THE CAMP-FIRE AT THE BRIDGES OF LODI.
Beaulieu, the veteran general of the Austrians, had been beaten and compelled to retreat before the French commander of twenty-six. The Po being crossed and the Tesino turned, Bonaparte beheld the road to Milan open before him. But he prepared to make the effort to cut off Beaulieu’s retreat, and compel the Austrian army to surrender. Like Nelson, upon the sea, he thought no triumph complete unless the enemy was entirely prostrated. But to cut off the retreat of Beaulieu, it was necessary to anticipate him at the passage of the rivers. A great number of these flow from the Alps, and cross Lombardy on their way to the Po and the Adriatic. After the Po and the Tesino, come the Adda, the Oglio, the Mincio, the Adige and numerous others.
The Adda was now before Bonaparte. It is a large and deep river, although fordable in some places. The passage was to be made at the town of Lodi, an old place containing about twelve thousand inhabitants. It has old Gothic walls, but its chief defence consists in the river, which flows through it, and which is crossed by a wooden bridge, about five hundred feet in length. Having crossed the river, Beaulieu drew up twelve thousand infantry and four thousand horse on the opposite bank, posted twenty pieces of artillery so as to sweep the bridge, and lined the bank with sharpshooters. It was against all military practice to attempt the passage of a river in the face of such difficulties. But it was the military mission of Bonaparte to astonish the routine generals.
Napoleon, coming up on the 10th of May, easily drove the rear-guard of the Austrian army before him into the town, but found his further progress threatened by the tremendous fire of the pieces of cannon, stationed at the opposite end of the bridge, so as to sweep it most completely. The whole body of the enemy’s infantry drawn up in a dense line, supported this appalling disposition of the artillery.
An answering battery was instantly constructed on the French side, Napoleon exposing himself in the thickest of the fire to point two of the guns with his own hands. This he effected in such a manner as to prevent the possibility of any approach on the part of the enemy to undermine or blow up the bridge. Observing, meanwhile, that Beaulieu had removed his infantry to a considerable distance backwards, to keep them out of the range of the French battery, he instantly detached his cavalry, with orders to gallop out of sight, and then ford the river, and coming suddenly upon the enemy, attack them in flank.
He now drew up a body of six thousand grenadiers in close column, under the shelter of the houses, and bade them prepare for the desperate attempt of forcing a passage across the narrow bridge, in the face of the enemy’s thickly-planted artillery.