Napoleon as a General, vol. 1

5 August 1796

Battle of Castiglione

MANTUA. WURMSER'S ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE IT.

at Baitella ; Serurier at Quinzanello. In these posi tions the army halted for the day. On the 27th, Napoleon, arriving at Soncino, rejoined it, and advanced early in the morning of the 28th to the Chiese, his van- guard moving beyond it as far as Lonato ; this latter and a demi-brigade sent to Salo were to lead the enemy to suppose that Napoleon was turning northwards round Lake Guarda towards the Tyrol ; and for this purpose also the right wing, under Serurier, was left that day at Ghedi. Not till the 29th did Serurier reach the Chiese at Mezanno ; Augereau crossed this river and arrived at Desenzano ; Massena was at Montechiaro ; Kilmaine marched to Castiglione. On the 30th the entire force started at two o'clock in the morning to force the passage of the Mincio at Borghetto. Kilmaine was sent thither direct, the other corps were stationed five to eight miles from it in readiness. Napoleon himself accompanied the vanguard.

MANTUA. WURMSER'S ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE IT.

advance-guard to Goito and ordering one corps to cross at Borghetto. On the 2nd he commenced his advance across the Mincio at Goito. On the same day Napoleon, who duringthepreceding evening had himself arrived in Brescia, recalled Augereau thence to Montechiaro ; the divisions of Sauret (now under the command of Guieu, Sauret having been wounded) and Despinoy advanced upon Salo and Gavardo, in order to drive Quosdanovich still further back. Massena collected his troops as a general reserve at Lonato and Ponte San Marco ; one of his corps had been observing the Mincio and had then fallen back before Wiirmser as far as Castiglione, which latter position it now received orders to hold. But after a slight resistance it allowed itself to be driven from it by the vanguard of Wurmser's forces, whereupon Napoleon immediately cashiered its commander before his whole corps.

MANTUA. WURMSER'S ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE IT.

On the opposite front, that is against Wiirmser, Augereau had been set in motion at two o'clock in the morning towards Castiglione ; he drove Wurmser's vanguard out of this town and forced it back as far as Solferino, where Wiirmser himself had taken up his position ; Augereau's attacks upon this latter were continued until the evening, but without success. In the evening, Napoleon himself

MANTUA. WURMSER'S ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE IT.

1 Jomini, Hist. crit. des camp, de F. II. 468, 4th Edit. J To the Directory, Castiglione, 6th August.

14–15 January 1797

Battle of Rivoli

MANTUA. WURMSER'S ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE IT.

And here we are confronted by an entirely new develop- ment in Napoleon. Although he had long looked forward to this attack, yet now it had come he seemed for the moment extremely uneasy and inclined to be alarmed at his situation. It is true he did not yet order the siege of Mantua to be suspended, but all the baggage, all the vehicles and State property in the rear of the army were sent back to Milan, and the citadel of this town was ordered to be placed in a state of defence. To Serurier he wrote : " Perhaps we shall recover ourselves ; still, affairs force me to take serious measures to secure a retreat." 1 Neither this "perhaps" nor any mention of a probable retreat shall we ever again find mentioned by Napoleon. The orders to Augereau were immediately countermanded, and he was ordered to retreat to Roverbella and Villafranca. The next day Napoleon wrote to him: " The following is the unfortunate position of our army. The enemy have broken through our line in three places, they are masters of La Corona and Rivoli, two important points. Massena and Joubert 2 have been compelled to yield to superior forces, Sauret has evacuated Salo and begun his retreat to Desen- zano, and the enemy has captured Brescia and the bridge of San Marco. You see that our communications with Milan and Verona are cut off." 3

MANTUA. WURMSER'S ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE IT.

2 Brig.-Gen. under Massena. He was at Rivoli.

MANTUA. WURMSER'S ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE IT.

After a few changes in the commanders, the position of the French army at the end of August was the following : the division of Sahugnet, 8000 men, was investing Mantua, which had received some reinforcements and now con- tained 17,000 men (of whom, however, 4000 were sick) ; Augereau with gooo men was at Verona ; Massena with 13,000 at Rivoli ; Vaubois with 11,000 at Storo, to the west of Lake Guarda. On the 31st August Napoleon wrote from Brescia to Moreau, the commander-in-chief of the army of Germany, that they were now in a position to act in concert ; he was going to start for Trent with his army on the 2nd September.

MANTUA. ALVINTZY'S ATTEMPTS TO RELIEVE IT.

On the 15th one more encounter took place before Rivoli, for both Joubert and Alvintzy were advancing, the latter in order thereby to relieve his isolated first column and also to free Provera. But he was soon forced to fall back, and Joubert, noticing this, ordered his wings to be turned, while keeping the centre engaged. The Austrian soldiers, having for some days past suffered from want of provisions and ammunition, and being disheartened by their defeat the day before, fell back in disorder, and left a large number of prisoners in Joubert's hands. Altogether these two days at Rivoli, the 14th and 15th, gave to the French 13,000 prisoners of war.

21 July 1798

Battle of the Pyramids

EGYPT.

On the 21st he continued his march up the Nile, and in sight of Cairo met the main force of the Mamalukes, near Embabeh, with its left wing resting on the Pyramids, in position for the defence of the capital. The French army formed in the same order of battle as at Schebreket, the divisions being posted chequer-wise in large squares, sup- porting each other. But Napoleon, being now acquainted with the effectiveness of this formation, and also with the enemy's mode of attack, did not intend merely to await their attack, but to advance as well. In advancing he brought his right wing more and more forward, so as to force the enemy from his line of retreat and to hem him in with his back to the Nile. A great cavalry charge of the Mamalukes' left wing against the turning divisions of , Desaix and Reynier having failed on account of the heavy fire of the latter, their right wing in the entrenched camp of Embabeh was now attacked by Bon and Vial. This camp was taken by storm, and the greater portion of its

SYRIA.

Napoleon found Egypt on the whole in a peaceful state. Dugua had managed to maintain order and to nip a few attempts at revolt in the bud. Desaix had meanwhile traversed Upper Egypt, and had arrived at Assuan on the cataracts of the Nile on the 1st February, 1799, forcing Murad Bey back into ^Ethiopia (the Soudan). This latter chief now retired into the desert, and numerous incursions of the Arabs into the Nile valley from the desert on both sides of the stream compelled Desaix's troops to make incessant marches and counter-marches. Murad even attempted in the beginning of July to reach Cairo by advancing through the province of Fayoum ; but Napoleon, informed of this plan by Desaix, sent Murat to meet him, and Murad immediately fell back into the desert, but pushed forward at once again towards Gizeh. Murat followed him, and Napoleon sent a small detachment towards the Pyramids on July 14th to reconnoitre. He was intending to join this detachment himself, when he received news from Marmont that a Turkish fleet, apparently with land forces on board, had appeared in the roadstead of Aboukir.

SYRIA.

He now determined to evacuate the whole of Upper Egypt and to bring up Desaix to Cairo, whilst he himself would go to meet the invading army, as soon as he was convinced that the object of the fleet was to land troops to any serious extent. For the present he sent orders to Desaix to move towards Benissuof. Napoleon himself proceeded on the morning of the 15th to the Pyramids of Gizeh, but Murad had already begun his retreat, and only a few shots were exchanged with his skirmishers. But now fresh news arrived from Marmont, announcing a reinforcement of the hostile fleet by some twenty ships, and reporting a landing of troops as imminent. With characteristic rapidity of resolve, Napoleon now formed the 1 Spirit of Modern Strategy, 209.

14 June 1800

Battle of Marengo

THE BEGINNING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF ITALY.

1 Thus Wellington's Talavera campaign cannot be for one moment compared with that of Vitoria, which was as brilliant as Napoleon's Marengo campaign. On the other hand, Marlborough's first great campaign, 1704, was assuredly his greatest master-piece. The strategy of this was entirely due to the English commander, although German authors, probably through ignorance, habitually ignore this fact.— Ed.

MARENGO.

whether Frederick, had the venture of Kolin succeeded, might not have been led to undertake as stupendous enterprises as Napoleon was ; or whether this latter, had Marengo been a defeat, would not have been taught moderation ? As a general, Frederick, after Kolin, nar- rowed his aims ; to him that battle may have appeared a blot on his fame, but I believe that defeat had at least as much to do with the enduring prosperity of the state he ruled as his most brilliant victories. Napoleon reached the highest summit of military glory, but we may possibly perceive in the victory of Marengo the source of those defeats, which later laid the edifice of Napoleon's empire of the world in the dust.

MARENGO.

On the ioth June Ott retreated behind the Scrivia, and Melas' first columns arrived in Alessandria. Napoleon's troops remained on the whole stationary, but Murat and Boudet were brought a little nearer in ; Loison, however, remained at Cremona and Piacenza, and his 6000 men were not destined to take part in the battle of Marengo. On the nth Desaix, having returned from Egypt by Napoleon's orders, arrived in the headquarters at Stradella, and Napoleon immediately gave him the command of the divisions, of Monnier and Boudet. On this day the French completed their concentration between Casteggio and Voghera, and on the morning of the 12th Napoleon started on his continued advance ; in the evening of this day his troops stood in the following positions : Lannes at Castelnuovo, Desaix at Pontecurone, Murat in advance towards Tortona, Victor pushing forward in the same direction, forming the left wing. By the 12th Melas also had collected his army near Alessandria ; moreover, Ott retreated at nightfall behind the Bormida, leaving only a rear-guard at Marengo.

MARENGO.

This was done at Marengo, and therefore the great critic of those times says : 4 " These events were the natural outcome of the cleverly conceived plan of cam- paign, namely, to attack the enemy's lines of communica- tions, without exposing one's own. Had Bonaparte been beaten at Marengo, we do not believe that, as many have maintained, he would, shut in as he was within narrow limits, have of necessity been annihilated." 5 It cannot be denied that his line of retreat on the road to Stradella and then across the Po was perfectly open, and the same circumstance, which had made him appear too weak on the field of Marengo, viz., the wide dispersion of his force of troops, would then have allowed him to resume the fight with fresh troops. Indeed, he himself speaks