The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Vol. 1-4). William Milligan Sloane
Milan as a conqueror. Two weeks elapsed, and again he set forth to reduce to his sway in less than a month the most of central Italy. Against an enemy now desperate and at bay his operations fell into four divisions, each resulting in an advance—the first, of nine days, against Wurmser and Quasdanowich; the second, of sixteen days, against Wurmser; the third, of twelve days, against Alvinczy; and the fourth, of thirty days, until he captured Mantua and opened the mountain passes to his army. Within fifteen days after beginning hostilities against the Pope, he forced him to sign the treaty of Tolentino; and within thirty-six days of their setting foot on the road from Mantua to Vienna, the French were at Leoben, distant only ninety miles from the Austrian capital, and dictating terms to the Empire. In the year between March twenty-seventh, 1796, and April seventh, 1797, Bonaparte humbled the most haughty dynasty in Europe, toppled the central European state system, and initiated the process which has given a predominance apparently final to Prussia, then considered but as a parvenu.
It is impossible to estimate the enormous sums of money which he exacted for the conduct of a war that he chose to say was carried on to emancipate Italy. The soldiers of his army were well clad, well fed, and well equipped from the day of their entry into Milan; the arrears of their pay were not only settled, but they were given license to prey on the country until a point was reached which seemed to jeopardize success, when common pillage was promptly stopped by the severest examples. The treasury of the Directory was not filled as were those of the conquering officers, but it was no longer empty. In short, France reached the apex of her revolutionary greatness; and as she was now the foremost power on the Continent, the shaky monarchies in neighboring lands were forced to consider again questions which in 1795 they had hoped were settled. As Bonaparte foresaw, the destinies of Europe had indeed hung on the fate of Italy.
Europe had grown accustomed to military surprises in the few preceding years. The armies of the French republic, fired by devotion to their principles and their nation, had accomplished marvels. But nothing in the least foreshadowing this had been wrought even by them. Then, as now, curiosity was inflamed, and the most careful study was expended in analyzing the process by which such miracles had been performed. The investigators and their readers were so overpowered by the spectacle and its results that they were prevented by a sort of awe-stricken credulity from recognizing the truth; and even yet the notion of a supernatural influence fighting on Bonaparte's side has not entirely disappeared. But the facts as we know them reveal cleverness dealing with incapacity, energy such as had not yet been seen fighting with languor, an embodied principle of great vitality warring with a lifeless, vanishing system. The consequences were startling, but logical; the details sound like a romance from the land of Eblis.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Conquest of Piedmont and the Milanese[67].
The Armies of Austria and Sardinia—Montenotte and Millesimo—Mondovi and Cherasco—Consequences of the Campaign—The Plains of Lombardy—The Crossing of the Po—Advance Toward Milan—Lodi—Retreat of the Austrians—Moral Effects of Lodi.
1796.
Victor Amadeus of Sardinia was not unaccustomed to the loss of territory in the north, because from immemorial times his house had relinquished picturesque but unfruitful lands beyond the Alps to gain fertile fields below them. It was a hard blow, to be sure, that Savoy, which gave name to his family, and Nice, with its beautiful and commanding site, should have been lost to his crown. But so far, in every general European convulsion, some substantial morsels had fallen to the lot of his predecessors, who had looked on Italy "as an artichoke to be eaten leaf by leaf"; and it was probable that a slice of Lombardy would be his own prize at the next pacification. He had spent his reign in strengthening his army, and as the foremost military power in Italy his young and vigorous people, with the help of Austria, were defending the passes into their territory. The road from their capital to Savona on the sea wound by Ceva and Millesimo over the main ridge of the Apennines, at the summit of which it was joined by the highway through Dego and Cairo leading southwestward from Milan through Alessandria. The Piedmontese, under Colli, were guarding the approach to their own capital; the Austrians, under Beaulieu, that to Milan. Collectively their numbers were somewhat greater than those of the French; but the two armies were separated.
Beaulieu began operations on April tenth by ordering an attack on the French division of Laharpe, which had been thrown forward to Voltri. The Austrians under Argenteau were to fall on its rear from Montenotte, a village to the north of Savona, with the idea of driving that wing of Bonaparte's army back along the shore road, on which it was hoped they would fall under the fire of Nelson's guns. Laharpe, however, retreated to Savona in perfect safety, for the English fleet was not near. Thereupon Bonaparte, suddenly revealing the new formation of his army in the north and south line, assumed the offensive. Argenteau, having been held temporarily in check by the desperate resistance of a handful of French soldiers under Colonel Rampon, was surprised and overwhelmed at Montenotte on the twelfth by a force much larger than his own. Next day Masséna and Augereau drove back toward Dego an Austrian division which had reached Millesimo on its way to join Colli; and on the fifteenth, at that place, Bonaparte himself destroyed the remnant of Argenteau's corps. On the sixteenth Beaulieu abandoned the mountains to make a stand at Acqui in the plain. Thus the whole Austrian force was not only driven back, but was entirely separated from the Piedmontese.
Bonaparte had a foolish plan in his pocket, which had been furnished by the Directory in a temporary reversion to official tradition, ordering him to advance into Lombardy, leaving behind the hostile Piedmontese on his left, and the uncertain Genoese on his right. He disregarded it, apparently without hesitation, and throwing his force northwestward toward Ceva, where the Piedmontese were posted, terrified them into a retreat. They were overtaken, however, at Mondovi on April twenty-second, and utterly routed, losing not only their best troops, but their field-pieces and baggage-train. Three days later Bonaparte pushed onward and occupied Cherasco, which was distant from Turin, the Piedmontese capital, but twenty-five miles by a short, easy, and now open road. On the twenty-seventh the Sardinians, isolated in a mountain amphitheater, and with no prospect of relief from their discomfited ally, made overtures for an armistice preliminary to peace. These were readily accepted by Bonaparte; and although he had no authorization from the government to perform such functions, he was defiantly careless of instructions in this as in every subsequent step he took. The negotiation was conducted with courtesy and firmness, on the basis of military honor, much to the surprise of the Piedmontese, who had expected to deal with a savage Jacobin. There was not even a word in Bonaparte's talk which recalled the republican severity; as has been noted, the word virtue did not pass his lips, his language was that of chivalry. He stipulated in kindly phrase for the surrender of Coni and Tortona, the famous "keys of the Alps," with other strongholds of minor importance, demanding also the right to cross and recross Piedmontese territory at will. The paper was completed and signed on the twenty-eighth. The troublesome question of civil authority to make a treaty was evaded by calling the arrangement a military convention. It was none the less binding by reason of its name. Indeed the idea was steadily expanded into a new policy, for just as pillage and rapine were ruthlessly repressed by the victorious commander, all agreements were made temporarily on a military basis, including those for indemnities. Salicetti was the commissioner of the Directory and there was no friction between him and Bonaparte. Both profited by a partnership in which opportunities for personal ventures were frequent, while the military chest was well supplied and remittances to Paris were kept just large enough to save the face and quiet the clamors of the Directory. Victor Amadeus being checkmated, Bonaparte was free to deal with Beaulieu.
Northern Italy.
Illustrating the Campaigns of 1796 and 1797.
This short campaign was in some respects insignificant, especially when compared as to numbers and results with what was to follow. But the names of Montenotte, Millesimo, Dego, Mondovi, and Cherasco were ever dear to Bonaparte, and stand in a high place on his greatest monument. The King of Sardinia was