On the morning of the 12th of April, 1796, when D"Argenteau advanced from Montenotte to attack the column of Rampon, he found that by skillful manoeuvres during the night Napoleon had completely surrounded him--a man who had fancied there was nothing new to be done in warfare.
On the previous day the Austrians had driven in all the outposts of the French and appeared before the redoubt of Montenotte. This redoubt, the last of the intrenchments, was defended by 1,500 men commanded by Rampon who made his soldiers take an oath, during the heat of the attack, to defend it or perish in the intrenchments, to the last man. The repeated a.s.saults of the French were without avail, their advancement was checked and they were kept the whole night at the distance of a pistol shot, 400 men being killed by the fire of their musketry alone.
At daybreak, the following morning, Bonaparte then being at the head of the French forces, and having introduced two pieces of cannon into the redoubt during the night, the action was recommenced with great vigor and with varying success. The contest had continued for sometime, when Bonaparte, with Berthier and Ma.s.sena appearing suddenly with the centre and left wing of the army upon the rear and flank of the enemy, at once commenced a furious attack, filled them with terror and confusion, and decided the fate of the day. D"Argenteau, who commanded the rear, had fought gallantly, but seeing that to continue the battle would only end in total destruction, he fled, leaving his colors and cannon, a thousand killed and two thousand prisoners.
Thus was the centre of the great Austrian army completely routed before either its commander-in-chief at the left, or General Colli at the right, knew that a battle had begun. It was from this battle, the first of Napoleon"s victories, that the French Emperor told the Emperor of Austria, some years later, that he dated his n.o.bility. "Ancestors?" said Napoleon, "I, sir, am an ancestor myself; my t.i.tle of n.o.bility dates from Montenotte!"
This victory enabled the French, under La Harpe, to advance to Cairo, and placed them on that side of the Alps which slopes toward Lombardy.
Beaulieu now fell back on Dego, where he could open his communication with Colli, who had retreated to Millessimo, a small town about nine miles from Dego. Here the two commanders hoped to unite their forces.
They were soon strongly posted, and dispatching couriers to Milan for reinforcements, intended to await their arrival before risking another battle. It was their object to keep fast in these positions until succor could come from Lombardy; but Napoleon had no intention of giving them such a respite; his tactics were not those of other generals.
The morning after the victory of Montenotte Bonaparte dispatched Augereau to attack Millessimo; Ma.s.sena to fall on Dego, and La Harpe to turn the flank of Beaulieu.
Ma.s.sena carried the heights of Biestro at the point of the bayonet, while La Harpe dislodged the Austrian general from his position, which separated him hopelessly from the Sardinian commander and put him to precipitate flight. By these movements Bonaparte was in such a position, that, though they had not traversed, his army had at all events scaled the Alps.
Meanwhile Augereau had seized the outposts of Millessimo and cut off Provera, with 2,000 Austrians who occupied an eminence upon the mountain of Cossaria, from the main body of Colli"s army. Provera took refuge in a ruined castle which he defended with great bravery, hoping to receive a.s.sistance from Colli.
The next morning Napoleon, who had arrived in the night, forced Colli to battle and compelled him to retreat towards Ceva. Provera imitated the gallant example of Colonel Rampon in his defense, but not with the same success. He was compelled to surrender his sword to Bonaparte at discretion, after a loss of 10,000 in killed and prisoners, twenty-two cannon and fifteen standards. The French found on the summit of the Alps every species of ammunition and other necessities which the celerity of their march had prevented them from carrying.
Dego, situated at the summit of the Alps, secured the entrance of the French into Italy, cut off the communications between the Austrian and Sardinian armies, and placed the conqueror in a situation to crush them in succession one after the other. Beaulieu, fully sensible of the danger of his situation, collected the best troops in his army, and at break of day on the 15th of April, retook Dego at the head of 7,000 men.
The Austrians stood two attacks headed by Napoleon, but at the third Causse rushed forward, holding his plumed hat on the point of his sword, and Dego was soon again in possession of the French. For this piece of gallantry he immediately received the rank of brigadier-general. Here also, Lannes, who lived to be a marshal of the Empire, first attracted the notice of Napoleon, and was promoted from lieutenant-colonel to colonel. The triumph, however, was purchased with the life of the brave General Causse. He was carried out of the melee mortally wounded.
Napoleon pa.s.sed near him as he lay. "Is Dego retaken?" asked the dying officer. "It is ours," replied Napoleon. "Then long live the Republic!"
cried Causse, "I die content."
Hotly pursued by the victors, Colli rallied his fugitives at Mondovi, where they again yielded to the irrisistible onset of the French, the Sardinian commander leaving his best troops, baggage and cannon on the field. The action was a most severe one in which, among others, the French general, Stengel, a brave and excellent officer, was killed, and the cavalry would have been overpowered but for the desperate valor of Murat.
The Sardinians lost ten stands of colors and fifteen hundred prisoners, among whom were three generals. The Sardinian army had now ceased to exist, and the Austrians were flying to the frontiers of Lombardy.
Napoleon, following up his advantage, entered Cherasco, a strong place about ten miles from Turin, as a conqueror. Here he dictated the terms by which the Sardinian king could still wear a crown. From the castle where he stood, and looking off on the garden-fields of Lombardy--which had gladdened the eyes of so many conquerors--with the Alps behind him, glittering in their perennial snows, Napoleon said to his officers: "Hannibal forced the Alps--we have turned them." To his soldiers, whom he addressed in a proclamation, he said: "In fifteen days you have gained six victories, taken twenty-one stands of colors, fifty-five pieces of cannon, several fortresses, and conquered the richest part of Piedmont: you have made 15,000 prisoners, killed or wounded upwards of 10,000 men. Hitherto you have fought for barren rocks, rendered famous by your valor, but useless to your country. Your services now equal those of the victorious army of Holland and the Rhine. You have provided yourselves with everything of which you were dest.i.tute. You have gained battles without cannon! pa.s.sed rivers without bridges! made forced marches without shoes! bivouacked without strong liquors and often without bread! Republican phalanxes, Soldiers of Liberty, only, could have endured all this. Thanks for your perseverance! If your conquest of Toulon presaged the immortal campaign of 1793, your present victories presage a still n.o.bler. But, soldiers, you have done nothing while so much remains to be done; neither Turin or Milan are yours. The ashes of the Conquerors of the Tarquins are still trampled by the a.s.sa.s.sins of Ba.s.seville."
To the Italians Napoleon said: "People of Italy! The French army comes to break your chains. The people of France are the friends of all nations--confide in them. Your property, your religion and your customs shall be respected. We make war with those tyrants alone who enslave you."
The French soldiers, flushed with victory, were eager to continue their march, and the people of Italy hailed Napoleon as their deliverer. The Sardinian king did not long survive the humiliation of the loss of his crown--he died of a broken heart within a few days after signing the treaty of Cherasco.
In the meantime the couriers of Napoleon were almost every hour riding into Paris with the news of his victories, and five times in six days the Representatives of France had decreed that the Army of Italy deserved well of their country.
Murat was sent to Paris bearing the news of the capitulation of the king of Sardinia, and twenty-one stands of colors. His arrival caused great joy in the capital.
The consummate genius of this brief campaign could not be disputed, and the modest language of the young general"s dispatches to the Directory lent additional grace to his fame. All the eyes of Europe were fixed in admiration on his career.
In less than a month"s campaign Napoleon laid the gates of Italy open before him; reduced the Austrians to inaction; utterly destroyed the Sardinian king"s army, and took two great fortresses called "the keys to the Alps!"
To effect the rapid movements required for such results, everything was sacrificed that came in the way, not only on this occasion, but on every other. Baggage, stragglers, the wounded, the artillery--all were left behind, rather than the column should fail to reach the destined place at the destined time. Napoleon made no allowance for accidents or impediments. Things until now reckoned essential to an army were dispensed with; and, for the first time, troops were seen to take the field without tents, camp equipage, magazines of provisions, and military hospitals. Such a system naturally aggravated the horrors of war. The soldiers were, necessarily, marauders, and committed terrible excesses at this first stage of the campaign; but every effort was made, and with much success, to prevent this evil after conquest had put the means of regular supply within the power of the commander-in-chief. The wounded were frequently left behind for want of the means of conveyance.
According to one authority, the loss by the disorders inseparable from this means of war was four times as great as by the fire or the sword of the enemy.
The army, nevertheless, adored its fortunate general, and it still doted upon him even when undeceived respecting his providence for it. "To be able to solve this enigma," says General Foy, "it was requisite to have known Napoleon, the life of camp and of glory, and, above all, one must have a French head and heart." With the sufferings of the army, he never failed to show an active sympathy when it did not tend to the compromise of his plans. The hours, too, spent by Napoleon on the field after a battle, endeared him to his followers. He visited the hospitals in person and made his officers, after his example, take the utmost interest in this duty. His hand was applied to the wounds; his voice cheered the sick. All who recovered could relate individual acts of kindness experienced from him by themselves or their comrades.
It was at this period that a medal of Napoleon was struck at Paris as conqueror of Montenotte. The face is extremely thin, with long, straight hair. On the reverse, a figure of Victory is represented flying over the Alps, bearing a palm branch, a wreath of laurel and a drawn sword. It was the first of the splendid series designed by Denon to record the victories and honors of France"s great warrior.
Napoleon determined to advance without delay, giving Tuscany, Venice, and the other Italian States no time to take up a hostile att.i.tude.
After accomplishing so much, a general of less enterprise might have thought it right to rest awhile and wait for reinforcements before attempting further conquest, but not so with Napoleon. The French army, to which recruits were now flocking from every hospital and depot within reach, was ordered to prepare for instant motion.
It was after one of the successful movements of this period that an old Hungarian officer was brought prisoner to Bonaparte, who entered into conversation with him, and among other matters asked what he thought of the state of the war. "Nothing," replied the prisoner, who did not know he was addressing the commander-in-chief, "nothing can be worse.
Here is a young man who knows absolutely nothing of the regular rules of war; to-day he is in our rear, to-morrow on our flank, the next day again in our front. Such violations of the principles of the art of war are intolerable sir, and we do not know how to proceed!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: From a Painting by F. Philippoteaux
BONAPARTE AT THE BATTLE OF RIVOLI]
To secure the route to Milan it was necessary to drive the Austrians from the banks of the Adda, behind which they had retired after a heavy loss at Fombio. Lannes upon that occasion gave proofs of his astonishing intrepidity; at the head of a single battalion, he attacked between seven and eight thousand Austrians, and not content in causing their flight, he pursued them ten miles, following the trot of their cavalry on foot.
Having collected an immense quant.i.ty of artillery and the main division of his army at a narrow wooden bridge erected across this stream at the town of Lodi, General Beaulieu awaited the arrival of the French, confident of defending the pa.s.sage of the Adda and arresting their progress. Beaulieu had placed a battery of thirty cannon so as to completely sweep every plank of the bridge. Had he removed the structure, which was about 500 feet in length, when he changed his headquarters to the east bank of the river, he might have made the pa.s.sage much more formidable than even his cannon made it.
Well aware that his conquest would never be consolidated till the Austrian army was totally vanquished, and deprived of all its Italian possessions, Bonaparte hastened to pursue the enemy to Lodi. Coming up on the 10th of May, he easily drove the rear-guard of the Austrian army before him into the town, but found his further progress threatened by the tremendous fire of thirty cannon stationed at the opposite end of the bridge so as to sweep it completely. The whole body of the enemy"s infantry drawn up in a dense line, supported this appalling disposition of the artillery.
Bonaparte"s first care was to place as many guns as he could get in direct opposition to the Austrian battery. He was determined that no obstacle should oppose his victorious career, and at once resolved to pa.s.s the bridge.
Exposed to a shower of grape-shot from the enemy"s batteries, Napoleon at last succeeded in planting two pieces of cannon at the head of the bridge on the French side, and to prevent the enemy from destroying it a column was immediately formed from the troops that at once appeared, determined to carry the pa.s.s. The French now commenced a fearful cannonading. Bonaparte himself appeared in the midst of the fire, pointing with his own hand two guns in such a manner as to cut off the Austrians from the only path by which they could have advanced to undermine the bridge.
Observing, meanwhile, that Beaulieu had removed his infantry to a considerable distance backwards, to keep them out of the range of the French battery, Napoleon instantly detached General Beaumont and his cavalry, with orders to gallop out of sight, ford the river, and coming suddenly upon the enemy, attack them in the rear. When that took place Napoleon instantly drew up a body of 3,000 grenadiers in close column under the shelter of the houses, and bade them prepare for the desperate attempt of forcing a pa.s.sage across the narrow bridge, in the face of the enemy"s thickly-planted artillery.
A sudden movement in the flanks of the enemy now convinced Napoleon that his cavalry had arrived and charged the enemy"s flank, and he instantly gave the word. In a moment the brave grenadiers wheeled to the left and were at once upon the bridge, rushing forward at a charge step, and shouting: "Vive la Republique!"; but the storm of grape-shot from the enemy"s guns checked them for a moment. It was a very sepulchre of death and a burning furnace of destruction pouring out its broadsides of fire in defense of its position; a hundred brave men fell dead. The advancing column faltered under the redoubled roar of the guns and the rattle of grape-shot.
Lannes, Napoleon, Berthier and L"Allemand now hurried to the front, rallied and cheered the men, and as the column dashed across and over the dead bodies of the slain which covered the pa.s.sageway, and in the face of a tempest of fire that thinned their ranks at every step, the leaders shouted: "Follow your generals, my brave fellows!"
Lannes was the first to reach the other side, Napoleon himself being second.
The Austrian artillerymen were bayoneted at their guns before the other troops, whom Beaulieu had removed too far back in his anxiety to avoid the French battery, could come to their a.s.sistance. Beaumont pressing gallantly with his horse upon the flank, and Napoleon"s infantry forming rapidly as they pa.s.sed the bridge, and charging on the instant, the Austrian line at once became involved in inextricable confusion. The contest was almost instantly decided; the whole line of Austrian artillery was carried; their order of battle broken; their troops routed and put to flight.
The slaughter of Austrians amounted to vast numbers, while the French lost but 200 men. Thus did Bonaparte execute with such rapidity and consequently with so little loss "the terrible pa.s.sage," as he himself called it, "of the bridge of Lodi." It is justly called one of the most daring achievements on record.
The victory of Lodi had a great influence on Napoleon"s mind. He declared subsequently that neither his success in quelling the "Sections," nor his victory at Montenotte, made him regard himself as anything superior; but that after Lodi, for the first time the idea dawned upon him that he would one day be "a decisive actor," as he himself put it, on the stage of the military and political world. That he was a fatalist is well-known, it being a frequent expression with him that "every bullet is marked."
On this occasion the soldiers conferred on him the nick-name of "Little Corporal." The original cause of the appellation, as applied to Bonaparte, has been related by Napoleon himself. He says that when he commanded near the Col di Tende the army was obliged to traverse a narrow bridge, on which occasion he gave directions that no women should be allowed to accompany it, as the service was particularly difficult, and required that the troops should be continually on the alert; to enforce such an order he placed two captains on the bridge with instructions, on pain of death, not to permit a woman to pa.s.s. He subsequently repaired to the bridge himself, for the purpose of ascertaining whether his orders were being scrupulously obeyed, when he found a crowd of women a.s.sembled, who, as soon as they saw him, began to revile him, exclaiming: "Oh, then, _pet.i.t corporal_, it is you who have given orders not to let us pa.s.s!"
Some miles in advance Napoleon was surprised to see a considerable number of women with the troops. He immediately ordered the two captains to be put under arrest and brought before him, intending to have them tried immediately. They protested their innocence, a.s.serting that no women had crossed the bridge. Bonaparte caused some of the females to be brought before him, and learned with astonishment, from their own confession, that they had emptied some casks of provisions and concealed themselves therein, by which means they had pa.s.sed over unperceived.
After every battle the oldest soldiers convened a council in order to confer a new rank on their young general, who, on making his appearance, was saluted by his latest t.i.tle. Bonaparte, therefore, was nominated _corporal_ at Lodi, and _sergeant_ at Castiglione. It was "Little Corporal," however, that the soldiery constantly applied to him ever afterwards.
The fruits of this splendid victory at Lodi were twenty pieces of cannon, and between two and three thousand killed, wounded and prisoners, and the loss by the enemy of an excellent line of defense.
When Europe heard of the battle they named the conqueror "The Hero of Lodi."
Beaulieu contrived to withdraw a part of his troops, and gathering the scattered fragment of his force together, soon threw the line of the Mincio, a tributary of the Po, between himself and his enemy. The great object, however, he had attained,--he was still free to defend Mantua.
The French following up their advantages at Lodi, pursued the Austrians with great celerity. They advanced to Pizzighitone, which immediately surrendered. Pushing on to Cremona they met with like success, and the vanguard, having taken the route to Milan, entered this city on the 14th of May, having on their march received the submission of Pavia, where they found most of the magazines of the Austrian army. The tri-colored flag now waved in triumph from the extremity of the Lake of Como and the frontiers of the country to the gates of Parma.