Marengo Page 5
The Jacobins now realized a full-blown coup d’état was underway. They had the night to decide what to do. In the morning, as the Council of Five Hundred reconvened at St Cloud, each member swore an oath to support the constitution. A motion was presented that President Lucien Bonaparte should outlaw his brother Napoleon. When Bonaparte heard of this, he rushed into the chamber, which promptly exploded with rage and cries of ‘death to the tyrant!’. Bonaparte hadn’t expected this, and the red-cloaked councillors were clearly in no mood to be bullied. They surged at Bonaparte, who was spared the fate of Caesar by two grenadiers of the 96th Half-Brigade, who managed to bundle him out of the chamber. One of the grenadiers (Thomas Thomé) had his uniform torn, and claimed he was stabbed in the arm while shielding Bonaparte.3 The coup was teetering on the brink, but at this critical moment, a quick-thinking Lucien Bonaparte dramatically threw down his robe of office, walked out the chamber and harangued the soldiers outside. He told them fanatics had attacked him and solicited them to enter the chamber and clear out the assassins. The dependable Murat led the troops into the chamber and ejected the councillors out of the ground-floor windows at bayonet point. They were later rounded up and encouraged to vote themselves out of existence. That evening, Sieyès and Bonaparte established themselves in power with Roger-Ducos. The three conspirators titled themselves as Provisional Consuls and began the draft of the Constitution of Year VIII. The first step of Bonaparte’s rise to power was complete: now he would have to consolidate it.
While the political processes were ironed out (the constitution would be tested by a national plebiscite in February 1800), uppermost in Bonaparte’s priorities were to review the state of the army and the military situation France found itself in. Bonaparte’s trusted chief of staff, Alexandre Berthier, was made Minister of War the day after the coup. At the time of Brumaire, the military situation had stabilized somewhat. To the north, the Battle of Castricum (6 October 1799) had defeated the Anglo-Russian army, which beat a retreat from Holland the following month. There was then the formidable barrier of the Rhine, with no sign of this being breached. Massena had been victorious against the Russians in Switzerland, and French troops guarded the Valais, which allowed them access to a number of Alpine passes. In Italy, at the time of the coup, Cuneo still gave the French a foothold in the Po valley, albeit the city was under siege. In the west of France, there had been another flaring among royalist rebels, but for now it was contained in the western departments. Ignoring the troops marooned in Egypt, on 22 November the First Consul had some 285,000 men in five armies:
Army of Batavia (Brune) 23,589
Army of the Rhine (Lecourbe) 62,299
Army of the Danube (Massena) 83,590
Army of Italy (Championnet) 56,253
Army of England (Hédouville) 57,505
There were, in addition, another 100,000 men dispersed around the interior of France on various garrison and ‘police’ duties.4
The first priority was Italy. If Cuneo could be held over the winter, then the French would have a solid, exploitable route back into northern Italy the following spring. If Cuneo fell, then the French would have to begin their operations from the reverse side of the Apennines or Alps. Alas, the column sent to relieve Cuneo was preceded by the double spy Carlo Gioelli, who betrayed the French garrison and brought about the surrender of the place. After this reverse, the plight of the Army of Italy was such that no further actions could be considered. Thwarted in Italy, Bonaparte charged Moreau and Clarke with developing a new plan of operations for the French Army of the Rhine. Bonaparte was particularly anxious to drive at the most direct route to the Austrian ‘Hereditary Lands’ via Bavaria. He therefore instructed these generals to launch operations in that theatre by the end of December. This directive proved somewhat optimistic and nothing came of it.
Before we develop any further discussions on military strategy, there was also the question of peace. First were the entreaties to King George III of Great Britain and Ireland, and to the Habsburg emperor, Francis II. His letter to the British was something of a break in protocol; a direct appeal from Bonaparte to George III, bypassing the normal Foreign Office routes. Dated 25 December 1799, the letter spoke of the need to bring eight years of European war to an end for the sake of commerce and ‘internal prosperity’. The British reply came from Foreign Minister Grenville on 4 January 1800. They were not prepared to negotiate with Bonaparte’s new government, as it did not appear ‘assured’. Further, French aggression over the past decade had been so rampant that the British simply did not believe Bonaparte would deliver real peace, only an interval in which the French could re-equip their forces before launching new aggressions. The reply concluded that Bonaparte should restore the Bourbons to the French throne if he genuinely wanted peace. The tone of the letter was such it was effectively a re-declaration of war on the new French government. The reply from the Austrians was similarly hostile. The Austrians were offered peace on the terms of the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio. This would have seen the Austrians give up their recent Italian conquests. As one can imagine, they had no intention of accepting these terms while being in a position of apparent strength.
Bonaparte was more successful with Tsar Paul of Russia. On entering the coalition, the Tsar’s objective was to restore something of the status quo in Europe. In Italy, this meant the re-establishment of the House of Savoy in Turin. The Austrians had other ideas on the subject and appeared extremely reluctant to see the restoration of Charles Emanuel IV, instead preferring to keep the territories for itself. This irked the Russians, and it is fair to say there was a strong element of rivalry between the Russian and Austrian commanders in the field. The Tsar was also suspicious of the political machinations of the British. Bonaparte sensed, or was informed, about these tensions in the coalition and so made a gesture of reconciliation with Russia. The French had captured around 6,000 Russian troops in Switzerland and Holland, so Bonaparte repatriated them after providing new uniforms and equipment for the prisoners first. Touched by this gesture, the Tsar declared Bonaparte was a man he could do business with, and having been left with a sour taste for coalition politics, ordered his forces home. Russia had therefore been knocked out of the coming campaigns without a shot being fired. It was a massive advantage gained, particularly as neutral Prussia gave assurances it had no intention of joining the conflict on either side. With the British Army ejected from Holland by mid-November, this meant Bonaparte could concentrate entirely on defeating the Austrians alone.
Another success came in the pacification of France’s western departments. On 28 December 1799, Bonaparte guaranteed the rebels freedom of worship under the new constitution, and also granted a general amnesty. At the same time, he instructed General Brune to march westwards and back up these concessions with a show of force. If Brune encountered any die-hard rebel leaders, he was to have them shot and, if things still did not calm down, he sent instructions to General Hédouville to burn ‘two or three communes’ as an example. This carrot and stick approach appears to have worked, and interestingly there was somewhat of a belief among the Chouans that Bonaparte, himself a former noble, might pave the way for the return of the Bourbons. The idea appears to have gained sufficient credence for the exiled Louis XVIII to write to the First Consul directly and broach the subject of his return. Bonaparte replied politely but firmly to this proposal. At this time, he wrote, the return of the Bourbons would lead only to further bloodshed.
Many commentators take a sceptical view about Bonaparte’s sincerity in wanting a lasting peace at the turn of the nineteenth century. Although the majority of Frenchmen were sick of war, political infighting, and the economic hardships which follow as the natural result of strife and conflict, did Bonaparte really share this view? Where was the glory in watching hundreds of thousands of young men – many of whom knew nothing but soldiering – return from the frontline without jobs and to an economy which had been teetering on the brink of collapse even before those bourgeoi
s gentlemen in the tennis courts at Versailles demanded a written constitution? How long would Bonaparte have survived politically without new military glories? Regardless of the motivation, having offered peace and been rejected, Bonaparte skilfully used this rejection as a rallying cry to his people. If Frenchmen wanted peace, he said, they would have to fight for it. This became an important motivational factor in the forthcoming campaign.
Returning to the central thread of this narrative, if a continuation of the war was inevitable then a strategy was required. The obvious threat was from the Austrian armies in Germany and Italy. Bonaparte enjoyed a key strategic advantage over these two threats. The further the two Austrian armies advanced westward, the more they were separated from one another by Switzerland. With this alpine country in French hands, the Austrians could not easily support one another. In military parlance, they lacked ‘interior lines’. The only way they could combine their strengths was to retreat in the direction of Austria. While holding one enemy army in position with a defensive covering force, Bonaparte could attack and defeat the other army with a local superiority, force it to retreat and then move his forces onto the flank of the other enemy army.
To exploit this geographical advantage, Bonaparte needed a new army independent of those already engaged; one with which he could deliver the knockout blow. The nucleus of this new force would be the half-brigades stationed in the interior, most of which had missed the fighting of 1799 and were still fresh. This army would be raised in secret and centred on Dijon, a central position from where it could fall on whichever front most needed it. The order to form this new Army of the Reserve was issued to Minister of War Berthier on 25 January 1800. Here is the instruction in full:
‘My intention, Citizen Minister, is to organize an Army of the Reserve, whose command will be reserved for the First Consul. It will be divided into a right, centre and left. Each one of these three grand corps will be commanded by a lieutenant of the general-in-chief. There will be, moreover, a division of cavalry, also commanded by a lieutenant of the general-in-chief.
‘Each one of these grand corps will be divided into two divisions, each commanded by a major general and by two brigadier generals, and each of these grand corps will have, moreover, a senior artillery officer.
‘Each lieutenant will have a brigadier general as his chief of staff; each general of division, an adjutant general.
‘Each one of these corps will consist of 18‑20,000 men, including two regiments of hussars or chasseurs, and 16 artillery pieces, including 12 served by the foot companies and 4 by the horse companies.
‘The 14 battalions which form the depots of the Army of the Orient; the 14th, 30th, 43rd, 96th Half-Brigades, which are in the 17th Division [author’s note: the military administrative district of Paris]; the 9th and the 24th Light, which are with the Army of the West; the 22nd, 40th, 58th and 52nd, which are also with this army; the 11th Light and the 66th, which are in the new reunited departments, shall be part of the Army of the Reserve.
‘The 15th, 19th, 21st, 24th Chasseurs; the 5th, 8th, 9th and 19th Dragoons; the 11th, 12th and 2nd Hussars; the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 18th Cavalry; the 7 depot squadrons of the cavalry corps of the Army of the Orient, will be the core of the Army of the Reserve.
‘The right will be united at Lyon, the centre at Dijon and the left at Châlons-sur-Marne.
‘General of Division Saint-Remy will perform the duty of commander of artillery for the army. Chief of Brigade Gassendi will be director general of the park. First Inspector of Engineers Marescot will command this arm. There will be a disbursing officer [ordonnateur] and four commissaries attached to each of the three grand corps, and a chief orderer attached with the army and residing near the Minister for War, who will perform the duty of chief of staff.
‘It is necessary to call to Paris a member of the council of administration of each corps composing the army, bringing the states of the armament, equipment and clothing. They will be assembled in Paris on 15 February.
‘You will give orders to complete each battalion as promptly as possible to 1,000 men.
‘You will propose to me the officers who will form the staff of this army.
‘You will keep the formation of the aforesaid army extremely secret, even in your offices, from which you will ask only for absolutely necessary information.’
Several points should be emphasized about this instruction. Firstly there is the secrecy surrounding the army. Berthier was being asked to form this army without the Ministry of War knowing about it – no mean feat considering the number of units, senior officers, generals, suppliers, etc. who would have to be consulted. Another point is that the army was being formed expressly for Bonaparte’s personal use, which runs contrary to the comments of Bourrienne, who stated that the First Consult was prevented by the constitution from commanding an army outside the territory of France (there is nothing implicit in the constitution of Year VIII which backs this claim). A final point of interest to students of Napoleonic warfare is the reference to formations given the name ‘grand corps’. Under the First Empire, Napoleon perfected an army corps system. Each corps d’armée was an all-arms force under the command of a marshal or senior general capable of independent missions, and was largely self-sufficient. In 1800, Bonaparte was experimenting with this concept, but on a smaller scale to what would become norm in the empire. At this time there was no intermediate rank between a general of division and an army commander. What Bonaparte proposed here was some of the more senior generals being nominated as lieutenant generals (a modern four-star general), with two divisions of infantry under their command, and a central cavalry reserve. By building up the independence of these grand corps, Bonaparte hoped to make his army more flexible, with each corps capable of a degree of operational independence.
By placing the centre of this new army at Dijon, it could theoretically fight in Germany or Italy. However, from the outset Bonaparte looked at a descent on Italy through the Swiss Alps. Italy was the theatre of his first major success, and the loss of northern Italy in 1799 was a dent in French prestige. For his plan to be successful, Bonaparte was heavily reliant on the Army of the Rhine and the Army of Italy coordinating their operations in order to support his dramatic march through the Alps. The largest army was that of the Rhine, commanded by General Jean Victor Marie Moreau, and this was a problem. Although Moreau had supported the Brumaire coup, he remained a potential political rival to Bonaparte. The fact Moreau was mortally wounded at the 1813 Battle of Dresden by a French cannonball while talking to the Russian Tsar indicates the type of relationship the two men had. However, the First Consul could not easily dismiss Moreau, because that risked opening a conflict. Instead, it would take careful and patient work to get Moreau to do his bidding.
The critical command was that of Italy. Here Bonaparte sent General André Massena to take charge of a perilous situation. Having beaten the Russians at Zurich, Massena could have hoped for a prestigious appointment, but Bonaparte needed him to stabilize what was left of the Army of Italy and, most importantly, keep Melas occupied long enough for the Army of the Reserve to cross the Alps. Of all the generals then available, Massena was the best man for the job. A native of Nice and a veteran of the earlier Italian campaigns, Massena was perfectly acquainted with the region which would form the theatre of operations in the spring. The celebrated memoirist Marcellin de Marbot called him ‘the wiliest of Italians’. He knew the people, the mountains, the passes and tracks (he had turned his hand to smuggling before the war); and he had a passionate, winning mentality, one perhaps second only to Napoleon Bonaparte himself. After his prominent role in the first Italian campaign, Bonaparte called him ‘dear child of victory’. His victories in Switzerland in 1799 preserved this strategically important country for the French, and became the bedrock of the First Consul’s strategy in 1800. The Austrians were certainly very wary of his capabilities.
Having been appointed army commander on 14 November, Massena only arriv
ed in Genoa on 10 February. His journey to the port took him through Provence, his native Nice and into Liguria. The state of the army was even worse than anyone in Paris could have imagined. Massena’s predecessor, Championnet, had died at Antibes on 9 January after falling ill from typhus. Marbot claimed Championnet had really died of grief at seeing his troops reduced to such a pitiful state. Without provisions, order had broken down and the men were left to scavenge as best they could. Bands of soldiers headed for the bridge over the Var and sought a better fate in Provence, claiming they would return to duty when the state could feed them. The officers and generals were little better inclined to serve in such miserable conditions. They requested leave, new postings or simply resigned. The hospitals were bursting with the sick and starving on bare floors next to unburied corpses. In short, the army was disintegrating rapidly. Massena wrote to the First Consul on 5 February with his early impressions, announcing that his army was ‘absolutely naked and barefoot’ and had been without pay for six to seven months. There was no forage for the horses and a total lack of transportation. On 23 February, he concluded that the country of Liguria was exhausted and he was forced to put all soldiers on half-rations, leading by example. He also reduced the daily ration for civilians to 3oz of bread per day – in modern parlance, the equivalent of three slices of wholemeal bread for a day – around 230 calories. The situation there was critical, and it would take time to turn things around. Discipline would have to be restored. Provisions would have to be found. The men would need to return to their colours. Massena’s only hope was that the Austrian army was in a similarly poor condition and would give him the time he needed to perform a miracle.