Marengo Read online

  It was a fantastic plan; a masterful combination of ruse de guerre and coup de main. Assereto would inform the Savona garrison a reinforcement of troops was arriving by sea. A small flotilla of Genoese feluccas was assembled at Livorno (Leghorn), the home base of the British Mediterranean fleet. Sailing under the flag of the neutral Ligurian Republic, these transports would arrive in the port of Savona. On board would be 350 imperial infantry and artillerymen. Two hundred of the infantrymen would be fluent French-speaking Walloons, disguised in captured French uniforms. To lend credence to their arrival, the British would arrange to chase and fire at the transports. Once the disguised troops had run the boats up onto the beach, Sainte Croix would ignite signal fires. Meanwhile, inside Savona, Assereto would arrange for the senior French officers to be invited to dinner out in the countryside that evening. En route to dinner, they would be abducted. If there were any problems inside the fortress, Assereto would be assisted by a small team of seven Austrian soldiers infiltrated into Savona, dressed in civilian clothing and armed with pistols. Led by staff officer Oberleutenant Rumerskirchen, if necessary these handpicked men would overpower the French guards and throw open the gates. At daybreak, two columns of Austrian troops would descend from the mountains, led by local guides and an advanced guard of 200 men under Major Biking (the same whose appearance would cause Zach to explode in a rage). Savona would belong to the Austrians, and the French army would be cut in half long before any assistance could come over the Alps. When he later heard of the plot from Zach, Faverges described it thus: ‘What a lightning strike, indeed, one that would have brought us down from the sky like meteorites in the middle of the French army.’

  The date of the attack was set for the night of 24/25 February. Ten days were required to bring the troops out of winter quarters and concentrate them, so the necessary orders went out on 14 February. However, in all the elaborate planning one thing had escaped Zach’s notice. A small thing no doubt, almost trivial in fact, but one which would arguably not just jeopardize the mission, but ultimately perhaps cost Austria the war.

  Melas had set up his headquarters in Turin, and there, with his wife and a certain degree of comfort, he rested from the rigours of a long campaign; a campaign he had not expected to serve in at all, let alone command. Michael Friedrich Benedikt von Melas had been born on 12 May 1729 in the German, or ‘Saxon’, colony of Siebenbürgen, better known to us today as Transylvania, in Romania. He was descended from evangelical Lutheran priests, but enrolled in the infantry as an officer cadet at the age of 17 and then steadily progressed his career, fighting in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) and finishing the conflict as a captain of grenadiers. Opportunities then came in the heavy cavalry, the karabiniers and kurrassiers. A war with Turkey in 1788 paved the way for Melas’ promotion to general major in June 1789, a month before the storming of the Bastille. Now in his sixties, Melas saw Europe plunged into the bloodiest of wars. He initially served on the German front in the conflict against France, rising to the rank of Feldmarschalleutenant in 1794. Melas was then transferred to Italy, where he experienced Citizen Bonaparte’s lightning warfare for the first time. Melas had spells of independent command, but found himself deputy to FML Wurmser. When the Treaty of Campo Formio was signed in 1797, Melas sensed it was time to hang up his spurs, retire to his home in Graz and enjoy the company of his wife … or so he thought. In 1799, Melas was called out of retirement and asked to command the army in Italy. Melas’ first response was fairly emphatic: ‘I am in no condition to lead that.’3 The trouble was that the best generals were already assigned to commands, including Baron Kray, Count Heinrich Bellegarde, the Prince Johann Liechtenstein and the counts Klenau and Sommariva, the first four to Germany, and the latter for the Government of Tuscany. Command was offered instead to the Prince of Orange. Alas, soon after arriving in the theatre, the prince died in Padua. The glare of the Hofkriegsrat (the Habsburg war council) returned to Melas, who begrudgingly accepted the appointment. Arriving at the court, he told the Archduke Charles’ chief of staff he was ‘simply going to His Majesty to thank him for his gracious punishment, as he viewed it’. The Archduke was apparently not impressed with the appointment, declaring: ‘As army commander in Italy, we now have Melas - alas!’

  When the unhappy Melas finally set out for Italy from his home in Graz, he did so with a substantial baggage train and wife in tow, and made slow progress into the theatre. Stutterheim gave a very frank assessment of Melas at this time.4 He described him as ‘a brave old man of more than 70 years, a good soldier, for his part brave’. He was, Stutterheim conceded, ‘considered in earlier times a good cavalry officer who understood how to fiddle around with his regiment’; but as commander of the army in Italy, Stutterheim felt Melas was completely out of his depth. More importantly, crucially in fact, Melas’ health was visibly in decline. In the winter of 1799/1800, Stutterheim remembered how the old man tended increasingly towards ‘leisureliness’ and welcomed peace and quiet. Melas was ‘workshy’, Stutterheim claimed, and would welcome anyone who took the burden of work upon themselves, hardly appearing interested in the content of the orders he signed ‘with a trembling hand’. His only relief appeared to be visiting the spa baths at Acqui. This was the man who would have to confront the French First Consul, forty years his junior and one of the greatest military leaders history had known.

  While Melas rested in Turin, the younger officers were intent on enjoying themselves. Turin was the perfect place to hold parties and balls. Some even came out from Vienna to take advantage of these brilliant winter quarters, among them a bevy of the most glittering young ladies, including the 19-year-old Francisca, the Countess Radetzky, wife of Melas’ right-hand man, the general adjutant, Colonel Count Josef Radetzky. Faverges described the countess as ‘young, lively, infinitely pleasant and witty’, saying she was in the front rank of society. In turn, her husband, Radetzky, was ‘no less brilliant’ and ‘liked enjoying himself as much as her’. Radetzky is now considered a national hero in Austria and was immortalized by Johann Strauss’ march of the same name. Born in his family castle at Trebnitz in southern Bohemia on 2 November 1766, Johann Josef Wenzel Anton Franz Karl, Graf Radetzky von Radetz was descended from a noble old Bohemian military family. Stutterheim describes Colonel Radetzky as the perfect officer, bold and fearless on the battlefield, but with a captivating nature and witty. If anything, Stutterheim believed Radetzky was only at fault because he was ‘too much everybody’s friend’. He was loved by the soldiers. In terms of his role, as the general adjutant he was Melas’ right-hand man and the Austrian commander-in-chief rarely did anything without consulting him first. At the age of 33, Radetzky was perhaps the life and soul of the army. We should state at this point that in Stutterheim’s first draft of his Marengo account, he said Radetzky and Zach hated each other.

  To understand this conflict of personalities, we must understand Zach’s background and personality in more detail. The chief of staff was not, Crossard remarked, ‘a man who could be lost in a crowd’.5 One can take that statement several ways. The chief of staff was not of the old nobility, but from a very intelligent, scientific family. His father was the medical superintendent for the city of Pest in Hungary. Caring for the military hospital in the city and the wider German-speaking community, his father gained the patronage of influential nobles, and was himself ennobled in 1765 by Empress Marie Theresa. Zach was the eldest of three brothers and had for a godfather one of the richest landowners of the country, Duke Anton Grassalkovich. While Zach and his youngest brother became soldiers (Karl was killed in action in 1792), the middle brother, Franz Xaver, became an astronomer of note (the Zach crater on the moon is named after him). Zach apparently shared this interest in astronomy, and also cartography, and maintained an active, intellectual correspondence with his brother, who travelled across Europe and appears to have been somewhat sympathetic to the French Revolution. In the 1780s, Zach was a mathematics professor at the Theresan Military Academy at Wiener
Neustadt. His knowledge of mathematics, and his reading and knowledge of military texts, were acknowledged as second-to-none; but where others had received from nature ‘the genius of war’, Crossard believed Zach ‘had received only the faculty to give lessons in it’. Stutterheim described Zach as having the air of an ‘arch rector magnificus’ – a university chancellor.

  Zach played up this supposed intellectual superiority by exhibiting a haughty tone, and the result was he had few allies among the operational commanders. His propensity for upsetting his colleagues is clearly illustrated in a long, stinging memorandum written in 1798. In this, Zach analyzed the performance of the Austrian Army in the conflicts against Turkey (1788‑790) and France (1792‑1797).6 Having failed to produce ‘a single great man’, the Austrian Army, in Zach’s opinion, was hindered by a combination of poor and indifferent leadership, stifling regulations and a great divide between officers and common soldiers. Although probably not widely read at the time, producing such works was hardly a route to gain popularity. As Crossard points out, Zach was not without his faults either. Crossard pointed out Zach’s two ‘great defects’ as a chief of staff - ‘he was forgetful and was untidy’. Furthermore, Crossard believed Zach relied too much on theoretical knowledge and lacked the activity to see the ground in person, and to observe and appreciate the advantages and defects it offered. Crossard also reports that Melas once described Zach to Bellegarde in very unflattering terms: ‘You see that little fellow, he has a soul blacker than his face.’7 Given Faverges’ comparison of Zach to a hoopoe bird, perhaps there was something in Zach’s toilette which affronted his colleagues? We do know from Stutterheim that Zach’s pedantic manner caused him to become the butt of the junior staff officers’ jokes. Zach could not even get on with his deputy, Colonel de Best, the pair being ‘sworn enemies’. De Best was generally considered very eloquent and helpful, but he was a friend of Radetzky and apparently did everything he could to thwart his superior’s plans.

  As chief of staff to the army in Italy, there appear to be three specific events which led to the breakdown in the relationship between Zach and the army’s senior commanders. In a letter to Alvinczy dated 5 August 1799, Zach explained the opposition he faced after recommending lifting the siege of Serravalle to free up some extra troops: ‘I believed I had already made strides to win the confidence of the field marshals when everything was spoiled by my opposition to the siege of Serravalle. Now I am a pendant, scribbler, diplomatist [author’s note: a studier of documents] and a speaker of uncertainties.’8

  The next incident came after the Russians quit Italy and marched up to Switzerland. Melas saw that his troops were beginning to tire and wished to issue a suitably rousing order to his army, calling for one last effort to drive the French beyond the mountains, promising them winter quarters in Lombardy in return. Probably correctly, Zach changed the order because he felt it revealed too much about Austrian foreign policy; but he does not appear to have explained these changes to Melas in advance. After this, Melas began to increasingly distrust Zach, who was found to be in frequent contact with the Austrian diplomat responsible for foreign affairs, Baron Thugut.

  The final blow to their relationship came after Cuneo. We have already seen Zach’s recommendation to move into winter quarters after the fall of Cuneo. Radetzky’s memoirs tell a different version of events. Apparently, Melas announced his intention to go into winter quarters as he had earlier promised his troops. Zach wanted to continue the campaign through the winter and press their advantage. Melas called a council of his most senior commanders to debate the issue. At this meeting, Radetzky set out the reasons why operations in the mountains could not be continued. There had been heavy losses over the nine-month campaign and the troops were exhausted; food was lacking, as was money; the country was exhausted and offered no means of preserving the army; and there was a lack of clothing and also a lack of animals. The senior generals nodded their heads in agreement with Radetzky’s suggestion to leave a covering force of 25,000 men south of Turin at Carmagnola while the rest of the army rested in winter quarters. Having heard Radetzky’s advice, Zach haughtily produced a letter from Baron Thugut which expressly ordered the continuation of the winter campaign and appeared to make Zach responsible for this order. Melas was understandably angry: ‘I believe that I, and not Zach, as commanding officer, have the responsibility, and declare that I accept orders not from the minister, but from my lord and emperor, and in his name from the war president.’

  This episode is crucially important. The impact of this relationship between Thugut and Zach cannot be overstated. A civilian politician had in effect attempted to overrule the military commander in the field, circumventing the official channels of command by cultivating a relationship with the army’s chief of staff.

  We have mentioned Austrian military policy was steered by the Hofkriegsrat, the high military council in Vienna. The president of this body (i.e. the war president) was Count Ferdinand Tige (1719‑1811), a long-serving cavalry officer, then general. However, the real power behind the throne in 1800 was the diplomat Johann Amadeus, Baron Thugut (1736‑1818). A complex character, Thugut appears to have upset as many people in court as Zach did in the army. A commoner by birth, Thugut rose to become one of Francis II’s most important advisers. Unmarried, Thugut spurned society. He rarely consulted with anyone, instead taking important papers directly to the emperor. His secretive nature and willingness to highlight the incompetence of others caused great anger among the nobility, who thought Thugut had been promoted far above his natural station. Known as the ‘war baron’, Thugut was determined to continue the war against revolutionary France. Others, like the Archduke Charles, were much more persuaded by the idea of rapprochement after a long and fruitless war, but Thugut overruled them. Without wishing to become bogged down in the complexities of Habsburg foreign affairs, Thugut saw Prussia as Austria’s natural enemy (he was ultimately proven right in this) and, somewhat paradoxically, saw France as Austria’s natural ally in opposing Prussian domination over the German States. The French Revolution had destabilized the natural order of things – Austria and France, two Catholic countries, with thrones united by marriage (Queen Marie-Antoinette was an Austrian princess by birth). All this had been destroyed by the creation of the French republic. There is also the small matter of Thugut’s many and substantial financial investments in France before the revolution, and the inference that he stood to lose personally from the current state of affairs. Added to this, Thugut was strongly supported by Austria’s coalition partner, Great Britain, and he was crucial for gaining British financial subsidies.

  In the eyes of a noble like Radetzky, the interference in military matters by two men – born as commoners – must have been an affront. The fact that Zach was awarded the Maria Theresa medal in 1799 ahead of Radetzky must also have rankled, although the latter did not admit as much. What is clear is that from this episode onwards, the relationship between Radetzky and Zach was poisonous.

  The above passages have been somewhat of a detour from our central account, but as if from the pages of Tolstoy, we must understand something of the men behind the uniforms and titles in 1800. These were all of flesh and blood, and as culpable to petty jealousies, aspiration and folly as the rest of us. Understanding their foibles helps us to understand the decision-making and actions in the field. A strong leader might have got the best out of the polar opposites of Zach and Radetzky, but Melas was too old, too tired and increasingly too ill to make this work.

  Returning to the narrative, while Zach was busy concentrating on the Savona operation, Radetzky and his clique were planning a great ball. This would be the highlight of the winter season, and would be attended by visitors from Austria and Turin’s most eligible ladies. What could be more important to a young Napoleonic officer than some society, glamour, perhaps even the chance of marriage? A venue was selected by Captain Albeck of the staff, but unfortunately this house was the very same which Zach used as a headquarters
for his planning. When Zach found out Albeck was about to open to Turin society the doors of the building containing the Austrian Army’s most sensitive plans and documents, he exploded with rage and had Albeck arrested. The chief of staff then returned to his documents and thought no more about the matter. Meanwhile, another venue was sourced and a date set for the night of 24 February. Of course the night set for the party was the same as the start of the Savona operation.

  In winter quarters, no one had consulted with Zach about the timing of the party. They probably had no intention of inviting him after Albeck’s detention. Conversely, none of the dancers knew anything about Assereto and the secret Savona plot. Radetzky’s inside man on the staff, Albert de Best, had been sent away to Livorno to act as a liaison with the British on the expedition, so he was not in a position to tip off the general adjutant about the clash of dates. The first they knew anything about Savona was on 14 February, when Zach unexpectedly ordered his staff officers out of Turin to join the army columns. There was uproar at the news. This drastically reduced the number of dancers available for the ball, and many saw this as the pedantic Zach deliberately spoiling everyone’s fun.