From a Drawing by H. Vernet
Return of the French Army from Syria
Though the vast plain of Marengo was drenched with French blood, joy pervaded the army. Soldiers and generals alike were merited for their gallant conduct and were fully aware of the importance of the victory to France. Thus ended the battle of Marengo, one of the most decisive which had been fought in Europe, and one which opened to Napoleon the gates of all the principal cities of northern Italy. By one battle he regained nearly all that the French had lost in the unhappy Italian campaign of 1799 while he was in Egypt. He had also shown that the French troops were once more what they had been when he was in the field to command them.
In talking with Gohier one day, Napoleon said: "It is always the greater number which defeats the lesser."
"And yet," said Gohier, "with small armies you have frequently defeated large ones." "Even then," replied Napoleon, "it is always the inferior force which was defeated by the superior. When with a small body of men I was in the presence of a large one, collecting my little band, I fell like lightning on one of the wings of the hostile army, and defeated it. Profiting by the disorder which such an event never failed to occasion in their whole line, I repeated the attack, with similar success, in another quarter, still with my whole force. I thus beat it in detail. The general victory which was the result was still an example of the truth of the principle, that the greater force defeats the lesser." One of his favorite maxims is said to have been, "God always favors the heaviest battalions."
The Austrians were completely enveloped, and had no alternative but to submit to the law of the conqueror. Melas sent a flag of truce to Napoleon at daybreak on the following morning, and peace negotiations were at once began. In the meeting which followed Bonaparte required that all the fortresses of Liguria, Piedmont, Lombardy and the Legations should be immediately given up to France, and that the Austrians should evacuate all Italy as far as the Mincio.
The surrender of Genoa was strongly objected to by Melas, but the conqueror would not waive this point. The baron sent his principal negotiator to make some remonstrances against the proposed armistice: "Sir," said the First Consul with some warmth, "my conditions are irrevocable. It was not yesterday that I began my military life; your position is as well known to me as to yourselves. You are in Alessandria, encumbered with dead, wounded, sick, destitute of provisions; you have lost the best troops of your army, and are surrounded on all sides. There is nothing that I might not require, but I respect the gray hair of your general, and the valor of your troops, and I require, nothing more than is imperatively demanded by the present situation of affairs. Return to Alessandria; do what you will, you shall have no other conditions."
The treaty of peace was signed at Alessandria, the same day, June 15th, 1800, as originally proposed by General Bonaparte. He then started for Paris by way of Milan, where preparations had been made for a solemn Te Deum in the ancient cathedral, and at which the First Consul was present. He found the city illuminated, and ringing with the most enthusiastic rejoicings. The streets were lined with people who greeted him with shouts of welcome. Draperies were hung from the windows, which were crowded by women of the first rank and who threw flowers into his carriage as he passed. He set off for Paris on the 24th of June and arrived at the French capital in the night between the 2nd and 3rd of July, having been absent less than two months. Massena remained as Commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy.