6 He cles; he answered with a jest, I only embroidery; this was in striking con- but as Augereau did not propose this, Trigny very respectfully took the first step. Lefebvre, sitting beside Augereau, put his head out of the window, and said 'What are you at?' Trigny repeated what he had suggested. Go and be The coarse and savage manners of The winter of 1794 was long remembered as one of the severest ever known, some of the French generals are illusand the experiences of Macdonald stood trated in this characteristic anecdote. him in good stead in the frightful disas- Augereau and Lefebvre were both raised ter of 1812, for he learned in Holland to the highest rank in Napoleon's peerhow to take precautions against extreme age; the conqueror truly said that he He ad- had to make dukes out of mud: "The cold, and to protect his men. ministered several of the conquered manager of the theatre offered him his provinces, nearly lost his life from Wal- choice of pieces; he asked for what was cheren fever, and in 1790 was moved to most revolutionary, and selected, I the Rhine to support the army of the think, Brutus, or the death of Cæsar. Sambre and Meuse, in retreat before the General Lefebvre, who had commanded Archduke Charles, who had imitated, in the interim, was his principal lieuTrigny, the commandant of though with inferior skill, the grand tenant. strategy of Bonaparte in Italy. In the Cologne, had offered his carriage, exfollowing year Macdonald became ac-pecting probably that the general-inquainted with Augereau, at this time chief would give his wife a place in it, radiant with the honors of Castiglione and the 18th Fructidor, and appointed to supreme command on the Rhine. Marbot has described Augereau with too friendly a hand; he was an ill conditioned, but a very clever scamp, a mili-' said Lefebvre, we are not tary demagogue of the lowest type, who always took what he thought the win- fit to make company for women, espening side, and betrayed Napoleon basely cially for your wife, who has the—.' in 1814. He had been in the service of Lefebvre, who had no idea of literature, Frederick before the Revolution, and applauded heartily, clapping his big humored the French troops by decrying hands; he thought it was a play for the the Prussian discipline. He presented occasion; he nudged me every moment himself to the orderly soldiers of Moreau with his elbow, exclaiming 'Tell us, tell is the author? and Hoche with the swagger and display us, who the of one of the chiefs of the army of here?"" An accident only prevented MacdonItaly, and curiously did not allude to Napoleon: "Augereau reviewed us at ald from taking part in the descent on He served in Italy, under Cologne, and was surprised at the excel- Egypt. lent bearing of the army of the North Championnet, in 1798, and was comimmediately under my orders. Instead pelled to evacuate Rome when the celeof praising it, he said to me, 'These brated Mack advanced with the army of troops are managed after the Prussian Naples. The quality of the Neapolitan fashion, but I shall arrange all this.' levies was as bad as possible, and MacThere was a halt before the march past; donald routed Mack's army with a the soldiers crowded round the new gen-handful of men: "I turned back, reeral-in-chief. He wore a glittering uni- pulsed every partial obstacle, and deform; down to his very boots he was all feated this showy and boasted army Is he with less than three thousand men. unrivalled in the great combinations of The result was considerable; a great number of prisoners, a quantity of guns and of baggage were taken, with the camp and the military chest." Mack soon afterwards threw up his command, and Macdonald had an interview with the defeated chief, who at this time had a great name in Europe, but was ere long to show what he was at Ulm: “As he passed through Capua the general paid me a visit; it was five in the morning, and I was in bed. I was soon up, and said: 'Sir, a fortnight ago, you would not have surprised me in this way.' 'Ah,' he replied, 'you broke my neck at Calvi.' 'How,' I said, 'could a general so distinguished as you are, and so great a tactician, risk his military reputation by putting himself at the head of such an army?'" Championnet Curiously enough, Nelson had, some years before, seen through Mack, and called him a wretched poltroon. and this is Napoleon's opinion-had acted feebly in this campaign, and Macdonald was placed in command of his army. He entered Naples and set on foot again the short-lived Parthenopean Republic; he tells us that it was chiefly at his instance that Carracioli joined the newly formed government. "He became afterwards the victim of the English admiral, Nelson, who cruelly and unjustly had him hung at the yard-arm of his ship. I bitterly reproached myself on account of his death, for it was I who overcame his scruples, and brought Carracioli to our side." war, he had defended the Peninsula on the Adige, and he had confronted and destroyed the forces of Austria, in a series of operations which will always rank as grand illustrations of the military art. All this was changed in 1799; though her armies were composed of the same men, and certainly were superior in strength, France met nothing but defeat in Italy, a result due to palpably bad generalship; and had her enemies possessed more skill, her southern provinces might have been invaded. At the beginning of the campaign one French army was in Lombardy, and another at Naples; and either no real attempt was made to unite them, or the attempts that were made were late and ill-conceived. Schérer was driven in defeat from the Adige, because he did not know how to hold that line, Moreau, who succeeded to the chief command, instead of marching to join the army of the South, fell back towards the Alps in eccentric retreat; and then, when he tried to approach that army, he made a series of false and unskilful movements, and ultimately failed to effect the junction. Meanwhile Macdonald, the chief of the southern army, had lost time and committed himself to operations essentially faulty; and though certainly less to blame than his colleagues, was unable to come into line with Moreau, and was beaten at the Trebbia, partly through his own errors. Nor was the strategy of the allies much better; Kray, Suvóroff, and Melas overran the Peninsula; but the Russian chief threw many chances away; he ought to have defeated Macdonald and Moreau, in detail, as Bonaparte would have done in his place; and he ought to have destroyed the army of the South, after its retreat from the Trebbia. In a word, the immortal campaign of 1796 is a masterpiece of war of the highest order, that of 1799 was a succession of mistakes and Sterner work, however, was at hand than governing Naples for the French Republic. The Battle of the Nile had destroyed the fleet of Brueys. Bonaparte and his army were shut up in Egypt; the Directory in Paris was weak and unpopular; and France was again invaded by monarchic Europe. Italy was one of the principal scenes of the conflict; and there was a most striking contrast failures. in the conduct of war, on this theatre, within three years. In 1796, Bonaparte had refused to listen to the injunctions of the men in power in Paris, and had kept his forces united in northern Italy; Macdonald, we have seen, was in command of the army of the South in this contest, and conscious of the faults that have been laid to his charge, has dwelt at considerable length on his conduct. He certainly seems not to have been to to have drawn near me, making Genoa blame for the first, and the capital, mistake of the campaign, the delay in concentrating the divided French armies: "I applied to the French government that Naples and Rome should be evacuated, the fortresses being retained. If our troops are victorious at the Adige, I argued, they will require men to make up their losses; if they are beaten, they will be in need of reinforcements; no troops are near as mine; and besides, in the supposed case of defeat, they will lose their communications; in the first case I could return, and, with the support of the fortresses, could reoccupy the two States. But it had become a fixed resolution to keep everything, and not to abandon an inch of territory, even under the stress of imminent danger. My advice was rejected." Macdonald, however, as Napoleon points out, lost time in marching from Naples northwards; and he never should have ventured to cross the Apennines, and to make a long flank march within the reach of his enemy. He should have tried to join Moreau behind the range, making his way either by the coast, or at sea, and this, indeed, he partly admits; the excuse that there were no means of transport is confuted by the facts: "It would have, perhaps, been a better course to have effected the junction by the Corniche; the result would have been obtained without much difficulty, as happened afterwards, but I think I have said that there were not sufficient means at Lerici, to carry the artillery and other material to Genoa, the Corniche being only a mule track. Nevertheless, while we undertook a different operation, we did not neglect to collect a number of boats, and light craft, in the event of a reverse; and these, indeed, saved our precious material afterwards.” his base. Our junction alone would have enabled us, if not to resume an offensive attitude, at least to await, in a good defensive position, assistance from France; but he seemed to wish to preserve his communications with Piedmont, already in a state of partial insurrection, and not to maintain them by the Corniche. This last course would have had the double advantage of covering that route, and preventing obstacles to our junction by Tuscany. Instead of carrying out an operation, at once simple, natural, and advantageous, when he was forced to fall behind the Ticino, he threw himself into Piedmont, to draw towards himself, it is said, the Austrian and Russian army, and then, by a rapid march, to return to Genoa, by Ceva, as I understand. But Ceva had surrendered to a band of insurgents, and so deprived of this means of passage, he was obliged to abandon part of his material, and seek a way through the mountains." Moreau ultimately arranged to unite with Macdonald, near Tortona, that is within reach of the enemy. The essential defects were then seen of an attempt to bring two armies together, moving on double, if converging lines, an adversary being in force, at hand; Macdonald was defeated on the Trebbia; and Moreau was too late to come into line with him. This kind of operation no doubt has sometimes succeeded; Sadowa is a notable instance; but, for one instance of success, there have been a dozen failures; and notwithstanding all that has been said, it is radically faulty, and hazardous in the extreme. Macdonald naturally censures Moreau and Gouvion St. Cyr, the chief of his staff, a very skilful and capable man, but notable for his bad faith to his colleagues, as was specially seen at the Undoubtedly, however, Moreau was great disaster of Culm: "Moreau and mainly to blame for not accomplishing the army of Italy, had descended from the projected junction. His retreat the Apennines by the Boccheta, and towards the Alps, after the defeat at Cas- had had a combat with one corps of the sano, which separated him completely allied army at the foot of the mountains, from Macdonald's army, was a remark- on the very day that I was retiring from able instance of bad strategy: Moreau, the Trebbia. Had they moved down I think, ought to have so manoeuvred as probably the whole forces of Suvóroff The return, however, of Napoleon from Egypt put an end to the pretensions of every one else, and Macdonald gladly accepted the 18th Brumaire. Ac and Melas would not have fallen on me; dressed in the same way, but he, too, they would have been anxious about declined.” their right flank, and might have been caught between two fires, had the weak corps of Bellegarde, placed at the foot of the range, been driven in. Moreau never gave an explanation of his con- cording to these "Reminiscences" he duct, though I often demanded one verbally and in writing, and though officially, and publicly, I challenged him. What was the cause of the delay ? There was, no doubt, ill will on his part, but he hesitated as was his nature. As to his advisers the case was different; among these, one especially, possessing great influence, and instigated by unjust hatred of myself it was more than mere dislike-powerfully contributed, as I have been informed, to aggravate the characteristic want of decision." was to have had an equal command with Moreau in the campaign of 1800, the most splendid of Napoleon's conceptions, though imperfectly executed in some respects, especially through the faults of Moreau. Napoleon does not allude to Macdonald's statements: "Moreau was to have had the army of the Upper and I the army of the Lower Rhine; but he contrived to have both united in time, and without my knowledge. I was named his lieutenantgeneral. I was very angry at this duplicity, and had a sharp conversation on the subject with the first consul.” The Trebbia was almost a drawn battle on the field, and does honor to Macdonald's daring, but it was not the less, Macdonald's share in the campaign in the results, a defeat, and had Suvó- was to command a small army, which, roff been a really great captain he would after Marengo, advanced across the not have let the French army escape. Rhotian Alps to the Adige, commuWe transcribe this short account of a nicating with the French armies in passage of the fight: "The enemy had Bavaria and Italy. The perils and fallen back at all points where he was hardships of this march were long memattacked, in spite of the courage and the orable in the military annals of France: howlings of the Russians; they were "More than once my troops became recoiling like the Austrians, and I have disheartened, but I betook myself to been told that Suvóroff, a bold and ec- the most dangerous places, caused the centric rather than an able chief, had snow to be sounded, the thickness of stretched himself on the ground, and the ice to be ascertained, and the depth exclaimed that he would perish on the of the abysses which surrounded us to spot if a retrograde movement was be measured. Avalanches had swept made. All this, however, would have away and swallowed up whole squadcome to nothing but for the defeat of rons. At last, with perseverance and one of the divisions I have referred to." by dint of boldness, or rather of rashMacdonald, though a sincere Repub-ness, we managed, more fortunately lican, detested the rule of the worthless than prudently, and after losing many Directory, in common with all the mili- men, to attain the summit, and the tary chiefs. He informs us that over-plateau of the Splugen, where the hostures were made to him to upset the pice is, and thence the right bank of the already tottering government: "France Adige." groaned under the weight of a tyrannical government. The Directory had no credit or consideration; it had made itself odious by the dreadful loi des ôtages and by the forced loans. Intrigues had been set on foot to overthrow it, and proposals were made to me to head the movement. I refused. I believe, but not sure, that Moreau was ad am The first consul soon after this exploit sent Macdonald to Denmark on a diplomatic mission. The great victory of Nelson at Copenhagen dissolved the league of the North against England, and the Peace of Lunéville was followed by that of Amiens. The Consulate ere long was replaced by the Empire, but Macdonald had incurred the dislike of |