After a brief spell as inspector of coastal fortifications along the Riviera, Brigadier General Buonaparte moved to Nice to take up the appointment of senior gunner in the Army of Italy. Under normal conditions this was hardly a position likely to yield great opportunities for directing operations, but under the prevalent peculiar circumstances this was exactly what Buonaparte proceeded to do. His new commander in chief, General Dumerbion, was no ball of fire; he was a good soldier of fair record, but he was old. He had also seen too many colleagues purged and executed for mishandling operations or holding unfashionable political views, and consequently possessed little inclination to undertake anything dashing. He had hit upon the safe solution to the quandary facing every revolutionary general by deciding always to ask the Députés-en-Mission for their suggestions concerning operations and then acting upon them. That way he felt he could at least keep his head on his shoulders.
Now it so happened that both Saliceti and Augustin Robespierre were at this time the Government’s accredited representatives to the Army of Italy, and there is small wonder that they were quite prepared to listen to the dynamic, if youthful, senior gunner, who had so recently given proof of his practical abilities and was also a good Jacobin, a rarity among professional army officers. And so Dumerbion was ruled by the Representatives, and they in turn by Brigadier General Buonaparte. Circumstances were certainly acting in his favor.
In the spring of 1794 the Army of Italy was not in a particularly promising position. After two years of inconclusive war against Piedmont, the French were uncomfortably pinned between the Alps and the Mediterranean, with the well-entrenched positions of the Piedmontese army to the north and the frigates of the Royal Navy to the south. The immediate problem was to defeat the Piedmontese and at the same time break the stranglehold on the vital Genoese grain trade being exerted by the Royal Naval squadron and Piedmontese privateers based on Oneglia. The mountainous and inhospitable nature of the Alpine foothills discouraged even Buonaparte from any idea of a direct attack toward the Piedmontese army’s entrenchments near Saorgio; instead Buonaparte drew inspiration from the writings of Guibert and Bourcet. He decided that the best course to pursue would be a main drive along the coast road to capture Oneglia and thus reopen the sea link with Genoa, associating this move with an attack into the mountains between the Roya and Nervia river valleys toward Mount Tanardo, and thence the town of Ormea and the line of the River Tanaro, supported by a further feint attack toward the fortress of Saorgio. Such moves should achieve three things: first, ease the coast trade situation as already mentioned; secondly, turn the strategic flank of the Piedmontese army and compel it to abandon its positions and retire; and thirdly, leave the Army of Italy at the close of the campaign in the useful position of controlling two vital passes on the edge of the mountains, ready for a further advance into the fertile plains of Piedmont. This plan was soon accepted, and Dumerbion raised no objections to having 20,000 men withdrawn from his 43,000-strong field army to form a striking force, nor to their subdivision into three attacking formations and a reserve.
Despite initial delays caused by heavy snowfalls, the offensive eventually went according to plan. On April 16, General Massena,* entrusted with two brigades for the inland attack, swept past Monte Tanardo and on to Ormea without encountering serious opposition. On learning that the Piedmontese were still lingering around Saorgio, he then swung rapidly westward, cut their line of retreat and compelled them to surrender to Dumerbion, who pushed up the main Nice road with the remainder of his army. On the coastal sector, meanwhile, the attack was proceeding equally successfully. Not only Oneglia but also Albenga and Loano beyond fell to the French in quick succession, and by early May the Army of Italy was firmly planted along the watershed of the Maritime Alps with the important Col de l’Argentières, Tende and St. Bernardo passes under their control. Once again, by means of a correct appreciation, Buonaparte had devised an effective plan of operations solving the immediate strategic problem. Many features of the campaign had been borrowed directly from Bourcet’s Princtpes de la Guerre des Montagues, a copy of which he probably studied some years previously at Auxonne or Pommiers as the protégé of the Baron du Teil. Nevertheless, it was an encouraging beginning; and many features of future campaigns—the use of diversions, the division of the army into petits pacquets (apparently dispersed but in fact carefully placed within supporting distance of one another) and the use of a centrally placed reserve—spring immediately to mind.
Through the medium of the Députés, Brigadier General Buonaparte produced a second plan of operations without delay. It was a plan designed to exploit the initial success and break through the 45,000-strong Piedmontese army in order to penetrate into the plain of Mondovi and thus relieve the critical shortage of supplies being suffered by the Army of Italy. In some ways this plan was rather more ambitious; it called for closely concerted action between the Army of Italy and the neighboring Army of the Alps; the immediate target was to be the area known as “the Barricades” not far above the Col de l’Argentières. While the two French armies moved along their respective lines of operations to a general rendezvous near the fortress of Coni, a further force would sweep down into the plains from the neighborhood of the distant Col di Tende and thus complete the disruption of the enemy army. This plan was duly adopted by the Députés and sent on to Paris for final approval on May 21. After some small queries, Carnot and the Committee of Public Safety approved the plan, and on June 5 the first phase was put into execution.
Once again everything went well at first: the Barricades were occupied with relative ease. However, further than that Carnot, Minister of War, refused to allow the Army of Italy to proceed. His reasons were that he did not wish to see a major offensive in Italy at a time when a large drive on the Rhine front was imminent. He also feared a renewal of trouble in the Midi if the Army of Italy moved too far away. In an attempt to overcome this veto, Augustin Robespierre in person carried the plan to Paris for further consideration. With him went a memorandum—written by the Younger Robespierre but almost certainly drafted by Buonaparte—which illustrates the latter’s mature grasp of the overall problems of strategy. Anxious to dissuade the Committee from dissipating its slender resources on unimportant fronts such as Spain, the author stressed the need for a unified effort against the major foe—Austria.
If the armies which are on the Piedmontese frontier should adopt an offensive principle, they would compel the house of Austria to protect its Italian possessions…. The principles of war are the same as those of a siege. Fire must be concentrated on a single point, and as soon as the breach is made the equilibrium is broken and the rest is nothing—the place is taken.
It is Germany that must be crushed; that done Spain and Italy will fall of themselves. The attack must be concentrated, not dispersed.19
In other words, a diversionary attack against Piedmont would compel Austria to weaken her forces on the Rhine, and thus create favorable conditions for a decisive French breakthrough on the main front. This document is practically the prototype for the Campaign of 1796 as originally planned. It reveals the ability of a military mastermind, aged twenty-four years.
While a final decision was awaited, Buonaparte was sent off to Genoa by Representative Ricord on a secret mission to spy out the lay of the land there; this undercover task was to place his life in danger in the very near future.
Napoleon in Prison as a Young Man (Fort d’ Antibes, 1794)
Then, July 27, 1794, came the coup d’état of Thermidor. Following a day of chaos in the French capital, Robespierre followed his several thousand victims to the guillotine, and all his adherents lost their positions if not their heads. In the witch hunt that followed the abrupt end of the Jacobin “Terror,” everybody who had been associated with the fallen dictator was hounded out and purged. Brigadier General Buonaparte, the friend of Robespierre’s brother, the writer of the Jacobin-inspired Souper de Beaucaire, was inevitably on the list of suspects. On August
6 he was arrested and put in prison by none other than Saliceti, who was clearly determined to save his own position and hunt with the hounds no matter who else’s head should roll. The formal charge was one of suspected treason—connected with Buonaparte’s secret visit to Genoa, which could be misrepresented as an act of treachery.
It is interesting to note that during his enforced leisure in the Chateau d’ Antibes, Napoleon made use of the idle hours to study Marshal Maillebois’ account of the campaign in Piedmont (1745). Considering that his life was in very real danger this shows considerable sang-froid, either he had a young man’s belief in his own immortality, or, rather more likely, he was the sort of man who would continue to learn on his death bed. His incarceration in the fort at Antibes lasted exactly two weeks. Evidence was then produced to prove that the visit to Genoa had been genuine and properly authorized. Rather more to the point, the Army of Italy had ground to a complete halt during his absence, and if any coordination was to be returned to local operations, Brigadier General Buonaparte’s concealed but vital hand was urgently required at headquarters. His release was therefore procured by none other than Citizen Saliceti—who with commendable flexibility was now clearly determined to run with the hare as well as hunt with the hounds.
This unpleasant incident safely past, Buonaparte was soon submitting yet a third plan for Carnot’s approval. This urgency was necessitated by intelligence that the Austrians were massing in the valley of the Bormida for a counteroffensive aimed at capturing Savona and thus reisolating Genoa from France; the main Allied force, commanded by General Wallis, was to sweep over the Col di Cadibona, while a secondary expedition landed from the British fleet to take Savona from the seaward side. It is important to note that Austro-Piedmontese cooperation—so weak and flimsy a concept since 1792—had now been considerably strengthened thanks to the Army of Italy’s recent successes which appeared to pose a real threat to Austrian supremacy in the distant Po valley.
Buonaparte’s plan to meet this counterattack was based on a clear appreciation of what had to be done; the French must secure and hold Savona if they were to spend the coming winter in relative security. However, Carnot’s veto on active operations still remained in force. Despite this obstacle, the Representatives decided that the situation was so grave that they authorized the Army of Italy to move on their own authority, while a messenger was sent speeding to Paris to explain the urgency of the hour. Buonaparte had long ago devised a scheme to disrupt any Austrian advance on Savona; by means of a quick thrust down each side of the western branch of the River Bormida, the Army of Italy could place itself in a position which would at one and the same time isolate the Austrians from their Piedmontese allies and threaten the right flank—and even rear—of the columns moving towards Savona.
On September 19 the French troops began to move forward. The advance went even better than anticipated. The Austrians were taken by surprise and fell back in haste to the village of Dego athwart their line of retreat running toward Acqui, and on the 21st the French forces inflicted an indecisive defeat on them at the battle of First Dego. However, the Austrians (after losing 42 guns) had suffered enough, and overnight they continued their retreat toward Acqui, abandoning all thought of proceeding with their offensive.
The immediate peril having been circumvented, General Dumerbion decided it was time to comply with the letter of Carnot’s general directive forbidding attacks in the Italian theater; in any case his army was in bad need of a rest after a rather active year’s fighting, and his cavalry were still far away seeking fodder in the Rhone valley. Therefore, to Buonaparte’s disappointment, the French forces began to fall back on the 24th. On the way, however, the young brigadier general noted that the Col di Cadibona pass running down to Savona from the Dego area was practicable for artillery and wagon trains (a detail of topographical observation that was to prove of the greatest significance in April 1796). Thus the French retired to a line running from the vicinity of Ormea through Monte St. Bernardo to Vado on the coast. This left them close enough to Savona to ensure that the enemy would be unable to use it as a naval base, and further placed the French within range of Genoa, thus ensuring that small republic’s continued good behavior and cooperation. Fittingly enough, General Dumerbion gave full credit to Buonaparte for the overall achievement of the year: “It is to the ability of the General of Artillery that I owe the clever combinations which have secured our success.”20
André Massena had been promoted général de division for his services at Toulon.
4
THE “SWORD” OF PAUL BARRAS
The vagaries of Dame Fortune now began to make themselves felt once more, and Napoleon Buonaparte’s career suffered another temporary setback. Trouble began when he was sent back to Toulon and attached to an expeditionary force of 10,000 men which was being prepared for an attack against Corsica the following March (1795). In the event, this never sailed, for the Royal Naval squadron of Admiral Hotham dispersed the French covering fleet in a series of actions between March 11 and 14, and so the expedition was cancelled. This was galling enough, but worse was to follow. The Ministry of War, finding itself with an excessive number of artillery brigadier generals on the army list, decided in May 1795 that the youngest and most junior of them must be transferred to command a second-rate infantry brigade engaged on counterinsurgency operations with the Army of the West in the notoriously unsettled region of La Vendée.
Nothing could have been further from Buonaparte’s wishes. For one thing he detested the idea of participating once more in squalid civil war; for another, he had no wish to be buried in police work far from the theaters of war where real fame and preferment were to be won. H’e at once set out for Paris to protest what he regarded as unfair victimization, but on the way there a document caught up with him revealing that his name had now been placed on the supernumerary, unemployed list. This was really too much; a number of stormy interviews in Paris resulted in his being reappointed a brigadier general of infantry attached to the Army of the West, but in his customary manner when faced with a distasteful spell of duty he immediately applied for sick leave and stayed on in Paris. Then, after carrying out a little research into the army list, he discovered that a considerable number of politicians—including the Minister of War himself—were holding the rank (and emoluments) of brigadier generals of artillery, although none of them had the least intention of serving in that capacity. In a fit of pique, Brigadier General Buonaparte sent in his resignation.
This might have been the end of his career, but fortunately for him events in Italy took a convenient turn for the worse. Eight days after Buonaparte’s resignation, the Austrians launched a new offensive on June 29 and succeeded in driving the new commander of the Army of Italy—General Kellermann of Valmy fame—back on Loano. In other words, all the good work of the previous year had been undone at one stroke, and the French forces (reduced to less than 30,000 effectives) were holding their original starting line. Kellermann further gloomily predicted that he would be unable to hold even Nice unless help was sent to him at once. In considerable alarm, the French Government summoned all available Representatives who had some experience of the Italian front to a conference. What was to be done? According to Napoleon’s own account published in his Memoirs of St. Helena, they all said with one voice, “Send for Buonaparte.” In any case, our disgruntled Citizen Buonaparte suddenly found himself reappointed brigadier general of artillery with a semiofficial appointment in the Bureau Topographique at the Ministry of War.
However, for some considerable time he continued to consider transferring his services to the Turkish army, so disillusioned had he become with the unpredictable vagaries of the French military administration. Indeed, he went as far as to submit a formal application to this effect and received verbal approval. But then, fortunately for his future career but perhaps less happily for the peace of Europe, the hand of administrative chaos again intervened: inefficient clerks in the War Ministry surpassed them
selves and managed to issue a string of contradictory orders and authorizations. This muddle had not been cleared up by mid-September, when, as we shall see, Buonaparte’s career suffered yet another temporary setback. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note this first turning of his attention to the Oriental scene; no doubt this was partly an act of desperation, but on the other hand his studies of the campaigns of Alexander the Great and the Persian Cyrus had long ago enflamed his interest in the area. Indeed, as we shall see in later chapters, the lure of the East continued to play a not insignificant part in Buonaparte’s policies and dreams of future years.
The Bureau Topograpbique was an institution set up by Carnot in the grim days of 1792 when ruin appeared to be threatening Revolutionary France. It was a haphazard staff organization made up of a collection of rather more intelligent professional officers (many of them, like Carnot himself, from the Engineers), and their intended role was to serve as a sort of general staff for the coordination of the war effort. Buonaparte was now attached to the section dealing with operations on the Italian sector. Reports, summaries, suggestions and instructions poured from his imaginative pen in a steady stream.
“It is indispensable,” Buonaparte wrote in July 1795, “in order to restore the coast traffic [with Genoa] and to secure the subsistence of the south, of Toulon and of the army, to retake the position of Vado.”21 Reinforcements must be provided at all costs—even if it meant stripping the Armies of the Pyrenees and the Rhine. The important position of Ceva must be reoccupied heedless of cost by the Army of the Alps in order to drive a wedge between the Austrians and their Piedmontese allies. Eventually the Committee of Public Safety adopted the views so forcefully expressed by their young adviser and issued orders that bear the clear imprint of Buonaparte’s style to General Schérer, Kellermann’s newly designated replacement.
The Campaigns of Napoleon Page 9
