accounted one of the best of the Austrian generals, was ordered to place himself at the head of thirty thousand men from the Imperial forces on the Rhine, and, traversing the Tyrol, and collecting what recruits he could in that warlike district, to assume the command of the Austrian army, which, expelled from Italy, now lay upon its frontiers, and might be supposed eager to resume their national supremacy in the fertile climate out of which they had been so lately driven.
Aware of the storm which was gathering, Buonaparte made every possible effort to carry Mantua before arrival of the formidable Austrian army, whose first operation would doubtless be to raise the siege of that important place. A scheme to take the city and castle by surprise, by a detachment which should pass to the Seraglio, or islet on which Mantua is situated, by night and in boats, having totally failed, Buonaparte was compelled to open trenches, and proceed as by regular siege. The Austrian general, Canto D'Irles, when summoned to surrender it, replied that his orders were to defend the place to extremity. Napoleon, on his side, assembled all the battering ordnance which could be collected from the walls of the neighbouring cities and fortresses, and the attack and defence commenced in the most vigorous manner on both sides; the French making every effort to reduce the city before Wurmser should open his campaign, the governor determined to protract his resistance, if possible, until he was relieved by the advance of that general. But although red-hot balls were expended in profusion, and several desperate and bloody assaults and sallies took place, many more battles were to be fought, and much more blood expended, before Buonaparte was fated to succeed in this important object.165
CHAPTER VI
Campaign on the Rhine – General Plan – Wartensleben and the Archduke Charles retire before Jourdan and Moreau – The Archduke forms a junction with Wartensleben, and defeats Jourdan, who retires – Moreau, also, makes his celebrated Retreat through the Black Forest – Buonaparte raises the Siege of Mantua, and defeats the Austrians at Salo and Lonato – Misbehaviour of the French General Valette, at Castiglione – Lonato taken, with the French Artillery, on 3d August – Retaken by Massena and Augereau – Singular escape of Buonaparte from being captured at Lonato – Wurmser defeated between Lonato and Castiglione, and retreats on Trent and Roveredo – Buonaparte resumes his position before Mantua – Effects of the French Victories on the different Italian States – Inflexibility of Austria – Wurmser recruited – Battle of Roveredo – French victorious, and Massena occupies Trent – Buonaparte defeats Wurmser at Primolano – and at Bassano, 8th September – Wurmser flies to Vicenza – Battle of Saint-George – Wurmser finally shut up within the walls of Mantua.
The reader must, of course, be aware, that Italy, through which we are following the victorious career of Napoleon, was not the only scene of war betwixt France and Austria, but that a field of equally strenuous and much more doubtful contest was opened upon the Rhine, where the high military talents of the Archduke Charles were opposed to those of Moreau and Jourdan.
The plan which the Directory had adopted for the campaign of 1796 was of a gigantic character, and menaced Austria, their most powerful enemy upon the continent, with nothing short of total destruction. It was worthy of the genius of Carnot, by whom it was formed, and of Napoleon and Moreau, by whom it had been revised and approved. Under sanction of this general plan, Buonaparte regulated the Italian campaign in which he had proved so successful; and it had been schemed, that to allow Austria no breathing space, Moreau, with the army of the Sambre and Meuse, should press forward on the eastern frontier of Germany, supported on the left by Jourdan, at the head of the army of the Rhine, and that both generals should continue to advance, until Moreau should be in a position to communicate with Buonaparte through the Tyrol. When this junction of the whole forces of France, in the centre of the Austrian dominions, was accomplished, it was Carnot's ultimate plan that they should advance upon Vienna, and dictate peace to the Emperor under the walls of his capital.166
Of this great project, the part intrusted to Buonaparte was completely executed, and for some time the fortune of war seemed equally auspicious to France upon the Rhine as in Italy. Moreau and Jourdan crossed that great national boundary at Neuwied and Kehl, and moved eastward through Germany, forming a connected front of more than sixty leagues in breadth, until Moreau had actually crossed the river Lech, and was almost touching with his right flank the passes of the Tyrol, through which he was, according to the plan of the campaign, to have communicated with Buonaparte.
During this advance of two hostile armies, amounting each to seventy-five thousand men, which filled all Germany with consternation, the Austrian leader Wartensleben was driven from position to position by Jourdan, while the Archduke Charles was equally unable to maintain his ground before Moreau. The imperial generals were reduced to this extremity by the loss of the army, consisting of from thirty to thirty-five thousand men, who had been detached under Wurmser to support the remains of Beaulieu's forces, and reinstate the Austrian affairs in Italy, and who were now on their march through the Tyrol for that purpose. But the archduke was an excellent and enterprising officer, and at this important period he saved the empire of Austria by a bold and decided manœuvre. Leaving a large part of his army to make head against Moreau, or at least to keep him in check, the archduke moved to the right with the rest, so as to form a junction with Wartensleben, and overwhelm Jourdan with a local superiority of numbers, being the very principle on which the French themselves achieved so many victories. Jourdan was totally defeated, and compelled to make a hasty and disorderly retreat, which was rendered disastrous by the insurrection of the German peasantry around his fugitive army. Moreau, also unable to maintain himself in the heart of Germany, when Jourdan, with the army which covered his left flank, was defeated, was likewise under the necessity of retiring, but conducted his retrograde movement with such dexterity, that his retreat through the Black Forest, where the Austrians hoped to cut him off, has been always judged worthy to be compared to a great victory.167 Such were the proceedings on the Rhine, and in the interior of Germany, which must be kept in view as influencing at first by the expected success of Moreau and Jourdan, and afterwards by their actual failure, the movements of the Italian army.168
As the divisions of Wurmser's army began to arrive on the Tyrolese district of Trent, where the Austrian general had fixed his head-quarters, Buonaparte became urgent, either that reinforcements should be despatched to him from France, or that the armies of the Rhine should make such a movement in advance towards the point where they might co-operate with him, as had been agreed upon at arranging the original plan of the campaign. But he obtained no succours; and though the campaign on the Rhine commenced, as we have seen, in the month of June, yet that period was too late to afford any diversion in favour of Napoleon, Wurmser and his whole reinforcements being already either by that time arrived, or on the point of arriving, at the place where they were to commence operations against the French army of Italy.169
The thunder-cloud which had been so long blackening on the mountains of the Tyrol, seemed now about to discharge its fury. Wurmser, having under his command perhaps eighty thousand men, was about to march from Trent against the French, whose forces, amounting to scarce half so many, were partly engaged in the siege of Mantua, and partly dispersed in the towns and villages on the Adige and Chiese, for covering the division of Serrurier, which carried on the siege. The Austrian veteran, confident in his numbers, was only anxious so to regulate his advance, as to derive the most conclusive consequences from the victory which he doubted not to obtain. With an imprudence which the misfortunes of Beaulieu ought to have warned him against, he endeavoured to occupy with the divisions of his army so large an extent of country, as rendered it very difficult for them to maintain their communications with each other. This was particularly the case with his right wing under Quasdonowich, the Prince of Reuss, and General Ocskay, who were detached down the valley of the river Chiese, with orders to direct their march on Brescia. This division was destined to occupy Brescia, and cut off the retreat of the French in the direction
Montholon, tom. iii., p. 229; Jomini, tom. viii., p. 163.
See Correspondence Inédite, tom. i., p. 12; Montholon, tom. iv., p. 372; Jomini, tom. viii., p. 388.
"That retreat was the greatest blunder that ever Moreau committed. If he had, instead of retreating, made a détour, and marched in the rear of Prince Charles, he would have destroyed or taken the Austrian army. The Directory, jealous of me, wanted to divide, if possible, the stock of military reputation; and as they could not give Moreau credit for a victory, they caused his retreat to be extolled in the highest terms: although even the Austrian generals condemned him for it." – Napoleon,
Montholon, tom. iii., pp. 292-307; Jomini, tom. viii., pp. 178-194.
Montholon, tom. iii., p. 234.
