18 THE FIRST CONSUL CROSSES THE ST. BERNARD. [A.D. to join Moncey at the Mont St. Gothard, whither that general accordingly repaired with 20,000 men on the 13th of May. In the meanwhile, the First Consul worked day and night to get forward his preparations, which embraced the most minute details. It was the ardour of Bonaparte's character which effected these gigantic operations, corresponding, organising, providing, equipping: he never regarded the minutest details to be below the swoop of his genius. It was of the first moment that the enemy should be kept in ignorance of the real strength and destination of the army which Berthier's indefatigable activity was collecting between Dijon and the Alps; and so effectual was the deceit, that the Austrian spies made the subject a matter of ridicule throughout Europe, as if a few battalions of conscripts could relieve the exigencies of Massena. On the 6th, the First Consul quitted Paris, having now prepared everything for his expedition into Italy, by a path across the Alps unexpected by the enemy, and which had been well reconnoitred and considered, and the most extensive preparations made that the passage should be effected quickly and successfully. Every pass across the great mountain chain had been canvassed: the way by the St. Gothard had been deemed too circuitous, and that by Mont Cenis was too near the Austrian line of operations; the Simplon required to be approached through the Valais, for which there was not time; accordingly the Pass of the St. Bernard was, after great consideration, the point determined upon. Bonaparte awaited with impatience the report of the Engineer-General Marescot, whom he had sent to reconnoitre the ground, and after passing the troops in review on the road, he repaired to Geneva to receive the General's report. "Eh bien! peut-on passer?" "Oui, Général, mais avec peine. Je regarde l'opération comme très-difficile." "Difficile, soit, mais est-elle possible?" "Je le crois, mais avec des efforts extraordinaires." "Eh bien! partons." An interval of time was yet, however, required to allow Moncey to descend into Italy by the Pass of the St. Gothard; and accordingly Bonaparte, to disguise his intentions, gave out that he would hire a house at Geneva, to be at hand to provide against the exigencies of Suchet and Thurreau. With that versatility of mind which was so wonderful in him, even when engrossed in the mightiest conceptions, he occupied himself at Geneva with the conversation of the famous Necker (who still resided at Coppet), and in other ordinary pursuits. But on the 18th he repaired to Lausanne, where he passed in review the vanguard of his army here Carnot joined him, with the account of the victory at Möskirch and the assurance that Lorges was already on his march through the Alps. He had ordered 180,000 rations of biscuit to be baked as he passed Lyons, giving out that they were for the fleet. These were now covertly employed to form a magazine at Villeneuve, at the end of the Lake of Geneva. Artillery and ammunition were secretly carried into the mountains from Besançon, Auxerre, Grenoble and Briançon, upon pretence of a review; for uot only was he desirous of concealing his intentions from the enemy, 1800.] THE FIRST CONSUL CROSSES THE ST. BERNARD. 19 but the new constitution of the year VIII. had distinctly provided that the First Consul should not command armies; although its wise creators had established no punishment for disobedience of this provision, nor given to any one the power of checking its neglect. Perhaps a battle of Marengo could alone have obliterated any enactment of the kind. A hundred large trees were felled and hollowed to convey the guns by sledges, and the soldiers were silently provided with six days' provisions in their haversacks; and sumpter mules, collected from the valleys, accompanied the army with subsistence for six days more; the peasants were everywhere organised to carry shot and shell, and the ammunition was securely packed in little boxes, so as to be conveyed on the backs of beasts of burthen. The passage of the Great St. Bernard, lying north of Mont Blanc, has been used as the principal line of traffic between France and Italy for many thousand years. It is approached from Martigny in the Valais by St. Pierre, to which village it is practicable for wheels, but thence to Aosta it is merely a foot or bridle-path, following the sinuosities of the valleys that lead to the summit, 8000 feet above the sea, where is situated the celebrated convent, founded a thousand years ago by the humanity of the illustrious saint whose name it bears. Here pious and intrepid monks have for ages fixed their abode to rescue from danger and destruction travellers who may be overwhelmed with the snow in this elevated region, in which avalanches are frequent and fatal. At Aosta the steep and rugged descent terminates, and along the smiling plains of Italy the road is again excellent, leading direct upon Turin and Milan. On the 16th of May, the army having been silently advanced from Dijon to Villeneuve, on the Lake of Geneva, at the foot of the mountain, moved forward up the steep from St. Pierre on the 17th, the division of Lannes leading. The First Consul slept, in the midst of the troops, at the Convent of St. Maurice, where he fixed his head-quarters till the 20th. When the whole army had passed, after an ascent of twelve hours, they reached the hospice. Here the foresight of the General-in-Chief had availed himself of the hospitality of the convent to provide an ample refreshment of bread and cheese and wine, a seasonable supply, which exhausted the ample stores of the establishment, but was afterwards justly repaid to them by the authorities. The troops, forgetting their fatigues, rent the air with acclamations, and after an hour's rest the army again moved forward. The descent was even more dangerous than the ascent: the snow, hard enough beneath, was beginning to melt on the surface, and both men and horses repeatedly lost their footing, and some were precipitated down the steep and perilous descent, even to St. Remi. The advanced guard at length reached Etroubles, where they came upon the first Austrian outpost. It was impossible that more than 7000 or 8000 men could cross in a day; nevertheless Lannes pushed on, and reached Aosta the second evening, and the village of Chatillon on the 19th, but when a little farther on he was stopped by the Fort du Bard, which effec 20 THE FIRST CONSUL CROSSES THE ST. BERNARD. [A.D. tually hindered all further progress. Loison came following after Lannes, and Berthier soon arrived after him; but the first report of the nature of the obstacle that the Fort du Bard presented, had a discouraging effect upon the whole army. The First Consul, deeming all his difficulties surmounted, was descending the Italian declivity of the mountain, when he received the engineer Marescot's report, that the fort could not be carried by a coup de main, and that by no exertions would it be possible to construct a road, practicable for artillery, beyond the range of the guns of the fort. It was the 20th before Bonaparte reached Aosta. He had crossed the range on the back of a sure-footed mule, attended by a young and active guide; but, with all the experience and care of such a one, he often slid down considerable depths at very great hazard, and eventually descended with considerable difficulty. To those, however, who remember David's celebrated picture of the passage of the Alps by Bonaparte, on a rampant charger, amidst storms and snow, the true picture appears mean and undignified; French exaggeration, however, always overcharges the picture, and has loved to mark the enterprise as one which had never been undertaken but by three renowned leaders of great historical fame. One is called upon, therefore, to bring to memory that the passage of Suwarrow over the St. Gothard in the previous year, in face of a resolute enemy, was far more hazardous, and merited more glory, and that the passage by Hannibal, in opposition to the mountain tribes, was infinitely more difficult. The merit of Bonaparte's enterprise was its hardy conception, and the wonderful secrecy and forethought by which he was enabled to fall upon an enemy who were without the slightest idea of an invasion from that quarter, and who could not comprehend an expedition that was far beyond the limited comprehension of the military genius of ordinary generals. As soon as the First Consul heard that the advance was checked by an obstacle that appeared to some to be insurmountable, he hastened to the front, and clambering across the rocks of Albaredo, which commanded the fort on the left bank of the Dora Baltea, reconnoitred with his own eyes the inconsiderable fortification below him, which yet, he could not deny, was a more serious obstacle than the mountain had proved to be. The Fort du Bard is situated on a pyramidal rock midway in the slope, is constructed of masonry, and armed with twenty guns, which completely commands the narrow road that leads directly under the ramparts, and through a single range of cottages just standing above the bed of the Dora Baltea, the whole space for village and stream not exceeding fifty or sixty yards. Lannes had summoned the fort on his first arrival before it, and its commandant, Captain Bernkopf, had replied to the summons with spirit, but was not sufficiently on the alert, so that in the night of the 21st, some companies of French introduced themselves into the village and lowered the drawbridge; but the garrison retired into the fort on the rock above, and from its secure casemates kept up an incessant fire on every soldier that showed himself. Bonaparte himself, Lannes, Marescot, and every French 1800.] BONAPARTE ENTERS MILAN. 21 officer and soldier racked their brains in vain to suggest a means of getting past this dreadful obstacle to the passage of the army. At length, on the 23rd, contrary to the advice of Marescot, Bonaparte ordered an escalade. General Loison headed the grenadiers, who, under the eyes of the First Consul, threw themselves against the revêtement; but the most daring courage was all in vain, round shot, grape shot, musketry, did their work effectually, and 200 killed and wounded (among the latter of whom was Loison himself) obliged the General-in-Chief to renounce the enterprise. In the meanwhile Lannes had discovered a goat-path, out of the reach of the batteries, along which he passed some infantry and cavalry, and with them he advanced on the 22nd, to Ivrea, across Monte Strutto. Here the advance, under Watrin, encountered the Austrian brigade of Briez, with 2500 men, whom he drove back to Borgofranco, making some prisoners. But Bonaparte chafed at the impossibility of getting forward his cannon, and vainly pushed forward reconnaissances on every side to seek another outlet. At length, as time pressed, it was determined to employ artifice, and to take advantage of the darkness of the night boldly to pass the artillery through the village itself; dung was collected and spread upon the road, the wheels of the guns were wrapped in straw, the horses sent by the mountain paths, and the stalwart arms of the grenadiers and the soldiery carried the guns through the village on trucks in complete silence. In this way, on the 25th, some 40 guns and 100 tumbrils were passed successfully, notwithstanding some fire-balls and hand-grenades, by which some few men were killed at random, but one tumbril unfortunately exploded, which, however, did not arrest the passage for a moment. Lannes now ordered Ivrea, in which Briez with his brigade had shut himself, to be assaulted on its three sides, and he himself led the attack on the 26th, when the French troops rushed in with loud shouts, the Austrian troops retiring precipitately towards Chiusella, where they joined General Haddick's division. It was the 27th, before the whole French army, 36,000 strong, was collected around Ivrea. The infantry comprised three corps d'armée under Lannes, Duchesne, and Victor; Murat commanded the cavalry; and Chabran, with one division, remained behind to blockade the Fort du Bard, which, in fact, held out till the 5th of June. Bonaparte now received advices from Suza and Fenestrelles that General Thurreau had crossed Mont Cenis, and was skirting the foot of the mountains towards Novallese; that General Bethencourt, who had wound down the Simplon on the left of the army, was at Domo d'Ossola with Gravellona, pushing the Austrian brigade of Laudon before him. Lechi was therefore sent by the First Consul to obtain information respecting General Moncey, who was, in truth, now descending the St. Gothard, in spite of all the opposition of the brigade of Dedovich to retard his march. 22 BONAPARTE ENTERS MILAN. [A.D. 13. BONAPARTE ENTERS MILAN. To General Haddick had been intrusted by Melas the duty of closing and watching the passes of the Alps; who now, sending off to the General-in-Chief advices of this serious inundation of the enemy into the plains of Piedmont, eight battalions and thirty squadrons were hastily collected to cover the approaches to Turin. Lannes was immediately sent against the Austrians to attack them in the position they had assumed behind the bridge of Chiusella. The position was strong, and a well-directed artillery received the attack; but in spite of it, Colonel Macon reached the bridge by marching up the bed of the stream. Here General Palfy was struck down dead at the head of the Austrian cavalry, in vainly endeavouring to stop the French column, who carried the bridge in face of a vigorous resistance, and drove them back to Romano. Haddick, in consequence, retired behind the Orco at Foglizzo. This opened the way to Lannes to advance on Turin, but he adroitly turned from the capital, and pushed for the Po at Chivasso, where he made himself master of a flotilla of boats, of which the French army had the greatest need, for they were necessarily unprovided with any bridge equipage. Bonaparte now adopted a course that, while it quite bewildered the Austrian General, could not fail to produce a great moral impression in Italy, and would facilitate his junction with Moncey and the divisions coming through the Alps, and raise his force to 50,000 men. Leaving Lannes, therefore, at Chivasso, the First Consul advanced Murat to the Ticino, where he arrived on the 30th of May, and where he was shortly followed by the divisions of Loison and Victor. the 31st Murat came up against the Imperial cavalry of Festenberg, and the corps of Wukassovitch, and drove them across the river to Turbigo. On the 1st of June, he passed the division of Bondet to Buffalora; and on the 2nd Bonaparte, marching with the advanced guard, entered Milan, to the surprise of the garrison in the fort and to the immense astonishment of Melas in the field. On The first rumours of the French army marching into Italy found the Austrian Chief intent on entering France by storming the bridge over the Var, and crushing Suchet. So brilliant a campaign would afford him leisure to turn his army either against Provence or Switzerland, as might hereafter be determined on. At first, the information that reached him on the 13th of May, was that the army of reserve had quitted Dijon. He naturally surmised that the object of this movement was to raise the siege of Genoa, and he looked out for the appearance of the French troops in his front; but he himself made no movement till the 18th, when General Kaim reported to him the arrival of a considerable force in the Valais. Melas accordingly sent off the brigade of Knesevitch to assist Kaim, while he himself fell back to Nice with the brigade of Auersberg. He left Elsnitz with 18,000 men to watch Suchet, who had with him 12,000 in the tête du pont on the Var, where he strengthened himself by every means of art. Elsnitz had not at first any artillery with |