Military Career of Napoleon the Great Part 11

"The Consul, exulting in the success of his plans, was seen everywhere amongst the soldiers, talking with military familiarity to one and now another, and, skilled in the eloquence of camps, he so excited their courage that, braving every obstacle, they now deemed that easy which they had adjudged impossible. They soon approached the highest summit, and discerned in the distance the pa.s.s which leads from the opening between the towering mountains to the loftiest pinnacle. With shouts of transport they hailed this extreme point as the termination of their labors and with new ardor prepared to ascend. When their strength occasionally flagged under excess of fatigues, they beat their drums, and then, reanimated by the spirit-stirring sound, proceeded forward with fresh vigor.

"At last they reached the summit and there felicitated each other as if after a complete and a.s.sured victory. Their hilarity was not a little increased by finding a simple repast prepared in front of the monastery, the provident Consul having furnished the monks with money to supply what their own resources could not have afforded for such numbers. Here they were regaled with wine and bread and cheese, enjoyed a brief repose amid dismounted cannon and scattered baggage, amidst ice and conglomerated snow; while the monks pa.s.sed from troop to troop in turn, the calm of religious cheerfulness depicted on their countenances. Thus did goodness and power meet and hold communion on this extreme summit."

The troops made it a point of honor not to leave their guns in the rear; and one division, rather than abandon its artillery, chose to pa.s.s the night upon the summit of a mountain, in the midst of snow and excessive cold.

Thus did this brave army reach the Hospice of St. Bernard, singing amidst the precipices, dreaming of the conquest of that Italy where they had so often tasted the delights of victory, and having a n.o.ble presentiment of the immortal glory which they were about to acquire; as they climbed up and along airy ridges of rock and eternal snow, where the goatherd, the hunter of the chamois, and the outlaw smuggler, are alone accustomed to venture; amidst precipices where to slip a foot is death; beneath glaciers from which the percussion of a musket-shot is often sufficient to hurl an avalanche.

The labor was not so great for the infantry, of which there were 35,000 including artillery. As for the 5,000 cavalry, these walked, leading their horses by the bridle. There was no danger in ascending but in the descent, the path being very narrow, obliging them to walk before the horse, they were liable, if the animal made a false step, to be dragged by him into the abyss. Some accidents of this kind, not many, did actually happen, and some horses perished but scarcely any of the men.

After a brief rest at the hospice the army resumed its march and descended to St. Remy without any unpleasant accident. Napoleon rested and took a frugal repast at the convent, after which he visited the chapel, and the three little libraries, lingering a short time to read a few pages of some old book. He performed the descent on a sledge, down a glacier of nearly a hundred yards, almost perpendicular. The whole army effected the pa.s.sage of the Great St. Bernard in the s.p.a.ce of three days.

The transfer of the gun carriages, ammunition wagons and cannon was the most difficult of all, but the genius of Napoleon accomplished even this seemingly impossible feat. The peasants of the environs were offered as high as a thousand francs for every piece of cannon which they succeeded in dragging from St. Pierre to St. Remy. It took a hundred men to drag each; one day to get it up and another to get it down.

It has been said that Napoleon had his fortune to make at this period; but, at the moment of crossing Mount St. Bernard, he had fought twenty pitched battles, conquered Italy, dictated peace to Austria,--only sixty miles distant from Vienna,--negotiated at Rastadt, with Count Cobentzel for the surrender of the strong city of Mentz, raised nearly three hundred millions in contributions,--which had served to supply the army during two years,--created the Cisalpine Army, and paid some of the officers of the government at Paris. He had sent to the museum three hundred _chef d'oeuvres_, in statuary and painting; added to which he had conquered Egypt, suppressed the factions at home and totally eradicated the war in La Vendee.

Napoleon has been pictured crossing the Alpine heights mounted on a fiery steed. As a matter of fact he ascended the Great St. Bernard in that gray surtout which he usually wore, sometimes upon foot, and again upon a mule, led by a guide belonging to the country, evincing even in the difficult pa.s.ses the abstraction of mind occupied elsewhere, conversing with the officers scattered on the road, and then, at intervals, questioning the guide who attended him, making him relate the particulars of his life, his pleasures, his pains, like an idle traveler who has nothing better to do. "This guide," says Thiers, "who was quite young, gave him a simple recital of the details of his obscure existence, and especially the vexation he felt because, for want of a little money, he could not marry one of the girls of his valley. The First Consul, sometimes listening, sometimes questioning the pa.s.sengers with whom the mountain was covered, arrived at the hospice, where the worthy monks gave him a warm reception. No sooner had he alighted from his mule than he wrote a note which he handed to his guide, desiring him to be sure and deliver it to the quartermaster of the army, who had been left on the other side of the St. Bernard. In the evening the young man, on returning to St. Pierre, learned with surprise what powerful traveler it was whom he had guided in the morning, and that General Bonaparte had ordered that a house and a piece of ground should be given to him immediately, and that he should be supplied, in short, with the means requisite for marrying, and for realizing all the dreams of his modest ambition."

This mountaineer lived for a number of years, and when he died was still the owner of the land given him by the First Consul. The only thing remembered by this attendant in after years of the conversation of Napoleon during his trip was, when shaking the rain-water from his hat he exclaimed, "There! See what I have done in your mountains--spoiled my new hat!--Well, I will find another on the other side."

The pa.s.sage of the Alps had been achieved long before the Austrians knew Napoleon's army was in motion. So utterly unexpected was this sudden apparition of the First Consul and his army, that no precaution whatever had been taken, and no enemy appeared capable of disputing his march towards the valley of Aosta. After a brief engagement at the fortress of St. Bard and other minor battles in which the French were victorious, they now advanced, unopposed down the valley to Ivrea which was without a garrison. Here Napoleon remained four days to recruit the strength of his troops.

Napoleon now took the road for Milan. The Sesia was crossed without opposition; the pa.s.sage of the Tesino was effected after a sharp conflict with a body of Austrian cavalry, who were put to flight; and, on the 2d of June, the First Consul entered Milan, amidst enthusiastic acclamations of the people, who had all believed that he had died in Egypt and that it was one of his brothers who commanded this army. He was conducted in triumph to the ducal palace, where he took up his residence. He remained six days in Milan during which time he gained the most important information, all the dispatches between the court of Vienna and General Melas falling into his hands. From these he learned the extent of the Austrian reinforcements now on their way to Italy; the position and state of all the Austrian depots, field-equipages, and parks of artillery; and the amount and distribution of the whole Austrian force. Finally, he clearly perceived that Melas still continued in complete ignorance of the strength and destination of the French army. His dispatches spoke with contempt of what he called "the pretended army of reserve," and treated the a.s.sertion of Napoleon's presence in Italy as a "mere fabrication." Possessed of all this valuable information Napoleon knew how to proceed with clearness and precision.

The eyes of the Austrian general were at length opened and he was preparing to meet the emergency with all the energy that the orders from Vienna and his great age of eighty years permitted; but his delay had been sufficient to render his situation critical. His army was divided into two portions, one under Ott near Genoa; the other, under his own command at Turin. The greatest risk existed that Napoleon would, according to his old plan, attack and destroy one division before the other could form a junction with it. To prevent such a disaster, Ott received orders to march forward on the Tesino, while Melas, moving towards Alessandria, prepared to resume his communications with the other division of his army.

Napoleon now advanced to Stradella where headquarters were fixed. On the 9th of June, Lannes, who continued to lead the van-guard of the French army was attacked by an Austrian division superior in numbers and commanded by Ott. The battle, though severely contested, ended in the complete defeat of the Austrians, who lost three thousand killed and six thousand prisoners. The battle of Montebello was won by sheer hard fighting, there being little opportunity for skill or manoeuvre, the fields being covered with full-grown crops of rye. The shower of b.a.l.l.s from the Austrian musketry was at one time so intense, that Lannes, speaking of it afterwards, described its effect with a horrible graphic homeliness. "Bones were cracking in my division" he said, "like a shower of hail upon a skylight." Lannes was subsequently created Duke of Montebello.

Napoleon remained stationary for three days at Stradella, employing the time in concentrating his army, in hopes that Melas would be compelled to give him battle in this position; he was unwilling to descend into the great plain of Marengo, where the Austrian cavalry and artillery which was greatly superior in numbers, would have a fearful advantage.

Meanwhile he dispatched an order to Suchet to march on the river Scrivia, and place himself in the rear of the enemy.

General Desaix now joined the army with his aides-de-camp Rapp and Savary, he having returned from Egypt and landed in France almost on the very day that Napoleon left Paris, and had immediately received a summons from him to repair to the headquarters of the Army of Italy, wherever they might be situated. Desaix and Napoleon were warmly attached to each other and their meeting was a great and mutual pleasure. Desaix was appointed to the command of a division, the death of General Boudet having left one vacant, and was extremely anxious to signalize himself. Under the impression that the Austrians were marching upon Genoa, Napoleon dispatched Desaix's division in form of the van-guard upon his extreme left, while Victor, arriving at Marengo from Montebello, where he had a.s.sisted Lannes, routed a rear guard of four or five thousand Austrians and made himself master of the village of Marengo.

The French and Austrian armies finally came together on June 14th on the plains of Marengo, to decide the fate of Italy.

Marengo was a day ever to be remembered by those who partic.i.p.ated in the stubborn struggle. Napoleon fought against terrible odds in numbers and position. A furious cannonading opened the engagement at daybreak along the whole front, cannon and musketry spreading devastation everywhere--for the armies were but a short distance apart, their pieces in some cases almost touching. The advance under Gardanne, was obliged to fall back upon Victor,--who had been stationed with the main body of the first line,--for more than two hours and withstood singly the vigorous a.s.saults of a far superior force; Marengo had been taken and retaken several times by Victor ere Lannes, who was in the rear of him, in command of the second line, received orders to reinforce him. The second line was at length ordered by Napoleon to advance, but they found the first in retreat, and the two corps took up a second line of defense, considerably to the rear of Marengo. Here they were again charged furiously, and again after obstinate resistance, gave way. The retreat now became general, although Lannes fell back in perfect order.

The Austrians had fought the battle admirably. Their infantry had opened an attack on every point of the French line, while the cavalry debouched across the bridge which the French had failed to destroy, and a.s.sailed the right of their army with such fury and rapidity that it was thrown into complete disorder. The attack of the Austrians was successful everywhere; the centre of the French was penetrated, the left routed, and another desperate charge of the cavalry would have terminated the battle. The order for this, however, was not given; but the retreating French were still in the utmost peril. Napoleon had been collecting reserves between Garafolo and Marengo and now sent orders for his army to retreat towards these reserves, and rally round his guard which he stationed in the rear of the village of Marengo and placed himself at their head.

To secure a position more favorable for resisting the overpowering numbers of the enemy, Bonaparte now seized a defile flanked by the village of Marengo, shut up on one side by a wood and on the other by lofty and bushy vineyards. Here from the astonis.h.i.+ng exertions of their commander the French made a firm stand, and fought bayonet to bayonet with Austrian infantry, whilst exposed at the same time to a battery of thirty pieces of cannon, which was playing upon them with deadly effect.

Every soldier seemed to consider this the defile of Thermopylae, where they were to fight until all were slain. With a heroism worthy of the Spartan band they withstood the tremendous shock of bayonets and artillery, the latter not only cutting the men in pieces, but likewise the trees, the large branches in falling killing many of the wounded soldiers who had sought a refuge under them. At this awful moment Bonaparte, unmoved, seemed to court death, and be near it, the bullets being observed repeatedly to tear up the ground beneath his horse's feet. Alarmed for his safety the officers exhorted him to retire, exclaiming, "If you should be killed all would be lost." But the hero of Lodi and Arcola would not retire. Undismayed and unmoved amidst this dreadful tempest, he observed every movement and gave orders with the utmost coolness. The soldiers could all see the First Consul with his staff, surrounded by the two hundred grenadiers of the guard and the sight kept their hopes from flagging. The right wing, under Lannes, quickly rallied; the centre, reinforced by the scattered troops of the left, recovered its strength; the left wing no longer existed; its scattered remains fled in disorder, pursued by the Austrians. The contest continued to rage, and was obstinately disputed; but the main body of the French army, which still remained in order of battle, was continually, though very slowly, retreating.

The First Consul now dispatched his aide-de-camp, Bruyere, to Desaix, with an urgent message to hasten to the field of battle. Desaix on his part, had been arrested in his march upon Novi, by the repeated discharges of distant artillery; he had in consequence made a halt, and dispatched Savary, then his aide-de-camp, with a body of fifty horse, to gallop with all possible haste to Novi, ascertain the state of affairs there, according to the orders of Napoleon, while he kept his division fresh and ready for action.

Savary found all quiet at Novi; and returning to Desaix, after the lapse of about two hours, with this intelligence, was next sent to the First Consul. He spurred his horse across the country, in the direction of Marengo, and fortunately met General Bruyere, who was taking the same short cut to find Desaix. Giving him the necessary directions, Savary now hastened towards Napoleon. He found him in the midst of his guard, who stood their ground on the field of battle; forming a solid body in the face of the enemy's fire, the dismounted grenadiers were stationed in front and the place of each man who fell was instantly supplied from the ranks behind.

Maps were spread out before Napoleon; he was planning the movement which was to decide the action. Savary made his report and told him of Desaix's position.

"At what hour did he leave you?" said the First Consul pulling out his watch. Having been informed he continued, "Well he cannot be far off; go, and tell him to form in that direction (pointing with his hand to a particular spot); let him quit the main road, and make way for all those wounded men, who would only embarra.s.s him, and perhaps draw his own soldiers after them."

It was now three o'clock in the afternoon; had Melas pursued the advantage with all his reserve the battle was won to the Austrians; but that aged general (he was eighty years old) doubted not that he had won it already. At this critical moment, being quite worn out with fatigue, he retired to the rear leaving General Zach to continue what he now considered a mere pursuit.

Napoleon's army was still slowly retiring from the field, one corps occupying three hours in retiring three quarters of a league, when Desaix, whose division was now forming on the left of the centre, rode up to the commander, and taking out his watch, said in reply to a question: "Yes, the battle is lost; but it is only three o'clock; there is time enough to gain another!"

Bonaparte was delighted with the opinion of Desaix, whose division had arrived at a full gallop after a force march of thirty miles, and prepared to avail himself of the timely succor brought to him by that far-seeing general, and of the advantage insured to him by the position he had lately taken. Napoleon quickly explained the manoeuvre he was about to effect and gave the orders instantly. He now drew up his army on a third line of battle, and riding along said to the different corps: "Soldiers! We have fallen back far enough. You know it is always my custom to sleep on the field of battle." The whole army now wheeled its front up the left wing of its centre, moving its right wing forward at the same time. By this movement Napoleon effected the double object of turning all the enemy's troops, who had continued the pursuit of the broken left wing and of removing his right at a distance from the bridge, which had been so fatal to him in the morning. The artillery of the guard was reinforced by that which belonged to Desaix's division, and formed an overwhelming battery in the centre.

The Austrians made no effort to prevent this decisive movement; they supposed the First Consul was only occupied in securing his retreat.

Their infantry, in deep close columns, was advancing rapidly, when at the distance of a hundred paces they suddenly halted, on perceiving Desaix's division exactly in front of them. The unexpected appearance of six thousand fresh troops, and the new position a.s.sumed by the French, arrested the battle: very few shots were heard; the two armies were preparing for a last effort.

The First Consul rode up in person to give the order of attack while he dispatched Savary with commands to Kellerman, who was at the head of about six thousand heavy cavalry, to charge the Austrian column in flank, at the same time Desaix charged it in front. Both generals effected the movement rapidly and so successfully that in less than half an hour the French had put the enemy to rout on nearly all sides. A final charge was now made, when Desaix, whose timely arrival with reinforcements had saved the day, and who was then in the thickest of the engagement, was shot dead, just as he led a fresh column of 5,000 grenadiers to meet and check the advance of Zach. But a few moments before Desaix said to Savary, "Go and tell the First Consul that I am charging, and that I am in want of cavalry to support me." As the brave man fell he said: "Conceal my death, it might dishearten the troops."

Napoleon embraced him for an instant, and said, as his eyes filled with tears: "Alas, I must not weep now--" and mounting his horse again plunged into the thickest of the battle.

The whole army fought with renewed vigor on learning of Desaix's death, every soldier being bent on avenging individually the loss of their leader. The combined forces now concentrated themselves and hurled their invincible columns upon the Austrian lines, marching victorious at last over thousands of slain. General Zach, and all his staff, were here made prisoners. The Austrian columns behind, being flushed with victory, were advancing too carelessly, and were unable to resist the general a.s.sault of the whole French line, which now pressed onward under the immediate command of Napoleon. Post after post was carried. The terrified cavalry and broken infantry fled in confusion to the banks of the Bormida, into which they were plunged by the French cavalry who swept the field. The Bormida was clogged and crimsoned with corpses, and whole corps, being unable to effect the pa.s.sage, surrendered. The victory, which had seemed quite secure to the Austrians at 3 o'clock was completely won by the French at six. Napoleon's conduct throughout the day and the bravery of his troops were beyond all praise; and it is no less a fact, that the appearance of victory in one or two parts of the extended field roused the courage of the Austrians to enthusiasm and in some cases fatal recklessness. They pressed forward to complete their triumph when the Consular guard, called the "wall of granite," met and successfully resisted the shock. The eye of Napoleon fixed the fortune of the day: he foresaw that the enemy, in the ardor of success, would extend his line too far; and what he had conjectured happened. Then it was that Desaix's division rushed amidst the all but triumphant foe, divided his ranks, and finally completed his ruin.

In this sanguine engagement the Austrians lost about 8,000 men in killed and wounded, and 4,000 more were taken prisoners--one-third of their army. The life of Desaix was the sacrifice. The French loss amounted to 6,000 killed or wounded and about 1,000 of them were taken prisoners, a loss of about one-fourth out of 28,000 soldiers present at the battle.

In the estimation of the First Consul this loss was great enough to diminish the joy that he felt for the victory. When Bourrienne, his secretary, congratulated him on his triumph saying, "What a glorious day!" he replied: "Yes it would have been glorious indeed, could I but have embraced Desaix this evening on the field of battle. I was going to make him minister of war; I would have made him a prince if I could."

The triumph of this decisive victory was poisoned by Desaix's death. It seems that he never loved, nor regretted, any man so much and he never spoke of him without deep feeling. Desaix met his death at the early age of thirty-three, and France lost in him a great general and a man of rare promise. Savary, who was much attached to him, sought for his body amongst the dead, and found him completely stripped of his clothes, lying among many others in the same condition. "France has lost one of her most able defenders and I my best friend," Napoleon said after the battle; "No one has ever known how much goodness there was in Desaix's heart; how much genius in his head." Then after a short silence, with tears starting into his eyes, he added, "My brave Desaix always wished to die thus; but death should not have been so ready to execute his wish."

[Ill.u.s.tration: From a Drawing by H. Vernet

RETURN OF THE FRENCH ARMY FROM SYRIA]

Though the vast plain of Marengo was drenched with French blood, joy pervaded the army. Soldiers and generals alike were merited for their gallant conduct and were fully aware of the importance of the victory to France. Thus ended the battle of Marengo, one of the most decisive which had been fought in Europe, and one which opened to Napoleon the gates of all the princ.i.p.al cities of northern Italy. By one battle he regained nearly all that the French had lost in the unhappy Italian campaign of 1799 while he was in Egypt. He had also shown that the French troops were once more what they had been when he was in the field to command them.

In talking with Gohier one day, Napoleon said: "It is always the greater number which defeats the lesser."

"And yet," said Gohier, "with small armies you have frequently defeated large ones." "Even then," replied Napoleon, "it is always the inferior force which was defeated by the superior. When with a small body of men I was in the presence of a large one, collecting my little band, I fell like lightning on one of the wings of the hostile army, and defeated it.

Profiting by the disorder which such an event never failed to occasion in their whole line, I repeated the attack, with similar success, in another quarter, still with my whole force. I thus beat it in detail.

The general victory which was the result was still an example of the truth of the principle, that the greater force defeats the lesser." One of his favorite maxims is said to have been, "G.o.d always favors the heaviest battalions."

The Austrians were completely enveloped, and had no alternative but to submit to the law of the conqueror. Melas sent a flag of truce to Napoleon at daybreak on the following morning, and peace negotiations were at once began. In the meeting which followed Bonaparte required that all the fortresses of Liguria, Piedmont, Lombardy and the Legations should be immediately given up to France, and that the Austrians should evacuate all Italy as far as the Mincio.

The surrender of Genoa was strongly objected to by Melas, but the conqueror would not waive this point. The baron sent his princ.i.p.al negotiator to make some remonstrances against the proposed armistice: "Sir," said the First Consul with some warmth, "my conditions are irrevocable. It was not yesterday that I began my military life; your position is as well known to me as to yourselves. You are in Alessandria, enc.u.mbered with dead, wounded, sick, dest.i.tute of provisions; you have lost the best troops of your army, and are surrounded on all sides. There is nothing that I might not require, but I respect the gray hair of your general, and the valor of your troops, and I require, nothing more than is imperatively demanded by the present situation of affairs. Return to Alessandria; do what you will, you shall have no other conditions."

The treaty of peace was signed at Alessandria, the same day, June 15th, 1800, as originally proposed by General Bonaparte. He then started for Paris by way of Milan, where preparations had been made for a solemn Te Deum in the ancient cathedral, and at which the First Consul was present. He found the city illuminated, and ringing with the most enthusiastic rejoicings. The streets were lined with people who greeted him with shouts of welcome. Draperies were hung from the windows, which were crowded by women of the first rank and who threw flowers into his carriage as he pa.s.sed. He set off for Paris on the 24th of June and arrived at the French capital in the night between the 2nd and 3rd of July, having been absent less than two months. Ma.s.sena remained as Commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy.

To one of his traveling companions with whom he conversed on the journey to Paris about his remarkable victory at Marengo, he said: "Well, a few grand deeds like this campaign and I may be known to posterity." "It seems to me," said his companion, "that you have already done enough to be talked about everywhere for a time." "Done enough," said Bonaparte quickly, "You are very kind! To be sure in less than two years I have conquered Cairo, Paris and Milan; well, my dear fellow, if I were to die to-morrow, after ten centuries I shouldn't fill half a page in a universal history!"

At night the city of Paris was brilliantly illuminated and the inhabitants turned out en ma.s.se. Night after night every house was illuminated. The people were so anxious to show their pleasure at Napoleon's miraculous victory that they stood in crowds around the palace contented if they could but catch a glimpse of the preserver of France. These receptions so deeply touched him that twenty years afterwards, in loneliness and in exile, a prisoner at St. Helena, he mentioned it as one of the proudest and happiest moments of his life.

On the day following his return to the capital the president of the Senate--the entire body having waited upon him in state--complimented the conqueror of Marengo in language such as kings were formerly addressed in, and in closing his address said: "We take pleasure in acknowledging that to you the country owes its salvation; that to you the Republic will owe its consolidation, and the people a prosperity, which you have in one day made to succeed ten years of the most stormy of revolutions."

In November following Napoleon's return to the capital he received a letter addressed to him by Count de Lille (afterwards Louis XVIII.) which the exiled prince of the House of Bourbon evidently believed would place him on the throne of France. He said: "You are very tardy about restoring my throne to me; it is to be feared that you may let the favorable moment slip. You cannot establish the happiness of France without me; and I, on the other hand, can do nothing for France without you. Make haste, then, and point out, yourself, the posts and dignities which will satisfy you and your friends."

The First Consul answered thus: "I have received your Royal Highness'

letter. I have always taken a lively interest in your misfortunes and those of your family. You must not think of appearing in France--_you could not do so without marching over five hundred thousand corpses_.

For the rest, I shall always be zealous to do whatever lies in my power towards softening your Royal Highness' destinies, and making you forget, if possible, your misfortunes. BONAPARTE."

The battle of Marengo was celebrated at Paris by a fete on the 14th of July, which presented a singularly interesting spectacle owing to the appearance of the "wall of granite," the members of which, just as the games were about to begin, marched into the field. The sight of those soldiers, covered with the dust of their march, sun-burned and powder-stained, and bearing marks of heroic deeds on the battlefield, formed a scene so truly affecting that the populace could not be restrained by the guards from violating the limits, in order to take a nearer view of those interesting heroes.