But in spite of such a suggestive warning, the senate of the commonwealth adhered to its policy of perfect neutrality. Bonaparte consented to this decision, but ordered it to disarm, agreeing in that event to control the liberals on the mainland, and to guarantee the Venetian territories, leaving behind troops enough both to secure those ends and to guard his own communications. If these should be tampered with, he warned the senate that the knell of Venetian independence would toll forthwith. No one can tell what would have been in store for the proud city if she had chosen the alternative, not of neutrality, but of an alliance with France. Bonaparte always made his plan in two ways, and it is probable that her ultimate fate would have been identical in either case.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Preliminaries of Peace—Leoben.
Austrian Plans for the Last Italian Campaign — The Battle on the Tagliamento — Retreat of the Archduke Charles — Bonaparte's Proclamation to the Carinthians — Joubert Withdraws from the Tyrol — Bonaparte's "Philosophical" Letter — His Situation at Leoben — The Negotiations for Peace — Character of the Treaty — Bonaparte's Rude Diplomacy — French Successes on the Rhine — Plots of the Directory — The Uprising of Venetia — War with Venice.
1797.
The Aulic Council at Vienna prepared for the Archduke Charles a modification of the same old plan, only this time the approach was down the Piave and the Tagliamento, rivers which rise among the grotesque Dolomites and in the Carnic Alps. They flow south like the Adige and the Brenta, but their valleys are wider where they open into the lowlands, and easier of access. The auxiliary force, under Lusignan, was now to the westward on the Piave, while the main force, under Charles, was waiting for reinforcements in the broad intervales on the upper reaches of the Tagliamento, through which ran the direct road to Vienna. This time the order of attack was exactly reversed, because Bonaparte, with his strengthened army of about seventy-five thousand men, resolved to take the offensive before the expected levies from the Austrian army of the Rhine should reach the camp of his foe. The campaign was not long, for there was no resistance from the inhabitants, as there would have been in the German Alps, among the Tyrolese, Bonaparte's embittered enemies; and the united force of Austria was far inferior to that of France. Joubert, with eighteen thousand men, was left to repress the Tyrol. Though only twenty-eight years old, he had risen from a volunteer in the files through every rank and was now division general. He had gained renown on the Rhine and found the climax of his fame in this expedition, which he so brilliantly conducted that at the close of the campaign he was chosen to carry the captured standards to Paris. He was acclaimed as a coming man. But thereafter his achievements were mediocre and he fell mortally wounded on August fifteenth, 1799, at the battle of Novi while rallying an army destined to defeat. Two small forces under Kilmaine and Victor associated with Lannes were detailed to watch Venice and Rome respectively; but the general good order of Italy was intrusted to the native legions which Bonaparte had organized. Fate had little more in store for Kilmaine, the gallant Irish cavalryman, who was among the foremost generals of his army. Already a veteran forty-six years old, as veterans were then reckoned, he had fought in America and on the Rhine and had filled the cup of his glory at Peschiera, Castiglione, and Mantua. He was yet to be governor of Lombardy and end his career by mortal disease when in chief command of the "Army of England." Victor, wounded at Toulon, general of brigade in the Pyrenees, a subordinate officer to the unsuccessful Schérer in Italy, quickly rose under Bonaparte to be division general. Of lowly birth, he had scarcely reached his thirty-fourth year when on this occasion he exhibited both military and diplomatic talent of a high order. Throughout the consulate and empire he held one important office after another, so successfully that he commended himself even to the Bourbons, and died in 1841, full of years and honors. Lannes was now twenty-eight. The child of poor parents, he began life as a dyer's apprentice, enlisted when twenty-three and was a colonel within two years, so astounding were his courage and natural gifts. Detailed to serve under Bonaparte, the two became bosom friends. A plain, blunt man, Lannes was as fierce as a war dog and as faithful. Throughout the following years he followed Bonaparte in all his enterprises, and Napoleon on the Marchfeld, in 1809, wept bitterly when his faithful monitor was shot to pieces.
Masséna advanced up the Piave against Lusignan, captured his rear-guard, and drove him away northward beyond Belluno, while the Archduke, thus separated from his right, withdrew to guard the road into Carniola. Bonaparte, with his old celerity, reached the banks of the Tagliamento opposite the Austrian position on March sixteenth, long before he was expected. His troops had marched all night, but almost immediately they made a feint as if to force a crossing in the face of their enemy. The Austrians on the left bank awaited the onset in perfect order, and in dispositions of cavalry, artillery, and infantry admirably adapted to the ground. It seemed as if the first meeting of the two young generals would fall out to the advantage of Charles. But he was neither as wily nor as indefatigable as his enemy. The French drew back, apparently exhausted, and bivouacked as if for the night. The Austrians, expecting nothing further that day, and standing on the defensive, followed the example of their opponents. Two hours elapsed, when suddenly the whole French army rose like one man, and, falling into line without an instant's delay, rushed for the stream, which at that spot was swift but fordable, flowing between wide, low banks of gravel. The surprise was complete; the stream was crossed, and the Austrians had barely time to form when the French were upon them. They fought with gallantry for three hours until their flank was turned. They then drew off in an orderly retreat, abandoning many guns and losing some prisoners.
Masséna, waiting behind the intervening ridge for the signal, advanced at the first sound of cannon into the upper valley of the same stream, crossed it, and beset the passes of the Italian Alps, by which communication with the Austrian capital was quickest. Charles had nothing left, therefore, but to withdraw due eastward across the great divide of the Alps, where they bow toward the Adriatic, and pass into the valley of the Isonzo, behind that full and rushing stream, which he fondly hoped would stop the French pursuit. The frost, however, had bridged it in several places, and these were quickly found. Bernadotte and Sérurier stormed the fortress of Gradisca, and captured two thousand five hundred men, while Masséna seized the fort at the Chiusa Veneta, and, scattering a whole division of flying Austrians, captured five thousand with their stores and equipments. He then attacked and routed the enemy's guard on the Pontebba pass, occupied Tarvis, and thus cut off their communication with the Puster valley, by which the Austrian detachment from the Rhine was to arrive. It was in this campaign that Bernadotte laid the foundation of his future greatness. He was the son of a lawyer in Pau, where he was born in 1764. Enlisting as a common soldier, he was wounded in Corsica, became chief of battalion under Custine, general of brigade under Kléber, and commanded a division at Fleurus. The previous year he had shared the defeat of Jourdan on the Rhine, but under Bonaparte he became a famous participant in victory. A Jacobin democrat, he was later entrusted by the Directory with important missions, but in these he had little success. It was as a soldier that he rose in the coming years to heights which in his own mind awakened a rivalry with Napoleon; ambitious for the highest rank, he made a great match with the sister-in-law of Joseph Bonaparte, and so managed his affairs that, as is well known, he ended on the throne of Sweden and founded the reigning house of that kingdom.
Bonaparte wooed the stupefied Carinthians with his softly worded proclamations, and his advancing columns were unharassed by the peasantry while he pushed farther on, capturing Klagenfurt, and seizing both Triest and Fiume, the only harbors on the Austrian shore. He then returned with the main body of his troops, and, crossing the pass of Tarvis, entered Germany at Villach. "We are come," he said to the inhabitants, "not as enemies, but as friends, to end a terrible war imposed by England on a ministry bought with her gold." And the populace, listening to his siren voice, believed him. All this was accomplished before the end of March; and Charles, his army reduced to less than three fourths, was resting northward on the road to Vienna, beyond the river Mur, exhausted, and expecting daily that he would be compelled to a further retreat.
Joubert had not been so successful. According to instructions, he had pushed up the Adige as far as Brixen, into the heart of the hostile Tyrol. The Austrians had again called the mountaineers to arms, and a considerable force under Laudon was gathered to resist the invaders. It had been a general but most indefinite understanding between Bonaparte and the Directory that Moreau was again to cross the Rhine and advance once more, this time for a junction with Joubert to march against Vienna. But the directors, in an access of suspicion, had broken their word, and, pleading their penury, had not taken a step toward fitting out the Army of the North. Moreau was therefore not within reach; he had not even crossed the Rhine. Consequently Joubert was in straits, for the whole country had now risen against him. It was with difficulty that he had advanced, and with serious loss that he fought one terrible battle after another; finally, however, he forced his way into the valley of the Drave, and marched down that river to join Bonaparte. This was regarded by Bonaparte as a remarkable feat, but by the Austrians as a virtual repulse; both the Tyrol and Venice were jubilant, and the effects spread as far eastward as the Austrian provinces of the Adriatic. Triest and Fiume had not been garrisoned, and the Austrians occupied them once more; the Venetian senate organized a secret insurrection, which broke out simultaneously in many places, and was suppressed only after many of the French, some of them invalids in the hospitals, had been murdered.