LITMIR.BIZ

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compel Masséna to a speedy surrender, and then with a large force to press on into Nice, Provence, and possibly Savoy, surrounding Suchet's force, and rousing the French royalists of the south to a general insurrection. They also had the promise of the help of a British force, which was to be landed at some point on the coast and take Suchet in the flank or rear.^[139] Such was the plan, daring in outline and promising great things, provided that everything went well. If Masséna surrendered, if the British War Office and Admiralty worked up to time, if the winds were favourable, and if the French royalists again ventured on a revolt, then France would be crippled, perhaps conquered. As for the French occupation of Switzerland and Moreau's advance into Swabia, that was not to prevent the prosecution of the original Austrian plan of advancing against Provence and wresting Nice and[pg.245] Savoy from the French grasp. This scheme has been criticised as if it were based solely on military considerations; but it was rather dictated by schemes of political aggrandizement. The conquest of Nice and Savoy was necessary to complete the ambitious schemes of the Hapsburgs, who sought to gain a large part of Piedmont at the expense of the King of Sardinia, and after conquering Savoy and Nice, to thrust that unfortunate king to the utmost verge of the peninsula, which the prowess of his descendants has ultimately united under the Italian tricolour.

      The allied plan sinned against one of the elementary rules of strategy; it exposed a large force to a blow from the rear, namely, from Switzerland. The importance of this immensely strong central position early attracted Bonaparte's attention. On the 17th of March he called his secretary, Bourrienne (so the latter states), and lay down with him on a map of Piedmont: then, placing pins tipped, some with red, others with black wax, so as to denote the positions of the troops, he asked him to guess where the French would beat their foes:

      "How the devil should I know?" said Bourrienne. "Why, look here, you fool," said the First Consul: "Melas is at Alessandria with his headquarters. There he will remain until Genoa surrenders. He has at Alessandria his magazines, his hospitals, his artillery, his reserves. Crossing the Alps here (at the Great St. Bernard), I shall fall upon Melas, cut off his communications with Austria, and meet him here in the plains of the River Scrivia at San Giuliano."

      I quote this passage as showing how readily such stories of ready-made plans gain credence, until they come to be tested by Napoleon's correspondence. There we find no strategic soothsaying, but only a close watching of events as they develop day by day. In March and April he kept urging on Moreau the need of an early advance, while he considered the advantages offered by the St. Gotthard, Simplon, and Great St. Bernard passes for his own army. On April 27th he decided [pg.246] against the first (except for a detachment), because Moreau's advance was too slow to safeguard his rear on that route. He now preferred the Great St. Bernard, but still doubted whether, after crossing, he should make for Milan, or strike at Masséna's besiegers, in case that general should be very hard pressed. Like all great commanders, he started with a general plan, but he arranged the details as the situation required. In his letter of May 19th, he poured scorn on Parisian editors who said he prophesied that in a month he would be at Milan. "That is not in my character. Very often I do not say what I know: but never do I say what will be."

      The better to hide his purpose, he chose as his first base of operations the city of Dijon, whence he seemed to threaten either the Swabian or the Italian army of his foes. But this was not enough. At the old Burgundian capital he assembled his staff and a few regiments of conscripts in order to mislead the English and Austrian spies; while the fighting battalions were drafted by diverse routes to Geneva or Lausanne. So skilful were these preparations that, in the early days of May, the greater part of his men and stores were near the lake of Geneva, whence they were easily transferred to the upper valley of the Rhone. In order that he might have a methodical, hard-working coadjutor he sent Berthier from the office of the Ministry of War, where he had displayed less ability than Bernadotte, to be commander-in-chief of the "army of reserve." In reality Berthier was, as before in Italy and Egypt, chief of the staff; but he had the titular dignity of commander which the constitution of 1800 forbade the First Consul to assume.

      On May 6th Bonaparte left Paris for Geneva, where he felt the pulse of every movement in both campaigns. At that city, on hearing the report of his general of engineers, he decided to take the Great St. Bernard route into Italy, as against the Simplon. With redoubled energy, he now supervised the thousands of [pg.247] details that were needed to insure success: for, while prone to indulging in grandiose schemes, he revelled in the work which alone could bring them within his grasp: or, as Wellington once remarked, "Nothing was too great or too small for his proboscis." The difficulties of sending a large army over the Great St. Bernard were indeed immense. That pass was chosen because it presented only five leagues of ground impracticable for carriages. But those five leagues tested the utmost powers of the army and of its chiefs. Marmont, who commanded the artillery, had devised the ingenious plan of taking the cannon from their carriages and placing them in the hollowed-out trunks of pine, so that the trunnions fitting into large notches kept them steady during the ascent over the snow and the still more difficult descent.^[140] The labour of dragging the guns wore out the peasants; then the troops were invited—a hundred at a time—to take a turn at the ropes, and were exhilarated by martial airs played by the bands, or by bugles and drums sounding the charge at the worst places of the ascent.

      The track sometimes ran along narrow ledges where a false step meant death, or where avalanches were to be feared. The elements, however, were propitious, and the losses insignificant. This was due to many causes: the ardour of the troops in an enterprise which appealed to French imagination and roused all their activities; the friendliness of the mountaineers; and the organizing powers of Bonaparte and of his staff; all these may be cited as elements of success. They present a striking contrast to the march of Hannibal's army over one of the western passes of the Alps. His motley host struggled over a long stretch of mountains in the short days of October over unknown paths, in one part swept away by a fall of the cliff, and ever and anon beset by clouds of treacherous Gauls. Seeing that the great Carthaginian's difficulties began long before he reached the Alps, that[pg.248] he was encumbered by elephants, and that his army was composed of diverse races held together only by trust in the prowess of their chief, his exploit was far more wonderful than that of Bonaparte, which, indeed, more nearly resembles the crossing of the St. Bernard by Francis I. in 1515. The difference between the conditions of Hannibal's and Bonaparte's enterprises may partly be measured by the time which they occupied. Whereas Hannibal's march across the Alps lasted fifteen days, three of which were spent in the miseries of a forced halt amidst the snow, the First Consul's forces took but seven days. Whereas the Carthaginian army was weakened by hunger, the French carried their full rations of biscuit; and at the head of the pass the monks of the Hospice of St. Bernard served out the rations of bread, cheese, and wine which the First Consul had forwarded, and which their own generosity now doubled. The hospitable fathers themselves served at the tables set up in front of the Hospice.

      After insuring the regular succession of troops and stores, Bonaparte himself began the ascent on May 20th. He wore the gray overcoat which had already become famous; and his features were fixed in that expression of calm self-possession which he ever maintained in face of difficulty. The melodramatic attitudes of horse and rider, which David has immortalized in his great painting, are, of course, merely symbolical of the genius of militant democracy prancing over natural obstacles and wafted onwards and upwards by the breath of victory. The living figure was remarkable only for stern self-restraint and suppressed excitement; instead of the prancing war-horse limned by David, his beast of burden was a mule, led by a peasant; and, in place of victory, he had heard that Lannes with the vanguard had found an unexpected obstacle to his descent into Italy. The narrow valley of the Dora Baltea, by which alone they could advance, was wellnigh blocked by the fort of Bard, which was firmly held by a small Austrian garrison and defied all the efforts of [pg.249] Lannes and Berthier. This was the news that met the First Consul during his ascent, and again at the Hospice. After accepting the hospitality of the monks, and spending a short time in the library and chapel, he resumed his journey; and on the southern slopes he and his staff now and again amused themselves by sliding down the tracks which the passage of thousands of men had rendered slippery. After halting at Aosta, he proceeded down the valley to the fort of Bard.

      Meanwhile some of his foot-soldiers had worked their way round this obstacle by a

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