LETTER TO JOSEPHINE.
Next day Wurmser came up offering battle. Stretching his line too far and leaving his centre weak, Napoleon struck him there, beat him with heavy loss, and sent him flying back toward the mountains. In these various operations, Austria had lost about forty thousand men; France about ten thousand. Mantua had been revictualled, and the French now invested it again. Their siege outfit having been destroyed, they could only rely upon a blockade to starve the enemy out.
Both armies were exhausted, and there followed a period of rest. Reënforcements were received by Wurmser, and by Napoleon also. The Austrians still outnumbered him, but Napoleon took the offensive. Wurmser had committed the familiar mistake of dividing his forces. Napoleon fell upon Davidovitch at Roveredo and routed him. Then turning upon Wurmser, who was advancing to the relief of Mantua, Napoleon captured at Primolano the Austrian advance guard. Next day, September 8, 1796, he defeated the main army at Bassano.
Wurmser was now in a desperate situation. Shut in by the French on one side and the river Adige on the other, his ruin seemed inevitable. By the mistake of a lieutenant colonel, Legnano had been left by the French without a garrison, and the bridge not destroyed. Here Wurmser crossed, and continued his retreat on Mantua. He gained some brilliant successes over French forces, which sought to cut him off, and he reached Mantua in such good spirits that he called out the garrison and fought the battle of St. George. Defeated in this, he withdrew into the town. He had lost about twenty-seven thousand men in the brief campaign.
At length the armies on the Rhine had got in motion. Moreau crossed that river at Kehl, defeated the Austrians, and entered Munich. Jourdan crossed at Dusseldorf, and won the battle of Alten Kirchen. Then the young Archduke Charles, learning a lesson from Napoleon, left a small force to hold Moreau in check, and massed his strength against Jourdan. The French were badly beaten, and both their armies fell back to the Rhine. The original plan of a junction of Jourdan, Moreau, and Bonaparte for an advance upon Vienna was, for the present, frustrated.
Encouraged by the success, Austria sent a new army of fifty-three thousand men, under Alvinczy, to recover the lost ground in Italy. Napoleon had about forty thousand troops, several thousand of whom were in hospitals, and once more his safety depended upon preventing the concentration of the enemy.
As in the former campaign, Austria won the first encounters. Vaubois was driven to Trent, and from Trent to Roveredo, and from thence to Rivoli. Masséna fell back, before superior numbers, from Bassano. Napoleon, with the division of Augereau, went to Masséna’s support. All day, November 6, 1796, Augereau fought at Bassano, and Masséna at Citadella. Alvinczy gave ground, but the French retreated, because of the defeat of Vaubois. It seemed now that the two Austrian divisions would unite, but they did not. At Rivoli a French division, eager to win back the respect of their chief, who had publicly reproved them and degraded their commander, held Davidovitch in check, and prevented his junction with Alvinczy. Fearful that Rivoli might be forced, and the Austrian divisions united, Napoleon again attacked Alvinczy. This time the French were repulsed with heavy loss, some three thousand men (November 13, 1796). Napoleon now had a fresh Austrian army on each flank, and Wurmser on his rear.
Should the three Austrian commanders coöperate, the French were lost. But Napoleon calculated upon there being no coöperation, and he was correct. Nevertheless, he almost desponded, and in the army there was discouragement.
As night closed round the dejected French, Napoleon ordered his troops to take up arms. Leaving a garrison to hold the town, he led his troops out of Verona, and crossed to the right side of the Adige. Apparently he was in retreat upon the Mincio. Down the Adige he marched as far as Ronco. There he recrossed the river on a bridge of boats which he had prepared. On this march the French had followed the bend which the river here makes to the Adriatic. Therefore he had reached the rear of the enemy simply by crossing the Adige and following its natural curve. Arrived at Ronco and crossing the river again, the troops saw at a glance the masterly move their chief had made; their gloom gave way to enthusiastic confidence.
It is a marshy country about Ronco, and the roadways are high dikes lifted above the swamp,—one of these raised roads leading to Verona in Alvinczy’s front, another leading from Ronco to Villanova in the Austrian rear. Early in the morning, November 15, 1796, Masséna advanced from Ronco on the first of these roads, and Augereau on the other. Masséna passed the swamp without opposition, but Augereau met an unforeseen and bloody resistance at the bridge of Arcole, a town between Ronco and Villanova, where the little river Alpon crosses the road on its way to the Adige. Two battalions of Croats with two pieces of artillery defended this bridge, and so bravely was their task done that Augereau’s column was thrown back in disorder. There was no better soldier in the army than he, and Augereau seized the standard himself, rallied his men, and led them to the bridge. Again the Croats drove them back with enfilading fire. The bridge must be taken; it was a matter of vital necessity, and Napoleon dashed forward to head the charge. Seizing the colors, he called upon the troops to follow, and with his own hands planted the flag on the bridge. But the fire of the enemy was too hot, their bayonets too determined: the Croats drove the French from the bridge, and in the confusion of the backward struggle, Napoleon got pushed off the dike into the swamp where he sank to his waist. “Forward! forward! To save our general!”