Whatever may be their apparent conduct, men like you never inspire alarm. You have accepted an eminent station, and I thank you for having done so. You know better than anyone how much strength and power are requisite to secure the happiness of a great nation. Save France from her violence, and you will fulfill the first wish of my heart. Restore her King to her, and future generations will bless your memory. You will always be too necessary to the state for me ever to be able to discharge, by important appointments, the debt of my family and myself.
Louis33
Napoleon let this appeal remain unanswered. How could he return the throne to a man who had promised his faithful followers to follow his own restoration with that of the status quo ante the Revolution? What would happen to the enfranchised peasants, or to the buyers of church property? What would happen to Napoleon? Already the royalists, who were daily plotting to remove him, were announcing what they would do to this upstart who dared to play king without ointment or pedigree.34
On Christmas Day, 1799, the day after the plebiscite had sanctioned his rule, Napoleon wrote to King George III of England:
Called by the will of the French people to hold the highest office in the Republic, I think it proper, on assuming my functions, to inform Your Majesty of the fact by my own hand.
Is there to be no end to the war which, for the past eight years, has dislocated every quarter of the globe? Is there no means by which we can come to an understanding? How is it that the two most enlightened nations in Europe, both stronger and more powerful than their safety and independence require, consent to sacrifice their commercial success, their internal prosperity, and the happiness of their homes, to dreams of imaginary greatness? How is it that they do not envisage peace as their greatest glory as well as their greatest need?
Such sentiments cannot be strange to Your Majesty’s heart, for you rule a free nation for the sole end of making it happy.
I beg Your Majesty to believe that in broaching this subject, it is my sincere desire to make a practical contribution … toward a generous peace…. The fate of every civilized nation depends upon the ending of a war which is embroiling the whole world.35
George III did not think it fitting that a king should answer a commoner; he delegated the task to Lord Grenville, who sent to Talleyrand (January 3, 1800) a sharp note denouncing the aggressions of France and declaring that England could not enter into negotiations except through the Bourbons, who must be restored as a precondition to any peace. A letter of Napoleon to Emperor Francis II received a similar reply from the Austrian Chancellor, Baron Franz von Thugut. Probably these literary reverses had been discounted; Napoleon did not have to be told that statesmen weigh words by counting guns. The reality remained that an Austrian army had recaptured north Italy and reached Nice, and that a French army, imprisoned in Egypt by the British and Turks, was nearing surrender or destruction.
Kléber, brave and brilliant general, unsuccessful diplomat, expected no relief, and openly shared in the despondency of his men. By his orders General Desaix signed at El ‘Arish (January 24, 1800), with the Turks and the local English commander, a convention for the safe and orderly departure of the French, with their arms and baggage and the “honors of war,” on ships to be supplied by the Turks to convey them to France; meanwhile the French were to deliver to the Turks the forts that had protected the Europeans from Egyptian revolts. These forts had been surrendered when word came from the British government refusing to accept the terms of evacuation, and insisting that the French lay down their arms and yield themselves up as prisoners of war. Kléber refused to do this, and demanded the return of the forts; the Turks would not agree to this, and advanced upon Cairo. Kléber led his ten thousand men to meet the Turks, twenty thousand strong, on the plains of Heliopolis. He revived the ardor of his troops with a simple message: “You possess in Egypt no more than the ground under your feet. If you recoil but one step you are undone.”36 After two days (March 20–21, 1800) of battle the wild courage of the Turks yielded to the disciplined tactics of the French, and the surviving victors returned to Cairo to wait again for help from France.
Napoleon could send them no rescue while Britain ruled the Mediterranean. But he had to do something about the fact that the seventy-one-year-old General Baron von Melas had led 100,000 of Austria’s best soldiers in a victorious advance through north Italy to Milan. Napoleon sent Masséna to stop him; Masséna was defeated, and found refuge for his troops in the citadel of Genoa. Melas left a force to besiege him there, assigned additional detachments to guard the Alpine passes against attacks from France, and proceeded along the Italian Riviera until his vanguard reached Nice (April, 1800). The tables had been turned upon Napoleon: the city from which he had begun his conquest of Lombardy in 1796 was now in the hands of the nation he had defeated—while the better part of his famous Army of Italy, too sanguinely divided, was wasting away, helpless and desperate, in Egypt. It was the most direct challenge that Napoleon had yet received.
He put administration aside, and became again the commander in chief, raising money, troops, matériel, and morale, organizing supplies, studying maps, dispatching directives to his generals. To Moreau—the most outspoken of his martial foes—he entrusted the Army of the Rhine, with merciless instructions: cross the Rhine, cut your way through the Austrian divisions under Marshal Krug; then send 25,000 of your men over the St. Gotthard Pass into Italy to reinforce the Army of Reserve that Napoleon promised to have waiting for them near Milan. Moreau did most of this heroically, but felt, perhaps justly, that in his hazardous position he could spare to his chief only fifteen thousand men.
Of all the campaigns of history’s greatest general, this of 1800 was the most subtly planned, and the most poorly executed. Under his direct command he had only forty thousand men, mostly conscripts unhardened to war. Stationed near Dijon, they might have moved south over the Maritime Alps to Nice for a frontal attack upon Melas; but they were too few and raw; and even if Melas were defeated in such an engagement he would have a protected line of retreat through north Italy to well-fortified Mantua. Instead, Napoleon proposed to lead his troops and their equipment over the St. Bernard Pass into Lombardy, unite with the men expected from Moreau, cut Melas’ lines of communication, overcome the Austrian detachments guarding that line, and catch the old hero’s army in disarray as it hurried back from the Riviera and Genoa toward Milan. Then he would destroy it or be destroyed; best of all, he would surround it, prevent its retreat, and compel its general—all courtesies observed—to surrender all north Italy. The Cisalpine Republic, pride of Napoleon’s first campaigns, would be restored to its French allegiance.
One day (March 17, 1800), Napoleon bade Bourrienne unfold upon the floor a large map of Italy. “He lay down upon it, and desired me to do likewise.” Upon certain points he inserted pins with red heads, upon other points pins tinged black. After moving the pins around into various combinations, he asked his secretary, “Where do you think I shall beat Melas? … Here in the plains of the [River] Scrivia,” and he pointed to San Giuliano.37 He knew that he was staking everything—all his victories military and political—upon one battle; but his pride sustained him. “Four years ago,” he reminded Bourrienne, “did I not with a feeble army drive before me hordes of Sardinians and Austrians and scour the face of Italy? We shall do so again. The sun which now shines upon us is the same that shone at Arcole and Lodi. I rely on Masséna. I hope he will hold out in Genoa. But should famine compel him to surrender, I will retake Genoa and the plains of the Scrivia. With what pleasure shall I then return to my dear France, ma belle France!”38
He added preparation to foresight, and did not disdain attention to trivial details. He planned the route and the conveyances: Dijon to Geneva; by boat over the lake to Villeneuve; by horse, mule, carriage, charabanc, or on foot to Martigny; thence to St.-Pierre at the base of the pass; then over the mountain on thirty miles of road sometimes only three feet wide, often along precipices usually covered wi
th snow, and subject at any moment to avalanches of snow, earth, or rock; then into the Valle d’Aosta. At every stage of this route Napoleon arranged to have food, clothing, and transport waiting for the men; at several points carpenters, saddlers, and other workmen were to be made available for repair work; and twice en route every soldier was examined to see if he was properly equipped. To the monks who lived in the hospice at the summit he sent money for bread, cheese, and wine with which to revive the soldiers. Despite all these preparations many shortages turned up; but those young conscripts seem to have borne them with a patience inspired by the silent courage of the veterans.
Napoleon left Paris on May 6, 1800. He had hardly disappeared when royalists, Jacobins, and Bonapartes began to replace him in case he should not return triumphant. Sieyès and others discussed the qualifications of Carnot, Lafayette, and Moreau as a new First Consul; and Napoleon’s brothers Joseph and Lucien offered themselves as heirs apparent to the throne. Georges Cadoudal returned from England (June 3) to stir revolt among the Chouans.
The actual encounter with the St. Bernard Pass began on May 14. “We all proceeded along the goat paths, man and horse one by one,” Bourrienne recalled. “The artillery was dismounted, and the guns, put into excavated tree trunks, were drawn by ropes…. When we reached the summit … we seated ourselves on the snow and slid down.”39 Cavalrymen dismounted, for a slip of their inexperienced horses might have carried man and beast to death. On each day another division completed the passage; by May 20 the transit was accomplished, and the Army of the Reserve was safe in Italy.
Napoleon remained at Martigny—a pleasant halfway station between Lake Geneva and the pass—till he saw the last parcel of supplies dispatched. Then he rode to the base and the top; there he stopped to thank the monks for refreshing his troops; then he slid down the slope on his greatcoat, and joined his army at Aosta on May 21. Lannes had already overcome the Austrian detachments met on the road. On June 2 Napoleon entered Milan a second time as victor over its Austrian garrison; the Italian population welcomed him as before; the Cisalpine Republic was joyously restored. Having been converted from the Mohammedan religion, the conqueror called a convocation of the Milanese hierarchy, assured them of his fidelity to the Church, and told them that on his return to Paris he would make peace between France and the Church. Having so protected his rear, he was free to form in detail the strategy of his campaign.
Both commanders violated a prime principle of strategy—not to divide their available forces beyond possibility of quick reunion. Baron von Melas, stationed with his main army at Alessandria (between Milan and Genoa), left garrisons at Genoa, Savona, Gavi, Acqui, Turin, Tortona, and other points of possible French attack. His rear guard, moving back from Nice to join him, was harassed by 20,000 Frenchmen under Suchet and Masséna—who had escaped from Genoa. Of the 70,000 Austrians who had crossed the Apennines from Lombardy into Liguria, only 40,000 were now available to Melas for meeting Napoleon. Part of these he sent to recapture Piacenza as an indispensable avenue of escape to Mantua if his main army should be defeated. Napoleon also divided his forces perilously: 32,000 he left at Stradella to guard Piacenza; 9,000 at Tessino, 3,000 at Milan, 10,000 along the course of the Po and the Adda. He sacrificed the union of his army to the desire to close all roads of escape for Melas’ men.
His generals cooperated in saving this policy of impasse from leaving Napoleon unprepared for the main battle. On June 9 Lannes led 8,000 men out from Stradella, and encountered 18,000 Austrians making for Piacenza. In a costly engagement at Casteggio the French were beaten back, though Lannes, covered with blood, still fought in the van; but a fresh force of 6,000 French arrived in time to turn the defeat into a victory near Montebello. Two days later Napoleon was gladdened by the arrival, from Egypt, of one of his most beloved generals, Louis Desaix, “who perhaps equaled Moreau, Masséna, Kléber, and Lannes in military talents, but surpassed them all in the rare perfection of his character.”40 On June 13 Napoleon sent him south to Novi with 5,000 men, to check on a rumor that Melas and his men were escaping to Genoa, where a British fleet could have given them escape, or reinforcement with food and matériel. So Napoleon’s main army was still further diminished when, on June 14, the crucial battle came.
It was Melas who chose the spot. Near Marengo, a village on the Alessandria-Piacenza road, he observed an immense plain on which he could bring into united action the 35,000 men still available to him, and their two hundred pieces of artillery. However, when Napoleon reached this plain (June 13), he found no evidence that Melas was planning to venture out of Alessandria. He left at Marengo two divisions under General Victor, and one under Lannes, with Murat’s cavalry and only twenty-four cannon. He himself turned with his Consular Guard toward Voghera, where he had arranged to meet his staff officers from his scattered armies. When he came to the Scrivia he found it so swollen by spring floods that he postponed his passage, and slept at Torre di Garofolo. It was a lucky delay; if he had gone on to Voghera he might never have reached Marengo in time to give the order that saved the day.
Early on June 14 Melas ordered his army to advance upon Marengo plain, and to fight its way through to Piacenza. Thirty thousand men surprised the 20,000 of Victor, Lannes, and Moreau; the French, despite their usual heroism, fell back before a decimating artillery barrage. Napoleon, awakened at Garofolo by the sound of distant cannon, sent a courier to call Desaix back from Novi; he himself rushed to Marengo. There the 800 grenadiers of his Guard plunged into the battle, but could not stop the Austrians; the French continued their retreat to San Giuliano. Melas, anxious to reassure the Emperor, sent a message to Vienna announcing victory. The same report was spread about Paris, to the consternation of the populace and the joy of the royalists.
They reckoned without Desaix. He too, on the road to Novi, heard the rumble of cannon. He turned back his 5,000 men at once, followed the sound, marched rapidly, reached San Giuliano by 3 P.M., and found his brother generals advising Napoleon to further retreat. Desaix protested; they told him, “The battle is lost”; he replied: “Yes, the battle is lost, but it is only three o’clock; there is time to win another.”41 They yielded; Napoleon organized a new line of attack, and rode among the troops to restore their spirit. Desaix led the action, exposed himself, was shot and fell from his horse; dying, he bade his next in command, “Conceal my death; it might dishearten the troops”;42 on the contrary, having learned of it, they rushed ahead, shouting that they would avenge their leader. Even so, they encountered almost immovable resistance. Seeing this, Napoleon sent word to Kellermann to go to the rescue with the full force of his cavalry. Kellermann and his men fell upon the flank of the Austrians with a wild fury that cut it in two; 2,000 of them surrendered; General von Zach, commanding in place of the absent Melas, was taken prisoner, and delivered his sword to Napoleon. Melas, summoned from Alessandria, came too late to affect the result; he returned to his headquarters brokenhearted.
Napoleon could not quite rejoice. He bore as a deep personal loss the death of the devoted Desaix; and many other officers were among the 6,000 Frenchmen who lay dead on Marengo plain. It was no comfort that 8,000 Austrians had died there on that day; these were a smaller percentage of the Austrians engaged than were the dead among the French.*
On June 15 Baron von Melas, seeing that the remnants of his armies were in no condition to renew the battle, asked Napoleon for truce terms. These were severe: the Austrians were to evacuate all Liguria and Piedmont, and all Lombardy west of the Mincio and Mantua; they were to turn over to the French all the fortresses in the surrendered regions; the Austrian troops were to be allowed to leave with all the honors of war, but only in proportion as the fortresses were placed in French hands. Melas bowed to these conditions, which saw all his joyous conquests annulled in one day, and sent to the Austrian Emperor a petition to confirm the agreement. On June 16 Napoleon sent his own message to Francis II, asking for a peace on all fronts. Some paragraphs of that letter could have come from a
pacifist:
There has been war between us. Thousands of Austrians and Frenchmen are no more…. Thousands of bereaved families are praying that fathers, husbands, and sons may return! … The evil is irremediable; may it at least teach us to avoid anything that might prolong hostilities! The prospect so affects my heart that I refuse to accept the failures of my previous advances, and take it upon myself to write again to Your Majesy, to entreat you to put an end to the misfortunes of Europe.
On the battlefield of Marengo, surrounded by sufferers, and in the midst of 15,000 dead bodies, I implore Your Majesty to hear the cry of humanity, and not to allow the offspring of two brave and powerful nations to slaughter one another for the sake of interests of which they know nothing….
The recent campaign is sufficient proof that it is not France which threatens the balance of power. Every day shows that it is England—England, who has so monopolized world commerce and the empire of the seas that she can withstand singlehanded the united fleets of Russia, Sweden, Denmark, France, Spain, and Holland….
The proposals that I think it right to make to Your Majesty are these:
(1) That the armistice be extended to all armies.
(2) That negotiators be sent by both sides, either secretly or publicly, as Your Majesty prefers, to some place between the Mincio and the Chiese, to agree upon means of guaranteeing the lesser powers, and to elucidate those articles of the Treaty of Campoformio which experience has shown to be ambiguous….43
The Emperor was not visibly impressed. Obviously the young conqueror wished to consolidate his gains, but there was no indication that respect for human life had ever interfered with his campaigns. Probably neither the Consul nor the Emperor stopped to ask what either the French or the Austrians were doing in Italy. Baron von Thugut settled the matter by signing (June 20, 1800) a treaty by which England granted Austria a new subsidy on her pledge to sign no separate peace.44