The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Vol. 1-4). William Milligan Sloane
and again, according to the memoirs of General Landrieux, Augereau's fire and dash prevailed to have the battle joined, while Bonaparte withdrew in a sulky pet. Whatever the truth, the attack was made. Before evening the sharp struggle was over. This affair of August fifth was always referred to by Napoleon as the true battle of Castiglione. Two days later Wurmser, who had fondly hoped that Mantua was his and the French in full retreat, brought up a straggling line of twenty-five thousand men. These were easily routed by Bonaparte in a series of clever manœuvers on the seventh and without much bloodshed. That night saw the utter rout of Wurmser and the Austrians in full retreat towards the Tyrol. Had the great risk of these few days been determined against the French, who would have been to blame but the madcap Augereau? As things turned out, whose was the glory but Bonaparte's? This panic, at least, appears to have been carefully calculated and cleverly feigned. A week later the French lines were again closed before Mantua, which, though not invested, was at least blockaded. The fortress had been revictualed and regarrisoned, while the besiegers had been compelled to destroy their own train to prevent its capture by the enemy. But France was mistress of the Mincio and the Adige, with a total loss of about ten thousand men; while Austria had lost about twenty thousand, and was standing by a forlorn hope. Both armies were exhausted, as yet the great stake was not won. If Austrian warfare was utterly discredited, the irregular, disjointed, uncertain French warfare of the past week had not enhanced French glory.
In the shortest possible period new troops were under way both from Vienna and from Paris. With those from the Austrian capital came positive instructions to Wurmser that in any case he should again advance toward Mantua. In obedience to this command of the Emperor, a division of the army, twenty thousand strong, under Davidowich, was left in the Austrian Tyrol at Roveredo, near Trent, to stop the advance of the French, who, with their reinforcements, were pressing forward through the pass as if to join Moreau, who had successfully advanced and would be in Munich. The main Austrian army, under Wurmser, moved over into the valley of the Brenta, and pushed on toward Mantua. If he should decide to turn westward against the French, the reserve could descend the valley of the Adige to his assistance. But Bonaparte did not intend either to pass by and leave open the way southward, or to be shut up in the valleys of the Tyrol. With a quick surge, Davidowich was first defeated at Roveredo, and then driven far behind Trent into the higher valleys. The victor delayed only to issue a proclamation giving autonomy to the Tyrolese, under French protection; but the ungrateful peasantry preferred the autonomy they already enjoyed, and fortified their precipitous passes for resistance. Turning quickly into the Brenta valley, Bonaparte, by a forced march of two days, overtook Wurmser's advance-guard unawares at Primolano, and captured it; the next day, September eighth, Masséna cut in two and completely defeated the main army at Bassano. Part of those who escaped retreated into Friuli, toward Vienna. There was nothing left for the men under Wurmser's personal command but to throw themselves, if possible, into Mantua. With these, some sixteen thousand men in all, the veteran general forced a way, by a series of most brilliant movements, past the flank of the blockading French lines, where he made a gallant stand first at St. Georges and then at Favorita. But he was driven from both positions and forced to find a refuge in the famous fortress.
The lightning-like rapidity of these operations completed the demoralization of the Austrian troops. The fortified defiles and cliffs of the Tyrol fell before the French attacks as easily as their breastworks in the plains. Wurmser had twenty-six thousand men in Mantua; but from fear and fever half of them were in the hospitals.
Meanwhile, disaster had overtaken the French arms in the North. Jourdan had crossed the Rhine at Düsseldorf, as Moreau had at Kehl. They had each about seventy-five thousand men, while the army of the Austrian archduke Charles had been reduced by Wurmser's departure for Italy to a number far less. According to the plan of the Directory, these two French armies were to advance on parallel lines south of the neutral zone through Germany, and to join Bonaparte across the Tyrol for the advance to Vienna. Moreau defeated the Austrians, and reached Munich without a check. Würtemberg and Baden made peace with the French republic on its own terms, and Saxony, recalling its forces from the coalition, declared itself neutral, as Prussia had done. But Jourdan, having seized Würzburg and won the battle of Altenkirchen, was met on his way to Ratisbon and Neumarkt, and thoroughly beaten, by the same young Archduke Charles, who had acquired experience and learned wisdom in his defeat by Moreau. Both French armies were thus thrown back upon the Rhine, and there could be no further hope of carrying out the original plan. In this way the attention of the world was concentrated on the victorious Army of Italy and its young commander, whose importance was further enhanced by the fulfilment of his own prophecy that the fate of Europe hung on the decision of his campaign in Italy.
This was not an empty boast. The stubborn determination of Francis to reconquer Italy had given new courage to the conservatives of central and southern Italy, who did not conceal their resolve nor their preparations to annihilate French power and influence within the borders of Modena, Rome, and Naples. Bonaparte was thus enabled to take another momentous step in emancipating himself from the Directory. So far he had asserted and confirmed his military and diplomatic independence: he now boldly assumed political supremacy. Though at times he expressed a low opinion of the Italians, yet he recognized their higher qualities. In Modena, Reggio, Bologna, and Ferrara were thousands who understood the significance of the dawning epoch. To these he paid visits and to their leaders he gave, during the short interval at his command, hearty approbation for their resistance to the reactionaries. Forestalling the Directory, he declared Modena and Reggio to be under French protection. This daring procedure assured his ascendancy with all Italian liberals and rendered sure and certain the prosecution of his campaign to the bitter end. Bologna and Ferrara, having surrendered to French protection on June twenty-third, were soon in open revolt against the papal influences which were reviving: and even in distant Naples the liberals took heart once more.
The glory of the imperial arms having been brilliantly vindicated in the north, the government at Vienna naturally thought it not impossible to relieve Mantua, and restore Austrian prestige in the south. Every effort was to be made. The Tyrolese sharp-shooters were called out, large numbers of raw recruits were gathered in Illyria and Croatia, while a few veterans were taken from the forces of the Archduke Charles. When these were collected, Quasdanowich found himself in Friuli with upward of thirty-five thousand men, while Davidowich in the Tyrol had eighteen thousand. The chief command of both armies was assigned to Alvinczy, an experienced but aged general, one of the same stock as that to which Wurmser belonged. About October first, the two forces moved simultaneously, one down the Adige, the other down the Piave, to unite before Vicenza, and proceed to the relief of Mantua. For the fourth time Bonaparte was to fight the same battle, on the same field, for the same object, with the same inferiority of numbers. His situation, however was a trifle better than it had been, for several veteran battalions which were no longer needed in Vendée had arrived from the Army of the West; his own soldiers were also well equipped and enthusiastic. He wrote to the Directory, on October first, that he had thirty thousand effectives; but he probably had more, for it is scarcely possible that, as he said, eighteen thousand were in the hospitals. The populations around and behind him were, moreover, losing faith in Austria, and growing well disposed toward France. Many of his garrisons were, therefore, called in; and deducting eight thousand men destined for the siege of Mantua, he still had an army of nearly forty thousand men wherewith to meet the Austrians. There was, of course, some disaffection among his generals. Augereau was vainglorious and bitter, Masséna felt that he had not received his due meed of praise for Bassano, and both had sympathizers even in the ranks. This was inevitable, considering Bonaparte's policy and system, and somewhat interfered with the efficiency of his work.
While the balance was thus on the whole in favor of the French, yet this fourth division of the campaign opened with disaster to them. In order to prevent the union of his enemy's two armies, Bonaparte ordered Vaubois, who had been left above Trent to guard the French conquests in the Tyrol, to attack Davidowich. The result was a rout, and Vaubois was compelled to abandon one strong position after another—first Trent, then Roveredo—until finally he felt able to make a stand on the right bank of the Adige at Rivoli, which commands the southern slopes of Monte Baldo. The other bank was in Austrian hands, and Davidowich could have debouched safely into the plain. This result was largely due to the clever mountain warfare of the Tyrolese militia. Meantime Masséna had moved from Bassano up the