Napoleon, with his usual celerity and tact,—he used to say, "War, like government, is mainly decided by tact,"—managed to defeat each of the three Austrian armies in turn.
At Lonato the Austrians lost ten thousand in killed, wounded, and prisoners. The day after the battle, one of the Austrian divisions, reduced to four thousand men, wandered into Lonato, and demanded the surrender of the garrison of twelve hundred. Napoleon called his staff together; and when the bandage was removed from the eyes of the officer, he said with authority, "Go and tell your general that I give him eight minutes to lay down his arms!" The Austrians surrendered, and were soon chagrined to find that four thousand had succumbed to twelve hundred Frenchmen.
Napoleon said at Lonato, "I was at ease; the Thirty-second was there!" So rejoiced were the men at these words that they had them embroidered on their regimental flag.
In this short campaign twenty thousand Austrians had been killed and wounded, fifteen thousand taken prisoners, with seventy pieces of artillery, and twenty-two stands of colors. The latter were sent to Paris.
Early in September, Napoleon again defeated Würmser at Bassano. After the battle, at midnight Napoleon rode over the battle-field by moonlight, the quiet broken only by the moans of the wounded and dying. Suddenly a dog sprang from beneath the cloak of his dead master, rushed to Napoleon as though asking aid, and then back to the body, licking the face and hands of the dead, and howling piteously.
Napoleon was strongly moved, and said years afterward, "I know not how it was, but no incident upon any field of battle ever produced so deep an impression upon my feelings. 'This man,' thought I, 'must have had among his comrades friends, and yet here he lies forsaken by all except his faithful dog.' ... Certainly, in that moment, I should have been unable to refuse any request to a suppliant enemy."
When at St. Helena, Madame Montholon, seeming to be afraid of a dog, Napoleon said, "He who does not love a dog has never known what real fidelity means."
Austria soon put another general in the field with over sixty thousand men. She was determined not to lose Italy. At first the French army lost some battles, the general-in-chief not being with them. When he came to his army, he said to some regiments, "Soldiers, I am not satisfied with you. You have shown neither discipline, constancy, nor courage.... Let it be written on the colors, 'They are not of the army of Italy.'"
The men seemed heart-broken. "Place us in the van of the army," they said, "and you shall then judge whether we do not belong to the army of Italy."
They were soon put to the test. Napoleon marched out of Verona on the night of Nov. 14, descended the Adige river, and fell upon the rear of Alvinzi, the Austrian general, at Arcola. The village is surrounded by marshes, crossed by causeways or bridges.