by T E Crowdy
Chambarlhac’s division quit Paris on 17 March, reaching Dijon in fourteen days. When the army marched, it did so in stages (étapes). In this case, the division averaged 26.5km per day, with two rest days. In fact, its étapes ranged between 18‑35km per day, depending on the distance between the villages it was to be quartered in, or where it would bivouac for the night. In 1800, the French Army did not use tents on campaign. They required too much time to erect, were damp and insalubrious, wasting valuable space in wagons or pack animals in transport. Soldiers were either billeted with civilians, or they bivouacked, which is to say they slept in the open, with whatever rudimentary shelter could be improvised. This informal style of camping inevitably lead to a decline in discipline, and although looting was technically a capital offence, French officers turned a blind eye to all but the worst excesses of their men, who swarmed over the countryside looking for firewood and straw to sleep on.
Among the many thousands of young men in Chambarlhac’s division making the march to Dijon was a grenadier by the name of Jean-Roche Coignet. Born in 1776, Coignet was conscripted in 1799 and incorporated into the 96th Line over the winter. He describes how his division came to be known as ‘Chambarlhac’s brigands’ as it marched from Paris to Dijon, burning the staves from the vineyards and the poplar trees in the prairies along the route. After its arrival at Dijon, the division was inspected on 26 March. It was found that 298 men had deserted and a further 198 were hospitalized – a six per cent attrition rate for a two-week march through friendly territory.1 This appears to have been fairly typical.
As the new army began to take shape, so the strategy for the campaign became clearer to Bonaparte. The following story may be apocryphal, but it is as illuminating as it is entertaining. Secretary Bourrienne is the source, and it forms one of the iconic moments of how we think of Napoleon Bonaparte planning his military campaigns. Bourrienne writes:
‘On the 17th of March, in a moment of gaiety and good humour, he desired me to unroll Chauchard’s great map of Italy. He lay down upon it, and desired me to do likewise. He then stuck into it pins, the heads of which were tipped with wax, some red and some black. I silently observed him; and awaited with no little curiosity the result of this plan of campaign. When he had stationed the enemy’s corps, and drawn up the pins with red heads on the points where he hoped to bring his own troops, he said to me, “Where do you think I shall beat Melas?” – “How the devil should I know?” – “Why, look here, you fool! Melas is at Alessandria with his headquarters. There he will remain until Genoa surrenders. He has in Alessandria his magazines, his hospitals, his artillery, and his reserves. Crossing the Alps here (pointing to the Great St Bernard) I shall fall upon Melas, cut off his communications with Austria, and meet him here in the plains of Scrivia” (placing a red pin at San Giuliano).’2
As cautioned above, this story is not entirely accurate. Indeed, the 1800 edition of the map by Captain Jean Baptiste Hippolyte Chauchard does not even show San Giuliano, which is at the centre of the great plain between Alessandria and Tortona. By his own recollection, Bonaparte thought he would meet Melas at Stradella, where the main road from Alessandria to Piacenza passed through a pinch-point between the River Po to the north and the Apennines to the south. Whatever superiority Melas might have in cavalry and guns, this position would reduce the Austrians’ ability to manoeuvre. This would suit Bonaparte’s infantry – the main component of the army he was raising.
Regardless of the accuracy of Bourrienne’s account, it does not take such a great leap of the imagination to picture the first consul crawling over the map, tracing the main roads and rivers, and inserting pins; and whatever faults might be in the above passage, the plan of action it describes is by and large accurate, and by any measure brilliant. It had so much going for it. Rather than a frontal bloody assault against Melas through the traditional invasion route of the Apennines, Bonaparte would fall behind Melas and sit on his lines of communication with Vienna by seizing Milan. Although difficult to bring supplies over the Alps, Bonaparte reckoned on capturing Melas’ magazines and living off those. The beauty of the strategy was the way the First Consul planned to use the Alps as a screen, passing eastwards unseen by the Austrians, his march protected by the covering forces positioned along the heads of the valleys. Given the time available to conceive this plan, with a government to form and his other projects, it was a work of extraordinary genius.
Another interesting move came on 2 April, when Bonaparte replaced Berthier as Minister of War with Lazare Carnot, the so-called ‘organizer of victory’ in the War of the First Coalition. Berthier was in turn appointed commander-in-chief of the new Army of the Reserve. Son of a noted military engineer, and graduate of the Royal School of Engineering at Méziers, Berthier had acted as Bonaparte’s chief of staff in the first Italian campaign (1796‑1797) and on the subsequent Egyptian campaign. He was a talented organizer and extremely hard working, but he was something of a worrier, with a noticeable stammer, and frequently chewed his fingernails. By appointing Berthier as commander-in-chief of this army, everyone knew Bonaparte intended to direct its operations personally. Why, then, did he not take charge of it by name? Perhaps this was a political move. To have been an army commander would have reduced Bonaparte to the equal of Moreau and Massena. By appointing his trusted lieutenant to the role, Bonaparte visibly remained First Consul, directing all France’s military operations.
MAP 1: Bonaparte’s Strategy – April 1800
While Massena held Genoa and the Ligurian Rivera, Berthier would advance with 40,000 men from Geneva via the Gt St Bernard (C) or Simplon (B) passes. Demonstrations would be made towards Turin, including an attack over the Mont Cenis pass (D), while the main army marched on Milan. The Army of the Rhine would detach 25,000 men under Lecourbe and advance on Milan via the St Gotthard pass (A). The army would then cut the main post road from Turin to Piacenza; and occupy the ground between there and Tortona (area circled). Melas would be forced to evacuate Piedmont and the Rivera, and march on Piacenza to recover his communications with Austria.
As we move into April 1800, the plan of operations crystallized and was brilliantly summarized in a set of secret instructions sent to General Massena by the new Minister of War on 9 April. The Army of the Rhine would commence operations later that month, Carnot wrote. Moreau would command the main body, comprised of 100,000 men, which would cross the Rhine and enter Swabia, advancing towards Bavaria for twelve to fifteen days’ march. His mission was to intercept the communications between Germany and Milan, specifically the road from Feldkirch, Coire (Chur) and the ‘Italian bailiwicks of Switzerland’. The right wing of the Army of the Rhine, 25,000 strong under the immediate command of General Lecourbe, would first occupy Switzerland, thus protecting Moreau’s right flank and defending the route from Rheineck and Feldkirch to the St Gotthard and Simplon passes. Once Moreau had fulfilled his objectives, Lecourbe would come under the orders of General Berthier and march his corps southwards into Italy. At the same time, Berthier would pass through Switzerland, either by the Simplon or St Gotthard passes. The strength of the forces arriving in northern Italy was estimated at 65,000 men, including 6,000 cavalry and 2,000 artillerymen.
When this occurred, Massena was instructed to make diversionary attacks to draw the attention of the Austrians away from Milan. Until this time, Massena was instructed to remain strictly on the defensive, using the mountainous terrain to negate the Austrian superiority in cavalry and artillery. Massena was instructed not to advance into the plains beforehand, as it would be impossible to send him any reserves. In the meantime, he was to conduct a deception operation, exaggerating the strength of his forces, announcing the arrival of fresh troops and generally indicating that the main attack on Italy was going to come from him, not from Switzerland. Of course, the one flaw in this plan was that it supposed the Austrians had not guessed Bonaparte’s intentions to use Switzerland, and that Melas would do nothing in the meantime to disturb Massena’s diversio
ns. Actually, while Carnot was sitting in his Paris office dictating these secret instructions, Massena was already under attack.
Chapter 5
Melas attacks
History perhaps best remembers Count Adam Adalbert von Neipperg as the man who seduced Napoleon’s second wife, the Empress Marie-Louise, and robbed her of any desire to share her husband’s exile on Elba in 1814. Neipperg married Marie-Louise (or rather, Maria Ludovica) after Napoleon’s death in 1821, and had three children by her (two outside wedlock while the former emperor was incarcerated on St Helena after Waterloo). He cut a fine martial figure, did Neipperg. Bayoneted and left for dead on a battlefield in 1794, he was lucky not to be buried alive in a mass grave, but fortune came in the guise of a charitable Frenchman who noticed he was still breathing and saved him from the burial pit. Having a French mother and been schooled in France before the revolution, Neipperg had an excellent command of his enemy’s language, so much so that his saviours suspected he might be an émigré or spy. Having been plucked from the jaws of death, he was earmarked to be shot as a traitor once his wounds healed. As it happened, he was swapped in a prisoner exchange instead and returned to his native Vienna wearing a black patch and ribbon over his missing right eye. By the time he joins this account, Neipperg found himself in Italy, the chief staff officer assigned to the column of FML Konrad Valentin von Kaim.
On the eve of his twenty-fifth birthday, that is to say on the night of 7 April 1800, Neipperg took part in a spectacular mission to capture the Mont Cenis Pass at the head of the Susa Valley. Although relatively obscure in the annals of the Napoleonic Wars, the mission must rank among the most daring feats attempted by either side in the 1800 campaign, and we are fortunate to have an account of it written by Neipperg himself for the Austrian Military Journal in 1811.1 Under the command of Major Joseph Mesko, a Hungarian officer from the 7th Hussar Regiment, Neipperg commanded a portion of the 1,200 men assigned to the mission. All were fit and strong, capable of making an arduous ascent up the mountains to fall on the French position at the head of the pass. With Mesco and Neipperg was Captain Costa of the Piedmontese general staff, and a local hunter. These two locals had an exact knowledge of the area they would be passing through and were critical of the mission’s chances of success (Captain Costa was probably Faverges’ Uncle Télémaque, the mountain warfare expert and bon vivant).
Assembling at Susa, the force drew rations of bread and brandy for three days and then set off under a bright moonlit night. Even with modern roads, from Susa to the pass is 30km, and there is also the matter of a 1,500 metre climb over the same distance. Neipperg and his companions chose a less direct route, climbing first to the Little Mont Cenis pass, which is 2,183 metres above sea level. One should stress they did this at night, without lanterns, in cumbersome woollen uniforms, carrying packs and heavy muskets. It was an astonishing feat. Neipperg remembered ‘the cold was very great and paralyzed our limbs and strength.’ Despite this, they climbed through deep snow which gave way underfoot, and clambered over the steepest rocks. Everyone had been issued with ‘ice spurs’ to fit over their shoes, a rudimentary form of crampon; but even then, most of the time they were on all fours, crawling through the snow. Several times they thought avalanches would come down on them. Several men slipped and fell to their deaths in the ravines: Neipperg coldly dismissed these victims as ‘clumsy’.
Throughout the ascent, Major Mesko tried to encourage the men, calling out to them, ‘Keep it up my children! Keep calm!’ in the ten different languages spoken by the troops. The Walloons among the assault team seemed to find Mesko’s multilingual exhortations quite funny. ‘Laugh as long as you want,’ Mesko replied to them. ‘Only keep moving forwards! We are on the road to glory, which is just as worthwhile as the one to paradise, and has just as many hardships.’
They eventually reached the summit of the Little Mont Cenis, where they found the remains of fortifications from the fighting in 1795. A two-hour rest was announced and a distribution of brandy made. Some of the soldiers drank the liquor too quickly and fell asleep in the snow. They could not be woken and so froze to death on the spot. The column moved off again in great silence. Everyone was exhausted. Their muskets were soaked and many would have been impossible to fire, but they pressed on to their objective, preferring to face the French rather than have to return back down the mountain. Surprise and speed of movement were their only hopes of success, but if the French saw them coming in the bright moonlight, the mission would be a disaster.
The main French positions on the pass were at a hospice and a post house. In the nearby Saint-Nicolas valley, there were more French at the Inn of the Golden Cross. Mesko’s force split into four columns and a reserve. Neipperg was charged with taking the hospice. In the darkness, he saw there was a burning brazier outside the hospice with forty men sat on guard around two cannons. Around half the French soldiers appeared to be asleep. When Neipperg heard the firing commence at the Inn of the Golden Cross, he advanced against the hospice at the assault pace. Arriving within musket range, his men formed up as if making ready to fire. The French outside the hospice were stunned by the sudden appearance of imperial troops. They threw down their weapons and raised their hats in a gesture of surrender. The commander of the position, Chief of Brigade Caffre, was quartered in a nearby house. Neipperg took twenty men and surrounded the building. Sword in hand, Neipperg went into the house and called on Caffre to surrender. The Frenchman was still putting on his boots as Neipperg entered his chamber. Caffre made a move for his pistols, causing Neipperg to retreat. The commotion from the two officers caused some of the imperial troops to run inside the house, and Caffre realized he was out of luck. He handed his sword to Neipperg and surrendered.
By daybreak, the raiding party had captured 1,300 men, mostly soldiers of the 15th Light Infantry, and eighteen gun emplacements. The Austrians did not stop there. They pushed on as far as Lanslebourg, on the French side of the pass, and would have captured Generals Jean Davin and Antoine Valette had a Croatian soldier not accidently discharged his musket on entering the village. Alerted, the two generals fled from their beds and hid in the mountains (Davin left his wife behind, but she was returned to Chambery by the Austrians under a flag of truce). They explored as far as Termignon and Bramans on the French side of the mountains. Neipperg did wonder about sending thirty hussars from Susa to raid Chambéry, but Kaim had cautioned them not to push any further. Their mission had been accomplished. Capturing the Mont Cenis Pass secured the right flank of Melas’ army as it finally commenced operations in Liguria.
Following the cancellation of the botched Savona operation, the Austrian army returned to its winter quarters to await the warmer weather expected in the spring. One might imagine this extended break came as a boon to the imperial regiments, many of which had been severely depleted by the campaign of 1799. One might assume an extra six weeks would have seen their strength restored, but it appears this was not the case. Stutterheim’s frank account of the campaign in Italy discusses how the Austrians experienced difficulties getting fresh recruits from their regimental depots to the Italian army. The recruits often had only limited training. They were formed into transports of 600‑1,000 men and marched off to theatre with very little supervision. The recruits often went without basic necessities. Passing through regions devastated by war, they found little generosity from civilians and were forced to rely on their meagre pay to buy food. Often the recruits would have no means of cooking their food, so they purchased cold meats and bread in the marketplaces instead. At night they were herded into ruined monasteries or churches, where they slept on rotten straw which had already served as bedding for several men before. According to Stutterheim, for every 100 men sent from the Hereditary Lands, barely ten to fifteen actually arrived. He cited the example of the Infantry Regiment (IR) 28 Frölich, where just seventy men arrived in Lucca from a transport of 560 departing Kuttenberg (Kutná Hora) in Bohemia, approximately 1,100km away. Unsurprisingly, these re
cruits arrived in such a pitiful state that most remained behind when the regiment marched out of winter quarters. In another example, IR 45 Lattermann received just twenty-seven men from 600 sent out of the depot. In Stutterheim’s opinion, they would have been much better served if fresh regiments had been sent and rotated with those most affected by the previous year’s campaigning. Alas, Austria’s resources did not permit this.
With his eye infection gone by the end of February, Zach returned to his maps and planned the strategy for the coming campaign. He had much to consider. Zach knew about the Army of the Reserve collecting at Dijon, and although the formation of this army had been decreed a secret, news of Bonaparte’s intentions had reached Zach even before the cancelled Savona operation. Zach had thrown spies far and wide to tell him what was going on behind the Alps. He also knew the enemy was planning to enter Italy by one or more Alpine passes. For example, on 17 February, GM Loudon wrote from Arona on the banks of Lake Maggiore: ‘According to the spy reports the enemy with 40,000 men should want to try crossing the Gotthard, Simplon and Saint Bernard at the end of the month.’2 Even before that, on 28 January, Melas had written to the president of the Hofkriegsrat from Turin explaining that intelligence from spies indicated the French were procuring wagons and equipment in order to the enter the Upper Valais, and that their troops would be concentrated between Martigny and Geneva with this intention.3 There were numerous local intelligence reports (many of which still survive in the Vienna Kriegsarchiv, but were not published by Hüffer) indicating small but constant troop movements through Switzerland and on the mountain passes. There is evidence some of this intelligence was supplied by Carlo Gioelli. According to Stutterheim: