Miliutin, iii. 37; Bentinck, Aug. 16, from the battle-field; Records: Italian States, vol. 58. His letter ends "I must apologise to your Lordship for the appearance of this despatch" (it is on thin Italian paper and almost illegible): "we" (i.e., Suvaroff's staff) "have had the misfortune to have had our baggage plundered by the Cossacks."
Every capable soldier saw the ruinous mischief of the Archduke's withdrawal. "Not only are all prospects of our making any progress in Switzerland at an end, but the chance of maintaining the position now occupied is extremely precarious. The jealousy and mistrust that exists between the Austrians and Russians is inconceivable. I shall not pretend to offer an opinion on what might be the most advantageous arrangement for the army of Switzerland, but it is certain that none can be so bad as that which at present exists." Colonel Crauford, English military envoy, Sept. 5, 1799; Records: Army of Switzerland, vol. 79. The subsequent Operations of Korsakoff are described in despatches of Colonel Ramsay and Lord Mulgrave, id. vol. 80, 81, Conversations with the Archduke Charles in those of Mr. Wickham, id. vol. 77.
The despatches of Colonel Clinton, English attaché with Suvaroff, are in singular contrast to the highly-coloured accounts of this retreat common in histories. Of the most critical part he only says: "On the 6th the army passed the Panix mountain, which the snow that had fallen during the last week had rendered dangerous, and several horses and mules were lost on the march." He expresses the poorest opinion of Suvaroff and his officers: "The Marshal is entirely worn out and incapable of any exertion: he will not suffer the subject of the indiscipline of his army to be mentioned to him. He is popular with his army because he puts no check whatever in its licentiousness. His honesty is now his only remaining good quality." Records: Army of Switzerland, vol. 80. The elaborate plan for Suvaroff's and Korsakoff's combined movements, made as if Switzerland had been an open country and Massena's army a flock of sheep, was constructed by the Austrian colonel Weyrother, the same person who subsequently planned the battle of Austerlitz. On learning the plan from Suvaroff, Lord Mulgrave, who was no great genius, wrote to London demonstrating its certain failure, and predicting almost exactly the events that took place.
Miot de Melito, ch. ix. Lucien Bonaparte, Révolution de Brumaire, p. 31.
Law of Feb. 17, 1800 (28 Pluviöse, viii.).
M. Thiers, Feb. 21, 1872.
Parl. Hist, xxxiv. 1198. Thugut, Briefe ii. 445.
Memorial du Dépôt de la Guerre, 1826, iv. 268. Bentinck's despatch, June 16; Records: Italian States, vol. 59.
Thugut, Briefe ii. 227, 281, 393; Minto's despatch, Sept. 24, 1800; Records: Austria, vol. 60. "The Emperor was in the act of receiving a considerable subsidy for a vigorous prosecution of the war at the very moment when he was clandestinely and in person making the most abject submission to the common enemy. Baron Thugut was all yesterday under the greatest uneasiness concerning the event which he had reason to apprehend, but which was not yet certain. He still retained, however, a slight hope, from the apparent impossibility of anyone's committing such an act of infamy and folly. I never saw him or any other man so affected as he was when he communicated this transaction to me to-day. I said that these fortresses being demanded as pledges of sincerity, the Emperor should have given on the same principle the arms and ammunition of the army. Baron Thugut added that after giving up the soldiers' muskets, the clothes would be required off their backs, and that if the Emperor took pains to acquaint the world that he would not defend his crown, there would not be wanting those who would take it from his head, and perhaps his head with it. He became so strongly affected that, in laying hold of my hand to express the strong concern he felt at the notion of having committed me and abused the confidence I had reposed in his counsels, he burst into tears and literally wept. I mention these details because they confirm the assurance that every part of these feeble measures has either been adopted against his opinion or executed surreptitiously and contrary to the directions he had given." After the final collapse of Austria, Minto writes of Thugut: "He never for a moment lost his presence of mind or his courage, nor ever bent to weak and unbecoming counsels. And perhaps this can be said of him alone in this whole empire." Jan. 3, 1801, id.
Martens, vii. 296.