Napoleon: A Sketch of His Life, Character, Struggles, and Achievements

by Thomas E. Watson

* * * * *

It was indeed a brilliant campaign, great in conception, execution, results.

Moreau’s army lay upon the Rhine, more than one hundred thousand strong. Masséna with the army of Italy guarded the Apennines, facing overwhelming odds. From Paris the First Consul urged Masséna to hold his ground, and Moreau to advance. Against the latter was a weak Austrian commander, Kray, and forces about equal to the French. Much time was lost, Napoleon proposing a plan which Moreau thought too bold, and was not willing to risk. Finally the First Consul yielded, gave Moreau a free hand, and the advance movement began. The Rhine was crossed, and Moreau began a series of victories over Kray which brought him to the Danube. But the Austrians, taking the offensive against the army of Italy, cut it in two, and shut up Masséna in Genoa, where the English fleet could coöperate against the French.

It was then that Napoleon, almost by stealth, got together another army, composed partly of conscripts, partly of veterans from the armies of La Vendée and Holland, and hurried it to the foot of the Alps. The plan was to pass these mountains, fall upon the Austrian rear, and redeem Italy at a blow. His enemies heard of the Army of the Reserve which he was collecting at Dijon. Spies went there, saw a few thousand raw recruits, and reported that Napoleon had no Army of Reserve—that he was merely trying to bluff old Melas into loosening his grip on Genoa. It suited Napoleon precisely to have his new army treated as a joke. With consummate art he encouraged the jest while he collected, drilled, and equipped at different points the various detachments with which he intended to march.

Under the constitution the First Consul could not legally command the army. He was not forbidden, however, to be present as an interested spectator while some one else commanded. So he appointed Berthier, General-in-chief.

Early in May, 1800, all was ready, and the First Consul left Paris to become the interested spectator of the movements of the Army of the Reserve. At the front, form and fiction gave way to actuality, and Napoleon’s word was that of chief. At four different passes the troops entered the mountains, the main army crossing by the Great St. Bernard.

Modern students, who sit in snug libraries and rectify the arduous campaigns of the past, have discovered that Napoleon’s passage of the Alps was no great thing after all. They say that his troops had plenty to eat, drink, and wear; thousands of mules and peasants to aid in the heavy work of the march; no foes to fight on the way; and that his march was little more than a military parade. Indeed, it was one of those things which looked a deal easier after it had been done than before. And yet it must have been a notable feat to have scaled those mighty barriers on which lay the snow, to have threaded those paths up in the air over which the avalanche hung, and below which the precipice yawned—all this having been done with such speed that the French were in Italy before the Austrians knew they had left France. Much of the route was along narrow ledges where the shepherd walked warily. To take a fully equipped army over these rocky shelves,—horse, foot, artillery, ammunition, supplies,—seems even at this admire-nothing day to have been a triumph of organization, skill, foresight, and hardihood. Only a few months previously a Russian army, led by Suwarow, had ventured to cross the Alps—and had crossed; but only half of them got out alive.

In less than a week the French made good the daring attempt, and were in the valleys of Italy marching upon the Austrian rear. They had brought cavalry and infantry almost without loss. Cannon had been laid in hollowed logs and pulled up by ropes. The little fort of Bard, stuck right in the road out of the mountains, had, for a moment, threatened the whole enterprise with ruin. Napoleon had known of the fortress, but had underrated its importance. For some hours a panic seemed imminent in the vanguard, but a goat-path was found which led past the fort on rocks higher up. The cannon were slipped by at night, over the road covered with litter.

Remaining on the French side to despatch the troops forward as rapidly as possible, Napoleon was one of the last to enter the mountains. He rode a sure-footed mule, and by his side walked his guide, a young peasant who unbosomed himself as they went forward. This peasant, also, had his eyes on the future, and wished to rise in the world. His heart yearned for a farm in the Alps, where he might pasture a small flock, grow a few necessaries, marry a girl he loved, and live happily ever afterward. The traveller on the mule seemed much absorbed in thought; but, nevertheless, he heard all the mountaineer was saying.

He gave to the young peasant the funds wherewith to buy house and land; and when Napoleon’s empire had fallen to pieces, the family of his old-time guide yet dwelt contentedly in the home the First Consul had given.