Military Career of Napoleon the Great / An Account of the Remarkable Campaigns of the "Man of Destiny"; Authentic Anecdotes of the Battlefield as Told by the Famous Marshals and Generals of the First Empire

by Montgomery B. Gibbs

The labor was not so great for the infantry, of which there were 35,000 including artillery. As for the 5,000 cavalry, these walked, leading their horses by the bridle. There was no danger in ascending but in the descent, the path being very narrow, obliging them to walk before the horse, they were liable, if the animal made a false step, to be dragged by him into the abyss. Some accidents of this kind, not many, did actually happen, and some horses perished but scarcely any of the men.

After a brief rest at the hospice the army resumed its march and descended to St. Remy without any unpleasant accident. Napoleon rested and took a frugal repast at the convent, after which he visited the chapel, and the three little libraries, lingering a short time to read a few pages of some old book. He performed the descent on a sledge, down a glacier of nearly a hundred yards, almost perpendicular. The whole army effected the passage of the Great St. Bernard in the space of three days.

The transfer of the gun carriages, ammunition wagons and cannon was the most difficult of all, but the genius of Napoleon accomplished even this seemingly impossible feat. The peasants of the environs were offered as high as a thousand francs for every piece of cannon which they succeeded in dragging from St. Pierre to St. Remy. It took a hundred men to drag each; one day to get it up and another to get it down.

It has been said that Napoleon had his fortune to make at this period; but, at the moment of crossing Mount St. Bernard, he had fought twenty pitched battles, conquered Italy, dictated peace to Austria,—only sixty miles distant from Vienna,—negotiated at Rastadt, with Count Cobentzel for the surrender of the strong city of Mentz, raised nearly three hundred millions in contributions,—which had served to supply the army during two years,—created the Cisalpine Army, and paid some of the officers of the government at Paris. He had sent to the museum three hundred chef d'oéuvres, in statuary and painting; added to which he had conquered Egypt, suppressed the factions at home and totally eradicated the war in La Vendée.

Napoleon has been pictured crossing the Alpine heights mounted on a fiery steed. As a matter of fact he ascended the Great St. Bernard in that gray surtout which he usually wore, sometimes upon foot, and again upon a mule, led by a guide belonging to the country, evincing even in the difficult passes the abstraction of mind occupied elsewhere, conversing with the officers scattered on the road, and then, at intervals, questioning the guide who attended him, making him relate the particulars of his life, his pleasures, his pains, like an idle traveler who has nothing better to do. "This guide," says Thiers, "who was quite young, gave him a simple recital of the details of his obscure existence, and especially the vexation he felt because, for want of a little money, he could not marry one of the girls of his valley. The First Consul, sometimes listening, sometimes questioning the passengers with whom the mountain was covered, arrived at the hospice, where the worthy monks gave him a warm reception. No sooner had he alighted from his mule than he wrote a note which he handed to his guide, desiring him to be sure and deliver it to the quartermaster of the army, who had been left on the other side of the St. Bernard. In the evening the young man, on returning to St. Pierre, learned with surprise what powerful traveler it was whom he had guided in the morning, and that General Bonaparte had ordered that a house and a piece of ground should be given to him immediately, and that he should be supplied, in short, with the means requisite for marrying, and for realizing all the dreams of his modest ambition."

This mountaineer lived for a number of years, and when he died was still the owner of the land given him by the First Consul. The only thing remembered by this attendant in after years of the conversation of Napoleon during his trip was, when shaking the rain-water from his hat he exclaimed, "There! See what I have done in your mountains—spoiled my new hat!—Well, I will find another on the other side."

The passage of the Alps had been achieved long before the Austrians knew Napoleon's army was in motion. So utterly unexpected was this sudden apparition of the First Consul and his army, that no precaution whatever had been taken, and no enemy appeared capable of disputing his march towards the valley of Aosta. After a brief engagement at the fortress of St. Bard and other minor battles in which the French were victorious, they now advanced, unopposed down the valley to Ivrea which was without a garrison. Here Napoleon remained four days to recruit the strength of his troops.

Napoleon now took the road for Milan. The Sesia was crossed without opposition; the passage of the Tesino was effected after a sharp conflict with a body of Austrian cavalry, who were put to flight; and, on the 2d of June, the First Consul entered Milan, amidst enthusiastic acclamations of the people, who had all believed that he had died in Egypt and that it was one of his brothers who commanded this army. He was conducted in triumph to the ducal palace, where he took up his residence. He remained six days in Milan during which time he gained the most important information, all the dispatches between the court of Vienna and General Melas falling into his hands. From these he learned the extent of the Austrian reinforcements now on their way to Italy; the position and state of all the Austrian depots, field-equipages, and parks of artillery; and the amount and distribution of the whole Austrian force. Finally, he clearly perceived that Melas still continued in complete ignorance of the strength and destination of the French army. His dispatches spoke with contempt of what he called "the pretended army of reserve," and treated the assertion of Napoleon's presence in Italy as a "mere fabrication." Possessed of all this valuable information Napoleon knew how to proceed with clearness and precision.

The eyes of the Austrian general were at length opened and he was preparing to meet the emergency with all the energy that the orders from Vienna and his great age of eighty years permitted; but his delay had been sufficient to render his situation critical. His army was divided into two portions, one under Ott near Genoa; the other, under his own command at Turin. The greatest risk existed that Napoleon would, according to his old plan, attack and destroy one division before the other could form a junction with it. To prevent such a disaster, Ott received orders to march forward on the Tesino, while Melas, moving towards Alessandria, prepared to resume his communications with the other division of his army.