I was a soldier in that glorious army which Moreau led into the heart of Germany, and whose victorious career would only have ceased when they entered the capital of the Empire, had it not been for the unhappy mistakes of Jourdan, who commanded the auxiliary forces in the north. For nigh three months we advanced steadily and successfully, superior in every engagement; we only waited for the moment of junction with Jourdan's army, to declare the empire our own; when at last came the terrible tidings that he had been beaten, and that Latour was advancing from Ulm to turn our left flank, and cut off our communications with France.
Two hundred miles from our own frontiers—separated from the Rhine by that terrible Black Forest whose defiles are mere gorges between vast mountains—with an army fifty thousand strong on one flank, and the Archduke Charles commanding a force of nigh thirty thousand on the other—such were the dreadful combinations which now threatened us with a defeat not less signal than Jourdan's own. Our strength, however, lay in a superb army of seventy thousand unbeaten men, led on by one whose name alone was victory.
On the 24th of September, the order for retreat was given; the army began to retire by slow marches, prepared to contest every inch of ground, and make every available spot a battle-field. The baggage and ammunition were sent on in front, and two days' march in advance. Behind, a formidable rear-guard was ready to repulse every attack of the enemy. Before, however, entering those close defiles by which his retreat lay, Moreau determined to give one terrible lesson to his enemy. Like the hunted tiger turning upon his pursuers, he suddenly halted at Biberach, and ere Latour, who commanded the Austrians, was aware of his purpose, assailed the imperial forces with an attack on right, centre, and left together. Four thousand prisoners and eighteen pieces of cannon were trophies of the victory.
The day after this decisive battle our march was resumed, and the advanced-guard entered that narrow and dismal defile which goes by the name of the “Valley of Hell,” when our left and right flanks, stationed at the entrance of the pass, effectually secured the retreat against molestation. The voltigeurs of St. Cyr crowning the heights as we went, swept away the light troops which were scattered along the rocky eminences, and in less than a fortnight our army debouched by Fribourg and Oppenheim into the valley of the Rhine, not a gun having been lost, not a caisson deserted, during that perilous movement.
The Archduke, however, having ascertained the direction of Moreau's retreat, advanced by a parallel pass through the Kinzigthal, and attacked St. Cyr at Nauendorf, and defeated him. Our right flank, severely handled at Emmendingen, the whole force was obliged to retreat on Huningen, and once more we found ourselves upon the banks of the Rhine, no longer an advancing army, high in hope, and flushed with victory, but beaten, harassed, and retreating!
The last few days of that retreat presented a scene of disaster such as I can never forget. To avoid the furious charges of the Austrian cavalry, against which our own could no longer make resistance, we had fallen back upon a line of country cut up into rocky cliffs and precipices, and covered by a dense pine forest. Here, necessarily broken up into small parties, we were assailed by the light troops of the enemy, led on through the various passes by the peasantry, whose animosity our own severity had excited. It was, therefore, a continual hand-to-hand struggle, in which, opposed as we were to over numbers, well acquainted with every advantage of the ground, our loss was terrific. It is said that nigh seven thousand men fell—an immense number, when no general action had occurred. Whatever the actual loss, such were the circumstances of our army, that Moreau hastened to propose an armistice, on the condition of the Rhine being the boundary between the two armies, while Kehl was still to be held by the French.
The proposal was rejected by the Austrians, who at once commenced preparations for a siege of the fortress with forty thousand troops, under Latour's command. The earlier months of winter now passed in the labors of the siege, and on the morning of New Year's Day the first attack was made; the second line was carried a few days after, and, after a glorious defense by Desaix, the garrison capitulated, and evacuated the fortress on the 9th of the month. Thus, in the space of six short months, had we advanced with a conquering army into the very heart of the Empire, and now we were back again within our own frontier; not one single trophy of all our victories remaining, two-thirds of our army dead or wounded, more than all, the prestige of our superiority fatally injured, and that of the enemy's valor and prowess as signally elevated.
The short annals of a successful soldier are often comprised in the few words which state how he was made lieutenant at such a date, promoted to his company here, obtained his majority there, succeeded to the command of his regiment at such a place, and so on. Now my exploits may even be more briefly written as regards this campaign, for whether at Kehl [pg 638] at Nauendorf, on the Etz, or at Huningen, I ended as I begun—a simple soldier of the ranks. A few slight wounds, a few still more insignificant words of praise, were all that I brought back with me; but if my trophies were small, I had gained considerably both in habits of discipline and obedience. I had learned to endure, ably and without complaining, the inevitable hardships of a campaign, and better still, to see, that the irrepressible impulses of the soldier, however prompted by zeal or heroism, may oftener mar than promote the more mature plans of his general. Scarcely had my feet once more touched French ground, than I was seized with the ague, then raging as an epidemic among the troops, and sent forward with a large detachment of sick to the Military Hospital of Strasbourg.
Here I bethought me of my patron, Colonel Mahon, and determined to write to him. For this purpose I addressed a question to the Adjutant-general's office to ascertain the colonel's address. The reply was a brief and stunning one—he had been dismissed the service. No personal calamity could have thrown me into deeper affliction; nor had I even the sad consolation of learning any of the circumstances of this misfortune. His death, even though thereby I should have lost my only friend, would have been a lighter evil than this disgrace; and coming as did the tidings when I was already broken by sickness and defeat, more than ever disgusted me with a soldier's life. It was then with a feeling of total indifference that I heard a rumor which at another moment would have filled me with enthusiasm—the order for all invalids sufficiently well to be removed, to be drafted into regiments serving in Italy. The fame of Bonaparte, who commanded that army, had now surpassed that of all the other generals; his victories paled the glory of their successes, and it was already a mark of distinction to have served under his command.
The walls of the hospital were scrawled over with the names of his victories; rude sketches of Alpine passes, terrible ravines, or snow-clad peaks met the eye every where; and the one magical name, “Bonaparte,” written beneath, seemed the key to all their meaning. With him war seemed to assume all the charms of romance. Each action was illustrated by feats of valor or heroism, and a halo of glory seemed to shine over all the achievements of his genius.