while the Austrians were reposing warmly in their tents, Napoleon and his soldiers, drenched with rain, were toiling through the muddy defiles of the mountains, wading the swollen streams, and climbing the slippery cliffs. Just as the day began to dawn through the broken clouds, the young general stood upon the heights in the rear of Montenotte, and looked down upon the encamped host whom he was now for the first time to encounter in decisive conflict. He had so manœuvred as completely to envelop his unsuspecting enemy. Allowing his weary troops not an hour for repose, he fell upon the allied Austrians and Sardinians like a whirlwind, attacking them, at the same moment, in front, flank, and rear. The battle was long and bloody. The details of these horrid scenes of carnage are sickening. The shout of onset, the shriek of agony; the mutilated and the mangled forms of the young and the noble, trampled beneath the iron hoofs of rushing squadrons; the wounded crushed into the mire, with their bones ground to powder as the wheels of ponderous artillery were dragged mercilessly over them, and the wailing echo of widows and orphans in their distant homes, render these battle-fields revolting to humanity. At length the Austrians were broken and completely routed. They fled in dismay, leaving three thousand dead and wounded upon the field, and their cannon and colors in possession of the French. This was the first battle in which Napoleon had the supreme command; the first victory in which the honor redounded to himself. "My title of nobility," said he proudly to the Emperor of Austria, "dates from the battle of Montenotte." The Austrians fled in one direction to Dego, to meet reinforcements coming to their aid and to protect Milan. The Sardinians retreated in another direction to Millesimo, to cover their own capital of Turin. Thus the two armies were separated as Napoleon desired. The indefatigable general, allowing his exhausted and bleeding army but a few hours of repose, and himself not one, resolved, while his troops were flushed with victory, and the enemy were depressed by defeat and loss, to attack both armies at once. The 13th and the 14th of April were passed in one incessant conflict. The Austrians and Sardinians intrenching themselves in strong fortresses and upon craggy hill-sides, and every hour receiving reinforcements pressing on to their aid, cast showers of stones and rolled heavy rocks upon their assailants, sweeping away whole companies at a time. Napoleon was every where, sharing the toil, incurring the danger, and inspiring his men with his own enthusiastic ardor and courage. In both battles the French were entirely victorious. At Dego, the Austrians were compelled to abandon their artillery and baggage, and escape as they could over the mountains, leaving three thousand prisoners in the hands of the conqueror. At Millesimo, fifteen hundred Sardinians were compelled to surrender. Thus like a thunderbolt Napoleon opened the campaign. In three days, three desperate battles had been fought, and three decisive victories gained. Still Napoleon's situation was perilous in the extreme. He was surrounded by forces vastly superior to his own, crowding down upon him. The Austrians were amazed at his audacity. They deemed it the paroxysm of a madman, who throws himself single-handed into the midst of an armed host. His destruction was sure, unless by almost supernatural rapidity of marching, he could prevent the concentration of these forces and bring superior numbers to attack and destroy the detached portions. A day of inaction, an hour of hesitancy, might have been fatal. It was in the battle at Dego that Napoleon was first particularly struck with the gallantry of a young officer named Lannes. In nothing was the genius of this extraordinary man more manifest, than in the almost intuitive penetration with which he discovered character. Lannes became subsequently Duke of Montebello and one of the marshals of the Empire.2
In the midst of these marches and counter-marches and these incessant battles, there had been no opportunity to distribute regular rations among the troops. The soldiers, destitute of every thing, began to pillage. Napoleon, who was exceedingly anxious to win the good-will of the people of Italy and to be welcomed by them as their deliverer from proud oppressors, proceeded against the culprits with great severity, and immediately re-established the most rigid discipline in the army.
He had now advanced to the summit of Mt. Zemolo. From that eminence the troops looked down upon the lovely plains of Italy, opening, like a diorama beneath them. The poetic sensibilities of Napoleon were deeply moved by the majestic spectacle. Orchards and vineyards, and fertile fields and peaceful villages lay spread out, a scene of perfect enchantment, in the extended valley. Majestic rivers, reflecting the rays of the sun like ribbons of silver, meandered through meadow and forest; encircling the verdant hill-sides, and bathing the streets of opulent cities. In the distance stupendous mountains, hoary with eternal ice and snow, bounded and seemed to embrace in protecting arms this land of promise. Napoleon, sitting upon his horse, gazed for some time in silent and delighted admiration upon the scene. "Hannibal," he exclaimed, "forced the Alps; but we have turned them."
There was, however, not a moment to be lost in rest or reverie. From every direction the Austrians and Sardinians were hurrying to their appointed rendezvous, to combine and destroy this audacious band, which had so suddenly and fatally plunged into their midst. The French troops rushed down the declivities of the mountains and, crossing the Tanaro, rejoiced with trembling as they found themselves in the sunny plains of Italy. Dispatching Augereau to pursue the Austrian army, now effectually separated from their allies, Napoleon, with indefatigable perseverance, pursued the Sardinians in their flight toward Turin. He came up with them on the 18th at Ceva, where they had intrenched themselves, eight thousand strong.
He immediately attacked them in their intrenchments, and during the remainder of the day the sanguinary battle raged without any decisive result. The flash and the roar of artillery and of musketry did not cease, till the darkness rendered it impossible to distinguish friend from foe. The French slept upon their arms, ready to resume the combat in the earliest dawn of the morning. In the night the Sardinians fled, and again took a strong position behind the deep and foaming torrent of the Carsuglia. On the evening of the ensuing day, Napoleon again overtook them. A single bridge crossed the rapid torrent. The Sardinians were so strongly posted that it seemed impossible that they could be dislodged. Large detachments were hastening to reinforce them. The Austrians were accumulating in great strength in Napoleon's rear, and notwithstanding all these brilliant victories the situation of the French was perilous in the extreme. A council of war was held in the night, and it was decided, regardless of the extreme exhaustion of the troops, to make an assault upon the bridge as soon as the morning should dawn. Before the first gray of the morning the French, in battle array, were moving down upon the bridge, anticipating a desperate struggle. But the Sardinians, in a panic, had again fled during the night, and Napoleon, rejoicing at his good fortune, passed the bridge unobstructed. The indefatigable victor pressed onward in the pursuit, and before nightfall again overtook his fugitive foes, who had intrenched themselves upon some almost inaccessible hills near Mondovi. The French immediately advanced to the assault. The Sardinians fought with desperation, but the genius of Napoleon triumphed, and again the Sardinians fled, leaving two thousand men, eight cannon, and eleven standards in the hands of the conqueror, and one thousand dead upon the field. Napoleon pursued the fugitives to Cherasco, and took possession of the place. He was now within twenty miles of Turin, the capital of the kingdom of Sardinia. All was commotion in the metropolis. There were thousands there, who had imbibed the revolutionary spirit, who were ready to welcome Napoleon as their deliverer, and to implore him to aid them in the establishment of a republic. The king and the nobles were in perfect consternation. The English and Austrian ministers entreated the king to adhere to the alliance, abandon his capital, and continue the conflict. They assured him that the rash and youthful victor was rushing into difficulties from which he could by no possibility extricate himself. But he, trembling for his throne and his crown, believing it to be impossible to resist so rapid a conqueror, and fearing that Napoleon, irritated by a protracted conflict, would proclaim political liberty to the people, and revolutionize the kingdom, determined to throw himself into the arms of the French, and to appeal to the magnanimity of the foe, whose rights he had so unpardonably assailed. By all human rules he deserved the severest punishment. He had united with two powerful nations, England and Austria, to chastise the French for preferring a republic to a monarchy, and had sent an invading army to bombard the cities of France and instigate the royalists to rise in civil war against the established government of the country.
It was with lively satisfaction that Napoleon received the advances of the Sardinian King, for he was fully aware of the peril in which he was placed. The allied armies were
"The education of Lannes had been much neglected but his mind rose to the level of his courage. He became a giant. He adored me as his protector, his superior being, his providence. In the impetuosity of his temper he sometimes allowed hasty expressions against me to escape his lips, but he would probably have broken the head of any one who had joined him in his remarks. When he died he had been in fifty-four pitched battles and three hundred combats of different kinds." – Napoleon.
