The sudden appearance of the French in Italy was an utter surprise to the Austrians. They descended like a torrent into the valley, seized Ivry, and five days after reaching Italy met and repulsed an Austrian force. The divisions which had crossed by other passes one by one joined Napoleon. On June 9th Marshal Lannes met and defeated the Austrians at Montebello, after a hot engagement. “I heard the bones crackle like a hailstorm on the roofs,” he said. On the 14th, the two armies met on the plain of Marengo, and one of the most famous of Napoleon’s battles began.
THE VICTORY AR MARENGO
Napoleon was not ready for the coming battle, and was taken by surprise. He had been obliged to break up his army in order to guard all the passages open to the enemy. Suddenly attacked and taken by surprise, his army was defeated and driven back in retreat in the first stage of the battle. But Napoleon was not the man to accept defeat. Hurrying up Desaix, one of his most trusted generals, with his corps, he flung these fresh troops upon the enemy, following up the assault with the dragoons of Kellermann. The result was a disastrous rout of the Austrians, who were driven from the field, leaving thousands of dead, and other thousands of prisoners in the hands of the enemy.
A few days afterwards on the 19th, Moreau in Germany won a brilliant victory at Hockstadt, near Blemheim, took 5,000 prisoners and twenty pieces of cannon, and forced from the Austrians an armed truce which left him master of South Germany. A still more momentous armistice was signed by Melas in Italy, by which the Austrians surrendered Piedmont, Lombardy, and all their territory as far as the Mincio, leaving France master of Italy.
MOREAU AT HOHENLINDEN
What followed must be briefly detailed. Only a truce, not a peace, had followed the victories of Napoleon and Moreau, and five months later, Austria refusing to make peace without the concurrence of England, the war began again. Moreau winning another famous victory on the plains of Hohenlinden, the Austrians losing 8,000 in killed and wounded and 12,000 in prisoners.
Moreau advanced to Vienna, where the emperor was forced to sign an armistice, giving up to France the valley of the Danube, the country of the Tyrol, a number of fortresses and large magazines of war material. This truce was followed by a peace in February, 1801. It was one that left Napoleon the idol of France, the terror of Europe, and the admiration of the world. He had proved himself the mate of Caesar and Alexander as a conqueror.
THE CONSUL MADE EMPEROR
The events that followed must be briefly epitomized. For nearly the only time in his career Napoleon had a period of peace. In this he showed himself an autocratic but able ruler, making himself king in everything but name, restoring the old court customs and etiquette, but not interfering with the liberties and privileges which the people had won by the Revolution. Feudalism had been definitely overthrown and Napoleon’s supremacy in the state was one that recognized the popular freedom.
The culmination of Napoleon’s ambition came in 1804, when he followed the example of Caesar, the Roman conqueror, seeking the crown as a reward for his victories. Like Caesar, he had his enemies, but, more fortunate than Caesar, he escaped their plots and was elected Emperor of the French by an almost unanimous vote of the people. The Pope was obliged to come to Paris at the fiat of the new autocrat and to anoint him as emperor, the sanction of the Church being thus given to his new dignity. His empire was one founded upon modern ideas, one called into existence by the votes of a free people, not resting upon the necks of a nation of serfs.