The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic — Volume 3

by William Hickling Prescott

While the hostile armies thus lay facing each other, the eyes of all Italy were turned to them, in anxious expectation of a battle which should finally decide the fate of Naples. Expresses were daily despatched from the French camp to Rome, whence the ministers of the different European powers transmitted the tidings to their respective governments. Machiavelli represented at that time the Florentine republic at the papal court, and his correspondence teems with as many floating rumors and speculations as a modern gazette. There were many French residents in the city, with whom the minister was personally acquainted. He frequently notices their opinions on the progress of the war, which they regarded with the most sanguine confidence, as sure to result in the triumph of their own arms, when once fairly brought into collision with the enemy. The calmer and more penetrating eye of the Florentine discerns symptoms in the condition of the two armies of quite a different tendency. [24]

It seemed now obvious, that victory must declare for that party which could best endure the hardships and privations of its present situation. The local position of the Spaniards was far more unfavorable than that of the enemy. The Great Captain, soon after the affair of the bridge, had drawn off his forces to a rising ground about a mile from the river, which was crowned by the little hamlet of Cintura, and commanded the route to Naples. In front of his camp he sunk a deep trench, which, in the saturated soil, speedily filled with water; and he garnished it at each extremity with a strong redoubt. Thus securely intrenched, he resolved patiently to await the movements of the enemy.

The situation of the army, in the mean time, was indeed deplorable. Those who occupied the lower level were up to their knees in mud and water; for the excessive rains, and the inundation of the Garigliano, had converted the whole country into a mere quagmire, or rather standing pool. The only way in which the men could secure themselves was by covering the earth as far as possible with boughs and bundles of twigs; and it was altogether uncertain how long even this expedient would serve against the encroaching element. Those on the higher grounds were scarcely in better plight. The driving storms of sleet and rain, which had continued for several weeks without intermission, found their way into every crevice of the flimsy tents and crazy hovels, thatched only with branches of trees, which afforded a temporary shelter to the troops. In addition to these evils, the soldiers were badly fed, from the difficulty of finding resources in the waste and depopulated regions in which they were quartered, [25] and badly paid, from the negligence, or perhaps poverty, of King Ferdinand, whose inadequate remittances to his general exposed him, among many other embarrassments, to the imminent hazard of disaffection among the soldiery, especially the foreign mercenaries, which nothing, indeed, but the most delicate and judicious conduct on his part could have averted. [26]

In this difficult crisis, Gonsalvo de Cordova retained all his usual equanimity, and even the cheerfulness, so indispensable in a leader who would infuse heart into his followers. He entered freely into the distresses and personal feelings of his men, and, instead of assuming any exemption from fatigue or suffering on the score of his rank, took his turn in the humblest tour of duty with the meanest of them, mounting guard himself, it is said, on more than one occasion. Above all, he displayed that inflexible constancy, which enables the strong mind in the hour of darkness and peril to buoy up the sinking spirits around it. A remarkable instance of this fixedness of purpose occurred at this time.

The forlorn condition of the army, and the indefinite prospect of its continuance, raised a natural apprehension in many of the officers, that, if it did not provoke some open act of mutiny, would in all probability break down the spirits and constitution of the soldiers. Several of them, therefore, among the rest Mendoza and the two Colonnas, waited on the commander-in-chief, and, after stating their fears without reserve, besought him to remove the camp to Capua, where the troops might find healthy and commodious quarters, at least until the severity of the season was mitigated; before which, they insisted, there was no reason to anticipate any movement on the part of the French. But Gonsalvo felt too deeply the importance of grappling with the enemy, before they should gain the open country, to be willing to trust to any such precarious contingency. Besides, he distrusted the effect of such a retrograde movement on the spirits of his own troops. He had decided on his course after the most mature deliberation; and, having patiently heard his officers to the end, replied in these few but memorable words; "It is indispensable to the public service to maintain our present position; and be assured, I would sooner march forward two steps, though it should bring me to my grave, than fall back one, to gain a hundred years." The decided tone of the reply relieved him from further importunity. [27]

There is no act of Gonsalvo's life, which on the whole displays more strikingly the strength of his character. When thus witnessing his faithful followers drooping and dying around him, with the consciousness that a word could relieve them from all their distresses, he yet refrained from uttering it, in stern obedience to what he regarded as the call of duty; and this too on his own responsibility, in opposition to the remonstrances of those on whose judgment he most relied.

Gonsalvo confided in the prudence, sobriety, and excellent constitution of the Spaniards, for resisting the bad effects of the climate. He relied too on their tried discipline, and their devotion to himself, for carrying them through any sacrifice he should demand of them. His experience at Barleta led him to anticipate results of a very opposite character with the French troops. The event justified his conclusions in both respects.

The French, as already noticed, occupied higher and more healthy ground, on the other side of the Garigliano, than their rivals. They were fortunate enough also to find more effectual protection from the weather in the remains of a spacious amphitheatre, and some other edifices, which still covered the site of Minturnae. With all this, however, they suffered more severely from the inclement season than their robust adversaries. Numbers daily sickened and died. They were much straitened, moreover, from want of provisions, through the knavish peculations of the commissaries who had charge of the magazines in Rome. Thus situated, the fiery spirits of the French soldiery, eager for prompt and decisive action, and impatient of delay, gradually sunk under the protracted miseries of a war, where the elements were the principal enemy, and where they saw themselves melting away like slaves in a prison-ship, without even the chance of winning an honorable death on the field of battle. [28]

The discontent occasioned by these circumstances was further swelled by the imperfect success, which had attended their efforts, when allowed to measure weapons with the enemy.

At length the latent mass of disaffection found an object on which to vent itself, in the person of their commander-in-chief, the marquis of Mantua, never popular with the French soldiers. They now loudly taxed him with imbecility, accused him of a secret understanding with the enemy, and loaded him with the opprobrious epithets with which Trans-alpine insolence was accustomed to stigmatize the Italians. In all this, they were secretly supported by Ives d'Allègre, Sandricourt, and other French officers, who had always regarded with dissatisfaction the elevation of the Italian general; till at length the latter, finding that he had influence with neither officers nor soldiers, and unwilling to retain command where he had lost authority, availed himself of a temporary illness, under which he was laboring, to throw up his commission, and withdrew abruptly to his own estates.