zorndorf and Künersdorf.
Simultaneously the military power of Austria, under the rule of the
dreamy reformer, Joseph, had relatively declined to a great extent;
and the famous Prussian army, though still formidable in numbers, in
discipline and in real worth had begun, even in the last years of
Frederick, to lose much of its old efficiency; and after his death, it
fell distinctly away from the high standard of the Seven Years’ War. As
for the French army, it had been augmented, and, to outward appearance,
had much improved; the Government and the nation had made great efforts
to efface the shame of days such as Minden and Rossbach; camps of
instruction were formed in parts of the country where the troops were
carefully trained and drilled; and the artillery of France, at all
times excellent, was remodelled, and became far the best in Europe.
Yet the Revolution, already at hand, had impaired the military power
of the State; the _noblesse_, still holding all high commands,
gave no successors to Condé and Turenne; there were fatal dissensions
between the officers and the men; and though the army was very much
better than it had been when led by Soubise, it was not the unrivalled
army of Louis XIV. It may be said, therefore, that old Europe, from the
Niemen to the Tagus, was ill-prepared, at the close of this period, for
a great war; and as for the British army, it was deemed of no account
after the disasters of Saratoga and York Town. Concurrently with these
changes, the material progress which had been marked in Europe since
the seventeenth century, had gone on with increased development, and
had continued to affect the conditions of war. While the populations
of the different States had multiplied and yielded ample elements
of military force, agriculture had made a rapid advance; and the
inventions of the second half of the eighteenth century had given a
remarkable impulse to every urban industry. Vast tracts of marsh, of
forest, of waste, had been enclosed and brought under cultivation; new
roads and bridges had been largely made; insignificant hamlets had
become towns, and towns had grown into great cities more flourishing
and peopled, in some instances, than the older cities they had, in
fact, supplanted. As the general result, from a military point of view,
the consequences were that armies in the field could obtain far ampler
means of supply than ever had been the case before; on most theatres of
war they would possess more roads and facilities of movement than in
previous contests; and the defensive power of fortresses, for a century
in decline, had become less than it had ever been, and, indeed, was of
little avail on several frontiers.
This period of repose, as has often happened, was marked by
speculations of different kinds on the theory and practice of the
Art of War. The military writers of the day, however, were, without
exception, inferior men; and this is strange when we bear in mind that
the age was about to behold a display of military genius of the highest
order. The great increase of roads and of the means of manœuvring did
not suggest to these dull theorists that armies could make more rapid
movements, and could concentrate more quickly on given points than had
been possible in former times; on the contrary, these facts gave rise
to a notion that it had become necessary, in operations in the field,
to separate armies into numerous masses, and to cover all avenues that
were liable to attack. This false principle was largely confirmed
by the growth in the size of European armies, which had been one of
the results of the peace. These, it was assumed, in the event of war,
would be developed into vast proportions; and how was it possible to
move these large arrays, save by marching on a greatly extended front,
and occupying all the roads on the theatre? Nor did it occur to these
writers that the immense increase in the products of husbandry, which
had been witnessed in most parts of Europe, might enable armies to draw
their supplies more fully from resources on the spot, and, therefore,
to move with more ease and freedom than had been conceivable a century
before; they emphatically insisted on the necessity of magazines,
and of laying in enormous means of subsistence beforehand; and they
believed that war would be more methodical as armies grew into larger
dimensions. In theory, strategy became much less bold than in the days
of Turenne and Marlborough; the system of advances upon an immense
front, holding all the roads, and moving very slowly, with huge trains
of impedimenta and supplies, replaced the daring manœuvres of these
famous chiefs; and it contributed not a little to the change that
Europe was stirred by no great impulse, that the age seemed indisposed
to war, and that military energy appeared deadened through the
influences of the last half of the century.
Some progress, however, had been made in tactics, and in the mechanism
and formation of armies. The method of the attack in oblique order
was still considered the best possible; but means to defeat it had
been devised, though these had not yet been proved in the field.
Frederick’s outflanking movement was a rapid advance, made in line,
when the enemy’s wing was attained; but, admirable as was the training
of the Prussian army, this was always attended with difficulty and
delay, especially in broken and intricate ground; and it was proposed
to encounter this by attacks in columns, more flexible and easily
handled than lines, these being preceded by clouds of skirmishers--an
American idea of the War of Independence--which would cover the onset
of the larger masses, and, to a considerable extent, would screen
their march. In this way the attack in oblique order, it was argued,
might be met and repelled by a simpler and quicker method of tactics;
a new offensive system might replace the old; and, in any event, an
army ought not to remain passive and to allow itself to be turned on
a wing, as had repeatedly happened in the Seven Years’ War. All this,
however, as yet was mere theory, unconfirmed by actual experience in
the field; and, for the rest, the current strategic notions had made
their influence felt in tactics, and movements widely divided upon the
theatre, suggested similar movements in actual battle. In some respects
armies had been much improved; the increase of their numbers had caused
battalions and squadrons to be formed into brigades and divisions, more
unity being given to the collective mass; the value of horse artillery
had been fully recognized; and, as I have said, France had taken the
lead in bringing her artillery to a high point of excellence.
The Art of War seemed thus in a state of decay, and was being affected
by the new theories, when the French Revolution, like a volcano, burst
suddenly upon a terrified world. The invasion of Champagne in 1792 was
followed by Valmy and Jemmapes; and, in 1793, the hosts of old Europe
gathered in arms against the bloodstained Republic, which had flung the
head of a king to its foes, and had proclaimed the new Evangel of the
Rights of Man on the ruins of a fallen altar and throne. The military
operations of the next few years were marked by the want of strategic
insight, and by the uncertain and unproved tactics which had grown out
of the speculations of the age: and--apart from the tremendous issues
at stake--are not of enduring and special interest. Not, indeed, that
the wretched failures of the Allies where wholly due to feeble and bad
generalship; they were largely caused by events in the East of Europe,
by the discords and selfishness of the Coalition, and even by its
essential weakness. Beside that they were not prepared for war, the
partition of Poland made the great German Powers comparatively without
resources on the Rhine; it has been said, indeed, that they had no
real wish to effect the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, lest it
should avenge a dark international crime. Austria and Prussia, too, and
the lesser German States were at odds with each other, and would not
act in concert; the avowed purpose of the Allies to dismember France
threw an enormous weight into the scale against them; and, at the very
crisis of the campaign of 1793, when they could without difficulty
have advanced to Paris, they separated their forces in order to reduce
strong places meant to be permanently retained.
The timidity, however, and the false principles which marked the
conduct of these campaigns contributed mainly to their ignominious end.
The chiefs of the Coalition divided their armies in fractions, upon an
immense front, extending from the Var to the Meuse and the Lys; they
occupied all the main approaches to France; and they moved extremely
slowly, and with great magazines and incumbrances, through a most
fertile country where celerity was of supreme importance, and where
their troops could find ample supplies on the spot. As the inevitable
result, their forces were weak at every point of their enormous line,
and were nowhere able to strike with effect; they were actually unequal
to passing fortresses which they sate down to besiege and occupy,
though a relieving army was seldom at hand; and their advance was so
tardy and beset by hindrances, that they gave France what she most
needed--time to organise her strength and to make the war national.
The errors, however, of the new strategy were conspicuous also on the
French side, though not, perhaps, in such great proportions. The French
armies, like those of their foes, were usually disseminated on a vast
front, and were, therefore, feeble on the whole theatre; and though
Carnot made one or two good movements, and showed that he knew the
importance of interior lines along the space between the Rhine and the
Lys, the plans of his campaigns as a rule were bad, and displayed the
same defects as those of the Allies. On the other hand, the operations
of the French were more rapid than those of their enemies; having no
magazines and impedimenta of the kind, they flung themselves like a
horde on the country, lived on it, and yet appeared in the field; but
though this system made their movements more quick, their efforts were
usually ill-directed, and had the Coalition shown skill and energy,
it must have triumphed in 1793–94. The tactics of the belligerent
armies were also influenced by recent theories, and were tentative,
unsettled, and in a state of transition. The Prussians attacked, at
Valmy, in the oblique order, but they were driven back by the fine
French artillery; the Austrians, at Jemmapes, followed the methods of
Daun, awaited the enemy in a strong position, and were overwhelmed
by superior numbers. In other engagements the Allies adopted the
system of attack in ill-combined columns, and were often beaten by
their more active foes. More regularity is seen in the tactics of the
French, though these as yet were quite immature and imperfect. The
practice of advancing in columns, with skirmishers in front, borrowed
from speculations already known, fell in well with the existing state
of the revolutionary military power of France; the myriads of young
levies which filled her armies were formed into masses given cohesion
by the disciplined soldiers of the old Monarchy; and these were
launched recklessly against the lines of their foes, and, fired as they
were with patriotic passion, occasionally gained important success,
especially in intricate and wooded country. By degrees these bodies
became real soldiers, though their formations were as yet rude; their
immense numbers and their enthusiasm told; though there is little doubt
they would not have saved France had they not had the support of her
regular army.
Ere long the hour came, and the man appeared who was to educe order out
of these chaotic elements, to turn to account, with consummate skill,
the new conditions available in war, and to raise the first of arts
to the extreme of perfection. Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769, a
scion of a House of the _noblesse_ of Florence--the birthplace of
many illustrious men--which had emigrated from Italy in the sixteenth
century, and, since that time had found a home in Corsica. The child
was cradled, so to speak, in war; the traditions of Paoli filled his
mind in infancy, and it may well be that the heroic figure of the
legislator and champion of his little island had an influence on the
future author of the Code, and on the chief who raised France to the
heights of glory. Napoleon was sent at an early age to the well-known
Military School of Brienne, one of the foundations of the Bourbon
Kings, and he passed from thence to a Royal school in Paris, to
complete his education for the profession of arms. Little is known
about him in these boyish years; he was grave, taciturn, and fond of
books, especially of the historical and romantic kind; but except that
he excelled in mathematical science, and that he impressed his teachers
with an undefined sense of power, he was not considered a lad of
extraordinary parts. He entered the army at the age of sixteen, and the
bent of his genius became apparent in his assiduous attention to the
history of war, and especially in his constant study of military maps,
pursuits that gave token of the great future strategist. Though born
a gentleman, and retaining through life many of the instincts of the
ancient _régime_, Napoleon at this time was a needy youth, with no
hope of rising under the old order of things; and it is not surprising,
when the Revolution broke out, that he eagerly took to the new ideas,
and ranged himself on the side of the soldier, in the divisions that
filled the army with discord. As events progressed, he certainly had
relations with Robespierre and some of the Terrorists; but this passage
in his career is still ill-explained. We may accept his statement that
he always stood aloof from Jacobin anarchy and its deeds of blood;
and his well-known exclamation, on the 10th of August, when the Swiss
Guards were slaughtered by a Parisian rabble, shows that, even in those
days, he had that profound contempt of popular movements of every kind
which was one of his most distinctive qualities.
He was a captain of artillery at the memorable siege of Toulon in
1793; and on this occasion he first gave proof of his extraordinary
capacity in war. Toulon was vainly attacked from the land side, for
its communications with the sea were open; and the French army, led
by incapable men, was too weak to master its walls and its ramparts.
But the Allied fleets were the main defence of the place; these were
crowded within the port and the roadsteads; and they were liable to
be destroyed were they exposed to the fire of powerful batteries from
a small projecting headland. At a council of war Napoleon declared
that this point, when occupied, would be the key to Toulon; and the
truth was so evident that he convinced his superiors. His admirable
prevision was soon realised. When the promontory was seized, the
hostile squadrons, completely commanded, at once put to sea, and Toulon
fell in an instant as if by magic. This exploit justly attracted
attention. Bonaparte was next employed on the Italian frontier, where
his strategic ability manifested itself in turning the positions of the
Piedmontese army; and, at the instance of the Government, he quelled
the revolt of the Sections on the 13th Vendémiaire, and in this service
he showed that he had remarkable presence of mind and firmness. He was
now known as a soldier of high promise; and, having married Josephine
Beauharnais--partly owing to the influence of her old lover, Barras,
but partly, too, because of his acknowledged powers--he was given the
command, in the spring of 1796, of some 38,000 or 40,000 men encamped
along the Genoese seaboard, with general orders to invade Italy. This
operation, however, was to be quite secondary to those of the great
armies about to enter Germany, with Jourdan and Moreau at their head;
and some of the Directory, it is said, wished to get rid, in this way,
of an importunate young man who had pestered them with grand strategic
projects pronounced by experienced chiefs to be wild extravagance.
I have now reached the campaigns of Napoleon; I can describe them only
in the barest outline; but I must dwell for a moment on that of Italy.
The army, in the hands of the young general, had suffered terrible
privations, and was in extreme want; but it was composed of trained and
enthusiastic soldiers; it had several good subordinate chiefs, and it
could be made a most formidable instrument of war under the guidance
and inspiration of a great commander. Spread along the coast from Nice
to the verge of Genoa, it was confronted by a Sardinian and an Austrian
army, perhaps 60,000 strong, if united, led by Colli and Beaulieu,
experienced generals, but veterans of the old school; and their forces,
based on Turin and Milan, held the hill country, where the French
Alps decline and join the extreme western Apennines. Napoleon’s first
operations strikingly illustrate the intelligence of the theatre and
the skill in stratagem in which no military chief can be compared with
him. Giving out that he was about to advance by Genoa, he made a
feigned demonstration on his right, causing Beaulieu largely to detach
to his left; and then, counter-marching with extreme celerity, he
poured his troops through the Cadibona Pass, the lowest eminence in the
uniting ranges, and surrounded and routed part of the Austrian centre.
Beaulieu and Colli endeavouring to concentrate, presented their forces,
still divided, to their foe; these were defeated at Dego and Millesimo;
and the baffled chiefs retreated on Acqui and Ceva, diverging towards
their bases at Milan and Turin, and leaving a widening interval between
their shattered armies. Napoleon, standing in strength between his
antagonists, detached a wing to hold Beaulieu in check, and then
drawing together the rest of his forces, he pursued Colli, struck him
down at Mondovi, and compelled the King of Sardinia to sue for peace.
He took care to secure his communications with France by insisting on
the cession of the Piedmontese fortresses; and having thus gained a new
base--he had quietly disregarded injunctions from Paris to stir up a
revolution in Piedmont--he set off to pursue Beaulieu, in retreat along
the northern bank of the Po.
[Illustration: Theatre of the Campaigns in NORTH ITALY]
Deceiving again his adversary by a false rumour, Napoleon next made
a forced march to the river, advancing, as he has said, “with the
speed of a torrent,” and gathering his supplies on his way, from the
country; and crossing at Piacenza, he forestalled the Austrians,
threatened their rear, and forced them to retire on the Adda. A fierce
engagement at Lodi followed, in which Bonaparte showed remarkable skill
in securing every advantage on the ground; Beaulieu, out-manœuvred,
fell back to the Mincio, and Napoleon entered Milan in triumph,
having, like Turenne, conquered by a war of marches. The French army
now had some days of repose; its chief employed them in assuring his
base, in levying requisitions in immense quantities, and in making
preparations for fresh exploits; and if he showed no scruple in these
measures, and, in fact, he organized rapine on an enormous scale, he
established himself firmly in the heart of Lombardy. Towards the close
of May Napoleon advanced to the Mincio; Beaulieu, trying to cover the
stream at all points, was easily dislodged by a daring attack, and
the Austrian army, beaten and cowed, was forced to take refuge in
the hills of the Tyrol. By this time Bonaparte had received orders
from the Directory to march from the Po to the Tiber, to drive the
Pope from Rome, and to rouse Southern Italy; but he refused to follow
false strategic plans which, he declared, would involve his army in
ruin; and with admirable insight he addressed himself to operations
which, if successful, would, he hoped, give France the great prize of
Italy. The Austrians were his only formidable foes; the whole peninsula
would succumb if their military strength was really broken; and the
problem was how to attain this end with a small French army advanced
to the Mincio. In the line of the Adige Napoleon perceived the true
theatre on which to operate; the river, bounded on the west by the Lake
of Garda, hemmed in by mountains as it flowed southward, and ending
in tracts of widespreading marshes, afforded an enormously strong
barrier, especially if it were held on both banks; and accordingly he
took possession of the stream, having, without hesitation, seized the
fortresses of the Venetian Republic, on its lower course, and having,
meanwhile, sat down to besiege Mantua, the last stronghold still
retained by Austria. The conception, original, grand, and simple alike,
was an inspiration of true strategic genius, and one of the finest of
a marvellous career. Summer had now come, and as the Austrian armies
had as yet made no signs of appearing, Napoleon employed this breathing
time in pressing forward the attack on Mantua, and in strengthening the
power of France in Italy.
The Emperor, meanwhile, had made great efforts to retrieve the late
reverses of his troops in Lombardy. The French armies under Moreau
and Jourdan, directed on widely distant lines, according to the false
strategy of the day, had been held in check by the Archduke Charles,
and had achieved no real success in Germany; and Würmser, a veteran
of high repute, was despatched from the Upper Rhine with about 30,000
men, to reinforce the defeated army of Beaulieu--that general had been
deprived of his command--and with orders to drive the French out of
Italy. The Austrian army cannot have been less than from 60,000 to
70,000 strong; Bonaparte had perhaps only 40,000 men besieging Mantua,
and along the Adige; and as the value of that barrier, in the hands
of a master, was not understood in the Imperial councils, the defeat
of the French seemed a foregone conclusion. Believing that Napoleon
would retain his hold on Mantua, or, at least, would hesitate until
it was too late, Würmser divided his army into three masses, the left
and centre under the General-in-Chief moving down the Adige by the
valleys and hills that meet the eastern shores of the Lake of Garda,
the right, led by Quasdanovich, along the western shore, the object
being that the combined forces should close round and stifle the French
near Mantua. Napoleon waited until the movement was made plain, and
his resolution was at once taken with the strength of character of
a great captain. He raised the siege of Mantua on the last night of
July, and his enemies being divided by the lake, he turned against
Quasdanovich, who was nearest at hand, and drove his advanced guard
back for a long distance. Würmser, meanwhile, had forced his way to
the Mincio; dividing his army, he detached a part to attack the French
supposed to be still round Mantua, and he sent another part to unite
with Quasdanovich, assumed by his chief to be close at hand. This gave
Bonaparte an opportunity to strike; he had by this time his whole
army together; and while he kept Quasdanovich baffled, in check, he
encountered the separated forces of Würmser, and routed them in detail,
at Lonato first, and then, decisively, at Castiglione. Quasdanovich had
already fallen back; Würmser was compelled to recross the Mincio, and
his broken army was so demoralised, that he had to ascend the Adige and
fly into the Tyrol.
Napoleon now exhibited one of his most striking qualities, his terrible
skill in pursuing a defeated enemy. Relying on the moral power of his
victories, he marched north of the lake along both shores; and then,
concentrating his forces, he beat Davidowich, a lieutenant of Würmser,
at Roveredo, just as that tenacious chief had planned another advance
on Mantua, moving, on this occasion, from the Tyrol eastwards, to the
Lower Adige. Napoleon, leaving a detachment to restrain Davidowich,
pressed Würmser with indefatigable energy, came up with him in the
defiles of the Brenta, overthrew him completely at Bassano, and drove
him, with the mere wreck of an army, into the low country east of the
Adige. The situation of the veteran appeared desperate; he was cut off
from retreat to the Tyrol; a triumphant enemy was upon his rear; and
how was he to get across the Lower Adige, held by French garrisons,
where it could be passed, before Bonaparte should reach and destroy
him? Napoleon thought he had his foe in his toils; but Würmser was a
bold and undaunted soldier, and he managed to force the passage at
Legnago, and even to make good his way to Mantua, striking down some
small hostile bodies in his path. The old chief, proud of this trifling
success, attempted to make a stand near Mantua; but he was driven into
the fortress with loss; and Mantua was again invested. In a brief
campaign of about six weeks, Napoleon, with a very inferior force,
had annihilated a far more powerful enemy; and all that remained of
Würmser’s army were a few thousand men far away in the Tyrol, and a
few thousand more imprisoned in Mantua, a burden rather than a relief
to the garrison. Such extraordinary success had never been witnessed
before, and it was obviously due to the genius of the French commander.
Austria, nevertheless, with characteristic firmness, did not yet
give up the protracted contest. Moreau and Jourdan by this time
were in retreat towards the Rhine, the Archduke Charles, who, in
this campaign had operated between divided enemies, with a feeble
approach to Napoleon’s skill, having gained real success in Germany;
and considerable reinforcements were sent to the Tyrol, and to the
plain country known as Friuli, and were placed under the command of
Alvinzi, another old general of some distinction, with directions at
any cost to relieve Mantua. Alvinzi had passed the Isonzo by the end
of October with from 30,000 to 40,000 men, Davidowich being still in
the Tyrol with 15,000 to 18,000; and the plan of the Austrian chief
was to make these divided masses converge at Verona upon the Adige;
and, having forced the passage, to march to the Mincio. The main French
army at this time held the lowlands between the Brenta and the Adige,
a considerable detachment under Vaubois being in the Tyrol watching
the enemy; and as Napoleon in this instance persisted in continuing
the siege of Mantua, and kept a large force around the place, he had
not 40,000 men altogether in the field. The first operations of the
Austrian leaders were attended with success that might have been made
decisive. Masséna, the ablest lieutenant of Bonaparte, held Alvinzi,
indeed, in check on the Brenta; but Vaubois was driven, in defeat, from
the Tyrol; the important position of Rivoli was lost; and Davidowich
had approached Verona by the first week of November. The principal
army of the French was now compelled to fall back; Napoleon sent a
detachment to support Vaubois; but though Rivoli, the key to Verona,
was regained, Alvinzi had advanced and drawn near the city. Napoleon
attacked him fiercely at Caldiero, but the French recoiled, baffled,
from a very strong position; and had Davidowich at this moment pressed
forward boldly, and Alvinzi made good use of his success, they might
have effected their junction, seized Verona, and made their way across
the Adige. But the spell of defeat was on the Austrian chiefs; and
Napoleon, seizing his one chance with marvellous skill, plucked a
glorious triumph out of the extreme of peril.
Abandoning Verona, he crossed the Adige; he moved quickly down the
stream and recrossed it, and then he suddenly fell on his astounded
foe, advancing along the dykes of Arcola, through the morasses of the
Lower Adige, where the agility and vehemence of the French soldiery
would, he foresaw, give them a great advantage. The battle raged
confusedly for several days; Napoleon more than once led his men in
person; Davidowich, meanwhile, had reconquered Rivoli; but skill and
French valour at last prevailed, and the two Austrian armies were
ultimately compelled to fall back behind the Brenta and into the Tyrol
discomfited, and with immense losses. Austria, however, would not
confess defeat; great efforts were made to restore her armies; and
Alvinzi assumed the offensive again, in the first days of January 1797.
He had even now probably 60,000 men against 35,000 or 40,000 French;
and his plan was to descend the Adige, to occupy Rivoli, and then to
seize Verona, and to press on to Mantua, a diversion being at the same
time made on the Lower Adige by his lieutenant, Provera. By the 14th
of January the Austrian columns had surrounded Rivoli on every side;
but in the difficult march through the hills, their artillery and
cavalry had been attached to one column only, on the best road, and
this gave Napoleon, who had his army in hand, though very inferior in
force, a decided advantage. The issue of the battle was never doubtful;
Masséna displayed conspicuous skill; the Austrians, smitten down by
the French guns, and unable to reply, lost heart and were beaten; and
Alvinzi drew off, overthrown and routed. It is unnecessary to dwell on
the last scenes of the contest; Provera contrived to cross the Adige,
and even to make his way to Mantua; but he was crushed by Napoleon,
who had hurried from Rivoli, and on the 11th of January laid down his
arms. The fate of Mantua was now sealed; three efforts to relieve the
place had failed; the garrison was reduced to extremities; and Würmser
capitulated in a few days. The last Italian fortress of Austria had
fallen; but this was nothing compared to her other losses. Army after
army had perished in the attempt to dislodge Bonaparte from the Adige,
and the Empire was completely exhausted.
By this time the main seat of the war had been transferred from the
Rhine and the Danube to the Adige, the Isonzo, and the hills of the
Tyrol; a man of genius had transformed the situation. I shall not refer
to the close of the struggle. The Archduke Charles, the last hope of
the Hapsburgs, endeavoured in vain to arrest the march of Bonaparte
across the Carnic Alps, into the valleys of the Drave and the Mur. In
the second week of April the youthful conqueror beheld the steeples
of Vienna from the heights of the Simmering, having, with an army
never 50,000 strong, subdued Italy and shattered the power of Austria.
Nor can I notice Leoben and Campo Formio, or moralize on the Fall of
Venice; nor can I comment on the profound statecraft, very different
from the revolutionary cant, shown by Napoleon in the negotiations for
peace. Yet a word must be said, by way of comment, on the memorable
campaign of 1796–97, by some considered its great author’s masterpiece.
The dazzling imagination, one of the most striking, and yet a dangerous
gift of Napoleon, was not seen in this passage of arms as distinctly as
in more than one that followed; but every other faculty of a master of
war was exhibited in the highest perfection. The first accomplishment
of a true strategist, skill in so understanding the theatre of war as
to make it subserve his ends in view, was displayed in more than one
notable instance; the perception of the importance of the Cadibona
Pass, and the grand choice of the Adige as a barrier, are examples that
cannot escape the reader. Nor less admirable was the exhibition of
another great strategic gift, the combination of force on the decisive
points, the usual prelude of real success. Napoleon, always weaker
than his foes, if united, was often stronger on the scene of immediate
action, and this was largely due to his wonderful powers, if it was
also caused by the faults of adversaries who persisted in following a
false strategic system. No commander besides, not even Turenne, had
approached Napoleon in the great art of manœuvring between divided
enemies, of striking them left and right in succession, and of gaining
the flank and rear of a hostile army; the operations against Würmser,
and the march to Piacenza, are admirable specimens of this kind of
excellence. In the movements, too, and manœuvres of Bonaparte, we see a
splendour, and yet a scientific method, and, perhaps most distinctly,
a skill in stratagem peculiar to himself, and hitherto scarcely known;
and as for his tactics, the genius with which he chose the ground at
Arcola stamps him at once as a master in the highest sphere of this
art. Nor less remarkable were his moral qualities; his energy and
resolution, for example, appear conspicuously in the raising of the
siege of Mantua; and no one but Napoleon would have ventured to cross
the will of the Directory, as he did more than once, at the risk of his
fortune, and perhaps of his life.
Yet in this marvellous display of genius and power we can occasionally
see defects and faults. Napoleon risked too much in continuing the
siege of Mantua at the approach of Alvinzi. He should not, perhaps,
have fought at Caldiero; and we trace signs of that over-confidence in
success, which certainly was his most distinctive error. One general
cause of the extreme brilliancy of his movements should be carefully
noted. Napoleon, unlike the first revolutionary chiefs, did not merely
throw his troops on a country and allow them to plunder to obtain
subsistence; he well knew the fatal results of this system, and he
organized magazines and depôts with care; but he perceived, with true
insight, that, in Italy at least, it was nearly always possible to
find resources on the spot; and his army accordingly moved with much
less impediments than that of the heavily-encumbered Austrians, and
was often able to assume a bold offensive which generals of the old
type would have deemed impossible. This method, however, which he
made almost perfect, had a dangerous side as yet unseen, but to be
manifested in a still distant future. For the rest, Napoleon, in the
campaign of Italy, had good subordinates and an army that became most
formidable in his master hand; but the force that really determined
events was the great military genius which had suddenly appeared.
I shall pass over Napoleon’s career in the East, the Pyramids, and the
failure at Acre; these campaigns but slightly illustrate his genius in
war. His object in his descent on Egypt was to march through Syria and
Persia to the Indus. He always maintained that the design was feasible;
but our present knowledge shows that it was quite impossible, and
in this, as in other of his military plans, his soaring imagination
overcame his judgment. On his return to France in the winter of 1799
he easily supplanted the tottering Government, and, as First Consul,
seized supreme power; and though I shall not comment on the 18th
Brumaire, it may fairly be said that this _coup d’état_ saved
France and restored her to her place in Europe. A second Coalition had
been formed against her, during Napoleon’s absence, after the Battle
of the Nile. Prussia, indeed, held aloof, but Russia appeared in
formidable strength on the theatre of war; and Austria, aided by the
gold and the troops of England, once more placed powerful armies in
the field. Notwithstanding the examples of the campaign of 1796, that
of 1799 proceeded on the late false principles. The war was conducted
on an enormous front, from the Texel, along the Rhine, to the Tiber;
and the armies on both sides were split into fractions, comparatively
inefficient on a vast field of manœuvre. The Allies, however, gained
important success. Masséna, indeed, saved France at Zürich; but
Suvóroff drove the French out of Italy, and the Austrians, reversing
the events of 1796, advanced from the Mincio, and approached the French
Alps. When Napoleon, who, in a few months, had accomplished wonders
of administrative skill, in restoring the finances and power of the
State, had, in the beginning of 1800, to survey the military affairs
of France, her situation was still critical in the extreme. Russia,
indeed, had abandoned the Allied cause, but Austria had put her whole
strength forth. One great Imperial army, led by Mélas, covered Italy
from the Adige to the Tanaro; another, under Kray, was in the Swabian
lowlands, holding the southern approaches to the Black Forest; and
France, with forces reduced and weakened, was threatened with invasion
on the Rhine and the Var.
A man of surpassing powers in war was, however, for the first time at
her head; and this proved sufficient to turn the scale of Fortune.
Napoleon’s project for the campaign was not completely realised; but
it was the most striking perhaps of his great career, and it ended in
a succession of triumphs. With that wonderful glance which read the
whole theatre, and saw how to make the best use of it, the First Consul
perceived that the two hostile armies were separated by the vast space
of Switzerland, at this time in the possession of the French; and
the army of Mélas, about 100,000 strong, and intended ultimately to
enter Provence, was the principal army, on what ought to have been the
secondary point of attack only; while that of Kray, perhaps 90,000 men,
designed, if successful, to attain Alsace, was a subordinate force on
the chief scene of action. These being the facts, and as France held
Switzerland, projecting like a huge natural bastion between the enemy’s
widely-divided masses, Napoleon gave Moreau the main French army--it
contained perhaps 100,000 troops--with directions to cross the Rhine
at Schaffhausen, to fall in full force on the rear of Kray, and to cut
him off from his line of retreat; Moreau, at the fitting time, sending
a large detachment across the St. Gothard in order to aid the movements
of the French chief in Italy. Napoleon selected for 1800 the scene of
his exploits in 1796–97; and his design was, avoiding the Piedmontese
fortresses, to cross the Alps by the Great St. Bernard range, and then
rapidly descending, to seize the lines of the communications of Mélas
with the Adige, and supported by the detachment from Moreau, to force
the Austrians to fight in a disastrous position. The First Consul
calculated that about 40,000 men--France at this juncture could not
yield more--would, with the aid from the main army, suffice for his
purpose; but as it was of the first importance to allow the Austrians
to advance into the far end of Italy, and to engage themselves on the
line of the Var, it was necessary to conceal as much as possible the
formation and destination of the new army of Italy, and especially
to screen its advance to the Alps. To attain his end Napoleon tasked
to the utmost the dexterity in stratagem in which he stands supreme.
He assembled a collection of bad troops at Dijon, and ostentatiously
announced this was his Italian army; but in the meantime he quietly
drew together his real force from different parts of France, masking
the operation with the greatest care and forethought. The main army,
I have said, was to cross the St. Bernard; but a small column was to
march by the pass of Mont Cenis--the ordinary military way through the
Alps--in order effectually to deceive the enemy.
The campaign only began in earnest in spring, though hostilities had
not ceased through the winter. In the first week of May Mélas had
part of his army besieging Genoa, under his lieutenant, Ott, Masséna
making a stubborn defence; Elsnitz, another Austrian, was upon the Var,
confronted by Suchet, a capable chief well known in the Peninsular War
afterwards; and the rest of the Imperial army held Piedmont, extending
thence to the Adige and the Mincio. Meanwhile, Moreau, a general of
the second order, had feared to execute Napoleon’s design, and to fall
on the rear of Kray by Schaffhausen; he had crossed the Rhine, after
his own fashion, by complicated and even hazardous movements, merely
threatening, not striking Kray, with effect; but he had forced the
weaker hostile army back; and he was able to fulfil one great part
of his mission, and to send 20,000 men across the St. Gothard, under
Moncey, one of the Napoleonic marshals. The First Consul took the
field in the second week of May; his army, secretly moved to the Swiss
frontier, its strength still unknown to its enemy, crossed the Great
St. Bernard from the 16th to the 19th; and simultaneously the secondary
force moved forward through the pass of Mont Cenis. The hill fort of
Bard arrested the French for a moment; but the obstacle was overcome
skilfully; and by the 23rd the advanced guard of Napoleon was in the
valley of the Dora, and in full march for Piedmont. By this time Mélas
had heard of the advance of the enemy, but he refused to believe in the
force of the French army; he allowed Ott and Elsnitz to remain where
they were; and though he moved to Turin in person, it was with not more
than a few thousand men, for he felt assured that his divisions in
Piedmont would be able to give a good account of Napoleon. The Austrian
chief, too, at this critical moment, was deceived by the apparition of
the column from Mont Cenis; he thought that it was the chief part of
the hostile army; and falling into the snare that had been laid for
him, he halted at Turin to draw in his forces.
This gave Napoleon the opportunity he sought; he marched from the
Dora across the Sesia and the Ticino with his wonted celerity; and he
entered Milan on the 2nd of June, already menacing the communications
of his foe. He was soon joined by Moncey’s detachment, and being now
at the head of 60,000 men, he crossed the Po, holding both its banks,
and closed on the rear of the main Austrian army, thrown forward almost
to the frontier of France. Mélas, seriously alarmed, gave orders to
concentrate his still very superior force; but Ott lingered to receive
the keys of Genoa, which yielded only after a most stern resistance,
and left a large garrison in the fallen city; Elsnitz was routed by
Suchet in his retreat from the Var; and the Austrian army was immensely
weakened, when in the second week of June it lay round Alessandria,
Ott, who had endeavoured to attain the Po, having been driven back
at Montebello with loss. By this time Napoleon had his army divided
on either bank of the Po, Moncey watching the course of its Alpine
feeders, Napoleon holding the famous Stradella Pass, where the spurs of
the Apennines approach the river; and his enemy, even now, was within
his toils. But the First Consul gave Mélas credit for more strategic
skill than he really possessed; he thought that the Austrian, after
the fall of Genoa, might endeavour to make his escape by the coast, or
might fall back and overpower Suchet; and he debouched into the great
plain of Marengo, in order to observe and close on his foe. His army
was not 30,000 strong; that of Mélas was probably 40,000; it was very
superior in cavalry and guns, which gave it a marked advantage in open
ground; and no doubt can exist that in risking this movement Napoleon
made a great strategic error. Mélas, a stout warrior of the school
of Daun, attacked the French fiercely on the 14th of June, hoping to
defeat his enemy and to escape from the net thrown around him with
such forethought and skill; and he nearly attained a decisive victory.
Desaix, however, a trusted lieutenant of Bonaparte, arriving from a
distance, restored the battle; the horsemen of Kellerman changed the
fortunes of the day, and the Austrians at last were completely beaten.
The result was then seen of the masterly movements which had brought
Napoleon on the rear of Mélas; the defeated army was compelled to make
terms, and it evacuated the peninsula even beyond the Mincio. France
had regained Italy by a march and a battle.
Austria, always tenacious, resisted for months, and Moreau gained a
great victory at Hohenlinden, success in part due to the overboldness
of John, a brother of the Archduke Charles, who imagined he had
mastered Napoleon’s strategy. But Marengo had been the decisive
stroke: Austria fought for honour only, after the loss of Italy;
and ere long she accepted the Peace of Lunéville, followed by the
peace of Amiens between France and England. The campaign of 1800 is
the most dazzling of Napoleon’s masterpieces, though marred by what
might have been a fatal error. Full justice, perhaps, has never been
done to the surpassing ability of the First Consul in perceiving the
advantage given to France by her hold of Switzerland, and the false
position of the Austrian armies; for two Napoleons were required on
the scene, to realise completely one grand conception. Had Bonaparte
been in the place of Moreau, and debouched from Schaffhausen across
the Rhine, Kray would have been cut off, and Vienna laid open; and
the ruin of Mélas and the Conquest of Italy was, in fact, half only
of what might have been done. Yet, as it was, Switzerland was made a
kind of sallyport, to place the French armies on the rear of their
foes; Moreau was rightly given the superior force to paralyse Kray,
and to keep him off from the Rhine; Napoleon properly distributed the
inferior force in Italy, under his own command, for it would suffice
to defeat operations in the Var; and though Moreau failed to destroy
Kray, Napoleon succeeded in destroying Mélas, thrown forward perilously
on the French frontier. Intelligence of the theatre and splendour of
design were never, perhaps, more finely displayed; the ordinary reader
will dwell on the Alpine march; but the true student of war will rather
note the exquisite art with which the army of Italy was collected,
formed, and moved to the Alps, all without the enemy’s knowledge; the
admirable skill by which Mélas was deceived through the demonstration
at Mont Cenis; the celerity of the advance on Milan, and the perfect
arrangements made to combine with Moncey, and then to encompass the
foe. Genius and power of stratagem have never accomplished more; and
had Napoleon remained near the Stradella Pass--Turenne certainly would
have done this--the execution of his plan would have been perfect.
But this wonderful chief was not only too confident throughout his
whole career, but often showed[10] impatience when near his enemy;
these faults nearly caused him to lose the campaign; and he certainly
ought not to have fought at Marengo, for the chances were in his
opponent’s favour, though an advance towards Alessandria might have
been justified, for Mélas might, perhaps, have escaped by the seaboard,
or have crushed Suchet with his weak detachment.
I cannot dwell on the Government of the First Consul, on the Code, the
Concordat, the Pacification of La Vendée, the restoration of order
and peace in France, the foundation of the only institutions and laws
which have lasted during her subsequent history; nor can I comment
on his external policy, the settlement of Italy in the interests of
France, and the extension of her influence through the Lesser States
of Germany. I shall only remark that if these achievements reveal
the near advent of despotism at home, and the spirit of encroaching
ambition abroad, they display administrative excellence of the first
order, and profound, if hard and unscrupulous, statecraft; and they
bear the marks of ineffaceable greatness. I cannot, moreover, enlarge
on the causes which led to the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, and
involved England and France in a death struggle. Nor shall I describe
the Flotilla and the Camp of Boulogne, the accumulation of a great
army destined to cross the Channel, and to invade our coasts, and the
energy, the perseverance, and the careful forethought with which this
last was prepared to effect the descent. Yet a remark must be made
on the fine combinations thought out by Napoleon to carry out his
purpose, for they are a notable example of his skill in stratagem.
His arrangements to embark his army, and to make the passage, in the
flotilla, were but a part of the design; they were largely intended
to mask his purpose; his real plan was to conduct the descent under
the protection of a fleet which should command the Channel. How
indefatigably, and with what consummate art, the First Consul toiled
to effect his object, his correspondence abundantly proves; and, it
must be added, he well nigh succeeded. The Admiralty was deceived, and
Nelson was lured away; and had French seamen been nearly as good as our
own, and Villeneuve been a capable chief, Napoleon would have mastered
the narrow seas for a time, and his army would have stood on our
shores. That he would have found a Moscow, in England, our countrymen
believe; he certainly would have been imprisoned within the ground he
occupied, for our fleets would have cut him off from France, and his
enterprise would probably have been a failure. All this, however, is
speculation only; England undoubtedly was in grave danger, and her
Government did not understand her enemy; though it deserves notice
that Napoleon’s idea, that he would subdue England by pulling down the
Throne and setting a Republic up in its place, was not only a huge
mistake, but tends to show he did not believe that he could succeed
only by mere force of arms.