The influence of these words upon those impassioned men, proud of their renown and proud of their leader, was almost inconceivable. The terrible rebuke fell upon them like a thunderbolt. Tears trickled down the cheeks of these battered veterans. Many of them actually groaned aloud in their anguish. The laws of discipline could not restrain the grief which burst from their ranks. They broke their array, crowded around the general, exclaiming, "we have been misrepresented; the enemy were three to our one; try us once more; place us in the post of danger, and see if we do not belong to the army of Italy!" Napoleon relented, and spoke kindly to them, promising to afford them an early opportunity to retrieve their reputation. In the next battle he placed them in the van. Contending against fearful odds they accomplished all that mortal valor could accomplish, rolling back upon the Austrians the tide of victory. Such was the discipline of Napoleon. He needed no blood-stained lash to scar the naked backs of his men. He ruled over mind. His empire was in the soul. "My soldiers," said he "are my children." The effect of this rebuke was incalculable. There was not an officer or a soldier in the army who was not moved by it. It came exactly at the right moment, when it was necessary that every man in the army should be inspired with absolute desperation of valor.
Alvinzi sent a peasant across the country to carry dispatches to Wurmser in the beleaguered city. The information of approaching relief was written upon very thin paper, in a minute hand, and inclosed in a ball of wax, not much larger than a pea. The spy was intercepted. He was seen to swallow the ball. The stomach was compelled to surrender its trust, and Napoleon became acquainted with Alvinzi's plan of operation. He left ten thousand men around the walls of Mantua, to continue the blockade, and assembled the rest of his army, consisting only of fifteen thousand, in the vicinity of Verona. The whole valley of the Adige was now swarming with the Austrian battalions. At night the wide horizon seemed illuminated with the blaze of their camp fires. The Austrians, conscious of their vast superiority in numbers, were hastening to envelop the French. Already forty thousand men were circling around the little band of fifteen thousand who were rallied under the eagles of France. The Austrians, wary in consequence of their past defeats, moved with the utmost caution, taking possession of the most commanding positions. Napoleon, with sleepless vigilance, watched for some exposed point, but in vain. The soldiers understood the true posture of affairs, and began to feel disheartened, for their situation was apparently desperate. The peril of the army was so great, that even the sick and the wounded in the hospitals at Milan, Pavia, and Lodi, voluntarily left their beds and hastened, emaciate with suffering, and many of them with their wounds still bleeding, to resume their station in the ranks. The soldiers were deeply moved by this affecting spectacle, so indicative of their fearful peril and of the devotion of their comrades to the interests of the army. Napoleon resolved to give battle immediately, before the Austrians should accumulate in still greater numbers.
A dark, cold winter's storm was deluging the ground with rain, as Napoleon roused his troops from the drenched sods upon which they were slumbering. The morning had not yet dawned through the surcharged clouds, and the freezing wind, like a tornado, swept the bleak hills. It was an awful hour in which to go forth to encounter mutilation and death. The enterprise was desperate. Fifteen thousand Frenchmen, with frenzied violence, were to hurl themselves upon the serried ranks of forty thousand foes. The horrid carnage soon began. The roar of the battle, the shout of onset, and the shriek of the dying, mingled in midnight gloom, with the appalling rush and wail of the tempest. The ground was so saturated with rain that it was almost impossible for the French to drag their cannon through the miry ruts. As the darkness of night passed and the dismal light of a stormy day was spread around them, the rain changed to snow, and the struggling French were smothered and blinded by the storm of sleet whirled furiously into their faces. Through the live-long day this terrific battle of man and of the elements raged unabated. When night came the exhausted soldiers, drenched with rain and benumbed with cold, threw themselves upon the blood-stained snow, in the midst of the dying and of the dead. Neither party claimed the victory, and neither acknowledged defeat. No pen can describe, nor can imagination conceive, the horrors of the dark and wailing night of storm and sleet which ensued. Through the long hours the groans of the wounded, scattered over many miles swept by the battle, blended in mournful unison with the wailings of the tempest. Two thousand of Napoleon's little band were left dead upon the field, and a still larger number of Austrian corpses were covered with the winding-sheet of snow. Many a blood-stained drift indicated the long and agonizing struggle of the wounded ere the motionlessness of death consummated the dreadful tragedy. It is hard to die even in the curtained chambers of our ceiled houses, with sympathizing friends administering every possible alleviation. Cold must have been those pillows of snow, and unspeakably dreadful the solitude of those death scenes, on the bleak hill sides and in the muddy ravines, where thousands of the young, the hopeful, the sanguine, in horrid mutilation, struggled through the long hours of the tempestuous night in the agonies of dissolution. Many of these young men were from the first families in Austria and in France, and had been accustomed to every indulgence. Far from mother, sister, brother, drenched with rain, covered with the drifting snow, alone—all alone with the midnight darkness and the storm—they writhed and moaned through lingering hours of agony.
The Austrian forces still were accumulating, and the next day Napoleon retired within the walls of Verona. It was the first time he had seemed to retreat before his foes. His star began to wane. The soldiers were silent and dejected. An ignominious retreat after all their victories, or a still more ignominious surrender to the Austrians appeared their only alternative. Night again came. The storm had passed away. The moon rose clear and cold over the frozen hills. Suddenly the order was proclaimed, in the early darkness, for the whole army, in silence and celerity, to be upon the march. Grief sat upon every countenance. The western gates of the city, looking toward France were thrown open. The rumbling of the artillery wheels, and the sullen tramp of the dejected soldiers fell heavily upon the night air. Not a word was spoken. Rapidly the army emerged from the gates, crossed the river, and pressed along the road toward France, leaving their foes slumbering behind them, unconscious of their flight. The depression of the soldiers thus compelled at last, as they supposed, to retreat, was extreme. Suddenly, and to the perplexity of all, Napoleon wheeled his columns into another road, which followed down the valley of the Adige. No one could imagine whither he was leading them. He hastened along the banks of the river, in most rapid march, about fourteen miles, and, just at midnight, recrossed the stream, and came upon the rear of the Austrian army. Here the soldiers found a vast morass, many miles in extent, traversed by several narrow causeways, in these immense marshes superiority in number was of little avail, as the heads of the column only could meet. The plan of Napoleon instantly flashed upon the minds of the intelligent French soldiers. They appreciated at once the advantage he had thus skillfully secured for them. Shouts of joy ran through the ranks. Their previous dejection was succeeded by corresponding elation.
It was midnight. Far and wide along the horizon blazed the fires of the Austrian camps, while the French were in perfect darkness. Napoleon, emaciate with care and toil, and silent in intensity of thought, as calm and unperturbed as the clear, cold, serene winter's night, stood upon an eminence observing the position, and estimating the strength of his foes. He had but thirteen thousand troops. Forty thousand Austrians, crowding the hill sides with their vast array, were manœuvring to envelop and to crush him. But now indescribable enthusiasm animated the French army. They no longer doubted of success. Every man felt confident that the Little Corporal was leading them again to a glorious victory.
In the centre of these wide spreading morasses was the village of Arcola, approached only by narrow dykes and protected by a stream, crossed by a small wooden bridge. A strong division of the Austrian army was stationed here. It was of the first importance that this position should be taken from the enemy. Before the break of day the solid columns of Napoleon were moving along the narrow passages, and the fierce strife commenced. The soldiers, with loud shouts, rushed upon the bridge. In an instant the whole head of the column was swept away by a volcanic burst of fire. Napoleon sprung from his horse, seized a standard, and shouted, "Conquerors of Lodi, follow your general!" He rushed at the head of the column, leading his impetuous troops through a perfect hurricane of balls and bullets, till he arrived at the centre of the bridge. Here the tempest of fire was so dreadful that all were thrown into confusion. Clouds of smoke enveloped the bridge in almost midnight darkness. The soldiers recoiled, and trampling over the dead and dying, in wild disorder retreated. The tall grenadiers seized the fragile and wasted form of Napoleon in their arms as if he had been a child, and regardless of their own danger, dragged him from the mouth of this terrible battery. But in the tumult they were forced over the dyke, and Napoleon was plunged into the morass and was left almost smothered in the mire. The Austrians were already between Napoleon and his column, when the anxious soldiers perceived, in the midst of the darkness and the tumult, that their beloved chief was missing. The wild cry arose, "Forward to save your general." Every heart thrilled at this cry. The whole column instantly turned, and regardless of death, inspired by love for their general, rushed impetuously, irresistibly upon the bridge. Napoleon was extricated and Arcola was taken.
THE MARSHES OF ARCOLA.
As soon as the morning dawned, Alvinzi perceived that Verona was evacuated, and in astonishment he heard the thunder of Napoleon's guns reverberating over the marshes which surrounded Arcola. He feared the genius of his adversary, and his whole army was immediately in motion. All day long the battle raged on those narrow causeways, the heads of the columns rushing against each other with indescribable fury, and the dead and the dying filling the morass. The terrible rebuke which had been inflicted upon the division of Vaubois still rung in the ears of the French troops, and every officer and every man resolved to prove that he belonged to the army of Italy. Said Augereau, as he rushed into the mouth of a perfect volcano of flame and fire, "Napoleon may break my sword over my dead body, but he shall never cashier me in the presence of my troops." Napoleon was every where, exposed to every danger, now struggling through the dead and the dying on foot, heading the impetuous charge; now galloping over the dykes, with the balls from the Austrian batteries plowing the ground around him. Wherever his voice was heard, and his eye fell, tenfold enthusiasm inspired his men. Lannes, though severely wounded, had hastened from the hospital at Milan, to aid the army in this terrible emergence. He received three wounds in endeavoring to protect Napoleon, and never left his side till the battle was closed. Muiron, another of those gallant spirits, bound to Napoleon by those mysterious ties of affection which this strange man inspired, seeing a bomb shell about to explode, threw himself between it and Napoleon, saving the life of his beloved general by the sacrifice of his own. The darkness of night separated the combatants for a few hours, but before the dawn of the morning the murderous assault was renewed, and continued with unabated violence through the whole ensuing day. The French veterans charged with the bayonet, and hurled the Austrians with prodigious slaughter into the marsh. Another night came and went. The gray light of another cold winter's morning appeared faintly in the east, when the soldiers sprang again from their freezing, marshy beds, and in the dense clouds of vapor and of smoke which had settled down over the morass, with the fury of blood-hounds rushed again to the assault. In the midst of this terrible conflict a cannon-ball fearfully mangled the horse upon which Napoleon was riding. The powerful animal, frantic with pain and terror, became perfectly unmanageable. Seizing the bit in his teeth, he rushed through the storm of bullets directly into the midst of the Austrian ranks. He then, in the agonies of death, plunged into the morass and expired. Napoleon was left struggling in the swamp up to his neck in the mire. Being perfectly helpless, he was expecting every moment either to sink and disappear in that inglorious grave, or that some Austrian dragoon would sabre his head from his body or with a bullet pierce his brain. Enveloped in clouds of smoke, in the midst of the dismay and the uproar of the terrific scene, he chanced to evade observation, until his own troops, regardless of every peril, forced their way to his rescue. Napoleon escaped with but a few slight wounds. Through the long day, the tide of war continued to ebb and to flow upon these narrow dykes. Napoleon now carefully counted the number of prisoners taken and estimated the amount of the slain. Computing thus that the enemy did not outnumber him by more than a third, he resolved to march out into the open plain for a decisive conflict. He relied upon the enthusiasm and the confidence of his own troops and the dejection with which he knew that the Austrians were oppressed. In these impassable morasses it was impossible to operate with the cavalry. Three days of this terrible conflict had now passed. In the horrible carnage of these days Napoleon had lost 8000 men, and he estimated that the Austrians could not have lost less, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, than 20,000. Both armies were utterly exhausted, and those hours of dejection and lassitude had ensued in which every one wished that the battle was at an end.
It was midnight. Napoleon, sleepless and fasting, seemed insensible to exhaustion either of body or of mind. He galloped along the dykes from post to post, with his whole soul engrossed with preparations for the renewal of the conflict. Now he checked his horse to speak in tones of consolation to a wounded soldier, and again by a few words of kind encouragement animated an exhausted sentinel. At two o'clock in the morning the whole army, with the ranks sadly thinned, was again roused and ranged in battle array. It was a cold, damp morning, and the weary and half-famished soldiers shivered in their lines. A dense, oppressive fog covered the flooded marsh and added to the gloom of the night. Napoleon ordered fifty of the guards to struggle with their horses through the swamp, and conceal themselves in the rear of the enemy. With incredible difficulty most of them succeeded in accomplishing this object. Each dragoon had a trumpet. Napoleon commenced a furious attack along the whole Austrian front. When the fire was the hottest, at an appointed signal, the mounted guards sounded with their trumpets loudly the charge, and with perfect desperation plunged into the ranks of the enemy. The Austrians, in the darkness and confusion of the night, supposing that Murat,[1] with his whole body of cavalry, was thundering down upon their rear, in dismay broke and fled. With demoniacal energy the French troops pursued the victory, and before that day's sun went down, the proud army of Alvinzi, now utterly routed, and having lost nearly thirty thousand men, marking its path with a trail of blood, was retreating into the mountains of Austria. Napoleon, with streaming banners and exultant music, marched triumphantly back into Verona, by the eastern gates, directly opposite those from which, three days before, he had emerged. He was received by the inhabitants with the utmost enthusiasm and astonishment. Even the enemies of Napoleon so greatly admired the heroism and the genius of this wonderful achievement, that they added their applause to that of his friends. This was the fourth Austrian army which Napoleon had overthrown in less than eight months, and each of them more than twice as numerous as his own. In Napoleon's dispatches to the Directory, as usual, silent concerning himself, and magnanimously attributing the victory to the heroism of the troops, he says, "Never was a field of battle more valiantly disputed than the conflict at Arcola. I have scarcely any generals left. Their bravery and their patriotic enthusiasm are without example."