THE FIRST ITALIAN CAMPAIGN—NAPOLEON’S WAY OF MAKING WAR
But Napoleon had much to occupy him besides his separation from
Josephine. Extraordinary difficulties surrounded his new post. Neither
the generals nor the men knew anything of their new commander. “Who is
this General Bonaparte? Where has he served? No one knows anything about
him,” wrote Junot’s father when the latter at Toulon decided to follow
his artillery commander.
In the Army of Italy they were asking the same questions, and the
Directory could only answer as Junot had done: “As far as I can judge,
he is one of those men of whom nature is avaricious, and that she
permits upon the earth only from age to age.”
He was to replace a commander-in-chief who had sneered at his plans for
an Italian campaign and who might be expected to put obstacles in his
way. He was to take an army which was in the last stages of poverty and
discouragement. Their garments were in rags. Even the officers were so
nearly shoeless that when they reached Milan and one of them was invited
to dine at the palace of a marquise, he was obliged to go in shoes
without soles and tied on by cords carefully blacked. They had
provisions for only a month, and half rations at that. The Piedmontese
called them the “rag heroes.”
Worse than their poverty was their inactivity. “For three years they had
fired off their guns in Italy only because war was going on, and not for
any especial object—only to satisfy their consciences.” Discontent was
such that counter-revolution gained ground daily. One company had even
taken the name of “Dauphin,” and royalist songs were heard in camp.
Napoleon saw at a glance all these difficulties, and set himself to
conquer them. With his generals he was reserved and severe. “It was
necessary,” he explained afterward, “in order to command men so much
older than myself.” His look and bearing quelled insubordination,
restrained familiarity, even inspired fear. “From his arrival,” says
Marmont, “his attitude was that of a man born for power. It was plain to
the least clairvoyant eyes that he knew how to compel obedience, and
scarcely was he in authority before the line of a celebrated poet might
have been applied to him:
“‘Des egaux? dès longtemps Mahomet n’en a plus.’”
General Decrès, who had known Napoleon well at Paris, hearing that he
was going to pass through Toulon, where he was stationed, offered to
present his comrades. “I run,” he says, “full of eagerness and joy; the
_salon_ opens; I am about to spring forward, when the attitude, the
look, the sound of his voice are sufficient to stop me. There was
nothing rude about him, but it was enough. From that time I was never
tempted to pass the line which had been drawn for me.”
Lavalette says of his first interview with him: “He looked weak, but his
regard was so firm and so fixed that I felt myself turning pale when he
spoke to me.” Augereau goes to see him at Albenga, full of contempt for
this favorite of Barras who has never known an action, determined on
insubordination. Bonaparte comes out, little, thin, round-shouldered,
and gives Augereau, a giant among the generals, his orders. The big man
backs out in a kind of terror. “He frightened me,” he tells Masséna.
“His first glance crushed me.”
He quelled insubordination in the ranks by quick, severe punishment, but
it was not long that he had insubordination. The army asked nothing but
to act, and immediately they saw that they were to move. He had reached
his post on March 22d; nineteen days later operations began.
The theatre of action was along that portion of the maritime Alps which
runs parallel with the sea. Bonaparte held the coast and the mountains;
and north, in the foot-hills, stretched from the Tende to Genoa, were
the Austrians and their Sardinian allies. If the French were fully ten
thousand inferior in number, their position was the stronger, for the
enemy was scattered in a hilly country where it was difficult to unite
their divisions.
As Bonaparte faced his enemy, it was with a youthful zest and
anticipation which explains much of what follows. “The two armies are in
motion,” he wrote Josephine, “each trying to outwit the other. The more
skilful will succeed. I am much pleased with Beaulieu. He manœuvres very
well, and is superior to his predecessor. I shall beat him, I hope, out
of his boots.”
The first step in the campaign was a skilful stratagem. He spread rumors
which made Beaulieu suspect that he intended marching on Genoa, and he
threw out his lines in that direction. The Austrian took the feint as a
genuine movement, and marched his left to the sea to cut off the French
advance. But Bonaparte was not marching to Genoa, and, rapidly
collecting his forces, he fell on the Austrian army at Montenotte on
April 12th, and defeated it. The right and left of the allies were
divided, and the centre broken.
By a series of clever feints, Bonaparte prevented the various divisions
of the enemy from reënforcing each other, and forced them separately to
battle. At Millesimo, on the 14th, he defeated one section; on the same
day, at Dego, another; the next morning, near Dego, another. The
Austrians were now driven back, but their Sardinian allies were still at
Ceva. To them Bonaparte now turned, and, driving them from their camp,
defeated them at Mondovi on the 22d.
It was phenomenal in Italy. In ten days the “rag heroes,” at whom they
had been mocking for three years, had defeated two well-fed armies ten
thousand stronger than themselves, and might at any moment march on
Turin. The Sardinians sued for peace.
The victory was as bewildering to the French as it was terrifying to the
enemy, and Napoleon used it to stir his army to new conquests.
“Soldiers!” he said, “in fifteen days you have gained six victories,
taken twenty-one stands of colors, fifty-five pieces of cannon, and
several fortresses, and conquered the richest part of Piedmont. You
have made fifteen hundred prisoners, and killed or wounded ten
thousand men.
“Hitherto, however, you have been fighting for barren rocks, made
memorable by your valor, but useless to the nation. Your exploits
now equal those of the conquering armies of Holland and the Rhine.
You were utterly destitute, and have supplied all your wants. You
have gained battles without cannons, passed rivers without bridges,
performed forced marches without shoes, bivouacked without brandy,
and often without bread. None but republican phalanxes—soldiers of
liberty—could have borne what you have endured. For this you have
the thanks of your country.
“The two armies which lately attacked you in full confidence, now
fly before you in consternation.... But, soldiers, it must not be
concealed that you have done nothing, since there remains aught to
do. Neither Turin nor Milan is ours.... The greatest difficulties
are no doubt surmounted; but you have still battles to fight, towns
to take, rivers to cross....”
Not less clever in diplomacy than in battle, Bonaparte, on his own
responsibility, concluded an armistice with the Sardinians, which left
him only the Austrians to fight, and at once set out to follow Beaulieu,
who had fled beyond the Po.
As adroitly as he had made Beaulieu believe, three weeks before, that he
was going to march on Genoa, he now deceives him as to the point where
he proposes to cross the Po, leading him to believe it is at Valenza.
When certain that Beaulieu had his eye on that point, Bonaparte marched
rapidly down the river, and crossed at Placentia. If an unforeseen delay
had not occurred in the passage, he would have been on the Austrian
rear. As it was, Beaulieu took alarm, and withdrew the body of his army,
after a slight resistance to the French advance, across the Adda,
leaving but twelve thousand men at Lodi.
Bonaparte was jubilant. “We have crossed the Po,” he wrote the
directory. “The second campaign has commenced. Beaulieu is disconcerted;
he miscalculates, and continually falls into the snares I set for him.
Perhaps he wishes to give battle, for he has both audacity and energy,
but not genius.... Another victory, and we shall be masters of Italy.”
Determined to leave no enemies behind him, Bonaparte now marched against
the twelve thousand men at Lodi. The town, lying on the right bank of
the Adda, was guarded by a small force of Austrians; but the mass of the
enemy was on the left bank, at the end of a bridge some three hundred
and fifty feet in length, and commanded by a score or more of cannon.
Rushing into the town on May 10th the French drove out the guarding
force, and arrived at the bridge before the Austrians had time to
destroy it. The French grenadiers pressed forward in a solid mass, but,
when half way over, the cannon at the opposite end poured such a storm
of shot at them that the column wavered and fell back. Several generals
in the ranks, Bonaparte at their head, rushed to the front of the force.
The presence of the officers was enough to inspire the soldiers, and
they swept across the bridge with such impetuosity that the Austrian
line on the opposite bank allowed its batteries to be taken, and in a
few moments was in retreat. “Of all the actions in which the soldiers
under my command have been engaged,” wrote Bonaparte to the Directory,
“none has equalled the tremendous passage of the bridge at Lodi. If we
have lost but few soldiers, it was merely owing to the promptitude of
our attacks and the effect produced on the enemy by the formidable fire
from our invincible army. Were I to name all the officers who
distinguished themselves in this affair, I should be obliged to
enumerate every _carabinier_ of the advanced guard, and almost every
officer belonging to the staff.”
The Austrians now withdrew beyond the Mincio, and on the 15th of May the
French entered Milan. The populace greeted their conquerors as
liberators, and for several days the army rejoiced in comforts which it
had not known for years. While it was being _fêted_, Bonaparte was
instituting the Lombard Republic, and trying to conciliate or outwit, as
the case demanded, the nobles and clergy outraged at the introduction of
French ideas. It was not until the end of May that Lombardy was in a
situation to permit Bonaparte to follow the Austrians.
After Lodi, Beaulieu had led his army to the Mincio. As usual, his force
was divided, the right being near Lake Garda, the left at Mantua, the
centre about halfway between, at Valeggio. It was at this latter point
that Bonaparte decided to attack them. Feigning to march on their right,
he waited until his opponent had fallen into his trap, and then sprang
on the weakened centre, broke it to pieces, and drove all but twelve
thousand men, escaped to Mantua, into the Tyrol. In fifty days he had
swept all but a remnant of the Austrians away from Italy. Two weeks
later, having taken a strong position on the Adige, he began the siege
of Mantua.
The French were victorious, but their position was precarious. Austria
was preparing a new army. Between the victors and France lay a number of
feeble Italian governments whose friendship could not be depended upon.
The populace of these states favored the French, for they brought
promises of liberal government, of equality and fraternity. The nobles
and clergy hated them for the same reason. It was evident that a victory
of the Austrians would set all these petty princes on Bonaparte’s heels.
The Papal States to the south were plotting. Naples was an ally of
Austria. Venice was neutral, but she could not be trusted. The English
were off the coast, and might, at any moment, make an alliance which
would place a formidable enemy on the French rear.
While waiting for the arrival of the new Austrian army, Bonaparte set
himself to lessening these dangers. He concluded a peace with Naples.
Two divisions of the army were sent south, one to Bologna, the other
into Tuscany. The people received the French with such joy that Rome was
glad to purchase peace. Leghorn was taken. The malcontents in Milan were
silenced. By the time a fresh Austrian army of sixty thousand men, under
a new general, Wurmser, was ready to fight, Italy had been effectually
quieted.
The Austrians advanced against the French in three columns, one to the
west of Lake Garda, under Quasdanovich, one on each side of the Adige,
east of the lake, under Wurmser. Their plan was to attack the French
outposts on each side of the lake simultaneously, and then envelop the
army. The first movements were successful. The French on each side of
the lake were driven back. Bonaparte’s army was inferior to the one
coming against him, but the skill with which he handled his forces and
used the blunders of the enemy more than compensated for lack of
numbers. Raising the siege of Mantua, he concentrated his forces at the
south of the lake in such a way as to prevent the reunion of the
Austrians. Then, with unparalleled swiftness, he fell on the enemy
piecemeal. Wherever he could engage a division he did so, providing his
own force was superior to that of the Austrians at the moment of the
battle. Thus, on July 31st, at Lonato, he defeated Quasdanovich, though
not so decisively but that the Austrian collected his division and
returned towards the same place, hoping to unite there with Wurmser, who
had foolishly divided his divisions, sending one to Lonato and another
to Castiglione, while he himself went off to Mantua to relieve the
garrison there. Bonaparte engaged the forces at Lonato and at
Castiglione on the same day (August 3d), defeating them both, and then
turned his whole army against the body of Austrians under Wurmser, who,
by his time, had returned from his relief expedition at Mantua. On
August 5th, at Castiglione, Wurmser was beaten, driven over the Mincio
and into the Tyrol. In six days the campaign has been finished. “The
Austrian army has vanished like a dream,” Bonaparte wrote home.
It had vanished, true, but only for a day. Reënforcements were soon
sent, and a new campaign started early in September. Leaving Davidovich
in the Tyrol with twenty thousand men, Wurmser started down the Brenta
with twenty-six thousand men, intending to fall on Bonaparte’s rear, cut
him to pieces, and relieve Mantua. But Bonaparte had a plan of his own
this time, and, without waiting to find out where Wurmser was going, he
started up the Adige, intending to attack the Austrians in the Tyrol,
and join the army of the Rhine, then on the upper Danube. As it
happened, Wurmser’s plan was a happy one for Bonaparte. The French found
less than half the Austrian army opposing them, and, after they had
beaten it, discovered that they were actually on the rear of the other
half. Of course Bonaparte did not lose the opportunity. He sped down the
Brenta behind Wurmser, overtook him at Bassano on the 8th of September,
and of course defeated him. The Austrians fled in terrible
demoralization. Wurmser succeeded in reaching Mantua, where he united
with the garrison. The sturdy old Austrian had the courage, in spite of
his losses, to come out of Mantua and meet Bonaparte on the 15th, but he
was defeated again, and obliged to take refuge in the fortress. If the
Austrians had been beaten repeatedly, they had no idea of yielding, and,
in fact, there was apparently every reason to continue the struggle. The
French army was in a most desperate condition. Its number was reduced to
barely forty thousand, and this number was poorly supplied, and many of
them were ill. Though living in the richest of countries, the rapacity
and dishonesty of the army contractors were such that food reached the
men half spoiled and in insufficient quantities, while the clothing
supplied was pure shoddy. Many officers were laid up by wounds or
fatigue; those who remained at their posts were discouraged, and
threatening to resign. The Directory had tampered with Bonaparte’s
armistices and treaties until Naples and Rome were ready to spring upon
the French; and Venice, if not openly hostile, was irritating the army
in many ways.
Bonaparte, in face of these difficulties, was in genuine despair:
“Everything is being spoiled in Italy,” he wrote the Directory. “The
prestige of our forces is being lost. A policy which will give you
friends among the princes as well as among the people, is necessary.
Diminish your enemies. The influence of Rome is beyond calculation.
It was a great mistake to quarrel with that power. Had I been
consulted I should have delayed negotiations as I did with Genoa and
Venice. Whenever your general in Italy is not the centre of
everything, you will run great risks. This language is not that of
ambition; I have only too many honors, and my health is so impaired
that I think I shall be forced to demand a successor. I can no
longer get on horseback. My courage alone remains, and that is not
sufficient in a position like this.”
[Illustration:
“BONAPARTE A LA BATAILLE D’ARCOLE, LE 27 BRUMAIRE, AN V.”]
It was in such a situation that Bonaparte saw the Austrian force
outside of Mantua, increased to fifty thousand men, and a new
commander-in-chief, Alvinzi, put at its head. The Austrians advanced
in two divisions, one down the Adige, the other by the Brenta. The
French division which met the enemy at Trent and Bassano were driven
back. In spite of his best efforts, Bonaparte was obliged to retire
with his main army to Verona. Things looked serious. Alvinzi was
pressing close to Verona, and the army on the Adige was slowly driving
back the French division sent to hold it in check. If Davidovich and
Alvinzi united, Bonaparte was lost.
“Perhaps we are on the point of losing Italy,” wrote Bonaparte to the
Directory. “In a few days we shall make a last effort.” On November 14th
this last effort was made. Alvinzi was close upon Verona, holding a
position shut in by rivers and mountains on every side, and from which
there was but one exit, a narrow pass at his rear. The French were in
Verona.
On the night of the 14th of November Bonaparte went quietly into camp.
Early in the evening he gave orders to leave Verona, and took the road
westward. It looked like a retreat. The French army believed it to be
so, and began to say sorrowfully among themselves that Italy was lost.
When far enough from Verona to escape the attention of the enemy,
Bonaparte wheeled to the southeast. On the morning of the 15th he
crossed the Adige, intending, if possible, to reach the defile by which
alone Alvinzi could escape from his position. The country into which his
army marched was a morass crossed by two causeways. The points which it
was necessary to take to command the defile were the town of Arcola and
a bridge over the rapid stream on which the town lay. The Austrians
discovered the plan, and hastened out to dispute Arcola and the bridge.
All day long the two armies fought desperately, Bonaparte and his
generals putting themselves at the head of their columns and doing the
work of common soldiers. But at night Arcola was not taken, and the
French retired to the right bank of the Adige, only to return on the
16th to reëngage Alvinzi, who, fearful lest his retreat be cut off, had
withdrawn his army from near Verona, and had taken a position at Arcola.
For two days the French struggled with the Austrians, wrenching the
victory from them before the close of the 17th, and sending them flying
towards Bassano. Bonaparte and his army returned to Verona, but this
time it was by the gate which the Austrians, three days before, were
pointing out as the place where they should enter.
It was a month and a half before the Austrians could collect a fifth
army to send against the French. Bonaparte, tormented on every side by
threatened uprisings in Italy; opposed by the Directory, who wanted to
make peace; and distressed by the condition of his army, worked
incessantly to strengthen his relations, quiet his enemies, and restore
his army. When the Austrians, some forty-five thousand strong, advanced
in January, 1797, against him, he had a force of about thirty-five
thousand men ready to meet them. Some ten thousand of his army were
watching Wurmser and twenty thousand Austrians shut up at Mantua.
Alvinzi had planned his attack skilfully. Advancing with twenty-eight
thousand men by the Adige, he sent seventeen thousand under Provera to
approach Verona from the east. The two divisions were to approach
secretly, and to strike simultaneously.
At first Bonaparte was uncertain of the position of the main body of the
enemy. Sending out feelers in every direction, he became convinced that
it must be that it approached Rivoli. Leaving a force at Verona to hold
back Provera, he concentrated his army in a single night on the plateau
of Rivoli, and on the morning of January 14th advanced to the attack.
The struggle at Rivoli lasted two days. Nothing but Bonaparte’s masterly
tactics won it, for the odds were greatly against him. His victory,
however, was complete. Of the twenty-eight thousand Austrians brought to
the field, less than half escaped.
While his battle was waging, Bonaparte was also directing the fight with
Provera, who was intent upon reaching Mantua and attacking the French
besiegers on the rear, while Wurmser left the city and engaged them in
front. The attack had begun, but Bonaparte had foreseen the move, and
sent a division to the relief of his men. This battle, known as La
Favorita, destroyed Provera’s division of the Austrian army, and so
discouraged Wurmser, whose army was terribly reduced by sickness and
starvation, that he surrendered on February 2d.
The Austrians were driven utterly from Italy, but Bonaparte had no time
to rest. The Papal States and the various aristocratic parties of
southern Italy were threatening to rise against the French. The spirit
of independence and revolt which the invaders were bringing into the
country could not but weaken clerical and monarchical institutions. An
active enemy to the south would have been a serious hindrance to
Napoleon, and he marched into the Papal States. A fortnight was
sufficient to silence the threats of his enemies, and on February 19,
1797, he signed with the Pope the treaty of Tolentino. The peace was no
sooner made than he started again against the Austrians.
When Mantua fell, and Austria saw herself driven from Italy, she had
called her ablest general, the Archduke Charles, from the Rhine, and
given him an army of over one hundred thousand men to lead against
Bonaparte. The French had been reënforced to some seventy thousand, and
though twenty thousand were necessary to keep Italy quiet, Bonaparte had
a fine army, and he led it confidently to meet the main body of the
enemy, which had been sent south to protect Trieste. Early in March he
crossed the Tagliamento, and in a series of contests, in which he was
uniformly successful, he drove his opponent back, step by step, until
Vienna itself was in sight, and in April an armistice was signed. In May
the French took possession of Venice, which had refused a French
alliance, and which was playing a perfidious part, in Bonaparte’s
judgment, and a republic on the French model was established.
Italy and Austria, worn out and discouraged by this “war of principle,”
as Napoleon called it, at last compromised, and on October 17th, one
year, seven months, and seven days after he left Paris, Napoleon signed
the treaty of Campo Formio. By this treaty France gained the frontier of
the Rhine and the Low Countries to the mouth of the Scheldt. Austria was
given Venice, and a republic called the Cisalpine was formed from
Reggio, Modena, Lombardy, and a part of the States of the Pope.
The military genius that this twenty-seven-year-old commander had shown
in the campaign in Italy bewildered his enemies and thrilled his
friends.
“Things go on very badly,” said an Austrian veteran taken at Lodi. “No
one seems to know what he is about. The French general is a young
blockhead who knows nothing of the regular rules of war. Sometimes he is
on our right, at others on our left; now in front, and presently in our
rear. This mode of warfare is contrary to all system, and utterly
insufferable.”
It is certain that if Napoleon’s opponents never knew what he was going
to do, if his generals themselves were frequently uncertain, it being
his practice to hold his peace about his plans, he himself had definite
rules of warfare. The most important of these were:
“Attacks should not be scattered, but should be concentrated.”
“Always be superior to the enemy at the point of attack.”
“Time is everything.”
To these formulated rules he joined marvelous fertility in stratagem.
The feint by which, at the beginning of the campaign, he had enticed
Beaulieu to march on Genoa, and that by which, a few days later, he had
induced him to place his army near Valenza, were masterpieces in their
way.
His quick-wittedness in emergency frequently saved him from disaster.
Thus, on August 4th, in the midst of the excitement of the contest,
Bonaparte went to Lonato to see what troops could be drawn from there.
On entering he was greatly surprised to receive an Austrian
_parlementaire_, who called on the commandant of Lonato to surrender,
because the French were surrounded. Bonaparte saw at once that the
Austrians could be nothing but a division which had been cut off and was
seeking escape; but he was embarrassed, for there were only twelve
hundred men at Lonato. Sending for the man, he had his eyes unbandaged,
and told him that if his commander had the presumption to capture the
general-in-chief of the army of Italy he might advance; that the
Austrian division ought to have known that he was at Lonato with his
whole army; and he added that if they did not lay down their arms in
eight minutes he would not spare a man. This audacity saved Bonaparte,
and won him four thousand prisoners with guns and cavalry.
[Illustration:
“ITALIE.”
From a lithograph by Raffet.]
His fertility in stratagem, his rapidity of action, his audacity in
attack, bewildered and demoralized the enemy, but it raised the
enthusiasm of his imaginative Southern troops to the highest pitch.
He insisted in this campaign on one other rule: “Unity of command is
necessary to assure success.” After his defeat of the Piedmontese, the
Directory ordered him, May 7, 1796, to divide his command with
Kellermann. Napoleon answered:
“I believe it most impolitic to divide the army of Italy in two
parts. It is quite as much against the interests of the republic to
place two different generals over it....
“A single general is not only necessary, but also it is essential
that nothing trouble him in his march and operations. I have
conducted this campaign without consulting any one. I should have
done nothing of value if I had been obliged to reconcile my plans
with those of another. I have gained advantage over superior forces
and when stripped of everything myself, because persuaded that your
confidence was in me. My action has been as prompt as my thought.
“If you impose hindrances of all sorts upon me, if I must refer
every step to government commissioners, if they have the right to
change my movements, of taking from me or of sending me troops,
expect no more of any value. If you enfeeble your means by dividing
your forces, if you break the unity of military thought in Italy, I
tell you sorrowfully you will lose the happiest opportunity of
imposing laws on Italy.
“In the condition of the affairs of the republic in Italy, it is
indispensable that you have a general that has your entire
confidence. If it is not I, I am sorry for it, but I shall redouble
my zeal to merit your esteem in the post you confide to me. Each one
has his own way of carrying on war. General Kellermann has more
experience and will do it better than I, but both together will do
it very badly.
“I can only render the services essential to the country when
invested entirely and absolutely with your confidence.”
He remained in charge, and throughout the rest of the campaign continued
to act more and more independently of the Directory, even dictating
terms of peace to please himself.
It was in this Italian campaign that the almost superstitious adoration
which Napoleon’s soldiers and most of his generals felt for him began.
Brilliant generalship was not the only reason for this. It was due
largely to his personal courage, which they had discovered at Lodi. A
charge had been ordered across a wooden bridge swept by thirty pieces of
cannon, and beyond was the Austrian army. The men hesitated. Napoleon
sprang to their head and led them into the thickest of the fire. From
that day he was known among them as the “Little Corporal.” He had won
them by the quality which appeals most deeply to a soldier in the
ranks—contempt of death. Such was their devotion to him that they gladly
exposed their lives if they saw him in danger. There were several such
cases in the battle of Arcola. The first day, when Bonaparte was
exposing himself in an advance, his aide-de-camp, Colonel Muiron, saw
that he was in imminent danger. Throwing himself before Bonaparte, the
colonel covered him with his body, receiving a wound which was destined
for the general. The brave fellow’s blood spurted into Bonaparte’s face.
He literally gave his life to save his commander’s. The same day, in a
final effort to take Arcola, Bonaparte seized a flag, rushed on the
bridge, and planted it there. His column reached the middle of the
bridge, but there it was broken by the enemy’s flanking fire. The
grenadiers at the head, finding themselves deserted by the rear, were
compelled to retreat; but, critical as their position was, they refused
to abandon their general. They seized him by his arms, by his clothes,
and dragged him with them through shot and smoke. When one fell out
wounded, another pressed to his place. Precipitated into the morass,
Bonaparte sank. The enemy were surrounding him when the grenadiers
perceived his danger. A cry was raised, “Forward, soldiers, to save the
General!” and immediately they fell upon the Austrians with such fury
that they drove them off, dragged out their hero, and bore him to a safe
place.
His addresses never failed to stir them to action and enthusiasm. They
were oratorical, prophetic, and abounded in phrases which the soldiers
never forgot. Such was his address at Milan:
“Soldiers! you have precipitated yourselves like a torrent from the
summit of the Apennines; you have driven back and dispersed all that
opposed your march. Piedmont, liberated from Austrian tyranny, has
yielded to her natural sentiments of peace and amity towards France.
Milan is yours, and the Republican flag floats throughout Lombardy,
while the Dukes of Modena and Parma owe their political existence
solely to your generosity. The army which so haughtily menaced you,
finds no barrier to secure it from your courage. The Po, the Ticino,
and the Adda have been unable to arrest your courage for a single
day. Those boasted ramparts of Italy proved insufficient. You have
surmounted them as rapidly as you cleared the Apennines. So much
success has diffused joy through the bosom of your country. Yes,
soldiers, you have done well; but is there nothing more for you to
accomplish? Shall it be said of us that we knew how to conquer, but
knew not how to profit by victory? Shall posterity reproach us with
having found a Capua in Lombardy? But I see you rush to arms;
unmanly repose wearies you, and the days lost to glory are lost to
happiness.
“Let us set forward. We have still forced marches to perform,
enemies to conquer, laurels to gather, and injuries to avenge. Let
those tremble who have whetted the poniards of civil war in France;
who have, like dastards, assassinated our ministers, and burned our
ships in Toulon. The hour of vengeance is arrived, but let the
people be tranquil. We are the friends of all nations, particularly
the descendants of the Brutuses, the Scipios, and those illustrious
persons we have chosen for our models. To restore the Capitol,
replace with honor the statues of the heroes who rendered it
renowned, and rouse the Roman people, become torpid by so many ages
of slavery—shall, will, be the fruit of your victories. You will
then return to your homes, and your fellow-citizens when pointing to
you will say, ‘_He was of the army of Italy._’”
Such was his address in March, before the final campaign against the
Austrians:
[Illustration:
BONAPARTE.
Engraved by Bartolozzi, R.A., an Italian engraver, resident of
England, after the portrait of Appiani.]
“You have been victorious in fourteen pitched battles and sixty-six
combats; you have taken one hundred thousand prisoners, five hundred
pieces of large cannon and two thousand pieces of smaller, four
equipages for bridge pontoons. The country has nourished you, paid
you during your campaign, and you have beside that sent thirty
millions from the public treasury to Paris. You have enriched the
Museum of Paris with three hundred _chefs-d’oeuvre_ of ancient and
modern Italy, which it has taken thirty ages to produce. You have
conquered the most beautiful country of Europe. The French colors
float for the first time upon the borders of the Adriatic. The kings
of Sardinia and Naples, the Pope, the Duke of Parma have become
allies. You have chased the English from Leghorn, Genoa, and
Corsica. You have yet to march against the Emperor of Austria.”
His approval was their greatest joy. Let him speak a word of praise to a
regiment, and they embroidered it on their banners. “I was at ease, the
Thirty-second was there,” was on the flag of that regiment. Over the
Fifty-seventh floated a name Napoleon had called them by, “The terrible
Fifty-seventh.”
His displeasure was a greater spur than his approval. He said to a corps
which had retreated in disorder: “Soldiers, you have displeased me. You
have shown neither courage nor constancy, but have yielded positions
where a handful of men might have defied an army. You are no longer
French soldiers. Let it be written on their colors, ‘They no longer form
part of the Army of Italy.’” A veteran pleaded that they be placed in
the van, and during the rest of the campaign no regiment was more
distinguished.
The effect of his genius was as great on his generals as on his troops.
They were dazzled by his stratagems and manœuvres, inspired by his
imagination. “_There was so much of the future in him_,” is Marmont’s
expressive explanation. They could believe anything of him. A remarkable
set of men they were to have as followers and friends—Augereau, Masséna,
Berthier, Marmont, Junot.
The people and the government in Paris had begun to believe in him, as
did the Army of Italy. He not only sent flags and reports of victory; he
sent money and works of art. Impoverished as the Directory was, the sums
which came from Italy were a reason for not interfering with the high
hand the young general carried in his campaigns and treaties.
Never before had France received such letters from a general. Now he
announces that he has sent “twenty first masters, from Correggio to
Michael Angelo;” now, “a dozen millions of money;” now, two or three
millions in jewels and diamonds to be sold in Paris. In return he asks
only for men and officers “who have fire and a firm resolution not to
make _learned retreats_.”
The entry into Paris of the first art acquisitions made a profound
impression on the people:
“The procession of enormous cars, drawn by richly caparisoned
horses, was divided into four sections. First came trunks filled
with books, manuscripts, ... including the antiques of Josephus, on
papyrus, with works in the handwriting of Galileo.... Then followed
collections of mineral products.... For the occasion were added
wagons laden with iron cages containing lions, tigers, panthers,
over which waved enormous palm branches and all kinds of exotic
shrubs. Afterwards rolled along chariots bearing pictures carefully
packed, but with the names of the most important inscribed in large
letters on the outside, as, The Transfiguration, by Raphael; The
Christ, by Titian. The number was great, the value greater. When
these trophies had passed, amid the applause of an excited crowd, a
heavy rumbling announced the approach of massive carts bearing
statues and marble groups: the Apollo Belvidere; the Nine Muses; the
Laocoön.... The Venus de Medici was eventually added, decked with
bouquets, crowns of flowers, flags taken from the enemy, and French,
Italian, and Greek inscriptions. Detachments of cavalry and
infantry, colors flying, drums beating, music playing, marched at
intervals; the members of the newly established Institute fell into
line; artists and savants; and the singers of the theatres made the
air ring with national hymns. This procession marched through all
Paris, and at the Champ de Mars defiled before the five members of
the Directory, surrounded by their subordinate officers.”
The practice of sending home works of art, begun in the Italian
campaign, Napoleon continued throughout his military career, and the art
of France owes much to the education thus given the artists of the first
part of this century. His agents ransacked Italy, Spain, Germany, and
Flanders for _chefs-d’oeuvre_. When entering a country one of the first
things he did was to collect information about its chief art objects, in
order to demand them in case of victory, for it was by treaty that they
were usually obtained. Among the works of art which Napoleon sent to
Paris were twenty-five Raphaels, twenty-three Titians, fifty-three
Rubenses, thirty-three Van Dykes, thirty-one Rembrandts.
In Italy rose Napoleon’s “star,” that mysterious guide which he followed
from Lodi to Waterloo. Here was born that faith in him and his future,
that belief that he “marched under the protection of the goddess of
fortune and of war,” that confidence that he was endowed with a “good
genius.”
He called Lodi the birthplace of his faith. “Vendémiaire and even
Montenotte did not make me believe myself a superior man. It was only
after Lodi that it came into my head that I could become a decisive
actor on our political field. Then was born the first spark of high
ambition.”
Trained in a religion full of mysticism, taught to believe in signs,
guided by a “star,” there is a tinge of superstition throughout his
active, practical, hardworking life. Marmont tells that one day while in
Italy the glass over the portrait of his wife, which he always wore, was
broken.
“He turned frightfully pale, and the impression upon him was most
sorrowful. ‘Marmont,’ he said, ‘my wife is very ill or she is
unfaithful.’” There are many similar anecdotes to show his dependence
upon and confidence in omens.
In a campaign of such achievements as that in Italy there seems to be no
time for love, and yet love was never more imperative, more absorbing,
in Napoleon’s life than during this period.
[Illustration:
“NAPOLEONE BUONAPARTE.”
“Engraved by Henry Richter from the celebrated bust by Ceracchi,
lately brought from Paris and now in his possession. Published June
1, 1801, by H. Richter, No. 26 Newman Street, Oxford Street.” This
bust was made in the Italian campaign by Ceracchi, a Corsican
working in Rome. Ceracchi left Rome in 1799 to escape punishment for
taking part in an insurrection in the city, and went to Paris, where
he hoped to receive aid from the First Consul. He made the busts of
several generals—Berthier, Masséna, and Bernadotte—but as orders did
not multiply, and Napoleon did nothing for him, he became incensed
against him, and took part in a plot to assassinate the First Consul
at the opera, the 18th Brumaire, 1801. Arrested on his way to the
_loge_ in the opera, he was executed soon after.]
“Oh, my adorable wife,” he wrote Josephine in April, “I do not know
what fate awaits me, but if it keeps me longer from you, I shall not
be able to endure it; my courage will not hold out to that point.
There was a time when I was proud of my courage; and when I thought
of the harm that men might do me, of the lot that my destiny might
reserve for me, I looked at the most terrible misfortunes without a
quiver, with no surprise. But now, the thought that my Josephine may
be in trouble, that she may be ill, and, above all, the cruel, fatal
thought that she may love me less, inflicts torture in my soul,
stops the beating of my heart, makes me sad and dejected, robs me of
even the courage of fury and despair. I often used to say, ‘Man can
do no harm to one who is willing to die;’ but now, to die without
being loved by you, to die without this certainty, is the torture of
hell; it is the vivid and crushing image of total annihilation. It
seems to me as if I were choking. My only companion, you who have
been chosen by fate to make with me the painful journey of life, the
day when I shall no longer possess your heart will be that when for
me the world shall have lost all warmth and all its vegetation.... I
will stop, my sweet pet; my soul is sad. I am very tired, my mind is
worn out, I am sick of men. I have good reason for hating them. They
separate me from my love.”
Josephine was indifferent to this strong passion. “How queer Bonaparte
is!” she said coldly at the evidences of his affection which he poured
upon her; and when, after a few weeks separation, he began to implore
her to join him she hesitated, made excuses, tried in every possible way
to evade his wish. It was not strange that a woman of her indolent
nature, loving flattery, having no passion but for amusement, reckless
expenditure, and her own ease, should prefer life in Paris. There she
shared with Madame Tallien the adoration which the Parisian world is
always bestowing on some fair woman. At opera and ball she was the
centre of attraction; even in the street the people knew her. _Notre
Dame des Victoires_ was the name they gave her.
In desperation at her indifference, Napoleon finally wrote her, in June,
from Tortona:
“My life is a perpetual nightmare. A black presentiment makes
breathing difficult. I am no longer alive; I have lost more than
life, more than happiness, more than peace; I am almost without
hope. I am sending you a courier. He will stay only four hours in
Paris, and then will bring me your answer. Write to me ten pages;
that is the only thing that can console me in the least. You are
ill; you love me; I have distressed you; you are with child; and I
do not see you.... I have treated you so ill that I do not know how
to set myself right in your eyes. I have been blaming you for
staying in Paris, and you have been ill there. Forgive me, my dear;
the love with which you have filled me has robbed me of my reason,
and I shall never recover it. It is a malady from which there is no
recovery. My forebodings are so gloomy that all I ask is to see you,
to hold you in my arms for two hours, and that we may die together.
Who is taking care of you? I suppose that you have sent for
Hortense; I love the dear child a thousand times better since I
think that she may console you a little. As for me, I am without
consolation, rest, and hope until I see again the messenger whom I
am sending to you, and until you explain to me in a long letter just
what is the matter with you, and how serious it is. If there were
any danger, I warn you that I should start at once for Paris....
You! you!—and the rest of the world will not exist for me any more
than if it had been annihilated. I care for honor because you care
for it; for victory, because it brings you pleasure; otherwise, I
should abandon everything to throw myself at your feet.”
After this letter Josephine consented to go to Italy, but she left Paris
weeping as if going to her execution. Once at Milan, where she held
almost a court, she recovered her gaiety, and the two were very happy
for a time. But it did not last. Napoleon, obliged to be on the march,
would implore Josephine to come to him here and there, and once she
narrowly escaped with her life when trying to get away from the army.
Wherever she was installed she had a circle of adorers about her, and as
a result she neglected writing to her husband. Reproaches and entreaties
filled his letters. He begged her for only a line, and he implored her
that she be less cold.
“Your letters are as cold as fifty years of age; one would think
they had been written after we had been married fifteen years. They
are full of the friendliness and feelings of life’s winter,... What
more can you do to distress me? Stop loving me? That you have
already done. Hate me? Well, I wish you would; everything degrades
me except hatred; but indifference, with a calm pulse, fixed eyes,
monotonous walk!... A thousand kisses, tender, like my heart.”
It was not merely indolence and indifference that caused Josephine’s
neglect. It was coquetry frequently, and Napoleon, informed by his
couriers as to whom she received at Milan or Genoa, and of the pleasures
she enjoyed, was jealous with all the force of his nature. More than one
young officer who dared pay homage to Josephine in this campaign was
banished “by order of the commander-in-chief.” Reaching Milan once,
unexpectedly, he found her gone. His disappointment was bitter.
“I reached Milan, rushed to your rooms, having thrown up everything
to see you, to press you to my heart—you were not there; you are
traveling about from one town to another, amusing yourself with
balls.... My unhappiness is inconceivable.... Don’t put yourself
out; pursue your pleasure; happiness is made for you.”
It was between such extremes of triumphant love and black despair that
Napoleon lived throughout the Italian campaign.
[Illustration:
BONAPARTE AT MALMAISON.
The title on the engraving reads: “Bonaparte, dédié à Madame
Bonaparte.” Engraved in 1803 by Godefroy, after Isabey.]