LITMIR.BIZ

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30,000 men, half of them too sick to walk, on 2 February, giving Bonaparte another twenty standards to send back to Paris. The victory had been achieved through extraordinary exertion – Masséna’s corps had fought at Verona on 13 January, at Rivoli the following day and outside Mantua two days later, covering ninety-odd kilometres in the process.

      Bonaparte did not need to wait for the surrender of Mantua to know how complete his triumph was, and on 17 January he wrote to the Directors announcing that in the space of ‘three or four days’ he had destroyed his fifth imperial army. ‘I’ve beaten the enemy,’ he wrote to Josephine that evening. ‘I am dead tired. I beg you to leave immediately for Verona. I need you, because I think I am going to be very ill. A thousand kisses. I am in bed.’29

      She did come, but there could be no question of a long rest. Austria would not admit defeat and was mobilising a new force. It was also negotiating with the Vatican and the kingdom of Naples, which had a sizeable army. The Directory had long before ordered Bonaparte to overthrow the papacy, which it regarded as the source of all obscurantism in the world and the avowed enemy of the French Republic. Bonaparte felt no animus against the Church and treated the clergy in the lands he occupied with respect, if only out of calculation. But he despised Pius VI, whom he regarded as a treacherous opportunist ready to stir against him every time the Austrians looked as though they might be winning. He was also short of cash, both for his army and to send back to France to placate his political masters, and there was no shortage of that to be found in Rome.

      With 8,000 men, some of them Italian auxiliaries, he entered Bologna, where on 1 February he declared war on the Pope. He defeated a contingent of papal troops at Imola and took possession of Ancona. He had a cold and was depressed by the farcical nature of ‘this nasty little war’, as he wrote to Josephine on 10 February. Confronted by badly led mercenaries and displays of religious fanaticism, at Faenza he rounded up all the monks and priests of the place to lecture them about true Christian values.30

      The Pope sent a delegation to negotiate, but the honey-voiced prelates who had been so successful with Garrau were no match for a bullying Bonaparte. By the Treaty of Tolentino, signed on 19 February, Pius ceded the former papal fiefs in France, Avignon and the Comtat Venaisin, the Legations of Bologna, Ferrara and Romagna, along with Ancona. He also agreed to close his ports to British ships, and undertook to pay 30 million francs and deliver a number of works of art and manuscripts.

      Five days later Bonaparte was back in Bologna with Josephine, who accompanied him to Mantua, where he prepared for the next campaign. The Directory had accepted that only he was capable of beating the Austrians decisively, and reversed its policy of treating the Italian theatre as a diversion. It transferred two strong divisions from the northern theatre, under generals Delmas and Bernadotte, reinforcing Bonaparte significantly: he could field 60,000 men while leaving 20,000 guarding his rear. This made him undertake what was under any circumstances a daring enterprise – a march on Vienna.

      Three Austrian forces stood in his way, one under Davidovitch at Trento, another blocking the valley of the Brenta, and the main force concentrated along the river Tagliamento. They were under the overall command of Archduke Charles of Austria, a capable general two years younger than Bonaparte who had defeated the French in Germany. His presence was helping to restore the morale of the Austrian troops, and Bonaparte decided not to give him time. On 10 March he went into action, forcing Davidovitch up the valley of the Adige towards Brixen while Masséna advanced up the Brenta and Bonaparte took on the archduke himself on the Tagliamento. He breached his defences and forced him to fall back on Gratz (Gorizia) and Laybach (Lubljana). By then two of the passes were in French hands, and the archduke had to beat a hasty retreat if he were not to be cut off as Bonaparte reached Klagenfurt, on 30 March.

      He was now poised to advance on Vienna, but if he did so, the Austrian armies in Germany could sweep into his rear. Behind him lay the whole of Italy guarded by a mere 20,000 men. Anti-French feeling simmered throughout the peninsula, with Naples, Venice, the papacy, Parma and Modena only waiting for a chance to strike. His army had advanced so far that it was running out of supplies, and the rocky region in which it now found itself would not sustain it for long. He therefore had to conclude peace urgently.

      The one thing that would convince Austria to give in was a French advance across the Rhine by Moreau and Hoche, who had taken over from Pichegru, and Bonaparte sent request after request to the Directory urging it to order one. But he had learned to rely only on his own resources. On 31 March he offered Archduke Charles an armistice, but pressed on swiftly, reaching Leoben and taking the Semmering pass, less than a hundred kilometres from Vienna. There was panic in the Austrian capital, with people packing their valuables and leaving for places of safety. But with no support from Moreau and Hoche, Bonaparte could not afford to go any further. On 18 April preliminaries of peace were signed at Leoben.

      Bonaparte had no right to negotiate a peace, let alone one which redrew the map as drastically as this one. The terms were that Austria ceded Belgium to France, gave up its claim to Lombardy and recognised the Cispadane Republic. In return, Austria was to receive part of the territory of the Republic of Venice.

      Venice had remained neutral throughout the conflict, but French and Austrian armies had operated on its territory, using cities such as Verona and Bassano as military bases. Their depredations had provoked reprisals against French soldiers, and on 7 April Bonaparte had sent Junot to Venice with an insulting ultimatum to its government to stop them. When the Venetian authorities sent envoys to Bonaparte he lambasted them and declared that he would act like Attila if they did not submit. On 17 April there was a riot in Verona, almost certainly provoked on his orders, in the course of which some French soldiers were killed. He responded by making fresh demands of the Venetian government, insisting it reform its constitution along French lines. Provocations on either side ratcheted up the conflict, and a French vessel was fired on from one of the Venetian forts. On 1 May Bonaparte declared war on Venice and sent in troops. A puppet government was set up and instructed to settle with Austria the cession of territory, for which Venice was to be compensated with the former papal province of the Legations. Meanwhile, the plunder of the city’s treasures began and the horses of St Mark’s were removed to Paris.31

      Such treatment of a neutral sovereign state was nothing new for Austria, which had joined in the partitions of Poland and had long been eyeing Venetian territory, with its access to the sea. But for the French Republic, the liberator of oppressed peoples, to act in such a way was shocking, and when they heard of it the members of the Directory were incensed. Clarke, who reached Leoben two days after the signature, was aghast. But Bonaparte had already sent Masséna to Paris with the document and an accompanying letter in which he listed the advantages for France of the agreement, which he termed ‘a monument to the glory of the French Republic’. He went on to state that if the Directory did not accept the terms of the peace, he would be content to resign his post and pursue a civilian career with the same determination and single-mindedness as he had his military one – a clear threat that he would go into politics. There was nothing the Directory could do: news of the signature of peace had been greeted ecstatically throughout France, with celebrations in some towns lasting three days.32

      13

       Master of Italy

      By the beginning of May 1797 Bonaparte was back in Milan. In the space of twelve months he had won a succession of battles, taken 160,000 prisoners and 1,100 pieces of artillery, and well over 150 standards, as well as some fifty warships, and forced the emperor to make peace after five years of war. A rest was in order, and finding the summer heat oppressive, he had installed himself at Mombello, a stately villa a short distance from the city. Set on a rise which gave it fine views, of snow-capped Alpine peaks to the north and the Lombard plain to the south, it was a perfect place for him to recover from his travails.

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