CHAPTER IV.

NAPOLEON.

The years that followed the peace of Hubertsburg were a period of repose, if not for mankind, at least for five-sixths of Continental Europe. Russia, indeed, half an Asiatic Power, carrying out the designs of Peter the Great, under the rule of a bad but most able woman, advanced beyond the Tanais to the heads of the Euxine; and Austria, deprived of the genius of Eugene, was more than once engaged in a doubtful contest with Islam, formidable even in decay. But France was scarcely involved in war, apart from a naval struggle with England; hardly a shot was fired in despoiling Poland; save for demonstrations that came to nothing, Germany was at peace from the Rhine to the Oder; and though England founded an Empire in Hindustan, and the Great Republic of the Far West was born, the conflicts that led to these mighty events were outside the pale of the European world. As happened after the peace of Utrecht, few occasions arose during this long season of comparative rest for the illustration of the military art, by examples in the field; the chiefs of the Seven Years’ War passed slowly away; and their successors in the direction of armies, for the most part men of the third order, were generally content to adhere stolidly to the traditions and methods of that great contest. The attack in oblique order was assumed to be an infallible method to win a battle by theorists who did not understand the difference between Kolin, Rossbach, and Leuthen; and Napoleon has described, with sarcastic pleasantry, how pedants were wont to flock to Potsdam to behold the manœuvres of the Prussian army engaged in movements to turn a flank at reviews; the great King who still commanded in person, laughing quietly at their shallow conceits. It is remarkable, however, that on the one occasion when Germany was seriously threatened with war, from 1762 to 1791, the strategy and even the tactics of Daun prevailed over those of his renowned antagonist. In 1778 Frederick put two armies in motion to invade Bohemia, by the double line of the operations of 1866; but Loudon and Lacy formed a great entrenched camp. In this position they awaited an attack, interposing between the divided enemy; and the King did not venture even to offer battle.

Meanwhile, changes fraught with momentous results, in the approaching era of world-wide conflict, were gradually making themselves felt in Europe. The armed strength of Russia was immensely increased; and her armies growing with the expanding Empire, though still imperfectly equipped and organized, became instruments of war in the hands of Suvóroff, very different from the half-barbarian hosts which had displayed their savage constancy at Zorndorf and Künersdorf. Simultaneously the military power of Austria, under the rule of the dreamy reformer, Joseph, had relatively declined to a great extent; and the famous Prussian army, though still formidable in numbers, in discipline and in real worth had begun, even in the last years of Frederick, to lose much of its old efficiency; and after his death, it fell distinctly away from the high standard of the Seven Years’ War. As for the French army, it had been augmented, and, to outward appearance, had much improved; the Government and the nation had made great efforts to efface the shame of days such as Minden and Rossbach; camps of instruction were formed in parts of the country where the troops were carefully trained and drilled; and the artillery of France, at all times excellent, was remodelled, and became far the best in Europe. Yet the Revolution, already at hand, had impaired the military power of the State; the _noblesse_, still holding all high commands, gave no successors to Condé and Turenne; there were fatal dissensions between the officers and the men; and though the army was very much better than it had been when led by Soubise, it was not the unrivalled army of Louis XIV. It may be said, therefore, that old Europe, from the Niemen to the Tagus, was ill-prepared, at the close of this period, for a great war; and as for the British army, it was deemed of no account after the disasters of Saratoga and York Town. Concurrently with these changes, the material progress which had been marked in Europe since the seventeenth century, had gone on with increased development, and had continued to affect the conditions of war. While the populations of the different States had multiplied and yielded ample elements of military force, agriculture had made a rapid advance; and the inventions of the second half of the eighteenth century had given a remarkable impulse to every urban industry. Vast tracts of marsh, of forest, of waste, had been enclosed and brought under cultivation; new roads and bridges had been largely made; insignificant hamlets had become towns, and towns had grown into great cities more flourishing and peopled, in some instances, than the older cities they had, in fact, supplanted. As the general result, from a military point of view, the consequences were that armies in the field could obtain far ampler means of supply than ever had been the case before; on most theatres of war they would possess more roads and facilities of movement than in previous contests; and the defensive power of fortresses, for a century in decline, had become less than it had ever been, and, indeed, was of little avail on several frontiers.

This period of repose, as has often happened, was marked by speculations of different kinds on the theory and practice of the Art of War. The military writers of the day, however, were, without exception, inferior men; and this is strange when we bear in mind that the age was about to behold a display of military genius of the highest order. The great increase of roads and of the means of manœuvring did not suggest to these dull theorists that armies could make more rapid movements, and could concentrate more quickly on given points than had been possible in former times; on the contrary, these facts gave rise to a notion that it had become necessary, in operations in the field, to separate armies into numerous masses, and to cover all avenues that were liable to attack. This false principle was largely confirmed by the growth in the size of European armies, which had been one of the results of the peace. These, it was assumed, in the event of war, would be developed into vast proportions; and how was it possible to move these large arrays, save by marching on a greatly extended front, and occupying all the roads on the theatre? Nor did it occur to these writers that the immense increase in the products of husbandry, which had been witnessed in most parts of Europe, might enable armies to draw their supplies more fully from resources on the spot, and, therefore, to move with more ease and freedom than had been conceivable a century before; they emphatically insisted on the necessity of magazines, and of laying in enormous means of subsistence beforehand; and they believed that war would be more methodical as armies grew into larger dimensions. In theory, strategy became much less bold than in the days of Turenne and Marlborough; the system of advances upon an immense front, holding all the roads, and moving very slowly, with huge trains of impedimenta and supplies, replaced the daring manœuvres of these famous chiefs; and it contributed not a little to the change that Europe was stirred by no great impulse, that the age seemed indisposed to war, and that military energy appeared deadened through the influences of the last half of the century.

Some progress, however, had been made in tactics, and in the mechanism and formation of armies. The method of the attack in oblique order was still considered the best possible; but means to defeat it had been devised, though these had not yet been proved in the field. Frederick’s outflanking movement was a rapid advance, made in line, when the enemy’s wing was attained; but, admirable as was the training of the Prussian army, this was always attended with difficulty and delay, especially in broken and intricate ground; and it was proposed to encounter this by attacks in columns, more flexible and easily handled than lines, these being preceded by clouds of skirmishers--an American idea of the War of Independence--which would cover the onset of the larger masses, and, to a considerable extent, would screen their march. In this way the attack in oblique order, it was argued, might be met and repelled by a simpler and quicker method of tactics; a new offensive system might replace the old; and, in any event, an army ought not to remain passive and to allow itself to be turned on a wing, as had repeatedly happened in the Seven Years’ War. All this, however, as yet was mere theory, unconfirmed by actual experience in the field; and, for the rest, the current strategic notions had made their influence felt in tactics, and movements widely divided upon the theatre, suggested similar movements in actual battle. In some respects armies had been much improved; the increase of their numbers had caused battalions and squadrons to be formed into brigades and divisions, more unity being given to the collective mass; the value of horse artillery had been fully recognized; and, as I have said, France had taken the lead in bringing her artillery to a high point of excellence.

The Art of War seemed thus in a state of decay, and was being affected by the new theories, when the French Revolution, like a volcano, burst suddenly upon a terrified world. The invasion of Champagne in 1792 was followed by Valmy and Jemmapes; and, in 1793, the hosts of old Europe gathered in arms against the bloodstained Republic, which had flung the head of a king to its foes, and had proclaimed the new Evangel of the Rights of Man on the ruins of a fallen altar and throne. The military operations of the next few years were marked by the want of strategic insight, and by the uncertain and unproved tactics which had grown out of the speculations of the age: and--apart from the tremendous issues at stake--are not of enduring and special interest. Not, indeed, that the wretched failures of the Allies where wholly due to feeble and bad generalship; they were largely caused by events in the East of Europe, by the discords and selfishness of the Coalition, and even by its essential weakness. Beside that they were not prepared for war, the partition of Poland made the great German Powers comparatively without resources on the Rhine; it has been said, indeed, that they had no real wish to effect the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, lest it should avenge a dark international crime. Austria and Prussia, too, and the lesser German States were at odds with each other, and would not act in concert; the avowed purpose of the Allies to dismember France threw an enormous weight into the scale against them; and, at the very crisis of the campaign of 1793, when they could without difficulty have advanced to Paris, they separated their forces in order to reduce strong places meant to be permanently retained.

The timidity, however, and the false principles which marked the conduct of these campaigns contributed mainly to their ignominious end. The chiefs of the Coalition divided their armies in fractions, upon an immense front, extending from the Var to the Meuse and the Lys; they occupied all the main approaches to France; and they moved extremely slowly, and with great magazines and incumbrances, through a most fertile country where celerity was of supreme importance, and where their troops could find ample supplies on the spot. As the inevitable result, their forces were weak at every point of their enormous line, and were nowhere able to strike with effect; they were actually unequal to passing fortresses which they sate down to besiege and occupy, though a relieving army was seldom at hand; and their advance was so tardy and beset by hindrances, that they gave France what she most needed--time to organise her strength and to make the war national. The errors, however, of the new strategy were conspicuous also on the French side, though not, perhaps, in such great proportions. The French armies, like those of their foes, were usually disseminated on a vast front, and were, therefore, feeble on the whole theatre; and though Carnot made one or two good movements, and showed that he knew the importance of interior lines along the space between the Rhine and the Lys, the plans of his campaigns as a rule were bad, and displayed the same defects as those of the Allies. On the other hand, the operations of the French were more rapid than those of their enemies; having no magazines and impedimenta of the kind, they flung themselves like a horde on the country, lived on it, and yet appeared in the field; but though this system made their movements more quick, their efforts were usually ill-directed, and had the Coalition shown skill and energy, it must have triumphed in 1793–94. The tactics of the belligerent armies were also influenced by recent theories, and were tentative, unsettled, and in a state of transition. The Prussians attacked, at Valmy, in the oblique order, but they were driven back by the fine French artillery; the Austrians, at Jemmapes, followed the methods of Daun, awaited the enemy in a strong position, and were overwhelmed by superior numbers. In other engagements the Allies adopted the system of attack in ill-combined columns, and were often beaten by their more active foes. More regularity is seen in the tactics of the French, though these as yet were quite immature and imperfect. The practice of advancing in columns, with skirmishers in front, borrowed from speculations already known, fell in well with the existing state of the revolutionary military power of France; the myriads of young levies which filled her armies were formed into masses given cohesion by the disciplined soldiers of the old Monarchy; and these were launched recklessly against the lines of their foes, and, fired as they were with patriotic passion, occasionally gained important success, especially in intricate and wooded country. By degrees these bodies became real soldiers, though their formations were as yet rude; their immense numbers and their enthusiasm told; though there is little doubt they would not have saved France had they not had the support of her regular army.

Ere long the hour came, and the man appeared who was to educe order out of these chaotic elements, to turn to account, with consummate skill, the new conditions available in war, and to raise the first of arts to the extreme of perfection. Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769, a scion of a House of the _noblesse_ of Florence--the birthplace of many illustrious men--which had emigrated from Italy in the sixteenth century, and, since that time had found a home in Corsica. The child was cradled, so to speak, in war; the traditions of Paoli filled his mind in infancy, and it may well be that the heroic figure of the legislator and champion of his little island had an influence on the future author of the Code, and on the chief who raised France to the heights of glory. Napoleon was sent at an early age to the well-known Military School of Brienne, one of the foundations of the Bourbon Kings, and he passed from thence to a Royal school in Paris, to complete his education for the profession of arms. Little is known about him in these boyish years; he was grave, taciturn, and fond of books, especially of the historical and romantic kind; but except that he excelled in mathematical science, and that he impressed his teachers with an undefined sense of power, he was not considered a lad of extraordinary parts. He entered the army at the age of sixteen, and the bent of his genius became apparent in his assiduous attention to the history of war, and especially in his constant study of military maps, pursuits that gave token of the great future strategist. Though born a gentleman, and retaining through life many of the instincts of the ancient _régime_, Napoleon at this time was a needy youth, with no hope of rising under the old order of things; and it is not surprising, when the Revolution broke out, that he eagerly took to the new ideas, and ranged himself on the side of the soldier, in the divisions that filled the army with discord. As events progressed, he certainly had relations with Robespierre and some of the Terrorists; but this passage in his career is still ill-explained. We may accept his statement that he always stood aloof from Jacobin anarchy and its deeds of blood; and his well-known exclamation, on the 10th of August, when the Swiss Guards were slaughtered by a Parisian rabble, shows that, even in those days, he had that profound contempt of popular movements of every kind which was one of his most distinctive qualities.

He was a captain of artillery at the memorable siege of Toulon in 1793; and on this occasion he first gave proof of his extraordinary capacity in war. Toulon was vainly attacked from the land side, for its communications with the sea were open; and the French army, led by incapable men, was too weak to master its walls and its ramparts. But the Allied fleets were the main defence of the place; these were crowded within the port and the roadsteads; and they were liable to be destroyed were they exposed to the fire of powerful batteries from a small projecting headland. At a council of war Napoleon declared that this point, when occupied, would be the key to Toulon; and the truth was so evident that he convinced his superiors. His admirable prevision was soon realised. When the promontory was seized, the hostile squadrons, completely commanded, at once put to sea, and Toulon fell in an instant as if by magic. This exploit justly attracted attention. Bonaparte was next employed on the Italian frontier, where his strategic ability manifested itself in turning the positions of the Piedmontese army; and, at the instance of the Government, he quelled the revolt of the Sections on the 13th Vendémiaire, and in this service he showed that he had remarkable presence of mind and firmness. He was now known as a soldier of high promise; and, having married Josephine Beauharnais--partly owing to the influence of her old lover, Barras, but partly, too, because of his acknowledged powers--he was given the command, in the spring of 1796, of some 38,000 or 40,000 men encamped along the Genoese seaboard, with general orders to invade Italy. This operation, however, was to be quite secondary to those of the great armies about to enter Germany, with Jourdan and Moreau at their head; and some of the Directory, it is said, wished to get rid, in this way, of an importunate young man who had pestered them with grand strategic projects pronounced by experienced chiefs to be wild extravagance.

I have now reached the campaigns of Napoleon; I can describe them only in the barest outline; but I must dwell for a moment on that of Italy. The army, in the hands of the young general, had suffered terrible privations, and was in extreme want; but it was composed of trained and enthusiastic soldiers; it had several good subordinate chiefs, and it could be made a most formidable instrument of war under the guidance and inspiration of a great commander. Spread along the coast from Nice to the verge of Genoa, it was confronted by a Sardinian and an Austrian army, perhaps 60,000 strong, if united, led by Colli and Beaulieu, experienced generals, but veterans of the old school; and their forces, based on Turin and Milan, held the hill country, where the French Alps decline and join the extreme western Apennines. Napoleon’s first operations strikingly illustrate the intelligence of the theatre and the skill in stratagem in which no military chief can be compared with him. Giving out that he was about to advance by Genoa, he made a feigned demonstration on his right, causing Beaulieu largely to detach to his left; and then, counter-marching with extreme celerity, he poured his troops through the Cadibona Pass, the lowest eminence in the uniting ranges, and surrounded and routed part of the Austrian centre. Beaulieu and Colli endeavouring to concentrate, presented their forces, still divided, to their foe; these were defeated at Dego and Millesimo; and the baffled chiefs retreated on Acqui and Ceva, diverging towards their bases at Milan and Turin, and leaving a widening interval between their shattered armies. Napoleon, standing in strength between his antagonists, detached a wing to hold Beaulieu in check, and then drawing together the rest of his forces, he pursued Colli, struck him down at Mondovi, and compelled the King of Sardinia to sue for peace. He took care to secure his communications with France by insisting on the cession of the Piedmontese fortresses; and having thus gained a new base--he had quietly disregarded injunctions from Paris to stir up a revolution in Piedmont--he set off to pursue Beaulieu, in retreat along the northern bank of the Po.

[Illustration: Theatre of the Campaigns in NORTH ITALY]

Deceiving again his adversary by a false rumour, Napoleon next made a forced march to the river, advancing, as he has said, “with the speed of a torrent,” and gathering his supplies on his way, from the country; and crossing at Piacenza, he forestalled the Austrians, threatened their rear, and forced them to retire on the Adda. A fierce engagement at Lodi followed, in which Bonaparte showed remarkable skill in securing every advantage on the ground; Beaulieu, out-manœuvred, fell back to the Mincio, and Napoleon entered Milan in triumph, having, like Turenne, conquered by a war of marches. The French army now had some days of repose; its chief employed them in assuring his base, in levying requisitions in immense quantities, and in making preparations for fresh exploits; and if he showed no scruple in these measures, and, in fact, he organized rapine on an enormous scale, he established himself firmly in the heart of Lombardy. Towards the close of May Napoleon advanced to the Mincio; Beaulieu, trying to cover the stream at all points, was easily dislodged by a daring attack, and the Austrian army, beaten and cowed, was forced to take refuge in the hills of the Tyrol. By this time Bonaparte had received orders from the Directory to march from the Po to the Tiber, to drive the Pope from Rome, and to rouse Southern Italy; but he refused to follow false strategic plans which, he declared, would involve his army in ruin; and with admirable insight he addressed himself to operations which, if successful, would, he hoped, give France the great prize of Italy. The Austrians were his only formidable foes; the whole peninsula would succumb if their military strength was really broken; and the problem was how to attain this end with a small French army advanced to the Mincio. In the line of the Adige Napoleon perceived the true theatre on which to operate; the river, bounded on the west by the Lake of Garda, hemmed in by mountains as it flowed southward, and ending in tracts of widespreading marshes, afforded an enormously strong barrier, especially if it were held on both banks; and accordingly he took possession of the stream, having, without hesitation, seized the fortresses of the Venetian Republic, on its lower course, and having, meanwhile, sat down to besiege Mantua, the last stronghold still retained by Austria. The conception, original, grand, and simple alike, was an inspiration of true strategic genius, and one of the finest of a marvellous career. Summer had now come, and as the Austrian armies had as yet made no signs of appearing, Napoleon employed this breathing time in pressing forward the attack on Mantua, and in strengthening the power of France in Italy.

The Emperor, meanwhile, had made great efforts to retrieve the late reverses of his troops in Lombardy. The French armies under Moreau and Jourdan, directed on widely distant lines, according to the false strategy of the day, had been held in check by the Archduke Charles, and had achieved no real success in Germany; and Würmser, a veteran of high repute, was despatched from the Upper Rhine with about 30,000 men, to reinforce the defeated army of Beaulieu--that general had been deprived of his command--and with orders to drive the French out of Italy. The Austrian army cannot have been less than from 60,000 to 70,000 strong; Bonaparte had perhaps only 40,000 men besieging Mantua, and along the Adige; and as the value of that barrier, in the hands of a master, was not understood in the Imperial councils, the defeat of the French seemed a foregone conclusion. Believing that Napoleon would retain his hold on Mantua, or, at least, would hesitate until it was too late, Würmser divided his army into three masses, the left and centre under the General-in-Chief moving down the Adige by the valleys and hills that meet the eastern shores of the Lake of Garda, the right, led by Quasdanovich, along the western shore, the object being that the combined forces should close round and stifle the French near Mantua. Napoleon waited until the movement was made plain, and his resolution was at once taken with the strength of character of a great captain. He raised the siege of Mantua on the last night of July, and his enemies being divided by the lake, he turned against Quasdanovich, who was nearest at hand, and drove his advanced guard back for a long distance. Würmser, meanwhile, had forced his way to the Mincio; dividing his army, he detached a part to attack the French supposed to be still round Mantua, and he sent another part to unite with Quasdanovich, assumed by his chief to be close at hand. This gave Bonaparte an opportunity to strike; he had by this time his whole army together; and while he kept Quasdanovich baffled, in check, he encountered the separated forces of Würmser, and routed them in detail, at Lonato first, and then, decisively, at Castiglione. Quasdanovich had already fallen back; Würmser was compelled to recross the Mincio, and his broken army was so demoralised, that he had to ascend the Adige and fly into the Tyrol.

Napoleon now exhibited one of his most striking qualities, his terrible skill in pursuing a defeated enemy. Relying on the moral power of his victories, he marched north of the lake along both shores; and then, concentrating his forces, he beat Davidowich, a lieutenant of Würmser, at Roveredo, just as that tenacious chief had planned another advance on Mantua, moving, on this occasion, from the Tyrol eastwards, to the Lower Adige. Napoleon, leaving a detachment to restrain Davidowich, pressed Würmser with indefatigable energy, came up with him in the defiles of the Brenta, overthrew him completely at Bassano, and drove him, with the mere wreck of an army, into the low country east of the Adige. The situation of the veteran appeared desperate; he was cut off from retreat to the Tyrol; a triumphant enemy was upon his rear; and how was he to get across the Lower Adige, held by French garrisons, where it could be passed, before Bonaparte should reach and destroy him? Napoleon thought he had his foe in his toils; but Würmser was a bold and undaunted soldier, and he managed to force the passage at Legnago, and even to make good his way to Mantua, striking down some small hostile bodies in his path. The old chief, proud of this trifling success, attempted to make a stand near Mantua; but he was driven into the fortress with loss; and Mantua was again invested. In a brief campaign of about six weeks, Napoleon, with a very inferior force, had annihilated a far more powerful enemy; and all that remained of Würmser’s army were a few thousand men far away in the Tyrol, and a few thousand more imprisoned in Mantua, a burden rather than a relief to the garrison. Such extraordinary success had never been witnessed before, and it was obviously due to the genius of the French commander.

Austria, nevertheless, with characteristic firmness, did not yet give up the protracted contest. Moreau and Jourdan by this time were in retreat towards the Rhine, the Archduke Charles, who, in this campaign had operated between divided enemies, with a feeble approach to Napoleon’s skill, having gained real success in Germany; and considerable reinforcements were sent to the Tyrol, and to the plain country known as Friuli, and were placed under the command of Alvinzi, another old general of some distinction, with directions at any cost to relieve Mantua. Alvinzi had passed the Isonzo by the end of October with from 30,000 to 40,000 men, Davidowich being still in the Tyrol with 15,000 to 18,000; and the plan of the Austrian chief was to make these divided masses converge at Verona upon the Adige; and, having forced the passage, to march to the Mincio. The main French army at this time held the lowlands between the Brenta and the Adige, a considerable detachment under Vaubois being in the Tyrol watching the enemy; and as Napoleon in this instance persisted in continuing the siege of Mantua, and kept a large force around the place, he had not 40,000 men altogether in the field. The first operations of the Austrian leaders were attended with success that might have been made decisive. Masséna, the ablest lieutenant of Bonaparte, held Alvinzi, indeed, in check on the Brenta; but Vaubois was driven, in defeat, from the Tyrol; the important position of Rivoli was lost; and Davidowich had approached Verona by the first week of November. The principal army of the French was now compelled to fall back; Napoleon sent a detachment to support Vaubois; but though Rivoli, the key to Verona, was regained, Alvinzi had advanced and drawn near the city. Napoleon attacked him fiercely at Caldiero, but the French recoiled, baffled, from a very strong position; and had Davidowich at this moment pressed forward boldly, and Alvinzi made good use of his success, they might have effected their junction, seized Verona, and made their way across the Adige. But the spell of defeat was on the Austrian chiefs; and Napoleon, seizing his one chance with marvellous skill, plucked a glorious triumph out of the extreme of peril.

Abandoning Verona, he crossed the Adige; he moved quickly down the stream and recrossed it, and then he suddenly fell on his astounded foe, advancing along the dykes of Arcola, through the morasses of the Lower Adige, where the agility and vehemence of the French soldiery would, he foresaw, give them a great advantage. The battle raged confusedly for several days; Napoleon more than once led his men in person; Davidowich, meanwhile, had reconquered Rivoli; but skill and French valour at last prevailed, and the two Austrian armies were ultimately compelled to fall back behind the Brenta and into the Tyrol discomfited, and with immense losses. Austria, however, would not confess defeat; great efforts were made to restore her armies; and Alvinzi assumed the offensive again, in the first days of January 1797. He had even now probably 60,000 men against 35,000 or 40,000 French; and his plan was to descend the Adige, to occupy Rivoli, and then to seize Verona, and to press on to Mantua, a diversion being at the same time made on the Lower Adige by his lieutenant, Provera. By the 14th of January the Austrian columns had surrounded Rivoli on every side; but in the difficult march through the hills, their artillery and cavalry had been attached to one column only, on the best road, and this gave Napoleon, who had his army in hand, though very inferior in force, a decided advantage. The issue of the battle was never doubtful; Masséna displayed conspicuous skill; the Austrians, smitten down by the French guns, and unable to reply, lost heart and were beaten; and Alvinzi drew off, overthrown and routed. It is unnecessary to dwell on the last scenes of the contest; Provera contrived to cross the Adige, and even to make his way to Mantua; but he was crushed by Napoleon, who had hurried from Rivoli, and on the 11th of January laid down his arms. The fate of Mantua was now sealed; three efforts to relieve the place had failed; the garrison was reduced to extremities; and Würmser capitulated in a few days. The last Italian fortress of Austria had fallen; but this was nothing compared to her other losses. Army after army had perished in the attempt to dislodge Bonaparte from the Adige, and the Empire was completely exhausted.

By this time the main seat of the war had been transferred from the Rhine and the Danube to the Adige, the Isonzo, and the hills of the Tyrol; a man of genius had transformed the situation. I shall not refer to the close of the struggle. The Archduke Charles, the last hope of the Hapsburgs, endeavoured in vain to arrest the march of Bonaparte across the Carnic Alps, into the valleys of the Drave and the Mur. In the second week of April the youthful conqueror beheld the steeples of Vienna from the heights of the Simmering, having, with an army never 50,000 strong, subdued Italy and shattered the power of Austria. Nor can I notice Leoben and Campo Formio, or moralize on the Fall of Venice; nor can I comment on the profound statecraft, very different from the revolutionary cant, shown by Napoleon in the negotiations for peace. Yet a word must be said, by way of comment, on the memorable campaign of 1796–97, by some considered its great author’s masterpiece. The dazzling imagination, one of the most striking, and yet a dangerous gift of Napoleon, was not seen in this passage of arms as distinctly as in more than one that followed; but every other faculty of a master of war was exhibited in the highest perfection. The first accomplishment of a true strategist, skill in so understanding the theatre of war as to make it subserve his ends in view, was displayed in more than one notable instance; the perception of the importance of the Cadibona Pass, and the grand choice of the Adige as a barrier, are examples that cannot escape the reader. Nor less admirable was the exhibition of another great strategic gift, the combination of force on the decisive points, the usual prelude of real success. Napoleon, always weaker than his foes, if united, was often stronger on the scene of immediate action, and this was largely due to his wonderful powers, if it was also caused by the faults of adversaries who persisted in following a false strategic system. No commander besides, not even Turenne, had approached Napoleon in the great art of manœuvring between divided enemies, of striking them left and right in succession, and of gaining the flank and rear of a hostile army; the operations against Würmser, and the march to Piacenza, are admirable specimens of this kind of excellence. In the movements, too, and manœuvres of Bonaparte, we see a splendour, and yet a scientific method, and, perhaps most distinctly, a skill in stratagem peculiar to himself, and hitherto scarcely known; and as for his tactics, the genius with which he chose the ground at Arcola stamps him at once as a master in the highest sphere of this art. Nor less remarkable were his moral qualities; his energy and resolution, for example, appear conspicuously in the raising of the siege of Mantua; and no one but Napoleon would have ventured to cross the will of the Directory, as he did more than once, at the risk of his fortune, and perhaps of his life.

Yet in this marvellous display of genius and power we can occasionally see defects and faults. Napoleon risked too much in continuing the siege of Mantua at the approach of Alvinzi. He should not, perhaps, have fought at Caldiero; and we trace signs of that over-confidence in success, which certainly was his most distinctive error. One general cause of the extreme brilliancy of his movements should be carefully noted. Napoleon, unlike the first revolutionary chiefs, did not merely throw his troops on a country and allow them to plunder to obtain subsistence; he well knew the fatal results of this system, and he organized magazines and depôts with care; but he perceived, with true insight, that, in Italy at least, it was nearly always possible to find resources on the spot; and his army accordingly moved with much less impediments than that of the heavily-encumbered Austrians, and was often able to assume a bold offensive which generals of the old type would have deemed impossible. This method, however, which he made almost perfect, had a dangerous side as yet unseen, but to be manifested in a still distant future. For the rest, Napoleon, in the campaign of Italy, had good subordinates and an army that became most formidable in his master hand; but the force that really determined events was the great military genius which had suddenly appeared.

I shall pass over Napoleon’s career in the East, the Pyramids, and the failure at Acre; these campaigns but slightly illustrate his genius in war. His object in his descent on Egypt was to march through Syria and Persia to the Indus. He always maintained that the design was feasible; but our present knowledge shows that it was quite impossible, and in this, as in other of his military plans, his soaring imagination overcame his judgment. On his return to France in the winter of 1799 he easily supplanted the tottering Government, and, as First Consul, seized supreme power; and though I shall not comment on the 18th Brumaire, it may fairly be said that this _coup d’état_ saved France and restored her to her place in Europe. A second Coalition had been formed against her, during Napoleon’s absence, after the Battle of the Nile. Prussia, indeed, held aloof, but Russia appeared in formidable strength on the theatre of war; and Austria, aided by the gold and the troops of England, once more placed powerful armies in the field. Notwithstanding the examples of the campaign of 1796, that of 1799 proceeded on the late false principles. The war was conducted on an enormous front, from the Texel, along the Rhine, to the Tiber; and the armies on both sides were split into fractions, comparatively inefficient on a vast field of manœuvre. The Allies, however, gained important success. Masséna, indeed, saved France at Zürich; but Suvóroff drove the French out of Italy, and the Austrians, reversing the events of 1796, advanced from the Mincio, and approached the French Alps. When Napoleon, who, in a few months, had accomplished wonders of administrative skill, in restoring the finances and power of the State, had, in the beginning of 1800, to survey the military affairs of France, her situation was still critical in the extreme. Russia, indeed, had abandoned the Allied cause, but Austria had put her whole strength forth. One great Imperial army, led by Mélas, covered Italy from the Adige to the Tanaro; another, under Kray, was in the Swabian lowlands, holding the southern approaches to the Black Forest; and France, with forces reduced and weakened, was threatened with invasion on the Rhine and the Var.

A man of surpassing powers in war was, however, for the first time at her head; and this proved sufficient to turn the scale of Fortune. Napoleon’s project for the campaign was not completely realised; but it was the most striking perhaps of his great career, and it ended in a succession of triumphs. With that wonderful glance which read the whole theatre, and saw how to make the best use of it, the First Consul perceived that the two hostile armies were separated by the vast space of Switzerland, at this time in the possession of the French; and the army of Mélas, about 100,000 strong, and intended ultimately to enter Provence, was the principal army, on what ought to have been the secondary point of attack only; while that of Kray, perhaps 90,000 men, designed, if successful, to attain Alsace, was a subordinate force on the chief scene of action. These being the facts, and as France held Switzerland, projecting like a huge natural bastion between the enemy’s widely-divided masses, Napoleon gave Moreau the main French army--it contained perhaps 100,000 troops--with directions to cross the Rhine at Schaffhausen, to fall in full force on the rear of Kray, and to cut him off from his line of retreat; Moreau, at the fitting time, sending a large detachment across the St. Gothard in order to aid the movements of the French chief in Italy. Napoleon selected for 1800 the scene of his exploits in 1796–97; and his design was, avoiding the Piedmontese fortresses, to cross the Alps by the Great St. Bernard range, and then rapidly descending, to seize the lines of the communications of Mélas with the Adige, and supported by the detachment from Moreau, to force the Austrians to fight in a disastrous position. The First Consul calculated that about 40,000 men--France at this juncture could not yield more--would, with the aid from the main army, suffice for his purpose; but as it was of the first importance to allow the Austrians to advance into the far end of Italy, and to engage themselves on the line of the Var, it was necessary to conceal as much as possible the formation and destination of the new army of Italy, and especially to screen its advance to the Alps. To attain his end Napoleon tasked to the utmost the dexterity in stratagem in which he stands supreme. He assembled a collection of bad troops at Dijon, and ostentatiously announced this was his Italian army; but in the meantime he quietly drew together his real force from different parts of France, masking the operation with the greatest care and forethought. The main army, I have said, was to cross the St. Bernard; but a small column was to march by the pass of Mont Cenis--the ordinary military way through the Alps--in order effectually to deceive the enemy.

The campaign only began in earnest in spring, though hostilities had not ceased through the winter. In the first week of May Mélas had part of his army besieging Genoa, under his lieutenant, Ott, Masséna making a stubborn defence; Elsnitz, another Austrian, was upon the Var, confronted by Suchet, a capable chief well known in the Peninsular War afterwards; and the rest of the Imperial army held Piedmont, extending thence to the Adige and the Mincio. Meanwhile, Moreau, a general of the second order, had feared to execute Napoleon’s design, and to fall on the rear of Kray by Schaffhausen; he had crossed the Rhine, after his own fashion, by complicated and even hazardous movements, merely threatening, not striking Kray, with effect; but he had forced the weaker hostile army back; and he was able to fulfil one great part of his mission, and to send 20,000 men across the St. Gothard, under Moncey, one of the Napoleonic marshals. The First Consul took the field in the second week of May; his army, secretly moved to the Swiss frontier, its strength still unknown to its enemy, crossed the Great St. Bernard from the 16th to the 19th; and simultaneously the secondary force moved forward through the pass of Mont Cenis. The hill fort of Bard arrested the French for a moment; but the obstacle was overcome skilfully; and by the 23rd the advanced guard of Napoleon was in the valley of the Dora, and in full march for Piedmont. By this time Mélas had heard of the advance of the enemy, but he refused to believe in the force of the French army; he allowed Ott and Elsnitz to remain where they were; and though he moved to Turin in person, it was with not more than a few thousand men, for he felt assured that his divisions in Piedmont would be able to give a good account of Napoleon. The Austrian chief, too, at this critical moment, was deceived by the apparition of the column from Mont Cenis; he thought that it was the chief part of the hostile army; and falling into the snare that had been laid for him, he halted at Turin to draw in his forces.

This gave Napoleon the opportunity he sought; he marched from the Dora across the Sesia and the Ticino with his wonted celerity; and he entered Milan on the 2nd of June, already menacing the communications of his foe. He was soon joined by Moncey’s detachment, and being now at the head of 60,000 men, he crossed the Po, holding both its banks, and closed on the rear of the main Austrian army, thrown forward almost to the frontier of France. Mélas, seriously alarmed, gave orders to concentrate his still very superior force; but Ott lingered to receive the keys of Genoa, which yielded only after a most stern resistance, and left a large garrison in the fallen city; Elsnitz was routed by Suchet in his retreat from the Var; and the Austrian army was immensely weakened, when in the second week of June it lay round Alessandria, Ott, who had endeavoured to attain the Po, having been driven back at Montebello with loss. By this time Napoleon had his army divided on either bank of the Po, Moncey watching the course of its Alpine feeders, Napoleon holding the famous Stradella Pass, where the spurs of the Apennines approach the river; and his enemy, even now, was within his toils. But the First Consul gave Mélas credit for more strategic skill than he really possessed; he thought that the Austrian, after the fall of Genoa, might endeavour to make his escape by the coast, or might fall back and overpower Suchet; and he debouched into the great plain of Marengo, in order to observe and close on his foe. His army was not 30,000 strong; that of Mélas was probably 40,000; it was very superior in cavalry and guns, which gave it a marked advantage in open ground; and no doubt can exist that in risking this movement Napoleon made a great strategic error. Mélas, a stout warrior of the school of Daun, attacked the French fiercely on the 14th of June, hoping to defeat his enemy and to escape from the net thrown around him with such forethought and skill; and he nearly attained a decisive victory. Desaix, however, a trusted lieutenant of Bonaparte, arriving from a distance, restored the battle; the horsemen of Kellerman changed the fortunes of the day, and the Austrians at last were completely beaten. The result was then seen of the masterly movements which had brought Napoleon on the rear of Mélas; the defeated army was compelled to make terms, and it evacuated the peninsula even beyond the Mincio. France had regained Italy by a march and a battle.

Austria, always tenacious, resisted for months, and Moreau gained a great victory at Hohenlinden, success in part due to the overboldness of John, a brother of the Archduke Charles, who imagined he had mastered Napoleon’s strategy. But Marengo had been the decisive stroke: Austria fought for honour only, after the loss of Italy; and ere long she accepted the Peace of Lunéville, followed by the peace of Amiens between France and England. The campaign of 1800 is the most dazzling of Napoleon’s masterpieces, though marred by what might have been a fatal error. Full justice, perhaps, has never been done to the surpassing ability of the First Consul in perceiving the advantage given to France by her hold of Switzerland, and the false position of the Austrian armies; for two Napoleons were required on the scene, to realise completely one grand conception. Had Bonaparte been in the place of Moreau, and debouched from Schaffhausen across the Rhine, Kray would have been cut off, and Vienna laid open; and the ruin of Mélas and the Conquest of Italy was, in fact, half only of what might have been done. Yet, as it was, Switzerland was made a kind of sallyport, to place the French armies on the rear of their foes; Moreau was rightly given the superior force to paralyse Kray, and to keep him off from the Rhine; Napoleon properly distributed the inferior force in Italy, under his own command, for it would suffice to defeat operations in the Var; and though Moreau failed to destroy Kray, Napoleon succeeded in destroying Mélas, thrown forward perilously on the French frontier. Intelligence of the theatre and splendour of design were never, perhaps, more finely displayed; the ordinary reader will dwell on the Alpine march; but the true student of war will rather note the exquisite art with which the army of Italy was collected, formed, and moved to the Alps, all without the enemy’s knowledge; the admirable skill by which Mélas was deceived through the demonstration at Mont Cenis; the celerity of the advance on Milan, and the perfect arrangements made to combine with Moncey, and then to encompass the foe. Genius and power of stratagem have never accomplished more; and had Napoleon remained near the Stradella Pass--Turenne certainly would have done this--the execution of his plan would have been perfect. But this wonderful chief was not only too confident throughout his whole career, but often showed[10] impatience when near his enemy; these faults nearly caused him to lose the campaign; and he certainly ought not to have fought at Marengo, for the chances were in his opponent’s favour, though an advance towards Alessandria might have been justified, for Mélas might, perhaps, have escaped by the seaboard, or have crushed Suchet with his weak detachment.

I cannot dwell on the Government of the First Consul, on the Code, the Concordat, the Pacification of La Vendée, the restoration of order and peace in France, the foundation of the only institutions and laws which have lasted during her subsequent history; nor can I comment on his external policy, the settlement of Italy in the interests of France, and the extension of her influence through the Lesser States of Germany. I shall only remark that if these achievements reveal the near advent of despotism at home, and the spirit of encroaching ambition abroad, they display administrative excellence of the first order, and profound, if hard and unscrupulous, statecraft; and they bear the marks of ineffaceable greatness. I cannot, moreover, enlarge on the causes which led to the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, and involved England and France in a death struggle. Nor shall I describe the Flotilla and the Camp of Boulogne, the accumulation of a great army destined to cross the Channel, and to invade our coasts, and the energy, the perseverance, and the careful forethought with which this last was prepared to effect the descent. Yet a remark must be made on the fine combinations thought out by Napoleon to carry out his purpose, for they are a notable example of his skill in stratagem. His arrangements to embark his army, and to make the passage, in the flotilla, were but a part of the design; they were largely intended to mask his purpose; his real plan was to conduct the descent under the protection of a fleet which should command the Channel. How indefatigably, and with what consummate art, the First Consul toiled to effect his object, his correspondence abundantly proves; and, it must be added, he well nigh succeeded. The Admiralty was deceived, and Nelson was lured away; and had French seamen been nearly as good as our own, and Villeneuve been a capable chief, Napoleon would have mastered the narrow seas for a time, and his army would have stood on our shores. That he would have found a Moscow, in England, our countrymen believe; he certainly would have been imprisoned within the ground he occupied, for our fleets would have cut him off from France, and his enterprise would probably have been a failure. All this, however, is speculation only; England undoubtedly was in grave danger, and her Government did not understand her enemy; though it deserves notice that Napoleon’s idea, that he would subdue England by pulling down the Throne and setting a Republic up in its place, was not only a huge mistake, but tends to show he did not believe that he could succeed only by mere force of arms.