Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815

by H. Morse Stephens

Armistice of Cherasco. April 28, 1796.

Reubell, in his conversation with the Prussian ambassador at Paris, openly declared that the chief military effort of France in 1796 was to be made in Italy. Hitherto the Army of Italy had been overshadowed by the operations of the armies engaged upon the Rhine; but the Directory now desired to attack Austria in a vital place. Upon the Rhine they were in reality waging war with the Empire and not with Austria. Mayence, for instance, was the capital of an Elector, not an Austrian city, and blows struck in that quarter affected the Empire and the petty princes of the Empire far more than they did Austria. But in Italy the House of Austria owned an important possession in the Milanese. Between the Milanese and the French Army of Italy was Piedmont, the principal state of the King of Sardinia. Victor Amadeus III. of Sardinia was the only petty monarch in Europe who had not attempted to make peace with the French Republic. In his resentment at the loss of Savoy and Nice he had thrown himself into the arms of Austria, and had borrowed an Austrian general, Colli, to command his small but well equipped army. This was the situation when Napoleon Bonaparte, who had been nominated to the command of the Army of Italy by the Directory, on the proposition of Barras, to whom he had rendered such signal service on 13th Vendémiaire, arrived to take up his new command on the 27th of March 1796. He understood the policy of the Directory, and determined to crush the King of Sardinia first, in order to be free to attack the Austrians in the Milanese. He therefore turned the Maritime Alps and separated the Austrian from the Sardinian army. The rapidity of his success was such as to surprise the Directors. After turning the Alps Bonaparte struck north and defeated the Sardinians at Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego on the 12th, 13th, and 15th April, stormed their camp at Ceva on 16th April, and finally defeated them at Mondovi on 22d April. He then threatened Turin, and the King of Sardinia signed an armistice with him at Cherasco on 28th April, abandoning to the French army his most important frontier fortresses. As the first result of these military operations the King of Sardinia sued for peace, which he was only granted on recognising the cession to France of Savoy and Nice, and as a second result General Bonaparte was enabled to attack the Austrians in Lombardy without leaving a hostile power behind him.

The Campaign in Italy. Second Stage.

The operations of the second stage of the famous campaign of 1796 were as rapid and as completely successful. On the 8th May Bonaparte crossed the river Po by skilfully misleading the Austrians as to his intentions, and on 10th May he forced the passage of the Adda at Lodi, where he won one of his most famous victories. The Austrian General Beaulieu felt himself incapable of holding the lines of the other rivers, and fled into the Tyrol. Bonaparte first occupied Milan, and then forced the Dukes of Parma and of Modena to submit to his demands, and to send ambassadors to treat for peace at Paris. To these petty princelets Bonaparte behaved with the utmost arrogance; not satisfied with making large requisitions of money and provisions, he selected their finest pictures and works of art, and directed them to be sent to Paris. Far more important, from his spiritual position, though not of greater military strength, was the Pope. The French armies occupied the Legations of Ferrara and Bologna, and Bonaparte then threatened to march on Rome. In terror Pope Pius VI. concluded, on the 24th June 1796, an armistice at Foligno, by which he abandoned Ancona, and promised to send to Paris the large sum of 20,000,000 livres, with many manuscripts and works of art. The conquest of Italy revealed to Europe the French Republic in a new light. It showed the monarchs, and especially the rulers of little states, that the revolutionary propaganda which they had hated and dreaded so much had given way to an even more dangerous military policy, directed by a victorious and ambitious general.

The Campaign in Italy. Third Stage.

But Austria was not going to be driven out of Italy by a single campaign. The beaten army of Beaulieu was reorganised by General Melas, and reinforced by 30,000 picked men from the Rhine. This army, amounting in all to 70,000 men, was placed under the command of Marshal Würmser, who, at the end of July, debouched from the Tyrol and invaded Italy by the two sides of Lake Garda. Bonaparte, whose army did not exceed 40,000 men, broke up the siege of Mantua which he had formed, and utterly defeated the Austrians in the great battle of Castiglione on 5th August 1796. Würmser fell back, but in September, the following month, he invaded Italy by the valley of the Brenta, and threw himself into Mantua. Bonaparte, now considering himself for a time freed from the danger of another Austrian attack, made an effort to reconstitute Northern Italy. Several of the cities, notably Modena, Bologna, and Ferrara, had declared themselves republics, but Bonaparte could see no advantage in little republics, and summoned a general assembly of deputies from the whole of Lombardy to meet at Milan. This assembly was disposed to form a Lombard Republic, but before it could complete its deliberations Bonaparte had to fight another Austrian army.

The Campaign in Italy. Fourth Stage.

The Austrians, disgusted and surprised by these successive defeats, prepared to make a great effort. For the first time, the Emperor appealed directly to the patriotism of the people, and more especially of the nobility. A new army was equipped, which, if not so numerous, was more enthusiastic than the former armies, and was placed under the command of General Alvinzi. Bonaparte had received few or no reinforcements, and felt himself unable to face an army of 60,000 men. He waited, therefore, patiently in his headquarters at Verona while Alvinzi advanced slowly down the Brenta. Having learnt experience from their former defeats, the Austrians were in no hurry to come to blows, even with the small French army in front of them. Alvinzi entrenched himself in a formidable position on the heights of Caldiero, and repulsed a French attack upon the 12th of November. Another such check meant the ruin of the French army. Bonaparte decided to turn the position. Advancing along the causeway through the marshes upon Alvinzi’s left, he fought the celebrated battle of Arcola on the 16th of November, and Alvinzi, finding his position untenable, retreated into the Tyrol.

The Campaign in Italy. Fifth Stage.

Treaty of Tolentino. Feb. 19, 1797.