The Conquest of Piedmont and the Milanese[67].
[Footnote 67: The latest important authorities on this
campaign and its results are, in addition to those
already given, Sargent: Napoleon Bonaparte's First
Campaign. Sorel: Bonaparte et Hoche en 1797. Bonaparte
et le Directoire, Vol. V of his large work. Colin:
Études sur la Campagne de 1796 en Italie. Fabry:
Histoire de l'armée d'Italie, 1796-1797. Bouvier:
Bonaparte en Italie, 1796. Graham's Despatches, edited
by Rose, in English Historical Review, Vol. XIV.
Tivaroni: Storia del risorgimento italiano. The Dropmore
Papers. Of primary value are Napoleon's "Correspondance,"
official edition, and the unofficial edited by Beauvais.
Hueffer: Ungedruckte Briefe Napoleon's in the Archiv für
Oest. Geschichte, Vol. XLIX. Of value are also the
memoirs of Marmont, Masséna, and Desgenettes, of
Landrieux in Revue du Cercle Militaire, 1887. Yorck von
Wartenberg: Napoleon als Feldherr, almost supersedes the
older authority of Clausewitz, Jomini, Ruestow, and
Lossau. There are also Malachowski: Entwickelung der
leitenden Gedanken zur ersten Campagne Bonaparte's, and
Delbrueck: Unterschied der Strategie Friederich's des
Grossen und Napoleon's.]
The Armies of Austria and Sardinia -- Montenotte and
Millesimo -- Mondovi and Cherasco -- Consequences of the
Campaign -- The Plains of Lombardy -- The Crossing of the Po
-- Advance Toward Milan -- Lodi -- Retreat of the Austrians
-- Moral Effects of Lodi.
[Sidenote: 1796.]
Victor Amadeus of Sardinia was not unaccustomed to the loss of
territory in the north, because from immemorial times his house had
relinquished picturesque but unfruitful lands beyond the Alps to gain
fertile fields below them. It was a hard blow, to be sure, that Savoy,
which gave name to his family, and Nice, with its beautiful and
commanding site, should have been lost to his crown. But so far, in
every general European convulsion, some substantial morsels had fallen
to the lot of his predecessors, who had looked on Italy "as an
artichoke to be eaten leaf by leaf"; and it was probable that a slice
of Lombardy would be his own prize at the next pacification. He had
spent his reign in strengthening his army, and as the foremost
military power in Italy his young and vigorous people, with the help
of Austria, were defending the passes into their territory. The road
from their capital to Savona on the sea wound by Ceva and Millesimo
over the main ridge of the Apennines, at the summit of which it was
joined by the highway through Dego and Cairo leading southwestward
from Milan through Alessandria. The Piedmontese, under Colli, were
guarding the approach to their own capital; the Austrians, under
Beaulieu, that to Milan. Collectively their numbers were somewhat
greater than those of the French; but the two armies were separated.
Beaulieu began operations on April tenth by ordering an attack on the
French division of Laharpe, which had been thrown forward to Voltri.
The Austrians under Argenteau were to fall on its rear from
Montenotte, a village to the north of Savona, with the idea of driving
that wing of Bonaparte's army back along the shore road, on which it
was hoped they would fall under the fire of Nelson's guns. Laharpe,
however, retreated to Savona in perfect safety, for the English fleet
was not near. Thereupon Bonaparte, suddenly revealing the new
formation of his army in the north and south line, assumed the
offensive. Argenteau, having been held temporarily in check by the
desperate resistance of a handful of French soldiers under Colonel
Rampon, was surprised and overwhelmed at Montenotte on the twelfth by
a force much larger than his own. Next day Masséna and Augereau drove
back toward Dego an Austrian division which had reached Millesimo on
its way to join Colli; and on the fifteenth, at that place, Bonaparte
himself destroyed the remnant of Argenteau's corps. On the sixteenth
Beaulieu abandoned the mountains to make a stand at Acqui in the
plain. Thus the whole Austrian force was not only driven back, but was
entirely separated from the Piedmontese.
Bonaparte had a foolish plan in his pocket, which had been furnished
by the Directory in a temporary reversion to official tradition,
ordering him to advance into Lombardy, leaving behind the hostile
Piedmontese on his left, and the uncertain Genoese on his right. He
disregarded it, apparently without hesitation, and throwing his force
northwestward toward Ceva, where the Piedmontese were posted,
terrified them into a retreat. They were overtaken, however, at
Mondovi on April twenty-second, and utterly routed, losing not only
their best troops, but their field-pieces and baggage-train. Three
days later Bonaparte pushed onward and occupied Cherasco, which was
distant from Turin, the Piedmontese capital, but twenty-five miles by
a short, easy, and now open road. On the twenty-seventh the
Sardinians, isolated in a mountain amphitheater, and with no prospect
of relief from their discomfited ally, made overtures for an armistice
preliminary to peace. These were readily accepted by Bonaparte; and
although he had no authorization from the government to perform such
functions, he was defiantly careless of instructions in this as in
every subsequent step he took. The negotiation was conducted with
courtesy and firmness, on the basis of military honor, much to the
surprise of the Piedmontese, who had expected to deal with a savage
Jacobin. There was not even a word in Bonaparte's talk which recalled
the republican severity; as has been noted, the word virtue did not
pass his lips, his language was that of chivalry. He stipulated in
kindly phrase for the surrender of Coni and Tortona, the famous "keys
of the Alps," with other strongholds of minor importance, demanding
also the right to cross and recross Piedmontese territory at will. The
paper was completed and signed on the twenty-eighth. The troublesome
question of civil authority to make a treaty was evaded by calling the
arrangement a military convention. It was none the less binding by
reason of its name. Indeed the idea was steadily expanded into a new
policy, for just as pillage and rapine were ruthlessly repressed by
the victorious commander, all agreements were made temporarily on a
military basis, including those for indemnities. Salicetti was the
commissioner of the Directory and there was no friction between him
and Bonaparte. Both profited by a partnership in which opportunities
for personal ventures were frequent, while the military chest was well
supplied and remittances to Paris were kept just large enough to save
the face and quiet the clamors of the Directory. Victor Amadeus being
checkmated, Bonaparte was free to deal with Beaulieu.
[Illustration: Northern Italy. Illustrating the Campaigns of 1796 and
1797.]
This short campaign was in some respects insignificant, especially
when compared as to numbers and results with what was to follow. But
the names of Montenotte, Millesimo, Dego, Mondovi, and Cherasco were
ever dear to Bonaparte, and stand in a high place on his greatest
monument. The King of Sardinia was the father-in-law of Louis XVIII,
and his court had been a nest of plotting French emigrants. When his
agents reached Paris they were received with coarse resentment by the
Directory and bullied into an alliance, though they had been
instructed to make only a peace. Their sovereign was humiliated to the
limit of possibility. The loss of his fortress robbed him of his
power. By the terms of the treaty he was to banish the French
royalists from his lands. Stripped thus of both force and prestige,
he did not long survive the disgrace, and died, leaving to Charles
Emmanuel, his son, no real dominion but that over the island of
Sardinia. The contrast between the ferocious bluster of the Directory
and the generous simplicity of a great conqueror was not lost on the
Italians nor on the moderate French. For them as for Bonaparte, a
military and political aspirant in his first independence, everything,
absolutely everything, was at stake in those earliest engagements; on
the event hung not merely his career, but their release. In pleasant
succession the spring days passed like a transformation scene. Success
was in the air, not the success of accident, but the resultant of
forethought and careful combination. The generals, infected by their
leader's spirit, vied with each other in daring and gallantry. For
happy desperation Rampon's famous stand remains unsurpassed in the
annals of war.
From the heights of Ceva the leader of conquering and now devoted
soldiers could show to them and their equally enthusiastic officers
the gateway into the fertile and well-watered land whither he had
promised to lead them, the historic fields of Lombardy. Nothing
comparable to that inexhaustible storehouse of nature can be found in
France, generous as is her soil. Walled in on the north and west by
the majestic masses of the Alps, and to the south by the smaller but
still mighty bastions of the Apennines, these plains owe to the
mountains not only their fertility and prosperity, but their very
existence. Numberless rills which rise amid the icy summits of the
great chain, or the lower peaks of the minor one, combine into ever
growing streams of pleasant waters which finally unite in the sluggish
but impressive Po. Melting snows and torrential rains fill these
watercourses with the rich detritus of the hills which renews from
year to year the soil it originally created. A genial climate and a
grateful soil return to the industrious inhabitants an ample reward
for their labors. In the fiercest heats of summer the passing
traveler, if he pauses, will hear the soft sounds of slow-running
waters in the irrigation sluices which on every side supply any lack
of rain. Wheat, barley, and rice, maize, fruit, and wine, are but a
few of the staples. Great farmsteads, with barns whose mighty lofts
and groaning mows attest the importance of Lombard agriculture, are
grouped into the hamlets which abound at the shortest intervals. And
to the vision of one who sees them first from a mountain-top through
the dim haze of a sunny day, towns and cities seem strewn as if they
were grain from the hand of a sower. The measure of bewilderment is
full when memory recalls that this garden of Italy has been the prize
for which from remotest antiquity the nations of Europe have fought,
and that the record of the ages is indelibly written in the walls and
ornaments of the myriad structures--theaters, palaces, and
churches--which lie so quietly below. Surely the dullest sansculotte
in Bonaparte's army must have been aroused to new sensations by the
sight. What rosy visions took shape in the mind of their leader we can
only imagine.
Piedmont having submitted, the promised descent into these rich plains
was not an instant deferred. "Hannibal," said the commanding general
to his staff, "took the Alps by storm. We have turned their flank." He
paused only to announce his feats to the Directory in modest phrase,
and to recommend for preferment those who, like Lannes and Lanusse,
had earned distinction. The former was just Bonaparte's age but
destitute of solid education, owing to the poverty of his parents. He
enlisted in 1792 and in 1795 was already a colonel, owing to his
extraordinary inborn courage and capacity. Through the hatred of a
Convention legate he was degraded from his rank after the peace of
Basel and entered Bonaparte's army as a volunteer. Thereafter his
promotion was fast and regular until he became the general's close
friend and steadfast supporter. Lanusse was only twenty-four but had
been chief of battalion for four years, and now entered upon a
brilliant though short career which ended by his death in 1801 at
Aboukir. The advance of Bonaparte's army began on May thirtieth.
Neither Genoa, Tuscany, nor Venice was to be given time for arming;
Beaulieu must be met while his men were still dispirited, and before
the arrival of reinforcements: for a great army of thirty thousand men
was immediately to be despatched under Wurmser to maintain the power
of Austria in Italy. Beaulieu was a typical Austrian general,
seventy-one years old, but still hale, a stickler for precedent, and
looking to experience as his only guide. Relying on the principles of
strategy as he had learned them, he had taken up what he considered a
strong position for the defense of Milan, his line stretching
northeasterly beyond the Ticino from Valenza, the spot where rumors,
diligently spread by Bonaparte, declared that the French would attempt
to force a passage. Confirmed in his own judgment by those reports,
the old and wary Austrian commander stood brave and expectant, while
the young and daring adventurer opposed to him marched swiftly by on
the right bank fifty miles onward to Piacenza. There he made his
crossing on May seventh in common ferry-boats and by a pontoon bridge.
No resistance was made by the few Austrian cavalry who had been sent
out merely to reconnoiter the line. The enemy were outwitted and
virtually outflanked, being now in the greatest danger. Beaulieu had
barely time to break camp and march in hot haste northeasterly to
Lodi, where, behind the swift current of the Adda, he made a final
stand for the defense of Milan, the seat of Austrian government. In
fact, his movements were so hurried that the advance-guards of both
armies met by accident at Fombio on May eighth, where a sharp
engagement resulted in a victory for the French. Laharpe, who had
shown his usual courage in this fight, was killed a few hours later,
through a mistake of his own soldiers, in a night mêlée with the
pickets of a second Austrian corps. On the ninth the dukes of Parma
and of Piacenza both made their submission in treaties dictated by the
French commander, and simultaneously the reigning archduke quitted
Milan. Next day the pursuing army was at Lodi.
Bonaparte wrote to the Directory that he had expected the passage of
the Po would prove the most bold and difficult manoeuver of the
campaign. But it was no sooner accomplished than he again showed a
perfect mastery of his art by so manoeuvering as to avoid an
engagement while the great river was still immediately in his rear. He
was then summoned to meet a third emergency of equal consequence. The
Adda is fordable in some places at certain times, but not easily; and
at Lodi a wooden bridge about two hundred yards in length then
occupied the site of the later solid structure of masonry and iron.
The approach to this bridge Beaulieu had seized and fortified.
Northwestward was Milan; to the east lay the almost impregnable
fortress of Mantua. Beaten at Lodi, the Austrians might still retreat,
and make a stand under the walls of either town with some hope of
victory: it was Bonaparte's intention so to disorganize his enemy's
army that neither would be possible. Accordingly on May tenth the
French forces were concentrated for the advance. They started
immediately and marched so swiftly that they overtook the Austrian
rear-guard before it could withdraw behind the old Gothic walls of the
town, and close the gates. Driving them onward, the French fought as
they marched. A decisive conflict cleared the streets; and after a
stubborn resistance the brave defenders retreated over the bridge to
the eastern bank of what was now their last rampart, the river. With
cool and desperate courage, Sebottendorf, whose Austrians numbered
less than ten thousand men, then brought into action his artillery,
and swept the wooden roadway.
In a short time the bridge would no doubt have been in flames; it was
uncertain whether the shifting and gravelly bottom of the stream above
or below would either yield a ford or permit a crossing by any other
means. Under Bonaparte's personal supervision, and therefore with
miraculous speed, the French batteries were placed and began an
answering thunder. In an access of personal zeal, the commander even
threw himself for an instant into the whirling hail of shot and
bullets, in order the better to aim two guns which in the hurry had
been misdirected. Under this terrible fire and counterfire it was
impossible for the Austrians to apply a torch to any portion of the
structure. Behind the French guns were three thousand grenadiers
waiting for a signal. Soon the crisis came. A troop of Bonaparte's
cavalry had found the nearest ford a few hundred yards above the
bridge, and were seen, amid the smoke, struggling to cross, though
without avail, and turn the right flank of the Austrian infantry,
which had been posted a safe distance behind the artillery on the
opposite shore. Quick as thought, in the very nick of opportunity, the
general issued his command, and the grenadiers dashed for the bridge.
Eye-witnesses declared that the fire of the Austrian artillery was now
redoubled, while from houses on the opposite side soldiers hitherto
concealed poured volley after volley of musket-balls upon the
advancing column. For one single fateful moment it faltered. Berthier
and Masséna, with others equally devoted, rushed to its head, and
rallied the lines. In a few moments the deed was accomplished, the
bridge was won, the batteries were silenced, and the enemy was in full
retreat.
Scattered, stunned, and terrified, the disheartened Austrians felt
that no human power could prevail against such a foe. Beaulieu could
make no further stand behind the Adda; but, retreating beyond the
Oglio to the Mincio, a parallel tributary of the Po, he violated
Venetian neutrality by seizing Peschiera, where that stream flows out
of Lake Garda, and spread his line behind the river from the Venetian
town on the north as far as Mantua, the farthest southern outpost of
Austria, thus thwarting one, and that not the least important, of
Bonaparte's plans. As to the Italians, they seemed bereft of sense,
and for the most part yielded dumbly to what was required. There were
occasional outbursts of enthusiasm by Italian Jacobins, and in the
confusion of warfare they wreaked a sneaking vengeance on their
conservative compatriots by extortion and terrorizing. The population
was confused between the woe of actual loss and the joy of
emancipation from old tyrannies. Suspicious and adroit, yet slow and
self-indulgent, the common folk concluded that the grievous burden of
the hour would be lightened by magnanimity and held a waiting
attitude.
The moral effect of the action at Lodi was incalculable. Bonaparte's
reputation as a strategist had already been established, but his
personal courage had never been tested. The actual battle-field is
something quite different from the great theater of war, and men
wondered whether he had the same mastery of the former as of the
latter. Hitherto he had been untried either as to his tactics or his
intrepidity. In both respects Lodi elevated him literally to the
stars. No doubt the risk he took was awful, and the loss of life
terrible. Critics, too, have pointed out safer ways which they believe
would have led to the same result; be that as it may, in no other way
could the same dramatic effect have been produced. France went wild
with joy. The peoples of Italy bowed before the prodigy which thus
both paralyzed and fascinated them all. Austria was dispirited, and
her armies were awe-stricken. When, five days later, on May fifteenth,
amid silent but friendly throngs of wondering men, Bonaparte entered
Milan, not as the conqueror but as the liberator of Lombardy, at the
head of his veteran columns, there was already about his brows a mild
effulgence of supernatural light, which presaged to the growing band
of his followers the full glory in which he was later to shine on the
imagination of millions. It was after Lodi that his adoring soldiers
gave him the name of "Little Corporal," by which they ever after knew
him. He himself confessed that after Lodi some conception of his high
destiny arose in his mind for the first time.