Part 36

The Army of the Rhine, by far the strongest and best equipped, lay on the upper Rhine. The small and worn-out Army of Italy was watching the Alps and the Apennines from Mont Blanc to Genoa. Between them Switzerland, secured by the victory of Zurich, offered a starting-point for a turning movement on either side--this year the advantage of the flank position was recognized and acted upon. The Army of Reserve was assembling around Dijon, within 200 m. of either theatre of war. The general plan was that the Army of Reserve should march through Switzerland to close on the right wing of the Army of the Rhine. Thus supported to whatever degree might prove to be necessary, Moreau was to force the passage of the Rhine about Schaffhausen, to push back the Austrians rapidly beyond the Lech, and then, if they took the offensive in turn, to hold them in check for ten or twelve days. During this period of guaranteed freedom the decisive movement was to be made. The Army of Reserve, augmented by one large corps of the Army of the Rhine, was to descend by the Splugen (alternatively by the St Gothard and even by Tirol) into the plains of Lombardy. Magazines were to be established at Zurich and Lucerne (not at Chur, lest the plan should become obvious from the beginning), and all likely routes reconnoitred in advance. The Army of Italy was at first to maintain a strict defensive, then to occupy the Austrians until the entry of the Reserve Army into Italy was assured, and finally to manoeuvre to join it.

[Illustration: Map of Italian Campaigns 1794-1800.]

Moreau, however, owing to want of horses for his pontoon train and also because of the character of the Rhine above Basel, preferred to cross below that place, especially as in Alsace there were considerably greater supply facilities than in a country which had already been fought over and stripped bare. With the greatest reluctance Bonaparte let him have his way, and giving up the idea of using the Splugen and the St Gothard, began to turn his attention to the more westerly passes, the St Bernard and the Simplon. It was not merely Moreau's scruples that led to this essential modification in the scheme. At the beginning of April the enemy took the offensive against Massena. On the 8th Melas's right wing dislodged the French from the Mont Cenis, and most of the troops that had then reached Dijon were shifted southward to be ready for emergencies. By the 25th Berthier reported that Massena was seriously attacked and that he might have to be supported by the shortest route. Bonaparte's resolution was already taken. He waited no longer for Moreau (who indeed so far from volunteering assistance, actually demanded it for himself). Convinced from the paucity of news that Massena's army was closely pressed and probably severed from France, and feeling also that the Austrians were deeply committed to their struggle with the Army of Italy, he told Berthier to march with 40,000 men at once by way of the St Bernard unless otherwise advised. Berthier protested that he had only 25,000 effectives, and the equipment and armament was still far from complete--as indeed it remained to the end--but the troops marched, though their very means of existence were precarious from the time of leaving Geneva to the time of reaching Milan, for nothing could extort supplies and money from the sullen Swiss.

Napoleon's plan of campaign.

At the beginning of May the First Consul learned of the serious plight of the Army of Italy. Massena with his right wing was shut up in Genoa, Suchet with the left wing driven back to the Var. Meanwhile Moreau had won a preliminary victory at Stokach, and the Army of Reserve had begun its movement to Geneva. With these data the plan of campaign took a clear shape at last--Massena to resist as long as possible; Suchet to resume the offensive, if he could do so, towards Turin; the Army of Reserve to pass the Alps and to debouch into Piedmont by Aosta; the Army of the Rhine to send a strong force into Italy by the St Gothard. The First Consul left Paris on the 6th of May. Berthier went forward to Geneva, and still farther on the route magazines were established at Villeneuve and St-Pierre. Gradually, and with immense efforts, the leading troops of the long column[16] were passed over the St Bernard, drawing their artillery on sledges, on the 15th and succeeding days. Driving away small posts of the Austrian army, the advance guard entered Aosta on the 16th and Chatillon on the 18th and the alarm was given. Melas, committed as he was to his Riviera campaign, began to look to his right rear, but he was far from suspecting the seriousness of his opponent's purpose.

Bard.

Infinitely more dangerous for the French than the small detachment that Melas opposed to them, or even the actual crossing of the pass, was the unexpected stopping power of the little fort of Bard. The advanced guard of the French appeared before it on the 19th, and after three wasted days the infantry managed to find a difficult mountain by-way and to pass round the obstacle. Ivrea was occupied on the 23rd, and Napoleon hoped to assemble the whole army there by the 27th. But except for a few guns that with infinite precautions were smuggled one by one through the streets of Bard, the whole of the artillery, as well as a detachment (under Chabran) to besiege the fort, had to be left behind. Bard surrendered on the 2nd of June, having delayed the infantry of the French army for four days and the artillery for a fortnight.

The military situation in the last week of May, as it presented itself to the First Consul at Ivrea, was this. The Army of Italy under Massena was closely besieged in Genoa, where provisions were running short, and the population so hostile that the French general placed his field artillery to sweep the streets. But Massena was no ordinary general, and the First Consul knew that while Massena lived the garrison would resist to the last extremity. Suchet was defending Nice and the Var by vigorous minor operations. The Army of Reserve, the centre of which had reached at Ivrea the edge of the Italian plains, consisted of four weak army corps under Victor, Duhesme, Lannes and Murat. There were still to be added to this small army of 34,000 effectives, Turreau's division, which had passed over the Mont Cenis and was now in the valley of the Dora Riparia, Moncey's corps of the Army of the Rhine, which had at last been extorted from Moreau and was due to pass the St Gothard before the end of May, Chabran's division left to besiege Bard, and a small force under Bethencourt, which was to cross the Simplon and to descend by Arona (this place proved in the event a second Bard and immobilized Bethencourt until after the decisive battle). Thus it was only the simplest part of Napoleon's task to concentrate half of his army at Ivrea, and he had yet to bring in the rest. The problem was to reconcile the necessity for time, which he wanted to ensure the maximum force being brought over the Alps, with the necessity for haste, in view of the impending fall of Genoa and the probability that once this conquest was achieved, Melas would bring back his 100,000 men into the Milanese to deal with the Army of Reserve. As early as the 14th of May he had informed Moncey that from Ivrea the Army of Reserve would move on Milan. On the 25th of May, in response to Berthier's request for guidance, the First Consul ordered Lannes (advanced guard) to push out on the Turin road, "in order to deceive the enemy and to obtain news of Turreau," and Duhesme's and Murat's corps to proceed along the Milan road. On the 27th, after Lannes had on the 26th defeated an Austrian column near Chivasso, the main body was already advancing on Vercelli.

The march to Milan.

Very few of Napoleon's acts of generalship have been more criticized than this resolution to march on Milan, which abandoned Genoa to its fate and gave Melas a week's leisure to assemble his scattered forces. The account of his motives he dictated at St Helena (_Nap. Correspondence_, v. 30, pp. 375-377), in itself an unconvincing appeal to the rules of strategy as laid down by the theorists--which rules his own practice throughout transcended--gives, when closely examined, some at least of the necessary clues. He says in effect that by advancing directly on Turin he would have "risked a battle against equal forces without an assured line of retreat, Bard being still uncaptured." It is indeed strange to find Napoleon shrinking before _equal_ forces of the enemy, even if we admit without comment that it was more difficult to pass Bard the second time than the first. The only incentive to go towards Turin was the chance of partial victories over the disconnected Austrian corps that would be met in that direction, and this he deliberately set aside. Having done so, for reasons that will appear in the sequel, he could only defend it by saying in effect that he might have been defeated--which was true, but not the Napoleonic principle of war. Of the alternatives, one was to hasten to Genoa; this in Napoleon's eyes would have been playing the enemy's game, for they would have concentrated at Alessandria, facing west "in their natural position." It is equally obvious that thus the enemy would have played _his_ game, supposing that this was to relieve Genoa, and the implication is that it was not. The third course, which Napoleon took, and in this memorandum defended, gave his army the enemy's depots at Milan, of which it unquestionably stood in sore need, and the reinforcement of Moncey's 15,000 men from the Rhine, while at the same time Moncey's route offered an "assured line of retreat" by the Simplon[17] and the St Gothard. He would in fact make for himself there a "natural position" without forfeiting the advantage of being in Melas's rear. Once possessed of Milan, Napoleon says, he could have engaged Melas with a light heart and with confidence in the greatest possible results of a victory, whether the Austrians sought to force their way back to the east by the right or the left bank of the Po, and he adds that if the French passed on and concentrated south of the Po there would be no danger to the Milan-St Gothard line of retreat, as this was secured by the rivers Ticino and Sesia. In this last, as we shall see, he is shielding an undeniable mistake, but considering for the moment only the movement to Milan, we are justified in assuming that his object was not the relief of Genoa, but the most thorough defeat of Melas's field army, to which end, putting all sentiment aside, he treated the hard-pressed Massena as a "containing force" to keep Melas occupied during the strategical deployment of the Army of Reserve. In the beginning he had told Massena that he would "disengage" him, even if he had to go as far east as Trent to find a way into Italy. From the first, then, no direct relief was intended, and when, on hearing bad news from the Riviera, he altered his route to the more westerly passes, it was probably because he felt that Massena's containing power was almost exhausted, and that the passage and reassembly of the Reserve Army must be brought about in the minimum time and by the shortest way. But the object was still the defeat of Melas, and for this, as the Austrians possessed an enormous numerical superiority, the assembly of all forces, including Moncey's, was indispensable. One essential condition of this was that the points of passage used should be out of reach of the enemy. The more westerly the passes chosen, the more dangerous was the whole operation--in fact the Mont Cenis column never reached him at all--and though his expressed objections to the St Bernard line seem, as we have said, to be written after the event, to disarm his critics, there is no doubt that at the time he disliked it. It was a _pis aller_ forced upon him by Moreau's delay and Massena's extremity, and from the moment at which he arrived at Milan he did, as a fact, abandon it altogether in favour of the St Gothard. Lastly, so strongly was he impressed with the necessity of completing the deployment of all his forces, that though he found the Austrians on the Turin side much scattered and could justifiably expect a series of rapid partial victories, Napoleon let them go, and devoted his whole energy to creating for himself a "natural" position about Milan. If he sinned, at any rate he sinned handsomely, and except that he went to Milan by Vercelli instead of by Lausanne and Domodossola[18] (on the safe side of the mountains), his march is logistically beyond cavil.

Napoleon's immediate purpose, then, was to reassemble the Army of Reserve in a zone of manoeuvre about Milan. This was carried out in the first days of June. Lannes at Chivasso stood ready to ward off a flank attack until the main army had filed past on the Vercelli road, then leaving a small force to combine with Turreau (whose column had not been able to advance into the plain) in demonstrations towards Turin, he moved off, still acting as right flank guard to the army, in the direction of Pavia. The main body meanwhile, headed by Murat, advanced on Milan by way of Vercelli and Magenta, forcing the passage of the Ticino on the 31st of May at Turbigo and Buffalora. On the same day the other divisions closed up to the Ticino,[19] and faithful to his principles Napoleon had an examination made of the little fortress of Novara, intending to occupy it as a _place du moment_ to help in securing his zone of manoeuvre. On the morning of the 2nd of June Murat occupied Milan, and in the evening of the same day the headquarters entered the great city, the Austrian detachment under Vukassovich (the flying right wing of Melas's general cordon system in Piedmont) retiring to the Adda. Duhesme's corps forced that river at Lodi, and pressed on with orders to organize Crema and if possible Orzinovi as temporary fortresses. Lechi's Italians were sent towards Bergamo and Brescia. Lannes meantime had passed Vercelli, and on the evening of the 2nd his cavalry reached Pavia, where, as at Milan, immense stores of food, equipment and warlike stores were seized.

Napoleon was now safe in his "natural" position, and barred one of the two main lines of retreat open to the Austrians. But his ambitions went further, and he intended to cross the Po and to establish himself on the other likewise, thus establishing across the plain a complete barrage between Melas and Mantua. Here his end outranged his means, as we shall see. But he gave himself every chance that rapidity could afford him, and the moment that some sort of a "zone of manoeuvre" had been secured between the Ticino and the Oglio, he pushed on his main body--or rather what was left after the protective system had been provided for--to the Po. He would not wait even for his guns, which had at last emerged from the Bard defile and were ordered to come to Milan by a safe and circuitous route along the foot of the Alps.

Melas's movements.

At this point the action of the enemy began to make itself felt. Melas had not gained the successes that he had expected in Piedmont and on the Riviera, thanks to Massena's obstinacy and to Suchet's brilliant defence of the Var. These operations had led him very far afield, and the protection of his over-long line of communications had caused him to weaken his large army by throwing off many detachments to watch the Alpine valleys on his right rear. One of these successfully opposed Turreau in the valley of the Dora Riparia, but another had been severely handled by Lannes at Chivasso, and a third (Vukassovich) found itself, as we know, directly in the path of the French as they moved from Ivrea to Milan, and was driven far to the eastward. He was further handicapped by the necessity of supporting Ott before Genoa and Elsnitz on the Var, and hearing of Lannes's bold advance on Chivasso and of the presence of a French column with artillery (Turreau) west of Turin, he assumed that the latter represented the main body of the Army of Reserve--in so far indeed as he believed in the existence of that army at all.[20] Next, when Lannes moved away towards Pavia, Melas thought for a moment that fate had delivered his enemy into his hands, and began to collect such troops as were at hand at Turin with a view to cutting off the retreat of the French on Ivrea while Vukassovich held them in front. It was only when news came of Moncey's arrival in Italy and of Vukassovich's fighting retreat on Brescia that the magnitude and purpose of the French column that had penetrated by Ivrea became evident. Melas promptly decided to give up his western enterprises, and to concentrate at Alessandria, preparatory to breaking his way through the network of small columns--as the disseminated Army of Reserve still appeared to be--which threatened to bar his retreat. But orders circulated so slowly that he had to wait in Turin till the 8th of June for Elsnitz, whose retreat was, moreover, sharply followed up and made exceedingly costly by the enterprising Suchet. Ott, too, in spite of orders to give up the siege of Genoa at once and to march with all speed to hold the Alessandria-Piacenza road, waited two days to secure the prize, and agreed (June 4) to allow Massena's army to go free and to join Suchet. And lastly, the cavalry of O'Reilly, sent on ahead from Alessandria to the Stradella defile, reached that point only to encounter the French. The barrage was complete, and it remained for Melas to break it with the mass that he was assembling, with all these misfortunes and delays, about Alessandria. His chances of doing so were anything but desperate.

On the 5th of June Murat, with his own corps and part of Duhesme's, had moved on Piacenza, and stormed the bridge-head there. Duhesme with one of his divisions pushed out on Crema and Orzinovi and also towards Pizzighetone. Moncey's leading regiments approached Milan, and Berthier thereupon sent on Victor's corps to support Murat and Lannes. Meantime the half abandoned line of operations, Ivrea-Vercelli, was briskly attacked by the Austrians, who had still detachments on the side of Turin, waiting for Elsnitz to rejoin, and the French artillery train was once more checked. On the 6th Lannes from Pavia, crossing the Po at San Cipriano, encountered and defeated a large force, (O'Reilly's column), and barred the Alessandria-Parma main road. Opposite Piacenza Murat had to spend the day in gathering material for his passage, as the pontoon bridge had been cut by the retreating garrison of the bridge-head. On the eastern border of the "zone of manoeuvre" Duhesme's various columns moved out towards Brescia and Cremona, pushing back Vukassovich. Meantime the last divisions of the Army of Reserve (two of Moncey's excepted) were hurried towards Lannes's point of passage, as Murat had not yet secured Piacenza. On the 7th, while Duhesme continued to push back Vukassovich and seized Cremona, Murat at last captured Piacenza, finding there immense magazines. Meantime the army, division by division, passed over, slowly owing to a sudden flood, near Belgiojoso, and Lannes's advanced guard was ordered to open communication with Murat along the main road Stradella-Piacenza. "Moments are precious" said the First Consul. He was aware that Elsnitz was retreating before Suchet, that Melas had left Turin for Alessandria, and that heavy forces of the enemy were at or east of Tortona. He knew, too, that Murat had been engaged with certain regiments recently before Genoa and (wrongly) assumed O'Reilly's column, beaten by Lannes at San Cipriano, to have come from the same quarter. Whether this meant the deliverance or the surrender of Genoa he did not yet know, but it was certain that Massena's holding action was over, and that Melas was gathering up his forces to recover his communications. Hence Napoleon's great object was concentration. "Twenty thousand men at Stradella," in his own words, was the goal of his efforts, and with the accomplishment of this purpose the campaign enters on a new phase.

Napoleon's dispositions.

Montebello.