by Alan Schom
By dawn of November 17, the third day of the battle, both sides were exhausted as the French recrossed the Adige in separate columns converging along dikes against Arcola, now held principally by a determined Croatian force. Unable to take the Arcola bridge the previous days, Andréossy had built another one over the Alpone, permitting Augereau to push back the Austrians with his nine thousand men, and after noon, Napoleon launched the final offensive against the village of Arcola. Masséna again emerged from the marsh, in conjunction with Augereau’s attack against Arcola from the eastern shore of the Alpone, permitting the dapper Masséna finally to raise his hat on his sword to signal the final — and successful, as it turned out — assault. Despite later paintings showing Napoleon doing so, only Masséna was to cross that famous bridge, as Arcola fell to the French and Alvinzi withdrew to the northeast in the direction of Vicenza. The French had won again, if narrowly.[75]
Although Napoleon later boasted that the Austrians had suffered some 20,000 killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, in fact the figure came closer to 7,000 men, as opposed to 4,500 French casualties. “He entered Verona in triumph by the Venice Gate three days after his mysterious departure through the Milan Gate. It would be difficult to describe the astonishment and enthusiasm of the people,” as the news spread of his victory at Arcola and the Austrians’ retreat from Rivoli. “At long last, my adorable Josephine, I am among the living again,” her triumphant husband wrote from Verona on November 19, “and I still retain my glory and honor. The enemy have been defeated at Arcola...[though] I confess, I am a little weary.”[76] And yet, if the third Austrian offensive had failed, so had Napoleon’s objective of decisively defeating General Alvinzi.
November and December found both Napoleon and the Austrians licking their wounds and calling up reinforcements, still equally determined to continue the struggle. Field Marshal Alvinzi was gradually able to bring his strength up to 45,000 men around Bassano, preparatory to moving on Mantua, while Bonaparte got his effective strength up to 34,500, not counting 10,000 men still laying siege to Mantua with nearly eighty pieces of artillery.
On January 8, 1797, the great calm was broken as Augereau reported an Austrian attack before Legnago on the Adige, while another enemy force was reported back at Caldiero the next day. Masséna, meanwhile, was under attack at Verona. But it wasn’t until the afternoon of the thirteenth that Bonaparte learned of Alvinzi’s intentions and his troop strength. A fresh report informed him of a major Austrian attack at La Corona. Clearly Alvinzi was making his bid to link up with Würmser at Mantua, as he now advanced on Rivoli, just east of Lake Garda.
Napoleon immediately gave orders to march north. The transport of artillery and supplies was slow and difficult over the mountainous terrain, and just as arduous for foot-slogging troops under full kits. Riding ahead of his army, Bonaparte reached Joubert at Rivoli at two o’clock in the morning of January 14. Setting out on a reconnaissance mission, he saw for himself the three columns of the Austrian army below, and to their right, the unbridged Adige.
The battle began at first light, Joubert advancing alone at first with his ten thousand men and eighteen cannon toward the twelve thousand Austrians. By noon, the French force had increased to twenty-three thousand. Nevertheless, the Austrians were not easily intimidated by these superior forces, General Lusignan pulling a leaf out of Napoleon’s own manual of maneuvers by falling on the French rear, taking them completely off guard and temporarily cutting their line of communications with the south. Sending in a half brigade to hold off the enterprising Austrians for the moment, Napoleon continued to focus on the main struggle in the Osteria Gorge before Rivoli.[77]
Joubert’s troops were utterly exhausted by now, but Napoleon, sensing that the Austrians were equally so, realigned Joubert while pouring in a lethal stream of case shot[78] from a powerful battery, decimating the Austrian columns at point-blank range and blowing up two large Austrian ammunition wagons in the process. The intensity of the French attack, combined with the enormous explosions and overwhelming French numbers, including a cavalry charge through the Austrian line, shattered frayed Austrian nerves. At about the same time, General Lusignan’s division found itself entrapped by Masséna’s men before Rivoli, as well as advancing unirs from the south, with Napoleon as usual in the thick of battle directing everything — and losing two more horses in the process.
By late afternoon, feeling assured of the inevitable outcome, Napoleon left at the head of Masséna’s division and drove south frantically to prevent the remaining Austrian column from reaching Mantua. Napoleon and Masséna’s thoroughly exhausted men arrived too late to intervene as hoped, but the Austrians found a little surprise on reaching the marshy outskirts of Mantua. General Sérurier’s division already held La Favorita and Fort St.-George before Mantua, thereby barring the route and cutting them off from the north and south. General Würmser’s last attempted sortie from Mantua failed as well. Napoleon’s arrival then forced the outmaneuvered Austrians to surrender at La Favorita. As a delighted young Lannes related to a friend: “The enemy’s army is destroyed again. There was never such a bloody battle. We fought for three days and nights under a pelting rain and snow...I decided to attack and fully succeeded.”[79] And so had Napoleon with his big gamble.
Meanwhile, back at Rivoli, General Joubert, aided by Murat’s cavalry, sent Alvinzi himself fleeing northward up the Adige and into the mountains.
On February 2, 1797, the great victory at Rivoli was followed by the dramatic surrender of Mantua and Würmser’s entire garrison, another thirty thousand men, driven out by famine and illness ravaging their ranks. The gallant Würmser was allowed to leave with a few officers and the dignity he deserved. As for Alvinzi, he doubled back and sought refuge in the Papal States. To forestall that, an exhausted Napoleon drove into the Romagna with a small number of troops and forced Pius VI to surrender. Signing the Treaty of Tolentino on February 19, the pope agreed to deny further support to the Austrians and to pay an additional war indemnity totaling thirty million francs, most of it reaching Paris after local deductions by Napoleon and company. Bonaparte had accomplished virtual miracles over the past few months, defeating three different Austrian commanders-in-chief, despite his inferior troop numbers and artillery and nonexistent logistical support.
Notwithstanding the catastrophic disasters in Italy, Vienna still refused to concede defeat and instead prepared for yet another campaign. But the triumphant French simply lacked the numbers and means with which to March on the Habsburg capital itself. The Directory, with gold and fresh success pouring in from only this one theater of war, at long last recognized the miracles wrought by the determined Bonaparte and agreed to dispatch an additional thirty thousand men to bring the Army of Italy up to a theoretical effective strength of eighty thousand.
Before all those reinforcements could arrive, however, and with only forty thousand men available, Napoleon left twenty thousand to guard against Archduke Karl’s fifty thousand troops, well scattered throughout the Tyrol. With the remainder Napoleon and Joubert would head a two-pronged French drive on Vienna after all.
This was the first, but not the last, time Bonaparte would come up against the Archduke Karl, brother of Franz II (Holy Roman Emperor and, as Franz I, the Habsburg ruler of the Austrian Empire). A refined gentleman and in many respects a talented soldier and tactitian, Karl was nevertheless indecisive at critical moments and, like all Austrian commanders, now was plagued by very low morale in the ranks of an army conscripted from the empire’s diverse provinces (including, among others, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, Silesians, Austrians, and Rhinelanders). Nor for the most part did he have the tough, resolute officer corps required in the circumstances.
Setting out separately in the last week of February, Napoleon’s four divisions crossed the Brenta River, on March 1 overwhelmingly defeating an Austrian force at Primolano. The Austrians fell back to an area in the northeast, bent on retreat up one of the snow-covered mountain passes
leading into Austria proper.
Delayed by heavy winter storms, for which the French were ill equipped, Napoleon and his forty-three thousand men took the most direct route to Vienna. They encountered heavy skirmishing with Archduke Karl’s advance guard; nevertheless, despite this warning, the Austrians were taken by surprise when Napoleon heavily cannonaded positions along the Tagliamento River and crossed to the far shore, the Austrians giving way before them and withdrawing eastward to Udine.
Napoleon relentlessly pursued the fleeing enemy toward the Isonzo River, while Masséna pushed northward toward Tarvis in the Carnic Alps, which guarded the canyon and one of the mountain passes into Austria. The Austrians mounted stiff resistance, but at a price, Napoleon taking five thousand prisoners, four hundred wagons of supplies, thirty-two cannon, a large supply of munitions, and the entire baggage train. The recently arrived Gen. Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte then pursued the Austrians toward Laybach, Gen. C. F. J. Dugua’s cavalry later securing the important arsenal and port of Trieste. Joubert reported similar success in the Tyrol near Bolzano (Bozen), Napoleon ordering him to straddle the main road at Brixen against any possible Austrian reinforcements descending from the Brenner Pass.
The splintered Austrian army continued to give way before the advancing French units, Napoleon entering Klagenfurt with three divisions on March 29, 1797. But with his own dwindling force equally dispersed over a large area, Bonaparte finally, reluctantly, conceded the impossibility of continuing his march on Vienna for the moment. Then the impetuous side of his nature took command, overriding reason. With his objective less than two hundred miles away, he decided to take a phenomenal chance by ordering Joubert from Brixen and Victor from the Romagna to join him at his new field headquarters at Klagenfurt to reinforce the several divisions already there. Even so, Napoleon lacked the numbers required to take Vienna single-handed.
Playing for time, Napoleon sent a courier to Archduke Karl on March 31, calling for a truce while pushing on to seize Leoben on April 7, with his advance guard reaching the Semmering Pass — only seventy-five miles from the Schönbrunn Palace. But Napoleon now paid the price for his impulsive decision of withdrawing most of his stronger units from the rear. Rebellions broke out in Venezia and the Tyrol, as well as Verona. Praying for a miracle, Bonaparte requested a five-day extension of the truce: “With a mere 50,000 men, surely you do not expect me to hold Italy and clobber the House of Austria as well!” an angry Bonaparte wrote the Directory.
On April 16 the French commander finally proposed his formal terms to the Austrians. After receiving instructions from the Schönbrunn, Archduke Karl reluctantly agreed to peace talks at Leoben on the 18th. Napoleon had won his gamble.
The Austrians agreed to pay a very high price indeed, ceding Belgium and Holland to France, along with the west bank of the Rhine, and the Ionian Islands. In addition they officially recognized Napoleon’s new creation, the Cisalpine Republic (comprising Milan, Bologna, and Modena). Napoleon for his part left Istria, Dalmatia, and the Friuli region (next to the Tyrol) in Austrian hands, while giving them the Republic of Venice.
Thus this long, painful, and most destructive Italian campaign came to an end, awaiting only the final peace treaty that would be signed that autumn at Campo Formio. Behind him, between Klagenfurt and Milan, Napoleon had left a wake of burned-out villages; uncounted civilian dead, maimed, and wounded; tens of thousands of homeless refugees; and major potentially friendly cities brutally sacked and occupied. Milan, Turin, Verona, Genoa, Pavia, Bologna, Mantua, and even Rome were forced to pay enormous war reparations and watch helplessly the endless trains of booty destined for Paris and the pockets of the conquering generals and the entire Bonaparte clan, which now became rich almost overnight.
“The little corporal,” as the troops now affectionately dubbed Napoleon, had accomplished even more for himself. An international reputation as a formidable warlord, and a hero of France, he was easily the nation’s most powerful man, apart from the five-member Directory itself. Starting a campaign with the misfits and leftovers of the principal armies of the north, he had led men — quite literally in rags and often barefoot — hundreds of miles over hills and mountains and dismal swamps to victory against the well-outfitted but demoralized, heterogeneous, and poorly officered regular armies of the Austrian emperor. Moreover, without the consent of Paris he had unilaterally dictated peace terms that would affect several European countries. At a single stroke he had become a negotiator to be reckoned with. The general who had commanded a few cannon before the Tuileries on 13 Vendémiaire had come a long way.
“I need a rest,” Napoleon informed an anxious Directory. “I assure you that my only desire at this time is to return to private life.”[80] While to Josephine the returning hero warned, “Take care, one of these fine nights I am going to come bursting through your bedroom door!”[81]
Napoleon’s meteoric rise also caused the usual, inevitable professional rivalry, one Gen. C. F. de Malet denouncing “that stunted little man with the uncombed hair, that bastard of a Mandarin...will pay for...all his boastful glory!” while Gen. Henri J. G. Clarke proclaimed him “a new Alexander the Great!” to the Directory, a sentiment soon to be echoed across the whole of Europe.[82]
And when the Venetians attempted to rise up against this new Alexander, he simply had another region and city to sack, lengthening the already seemingly limitless booty trains, while ensuring confirmation of his territorial claims elsewhere, as news of this latest spine-tingling horror story reached a terrified Vienna.[83] There was another side, however, to this extraordinary saga and conquest of northern Italy, as the twenty-eight-year-old Napoleon discovered on August 17, 1797, on receiving a letter addressed to “Citizen General Bonaparte, Commander in Chief of the Army of Italy,” sent from a French field hospital by a young surgeon he had never heard of. It was the first of seventeen such letters over the next eighteen years, following one of his long list of subsequent victories and ultimate defeats.
“I hesitated a long time before letting my quill have its way,” it began. “How could I, Jean-Baptiste Turiot, just another faceless citizen of our Nation under arms, a humble junior surgeon, have dared write personally to you, the conqueror of Italy?” Having been with Napoleon’s Army of Italy since the Battle of Montenotte, on April 12, 1796, Turiot had followed in the wake of every battle thereafter, in the tracks of this “hero of triumphant Liberty” who had “come to the plains of Italy for the sole purpose of spreading the benefits of our revolution and its Equality among these still enslaved people here.” There had to be bloodshed to achieve this noble, fraternal task, he insisted.
But the price paid had been high, and the army surgeons had seen the result: “My soul was baptized in the fire of these incessant bloody battles where I first learned of the abnegation and grandeur of our army surgeons.” In fact everyone had suffered — far more grievously than apparently General Bonaparte had been informed, Turiot pointed out. They had lost most of their wounded because of the almost nonexistent ambulances and medical supplies of every category, including beds and basic field dressings. “Two thousand wounded lay in the streets of Brescia alone!” But Dr. Dominique-Jean Larrey in particular had done wonders, “and henceforth in battle if the name of General Bonaparte arouses ardent enthusiasm of our troops, that aroused by Dr. Larrey can be seen in the pale faces of our bullet-ridden soldiers, in the tears of their gratitude and hope.” And yet much more was needed: a permanent, properly organized, well-equipped field medical corps, with a large staff of well-trained medical personnel. Attempts had been made, but “the Health Service will not be saved from the arbitrary acts of an incompetent government army administration until the lies and depredations of the army supply administrators are stopped from inflicting their evils on us.” Only General Bonaparte had the power to intervene and stop these fraudulent operations, Turiot insisted, to prevent this large-scale incompetence and theft of medical supplies and funds.
This month, even as the prelim
inary treaties are being signed at Leoben, our hospitals are still filled chock-a-block with 25,000 ill and wounded men...And yet most of the sick are the result of poor hygiene, contaminated or insufficient food, unhealthful camps, and the miasmas of surrounding swamps...[The present situation would not exist] if the wounded were not herded into wretched hovels and then forced to lie on damp stone or earth floors without mattresses, without covers, without even the most elementary care and attention that common decency requires. [Because of the lack of food in our hospitals] the men are literally dying of hunger before our very eyes. At Bazzola a poor hospital porter gave three francs of his own money to buy a little food in order to save the lives of men dying of starvation.
