Part 32

The interest of the campaign being above all Napoleonic, its moral must be found by discovering the "Napoleon touch" that differentiated it from other Revolutionary campaigns. A great deal is common to all, on both sides. The Austrians and Sardinians worked together at least as effectively as the Austrians, Prussians, British and Dutch in the Netherlands. Revolutionary energy was common to the Army of Italy and to the Army of the North. Why, therefore, when the war dragged on from one campaign to another in the great plains of the Meuse and Rhine countries, did Napoleon bring about so swift a decision in these cramped valleys? The answer is to be found partly in the exigencies of the supply service, but still more in Napoleon's own personality and the strategy born of it. The first, as we have seen, was at the end of its resources when Beaulieu placed himself across the Genoa road.

## Action of some sort was the plain alternative to starvation, and at

this point Napoleon's personality intervened. He would have no quarter-rations on the Riviera, but plenty and to spare beyond the mountains. If there were many thousand soldiers who marched unarmed and shoeless in the ranks, it was towards "the Promised Land" that he led them. He looked always to the end, and met each day as if with full expectation of attaining it before sunset. Strategical conditions and "new French" methods of war did not save Bonaparte in the two crises--the Dego rout and the sullen halt of the army at San Michele--but the personality which made the soldiers, on the way to Montenotte, march barefoot past a wagon-load of new boots.

We have said that Napoleon's strategy was the result of this personal magnetism. Later critics evolved from his success the theory of "interior lines," and then accounted for it by applying the criterion they had evolved. Actually, the form in which the will to conquer found expression was in many important respects old. What, therefore, in the theory or its application was the product of Napoleon's own genius and will-power? A comparison with Souham's campaign of Tourcoing will enable us to answer this question. To begin with, Souham found himself midway between Coburg and Clerfayt almost by accident, and his utilization of the advantages of his position was an expedient for the given case. Napoleon, however, placed himself _deliberately_ and by fighting his way thither, in an analogous situation at Carcare and Cairo. Military opinion of the time considered it dangerous, as indeed it was, for no theory can alter the fact that had not Napoleon made his men fight harder and march farther than usual, he would have been destroyed. The effective play of forces on interior lines depends on the two conditions that the outer enemies are not so near together as to give no time for the inner mass to defeat one before the arrival of the other, and that they are not so far apart that before one can be brought to action the other has inflicted serious damage elsewhere.

Neither condition was fully met at any time in the Montenotte campaign. On the 11th Napoleon knew that the attack on Voltri had been made by a part only of the Austrian forces, yet he flung his own masses on Montenotte. On the 13th he thought that Beaulieu's main body was at Dego and Colli's at Millesimo, and on this assumption had to exact the most extraordinary efforts from Augereau's troops at Cossaria. On the 19th and 20th he tried to exclude the risks of the Austrians' intervention, and with this the chances of a victory over them to follow his victory over Colli, by transferring the centre of gravity of his army to Ceva and Garessio, and fighting it out with Colli alone.

It was not, in fact, to gain a position on interior lines--with respect to _two_ opponents--that Napoleon pushed his army to Carcare. Before the campaign began he hoped by using the "cannon-road" to destroy the Piedmontese _before the Austrians were in existence at all_ as an army. But on the news from Voltri and Monte Legino he swiftly "concentrated fire, made the breach, and broke the equilibrium" at the spot where the interests and forces of the two Allies converged and diverged. The hypothesis in the first case was that the Austrians were practically non-existent, and the whole object in the second was to breach the now connected front of the Allies ("strategic penetration") and to cause them to break up into two separate systems. More, having made the breach, he had the choice (which he had not before) of attacking _either_ the Austrians or the Sardinians, as every critic has pointed out. Indeed the Austrians offered by far the better target. But he neither wanted nor used the new alternative. His purpose was to crush Piedmont. "My enemies saw too much at once," said Napoleon. Singleness of aim and of purpose, the product of clear thinking and of "personality," was the foundation-stone of the new form of strategy.

Relative superiority.

In the course of subduing the Sardinians, Napoleon found himself placed on interior lines between two hostile masses, and another new idea, that of "relative superiority." reveals itself. Whereas Souham had been in superior force (90,000 against 70,000), Napoleon (40,000 against 50,000) was not, and yet the Army of Italy was always placed in a position of relative superiority (at first about 3 to 2 and ultimately 2 to 1) to the immediate antagonist. "The essence of strategy," said Napoleon in 1797, "is, with a weaker army, always to have more force at the crucial point than the enemy. But this art is taught neither by books nor by practice; it is a matter of tact." In this he expressed the result of his victories on his own mind rather than a preconceived formula which produced those victories. But the idea, though undefined, and the method of practice, though imperfectly worked out, were in his mind from the first. As soon as he had made the breach, he widened it by pushing out Massena and Laharpe on the one hand and Augereau on the other. This is mere common sense. But immediately afterwards, though preparing to throw all available forces against Colli, he posted Massena and Laharpe at Dego to guard, not like Vandamme on the Lys against a real and pressing enemy, but against a _possibility_, and he only diminished the strength and altered the position of this containing detachment in proportion as the Austrian danger dwindled. Later in his career he defined this offensive-defensive system as "having all possible strength at the decisive point," and "being nowhere vulnerable," and the art of reconciling these two requirements, in each case as it arose, was always the principal secret of his generalship. At first his precautions (judged by events and not by the probabilities of the moment) were excessive, and the offensive mass small. But the latter was handled by a general untroubled by multiple aims and anxieties, and if such self-confidence was equivalent to 10,000 men on the battlefield, it was legitimate to detach 10,000 men to secure it. These 10,000 were posted 8 m. out on the dangerous flank, not almost back to back with the main body as Vandamme had been,[9] and although this distance was but little compared to those of his later campaigns, when he employed small armies for the same purpose, it sufficed in this difficult mountain country, where the covering force enjoyed the advantage of strong positions. Of course, if Colli had been better concentrated, or if Beaulieu had been more active, the calculated proportions between covering force and main body might have proved fallacious, and the system on which Napoleon's relative superiority rested might have broken down. But the point is that such a system, however rough its first model, had been imagined and put into practice.

This was Napoleon's individual art of war, as raiding bakeries and cutting communications were Beaulieu's speciality. Napoleon made the art into a science, and in our own time, with modern conditions of effective, armament and communications, it is more than possible that Moreaus and Jourdans will prove able to practise it with success. But in the old conditions it required a Napoleon. "Strategy," said Moltke, "is a system of expedients." But it was the intense personal force, as well as the genius, of Napoleon that forged these expedients into a _system_.

The first phase of the campaign satisfactorily settled, Napoleon was free to turn his attention to the "arch-enemy" to whom he was now considerably superior in numbers (35,000 to 25,000). The day after the signature of the armistice of Cherasco he began preparing for a new advance and also for the role of arbiter of the destinies of Italy. Many whispers there were, even in his own army, as to the dangers of passing on without "revolutionizing" aristocratic Genoa and monarchical Piedmont, and of bringing Venice, the pope and the Italian princes into the field against the French. But Bonaparte, flushed with victory, and better informed than the malcontents of the real condition of Italy, never hesitated. His first object was to drive out Beaulieu, his second to push through Tirol, and his only serious restriction the chance that the armistice with Piedmont would not result in a definitive treaty. Beaulieu had fallen back into Lombardy, and now bordered the Po right and left of Valenza. To achieve further progress, Napoleon had first to cross that river, and the point and method of crossing was the immediate problem, a problem the more difficult as Napoleon had no bridge train and could only make use of such existing bridges as he could seize intact.[10] If he crossed above Valenza, he would be confronted by one river-line after another, on one of which at least Beaulieu would probably stand to fight. But quite apart from the immediate problem, Napoleon's intention was less to beat the Austrians than to dislodge them. He needed a foothold in Lombardy which would make him independent of, and even a menace to, Piedmont. If this were assured, he could for a few weeks entirely ignore his communications with France and strike out against Beaulieu, dethrone the king of Sardinia, or revolutionize Parma, Modena and the papal states according to circumstances.

Piacenza.

Milan, therefore, was his objective, and Tortona-Piacenza his route thither. To give himself every chance, he had stipulated with the Piedmontese authorities for the right of passing at Valenza, and he had the satisfaction of seeing Beaulieu fall into the trap and concentrate opposite that part of the river. The French meantime had moved to the region Alessandria-Tortona. Thence on the 6th of May Bonaparte, with a picked body of troops, set out for a forced march on Piacenza, and that night the advanced guard was 30 m. on the way, at Castel San Giovanni, and Laharpe's and the cavalry divisions at Stradella, 10 m. behind them. Augereau was at Broni, Massena at Sale and Serurier near Valenza, the whole forming a rapidly extending fan, 50 m. from point to point. If the Piacenza detachment succeeded in crossing, the army was to follow rapidly in its track. If, on the other hand, Beaulieu fell back to oppose the advanced guard, the Valenza divisions would take advantage of his absence to cross there. In either case, be it observed, the Austrians were to be _evaded_, not brought to action.

On the morning of the 7th, the swift advanced guard under General Dallemagne crossed at Piacenza,[11] and, hearing of this, Bonaparte ordered every division except Serurier's thither with all possible speed. In the exultation of the moment he mocked at Beaulieu's incapacity, but the old Austrian was already on the alert. This game of manoeuvres he understood; already one of his divisions had arrived in close proximity to Dallemagne and the others were marching eastward by all available roads. It was not until the 8th that the French, after a series of partial encounters, were securely established on the left bank of the Po, and Beaulieu had given up the idea of forcing their most advanced troops to accept battle at a disadvantage. The success of the French was due less to their plan than to their mobility, which enabled them first to pass the river before the Austrians (who had actually started a day in advance of them) put in an appearance, and afterwards to be in superior numbers at each point of contact. But the episode was destined after all to culminate in a great event, which Napoleon himself indicated as the turning-point of his life. "Vendemiaire and even Montenotte did not make me think myself a superior being. It was after Lodi that the idea came to me.... That first kindled the spark of boundless ambition."

Lodi.

The idea of a battle having been given up, Beaulieu retired to the Adda, and most of his troops were safely beyond it before the French arrived near Lodi, but he felt it necessary to leave a strong rearguard on the river opposite that place to cover the reassembly of his columns after their scattered march. On the afternoon of the 10th of May, Bonaparte, with Dallemagne, Massena and Augereau, came up and seized the town. But 200 yds. of open ground had to be passed from the town gate to the bridge, and the bridge itself was another 250 in length. A few hundred yards beyond it stood the Austrians, 9000 strong with 14 guns. Napoleon brought up all his guns to prevent the enemy from destroying the bridge. Then sending all his cavalry to turn the enemy's right by a ford above the town, he waited two hours, employing the time in cannonading the Austrian lines, resting his advanced infantry and closing up Massena's and Augereau's divisions. Finally he gave the order to Dallemagne's 4000 grenadiers, who were drawn up under cover of the town wall, to rush the bridge. As the column, not more than thirty men broad, made its appearance, it was met by the concentrated fire of the Austrian guns, and half way across the bridge it checked, but Bonaparte himself and Massena rushed forward, the courage of the soldiers revived, and, while some jumped off the bridge and scrambled forward in the shallow water, the remainder stormed on, passed through the guns and drove back the infantry. This was, in bare outline, the astounding passage of the Bridge of Lodi. It was not till after the battle that Napoleon realized that only a rearguard was in front of him. When he launched his 4000 grenadiers he thought that on the other side there were four or five times that number of the enemy. No wonder, then, that after the event he recognized in himself the flash of genius, the courage to risk everything, and the "tact" which, independent of, and indeed contrary to all reasoned calculations, told him that the moment had come for "breaking the equilibrium." Lodi was a tactical success in the highest sense, in that the principles of his tactics rested on psychology--on the "sublime" part of the art of war as Saxe had called it long ago. The spirit produced the form, and Lodi was the prototype of the Napoleonic battle--contact, manoeuvre, preparation, and finally the well-timed, massed and unhesitating assault. The absence of strategical results mattered little. Many months elapsed before this bold assertion of superiority ceased to decide the battles of France and Austria.

Milan.

Next day, still under the vivid tactical impressions of the Bridge of Lodi, he postponed his occupation of the Milanese and set off in pursuit of Beaulieu, but the latter was now out of reach, and during the next few days the French divisions were installed at various points in the area Pavia-Milan-Pizzighetone, facing outwards in all dangerous directions, with a central reserve at Milan. Thus secured, Bonaparte turned his attention to political and military administration. This took the form of exacting from the neighbouring princes money, supplies and objects of art, and the once famished Army of Italy revelled in its opportunity. Now, however, the Directory, suspicious of the too successful and too sanguine young general, ordered him to turn over the command in Upper Italy to Kellermann, and to take an expeditionary corps himself into the heart of the Peninsula, there to preach the Republic and the overthrow of princes. Napoleon absolutely refused, and offered his resignation. In the end (partly by bribery) he prevailed, but the incident reawakened his desire to close with Beaulieu. This indeed he could now do with a free hand, since not only had the Milanese been effectively occupied, but also the treaty with Sardinia had been ratified.

But no sooner had he resumed the advance than it was interrupted by a rising of the peasantry in his rear. The exactions of the French had in a few days generated sparks of discontent which it was easy for the priests and the nobles to fan into open flames. Milan and Pavia as well as the countryside broke into insurrection, and at the latter place the mob forced the French commandant to surrender. Bonaparte acted swiftly and ruthlessly. Bringing back a small portion of the army with him, he punished Milan on the 25th, sacked and burned Binasco on the 26th, and on the evening of the latter day, while his cavalry swept the open country, he broke his way into Pavia with 1500 men and beat down all resistance. Napoleon's cruelty was never purposeless. He deported several scores of hostages to France, executed most of the mob leaders, and shot the French officer who had surrendered. In addition, he gave his 1500 men three hours' leave to pillage. Then, as swiftly as they had come, they returned to the army on the Oglio. From this river Napoleon advanced to the banks of the Mincio, where the remainder of the Italian campaign was fought out, both sides contemptuously disregarding Venetian neutrality.

It centred on the fortress of Mantua, which Beaulieu, too weak to keep the field, and dislodged from the Mincio in the action of Borghetto (May 30), strongly garrisoned before retiring into Tirol. Beaulieu was soon afterwards replaced by Dagobert Siegmund, count von Wurmser (b. 1724), who brought considerable reinforcements from Germany.

At this point, mindful of the narrow escape he had had of losing his command, Bonaparte thought it well to begin the resettlement of Italy. The scheme for co-operating with Moreau on the Danube was indefinitely postponed, and the Army of Italy (now reinforced from the Army of the Alps and counting 42,000 effectives) was again disposed in a protective "zone of manoeuvre," with a strong central reserve. Over 8000 men, however, garrisoned the fortresses of Piedmont and Lombardy, and the effective blockade of Mantua and political expeditions into the heart of the Peninsula soon used up the whole of this reserve.

Moreover, no siege artillery was available until the Austrians in the citadel of Milan capitulated, and thus it was not till the 18th of July that the first parallel was begun. Almost at the same moment Wurmser began his advance from Trent with 55,000 men to relieve Mantua.

Siege of Mantua.

The protective system on which his attack would fall in the first instance was now as follows:--Augereau (6000) about Legnago, Despinoy (8000) south-east of Verona, Massena (13,000) at Verona and Peschiera, with outposts on the Monte Baldo and at La Corona, Sauret (4500) at Salo and Gavardo. Serurier (12,000) was besieging Mantua, and the only central reserve was the cavalry (2000) under Kilmaine. The main road to Milan passed by Brescia. Sauret's brigade, therefore, was practically a detached post on the line of communication, and on the main defensive front less than 30,000 men were disposed at various points between La Corona and Legnago (30 m. apart), and at a distance of 15 to 20 m. from Mantua. The strength of such a disposition depended on the fighting power and handiness of the troops, who in each case would be called upon to act as a rearguard to gain time. Yet the lie of the country scarcely permitted a closer grouping, unless indeed Bonaparte fell back on the old-time device of a "circumvallation," and shut himself up, with the supplies necessary for the calculated duration of the siege, in an impregnable ring of earthworks round Mantua. This, however, he could not have done even if he had wished, for the wave of revolt radiating from Milan had made accumulations of food impossible, and the lakes above and below the fortress, besides being extremely unhealthy, would have extended the perimeter of the circumvallation so greatly that the available forces would not suffice to man it. It was not in this, but in the absence of an important central reserve that Bonaparte's disposition is open to criticism, which indeed could impugn the scheme in its entirety, as overtaxing the available resources, more easily than it could attack its details.

[Illustration: Operations around Mantua 1796-7.

Positions of the night of 2-3 August 1796 shown approximately.]

If Bonaparte has occasionally been criticized for his defensive measures, Wurmser's attack procedure has received almost universal condemnation, as to the justice of which it may be pointed out[12] that the object of the expedition was not to win a battle by falling on the disunited French with a well-concentrated army, but to overpower one, any one, of the corps covering the siege, and to press straight forward to the relief of Mantua, i.e. to the destruction of Bonaparte's batteries and the levelling of his trench work. The old principle that a battle was a grave event of doubtful issue was reinforced in the actual case by Beaulieu's late experiences of French elan, and as a temporary victory at one point would suffice for the purpose in hand, there was every incentive to multiply the points of contact. The soundness of Wurmser's plan was proved by the event. New ideas and new forces, undiscernible to a man of seventy-two years of age, obliterated his achievement by surpassing it, but such as it was--a limited use of force for a limited object--the venture undeniably succeeded.

The Austrians formed three corps, one (Quasdanovich, 18,000 men) marching round the west side of the Lake of Garda on Gavardo, Salo and the Brescia road, the second (under Wurmser, about 30,000) moving directly down the Adige, and the third (Davidovich, 6000) making a detour by the Brenta valley and heading for Verona by Vicenza.