Worlds Best Histories France Vol 7 by M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

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The army of Italy had been suffering for a long time with heroic courage;
the well-known chief who took the command was more than any other suited
to obtain from it the last efforts of devotion; it was the first to
undergo the attack of the allied forces. The troops of Massena were still
scattered when he was assailed by Melas. The fear of prematurely
exhausting the insufficient resources of Genoa had prevented him from
following the wise councils of Bonaparte, by massing his troops round that
town. After a series of furious combats upon the upper Bormida, the French
line found itself cut in two by the Austrians; General Suchet was obliged
to fall back upon Nice, Massena re-entered Genoa. A new effort forced back
General Melas beyond the Appenines. The attempt to rejoin the corps of
General Suchet having failed, Massena saw himself constrained to shut
himself up in Genoa, in the midst of a population divided in opinion, but
whose confidence he had already known how to win. Resolved to occupy by
resistance and by sorties all the forces of the allies, the general made
preparations for sustaining the siege to the last extremity. All the
provisions of the place were brought into the military magazines; the most
severe order reigned in the distribution, but already scarcity was felt.
The forces of Massena, exhausted by frequent fights, diminished every day;
bread failed; and the heroic obstinacy of the general alone compelled the
Austrians to keep a considerable corps d'armee before a famished town (5th
May, 1800). Melas had in vain attempted to force the lines of Var, behind
which General Suchet, too feeble to defend Nice, had cleverly entrenched
himself.

Moreau delayed to commence the campaign; his material was insufficient;
Alsace and Switzerland, exhausted of resources, could not furnish the
means of transport required by his movement. The First Consul urged him.
"Obtain a success as soon as possible, that you may be able by a diversion
in some degree to expedite the operations in Italy," he wrote to him on
April 24; "every day's delay is extremely disastrous to us." On April 26,
Moreau passed the Rhine at Strasburg, at Brisach, and at Basle, thus
deceiving General Kray, who defended the defiles of the Black Forest,
whilst the different divisions of the French army reascended and repassed
the Rhine, in order to cross it afresh without difficulty at Schaffhausen.
The Austrians had not yet collected their forces, dispersed by the
unlooked-for movement they found themselves obliged to execute; the French
corps were themselves dispersed when the battle commenced, on May 3, at
Engen. After a furious struggle at several points, General Moreau achieved
a splendid victory; two days later the same fortune crowned the battle of
Moesskirch; the loss on both sides was great. The action was not well
combined; Marshal Kray at first fell back behind the Danube; by the advice
of his council of war he decided to defend the magazines at Biberach. He
repassed the river, and offered battle to the corps of Gouvion St. Cyr,
then hampered with Moreau, bearing his direction with difficulty. The
positions occupied by the Austrians were everywhere attacked at once;
their troops, already demoralized by several defeats, retired in disorder.
Kray fell back on Ulm, where an entrenched camp was ready for him. General
Moreau was compelled to weaken his army by detaching a corps of 1800 men,
necessary for the operations of the First Consul. He attempted without
success a movement intended to turn the flank of General Kray, and
resolved to blockade him in his positions, and wait for the result of the
manoeuvres of Bonaparte. On the 27th May he wrote to Bonaparte, "We await
with impatience the announcement of your success. M. de Kray and I are
groping about here--he to keep his army round Ulm, I to make him quit the
post. It would have been dangerous, especially for you, if I had carried
the war to the left bank of the Danube. Our present position has forced
the Prince of Reuss to remove himself to the passes of the Tyrol, to the
sources of the Lech and the Iller; thus he is no longer dangerous for you.
If M. de Kray comes towards me, I shall still retreat as far as Meiningen;
there I shall join General Lecourbe, and we shall fight. If M. de Kray
marches upon Augsburg, I shall do the same; he will quit his support at
Ulm, and then we shall see what will have to be done to cover your
movements. We should find more advantages in carrying on the war upon the
left bank of the Danube, and making Wurtemberg and Franconia contribute to
it; but that would not suit you, as the enemy would be able to send
detachments down into Italy whilst leaving us to ravage the provinces of
the Empire.

"Give me, I pray you, some news of yourself, and command me in every
possible service I can render you."

All was thus prepared in Germany and Italy for the success of that
campaign of the First Consul of which the enemy were still ignorant.
Always deceived by the fictitious concentrations carried on at Dijon, the
Austrians saw without disquietude the departure of Bonaparte, who left
Paris, as it was said, for a few days, in order to pass in review the army
of reserve. The French public shared the same illusion; the preparations
eagerly pushed forward by the First Consul, remained secret. He set out at
the last moment, leaving with regret, and not without uneasiness, his
government scarcely established, and new institutions not yet in working
order. "Keep firmly together," said he to Cambaceres and Lebrun; "if an
emergency occurs, don't be alarmed at it. I will return like a
thunderbolt, to crush those who are audacious enough to raise a hand
against the government." He had in advance, by the powerful conceptions of
his genius arranged the whole plan of operations, and divined the
movements of his enemies. Bending over his maps, and designating with his
finger the positions of the different corps, he muttered in a low voice,
"This poor M. de Melas will pass by Turin, he will fall back upon
Alessandria. I shall pass the Po, and come up with him again on the road
of Placenza, in the plains of the Scrivia; and I shall beat him there, and
then there." The Tribunate expressed their desire that the First Consul
might return soon, "conqueror and pacificator." An article of the
Constitution forbade him to take the command of the armies; Berthier
received the title of general-in-chief. The First Consul passed in review
the army of conscripts and invalids assembled at Dijon. On May 13, he
combined the active forces at Geneva; the troops coming from Germany under
the command of General Moncey had not yet arrived; they were to pass by
the St. Gothard. General Marescot had been ordered to reconnoitre the
Alps; the pass of the St. Bernard, more difficult than that of the Simplon
or Mont Cenis, was much shorter, and the passage from it could be much
more easily defended. "Difficult it may be," replied the First Consul to
the report of Marescot, "but is it possible?" "I think so," said the
general, "with extraordinary efforts." "Ah, well! let us set out," said
Bonaparte.

From Geneva to Villeneuve the journey was easy, and vessels carried
provisions to that point. The First Consul had carefully arranged places
for revictualling all along the road. At Montigny half the mules,
requisitioned at great cost in the neighborhood, were loaded with victuals
and munitions of war; the other half were attached to the gun carriages
relieved of the cannon, which were to be again put in working order at San
Remi, on the other side of the pass. The cannon themselves were enveloped
in the hollowed trunks of trees; they could then be dragged over the ice
and snow. The number of mules proving insufficient, and the peasants
refusing to undertake this rough work, the soldiers yoked themselves to
the cannon, and dragged them across the mountain without wishing to accept
the rewards promised by the First Consul. He rode on a mule at the head of
the rear-guard, wrapped in a gray greatcoat, chatting familiarly with his
guide, and sustaining the courage of his soldiers by his unalterable
coolness. After a few hours' rest at the hospice of St. Bernard commenced
the descent, more difficult still than the ascent. From the 15th to the
20th of May the divisions followed each other. Lannes and Berthier, who
commanded the vanguard, had already advanced to Aosta, when they found
themselves stopped by the little fort of Bard, built upon a precipitous
rock, and with artillery commanding the defile. It was now night; a layer
of straw and refuse was spread over the frozen foot-path; the wheels of
the gun-carriages were encased in tow; at the break of day the passage had
been safely cleared. The French army, descending like a torrent into the
valley, seized upon Ivry, and repulsed the Austrians at the Chiusella on
May 26th. All the divisions of Bonaparte's army assembled by degrees; the
corps of Moncey debouched by the St. Gothard, 4000 men under the orders of
General Thureau crossed by Mont Cenis. General Melas still refused to
believe in the danger which menaced him, and already an imposing army was
advancing against his scattered and divided forces. Already Lannes had
beaten General Ott at Montebello, after a hotly disputed engagement. "I
heard the bones crackle like a hailstorm on the roofs," said the
conqueror.

Bonaparte threw himself upon Milan, neglecting Genoa, which he might have
delivered without risk; thereby condemning Massena and his army to the
sufferings of a prolonged siege, terminated by a sad defeat. He had
conceived vaster projects, and the design of annihilating the Austrian
army by a single blow. Everything had to give way to the consideration of
personal success and his egotistical thirst for glory. The Lombard
populace received the First Consul with transport, happy to see themselves
delivered from the Austrian yoke, and beguiled in advance with the hope of
liberty. General Melas was at Alessandria, summoning to his aid the forces
that were attacking Suchet on the Var, and the troops of General Ott,
detained by the siege of Genoa. He was assured of the impossibility of any
succor being sent by Marshal Kray. It was necessary to conquer or die. In
the prison in which the Austrian army detained him, Massena had divined
the situation of the enemy. He was still hoping for the assistance that
had been promised him; already General Ott had sent him a flag of truce.
"Give me only provisions for two days, or one day," said he to the
Genoese, "and I will save you from the Austrian yoke, and spare my army
the sorrow of surrender."

All resources were exhausted; the horrors of famine had worn out the
courage of the inhabitants; even the soldiers were yielding to
discouragement. "Before he will surrender," said they, "the general will
make us eat his boots." For a long time the garrison had lived on
unwholesome bread made with starch, upon linseed and cocoa, which scarcely
sufficed to keep the soldiers alive; the population, reduced to live on
soup made of herbs gathered on the ramparts, died by hundreds; the
prisoners cantoned in the port in old dismasted vessels, uttered cries
that reached the ears of their old generals. The latter had refused to
send in provisions for the prisoners, in spite of the promise of Massena
to reserve it for them. The last food was used up; on the 3rd of June the
general consented to receive the flag of truce. He asked for, and
obtained, the honors of war; the army was authorized to depart from Genoa
with arms and baggage, flags displayed, and free to direct its course
towards the corps of General Suchet. "Without that I should issue arms in
hand, and it should be seen what eight thousand famished men could do."
War and famine had reduced to this number the soldiers in condition to
carry arms. After their cure, the sick, who filled the hospitals, were to
be sent to the quarters of General Suchet. Massena defended the interests
of the Genoese, and asked in their favor for a free government. The
Austrian generals refused to make any engagement. "In less than a
fortnight I shall be back again in Genoa," declared the French general.
"You will find there the men whom you have taught how to defend it,"
replied St. Julien, one of the plenipotentiaries. General Soult remained
in the place, seriously wounded. Massena brought his exhausted troops to
the Var. In the depths of their souls, generals and soldiers cherished a
bitter resentment for the manner in which they had been abandoned. When
the Austrian troops, beaten by Suchet, had retired towards Alessandria,
Massena did not allow him to pursue them; he contented himself with
guarding the gates of France.

Bonaparte had just quitted Stradella, which he had occupied after leaving
Milan. He had been obliged to disperse his forces, in order to cut off all
the passages open to the enemy. When he entered, on June 13th, the plain
that extends between the Scrivia and the Bormida, near the little village
of Marengo, he was badly instructed as regards the movements of the enemy,
as well as the resources of the country. On the morning of the 14th,
General Melas, constrained by necessity, evacuated Alessandria, and,
passing the Bormida upon three bridges, attacked General Victor before
Marengo. Lannes was at the same time surrounded on every side, and obliged
to retreat in spite of prodigies of courage. Marengo had been destroyed by
the artillery of the enemy, when Bonaparte arrived upon the field of
battle with his guard and his staff officers, at once drawing upon himself
the brunt of the fight. Meanwhile the retreat continued; the army seemed
about to be cut in two; the Austrian general, old and fatigued, believing
himself assured of victory, re-entered Alessandria. It was now three
o'clock, and Bonaparte still hoped and kept on fighting. He despatched an
aide-de-camp to Desaix, returned from Egypt two days before, and whom he
had detached in the direction of Novi; upon his return depended the
fortune of the day. Desaix had divined this, and forestalled the message
of Bonaparte; before he could be expected he was beside the general, who
questioned him as to the aspect of affairs. "Well," said Desaix, after
having rapidly examined the situation of the different corps, "it is a
lost battle; but it is not late; we have time to gain another." His
regiments were forming whilst he spoke, stopping the march of the
Austrians. "My friends," said the First Consul to the reanimated soldiers,
"remember that it is my custom to sleep upon the field of battle."

At the same moment Desaix advanced at the heads of his troops. "Go and
tell the First Consul that I am about to charge," said he to his aide-de-
camp, Savary; "I need to be supported by cavalry." He was crossing an
undulation in the ground when a ball struck him in the breast; from
daybreak he had been oppressed by gloomy presentiments. "I have been too
long making war in Africa," said he; "the bullets of Europe know me no
longer." On falling he said to General Boudet, "Conceal my death; it might
unsettle the troops." The soldiers had perceived it and rushed forward to
avenge him. Kellermann arrived at the same instant, urged forward by one
of those sudden inspirations which mark great generals; hurling his
dragoons upon the Austrian cavalry, which he broke through, he attacked
the column of grenadiers which arduously sustained the assault of the
division of Desaix. Their ranks fell into disorder; one entire corps threw
down its arms. General Zach, entrusted with the command in the absence of
Melas, was forced to give up his sword. When the old general hurried up in
agitation, the battle was lost. The Austrian troops, repulsed and routed,
and crowded against the banks of the Bormida, blocked up all the bridges,
or cast themselves into the river, everywhere pursued by the victorious
French. The cannon, which stuck fast in the Bormida, fell into the hands
of the conquerors. The staff was decimated.

The First Consul regretted the loss of Desaix, the only one among the
companions of his youth who had seemed able to inspire in him any
particular regard. He was, however, triumphant, and this great day made
him in fact the master of Italy. He had the wisdom to perceive it. The
needs of government recalled him to France; the conditions he proposed to
Melas, although hard, were such as could be accepted. The Austrian army
was authorized to retire with the honors of war; but it was to surrender
to the French troops all its positions in Liguria, Piedmont, Lombardy, and
the Legations, whilst evacuating the Italian territory as far as the
Mincio. To the protests of Melas, Bonaparte replied by a formal refusal to
listen. "Sir," said he, "my conditions are irrevocable. I did not begin to
made war yesterday. Your position is as well known to me as to yourself.
You are in Alessandria, encumbered with the dead, the wounded, and the
sick, and destitute of provisions; you have lost the _elite_ of your army;
you are surrounded on all sides. I could exact everything, but I only
demand of you that which the situation of affairs imperatively requires.
Return to Alessandria; you will have no other conditions."

Melas signed, pledging his word until he should receive a reply from
Vienna. On the same evening, before quitting the field of battle, the
First Consul wrote for the second time to the Emperor Francis Joseph. He
was moved to the very depths of his impassable and haughty soul by the
spectacle of the carnage and fury of the battle. In subsequent calmer
moments he perhaps regretted his letter. "It is upon the battlefield of
Marengo," said he, "in the midst of agonies, and surrounded by 15,000
corpses, that I conjure your Majesty to listen to the cry of humanity, and
not permit the children of two brave and powerful nations to massacre each
other for interests which are foreign to them. It is for me to press this
upon your Majesty, since I am the nearest to the theatre of war. Your
heart cannot be so keenly alive to it as mine. The arms of your Majesty
have achieved sufficient glory. You govern a large number of States. What
then can those in the cabinet of your Majesty allege in favor of the
continuation of hostilities? Is it the interests of religion and of the
Church? Why do they not counsel your Majesty to make war on the English,
the Muscovites, and the Prussians? They are further from the Church than
we. Is it the form of the French Government, which is not hereditary but
simply elective? But the government of the Empire is also elective; and
besides, your Majesty is thoroughly convinced of the powerlessness of the
entire world to change the desire which the French people have received
from nature to govern themselves as they please. Is it the destruction of
revolutionary principles? If your Majesty will take account of the effects
of war you will see that it tends to revolutionize Europe, by increasing
everywhere the public debt and the discontent of the people. In compelling
the French people to make war, you compel them only to think of war, only
to live in war; and the French legions are numerous and brave. If your
Majesty wishes for peace it is done; let us give repose and tranquillity
to the present generation. If future generations are foolish enough to
fight--well, they will learn after a few years of war to become wise and
live in peace. I might take captive the entire army of your Majesty. I am
satisfied by a suspension of hostilities, having hopes that it may be the
first step towards the repose of the world; an object for which I can
plead all the more forcibly because, nurtured and schooled by war, I might
be suspected of being more accustomed to the evils it drags after it. If
your Majesty refuses these proposals, the hostilities will recommence; and
let me be permitted to tell you frankly, in the eyes of the world you
alone will be responsible for the war."

Peace was still to be delayed, but the Convention of Alessandria was
concluded at once; and the success of General Moreau sustained in Germany
the victorious arguments of the First Consul. The former passed the Danube
near Hochstedt; after a very brilliant action, which lasted eighteen hours
(June 19), he took 5000 prisoners, and captured twenty pieces of cannon
and considerable magazines. Kray, menaced with the probability of having
his line of retreat cut off, had abandoned his position at Ulm, forcing
his march so precipitately that General Moreau had not been informed of
it. Meanwhile he attacked the Grisons and the Tyrol, repulsed the Prince
of Reuss, and established himself upon the Isar. On the 15th of July a
suspension of arms was signed at Parsdorf, near Munich. Like the soldiers
of the army of Italy, the soldiers of the army of the Rhine were about to
take some repose.

Massena had re-entered Genoa on the 24th of June, justifying to the letter
his glorious bravado; his ill-humor was dissipated, and he remained
entrusted with the chief command of the army of Italy. The First Consul
had received at Milan the eager homage of the Lombards, but the Cisalpine
Republic was not reconstituted; a Grand Council governed it under the
Presidency of Petiet, the French minister. At Turin, General Jourdan
directed the provisional government; at Genoa, General Dejean filled the
same functions; everywhere the paraded power of France was substituted for
the semblance of liberty; the Roman States were still in the hands of the
Neapolitans. The new Pope, Barnabus Chiaramonti, formerly Bishop of Imola,
who had shown himself well disposed towards the French, had just arrived
unexpectedly at Ancona, whence he negotiated his re-entry into the eternal
city. The First Consul assured him of his good intentions as regards the
Catholic Church, and the Holy See. The far-seeing _finesse_ of the Court
of Rome did not permit it to be deceived. The Secretary of the Sacred
College, Monsignor Consalvi, had said during the conclave, "It is from
France that we have received persecutions for ten years past; well, it is
from France that will perhaps come in the future our succors and our
consolations. A very extraordinary young man, and even more difficult to
be judged, rules there to-day. There is no doubt he will soon have
reconquered Italy. Remember that he protected the priests in 1797, and
that he has recently rendered funeral honors to Pius VI. Let us not
neglect the resources which offer themselves to us on this side." On the
day after the battle of Marengo preliminary negotiations already
commenced. The First Consul was officially present at the grand _Te Deum_
chanted in the cathedral of Milan. "Our atheists at Paris may say of it
what they will," wrote Bonaparte to Cambaceres.

During the night of the 2nd and 3rd July, 1800, Bonaparte re-entered
Paris, overwhelmed on the way by evidences of public joy, which were most
brilliantly manifested at Lyons. He had forbidden all preparations for his
return: "My intention is to have neither arches of triumph nor any species
of ceremony," he wrote to his brother Lucien, who had replaced Laplace at
the ministry of the interior. "I have too good an opinion of myself to
hold such baubles in much estimation. I know no other triumph than the
public satisfaction."

The day would come when public satisfaction, of a truth much mitigated by
long sufferings, would no longer suffice for the triumph of the absolute
master who dragged exhausted France across fields of battle; the
remembrance of his return to Paris after the victory of Marengo was to
recur to his sorrowful mind when he dictated at St. Helena the memoirs
explanatory of his life: "It was a great day," said he.

Already the adulations and mean worship of courtiers were encompassing
him; already, also, was revealed the provisional character of that power
which depended so completely upon the life of a single man. Sinister
reports were circulated during the campaign in Italy; the names of Carnot,
Moreau, and La Fayette had been put forward. The triumphant arrival of the
First Consul promptly baffled the intrigues in which the principals
interested had never taken part; nevertheless, he nursed against Carnot an
unjust feeling, which soon betrayed itself in his dismissal. Lucien
Bonaparte had forestalled, or badly comprehended, the wishes of his
brother; he had got Fontanes to write a pamphlet entitled "Caesar,
Cromwell, and Bonaparte," which revealed projects and hopes in favor of
the First Consul for which the public was not prepared. "Happy for the
Republic," it was said, "if Bonaparte were immortal? But where are his
successors? Who is the successor of Pericles? Frenchmen, you slumber over
an abyss, and your sleep is madly tranquil."

It was too soon to allow these premature pretensions to be thus made
public. The _finesse_ of La Fayette enabled him to penetrate the secret
hope of the First Consul, who was already occupied, and for most serious
reasons, with the re-establishment of religion in France. He was able to
say to him, with an irony that was a little scornful, "Come, general,
confess that this has no other aim than to get the little phial broken on
your head." Public opinion was not yet calling for the re-establishment of
the monarchy; it did not connect the idea of hereditary power with a
victorious general, still young, and who had scarcely seized the reins of
the government of the interior. The pamphlet, and the insinuations it
contained, had no success; Fouche was openly reprimanded for allowing the
publication. Lucien Bonaparte was sent as ambassador to Madrid, bearing,
he has declared, the manuscript of the pamphlet, with four corrections in
the handwriting of the First Consul. The latter began to surround himself
with a court. Madame Bonaparte had already her ladies and chevaliers of
honor.