IX
JACQUES ÉTIENNE JOSEPH ALEXANDRE MACDONALD, MARSHAL, DUKE OF TARENTUM
Jacques Étienne Joseph Alexandre Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum, was the son of a Uist crofter, Macachaim. The Macachaims of Uist were a far-off sept of the Macdonalds of Clanranald. The future Marshal's father was educated at the Scots College in Paris, and was for some time a tutor in Clanranald's household. Owing to his knowledge of French he was entrusted with the duty of helping Flora Macdonald to arrange the escape of Prince Charles. He accompanied the Prince to France, and obtained a commission in Ogilvie's regiment of foot. In 1768 Vall Macachaim, or Neil Macdonald, as he was called in France, retired on a pension of thirty pounds a year. On this pittance he brought up his family at Sancerre. The future Marshal was born at Sedan on November 17, 1765. He was educated for the army at a military academy in Paris, kept by a Scotchman, Paulet, but, owing to bad mathematics, he was unable to enter the Artillery and Engineering School. This failure came as a bitter blow to the keen young soldier, who, after reading Homer, already imagined himself an Achilles. But in 1784 his chance came; the Dutch, threatened by the Emperor Joseph II., had to improvise an army, and Macdonald accepted a pair of colours in a regiment raised by a Frenchman, the Count de Maillebois. A few months later the regiment was disbanded, as the Dutch bought the peace they could not gain by arms. The young officer, thus thrown on his own resources, was glad to accept a cadetship in Dillon's Irish regiment in the French King's service, and at the moment the Revolution broke out he was a sub-lieutenant in that corps. Owing to emigration and the fortune of war, promotion came quickly. Macdonald also was lucky in having a friend in General Beurnonville, on whose staff he served till he was transferred to that of Dumouriez, the commander-in-chief. As a reward for his services at Jemmappes and elsewhere he was made lieutenant-colonel, and early in 1793 his friend Beurnonville, who had become War Minister, gave him his colonelcy and the command of the Picardy regiment, one of the four senior corps of the old French infantry. The young colonel of twenty-eight could not expect to be always so favoured by fortune. Dumouriez's failure at Neerwinden and subsequent desertion to the Allies cast a cloud of suspicion on his protégé at a moment when to be suspected was to be condemned. Luckily, some of the Commissioners from the Convention could recognise merit, but Macdonald spent many anxious months amid denunciations and accusations from those who grudged him his colonelcy. To his intense surprise he was at last summoned before the dread Commissioners and told that, for his zeal, he was to be promoted general of brigade. Overcome by this unexpected turn of fortune, he wished to refuse the honour, and pleaded his youth and inexperience, and was promptly given the choice of accepting or becoming a "suspect" and being arrested. Safe for the moment, Macdonald threw himself heart and soul into his new duties, but still denunciations and accusations were hurled against him. Fresh Commissioners came from the Assembly, and it was only their fortunate recall to Paris that saved the general from arrest. Then came the decree banishing all "ci-devant" nobles. Macdonald, fearing after this order that if he met with the slightest check he would be greeted with cries of treachery, demanded written orders from the new Commissioners confirming him in his employment. These were refused, as also his resignation, with the curt reply, "If you leave the army we will have you arrested and brought to trial." In this dilemma he found a friend in the representative Isore, who, struck by his ability and industry, took up his cause, and from that moment Macdonald had nothing to fear from the revolutionary tribunal.
In November, 1794, he was quite unexpectedly gazetted general of division in the army of Pichegru, and took part in the winter campaign against Holland, where he proved his capacity by seizing the occasion of a hard frost to cross the Vaal on the ice and surprise the Anglo-Hanoverian force at Nimeguen. A few days later, during the general advance, he captured Naarden, the masterpiece of the great engineer Cohorn. Proud of his success, he hastened to inform the commander-in-chief, Pichegru, and was greeted by a laugh, and, "Bah! I pay no attention now to anything less than the surrender of provinces." The blasé commander-in-chief a week or two later himself performed the exploit of capturing the ice-bound Dutch fleet with a cavalry brigade and a battery of horse artillery.
After serving on the Rhine in 1796 Macdonald was transferred in 1798 to the Army of Italy, and sent to Rome to relieve Gouvion St. Cyr. When war broke out between France and Naples, the troops in Southern Italy were formed into the Army of Naples under Championnet. The commander-in-chief overrated the fighting qualities of the Neapolitan troops and thought it prudent to evacuate Rome. Macdonald was entrusted with this duty, and was further required to cover the concentration of Championnet's army. The hard-headed Scotchman had, however, gauged to a nicety the morale of the Neapolitan army, and, although he had but five thousand troops against forty thousand Neapolitans, under the celebrated Austrian general Mack, he engaged the enemy at Cività Castellana, defeated them, followed them up, drove them out of Rome and over the frontier, and practically annihilated the whole force. Unfortunately he wrote a comical account of the operations to his chief, who, having no sense of humour, felt that his evacuation of Rome had, to say the least of it, been hurried and undignified. Championnet therefore greeted his victorious lieutenant with the words, "You want to make me pass for a damned fool," and no explanations could appease his rage. So bitter became the quarrel that Macdonald had to resign his command.
By February, 1799, Championnet had fallen into disgrace with the Directory, and Macdonald was gazetted in his place commander-in-chief. When he arrived in Naples and took up his command the situation seemed quiet. But the far-seeing soldier read the signs of the times. The élite of the French army was locked up in Egypt. Austria and Russia were bent on extinguishing France and her revolutionary ideas. Accordingly the general at once set about quietly concentrating his troops to meet an invasion of Northern Italy by the Allies. With his keen military insight he desired to evacuate all Southern Italy, retaining only such fortresses as could be well supplied. But the principle of keeping everything gained the day. Still, on the news of Schérer's defeat at Magnano by the impetuous Suvaroff, the Army of Naples was ready at once to start for the north, and set off to try and pick up communication with General Moreau, who was re-forming the Army of Italy at Genoa. The idea was that a concentrated movement should be made against the Allies through the Apennines. Unfortunately there existed a bitter rivalry between the Army of Italy and the Army of Naples. Consequently on June 17th Macdonald found himself with twenty-five thousand men near Piacenza, in the presence of the enemy, with no support save two divisions of the Army of Italy, which had come in from Bologna, and whose commanders were jealous of his orders. Still there was always the hope that Moreau might after all be coming to his assistance, and accordingly he determined to stand and fight. In the action of June 17th, owing to the lack of co-operation from one of the attached divisions, the general was ridden over by a division of the enemy's cavalry. Carried about in a litter, he directed all movements during the 18th, and held the enemy at bay along the mountain torrent of the Trebbia. On the 19th he determined to take the initiative, but, owing to the collapse of the attached division which formed his centre, he had to fall back on his old position, which he held throughout the whole day. During the three days' fighting on the Trebbia the French had lost a third of their men and nearly all their officers. Still, early on the morning of the 20th the retreat was effected in good order, save that one of the attached divisions under Victor started so late that it was overtaken by the enemy and abandoned all its guns. But Macdonald at once returned to its aid and saved the artillery, for, as he sarcastically wrote to Victor, "he found neither friends nor foes." Both sides had run away.
The battle of the Trebbia brought into notice the sterling qualities of the French commander, and when he was recalled to Paris he found that military opinion was on his side and that Bonaparte himself highly approved of his conduct. "Thenceforward the opinion of my amphitryon was settled in my favour!" Macdonald's next employment was in command of the Army of the Grisons, whose duty was to cover Moreau's right rear in his advance down the Danube, and to keep up communication with the Army of Italy in the valley of the Po. It was in the performance of this duty that the Army of the Grisons crossed the Splügen Pass in winter in spite of glaciers and avalanches, a feat immeasurably superior to Bonaparte's task in crossing the much easier Great St. Bernard Pass, after the snows had melted. Unfortunately for Macdonald, Bonaparte believed him to belong to Moreau's faction. After Hohenlinden the future Emperor, who was afraid that Moreau's glory would outshine his own, placed all that general's friends on the black book. Further, owing to his outspokenness, Talleyrand had conceived a hatred of the hero of the Splügen. Accordingly, he found himself in deep disgrace. First he was exiled as ambassador at Copenhagen, then his enemies tried to get him sent to Russia in the same capacity, but he refused to go, and for the next few years lived the life of a quiet country gentleman on his estate of Courcelles le Roi. Like most of the generals, Macdonald was by now comparatively well off, for the French Government, on the conquest of a country, had allowed its generals to take what works of art they chose, after the Commissioners had selected the best for the national collection at the Louvre. The general's share as commander-in-chief at Naples had been valued by experts at thirty-four thousand pounds. Unfortunately, however, this booty and many masterpieces which he had bought himself were all lost in the hurried march north that ended in the battle of the Trebbia.
It was not till 1809 that Macdonald was summoned from his retreat. In that year the Emperor needed every soldier of ability, with the Spanish ulcer eating at his vitals and the war with Austria on his hands. Accordingly, at a day's notice, he was ordered to hurry off to Italy to help Napoleon's stepson, Prince Eugène, who was opposed by an Austrian army under the Archduke John.
On arriving in Italy the old soldier found that Prince Eugène, unaccustomed to an independent command, had opened the gate of Italy to the Austrians by his impetuous action at Sacile. The French troops were in complete disorganisation, and the slightest activity on the part of the Austrians would have turned the retreat into a rout. Prince Eugène, who was without a spark of jealousy, and in reality a man of considerable character, greeted his mentor with delight. Macdonald at once pointed out that it was unnecessary to retire as far as Mantua, because the Archduke would not venture to penetrate far into Italy until a decision had been arrived at between the main armies on the Danube. Under his careful supervision, order and discipline were restored among the French troops on the line of the Adige. The news of the French success at Eckmühl and Ratisbon automatically cleared the Austrians out of Northern Italy. During the pursuit the general had to impose on himself the severest self-control, because, though Prince Eugène invariably accepted his advice, the disaster at Sacile had for the time broken his nerve, and, again and again, he spoiled his mentor's best combinations by ordering a halt whenever the enemy appeared to be going to offer any resistance. It was hard indeed to accept subsequent apologies with a courteous smile, when it was success alone that would win back the Emperor's favour. But at last patience had its reward: while the viceroy himself pursued the main force of the enemy, he detached his lieutenant with a strong corps to take Trieste and to pick up communication with Marmont, who was bringing up the army of Dalmatia. Macdonald was given carte blanche. Trieste and Görz were taken; the junction with Marmont was speedily effected, and the combined forces hurried on towards Vienna. The great entrenched camp at Laybach blocked the way. Macdonald had not the necessary heavy artillery with which to capture it. He determined therefore to make a threatening demonstration by day and slip past it by night. But at ten o'clock in the evening a flag of truce arrived offering a capitulation. "You are doing wisely," said the imperturbable Scotchman; "I was just going to sound the attack."
At Gratz he overtook Prince Eugène's army at the moment that the ill news of the battle of Aspern-Essling arrived. Then came the summons to hurry to the assistance of the Emperor. After marching sixty leagues in three days the Army of Italy arrived at nine o'clock at night on July 4th at the imperial headquarters at Ebersdorf. During that night it crossed the Danube, under cover of the terrific thunderstorm which hid the French advance from the Austrians. On the afternoon of July 5th it fell to the lot of Macdonald to attempt to seize the plateau which formed the Austrian centre. As the general well knew, the Emperor had been mistaken in thinking that the enemy were evacuating their position; still, he had to obey orders, and night alone saved his cruelly shaken battalions. Next day was fought the terrible battle of Wagram. At the critical moment of the fight, when the Emperor heard that Masséna, on his left wing, was being driven in on the bridge-head, amid the confusion and rout he ordered Macdonald to attempt by a bold counter-stroke to break the enemy's centre. The Austrians were advancing in masses, with nothing in front of them, and the bridge, the only line of retreat, was threatened. To meet this situation Macdonald deployed four battalions in line, at the double; behind them he formed up the rest of his corps in two solid columns, and closed the rear of this immense rectangle of troops by Nansouty's cavalry. Covered by the fire of a massed battery of a hundred guns, he discharged this huge body of thirty thousand troops against the Austrians, and in spite of vast losses from the enemy's artillery, by sheer weight of human beings he completely checked the Austrian advance and broke their centre. If the cavalry of the Guard had only charged home the enemy would have been driven off the field in complete rout. Still unsupported, the column continued its victorious career, taking six thousand prisoners and ten guns, the only trophies of the day. Next morning the hero of Wagram, lame from the effect of a kick from his horse, was summoned before the Emperor.