The slaughter of Austrians amounted to vast numbers, while the French lost but 200 men. Thus did Bonaparte execute with such rapidity and consequently with so little loss "the terrible passage," as he himself called it, "of the bridge of Lodi." It is justly called one of the most daring achievements on record.
The victory of Lodi had a great influence on Napoleon's mind. He declared subsequently that neither his success in quelling the "Sections," nor his victory at Montenotte, made him regard himself as anything superior; but that after Lodi, for the first time the idea dawned upon him that he would one day be "a decisive actor," as he himself put it, on the stage of the military and political world. That he was a fatalist is well-known, it being a frequent expression with him that "every bullet is marked."
On this occasion the soldiers conferred on him the nick-name of "Little Corporal." The original cause of the appellation, as applied to Bonaparte, has been related by Napoleon himself. He says that when he commanded near the Col di Tende the army was obliged to traverse a narrow bridge, on which occasion he gave directions that no women should be allowed to accompany it, as the service was particularly difficult, and required that the troops should be continually on the alert; to enforce such an order he placed two captains on the bridge with instructions, on pain of death, not to permit a woman to pass. He subsequently repaired to the bridge himself, for the purpose of ascertaining whether his orders were being scrupulously obeyed, when he found a crowd of women assembled, who, as soon as they saw him, began to revile him, exclaiming: "Oh, then, petit corporal, it is you who have given orders not to let us pass!"
Some miles in advance Napoleon was surprised to see a considerable number of women with the troops. He immediately ordered the two captains to be put under arrest and brought before him, intending to have them tried immediately. They protested their innocence, asserting that no women had crossed the bridge. Bonaparte caused some of the females to be brought before him, and learned with astonishment, from their own confession, that they had emptied some casks of provisions and concealed themselves therein, by which means they had passed over unperceived.
After every battle the oldest soldiers convened a council in order to confer a new rank on their young general, who, on making his appearance, was saluted by his latest title. Bonaparte, therefore, was nominated corporal at Lodi, and sergeant at Castiglione. It was "Little Corporal," however, that the soldiery constantly applied to him ever afterwards.
The fruits of this splendid victory at Lodi were twenty pieces of cannon, and between two and three thousand killed, wounded and prisoners, and the loss by the enemy of an excellent line of defense.
When Europe heard of the battle they named the conqueror "The Hero of Lodi."
Beaulieu contrived to withdraw a part of his troops, and gathering the scattered fragment of his force together, soon threw the line of the Mincio, a tributary of the Po, between himself and his enemy. The great object, however, he had attained,—he was still free to defend Mantua.