Rivoli and the Capitulation of Mantua.
The Diplomatic Feint of Great Britain -- Clarke and the
Directory -- Catherine the Great and Paul I -- Austria's
Strategic Plan -- Renewal of Hostilities -- The Austrians at
Rivoli and Nogara -- Bonaparte's Night March to Rivoli --
Monte Baldo and the Berner Klause -- The Battle of Rivoli --
The Battle of La Favorita -- Feats of the French Army --
Bonaparte's Achievement -- The Fall of Mantua.
[Sidenote: 1797.]
The fifth division of the Italian campaign was the fourth attempt of
Austria to retrieve her position in Italy, a position on which her
rulers still believed that all her destinies hung. Her energy was now
the wilfulness of despair. Events in Europe were shaping themselves
without regard to her advantage. The momentary humiliation of France
in Jourdan's defeat, the deplorable condition of British finances as
shown by the fall of the three per cents to fifty-three, the unsettled
and dangerous state of Ireland, with the menace of Hoche's invasion
impending, these circumstances created in London a feeling that
perhaps the time was propitious for negotiating with France, where too
there was considerable agitation for peace. Accordingly, in the autumn
of 1796, Lord Malmesbury was sent to Paris under rigid cautionary
instructions. The envoy was cold and haughty; Delacroix, the French
minister, was conceited and shallow. It soon appeared that what the
agent had to offer was either so indefinite as to be meaningless, or
so favorable to Great Britain as to be ridiculous in principle. The
negotiations were merely diplomatic fencing. To the Englishman the
public law of Europe was still that of the peace of Utrecht,
especially as to the Netherlands; to the Frenchman this was
preposterous since the Low Countries were already in France by
enactment and the rule of natural boundaries. About the middle of
November, Malmesbury was informed that he must either speak to the
point or leave. Of course the point was Belgium; if France would
abandon her claim to Antwerp she could have compensation in Germany.
There was some further futile talk about what both parties then as
before, and thereafter to the end, considered the very nerve of their
contention. Malmesbury went home toward the close of December, and
soon after, Hoche's fleet was wrecked in the Channel. The result of
the British mission was to clarify the issues, to consolidate British
patriotism once more, to reopen the war on a definite basis. Hoche was
assigned to the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, declaring he would first
thunder at the gates of Vienna and then return through Ireland to
London and command the peace of the world.
Meantime the Directory had noted the possibility of independent
negotiation with Austria. It did not intend, complaisant as it had
been hitherto, to leave Bonaparte unhampered in so momentous a
transaction. On the contrary, it selected a pliable and obedient agent
in the person of General Clarke, offspring of an Irish refugee family,
either a mild republican or a constitutional monarchist according to
circumstances, a lover of peace and order, a conciliatory spirit. To
him was given the directors' confidential, elaborate, and elastic plan
for territorial compensations as a basis for peace, the outcome of
which in any case would leave Prussia preponderant in Germany. Liberal
and well disposed to the Revolution as they believed, she could then
be wooed into a firm alliance. In Italy, France was to maintain her
new authority and retain what she had conquered for her own good
pleasure. Bonaparte intended to do as he found necessary in both these
cases. After Arcola, Thugut, the Austrian minister, expressed a sense
of the deepest humiliation that a youth commanding volunteers and
rapscallions should work his will with the fine troops and skilled
generals of the empire. But, undaunted, he applied to Russia for
succor. Catherine had dallied with Jacobinism in order to occupy both
Prussia and Austria while she consolidated and confirmed her strength
in Poland and the Orient. This she had accomplished and was now ready
to bridle the wild steed she had herself unloosed. Intervening at the
auspicious hour, she could deliver Italy, take control of central
Europe, subjugate the north, and sway the universe.
Accordingly she demanded from Pitt a subsidy of two and a half million
dollars, and ordered Suvoroff with sixty thousand troops to the
assistance of Austria. Just then, in September, 1796, Gustavus IV, of
Sweden, was at St. Petersburg for his betrothal with the Empress's
granddaughter Alexandra. He required as a matter of course that she
should adopt his faith. This was contemptuously refused and the
preparations for the festival went forward to completion as if nothing
had occurred. At the appointed hour for the ceremonial, the groom did
not and would not appear. Consternation gave way to a sense of
outrage, but the "Kinglet," as the great courtiers styled him, stood
firm. The Empress was beside herself, her health gave way, and she
died in less than two months, on November seventeenth. The dangerous
imbecile, her son Paul I, reigned in her stead. Weird figure that he
was, he at least renounced his mother's policy of conquest and
countermanded her orders to Suvoroff, recalling him and his army.
Austria was at bay, but she was undaunted.
Once more Alvinczy, despairing of success, but obedient to his orders,
made ready to move down the Adige from Trent. Great zeal had been
shown in Austria. The Vienna volunteer battalions abandoned the work
of home protection for which they had enlisted, and, with a banner
embroidered by the Empress's own hand, joined the active forces. The
Tyrolese, in defiance of the atrocious proclamation in which
Bonaparte, claiming to be their conqueror, had threatened death to any
one taking up arms against France, flocked again to the support of
their Emperor. By a recurrence to the old fatal plan, Alvinczy was to
attack the main French army; his colleague Provera was to follow the
Brenta into the lower reaches of the Adige, where he could effect a
crossing, and relieve Mantua. He was likewise to deceive the enemy by
making a parade of greater strength than he really had, and thus draw
away Bonaparte's main army toward Legnago on the lower Adige. A
messenger was despatched to Wurmser with letters over the Emperor's
own signature, ordering him, if Provera should fail, to desert Mantua,
retreat into the Romagna, and under his own command unite the garrison
and the papal troops. This order never reached its destination, for
its bearer was intercepted, and was compelled by the use of an emetic
to render up the despatches which he had swallowed.
On January seventh, 1797, Bonaparte gave orders to strengthen the
communications along his line, massing two thousand men at Bologna in
order to repress certain hostile demonstrations lately made in behalf
of the Pope. On the following day an Austrian division which had been
lying at Padua made a short attack on Augereau's division, and on the
ninth drove it into Porto Legnago, the extreme right of the French
line. This could mean nothing else than a renewal of hostilities by
Austria, although it was impossible to tell where the main attack
would be made. On the eleventh Bonaparte was at Bologna, concluding an
advantageous treaty with Tuscany; in order to be ready for any event,
he started the same evening, hastened across the Adige with his
troops, and pressed on to Verona.
On the twelfth, at six in the morning, the enemy attacked Masséna's
advance-guard at St. Michel, a suburb of that city. They were repulsed
with loss. Early on the same day Joubert, who had been stationed with
a corps of observation farther up in the old and tried position at the
foot of Monte Baldo, became aware of hostile movements, and occupied
Rivoli. During the day the two Austrian columns tried to turn his
position by seizing his outpost at Corona, but they were repulsed. On
the thirteenth he became aware that the main body of the Austrians was
before him, and that their intention was to surround him by the left.
Accordingly he informed Bonaparte, abandoned Corona, and made ready to
retreat from Rivoli. That evening Provera threw a pontoon bridge
across the Adige at Anghiari, below Legnago, and crossed with a
portion of his army. Next day he started for Mantua, but was so
harassed by Guieu and Augereau that the move was ineffectual, and he
got no farther than Nogara.
The heights of Rivoli command the movements of any force passing out
of the Alps through the valley of the Adige. They are abrupt on all
sides but one, where from the greatest elevation the chapel of St.
Mark overlooked a winding road, steep, but available for cavalry and
artillery. Rising from the general level of the tableland, this
hillock is in itself a kind of natural citadel. Late on the
thirteenth, Joubert, in reply to the message he had sent, received
orders to fortify the plateau, and to hold it at all hazards; for
Bonaparte now divined that the main attack was to be made there in
order to divert all opposition from Provera, and that if it were
successful the two Austrian armies would meet at Mantua. By ten that
evening the reports brought in from Joubert and by scouts left this
conclusion no longer doubtful. That very night, therefore, being in
perfect readiness for either event, Bonaparte moved toward Rivoli with
a force numbering about twenty thousand. It was composed of every
available French soldier between Desenzano and Verona, including
Masséna's division.[68] By strenuous exertions they reached the
heights of Rivoli about two in the morning of the fourteenth.
Alvinczy, ignorant of what had happened, was waiting for daylight in
order to carry out his original design of inclosing and capturing the
comparatively small force of Joubert and the strong place which it had
been set to hold, a spot long since recognized by Northern peoples as
the key to the portal of Italy. Bonaparte, on his arrival, perceived
in the moonlight five divisions encamped in a semicircle below; their
bivouac fires made clear that they were separated from one another by
considerable distances. He knew then that his instinct had been
correct, that this was the main army, and that the decisive battle
would be fought next day. The following hours were spent in disposing
his forces to meet the attack in any form it might take. Not a man was
wasted, but the region was occupied with pickets, outposts, and
reserves so ingeniously stationed that the study of that field, and of
Bonaparte's disposition of his forces, has become a classic example
in military science.
[Footnote 68: Somewhat under 40,000. Bonaparte guessed,
and his guess was very shrewd, that all told he was then
confronted by 45,000. The Austrians have never made the
facts clear, though their initial strength is set at
28,000. I have found no estimate of the reinforcements.
In any case they lost 10,000 here, the whole of
Provera's corps at La Favorita, and 18,000 were captured
at Mantua: their fighting force in Italy was
annihilated.]
The gorge by which the Adige breaks through the lowest foot-hills of
the Alps to enter the lowlands has been famous since dim antiquity.
The Romans considered it the entrance to Cimmeria; it was sung in
German myths as the Berner Klause, the majestic gateway from their
inclement clime into the land of the stranger, that warm, bright land
for the luxurious and orderly life of which their hearts were ever
yearning. Around its precipices and isolated, frowning bastions song
and fable had clustered, and the effect of mystery was enhanced by the
awful grandeur of the scene. Overlooking all stands Monte Baldo,
frowning with its dark precipices on the cold summits of the German
highland, smiling with its sunny slopes on the blue waters of Lake
Garda and the fertile valley of the Po. In the change of strategy
incident to the introduction of gunpowder the spot of greatest
resistance was no longer in the gorge, but at its mouth, where Rivoli
on one side, and Ceraino on the other, command respectively the gentle
slopes which fall eastward and westward toward the plains. The Alps
were indeed looking down on the "Little Corporal," who, having flanked
their defenses at one end, was now about to force their center, and
later to pass by their eastward end into the hereditary dominions of
the German emperors on the Danube.
At early dawn began the conflict which was to settle the fate of
Mantua. The first fierce contest was between the Austrian left and the
French right at St. Mark; but it quickly spread along the whole line
as far as Caprino. For some time the Austrians had the advantage, and
the result was in suspense, since the French left, at Caprino, yielded
for an instant before the onslaught of the main Austrian army made in
accordance with Alvinczy's first plan, and, as he supposed, upon an
inferior force by one vastly superior in numbers. Berthier, who by his
calm courage was fast rising high in his commander's favor, came to
the rescue, and Masséna, following with a judgment which has
inseparably linked his name with that famous spot, finally restored
order to the French ranks. Every successive charge of the Austrians
was repulsed with a violence which threw their right and center back
toward Monte Baldo in ever growing confusion. The battle waged for
nearly three hours before Alvinczy understood that it was not
Joubert's division, but Bonaparte's army, which was before him. A
fifth Austrian column then pressed forward from the bank of the Adige
to scale the height of Rivoli, and Joubert, whose left at St. Mark was
hard beset, could not check the movement. For an instant he left the
road unprotected. The Austrians charged up the hill and seized the
commanding position; but simultaneously there rushed from the opposite
side three French battalions, clambering up to retrieve the loss. The
nervous activity of the latter brought them quickly to the top, where
at once they were reinforced by a portion of the cavalry reserve, and
the storming columns were thrown back in disorder. At that instant
appeared in Bonaparte's rear an Austrian corps which had been destined
to take the French at Rivoli in their rear. Had it arrived sooner, the
position would, as the French declared, have been lost to them. As it
was, instead of making an attack, the Austrians had to await one.
Bonaparte directed a falling artillery fire against them, and threw
them back toward Lake Garda. He thus gained time to re-form his own
ranks and enabled Masséna to hold in check still another of the
Austrian columns, which was striving to outflank him on his left.
Thereupon the French reserve under Rey, coming in from the westward,
cut the turning column entirely off, and compelled it to surrender.
The rest of Alvinczy's force being already in full retreat, this ended
the worst defeat and most complete rout which the Austrian arms had so
far sustained. Such was the utter demoralization of the flying and
disintegrated columns that a young French officer named Réné, who was
in command of fifty men at a hamlet on Lake Garda, successfully
imitated Bonaparte's ruse at Lonato, and displayed such an imposing
confidence to a flying troop of fifteen hundred Austrians that they
surrendered to what appeared to be a force superior to their own. Next
morning at dawn, Murat, who had marched all night to gain the point,
appeared on the slopes of Monte Baldo above Corona, and united with
Joubert to drive the Austrians from their last foothold. The pursuit
was continued as far as Trent. Thirteen thousand prisoners were
captured in those two days.
[Illustration: Enlarged Plan of Lake of Garda and Adjacent Country.
Map Illustrating the Campaign Preceding the Treaty of Campo-Formio
1797.]
While Murat was straining up the slopes of Monte Baldo, Bonaparte,
giving no rest to the weary feet of Masséna's division,--the same men
who two days before had marched by night from Verona,--was retracing
his steps on that well-worn road past the city of Catullus and the
Capulets onward toward Mantua. Provera had crossed the Adige at
Anghiari with ten thousand men. Twice he had been attacked: once in
the front by Guieu, once in the rear by Augereau. On both occasions
his losses had been severe, but, nevertheless, on the same morning
which saw Alvinczy's flight into the Tyrol, he finally appeared with
six thousand men in the suburb of St. George, before Mantua. He
succeeded in communicating with Wurmser, but was held in check by the
blockading French army throughout the day and night until Bonaparte
arrived with his reinforcements. Next morning there was a general
engagement, Provera attacking in front, and Wurmser, by
preconcerted arrangement, sallying out from behind at the head of a
strong force. The latter was thrown back into the town by Sérurier,
who commanded the besiegers, but only after a fierce and deadly
conflict on the causeway. This was the road from Mantua to a
country-seat of its dukes known as "La Favorita," and was chosen for
the sortie as having an independent citadel. Victor, with some of the
troops brought in from Rivoli, the "terrible fifty-seventh
demi-brigade," as Bonaparte designated them, attacked Provera at the
same time, and threw his ranks into such disorder that he was glad to
surrender his entire force. This conflict of January sixteenth, before
Mantua, is known as the battle of La Favorita, from the stand made by
Sérurier on the road to that residence. Its results were six thousand
prisoners, among them the Vienna volunteers with the Empress's banner,
and many guns. In his fifty-fifth year this French soldier of fortune
had finally reached the climax of his career. Having fought in the
Seven Years' War, in Portugal and in Corsica, the Revolution gave him
his opening. He assisted Schérer in the capture of the Maritime Alps,
and fought with leonine power at Mondovi and these succeeding
movements. While his fortunes were linked with Bonaparte's they
mounted higher and higher. As governor of Venice he was so upright and
incorruptible as to win the sobriquet "Virgin of Italy." The
discouragement of defeat under Moreau in 1798 led him to retire into
civil life, where he was a stanch Bonapartist and faithful official to
the end of the Napoleonic epoch, when he rallied to the Bourbons.
Bonaparte estimated that so far in the Italian campaigns the army of
the republic had fought within four days two pitched battles, and had
besides been six times engaged; that they had taken, all told, nearly
twenty-five thousand prisoners, including a lieutenant-general, two
generals, and fifteen colonels; had captured twenty standards, with
sixty pieces of artillery, and had killed or wounded six thousand men.
This short campaign of Rivoli was the turning-point of the war, and
may be said to have shaped the history of Europe for twenty years.
Chroniclers dwell upon those few moments at St. Mark and the plateau
of Rivoli, wondering what the result would have been if the Austrian
corps which came to turn the rear of Rivoli had arrived five minutes
sooner. But an accurate and dispassionate criticism must decide that
every step in Bonaparte's success was won by careful forethought and
by the most effective disposition of the forces at his command. So
sure was he of success that even in the crises when Masséna seemed to
save the day on the left, and when the Austrians seemed destined to
wrest victory from defeat on the right, he was self-reliant and
cheerful. The new system of field operations had a triumphant
vindication at the hands of its author. The conquering general meted
out unstinted praise to his invincible squadrons and their leaders,
but said nothing of himself, leaving the world to judge whether this
were man or demon who, still a youth, and within a public career of
but one season, had humiliated the proudest empire on the Continent,
had subdued Italy, and on her soil had erected states unknown before,
without the consent of any great power, not excepting France. It is
not wonderful that this personage should sometimes have said of
himself, "Say that my life began at Rivoli," as at other times he
dated his military career from Toulon.
Wurmser's retreat to Mantua in September had been successful because
of the strong cavalry force which accompanied it. He had been able to
hold out for four months only by means of the flesh of their horses,
five thousand in number, which had been killed and salted to increase
the garrison stores. Even this resource was now exhausted, and after a
few days of delay the gallant old man sent a messenger with the usual
conventional declarations as to his ability for further resistance, in
order, of course, to secure the most favorable terms of surrender.
There is a fine anecdote in connection with the arrival of this
messenger at the French headquarters, which, though perhaps not
literally, is probably ideally, true. When the Austrian envoy entered
Sérurier's presence, another person wrapped in a cloak was sitting at
a table apparently engaged in writing. After the envoy had finished
the usual enumeration of the elements of strength still remaining to
his commander, the unknown man came forward, and, holding a written
sheet in his hand, said: "Here are my conditions. If Wurmser really
had provisions for twenty-five days, and spoke of surrender, he would
not deserve an honorable capitulation. But I respect the age, the
gallantry, and the misfortunes of the marshal; and whether he opens
his gates to-morrow, or whether he waits fifteen days, a month, or
three months, he shall still have the same conditions; he may wait
until his last morsel of bread has been eaten." The messenger was a
clever man who afterward rendered his own name, that of Klenau,
illustrious. He recognized Bonaparte, and, glancing at the terms,
found them so generous that he at once admitted the desperate straits
of the garrison. This is substantially the account of Napoleon's
memoirs. In a contemporary despatch to the Directory there is nothing
of it, for he never indulged in such details to them; but he does say
in two other despatches what at first blush militates against its
literal truth. On February first, writing from Bologna, he declared
that he would withdraw his conditions unless Wurmser acceded before
the third: yet, in a letter of that very date, he indulges in a long
and high-minded eulogium of the aged field-marshal, and declares his
wish to show true French generosity to such a foe. The simple
explanation is that, having sent the terms, Bonaparte immediately
withdrew from Mantua to leave Sérurier in command at the surrender, a
glory he had so well deserved, and then returned to Bologna to begin
his final preparations against Rome. In the interval Wurmser made a
proposition even more favorable to himself. Bonaparte petulantly
rejected it, but with the return of his generous feeling he determined
that at least he would not withdraw his first offer. Captious critics
are never content, and they even charge that when, on the tenth,
Wurmser and his garrison finally did march out, Bonaparte's absence
was a breach of courtesy. It requires no great ardor in his defense to
assert, on the contrary, that in circumstances so unprecedented the
disparity of age between the respective representatives of the old and
the new military system would have made Bonaparte's presence another
drop in the bitter cup of the former. The magnanimity of the young
conqueror in connection with the fall of Mantua was genuine, and
highly honorable to him. So at least thought Wurmser himself, who
wrote a most kindly letter to Bonaparte, forewarning him that a plot
had been formed in Bologna to poison him with that noted, but never
seen, compound so famous in Italian history--aqua tofana.