The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, Vol II. Alfred Thayer Mahan
wiliness, an absolute secrecy as to the very existence of the forty thousand, known as the Army of Reserve, which he himself was to lead. The orders constituting this force were given the utmost publicity. Its headquarters were established at Dijon, and one of Bonaparte's most trusted subordinates was sent to command it. An appeal was made to discharged soldiers to join its ranks; some material of war and some conscripts, with a corps of officers, were assembled. There preparations stopped—or went on so feebly in comparison with the glowing boasts of the French journals, that hostile spies were entirely deceived. The Army of Reserve became the joke of Europe, while the scattered detachments that were to compose it were assembling at points separated, yet chosen with Bonaparte's consummate skill to permit rapid concentration when the hour came. To insure perfect secrecy, the correspondence of these different bodies was with him alone, not through the Ministry of War.
The campaign was opened by the Austrians in Italy. Mélas, with seventy thousand men, attacked Masséna along the chain of the Apennines. Difficulties of subsistence had forced the latter to disseminate his troops between Genoa and Nice. Through this necessarily thin line the Austrians broke on the 5th of April, and after several days of strenuous resistance, furthered by the facilities for defence offered by that mountainous region, Masséna was driven into Genoa. The left wing of his army under Suchet was forced back toward Nice, where it took position on the Var. On the 18th of April Masséna was definitively shut up in Genoa with eighteen thousand men, and so short of provisions that it became a matter of the utmost urgency to relieve him.
On April 25 Moreau began his movements, of a somewhat complicated character, but resulting in his whole army being safely across the Rhine on the first of May. Eighty thousand French troops were then drawn up between Bâle and Lake Constance in an east and west direction, threatening the left flank of the enemy, whose front was north and south, and in position to attack both their line of retreat and the immense depots whose protection embarrassed all the movements of the Austrians. On the 3d of May the latter were defeated at Engen, and their depot at Stokach was captured. On the 5th they were again beaten at Moesskirch, and on the 9th at Biberach, losing other large deposits of stores. General Kray then retired upon Ulm on the Danube, and the first act of Bonaparte's design was accomplished. It had not corresponded with the lines laid down by him, which were too adventurous to suit Moreau, nor was the result equal to his expectations; but the general strategic outcome was to check for the time any movements of the enemy in Germany, and enable Moreau to send the force needed to co-operate with Bonaparte in Italy. This started on the 13th of May, and was joined on the way by some detachments in Switzerland; the whole amounting to between fifteen and twenty thousand men. 11
On the 6th of May the first consul left Paris, having delayed to the last moment in order to keep up the illusions of the Austrian commander-in-chief in Italy. The crossing of the St. Bernard began on the 15th, and on the 20th the whole army had passed. On the 26th it issued in the plains of Piedmont; whence Bonaparte turned to the eastward, to insure his great object of throwing his force across the enemy's communications and taking from him all hope of regaining them without a battle. On the first of June he entered Milan.
Meanwhile Masséna's army, a prey to horrible famine, prolonged in Genoa a resistance which greatly contributed to the false position of the Austrians. Of these, twenty-five thousand were before Nice, thirty thousand before Genoa. Twenty thousand more had been lost by casualties since the campaign opened. Unwilling to relinquish his gains, Mélas waited too long to concentrate his scattered troops; and when at last he sent the necessary orders, Masséna was treating to evacuate Genoa. The Austrian officer on the spot, unwilling to lose the prize, postponed compliance until it was secured,—a delay fraught with serious results. On the 5th Genoa was given up, and the besiegers, leaving a garrison in the place, marched to join the commander-in-chief, who was gathering his forces around Alessandria. Meanwhile Bonaparte had crossed to the south side of the Po with half his army. On the 14th of June was fought the battle of Marengo. Anxious lest the foe might give him the slip, the first consul had spread his troops too widely; and the first events of the day were so far in favor of the Austrians that Mélas, who was seventy-six years old, left the field at two in the afternoon, certain of victory, to seek repose. An hour later the opportune arrival of General Desaix turned the scales, and Bonaparte remained conqueror on the ground, standing across the enemy's line of retreat. The following day Mélas signed a convention abandoning all northern Italy, as far as the Mincio, behind which the Austrians were to withdraw. All the fortified places were given up to France, including the hardly won Genoa. While awaiting the Emperor's answer to propositions of peace, sent by the First Consul, there was to be in Italy a suspension of arms, during which neither army should send detachments to Germany. On the 2d of July Bonaparte re-entered Paris in triumph, after an absence of less than two months.
Meantime Moreau, after learning the successful crossing of the St. Bernard, had resumed the offensive. Moving to the eastward, he crossed the Danube below Ulm with part of his force on the 19th of June, threatening Kray's communications with Bohemia. A partial encounter on that day left five thousand prisoners in the hands of the French, who maintained the position they had gained. The same night Kray evacuated Ulm, moving rapidly off by a road to the northward and so effecting his escape. Moreau, unable to intercept, followed for some distance and then stopped a pursuit which promised small results. He was still ignorant of the battle of Marengo, of which the Austrians now had news; and the latter, while concealing the victory, announced to him the suspension of arms, and suggested a similar arrangement in Germany. Convinced that events favorable to France lay behind this proposition, Moreau would come to no agreement; but on the contrary decided at once to secure for his victorious army the most advantageous conditions with which to enter upon negotiations. Closely investing the important fortresses of Ulm and Ingolstadt on the Danube, with part of his force, he recrossed the river with the remainder and advanced into Bavaria. On the 28th of June he entered Munich; and near there was signed on the 15th of July an armistice, closely corresponding with that concluded by Bonaparte in Italy just one month before. The two belligerents retired behind appointed lines, not again to engage in hostilities without twelve days' notice. During this suspension of arms the blockaded Austrian fortresses should receive every fortnight provisions proportioned to their consumption, so that in case of renewed operations they would be in the same condition as when the truce began. The two great French armies were now encamped in the fertile plains of Italy and Germany, living in quiet off districts external to France, which was thus relieved of the larger part of their expense.
The effect of this short and brilliant campaign of unbroken French successes was to dispose to peace both members of the coalition. Neither, however, was yet reduced to negotiate apart from its ally. On the very day the news of Marengo was received at Vienna, but before the last reverses in Germany, Austria had renewed her engagements with Great Britain, both powers stipulating not to treat singly. The first consul, on the other hand, was distinctly opposed to joint discussions, his constant policy in the cabinet as in the field being to separate his opponents. As Austria's great need was to gain time, she sent to Paris an envoy empowered to exchange views with the French government but to conclude nothing. The emperor also intimated his wish for a general pacification, and on the 9th of August the British minister at Vienna notified to that court the willingness of his own to enter into negotiations for a general peace.
With this began an encounter of wits, in which Bonaparte showed himself as astute at a bargain as he was wily in the field. Austria, if not given too much time, was at his mercy; but Great Britain held over him a like advantage in her control of the sea, which was strangling the colonial empire he passionately wished to restore. Haïti had escaped from all but nominal control; Martinique, the gem of the Antilles, was in British hands; Malta and Egypt, the trophies of his own enterprise, were slowly but surely expiring. For these he too needed time; for with it there was good prospect of soon playing a card which should reverse, or at least seriously modify, the state of the game, by bringing Russia and the Baltic navies into the combination against Great Britain. In this support, and in the extremity to which he might reduce Austria, lay his only chances to check the great opponent of France; for, while almost supreme on the Continent, he could not from the coast project his power beyond the range of a cannon's ball. His correspondence throughout this period abounds with instructions and exhortations to fit out the fleets, to take the sea, to relieve Malta and Egypt, to seize Sardinia by an expedition
Thiers, Cons. et Empire, vol. i., p. 332.