_Archduke Charles--Compared with Napoleon--Fettered by the Aulic
Council--Napoleon, by a stratagem, passes the Tagliamento, and
compels the Archduke to retreat--Gradisca carried by
storm--Chusa-Veneta taken--Trieste and Fiume occupied--Venice
breaks the Neutrality--Terrified on learning that an Armistice
had taken place betwixt France and Austria--The Archduke
retreats by hasty marches on Vienna--The Government
irresolute--and the Treaty of Leoben signed--Venice makes
humiliating submissions--Napoleon's Speech to her Envoys--He
declares War against Venice, and evades obeying the orders of
the Directory to spare it--The Great Council, on 31st May,
concede everything to Buonaparte--Terms granted._
[Sidenote: ARCHDUKE CHARLES.]
The victories of the Archduke Charles on the Rhine, and his high credit
with the soldiery, seemed to point him out as the commander falling most
naturally to be employed against the young general of the French
republic, who, like a gifted hero of romance, had borne down
successively all opponents who had presented themselves in the field.
The opinions of Europe were suspended concerning the probable issue of
the contest. Both generals were young, ambitious, enthusiastic in the
military profession, and warmly beloved by their soldiers. The exploits
of both had filled the trumpet of Fame; and although Buonaparte's
success had been less uninterrupted, yet it could not be denied, that if
the Archduke's plans were not equally brilliant and original with those
of his great adversary, they were just and sound, and had been attended
repeatedly with great results, and by the defeat of such men as Moreau
and Jourdan. But there were two particulars in which the Austrian prince
fell far short of Napoleon,--first, in that ready, decided, and vigorous
confidence, which seizes the favourable instant for the execution of
plans resolved upon,--and, secondly, in having the disadvantage to be
subjected, notwithstanding his high rank, to the interference of the
Aulic Council; who, sitting at Vienna, and ignorant of the changes and
vicissitudes of the campaign, were yet, by the ancient and jealous laws
of the Austrian empire, entitled to control his opinion, and prescribe
beforehand the motions of the armies, while the generals, intrusted
with the execution of their schemes, had often no choice left but that
of adherence to their instructions, however emerging circumstances might
require a deviation.[264]
But although the encounter betwixt these two distinguished young
generals be highly interesting, our space will not permit us to detail
the campaigns of Austria at the same length as those of Italy. The
latter formed the commencement of Buonaparte's military career, and at
no subsequent period of his life did he achieve the same wondrous
victories against such immense odds, or with such comparatively
inadequate means. It was also necessary, in the outset of his military
history, to show, in minute detail, the character of his tactics, and
illustrate that spirit of energetic concentration, which, neglecting the
extremities of an extended line of operations, combined his whole
strength, like a bold and skilful fencer, for one thrust at a vital
part, which, if successful, must needs be fatal. The astonishing
rapidity of his movements, the audacious vivacity of his attack, having
been so often described in individual cases, may now be passed over with
general allusions; nor will we embarrass ourselves and our readers with
minute details of positions, or encumber our pages with the names of
obscure villages, unless when there is some battle calling for a
particular narrative, either from its importance or its singularity.
By the direction of the Aulic Council, the Archduke Charles had taken up
his position at Friuli, where it had been settled that the sixth
Austrian army, designed to act against Buonaparte for the defence of the
Italo-German frontier, should be assembled. This position was strangely
preferred to the Tyrol, where the Archduke could have formed a junction
ten days sooner with an additional force of forty thousand men from the
army of the Rhine, marching to reinforce his own troops,--men accustomed
to fight and conquer under their leader's eye; whilst those with whom he
occupied Friuli, and the line of the Piave, belonged to the hapless
Imperial forces, which, under Beaulieu, Wurmser, and Alvinzi, had never
encountered Buonaparte without incurring some notable defeat.
While the Archduke was yet expecting those reinforcements which were to
form the strength of his army, his active adversary had been joined by
more than twenty thousand men, sent from the French armies on the Rhine,
and which gave him at the moment a numerical superiority over the
Austrian general. Instead, therefore, of waiting, as on former
occasions, until the Imperialists should commence the war by descending
into Italy, Napoleon resolved to anticipate the march of the succours
expected by the Archduke, drive him from his position on the Italian
frontiers, and follow him into Germany, even up to the walls of Vienna.
No scheme appeared too bold for the general's imagination to form, or
his genius to render practicable; and his soldiers, with the view before
them of plunging into the midst of an immense empire, and placing chains
of mountains betwixt them and every possibility of reinforcement or
communication, were so confident in the talents of their leader, as to
follow him under the most undoubting expectation of victory. The
Directory had induced Buonaparte to expect a co-operation by a similar
advance on the part of the armies of the Rhine, as had been attempted in
the former campaign.
[Sidenote: FRENCH PLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN.]
Buonaparte took the field in the beginning of March, advancing from
Bassano.[265] The Austrians had an army of observation under Lusignan on
the bank of the Piave, but their principal force was stationed upon the
Tagliamento, a river whose course is nearly thirty miles more to the
eastward, though collateral with the Piave. The plains on the
Tagliamento afforded facilities to the Archduke to employ the noble
cavalry who have always been the boast of the Austrian army; and to
dislodge him from the strong country which he occupied, and which
covered the road that penetrates between the mountains and the Adriatic,
and forms the mode of communication in that quarter betwixt Vienna and
Italy, through Carinthia, it was not only necessary that he should be
pressed in front--a service which Buonaparte took upon himself--but also
that a French division, occupying the mountains on the Prince's right,
should precipitate his retreat, by maintaining the perpetual threat of
turning him on that wing. With this view, Massena had Buonaparte's
orders, which he executed with equal skill and gallantry. He crossed the
Piave about the eleventh March, and ascending that river, directed his
course into the mountains towards Belluno, driving before him Lusignan's
little corps of observation, and finally compelling his rear-guard, to
the number of five hundred men, to surrender.
The Archduke Charles, in the meantime, continued to maintain his
position on the Tagliamento, and the French approached the right bank,
with Napoleon at their head, determined apparently to force a passage.
Artillery and sharpshooters were disposed in such a manner as to render
this a very hazardous attempt, while two beautiful lines of cavalry were
drawn up, prepared to charge any troops who might make their way to the
left bank, while they were yet in the confusion of landing.
A very simple stratagem disconcerted this fair display of resistance.
After a distant cannonade, and some skirmishing, the French army drew
off, as if despairing to force their passage, moved to the rear, and
took up apparently their bivouac for the night. The Archduke was
deceived. He imagined that the French, who had marched all the preceding
night, were fatigued, and he also withdrew from the bank of the river to
his camp. But two hours afterwards, when all seemed profoundly quiet,
the French army suddenly got under arms, and, forming in two lines,
marched rapidly to the side of the river, ere the astonished Austrians
were able to make the same dispositions as formerly for defence. Arrived
on the margin, the first line instantly broke up into columns, which,
throwing themselves boldly into the stream, protected on the flanks by
the cavalry, passed through and attained the opposite bank.[266] They
were repeatedly charged by the Austrian cavalry, but it was too
late--they had gotten their footing, and kept it. The Archduke attempted
to turn their flank, but was prevented by the second line of the French,
and by their reserve of cavalry. He was compelled to retreat, leaving
prisoners and cannon in the hands of the enemy. Such was the first
disastrous meeting between the Archduke Charles and his future
relative.[267]
[Sidenote: March 16.]
The Austrian prince had the farther misfortune to learn, that Massena
had, at the first sound of the cannonade, pushed across the Tagliamento,
higher up than his line of defence, and destroying what troops he found
before him, had occupied the passes of the Julian Alps at the sources of
that river, and thus interposed himself between the imperial right wing
and the nearest communication with Vienna. Sensible of the importance of
this obstacle, the Archduke hastened, if possible, to remove it. He
brought up a fine column of grenadiers from the Rhine, which had just
arrived at Klagenfurt, in his rear, and joining them to other troops,
attacked Massena with the utmost fury, venturing his own person like a
private soldier, and once or twice narrowly escaping being made
prisoner. It was in vain--all in vain. He charged successively and
repeatedly, even with the reserve of the grenadiers, but no exertion
could change the fortune of the day.[268]
[Sidenote: March 19.]
Still the Archduke hoped to derive assistance from the natural or
artificial defences of the strong country through which he was thus
retreating, and in doing so was involuntarily introducing Buonaparte,
after he should have surmounted the border frontier into the most
fertile provinces of his brother's empire. The Lisonzo, usually a deep
and furious torrent, closed in by a chain of impassable mountains,
seemed to oppose an insurmountable barrier to his daring pursuers. But
nature, as well as events, fought against the Austrians. The stream,
reduced by frost, was fordable in several places. The river thus passed,
the town of Gradisca, which had been covered with field-works to protect
the line of the Lisonzo, was surprised and carried by storm, and its
garrison of two thousand five hundred men made prisoners, by the
divisions of Bernadotte and Serrurier.
Pushed in every direction, the Austrians sustained every day additional
and more severe losses. The strong fort of Chiusa-Veneta was occupied by
Massena, who continued his active and indefatigable operations on the
right of the retreating army. This success caused the envelopement, and
dispersion or surrender, of a whole division of Austrians, five thousand
of whom remained prisoners, while their baggage, cannon, colours, and
all that constituted them an army, fell into the hands of the French.
Four generals were made prisoners on this occasion; and many of the
mountaineers of Carniola and Croatia, who had joined the Austrian army
from their natural love of war, seeing that success appeared to have
abandoned the imperial cause, became despondent, broke up their corps,
and retired as stragglers to their villages.
[Sidenote: TRIESTE AND FIUME.]
Buonaparte availed himself of their loss of courage, and had recourse to
proclamations, a species of arms which he valued himself as much upon
using to advantage, as he did upon his military fame. He assured them
that the French did not come into their country to innovate on their
rights, religious customs, and manners. He exhorted them not to meddle
in a war with which they had no concern, but encouraged them to afford
assistance and furnish supplies to the French army, in payment of which
he proposed to assign the public taxes which they had been in the habit
of paying to the Emperor.[269] His proposal seems to have reconciled the
Carinthians to the presence of the French, or, more properly speaking,
they submitted to the military exactions which they had no means of
resisting.[270] In the meanwhile, the French took possession of Trieste
and Fiume, the only seaports belonging to Austria, where they seized
much English merchandise, which was always a welcome prize, and of the
quicksilver mines of Idria, where they found a valuable deposit of that
mineral.
Napoleon repaired the fortifications of Klagenfurt, and converted it
into a respectable place of arms, where he established his headquarters.
In a space of scarce twenty days, he had defeated the Austrians in ten
combats, in the course of which Prince Charles had lost at least
one-fourth of his army. The French had surmounted the southern chain of
the Julian Alps; the northern line could, it was supposed, offer no
obstacle sufficient to stop their irresistible general; and the
Archduke, the pride and hope of the Austrian armies, had retired behind
the river Mehur, and seemed to be totally without the means of covering
Vienna.
There were, however, circumstances less favourable to the French, which
require to be stated. When the campaign commenced, the French general
Joubert was posted with his division in the gorge of the Tyrol above
Trent, upon the same river Levisa, the line of which had been lost and
won during the preceding winter. He was opposed by the Austrian generals
Kerpen and Laudon, who, besides some regular regiments, had collected
around them a number of the Tyrolese militia, who among their own
mountains were at least equally formidable. They remained watching each
other during the earlier part of the campaign; but the gaining of the
battle of the Tagliamento was the signal for Joubert to commence the
offensive. His directions were to push his way through the Tyrol to
Brixen, at which place Napoleon expected he might hear news of the
advance of the French armies from the Rhine, to co-operate in the march
upon Vienna. But the Directory, fearing perhaps to trust nearly the
whole force of the Republic in the hands of a general so successful and
so ambitious as Napoleon, had not fulfilled their promises in this
respect. The army of Moreau had not as yet crossed the Rhine.
Joubert, thus disappointed of his promised object, began to find himself
in an embarrassing situation. The whole country was in insurrection
around him, and a retreat in the line by which he had advanced, might
have exposed him to great loss, if not to destruction. He determined,
therefore, to elude the enemy, and by descending the river Drave, to
achieve a junction with his commander-in-chief Napoleon. He accomplished
his difficult march by breaking down the bridges behind him, and thus
arresting the progress of the enemy; but it was with difficulty, and not
without loss, that he effected his proposed union, and his retreat from
the Tyrol gave infinite spirits not only to the martial Tyrolese, but to
all the favourers of Austria in the North of Italy. The Austrian general
Laudon sallied from the Tyrol at the head of a considerable force, and
compelled the slender body of French under Balland, to shut themselves
up in garrisons; and their opponents were for the moment again lords of
a part of Lombardy. They also re-occupied Trieste and Fiume, which
Buonaparte had not been able sufficiently to garrison; so that the rear
of the French army seemed to be endangered.[271]
The Venetians, at this crisis, fatally for their ancient republic, if
indeed its doom had not, as is most likely, been long before sealed,
received with eager ears the accounts, exaggerated as they were by
rumour, that the French were driven from the Tyrol, and the Austrians
about to descend the Adige, and resume their ancient empire in Italy.
The Senate were aware that neither their government nor their persons
were acceptable to the French general, and that they had offended him
irreconcilably by declining the intimate alliance and contribution of
troops which he had demanded. He had parted from them with such menaces
as were not easily to be misunderstood. They believed, if his vengeance
might not be instant, it was only the more sure; and conceiving him now
deeply engaged in Germany, and surrounded by the Austrian levies en
masse from the warlike countries of Hungary and Croatia, they imagined
that throwing their own weight into the scale at so opportune a moment,
must weigh it down for ever. To chastise their insurgent subjects of
Bergamo and Brescia, was an additional temptation.
[Sidenote: April 16.]
Their mode of making war savoured of the ancient vindictive temper
ascribed to their countrymen. An insurrection was secretly organized
through all the territories which Venice still possessed on the
mainland, and broke out, like the celebrated Sicilian vespers, in blood
and massacre. In Verona they assassinated more than a hundred Frenchmen,
many of them sick soldiers in the hospitals[272]--an abominable cruelty
which could not fail to bring a curse on their undertaking. Fioravante,
a Venetian general, marched at the head of a body of Sclavonians to
besiege the forts of Verona, into which the remaining French had made
their retreat, and where they defended themselves. Laudon made his
appearance with his Austrians and Tyrolese, and it seemed as if the
fortunes of Buonaparte had at length found a check.
[Sidenote: OVERTURES OF PEACE.]
But the awakening from this pleasing dream was equally sudden and
dreadful. News arrived that preliminaries of peace had been agreed upon,
and an armistice signed between France and Austria. Laudon, therefore,
and the auxiliaries on whom the Venetians had so much relied, retired
from Verona. The Lombards sent an army to the assistance of the French.
The Sclavonians, under Fioravante, after fighting vigorously, were
compelled to surrender. The insurgent towns of Vicenza, Treviso, and
Padua, were again occupied by the Republicans. Rumour proclaimed the
terrible return of Napoleon and his army, and the ill-advised Senate of
Venice were lost in stupor, and scarce had sense left to decide betwixt
unreserved submission and hopeless defence.
It was one of the most artful rules in Buonaparte's policy, that when he
had his enemy at decided advantage, by some point having been attained
which seemed to give a complete turn to the campaign in his favour, he
seldom failed to offer peace, and peace upon conditions much more
favourable than perhaps the opposite party expected. By doing this, he
secured such immediate and undisputed fruits of his victory, as the
treaty of peace contained; and he was sure of means to prosecute farther
advantages at some future opportunity. He obtained, moreover, the
character of generosity; and, in the present instance, he avoided the
great danger of urging to bay so formidable a power as Austria, whose
despair might be capable of the most formidable efforts.
[Sidenote: March 31.]
With this purpose, and assuming for the first time that disregard for
the usual ceremonial of courts, and etiquette of politics, which he
afterwards seemed to have pleasure in displaying, he wrote a letter in
person to the Archduke Charles on the subject of peace.
This composition affects that abrupt laconic severity of style, which
cuts short argument, by laying down general maxims of philosophy of a
trite character, and breaks through the usual laboured periphrastic
introductions with which ordinary politicians preface their proposals,
when desirous of entering upon a treaty. "It is the part of a brave
soldier," he said, "to make war, but to wish for peace. The present
strife has lasted six years. Have we not yet slain enough of men, and
sufficiently outraged humanity? Peace is demanded on all sides. Europe
at large has laid down the arms assumed against the French Republic.
Your nation remains alone in hostility, and yet blood flows faster than
ever. This sixth campaign has commenced under ominous circumstances.--End
how it will, some thousands of men more will be slain on either side;
and at length, after all, we must come to an agreement, for every thing
must have an end at last, even the angry passions of men. The Executive
Directory made known to the Emperor their desire to put a period to
the war which desolates both countries, but the intervention of the
Court of London opposed it. Is there then no means of coming to an
understanding, and must we continue to cut each other's throats for the
interests or passions of a nation, herself a stranger to the miseries
of war? You, the general-in-chief, who approach by birth so near to the
crown, and are above all those petty passions which agitate ministers,
and the members of government, will you resolve to be the benefactor of
mankind, and the true saviour of Germany? Do not suppose that I mean by
that expression to intimate, that it is impossible for you to defend
yourself by force of arms; but under the supposition, that fortune
were to become favourable to you, Germany would be equally exposed to
ravage. With respect to my own feelings, general, if this proposition
should be the means of saving one single man's life, I should prefer
a civic crown so merited, to the melancholy glory attending military
success."
The whole tone of the letter is ingeniously calculated to give the
proposition the character of moderation, and at the same time to avoid
the appearance of too ready an advance towards his object. The Archduke,
after a space of two days, returned this brief answer, in which he
stripped Buonaparte's proposal of its gilding, and treated it upon the
footing of an ordinary proposal for a treaty of peace, made by a party,
who finds it convenient for his interest:--"Unquestionably, sir, in
making war, and in following the road prescribed by honour and duty, I
desire as much as you the attainment of peace for the happiness of the
people, and of humanity. Considering, however, that in the situation
which I hold, it is no part of my business to inquire into and determine
the quarrel of the belligerent powers; and that I am not furnished on
the part of the Emperor with any plenipotentiary powers for treating,
you will excuse me, general, if I do not enter into negotiation with you
touching a matter of the highest importance, but which does not lie
within my department. Whatever shall happen, either respecting the
future chances of the war, or the prospect of peace, I request you to be
equally convinced of my distinguished esteem."[273]
The Archduke would willingly have made some advantage of this proposal
by obtaining an armistice of five hours, sufficient to enable him to
form a junction with the corps of Kerpen, which, having left the Tyrol
to come to the assistance of the commander-in-chief, was now within a
short distance. But Buonaparte took care not to permit himself to be
hampered by any such ill-timed engagement, and, after some sharp
fighting, in which the French, as usual, were successful, he was able to
interpose such a force as to prevent the junction taking place.
Two encounters followed at Neumark and at Unzmark--both gave rise to
fresh disasters, and the continued retreat of the Archduke Charles and
the Imperial army. The French general then pressed forward on the road
to Vienna, through mountain-passes and defiles, which could not have
been opened otherwise than by turning them on the flank. But these
natural fastnesses were no longer defences. Judenburg, the capital of
Upper Styria, was abandoned to the French without a blow, and shortly
after Buonaparte entered Gratz, the principal town of Lower Styria, with
the same facility.
[Sidenote: THE ARCHDUKE'S RETREAT.]
The Archduke now totally changed his plan of warfare. He no longer
disputed the ground foot by foot, but began to retreat by hasty marches
towards Vienna, determined to collect the last and utmost strength
which the extensive states of the Emperor could supply, and fight for
the existence, it might be, of his brother's throne, under the walls of
his capital. However perilous this resolution might appear, it was
worthy of the high-spirited prince by whom it was adopted; and there
were reasons, perhaps, besides those arising from soldierly pride and
princely dignity, which seemed to recommend it.
The army with which the enterprising French general was now about to
debouche from the mountains, and enter the very centre of Germany, had
suffered considerably since the commencement of the campaign, not only
by the sword, but by severity of weather, and the excessive fatigue
which they endured in executing the rapid marches, by which their leader
succeeded in securing victory; and the French armies on the Rhine had
not, as the plan of the campaign dictated, made any movement in advance
corresponding with the march of Buonaparte.
Nor, in the country which they were about to enter with diminished
forces, could Buonaparte trust to the influence of the same moral
feeling in the people invaded, which had paved the way to so many
victories on the Rhine. The citizens of Austria, though living under a
despotic government, are little sensible of its severities, and are
sincerely attached to the Emperor, whose personal habits incline him to
live with his people without much form, and mix in public amusements, or
appear in the public walks, like a father in the midst of his family.
The nobility were as ready as in former times to bring out their
vassals, and a general knowledge of discipline is familiar to the German
peasant as a part of his education. Hungary possessed still the high
spirited race of barons and cavaliers, who, in their great convocation
in 1740, rose at once, and drawing their sabres, joined in the
celebrated exclamation, "_Moriamur pro regenostro, Maria Teresa!_" The
Tyrol was in possession of its own warlike inhabitants, all in arms, and
so far successful, as to have driven Joubert out of their mountains.
Trieste and Fiume were retaken in the rear of the French army.
Buonaparte had no line of communication when separated from Italy, and
no means of obtaining supplies, but from a country which would probably
be soon in insurrection in his rear, as well as on his flanks. A battle
lost, when there was neither support, reserve, nor place of arms nearer
than Klagenfurt, would have been annihilation. To add to these
considerations, it was now known that the Venetian republic had assumed
a formidable and hostile aspect in Italy; by which, joined to a natural
explosion of feeling, religious and national, the French cause was
considerably endangered in that country. There were so many favourers of
the old system, together with the general influence of the Catholic
clergy, that it seemed not unlikely this insurrection might spread fast
and far. Italy, in that case, would have been no effectual place of
refuge to Buonaparte or his army. The Archduke enumerated all these
advantages to the Cabinet of Vienna, and exhorted them to stand the last
cast of the bloody die.
But the terror, grief, and confusion, natural in a great metropolis,
whose peace for the first time for so many years was alarmed with the
approach of the unconquered and apparently fated general, who having
defeated and destroyed five of their choicest armies, was now driving
under its walls the remnants of the last, though commanded by that
prince whom they regarded as the hope and flower of Austrian warfare,
opposed this daring resolution. The alarm was general, beginning with
the court itself; and the most valuable property and treasure were
packed up to be carried into Hungary, where the royal family determined
to take refuge. It is worthy of mention, that among the fugitives of the
Imperial House was the Archduchess Maria Louisa, then between five and
six years old, whom our imagination may conceive agitated by every
species of childish terror derived from the approach of the victorious
general on whom she was, at a future and similar crisis, destined to
bestow her hand.
The cries of the wealthy burghers were of course for peace. The enemy
were within fourteen or fifteen days' march of their walls; nor had the
city (perhaps fortunately) any fortifications, which in the modern state
of war could have made it defensible even for a day. They were,
moreover, seconded by a party in the Cabinet; and, in short, whether it
chanced for good or for evil, the selfish principle of those who had
much to lose, and were timid in proportion, predominated against that,
which desired at all risks the continuance of a determined and obstinate
defence. It required many lessons to convince both sovereign and people,
that it is better to put all on the hazard--better even to lose all,
than to sanction the being pillaged at different times, and by degrees,
under pretence of friendship and amity. A bow which is forcibly strained
back will regain its natural position; but if supple enough to yield of
itself to the counter direction, it will never recover its elasticity.
[Sidenote: PEACE OF LEOBEN.]
The affairs, however, of the Austrians were in such a condition, that it
could hardly be said whether the party who declared for peace, to obtain
some respite from the distresses of the country, or those who wished to
continue war with the chances of success which we have indicated,
advised the least embarrassing course. The Court of Vienna finally
adopted the alternative of treaty, and that of Leoben was set on foot.
Generals Bellegarde and Merfield, on the part of the Emperor, presented
themselves at the headquarters of Buonaparte, 13th April, 1797, and
announced the desire of their sovereign for peace. Buonaparte granted a
suspension of arms, to endure for five days only; which was afterwards
extended, when the probability of the definitive treaty of peace was
evident.
It is affirmed, that in the whole discussions respecting this most
important armistice, Napoleon--as a conqueror, whose victories had been
in a certain degree his own, whose army had been supported and paid from
the resources of the country which he conquered, who had received
reinforcements from France only late and reluctantly, and who had
recruited his army by new levies among the republicanized
Italians--maintained an appearance of independence of the Government of
France. He had, even at this period, assumed a freedom of thought and
action, the tenth part of the suspicion attached to which would have
cost the most popular general his head in the times of Danton and
Robespierre. But, though acquired slowly, and in counteraction to the
once overpowering, and still powerful, democratic influence, the
authority of Buonaparte was great; and, indeed, the power which a
conquering general attains, by means of his successes, in the bosom of
his soldiers, becomes soon formidable to any species of government,
where the soldier is not intimately interested in the liberties of the
subject.
Yet it must not be supposed that Napoleon exhibited publicly any of that
spirit of independence which the Directory appear to have dreaded, and
which, according to the opinion which he himself intimates, seems to
have delayed the promised co-operation, which was to be afforded by the
eastern armies on the banks of the Rhine. Far from testifying such a
feeling, his assertion of the rights of the Republic was decidedly
striking, of which the following is a remarkable instance. The Austrian
commissioner, in hopes to gain some credit for the admission, had stated
in the preliminary articles of the convention, as a concession of
consequence, that his Imperial Majesty acknowledged the French
Government in its present state. "Strike out that condition," said
Buonaparte sternly, "the French Republic is like the sun in heaven. The
misfortune lies with those who are so blind as to be ignorant of the
existence of either."[274] It was gallantly spoken; but how strange to
reflect, that the same individual, in three or four years afterwards,
was able to place an extinguisher on one of those suns, without even an
eclipse being the consequence.[275]
It is remarkable also, that while asserting to foreigners this supreme
dignity of the French Republic, Buonaparte should have departed so far
from the respect he owed its rulers. The preliminaries of peace were
proposed for signature on the 18th April. But General Clarke, to whom
the Directory had committed full powers to act in the matter, was still
at Turin. He was understood to be the full confidant of his masters, and
to have instructions to watch the motions of Buonaparte, nay, to place
him under arrest, should he see cause to doubt his fealty to the French
Government. Napoleon, nevertheless, did not hesitate to tender his
individual signature and warrantry, and these were readily admitted by
the Austrian plenipotentiaries;--an ominous sign of the declension of
the powers of the Directory, considering that a military general,
without the support even of the commissioners from the government, or
proconsuls, as they were called, was regarded as sufficient to ratify a
treaty of such consequence. No doubt seems to have been entertained that
he had the power to perform what he had guaranteed; and the part which
he acted was the more remarkable, considering the high commission of
General Clarke.[276]
[Sidenote: TREATY OF LEOBEN.]
The articles in the treaty of Leoben remained long secret; the cause of
which appears to have been, that the high contracting parties were not
willing comparisons should be made between the preliminaries as they
were originally settled, and the strange and violent altercations which
occurred in the definitive treaty of Campo Formio. These two treaties of
pacification differed, the one from the other, in relation to the degree
and manner how a meditated partition of the territory of Venice, of the
Cisalpine republic, and other smaller powers was to be accomplished, for
the mutual benefit of France and Austria. It is melancholy to observe,
but it is nevertheless an important truth, that there is no moment
during which independent states of the second class have more occasion
to be alarmed for their security, than when more powerful nations in
their vicinity are about to conclude peace. It is so easy to accommodate
these differences of the strong at the expense of such weaker states,
as, if they are injured, have neither the power of making their
complaints heard, nor of defending themselves by force, that, in the
iron age in which it has been our fate to live, the injustice of such an
arrangement has never been considered as offering any counterpoise to
its great convenience, whatever the law of nations might teach to the
contrary.
It is unnecessary to enter upon the subject of the preliminaries of
Leoben, until we notice the treaty of Campo Formio, under which they
were finally modified, and by which they were adjusted and controlled.
It may be, however, the moment to state, that Buonaparte was
considerably blamed, by the Directory and others, for stopping short in
the career of conquest, and allowing the House of Austria terms which
left her still formidable to France, when, said the censors, it would
have cost him but another victory to blot the most constant and powerful
enemy of the French Republic out of the map of Europe; or, at least, to
confine her to her hereditary states in Germany. To such criticism he
replied, in a despatch to the Directory from Leoben, during the progress
of the treaty: "If, at the commencement of these Italian campaigns, I
had made a point of going to Turin, I should never have passed the
Po--had I insisted prematurely on advancing to Rome, I could never have
secured Milan--and now, had I made an indispensable object of reaching
Vienna, I might have destroyed the Republic."[277]
Such was his able and judicious defence of a conduct, which, by stopping
short of some ultimate and extreme point apparently within his grasp,
extracted every advantage from fear, which despair perhaps might not
have yielded him, if the enemy had been driven to extremity. And it is
remarkable, that the catastrophe of Napoleon himself was a corollary of
the doctrine which he now laid down; for, had he not insisted upon
penetrating to Moscow, there is no judging how much longer he might have
held the empire of France.
The contents of the treaty of Leoben, so far as they were announced to
the representatives of the French nation by the Directory, only made
known, as part of the preliminaries, that the cession of the Belgic
provinces, and of such a boundary as France might choose to demand upon
the Rhine, had been admitted by Austria; and that she had consented to
recognise a single republic in Italy, to be composed out of those which
had been provisionally established. But shortly afterwards it
transpired, that Mantua, the subject of so much and such bloody contest,
and the very citadel of Italy, as had appeared from the events of these
sanguinary campaigns, was to be resigned to Austria, from whose
tenacious grasp it had been wrenched with so much difficulty. This
measure was unpopular; and it will be found that Buonaparte had the
ingenuity, in the definitive treaty of peace, to substitute an
indemnification, which he ought not to have given, and which was
certainly the last which the Austrians should have accepted.
[Sidenote: VENICE.]
[Sidenote: April 9]
It was now the time for Venice to tremble. She had declared against the
French in their absence; her vindictive population had murdered many of
them; the resentment of the French soldiers was excited to the utmost,
and the Venetians had no right to reckon upon the forbearance of their
general. The treaty of Leoben left the Senate of that ancient state
absolutely without support; nay, as they afterwards learned, Austria,
after pleading their cause for a certain time, had ended by stipulating
for a share of their spoils, which had been assigned to her by a secret
article of the treaty. The doom of the oligarchy was pronounced ere
Buonaparte had yet traversed the Noric and Julian Alps, for the purpose
of enforcing it. By a letter to the doge, dated from the capital of
Upper Styria, Napoleon, bitterly upbraiding the Senate for requiting his
generosity with treachery and ingratitude, demanded that they should
return by his aide-de-camp who bore the letter, their instant choice
betwixt war and peace, and allowing them only four-and-twenty hours to
disperse their insurgent peasantry, and submit to his clemency.[278]
Junot, introduced into the Senate, made the threats of his master ring
in the astounded ears of the members, and by the blunt and rough manner
of a soldier, who had risen from the ranks, added to the dismay of the
trembling nobles. The Senate returned a humble apology to Buonaparte,
and despatched agents to deprecate his wrath. These envoys were doomed
to experience one of those scenes of violence which were in some degree
natural to this extraordinary man, but to which in certain cases he
seems to have designedly given way, in order to strike consternation
into those whom he addressed. "Are the prisoners at liberty?" he said,
with a stern voice, and without replying to the humble greetings of the
terrified envoys. They answered with hesitation that they had liberated
the French, the Polish, and the Brescians, who had been made captive in
the insurrectionary war. "I will have them all--all!" exclaimed
Buonaparte--"all who are in prison on account of their political
sentiments. I will go myself to destroy your dungeons on the Bridge of
Tears--opinions shall be free--I will have no Inquisition. If all the
prisoners are not set at instant liberty, the English envoy dismissed,
the people disarmed, I declare instant war. I might have gone to Vienna
if I had listed--I have concluded a peace with the Emperor--I have
eighty thousand men, twenty gun-boats--I will hear of no Inquisition,
and no Senate either--I will dictate the law to you--I will prove an
Attila to Venice. If you cannot disarm your population, I will do it in
your stead--your government is antiquated--it must crumble to
pieces."[279]
While Buonaparte, in these disjointed yet significant threats, stood
before the deputies like the Argantes of Italy's heroic poet, and gave
them the choice of peace and war with the air of a superior being,
capable at once to dictate their fate, he had not yet heard of the
massacre of Verona, or of the batteries of a Venetian fort on the Lido
having fired upon a French vessel, which had run into the port to escape
the pursuit of two armed Austrian ships. The vessel was alleged to have
been sunk, and the master and some of the crew to have been killed. The
news of these fresh aggressions did not fail to aggravate his
indignation to the highest pitch. The terrified deputies ventured to
touch with delicacy on the subject of pecuniary atonement. Buonaparte's
answer was worthy of a Roman. "If you could proffer me," he said, "the
treasures of Peru--if you could strew the whole district with gold, it
could not atone for the French blood which has been treacherously
spilt."[280]
[Sidenote: May 3.]
Accordingly, on the 3d of May, Buonaparte declared war against Venice,
and ordered the French minister to leave the city; the French troops,
and those of the new Italian republics, were at the same time commanded
to advance, and to destroy in their progress, wherever they found it
displayed, the winged Lion of Saint Mark, the ancient emblem of Venetian
sovereignty. The declaration is dated at Palma Nova.[281]
It had been already acted upon by the French who were on the Venetian
frontier, and by La Hotze, a remarkable character, who was then at the
head of the army of the Italian republics of the new model, and the
forces of the towns of Brescia and Bergamo, which aspired to the same
independence. This commander was of Swiss extraction; an excellent young
officer, and at that time enamoured of liberty on the French system,
though he afterwards saw so much reason to change his opinions, that he
lost his life, as we may have occasion to mention, fighting under the
Austrian banners.
The terrified Senate of Venice proved unworthy descendants of the Zenos,
Dandolos, and Morosinis, as the defenders of Christendom, and the proud
opposers of Papal oppression. The best resource they could imagine to
themselves, was to employ at Paris those golden means of intercession
which Buonaparte had so sturdily rejected. Napoleon assures us, that
they found favour by means of these weighty arguments. The Directory,
moved, we are informed, by the motives of ten millions of French francs,
transmitted from Venice in bills of exchange, sent to the general of
Italy orders to spare the ancient senate and aristocracy. But the
account of the transaction, with the manner in which the remittances
were distributed, fell into the hands of Napoleon, by despatches
intercepted at Milan. The members of the French Government, whom these
documents would have convicted of peculation and bribery, were compelled
to be silent; and Buonaparte, availing himself of some chicanery as to
certain legal solemnities, took it on him totally to disregard the
orders he had received.
The Senate of Venice, rather stupified than stimulated by the excess of
their danger, were holding on the 30th April, a sort of privy council in
the apartments of the doge, when a letter from the commandant of their
flotilla informed them, that the French were erecting fortifications on
the low grounds contiguous to the lagoons or shallow channels which
divide from the main-land and from each other the little isles on which
the amphibious mistress of the Adriatic holds her foundation; and
proposing, in the blunt style of a gallant sailor, to batter them to
pieces about their ears before the works could be completed.[282]
Indeed, nothing would have been more easy than to defend the lagoons
against an enemy, who, notwithstanding Napoleon's bravado, had not even
a single boat. But the proposal, had it been made to an abbess and a
convent of nuns, could scarce have appeared more extraordinary than it
did to these degenerate nobles. Yet the sense of shame prevailed; and
though trembling for the consequences of the order which they issued,
the Senate directed that the admiral should proceed to action.[283]
Immediately after the order was received, their deliberations were
interrupted by the thunder of the cannon on either side--the Venetian
gun-boats pouring their fire on the van of the French army, which had
begun to arrive at Fusini.
To interrupt these ominous sounds, two plenipotentiaries were despatched
to make intercession with the French general; and, to prevent delay, the
doge himself undertook to report the result.
The Grand Council was convoked on the 1st of May, when the doge, pale in
countenance, and disconcerted in demeanour, proposed, as the only means
of safety, the admission of some democratic modifications into their
forms, under the direction of General Buonaparte; or, in other words, to
lay their institutions at the feet of the conqueror, to be remodelled at
his pleasure. Of six hundred and nineteen patricians, only twenty-one
dissented from a vote which inferred the absolute surrender of their
constitution. The conditions to be agreed on were, indeed, declared
subject to the revision of the Council; but this, in the circumstances,
could only be considered as a clause intended to save appearances. The
surrender must have been regarded as unconditional and total.[284]
Amidst the dejection and confusion which possessed the Government, some
able intriguer (the secretary, it was said, of the French ambassador at
Venice, whose principal had been recalled) contrived to induce the
Venetian Government to commit an act of absolute suicide, so as to spare
Buonaparte the trouble and small degree of scandal which might attach to
totally destroying the existence of the republic.
On the 9th of May, as the committee of the Great Council were in close
deliberation with the doge, two strangers intruded upon those councils,
which heretofore--such was the jealous severity of the oligarchy--were
like those of supernatural beings; those who looked on them died. But
now, affliction, confusion, and fear, had withdrawn the guards from
these secret and mysterious chambers and laid open to the intrusion of
strangers those stern haunts of a suspicious oligarchy, where, in other
days, an official or lictor of the Government might have been punished
with death even for too loud a foot-fall, far more for the fatal crime
of having heard more than was designed to come to his knowledge. All
this was now ended; and without check or rebuke the two strangers were
permitted to communicate with the Senate by writing. Their advice, which
had the terms of a command, was, to anticipate the intended reforms of
the French--to dissolve the present Government--throw open their
prisons--disband their Sclavonian soldiers--plant the tree of liberty on
the place of Saint Mark, and to take other popular measures of the same
nature, the least of which, proposed but a few months before, would have
been a signal of death to the individual who had dared to hint at
it.[285]
An English satirist has told us a story of a man persuaded by an
eloquent friend, to hang himself, in order to preserve his life. The
story of the fall of Venice vindicates the boldness of the satire. It
does not appear that Buonaparte could have gone farther; nay, it seems
unlikely he would have gone so far, as was now recommended.
As the friendly advisers had hinted that the utmost speed was necessary,
the committee scarce interposed an interval of three days, between
receiving the advice and recommending it to the Great Council; and began
in the meanwhile to anticipate the destruction of their government and
surrender of their city, by dismantling their fleet and disbanding their
soldiers.
At length, the Great Council assembled on the 12th of May. The doge had
commenced a pathetic discourse on the extremities to which the country
was reduced, when an irregular discharge of fire-arms took place under
the very windows of the council-house. All started up in confusion. Some
supposed the Sclavonians were plundering the citizens; some that the
lower orders had risen on the nobility; others, that the French had
entered Venice, and were proceeding to sack and pillage it. The
terrified and timid counsellors did not wait to inquire what was the
real cause of the disturbance, but hurried forward, like sheep, in the
path which had been indicated to them. They hastened to despoil their
ancient government of all authority, to sign in a manner its sentence of
civil death--added every thing which could render the sacrifice more
agreeable to Buonaparte--and separated in confusion, but under the
impression that they had taken the best measure in their power for
quelling the tumult, by meeting the wishes of the predominant party. But
this was by no means the case. On the contrary, they had the misfortune
to find that the insurrection, of which the firing was the signal, was
directed not against the aristocrats, but against those who proposed the
surrender of the national independence. Armed bands shouted, "Long live
Saint Mark, and perish foreign domination!" Others indeed there were,
who displayed in opposition three-coloured banners, with the war-cry of
"Liberty for ever!" The disbanded and mutinous soldiers mixed among
these hostile groups, and threatened the town with fire and
pillage.[286]
Amid this horrible confusion, and while the parties were firing on each
other, a provisional government was hastily named. Boats were despatched
to bring three thousand French soldiers into the city. These took
possession of the place of Saint Mark,[287] while some of the
inhabitants shouted; but the greater part, who were probably not the
less sensible of the execrable tyranny of the old aristocracy, saw it
fall in mournful silence, because there fell along with the ancient
institutions of their country, however little some of these were to be
regretted, the honour and independence of the state itself.
The terms which the French granted, or rather imposed, appeared
sufficiently moderate, so far as they were made public. They announced,
that the foreign troops would remain so long, and no longer, than might
be necessary to protect the peace of Venice[288]--they undertook to
guarantee the public debt, and the payment of the pensions allowed to
the impoverished gentry. They required, indeed, the continuance of the
prosecution against the commander of that fort of Luco who had fired on
the French vessel; but all other offenders were pardoned, and Buonaparte
afterwards suffered even this affair to pass into oblivion; which
excited doubt whether the transaction had ever been so serious as had
been alleged.
Five secret and less palatable articles attended these avowed
conditions. One provided for the various exchanges of territory which
had been already settled at the Venetian expense betwixt Austria and
France. The second and third stipulated the payment of three millions of
francs in specie, and as many in naval stores. Another prescribed the
cession of three ships of war, and of two frigates, armed and equipped.
A fifth ratified the exaction, in the usual style of French cupidity, of
twenty pictures and five hundred manuscripts.[289]
It will be seen hereafter what advantages the Venetians purchased by all
these unconscionable conditions. At the moment, they understood that the
stipulations were to imply a guarantee of the independent existence of
their country as a democratical state. In the meanwhile, the necessity
for raising the supplies to gratify the rapacity of the French, obliged
the provisional government to have recourse to forced loans; and in this
manner they inhospitably plundered the Duke of Modena (who had fled to
Venice for refuge when Buonaparte first entered Lombardy) of his
remaining treasure, amounting to one hundred and ninety thousand
sequins.
FOOTNOTES:
[264] "The Aulic Council at Vienna, that pernicious tribunal which, in
the Seven Years' War, called Laudon to account for taking Schweidnitz
without orders, has destroyed the schemes of many an Austrian general,
for though plans of offensive operations may succeed when concerted at
home, it is impossible to frame orders for every possible
contingency."--GENTZ, _on the Fall of Prussia_.
[265] At Bassano, on the 9th of March, Buonaparte thus addressed the
troops--"Soldiers! the taking of Mantua has put an end to the war of
Italy. You have been victorious in fourteen pitched battles and seventy
actions; you have taken 100,000 prisoners, 500 field-pieces, 2000 heavy
cannon, and four pontoon trains. The contributions laid on the countries
you have conquered have fed, maintained, and paid the army; besides
which you have sent thirty millions to the minister of finance for the
use of the public treasury. You have enriched the Museum of Paris with
300 masterpieces of the arts of ancient and modern Italy, which it had
required thirty centuries to produce. You have conquered for the
Republic the finest countries in Europe. The Kings of Sardinia and
Naples, the Pope, and the Duke of Parma, are separated from the
coalition. You have expelled the English from Leghorn, Genoa, and
Corsica. Yet higher destinies await you! You will prove yourselves
worthy of them! Of all the foes who combined to stifle the Republic in
its birth, the Emperor alone remains before you," &c.
[266] "The river is pretty deep, and a bridge would have been desirable;
but the good-will of the soldiers supplied that deficiency. A drummer
was the only person in danger, and he was saved by a woman who swam
after him."--MONTHOLON, tom. iv., p. 73.
[267] Montholon, tom. iv., p. 72; Jomini, tom. x., p. 33.
[268] Jomini, tom. x., p, 38; Montholon, tom. iv., p. 77.
[269] Montholon, tom. iv., p. 81.
[270] "No extraordinary contribution was levied, and the inhabitants
gave no occasion for complaint of any kind. The English merchandise at
Trieste was confiscated. Quicksilver, to the value of several millions,
from the mine of Idria, was found in the imperial warehouses."--MONTHOLON,
tom. iv., p. 82.
[271] Jomini, tom. x., p. 56; Montholon, tom. iv., p. 83.
[272] See the report of the agents of the Venetian government.--DARU,
tom. v., p. 584. Napoleon says, "the fury of the people carried them so
far as to murder _four hundred sick in the hospitals_."--MONTHOLON, tom.
iv., p. 133.
[273] Montholon, tom. iv., p. 91.
[274] Montholon, tom. iv., p. 101.
[275] Buonaparte first mentions this circumstance as having taken place
at Leoben, afterwards at the definitive treaty of Campo Formio. The
effect is the same, wherever the words were spoken.--S.
[276] "On the 27th of April, the Marquis de Gallo presented the
preliminaries, ratified by the Emperor, to Napoleon at Gratz. It was in
one of these conferences, that one of the plenipotentiaries, authorised
by an autograph letter of the Emperor, offered Napoleon to procure him,
on the conclusion of a peace, a sovereignty of 250,000 souls in Germany,
for himself and his family, in order to place him beyond the reach of
republican ingratitude. The general smiled, he desired the
plenipotentiary to thank the Emperor for this proof of the interest he
took in his welfare, and said, that he wished for no greatness or
riches, unless conferred on him by the French people."--MONTHOLON, tom.
iv., p. 103.
[277] Correspondence Inédite tom. ii., p. 564. See also Jomini, tom.
ix., Pièces Justificatives, Nos. 1 and 2.
[278] Daru, tom. v., p. 568; Montholon, tom. iv., p. 135.
[279] See, in Daru, tom. v., p. 605, the report of the two envoys, Dona
and Justiniani.
[280] "Non, non, quand vous couvriez cette plage d'or, tous vos tresors,
tout l'or du Pérou, ne peuvent payer le sang Français."--DARU, tom. v.,
p. 619.
[281] For a copy of this manifesto against Venice, see _Moniteur_, No.
239, May 16, and _Annual Register_, vol. xxxiv., p. 337. "As soon as it
was made public, the whole Terra Firma revolted against the capital.
Every town proclaimed its independence, and constituted a government for
itself. Bergamo, Brescia, Padua, Vicenza, Bassano, and Udine, formed so
many separate republics."--MONTHOLON, tom. iv., p. 143.
[282] Daru, tom. vi., p. 9.
[283] Daru, tom. vi., p. 10.
[284] Daru, tom. vi., p. 13.
[285] Daru, tom. vi., p. 32.
[286] Daru, tom. vi., p. 36.
[287] Daru, tom. vi., p. 40.
[288] "The French troops entered Venice on the 16th of May. The
partisans of liberty immediately met in a popular assembly. The
aristocracy was destroyed for ever; the democratic constitution of
twelve hundred was proclaimed. Dandolo was placed at the head of all the
city. The Lion of St. Mark and the Corinthian horses were carried to
Paris."--MONTHOLON, tom. iv., p. 142.
[289] "General Bernadotte carried the colours taken from the Venetian
troops to Paris. These frequent presentations of colours were, at this
period, very useful to the government; for the disaffected were silenced
and overawed by this display of the spirit of the armies."--MONTHOLON,
tom. iv., p. 145.