MILITARY AFFAIRS ON THE CONTINENT.
During this year France had three objects in contemplation: an invasion of Germany, another of Italy, and the subjugation of La Vendée.
In Germany the Austrian army was headed by the Archduke Charles of Austria, with whom was joined the veteran Wurmser. Under them were 175,000 troops, of which 40,000 were the finest cavalry in Europe. They defended the entrance of Germany on the side of the Rhine; and Jourdan and Moreau were despatched with 150,000 men against them; the former approaching the empire by the Upper Rhine, and the latter directing his course through Suabia. At first the French were eminently successful. They drove all the Austrian corps back from the frontiers; deprived them of their magazines, cannon, and arms; and threatened the hereditary states. Within six weeks the Austrians were reduced by a third of their original force—partly by loss and partly by drafts out of it for the service in Italy; and the French armies covered the country from Stutgard to the Lake of Constance, a line of one hundred and fifty miles. But at this point their successes ended. Perceiving their error in thus extending their front, the Archduke Charles narrowed his own, and gradually bringing nearer to a converging point the separate forces of Wartensleben and Wurmser, he slowly retreated; watching his opportunity for striking a blow. At length, when Moreau had captured Ulm and Donawert, on the Danube, and was preparing to cross the river Leek into Bavaria, and thence to move onward to the defiles of the Tyrol, the Archduke Charles fell upon Jourdan at Amberg, and completely defeated him. This occurred on the 24th of August; and on the 3rd of September the archduke overtook the republicans again at Maine, where he once more thinned their ranks. Still pressing on their rear, the republicans fell into a miserably disorganized state; and on the 16th of September the archduke came up with them at Aschaffenburg, and drove them with terrible loss to the opposite side of the Rhine. In the whole, Jourdan lost 20,000 men, and nearly all his artillery and baggage. Moreau was too far off to render him any assistance; and he could neither advance nor maintain himself where he was without him. Under these circumstances he commenced his retreat with 70,000 men, followed by the imperial general, Latour, who had not above 24,000 men. Latour, pressing on Moreau’s rear too closely, suffered a defeat; and the French reached the banks of the Rhine in safety. Here, however, the Archduke Charles was ready to meet them with a force equal, or, perhaps, superior to their own. Moreau was compelled to fight two battles, in both of which he was defeated; and nothing but a violent storm saved the wreck of his army. This, and the pitchy darkness of the night, prevented the Austrian cavalry from acting, and enabled him to get his broken columns on the safe side of the Rhine. The archduke Charles had therefore saved Germany.
In Italy the republicans were more successful. The command of the army there was given to Napoleon Buonaparte; and he arrived at his head-quarters at Nice on the 26th of March. His army, which was in a wretched state of discipline, amounted to about 50,000 men, while that of the Austrians and Piedmontese amounted to about 60,000 men. The imperial army was under the command of Beaulieu, and was stretched along the ridge of the Apennines, at the foot of which the French were advancing. On leading his troops to the Alpine frontier, Napoleon made the first of his remarkable appeals to his troops:—“Soldiers” said he, “you are almost naked and half-starved; the government owes you much, and can give you nothing. Your patience and courage in the midst of these rocks are admirable; but they reflect no honour on your arms. I am about to conduct you into the finest plains on earth; fertile provinces, opulent cities, will soon be in your power; there you will find rich harvests, honour, and glory. Soldiers of Italy, will you fail in courage?” Without waiting to be attacked Beaulieu descended from the heights, and met the advanced guard of the French at Voltri, near Genoa, which he repulsed. D’Argenteau, who commanded Beaulieu’s centre, at the same time traversed the mountains of Montenotte, in the hope of descending upon Savona, and thus take the French in flank; but, when more than half of his march was completed, he met a French division of 1500 men, who threw themselves into the redoubt of Montelegino, and thus shut up the road of Montenotte. D’Argenteau attacked this post, but he was unable to take it; and in the meantime Buonaparte marched round by an unguarded road to his rear, and attacked and defeated him. This was the first of a series of victories on the part of the French. Before the end of April, besides this battle of Montenotte, Buonaparte had gained those of Millesimo, Dego, and Mondovi, by which he effected a separation of the Austrian and Piedmontese armies. The King of Sardinia was so discouraged by his losses, that to procure a cessation of hostilities he delivered up some of his principal fortresses to the French; and a peace was shortly concluded, by which he ceded the Duchy of Savoy and the county of Nice to the conquerors for ever. The reply of Buonaparte to his negociators was characteristic. He remarked:—“It is for me to impose conditions: unless you obey, my batteries are erected by to-morrow, and Turin is in flames.” Having imposed his conditions on the king of Sardinia, Buonaparte, on the 10th of May, advanced to Lodi, where he encountered and, after a fierce conflict, defeated Beaulieu. It was after gaining this victory, as he himself said many years afterwards, that the idea first flashed across his mind that he might become a great actor in the world’s drama. In order to obtain the ends of his ambition, Buonaparte now stretched every nerve. In five days after the action at Lodi he made his triumphant entry into Milan; and all Lombardy was at the feet of the conqueror, except Mantua. At Milan the French had many converts and partisans, and Napoleon received an enthusiastic welcome; but, notwithstanding all this, he levied immense contributions, not only on the Milanese, but on Parma and Modena, as the price of an armistice. Thus the Milanese were compelled to contribute 20,000,000 francs; the Duke of Parma was made to pay 1,500,000 francs; and the Duke of Modena 6,000,000 francs in cash, 2,000,000 more in provisions, cattle, horses, etc., and to deliver up some of his choicest paintings. This regular plunder was called for by the five directors at the Luxembourg, who were perpetually demanding of Napoleon, money, more money. How effectually he responded to their demand is shown by his own statements; for he says, that besides clothing, feeding, and paying the army during the first Italian campaign, he remitted 50,000,000 of francs to the Luxembourg. But these harsh terms of the French fraternisation produced their fruits in an extensive revolt in Lombardy; and at Pavia, whither Napoleon was compelled to return, it could only be quelled by energetic measures. With the artillery he battered down the gates and cleared the streets; after which he gave up the city to plunder, debauchery, and every species of violence and crime which his republican army were capable of committing.
Napoleon advancing southward now overran Tuscany, where he showed how the French directory respected neutrality by taking possession of Leghorn, and seizing all the goods belonging to the English, Portuguese, and others, in the warehouses of that great free port. Subsequently he plundered the states and possessions of the pope; and when Pius VI. dispatched envoys to sue for terms, he granted an armistice only at the following price:—15,000,000 francs in cash, and 6,000,000 in provisions, horses, &c.; a number of paintings, ancient statues and vases, and five hundred manuscripts from the Vatican; the cession of the provinces of Bologna and Ferrara; the cession of the port and citadel of Ancona; and the closing of all the papal ports to the English and their allies. The spoiler was recalled from this work by intelligence that old Wurmser was marching against him from the Valley of Trento, with an army consisting of nearly 60,000 men. Napoleon was besieging Mantua when he heard of the approach of the German veteran; and drawing his army from thence, he hastened to meet his enemy. Unhappily for Wurmser’s success, he had divided his forces; while he himself moved with the larger portion along the eastern shore of the lake of Guarda, he sent Quosnadowich with the other division along the western bank. This was a fatal error. Buonaparte instantly threw the entire weight of his concentrated forces upon Quosnadowich and crushed him at Lonato; and then sought Wurmser with a force nearly double to that of the Austrians; and in two battles, fought on the 3rd and 5th of August, near Castiglione, defeated him, and drove him back into the Tyrol, with the loss of his artillery and several thousand men. But though defeated, the Austrian general was not subdued. Striking across the mountains to the east of Trento, and descending the valley of the Brente, the old general again entered Italy, and advanced to Bassano. Here he was joined by some reinforcements from Carinthia; but Napoleon followed hard after him, and he was compelled to throw himself into the fortress of Mantua. It was on the 14th of September that Wurmser shut himself up in Mantua; and shortly after two fresh Austrian armies, raised chiefly through another subsidy from England, descended into Italy; one of which, under Marshal Alvinzi, descended from Carinthia upon Belluno, and the other, under Davidowich, moved down from the Tyrol. Had these forces been united they would scarcely have been a match for Buonaparte, whence there cannot be any wonder that the result was disastrous to the Austrian arms. Taking advantage of this error, Napoleon, with the mass of his forces, rushed to meet Alvinzi; and after a series of battles, in which the French suffered great loss, he finally succeeded in defeating the Austrian general at Areola. Alvinzi made his retreat upon Vicenza and Bassano; and on the same day that he commenced this retreat on the left side of the Adige, Davidowich came down on the right side of that river, and entered the plains between Pescheira and Verona. His defeat was inevitable: Napoleon turned against him with forces flushed with victory; and he was driven back to Ala, Reverodo, and the steep hills that hang over the pass of the Tyrol. This action concluded what has been aptly called “the third Italian campaign of the year 1796.”