Bonaparte's Transformation — Military Genius — Powers and Principles — Theory and Conduct — Political Activity — Purposes for Italy — Private Correspondence — Treatment of the Italian Powers — Antagonism to the Directory — The Task Before Him — Masked Dictator.
1796.
During the two months between the middle of November, 1796, and the middle of January, 1797, there was a marked change in Bonaparte's character and conduct. After Arcola he appeared as a man very different from the novice he had been before Montenotte. Twice his fortunes had hung by a single hair, having been rescued by the desperate bravery of Rampon and his soldiers at Monte Legino, and again by Augereau's daring at Lonato; twice he had barely escaped being a prisoner, once at Valeggio, once at Lonato; twice his life had been spared in the heat of battle as if by a miracle, once at Lodi, once again at Arcola. These facts had apparently left a deep impression on his mind, for they were turned to the best account in making good a new step in social advancement. So far he had been as adventurous as the greatest daredevil among the subalterns, staking his life in every new venture; hereafter he seemed to appreciate his own value, and to calculate not only the imperiling of his life, but the intimacy of his conversation, with nice adaptation to some great result. Gradually and informally a kind of body-guard was organized, which, as the idea grew familiar, was skilfully developedinto a picked corps, the best officers and finest soldiers being made to feel honored in its membership. The constant attendance of such men necessarily secluded the general-in-chief from those colleagues who had hitherto been familiar comrades. Something in the nature of formal etiquette once established, it was easy to extend its rules and confirm them. The generals were thus separated further and further from their superior, and before the new year they had insensibly adopted habits of address which displayed a high outward respect, and virtually terminated all comradeship with one who had so recently been merely the first among equals. Bonaparte's innate tendency to command was under such circumstances hardened into a habit of imperious dictation. In view of what had been accomplished, it would have been impossible, even for the most stubborn democrat, to check the process. Not one of Bonaparte's principles had failed to secure triumphant vindication.
In later years Napoleon himself believed, and subsequent criticism has confirmed his opinion, that the Italian campaign, taken as a whole, was his greatest. The revolution of any public system, social, political, or military, is always a gigantic task. It was nothing less than this which Bonaparte had wrought, not in one, but in all three spheres, during the summer and autumn of 1796. The changes, like those of most revolutions, were changes of emphasis and degree in the application of principles already divined. "Divide and conquer" was an old maxim; it was a novelty to see it applied in warfare and politics as Bonaparte applied it in Italy. It has been remarked that the essential difference between Napoleon and Frederick the Great was that the latter had not ten thousand men a month to kill. The notion that war should be short and terrible had,indeed, been clear to the great Prussian; Carnot and the times afforded the opportunity for its conclusive demonstration by the genius of the greater Corsican. Concentration of besiegers to breach the walls of a town was nothing new; but the triumphant application of the same principle to an opposing line of troops, though well known to Julius Cæsar, had been forgotten, and its revival was Napoleon's masterpiece. The martinets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had so exaggerated the formalities of war that the relation of armies to the fighting-ground had been little studied and well-nigh forgotten; the use of the map and the compass, the study of reliefs and profiles in topography, produced in Bonaparte's hands results that seemed to duller minds nothing short of miraculous. One of these was to oppose the old-school rigid formation of troops by any formation more or less open and irregular according to circumstances, but always the kind best suited to the character of the seat of war. The first two days at Arcola were the triumphant vindication of this concept. Finally, there was a fascination for the French soldiers in the primitive savagery of their general, which, though partly concealed, and somewhat held in by training, nevertheless was willing that the spoils of their conquest should be devoted to making the victorious contestants opulent; which scorned the limitations of human powers in himself and them, and thus accomplished feats of strength and stratagem which gratified to satiety that love for the uncommon, the ideal, and the great which is inherent in the spirit of their nation. In the successful combination and evolution of all these elements there was a grandeur which Bonaparte and every soldier of his army appreciated at its full value.
The military side of Bonaparte's genius is ordinarily considered the strongest. Judged by what is easilyvisible in the way of immediate consequences and permanent results, this appears to be true; and yet it was only one of many sides. Next in importance, if not equal to it, was his activity in politics and diplomacy. It is easy to call names, to stigmatize the peoples of Italy, all the nations even of western Europe, as corrupt and enervated, to laugh at their politics as antiquated, and to brand their rulers as incapable fools. An ordinary man can, by the assistance of the knowledge, education, and insight acquired by the experience of his race through an additional century, turn and show how commonplace was the person who toppled over such an old rotten structure. This is the method of Napoleon's detractors, except when, in addition, they first magnify his wickedness, and then further distort the proportion by viewing his fine powers through the other end of the glass. We all know how easy great things are when once they have been accomplished, how simple the key to a mystery when once it has been revealed. Morally considered, Bonaparte was a child of nature, born to a mean estate, buffeted by a cruel and remorseless society, driven in youth to every shift for self-preservation, compelled to fight an unregenerate world with its own weapons. He had not been changed in the flash of a gun. Elevation to reputation and power did not diminish the duplicity of his character; on the contrary, it possibly intensified it. Certainly the fierce light which began to beat upon him brought it into greater prominence. Truth, honor, unselfishness are theoretically the virtues of all philosophy; practically they are the virtues of Christian men in Christian society. Where should the scion of a Corsican stock, ignorant of moral or religious sentiment, thrown into the atmosphere and surroundings of the French Revolution, learn to practise them?
Such considerations are indispensable in the observation of Bonaparte's progress as a politician. His first settlement with the various peoples of central Italy was, as he had declared, only provisional. The uncertain status created by it was momentarily not unwelcome to the Directory. Their policy was to destroy existing institutions, and leave order to evolve itself from the chaos as best it could. Doctrinaires as they were, they meant to destroy absolute monarchy in Italy, as everywhere else, if possible, and then to stop, leaving the liberated peoples to their own devices. Some fondly believed that out of anarchy would arise, in accordance with "the law of nature," a pure democracy; while others had the same faith that the result would be constitutional monarchy. Moreover, things appear simpler in the perspective of distance than they do near at hand. The sincerity of Bonaparte's republicanism was like the sincerity of his conduct—an affair of time and place, a consistency with conditions and not with abstractions. He knew the Italian mob, and faithfully described it in his letters as dull, ignorant, and unreliable, without preparation or fitness for self-government. He was willing to establish the forms of constitutional administration; but in spite of hearty support from many disciples of the Revolution, he found those forms likely, if not certain, to crumble under their own weight, and was convinced that the real sovereignty must for years to come reside in a strong protectorate of some kind. It appeared to him a necessity of war that these peoples should relieve the destitution of the French treasury and army, a necessity of circumstances that France should be restored to vigor and health by laying tribute on their treasures of art and science, as on those of all the world, and a necessity of political science that artificial boundariesshould be destroyed, as they had been in France, to produce the homogeneity of condition essential to national or administrative unity.
The Italians themselves understood neither the policy of the French executive nor that of their conqueror. The transitional position in which the latter had left them produced great uneasiness. The terrified local authorities asked nothing better than to be left as they were, with a view to profiting by the event, whatever it might be. After every Austrian success there were numerous local revolts, which the French garrison commanders suppressed with severity. Provisional governments soon come to the end of their usefulness, and the enemies of France began to take advantage of the disorder in order to undo what had been done. The English, for example, had seized Porto Ferrajo in place of Leghorn; the Pope had gone further, and, in spite of the armistice, was assembling an army for the recovery of Bologna, Ferrara, and his other lost legations. Thus it happened that in the intervals of the most laborious military operations, a political activity, both comprehensive and feverish, kept pace in Bonaparte's mind with that which was needed to regulate his campaigning.
At the very outset there was developed an antagonism between the notions of the Directory and Bonaparte's interests. The latter observed all the forms of consulting his superiors, but acted without the slightest reference to their instructions, often even before they could receive his despatches. Both he and they knew the weakness of the French government, and the inherent absurdity of the situation. The story of French conquest in Italy might be told exactly as if the invading general were acting solely on his own responsibility. In his proclamations to the Italians was one language;in his letters to the executive, another; in a few confidential family communications, still another; in his own heart, the same old idea of using each day as it came to advance his own fortunes. As far as he had any love of country, it was expended on France, and what we may call his principles were conceptions derived from the Revolution; but somehow the best interests of France and the safety of revolutionary doctrine were every day more involved in the pacification of Italy, in the humiliation of Austria, and in the supremacy of the army. There was only one man who could secure all three; could give consistency to the flaccid and visionary policy of the Directory; could repress the frightful robberies of its civil agents in Italy; could with any show of reason humble Italy with one hand, and then with the other rouse her to wholesome energy; could enrich and glorify France while crushing out, as no royal dynasty had ever been able to do, the haughty rivalry of the Hapsburgs.
These purposes made Bonaparte the most gentle and conciliatory of men in some directions; in others they developed and hardened his imperiousness. His correspondence mirrors both his mildness and his arbitrariness. His letters to the Directory abound in praise of his officers and men, accompanied by demands for the promotion of those who had performed distinguished services. Writing to General Clarke on November nineteenth, 1796, from Verona, he says, in words full of pathos: "Your nephew Elliot was killed on the battle-field of Arcola. This youth had made himself familiar with arms; several times he had marched at the head of columns; he would one day have been an estimable officer. He died with glory, in the face of the foe; he did not suffer for a moment. What reasonable man would not envy such a death? Who is he that in the vicissitudes of life would not agree to leave in such away a world so often worthy of contempt? What one of us has not a hundred times regretted that he could not thus be withdrawn from the powerful effects of calumny, of envy, and of all the hateful passions that seem almost entirely to control human conduct?" Perhaps these few words to the widow of one of his late officers are even finer: "Muiron died at my side on the late battle-field of Arcola. You have lost a husband that was dear to you; I, a friend to whom I have long been attached: but the country loses more than us both in the death of an officer distinguished no less by his talents than by his rare courage. If I can be of service in anything to you or his child, I pray you count altogether upon me." That was all; but it was enough. With the ripening of character, and under the responsibilities of life, an individual style had come at last. It is martial and terse almost to affectation, defying translation, and perfectly reflecting the character of its writer.
But the hours when the general-in-chief was war-worn, weary, tender, and subject to human regrets like other men, were not those which he revealed to the world. He was peremptory, and sometimes even peevish, with the French executive after he had them in his hand; with Italy he assumed a parental rôle, meting out chastisement and reward as best suited his purpose. A definite treaty of peace had been made with Sardinia, and that power, though weak and maimed, was going its own way. The Transpadane Republic, which he had begun to organize as soon as he entered Milan, was carefully cherished and guided in its artificial existence; but the people, whether or not they were fit, had no chance to exercise any real independence under the shadow of such a power. It was, moreover, not the power of France; for, by special order of Bonaparte, the civilagents of the Directory were subordinated to the military commanders, ostensibly because the former were so rapacious. Lombardy in this way became his very own. Rome had made the armistice of Bologna merely to gain time, and in the hope of eventual disaster to French arms. A pretext for the resumption of hostilities was easily found by her in a foolish command, issued from Paris, that the Pope should at length recognize as regular those of the clergy who had sworn allegiance to the successive constitutions adopted under the republic, and withdraw all his proclamations against those who had observed their oaths and conformed. The Pontiff, relying on the final success of Austria, had virtually broken off negotiations. Bonaparte informed the French agent in Rome that he must do anything to gain time, anything to deceive the "old fox"; in a favorable moment he expected to pounce upon Rome, and avenge the national honor. During the interval Naples also had become refractory; refusing a tribute demanded by the Directory, she was not only collecting soldiers, like the Pope, but actually had some regiments in marching order. Venice, asserting her neutrality, was growing more and more bitter at the constant violations of her territory. Mantua was still a defiant fortress, and in this crisis nothing was left but to revive French credit where the peoples were best disposed and their old rulers weakest.
Accordingly, Bonaparte went through the form of consulting the Directory as to a plan of procedure, and then, without waiting for an answer from them, and without the consent of those most deeply interested, broke the armistice with Modena on the pretext that five hundred thousand francs of ransom money were yet unpaid, and drove the duke from his throne. This duchy was the nucleus about which was to be constitutedthe Cispadane Republic: in conjunction with its inhabitants, those of Reggio, Bologna, and Ferrara were invited to form a free government under that name. There had at least been a pretext for erecting the Milanese into the Transpadane Republic—that of driving an invader from its soil. This time there was no pretext of that kind, and the Directory opposed so bold an act regarding these lands, being uneasy about public opinion in regard to it. They hoped the war would soon be ended, and were verging to the opinion that their armies must before long leave the Italians to their own devices. The conduct of their general pointed, however, in the opposite direction; he forced the native liberals of the district to take the necessary steps toward organizing the new state so rapidly that the Directory found itself compelled to yield. It is possible, but not likely, that, as has been charged, Bonaparte really intended to bring about what actually happened, the continued dependence on the French republic of a lot of artificial governments. The uninterrupted meddling of France in the affairs of the Italians destroyed in the end all her influence, and made them hate her dominion, which masqueraded as liberalism, even more than they had hated the open but mild tyranny of those royal scions of foreign stocks recently dismissed from their thrones. During these months there is in Bonaparte's correspondence a somewhat theatrical iteration of devotion to France and republican principles, but his first care was for his army and the success of his campaign. He behaved as any general solicitous for the strength of his positions on foreign soil would have done, his ruses taking the form of constantly repeating the political shibboleths then used in France. Soon afterward Naples made her peace; an insurrection in Corsica against English rule enabled France to seize that islandonce more; and Genoa entered into a formal alliance with the Directory.
How important these circumstances were comparatively can only be understood by considering the fiascoes of the Directory elsewhere. No wonder they groveled before Bonaparte, while pocketing his millions and saving their face at home and abroad by reason of his victories, and his alone. They had two great schemes to annihilate British power: one, to invade Ireland, close all the North Sea ports to British commerce, and finally to descend on British shores with an irresistible host of the French democracy. Subsequent events of Napoleon's life must be judged in full view of the dead earnestness with which the Directory cherished this plan. But it was versatile likewise and had a second alternative, to foment rebellions in Persia, Turkey, and Egypt, overrun the latter country, and menace India. This second scheme influenced Bonaparte's career more deeply than the other, both were parts of traditional French policy and cherished by the French public as the great lines for expanding French renown and French influence. Both must be reckoned with by any suitor of France. For the Irish expedition Hoche was available; in his vain efforts for success he undermined his health and in his untimely death removed one possible rival of Bonaparte. The directors had Holland, but they could not win Prussia further than the stipulations made in 1795 at Basel, so their scheme of embargo rested in futile abeyance. They exhibited considerable activity in building a fleet, and the King of Spain, in spite of Godoy's opposition, accepted the title of a French admiral. By the treaty of San Ildefonso an offensive alliance against Great Britain was concluded, her commerce to be excluded from Portugal; Louisiana and Florida going to France. All the clauses except thislast were nugatory because of Spanish weakness, but Bonaparte put in the plea for compensation to the Spanish Bourbons by some grant of Italian territory to the house of Parma. As we have elsewhere indicated, their attack on Austria in central Europe was a failure, Jourdan having been soundly beaten at Würzburg. There was no road open to Vienna except through Italy. Their negotiations with the papacy failed utterly; only a victorious warrior could overcome its powerful scruples, which in the aggregate prevented the hearty adhesion of French Roman Catholics to the republican system. Of necessity their conceptions of Italian destiny must yield to his, which were widely different from theirs.
Before such conditions other interests sink into atrophy; thenceforward, for example, there appears in Bonaparte's nature no trace of the Corsican patriot. The one faint spark of remaining interest seems to have been extinguished in an order that Pozzo di Borgo and his friends, if they had not escaped, should be brought to judgment. His other measures with reference to the once loved island were as calculating and dispassionate as any he took concerning the most indifferent principality of the mainland, and even extended to enunciating the principle that no Corsican should be employed in Corsica. It is a citizen not of Corsica, nor of France even, but of Europe, who on October second demands peace from the Emperor in a threat that if it is not yielded on favorable terms, Triest and the Adriatic will be seized. At the same time the Directory received from him another reminder of its position, which likewise indicates an interesting development of his own policy. "Diminish the number of your enemies. The influence of Rome is incalculable; it was ill advised to break with that power; it gives the advantage to her.If I had been consulted, I would have delayed the negotiations with Rome as with Genoa and Venice. Whenever your general in Italy is not the pivot of everything, you run great risks. This language will not be attributed to ambition; I have but too many honors, and my health is so broken that I believe I must ask you for a successor. I can no longer mount a horse; I have nothing left but courage, which is not enough in a post like this." Before this masked dictator were two tasks as difficult in their way as any even he would ever undertake, each calling for the exercise of faculties antipodal in quality, but quite as fine as any in the human mind. Mantua was yet to be captured; Rome and the Pope were to be handled so as to render the highest service to himself, to France, and to Europe. In both these labors he meant to be strengthened and yet unhampered. The habit of compliance was now strong upon the Directory, and they continued to yield as before.[Back to Contents]
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.
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 maintainher 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, GustavusIV, of Sweden, was atSt.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 hostilitiesby 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 atSt.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 ofSt.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 thatthe 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 ofhis forces, has become a classic example in military science.
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 atSt.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 accordancewith 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 atSt.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 underRey, 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.
Enlarged Plan ofLake of Gardaand Adjacent Country.MapIllustrating the CampaignPreceding theTreaty of Campo-Formio1797.
Enlarged Plan ofLake of Gardaand Adjacent Country.
MapIllustrating the CampaignPreceding theTreaty of Campo-Formio1797.
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 ofSt.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 generalengagement, 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 timesengaged; 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 atSt.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 whichaccompanied 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.[Back to Contents]
Rome Threatened — PiusVISurrenders — The Peace of Tolentino — Bonaparte and the Papacy — Designs for the Orient — France Reassured — The Policy of Austria — The Archduke Charles — Bonaparte Hampered by the Directory — His Treatment of Venice — Condition of Venetia — The Commonwealth Warned.
1797.
Bonaparte seems after Rivoli to have reached the conviction that a man who had brought such glory to the arms of France was at least as firm in the affections of her people as was the Directory, which had no hold on them whatever, except in its claim to represent the Revolution. Clarke had reached Milan on November twenty-ninth, 1796. Bonaparte read him like an open scroll, discovering instantly that this graceful courtier had been commissioned to keep the little general in his place as a subordinate, and use him to make peace at any price. Possessing the full confidence of Carnot and almost certainly of the entire Directory, the easily won diplomat revealed to his lean, long-haired, ill-clad, penetrating, and facile inquisitor the precious contents of the governmental mind. The religious revolution in France had utterly failed, riotous vice had spread consternation even in infidel minds, there was in the return a mighty flood tide of orthodoxy; if the political revolution was to be saved at all, it wasat the price of peace, and peace very quickly. The Directory had had little right to its distinction as savior of the republic from the beginning, and even that was daily disputed by ever increasing numbers: the most visible and dazzling representative of the Revolution was now the Army of Italy. It was not for "those rascally lawyers," as Bonaparte afterward called the directors, that his great battle of Rivoli had been fought. With this fact in view, the short ensuing campaign against PiusVI, and its consequences, are easily understood. It was true, as the French general proclaimed, that Rome had kept the stipulations of the armistice neither in a pacific behavior nor in the payment of her indemnity, and was fomenting resistance to the French arms throughout the peninsula. To the Directory, which had desired the entire overthrow of the papacy, Bonaparte proposed that with this in view, Rome should be handed over to Spain. Behind these pretexts he gathered at Bologna an indifferent force of eleven thousand soldiers, composed, one half of his own men, the other half of Italians fired with revolutionary zeal, and of Poles, a people who, since the recent dismembermentof their country, were wooing France as a possible ally in its reconstruction. The main division marched against Ancona; a smaller one of two thousand men directed its course through Tuscany into the valley of the Tiber.
The position of the Pope was utterly desperate. The Spaniards had once been masters of Italy; they were now the natural allies of France against Austria, and Bonaparte's leniency to Parma and Naples had strengthened the bond. The reigning king at Naples, FerdinandIVof the Two Sicilies, was one of the Spanish Bourbons; but his very able and masterful wife was the daughter of Maria Theresa. His position was therefore peculiar: if he had dared, he would have sent an army to the Pope's support, for thus far his consort had shaped his policy in the interest of Austria; but knowing full well that defeat would mean the limitation of his domain to the island of Sicily, he preferred to remain neutral, and pick up what crumbs he could get from Bonaparte's table. For this there were excellent reasons. The English fleet had been more or less unfortunate since the spring of 1796: Bonaparte's victories, being supplemented by the activity of the French cruisers, had made it difficult for it to remain in the Mediterranean; Corsica was abandoned in September; and in October the squadron of Admiral Mann was literally chased into the Atlantic by the Spaniards. Ferdinand, therefore, could expect no help from the British. As to the papal mercenaries, they had long been the laughing-stock of Europe. They did not now belie their character. Not a single serious engagement was fought; at Ancona and Loretto twelve hundred prisoners, with a treasure valued at seven million francs, were taken without a blow; and on February nineteenth Bonaparte dictated the terms of peace at Tolentino.
The terms were not such as either the Pope or the Directory expected. Far from it. To be sure, there was, over and above the first ransom, a new money indemnity of three million dollars, making, when added to what had been exacted in the previous summer, a total of more than seven. Further stipulations were the surrender of the legations of Bologna and Ferrara, together with the Romagna; consent to the incorporation into France of Avignon and the Venaissin, the two papal possessions in the Rhone valley which had already been annexed; and the temporary delivery of Ancona as a pledge for the fulfilment of these engagements; further still, the dispersion of the papal army, with satisfaction for the killing in a street row of Basseville, the French plenipotentiary. This, however, was far short of the annihilation of the papacy as a temporal power. More than that, the vital question of ecclesiastical authority was not mentioned except to guarantee it in the surrendered legations. To the Directory Bonaparte explained that with such mutilations the Roman edifice would fall of its own weight; and yet he gave his powerful protection to the French priests who had refused the oaths to the civil constitution required by the republic, and who, having renounced their allegiance, had found an asylum in the Papal States. This latter step was taken in the rôle of humanitarian. In reality, this first open and radical departure from the policy of the Directory assured to Bonaparte the most unbounded personal popularity with faithful Roman Catholics everywhere, and was a step preliminary to his further alliance with the papacy. The unthinking masses began to compare the captivity of the Roman Church in France, which was the work of her government, with the widely different fate of her faithful adherents at Rome under the humane control of Bonaparte.
Moreover, it was the French citizen collectors, and not the army, who continued to scour every town for art plunder. It was believed that Italy had finally given up "all that was curious and valuable except some few objects at Turin and Naples," including the famous wonder-working image of the Lady of Loretto. The words quoted were used by Bonaparte in a despatch to the Directory, which inclosed a curious document of very different character. Such had been the gratitude of Pius for his preservation that he despatched a legate with his apostolic blessing for the "dear son" who had snatched the papal power from the very jaws of destruction. "Dear son" was merely a formal phrase, and a gracious answer was returned from the French headquarters. This equally formal letter of Bonaparte's was forwarded to Paris, where, as he knew would be the case, it was regarded as a good joke by the Directory, who were supposed to consider their general's diplomacy as altogether patriotic. But, as no doubt the writer foresaw, it had an altogether different effect on the public. From that instant every pious Roman Catholic, not only in France, but throughout Europe, whatever his attitude toward the Directory, was either an avowed ally of Bonaparte or at least willing to await events in a neutral spirit. As for the papacy, henceforward it was a tool in the conqueror's hand: he was determined to use it as an indispensable bulwark for public decency and political stability. One of the cardinals gave the gracious preserver of his order a bust of Alexander the Great: it was a common piece of flattery after the peace to say that Bonaparte was, like Alexander, a Greek in stature, and, like Cæsar, a Roman in power.
While at Ancona, Bonaparte had a temporary relapse into his yearning for Oriental power. He wrote describing the harbor as the only good one on the Adriaticsouth of Venice, and explaining how invaluable it was for the influence of France on Turkey, since it controlled communication with Constantinople, and Macedonia was but twenty-four hours distant. With this despatch he inclosed letters from the Czar to the Grand Master of Malta which had been seized on the person of a courier. It was by an easy association of ideas that not long afterward Bonaparte began to make suggestions for the seizure of Malta and for a descent into Egypt. These, as elsewhere explained, were old schemes of French foreign policy, and by no means original with him; but having long been kept in the background, they were easily recalled, the more so because in a short time both the new dictator and the Directory seemed to find in them a remedy for their strained relations.
When the news of Rivoli reached Paris on January twenty-fifth, 1797, the city went into a delirium of joy. To Clarke were sent that very day instructions suggesting concessions to Austria for the sake of peace, but enjoining him to consult Bonaparte at every step! To the conqueror direct, only two days later, was recommended in explicit terms the overthrow of Romanism in religion, "the most dangerous obstacle to the establishment of the French constitution." This was a new tone and the general might assume that his treaty of Tolentino would be ratified. Further, he was assured that whatever terms of peace he might dictate to Austria under the walls of Vienna, whether distasteful to the Directory or not, were sure of being accepted by the French nation.
Meantime the foreign affairs of Austria had fallen into a most precarious condition. Not only had the departure of the English fleet from the Mediterranean furthered Bonaparte's success in Italy, but Russia had given notice of an altered policy. If the modern state system of Europe had rested on any one doctrine morefirmly than on another, it was on the theory of territorial boundaries, and the inviolability of national existence. Yet, in defiance of all right and all international law, Prussia, Russia, and Austria had in 1772 swooped down like vultures on Poland, and parted large portions of her still living body among themselves. The operation was so much to their liking that it had been repeated in 1792, and completed in 1795. The last division had been made with the understanding that, in return for the lion's share which she received, Russia would give active assistance to Austria in her designs on northern Italy. Not content with the Milanese and a protectorate over Modena, Francis had already cast his eyes on the Venetian mainland. But when on November seventeenth, 1796, the great Catherine had died, and her successor, Paul, had refused to be bound by his mother's engagements, all hope of further aid vanishing, the empire, defeated at Rivoli, was in more cruel straits than ever. Prussia was consolidating herself into a great power likely in the end to destroy Austrian influence in the Germanic Diet, which controlled the affairs of the empire. Both in Italy and in Germany her rival's fortunes were in the last degree of jeopardy. Thugut might well exclaim that Catherine's death was the climax of Austria's misfortunes.
The hour was dark indeed for Austria; and in the crisis Thugut, the able and courageous minister of the Emperor, made up his mind at last to throw, not some or the most, but all his master's military strength into Italy. The youthful Archduke Charles, who had won great glory as the conqueror of Jourdan, was accordingly summoned from Germany with the strength of his army to break through the Tyrol, and prevent the French from taking the now open road to Vienna. This brother of the Emperor, though but twenty-five years old, wasin his day second only to Bonaparte as a general. The splendid persistence with which Austria raised one great army after another to oppose France was worthy of her traditions. Even when these armies were commanded by veterans of the old school, they were terrible: it seemed to the cabinet at Vienna that if Charles were left to lead them in accordance with his own designs they would surely be victorious. Had he and his Army of the Rhine been in Italy from the outset, they thought, the result might have been different. Perhaps they were right; but his tardy arrival at the eleventh hour was destined to avail nothing. The Aulic Council ordered him into Friuli, a district of the Italian Alps on the borders of Venice, where another army—the sixth within a year—was to assemble for the protection of the Austrian frontier and await the arrival of the veterans from Germany. This force, unlike the other five, was composed of heterogeneous elements, and, until further strengthened, inferior in numbers to the French, who had finally been reinforced by fifteen thousand men, under Bernadotte, from the Army of the Sambre and Meuse.
When Bonaparte started from Mantua for the Alps, his position was the strongest he had so far secured. The Directory had until then shown their uneasy jealousy of him by refusing the reinforcements which he was constantly demanding. It had become evident that the approaching elections would result in destroying their ascendancy in the Five Hundred, and that more than ever they must depend for support on the army. Accordingly they had swallowed their pride, and made Bonaparte strong. This change in the policy of the government likewise affected the south and east of France most favorably for his purposes. The personal pique of the generals commanding in those districtshad subjected him to many inconveniences as to communications with Paris, as well as in the passage of troops, stores, and the like. They now recognized that in the approaching political crisis the fate of the republic would hang on the army, and for that reason they must needs be complaisant with its foremost figure, whose exploits had dimmed even those of Hoche in the Netherlands and western France. Italy was altogether subdued, and there was not a hostile power in the rear of the great conqueror. Among many of the conquered his name was even beloved: for the people of Milan his life and surroundings had the same interest as if he were their own sovereign prince. In front, however, the case was different; for the position of the Archduke Charles left the territory of Venice directly between the hostile armies in such a way as apparently to force Bonaparte into adopting a definite policy for the treatment of that power.
For the moment, however, there was no declaration of his decision by the French commander-in-chief; not even a formal proposal to treat with the Venetian oligarchy, which, to all outward appearance, had remained as haughty as ever, as dark and inscrutable in its dealings, as doubtful in the matter of good faith. And yet a method in Bonaparte's dealing with it was soon apparent, which, though unlike any he had used toward other Italian powers, was perfectly adapted to the ends he had in view. He had already violated Venetian neutrality, and intended to disregard it entirely. As a foretaste of what that republic might expect, French soldiers were let loose to pillage her towns until the inhabitants were so exasperated that they retaliated by killing a few of their spoilers. Then began a persistent and exasperating process of charges and complaints and admonitions, until the origins of therespective offenses were forgotten in the intervening recriminations. Then, as a warning to all who sought to endanger the "friendly relations" between the countries, a troop of French soldiers would be thrown here into one town, there into another. This process went on without an interval, and with merciless vigor, until the Venetian officials were literally distracted. Remonstrance was in vain: Bonaparte laughed at forms. Finally, when protest had proved unavailing, the harried oligarchy began at last to arm, and it was not long before forty thousand men, mostly Slavonic mercenaries, were enlisted under its banner. With his usual conciliatory blandness, Bonaparte next proposed to the senate a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive.
This was not a mere diplomatic move. Certain considerations might well incline the oligarchy to accept the plan. There was no love lost between the towns of the Venetian mainland and the city itself; for the aristocracy of the latter would write no names in its Golden Book except those of its own houses. The revolutionary movement had, moreover, already so heightened the discontent which had spread eastward from the Milanese, and was now prevalent in Brescia, Bergamo, and Peschiera, that these cities really favored Bonaparte, and longed to separate from Venice. Further than this, the Venetian senate had early in January been informed by its agents in Paris of a rumor that at the conclusion of peace Austria would indemnify herself with Venetian territory for the loss of the Milanese. The disquiet of the outlying cities on the borders of Lombardy was due to a desire for union with the Transpadane Republic. They little knew for what a different fate Bonaparte destined them. He was really holding that portion of the mainland in which they were situated as an indemnity for Austria. Venice was almost sureto lose them in any case, and he felt that if she refused the French alliance he could then, with less show of injustice, tender them and their territories to Francis, in exchange for Belgium. He offered, however, if the republic should accept his proposition, to assure the loyalty of its cities, provided only the Venetians would inscribe the chief families of the mainland in the Golden Book.
But in spite of such a suggestive warning, the senate of the commonwealth adhered to its policy of perfect neutrality. Bonaparte consented to this decision, but ordered it to disarm, agreeing in that event to control the liberals on the mainland, and to guarantee the Venetian territories, leaving behind troops enough both to secure those ends and to guard his own communications. If these should be tampered with, he warned the senate that the knell of Venetian independence would toll forthwith. No one can tell what would have been in store for the proud city if she had chosen the alternative, not of neutrality, but of an alliance with France. Bonaparte always made his plan in two ways, and it is probable that her ultimate fate would have been identical in either case.[Back to Contents]
Austrian Plans for the Last Italian Campaign — The Battle on the Tagliamento — Retreat of the Archduke Charles — Bonaparte's Proclamation to the Carinthians — Joubert Withdraws from the Tyrol — Bonaparte's "Philosophical" Letter — His Situation at Leoben — The Negotiations for Peace — Character of the Treaty — Bonaparte's Rude Diplomacy — French Successes on the Rhine — Plots of the Directory — The Uprising of Venetia — War with Venice.
1797.
The Aulic Council at Vienna prepared for the Archduke Charles a modification of the same old plan, only this time the approach was down the Piave and the Tagliamento, rivers which rise among the grotesque Dolomites and in the Carnic Alps. They flow south like the Adige and the Brenta, but their valleys are wider where they open into the lowlands, and easier of access. The auxiliary force, under Lusignan, was now to the westward on the Piave, while the main force, under Charles, was waiting for reinforcements in the broad intervales on the upper reaches of the Tagliamento, through which ran the direct road to Vienna. This time the order of attack was exactly reversed, because Bonaparte, with his strengthened army of about seventy-five thousand men, resolved to take the offensive before the expected levies from the Austrian army of the Rhine should reach the camp of his foe. The campaign was not long, for there was no resistance from the inhabitants, as there would have been in the German Alps, among the Tyrolese, Bonaparte's embittered enemies;and the united force of Austria was far inferior to that of France. Joubert, with eighteen thousand men, was left to repress the Tyrol. Though only twenty-eight years old, he had risen from a volunteer in the files through every rank and was now division general. He had gained renown on the Rhine and found the climax of his fame in this expedition, which he so brilliantly conducted that at the close of the campaign he was chosen to carry the captured standards to Paris. He was acclaimed as a coming man. But thereafter his achievements were mediocre and he fell mortally wounded on August fifteenth, 1799, at the battle of Novi while rallying an army destined to defeat. Two small forces under Kilmaine and Victor associated with Lannes were detailed to watch Venice and Rome respectively; but the general good order of Italy was intrusted to the native legions which Bonaparte had organized. Fate had little more in store for Kilmaine, the gallant Irish cavalryman, who was among the foremost generals of his army. Already a veteran forty-six years old, as veterans were then reckoned, he had fought in America and on the Rhine and had filled the cup of his glory at Peschiera, Castiglione, and Mantua. He was yet to be governor of Lombardy and end his career by mortal disease when in chief command of the "Army of England." Victor, wounded at Toulon, general of brigade in the Pyrenees, a subordinate officer to the unsuccessful Schérer in Italy, quickly rose under Bonaparte to be division general. Of lowly birth, he had scarcely reached his thirty-fourth year when on this occasion he exhibited both military and diplomatic talent of a high order. Throughout the consulate and empire he held one important office after another, so successfully that he commended himself even to the Bourbons, and died in 1841, full of years and honors. Lannes was now twenty-eight. The child ofpoor parents, he began life as a dyer's apprentice, enlisted when twenty-three and was a colonel within two years, so astounding were his courage and natural gifts. Detailed to serve under Bonaparte, the two became bosom friends. A plain, blunt man, Lannes was as fierce as a war dog and as faithful. Throughout the following years he followed Bonaparte in all his enterprises, and Napoleon on the Marchfeld, in 1809, wept bitterly when his faithful monitor was shot to pieces.
Masséna advanced up the Piave against Lusignan, captured his rear-guard, and drove him away northward beyond Belluno, while the Archduke, thus separated from his right, withdrew to guard the road into Carniola. Bonaparte, with his old celerity, reached the banks of the Tagliamento opposite the Austrian position on March sixteenth, long before he was expected. His troops had marched all night, but almost immediately they made a feint as if to force a crossing in the face of their enemy. The Austrians on the left bank awaited the onset in perfect order, and in dispositions of cavalry, artillery, and infantry admirably adapted to the ground. It seemed as if the first meeting of the two young generals would fall out to the advantage of Charles. But he was neither as wily nor as indefatigable as his enemy. The French drew back, apparently exhausted, and bivouacked as if for the night. The Austrians, expecting nothing further that day, and standing on the defensive, followed the example of their opponents. Two hours elapsed, when suddenly the whole French army rose like one man, and, falling into line without an instant's delay, rushed for the stream, which at that spot was swift but fordable, flowing between wide, low banks of gravel. The surprise was complete; the stream was crossed, and the Austrians had barely time to form when the French were upon them. They fought with gallantryfor three hours until their flank was turned. They then drew off in an orderly retreat, abandoning many guns and losing some prisoners.
Masséna, waiting behind the intervening ridge for the signal, advanced at the first sound of cannon into the upper valley of the same stream, crossed it, and beset the passes of the Italian Alps, by which communication with the Austrian capital was quickest. Charles had nothing left, therefore, but to withdraw due eastward across the great divide of the Alps, where they bow toward the Adriatic, and pass into the valley of the Isonzo, behind that full and rushing stream, which he fondly hoped would stop the French pursuit. The frost, however, had bridged it in several places, and these were quickly found. Bernadotte and Sérurier stormed the fortress of Gradisca, and captured two thousand five hundred men, while Masséna seized the fort at the Chiusa Veneta, and, scattering a whole division of flying Austrians, captured five thousand with their stores and equipments. He then attacked and routed the enemy's guard on the Pontebba pass, occupied Tarvis, and thus cut off their communication with the Puster valley, by which the Austrian detachment from the Rhine was to arrive. It was in this campaign that Bernadotte laid the foundation of his future greatness. He was the son of a lawyer in Pau, where he was born in 1764. Enlisting as a common soldier, he was wounded in Corsica, became chief of battalion under Custine, general of brigade under Kléber, and commanded a division at Fleurus. The previous year he had shared the defeat of Jourdan on the Rhine, but under Bonaparte he became a famous participant in victory. A Jacobin democrat, he was later entrusted by the Directory with important missions, but in these he had little success. It was as asoldier that he rose in the coming years to heights which in his own mind awakened a rivalry with Napoleon; ambitious for the highest rank, he made a great match with the sister-in-law of Joseph Bonaparte, and so managed his affairs that, as is well known, he ended on the throne of Sweden and founded the reigning house of that kingdom.
Bonaparte wooed the stupefied Carinthians with his softly worded proclamations, and his advancing columns were unharassed by the peasantry while he pushed farther on, capturing Klagenfurt, and seizing both Triest and Fiume, the only harbors on the Austrian shore. He then returned with the main body of his troops, and, crossing the pass of Tarvis, entered Germany at Villach. "We are come," he said to the inhabitants, "not as enemies, but as friends, to end a terrible war imposed by England on a ministry bought with her gold." And the populace, listening to his siren voice, believed him. All this was accomplished before the end of March; and Charles, his army reduced to less than three fourths, was resting northward on the road to Vienna, beyond the river Mur, exhausted, and expecting daily that he would be compelled to a further retreat.
Joubert had not been so successful. According to instructions, he had pushed up the Adige as far as Brixen, into the heart of the hostile Tyrol. The Austrians had again called the mountaineers to arms, and a considerable force under Laudon was gathered to resist the invaders. It had been a general but most indefinite understanding between Bonaparte and the Directory that Moreau was again to cross the Rhine and advance once more, this time for a junction with Joubert to march against Vienna. But the directors, in an access of suspicion, had broken their word, and,pleading their penury, had not taken a step toward fitting out the Army of the North. Moreau was therefore not within reach; he had not even crossed the Rhine. Consequently Joubert was in straits, for the whole country had now risen against him. It was with difficulty that he had advanced, and with serious loss that he fought one terrible battle after another; finally, however, he forced his way into the valley of the Drave, and marched down that river to join Bonaparte. This was regarded by Bonaparte as a remarkable feat, but by the Austrians as a virtual repulse; both the Tyrol and Venice were jubilant, and the effects spread as far eastward as the Austrian provinces of the Adriatic. Triest and Fiume had not been garrisoned, and the Austrians occupied them once more; the Venetian senate organized a secret insurrection, which broke out simultaneously in many places, and was suppressed only after many of the French, some of them invalids in the hospitals, had been murdered.