The fact was that the victory of Lodi had a great influence upon Napoleon’s mind. He afterwards acknowledged, that neither the quelling of the sections at Paris, nor the victory of Monte Notte made him regard himself as any thing superior, but that after Lodi, for the first time, the idea dawned upon him, that he should one day be “a decisive actor,” on the stage of the political world. It was Lodi which gave birth to the 18th Brumaire.
THE CAMP-FIRE AT CASTIGLIONE.
It was at Castiglione and in its vicinity that the wonderful spirit and rapidity of Napoleon’s movements were more fully displayed than at any other of his scenes of victory in Italy. The aged Beaulieu had been superseded in the command of the Austrian army, by General Wurmser, a commander of high reputation. His army was greatly superior in numbers to that of Bonaparte. It descended from the Tyrol during the last days of July, in three divisions, commanded by Davidowich, Quasdanowitch, and Wurmser himself.
Wurmser, confident in his numbers, and calculating upon the absorption of the energies of the French army, by its endeavors to subdue Mantua, disposed his forces in the most admirable way to improve a victory; never reflecting that he might happen to be defeated. Untaught by all the previous disasters of Beaulieu, he committed the error of dividing his army, in order to cover an extent of country. His right wing was detached, with orders to occupy Brescia, and cut off the retreat of the French in the direction of Milan: his left wing was to descend the Adige, and manœuvre on Verona; while the centre, under his own command, advanced to raise the siege of Mantua. During the two first days of his approach, the French generals, after resisting to the utmost, yielded up successively, Rivoli, Brescia, and Salo; but these two days were sufficient to make Napoleon master of the plan on which Wurmser proposed to carry on the campaign, and he instantly disconcerted the whole of it, by a movement so unlike that of any ordinary general, as to defy all calculation.
In one night, (31st July,) he raised the siege of Mantua; sacrificing the whole of his artillery. The men were employed to destroy as much as the time would allow. They spiked the guns, burnt the carriages, threw the powder into the lake, and buried the balls. Augereau and Massena were stationed to defend the line of the Mincio as long as possible. Before morning the whole French army had disappeared from Mantua, and Napoleon was hurrying forward to attack the right wing of the Austrian army, before it could effect a junction with the central body of Wurmser.