The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

On his return to the shores of France and the intrigues of the capital, Napoleon Bonaparte therefore found, to his considerable though secret chagrin, that the immediate military crisis was past and all Allied operations virtually at a standstill. The Allies were still in possession of impressive gains in Italy, but elsewhere their machinations had failed, and their continued cooperation one with another was in considerable doubt. Thwarted of his intended role of “deliverer,” the wily Corsican at once cast himself for a second performance as “peacemaker.” He well knew that the Directory had earned little credit for the dramatic deliverance of France won by the swords of Massena, Joubert and Brune, and he was equally aware that most Frenchmen, since 1796, were far more sensitive to events in Italy than to those on any other front. The defeat and death of the gifted General Joubert at the Battle of Novi (August 15) had confirmed Austrian control of the Po valley. “The long crash of the disasters there now drowned the rejoicings for victories elsewhere,”2 and Bonaparte set himself to make the most of the remaining opportunities.

  24

  FIRST CONSUL

  In early November 1799, the French capital was already seething with intrigue, and the arrival of Bonaparte on the scene had little immediate effect on the general situation. It was clear to everybody that a storm was in the offing, and that it would be accompanied by violence. The Directory’s policy of pulling in generals at moments of political crisis was about to turn against it, and Paris was full of ambitious soldiers as well as conspiring politicians. Potentially the most dangerous group was made up of the Jacobin generals, Augereau and Jourdan, both vociferous members of the Council of Five Hundred, and it was known that Bernadotte, still smarting from his abrupt removal from the Ministry of War, was waiting in the wings. The attitudes of Generals Moreau and Lefebvre, the latter holding the important post of Military Governor of Paris, were less well known, but it was considered unlikely that they would bestir themselves greatly in the Directory’s defense. The problem was not so much the inducement of a coup d’état but rather the determination of the form of regime that would follow the demise of the Directory.

  The cunning Director Sieyès was determined above all else to avert the danger of a Jacobin seizure of power by forestalling any such attempt by a coup of his own, but as the crisis approached he unfortunately found himself without the backing of a well-known soldier who could act as his stooge and “sword.” Originally, the young Joubert had been cast for this role, but his premature death at Novi now forced Sieyès to look elsewhere. Both Moreau and Macdonald were approached, but refused to listen to his overtures, and as a result the arrival of the popular General Bonaparte on the scene with a group of devoted followers was extremely opportune. Bonaparte later claimed that the Jacobin plotters also offered him the post of dictator if he would back their cause, but in the event, in spite of his deep-felt loathing for Sieyès, he let himself be persuaded by Talleyrand and his brother, Lucien Bonaparte, President of the Council of Five Hundred, to throw in his lot with the moderates. “What have you done?” enquired a roguish Mme. Bonaparte of President Gohier at a reception where both her husband and Sieyès were present: “Sieyès is the man whom Bonaparte detests the most; he is his bête noire”3

  The drawing together of two such unlikely bedfellows portended danger, and very soon the possibility became reality. Several days of cloak-and-dagger activity served to neutralize, win over or isolate the opposition. All shades of opinion shared at least this much in common—a deep-rooted and genuine distaste for the Directory and all its deeds (or misdeeds)—and this made effective governmental countermeasures to thwart Sieyès problematical. The Jacobins still hesitated to reveal their hand, aware that a war-weary France had little taste for a hysterical government of the type that Robespierre had led. At the opposite extreme of the political firmament, the Royalists, for their part, knew they lacked popular support. Perhaps most fortunately of all, many ardent Republicans were conveniently absent from Paris; Kléber was in Egypt; Brune on the northeast frontier.

  Sieyès was accordingly able to ensure that the diehard members of the Directory, Gohier and Moulin, would prove incapable of forming the quorum of three Directors necessary to order executive action on the actual day. Many waverers were brought over when Moreau threw in his lot with the conspirators on November 8: “Tired of the yoke of the lawyers who are ruining the Republic, I come to offer you my support to save it.”4 A relieved and grateful Bonaparte found his fulsome thanks cut short when the dignified soldier stalked away, and the problem of his relations with Moreau—his most serious competitor for popular esteem—was to beset the months ahead, but for the present all was going well. A series of “working dinners” brought in more influential supporters, and Bonaparte’s staff of personal followers proved invaluable in rounding up the stragglers. To all external appearances, Brumaire’s success was practically a foregone conclusion, and on the day only the attitudes of Bernadotte, Lefebvre and the Council of Five Hundred still remained in doubt. Nevertheless, nobody, least of all Bonaparte, foresaw that the ultimate result of the coup would be to place a Corsican soldier in practically unchallenged control of the French ship of state. This was certainly not Sieyès’ intention; his formulated constitution saw Bonaparte as an instrument, but not as the controller of power. Events were to follow a surprising and unforeseen course.

  The coup d’état de Brumaire took place on November 9 and 10. All planned objectives were safely achieved on the first day. Bonaparte began the morning normally enough to all ostensible purposes by attending a series of breakfasts for officers of the Paris garrison, and then went on to inspect two regiments of cavalry. Behind this facade of routine military affairs, however, the real moves were taking place. The Directory’s power of resistance was neutralized when Sieyès and his collaborator Roger-Ducos bought over Barras who obligingly sent in his resignation; this isolated Gohier and General Moulin, and in due course they were quietly placed under house arrest by Moreau. Elsewhere precautionary measures were being put into operation. Lannes and Marmont assumed control over the approaches to the Tuileries palace, and Moreau surrounded the Luxembourg with 300 men; Macdonald rode out to Versailles and Murat to St. Cloud, while Sérurier placed himself in command of a mobile reserve near the Pont-du-Jour. But no open opposition was encountered. One potentially dangerous unknown quantity, General Lefebvre, was soon won over by Bonaparte’s charm and the gift of a fine Damascus blade; declaring, “Yes! Let us throw the lawyers into the river,” he threw in his lot with the conspirators, while the Directoral Guard marched cheerfully off to join the forces of the new regime without a thought for their former masters. As previously planned, Bonaparte appeared before the Conseil des Anciens (whose support for the coup d’état was already assured), and the dazed senators passed without demur the necessary decrees appointing Bonaparte “executor” of a new temporary constitution which nominated Sieyès, Roger-Ducos and Bonaparte as “Provisional Consuls,” and further approved the immediate transfer of both legislative councils to St. Cloud where they would be safe from the anomalous and terrorizing influence of the Parisian mob. By late evening the conspirators were congratulating themselves on a fait accompli. This, however, proved to be somewhat premature.

  The events of the following day, November 10, were almost catastrophic, and responsibility for the near-débâcle lies heavily at Bonaparte’s door. The new regime wished to disguise their assumption of power under every appearance of constitutional legality, and this involved winning a favorable majority vote in both the Anciens and the Cinq-Cents. The latter presented the problem, for Jacobin elements commanded a majority of support, and the influential Bernadotte was known to be hostile to Bonaparte, but it was hoped that the influence of the President of the Council, Lucien Bonaparte, would win over sufficient waverers to defeat the Left. The day got off to a bad start, however, when it was discovered that the halls at St. Cloud were not yet ready to receive their distinguished visitors, and the ensuing delay afforded the Jacobin oppositi
on the chance to lobby for more support and plan their moves. As soon as the halls were at last opened, a full-scale debate began, while General Bonaparte and his supporters waited with growing impatience outside. In due course this frustrating inaction proved too much for our Corsican’s patience, and, seizing the bull by the horns, he prematurely entered the building and addressed a fiery speech to each assembly in turn. He was soon shown that he could not deal with the representatives of France in the same arbitrary fashion that had served to overwhelm the sheikhs of the Cairo Divan. The Anciens received their unconstitutional tirade in stunned silence, but the Five Hundred refused to hear him out; rising from their places with shouts of “Hors la loi” some Deputies even drew daggers. They drove a disheveled General Bonaparte and his perspiring escort of grenadiers out of the hall, down the stairs and into the courtyard below.

  The crisis of the revolution had suddenly arrived. The troops received their ejected leader with considerable consternation, and some of the generals visibly hesitated. Thibaudeau, an eyewitness of the scene, recorded the passing of this dangerous moment. “The first instant of stupefaction was, however, followed by tumultuous cries—the effect of Bonaparte’s address to the troops. The arrival of his brother Lucien with his energetic eloquence dissipated the last doubts and restored everybody’s determination. I then returned to the Council of Five Hundred. Instead of taking vigorous measures against Bonaparte after expelling him from the Chamber, they were losing time making vain threats, indulging in useless discussions…. Had they declared him an outlaw, Augereau and Jourdan, who were ready, and Bernadotte, who was secretly waiting for the event, would probably have been able to proclaim the decree, bring over the Consular Guard (which did not share the same feelings as the regular army) and overawe the other troops…. The outcome of the day only hung on a decree one line long or a dagger’s blow.” However, in the event, the Council’s prevarication and hesitation proved fatal. “I heard drums beating the charge and saw soldiers penetrating into the legal chamber; the onlookers disappeared in a cloud of dust, and the majority of the Representatives … hastily retired through the windows which were fortunately on a level with the garden outside.”5 And so the new regime surmounted what might have proved a fatal crisis of confidence. Later the same night, Lucien rallied a rump of the Council and rushed through the necessary legislation approving the Provisional Consulate. The Directory was gone, and practically bloodlessly. “This astonishing and salutary revolution has been made without any shock; it was urgently required,”6 wrote Lefebvre to Mortier five days later. From this time on, General Bonaparte rarely made a political mistake.

  In the following weeks, he steadily improved his position at the expense of the originators of the conspiracy. After a short while, Sieyès abandoned the unequal struggle of trying to collaborate with Bonaparte, and retired into gilded seclusion, ostensibly to frame the new Constitution, closely followed by Roger-Ducos. Cambacérès and Lebrun filled the vacated places in due course, but Bonaparte soon became acknowledged as de facto First Consul. The overwhelmingly favorable result of a plebiscite was declared on December 13 and the Constitution of the Year VIII came into force next day.

  Bonaparte habitually worked a seven teen-hour day from his apartments in the Luxembourg Palace, gathering to himself the reins of government, instituting economic reforms, attending councils, receiving deputations and dictating decrees. As Sieyès wryly described it, “Il salt tout, il pent tout, il fait tout” The memoirs of his Secretary, Bourienne, contain many quaint anecdotes, one of which relates to this period. The First Consul had a passion for steaming hot baths. “I’ve seen him lie there for his habitual two hours. During this time I was expected to read to him from the papers and any new pamphlets…. He continually turned on the hot water and raised the temperature to such a point that I found myself enveloped in a cloud of steam and could hardly see sufficiently to continue reading. Under these circumstances we had to open the door.”7

  From the vapors of the consular bath—as from the clouds around Mount Sinai in the Old Testament—there issued forth the Law.

  At the same time, rewards and preferment were showered on the faithful; Berthier was appointed Minister of War on November 11, and Moreau took over the Army of the Rhine. Lefebvre was promoted Bonaparte’s lieutenant general and made a Senator into the bargain. Murat was given charge of the new Consular Guard and also awarded the hand of Caroline Bonaparte. Talleyrand was confirmed in charge of foreign affairs and Fouché placed at the head of the police. In due course, Macdonald received command of the Army of Reserve, while Massena, somewhat unwillingly, exchanged his post in Switzerland for the command in Italy. General St. Cyr was awarded the first Sword of Honor for his services in stabilizing the Italian front—the beginning of the Napoleonic system of public awards, soon to be vastly expanded. On December 25, the Provisional Consulate formally came to an end, the Constitution of the Year VIII was reaffirmed and Bonaparte—now legally recognized as First Consul—seemed firmly in the saddle. But he knew that he would have to tread carefully for some time to come, for not all opposition to his rule was moribund. Much of the army, particularly, remained cautious.

  Nevertheless, Brumaire had been safely consolidated, and France at last received the firm government she had long been lacking. Bonaparte was now within sight of the supreme authority, more by chance than immediate design, for his superb opportunism had swept him higher than he had yet thought to go. From this time forward, France was freed, by action of the army, from the menace of militant Jacobinism. The Revolutionary Clubs were closed and many of their more active members deported. At the same time, however, the new master decisively barred the army from the political scene, and more than fourteen years were to pass before the generals dictated another constitutional change, at the Chateau of Fontainebleau in April 1814. The immediate problem facing the First Consul in the New Year of the new century was the achievement of a general peace, which would consolidate his grip upon a grateful people and give him time to concentrate on civil reform. Along the road to Fontainebleau lay the Imperial Purple, massive victories and crushing defeats, but in December 1799, the future looked assured enough, and the 30-year-old First Consul could look with reasonable confidence to an apparently secure future.

  25

  PLANS OF CAMPAIGN

  Throughout the winter of 1799-1800, French diplomats made genuine attempts to come to reasonable terms with Austria and Great Britain. The First Consul’s desire for peace at this juncture was undoubtedly sincere, for despite the impending withdrawal of Russia and the confirmed noninvolvement of Prussia, French war-weariness was fast reaching the exhaustion level and the condition of the armies left much to be desired. The long-standing revolt in La Vendee demanded immediate attention, and Bonaparte also needed a quiescent period to redeem his pledges of peace to the people, re-establish economic stability in France and secure his hold on power. In the end, however, nothing came of these peace overtures; on the one hand Pitt’s government doubted that the sureties the French Government was willing to offer would in fact guarantee a genuine peace while Belgium and Holland remained in French hands; on the other, the Austrians, with almost all of Italy reconquered in 1799, proved singularly unwilling to return to the territorial settlement of Campo Formio. Naturally enough Bonaparte gave widespread publicity to these attempts to find peace, and, as their failure became apparent, he made the greatest use of Pitt’s and Thugut’s obstructionist attitudes to rally French popular support for one last, decisive effort. “The purpose of the Republic in making war is to win peace,” he wrote to Moreau,8 and in a proclamation dated March 8, the same theme was reiterated for public consumption: “Frenchmen, you desire peace—and your Government desires it with still greater fervor; but to obtain it we need money, steel and men.”9 Bonaparte owed a great deal to the Allied statesmen, at least indirectly. Growing impatience at the revealed British and Austrian intransigence swelled into a flood, and by April the French people were evincing enthus
iasm and expectancy as well as firm support for the regime.

  Under cover of the peace negotiations, Bonaparte was taking steps to improve the efficiency of the armed forces. A series of long overdue decrees vastly improved the situation at the front. General Soult, serving in Switzerland, wrote to a friend some time later: “The happy effect of this change [Brumaire] and the solicitude of the First Consul were not long in making themselves felt. Soon supplies reached the armies; the issue of pay—long interrupted—was resumed, and a special levy filled the ranks.”10 There was a great deal of leeway to make up before operations could be contemplated. In January 1800, the paper strength of the army stood at a nominal figure of 380,000 men, but of these only some 285,000 were available for service with the five main field armies. The actual condition of these forces varied considerably from theater to theater, the worst probably being the Army of Italy, 6,000 horses below establishment and a vast number of cartridges short.

  After doing his best to remedy the worst of these material shortcomings, Bonaparte instituted a series of organizational changes. The original armies of the Rhine and Danube were amalgamated and reinforced to a total of 120,000 men for the forthcoming campaign, and Massena’s new command in Italy (or, as it was sometimes called, the Army of Liguria) was brought up to 40,000 effectives. The remnants of Hedouville’s Army of England were distributed among the other armies, and Brune was sent to pacify the interior. Following this general simplification of the army system, Bonaparte sought to create a centrally placed Army of Reserve. The idea of forming such a force was first revealed on December 5, 1799, but for two months there were few troops available. However, the rapid and successful conclusion of the Vendean affair by General Brune, climaxed by a well-timed amnesty, released a number of soldiers to form the nucleus, and formal decrees of January 7, repeated on March 3, authorized the formation of the Army of the Reserve in the neighborhood of Dijon, consisting at first of 30,000 and later 60,000 men. On February 14, General Chabran was appointed to command the first division, formed by drafting soldiers from the depots of the Army of the Orient into 14 battalions. A month later the First Consul reviewed the three demi-brigades and 12 guns of General Chambarlac’s Division before dispatching it down the road to Dijon. More units followed, and by mid-April some 53,000 troops were gathering in the appointed concentration area. It was widely given out that these troops were intended as reinforcements for Italy, and the fact that half of the units were made up of old reservists and raw conscripts deluded Austrian intelligence into scornfully disregarding the new army. The significance of its central location, which would enable it to intervene in either Germany or North Italy as need arose, was lost on the experts of the Aulic Council until the crossing of the Alps was actually an accomplished fact.