The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

  Soon 6,ooo men were on their way to Nice from the Rhine and 10,000 more from the Pyrenees, and agonizingly slowly the French buildup proceeded. Fortunately for the Army of Italy, friction between the Austrian commander, de Wins, and General Colli (commanding the Piedmontese forces) resulted in a period of Allied inaction, for it was not until late September that Schérer was established in his new command. Even then only 33,000 French troops were readily available by early October to fight 30,000 Austrians and 12,000 Piedmontese, while every sort of equipment was in short supply.

  Delay after delay was encountered; everything was ready for an advance on November 16, but then a heavy snowstorm led to a postponement until the 23rd. This delay proved of no little advantage to the French. By that time dissension in the Allied camp had reached such a pitch that de Wins threw up his command and handed over to General Wallis once more. The attendant confusion accompanying these changes worked in Schérer’s favor, and his forces were able to steal a march on their opponents. After dividing his army into three semi-independent divisions (on Paris’ instructions) under Sérurier (operating from Ormea), Massena (from Zuccarello) and Augereau (based on Borghetto), he ordered a general advance on November 23. This unseasonal move horrified the surprised Austrian generals, and from the start they were caught off balance. Massena successfully broke through the Austrian center, separating Austrians and Piedmontese, and compelled both wings of the Allied forces to retire in unseemly haste. By the 25th the Battle of Loano had been satisfactorily concluded and it seemed that Ceva was within the French grasp—and indeed the Piedmontese generals were already advising King Victor Amadeus to conclude peace with no further ado—when Schérer’s nerve began to fail him. His lines of communication were both extended and crossing difficult terrain; his men were understrength and poorly fed; not all the promised reinforcements had materialized. Consequently the follow-up after the battle of Loano was poorly conducted, and by the 29th the Austrians had safely extricated their forces and taken up a strong position around Acqui.

  It has been convenient to summarize the planning and operations in the North Italian theater between August and November in one continuous narrative, but it is now necessary to return to Paris where vitally important events had been taking place. Brigadier General Buonaparte once again almost suffered personal eclipse when the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of French Revolutionary politics caused new changes in the personnel of the Committee of Public Safety; his recent patrons suddenly disappeared from the seats of power, and the new political leaders promptly sacked Brigadier General Buonaparte on September 15. “Liberté, Egalité” began the relevant document. “Notification of an arrêt by the Committee of Public Safety dated 29th Fructidor, Year III of the French Republic, one and indivisible.

  “The Committee of Public Safety decrees that Brigadier General Buonaparte is to be struck off the list of employed general officers on account of his refusal to take up the post duly assigned to him [a reference to his rejection of the Vendean appointment of May]. The Ninth Commission is charged with the implementation of this decision. Signed: Le Tourner, Merlin, T. Berlier, Boissy, and Cambacères—President.”22 This was a blatantly unfair decision, seeing that Buonaparte had subsequently been employed in the Bureau Topographique, but such were the unfathomable ways of politicians. Once again, therefore, Napoleon found himself to all intents and purposes a civilian.

  Not for long, however. Paris—that seething center of intrigue backed by mob violence—suddenly irrupted into full revolt once more. The occasion was the publication of the new “Constitution of the Year III,” which placed power in the hands of an executive Directory of Seven and further prolonged the life of the notorious Convention by decreeing that two thirds of its membership should receive automatic transfer into the new Legislative Assembly. The communes and sections of Paris, led by 20,000 National Guardsmen, sprang to arms and prepared to march on the Tuileries Palace where the Convention met for its self-perpetuating deliberations. In great alarm the new government entrusted Paul Barras with the task of protecting the Assembly from mob violence with the 5,000 regular troops available. Barras—who never pretended to be a soldier—sent for ex-Brigadier General Buonaparte. The latter did not hesitate.

  Sending off Captain Murat at full gallop to secure the artillery park at Sablons, Buonaparte massed his guns to command the streets leading to the Tuileries. As the mob surged forward from their headquarters at the Church of St. Roch, the order to fire was given; several salvoes of grapeshot tore into the crowd at point-blank range, killing at least 200 and wounding probably twice as many more. The crowd, stunned by this ruthless action, hesitated, turned and fled. By dusk on October 5 order had been everywhere restored. The crisis was over; the power of the Paris mob—so long the unpredictable sanction behind Revolutionary politics—had been broken once and for all.

  If Toulon founded Napoleon Buonaparte’s military reputation, his energetic if sanguinary support of the government on the 13th Vendémiaire established him politically. Barras and his relieved fellow Directors could not do enough for their “sword” and deliverer. On October 10 he was promoted to be second in command of the Army of the Interior; six days later he was promoted general of division. On October 26 this commission was withdrawn in favor of one appointing him commander in chief—perhaps the most influential post in the French forces at that time, for the Army of the Interior was patently the largest force and was also charged with the key task of maintaining law and order throughout France.

  Napoleon Buonaparte had now arrived on the Revolutionary scene with a vengeance. With customary zeal he devised a series of regulations for the conduct of his new command which form a masterpiece of administrative clarity and show his complete mastery of detail. But he was still not satisfied; he was continually turning his attention to the Italian theater, where the failure of Schérer to exploit Massena’s success at Loano was extremely galling and disappointing. General Buonaparte continued to bombard his new masters with endless memoranda relating to the conduct of affairs along the Ligurian coast. He was forthright in his opinions and did not spare Schérer and his lieutenants from scathing criticism: “They have committed a cardinal error in not forcing the entrenched position at Ceva while the defeated Austrians were reeling back towards Acqui,” began his “Note on the direction that should be given to the Army of Italy” of December 11.* “… The capture of Ceva, and the concentration of our army around that strong position, are the sole considerations that can induce the Court of Turin to make peace, and at the same time diminish by a considerable sum the terrific expense which the Army of Italy costs the public treasury.”23 Note the cunning appeal to the pockets of the Directory as a means of getting his way! A second Note on January 19, 1796, was even more to the point. “If the Army of Italy spends the month of February without doing anything, in the same way as it is wasting the month of January, the Italian campaign will be completely ruined. It must be understood that great successes in Italy can only be gained during the winter. Supposing the Army of Italy puts itself in motion at the earliest possible moment, it can march on Ceva, and storm the entrenched camp there before the Austrians [at Acqui] can join up with the Piedmontese.”24

  General Schérer and his advisers, shivering amid the inhospitable Alpine foothills with their starving men, became increasingly annoyed by the ceaseless stream of orders and advice emanating from the comfortable offices of the Ministry of War. Although the documents all bore the Minister of War’s signature, the recipients were well aware whose pen was drafting the paragraphs. On February 3, Ritter, one of the current Députés-en-Mission attached to Schérer’s headquarters, wrote to Letourneur, a member of the Directory, complaining stridently. “I have said to you before that eternal project-mongers surround the government. I do not wish to name these individuals gnawed by ambition and greedy for posts above their capacity. You have judged them at the time and on the spot. Why, then, do you not oppose their chimerical and gigantesque plans? Will you suffer
the Army of Italy, so deserving by its patience and its victories, to go to its destruction because some madmen are pleased to show you on a map of a country (of which no accurate map exists) how they could seize the moon with their teeth?”25 No doubt the difficulties of life and operations along the Alpine foothills did make them appear to resemble the mountains of the moon to the mediocre men on the spot, but no such considerations would stop General Buonaparte once he had the bit fairly between his teeth.

  Very soon a condition of acrimonious dispute existed between Nice and Paris. Schérer continued to acknowledge receipt of his latest voluminous instructions, but countered with less ambitious proposals of his own and wailing appeals for massive reinforcements. If these were not forthcoming, he begged to be relieved of his command forthwith. These sentiments were reiterated in his letters to the Directory of February 4 and 11, and on March 2 he got his wish. The Directory—weary of his continual complaints on the one hand and of General Buonaparte’s ceaseless remonstrations on the other—notified Schérer that his resignation had been accepted. The same day (March 2), General Buonaparte was officially informed that he was to fill the vacancy. The opportunity for greatness had at last materialized.

  We can guess that General Bonaparte (we must now spell his name after the French style he then adopted) was aware of his coming appointment at least twenty-four hours in advance, for he sent a request to the library of the Ministry of War for the loan of all available books on Italy.

  There followed a week of busy preparation and planning. The overall shape of the French war effort for 1796 was to bear a marked resemblance to that of the previous year, and once again the master mind was that of Lazare Carnot. The overriding aims were to secure France’s frontiers and carry the war deep into enemy territory. It was a strategy of attack, no longer one of defense. Faced by the forces of Great Britain, the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Sardinia, the Papal States and Naples, the “Organizer of Victory” was nevertheless again facing a complex enough problem.

  Fortunately for France, the martial characteristics of these various nations were as varied as the policies of the Allied statesmen. This is a convenient point to consider briefly the basic military characteristics of France’s foes, for some knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses is clearly desirable in making any assessment of the military history of the next two decades.

  With dismal memories of defeats sustained in the former American colonies still fresh in men’s minds, it is not surprising to discover that the efficiency and popular esteem of the British Army was far from its zenith at this-time. In size it numbered at first a mere 15,000 troops at home and perhaps twice as many more scattered over the face of the globe. The army’s discipline was callous and ferocious. “Curse, hang and flog” summarized the outlook of the British authorities in the early 1790s despite the conscientious efforts of Frederick, Duke of York (King George III’s brother and Commander in Chief) to remedy some of the most glaring evils.

  Behind the sad tale of defeats and disappointments that constituted the army’s record between 1793 and 1801 there lay an almost complete lack of realistic planning or supervision. The government connived at most of the abuses surrounding recruiting and the sale of commissions, and many influential men in public life were known to be included in the number of the worst speculators. The result was near-disastrous for the battle readiness of the British Army. Such meager resources as Britain did possess, moreover, were consistently frittered away in cripplingly expensive and largely pointless expeditions in pursuit of an outdated Chathamite conception of Grand Strategy which called for the capture of the enemy’s colonies and a series of raids against supposedly exposed sections of hostile coastline.

  As an instrument of war, therefore, the British Army presented a pathetic picture. There was no competent staff organization, although a few so-called “experts” would soon emerge from the institution at High Wycombe (founded in 1799) which ultimately became the Staff College. The organization of the battalions into brigades and divisions remained impermanent. And despite the maritime preoccupations of Whitehall, no real attempt was made to introduce interservice training for combined operations until 1801. The British tactical system, although it embodied much that was potentially good, was generally too rigidly and ponderously linear to present a real challenge to the fluid mobility and flexible tactics of the Revolutionary forces. “Old Pivot,” as General Sir David Dundas was known to the army, introduced a measure of uniformity in the tactical exercises by insisting on the adoption of two-rank battle formations in place of the traditional three, but his military ideas remained too closely patterned on Prussian concepts.

  Rigid linear tactics, draconian discipline based on the fear of the lash, endless drill, and implicit discouragement of individual initiative—these were the most obvious characteristics of the red-coated soldiery of John Bull’s island. The public distrusted their nominal defenders as ex-convicts and wastrels; the rank and file continued to be drawn from the most depressed classes of society; a proportion of the officers came from the rather disillusioned landless “younger son” element of the aristocracy and squirearchy; promotion was tied to favor and purchasing power rather than proven ability. Yet there was gold among the dross. The British soldier was famous for his grim humor and steadfastness in face of danger, but, far more significantly, there was a reform movement of great future consequence beginning to gain momentum, inspired by a group of enlightened officers. Foremost among these stand the figures of Sir John Moore and General Crauford. Both insisted on a more humane approach toward the common soldier, on higher standards among regimental officers, on the use of reward as well as punishment to achieve results, and above all on the need to foster self-dependence and initiative at every level. Under Moore’s inspiration at Shorncliffe Camp and elsewhere, a more imaginative tactical system was under development by the late 1790s, based upon flexible and rapid maneuvers performed in open or loose order and designed to emulate and surpass the skirmisher tactics of the French voltigeurs and tirailleurs. Several more soldiers of ability were also making their way toward the top of their profession—including Generals Abercromby and Stuart, while in faraway India a certain Sir Arthur Wellesley was steadily acquiring that wealth of experience destined in the fullness of time to bring low the military pretensions of France. Behind all these progressing improvements stands the figure of “the Grand Old Duke of York,” who more than made up for his limitations as a commander in the field by his skill and farsightedness as an administrator. His support and encouragement, to cite a single example, enabled Colonel le Marchant to found the officer-training establishment that eventually became the Royal Military College Sandhurst,* a step destined in time to improve the professional competence of the British officer corps in the infantry and cavalry arms. There was thus a considerable amount of gold among the dross.

  This notwithstanding, Great Britain was probably fortunate to be shielded from her continental foe by the English Channel. Until well into the first decade of the nineteenth century, Britain’s security depended upon the Royal Navy far more than upon her army. The Admiralty controlled 113 ships-of-the-line in 1793, firing a cumulative broadside of some 90,000 pounds. The French fleets, on the other hand, numbered only 76 battleships with a combined 75,000 pounds broadside. Great Britain never lost this lead in the years of expansion that followed, although the far-flung nature of her maritime responsibilities often made it difficult to cover the more centrally positioned French squadrons, while the need to prevent France from acquiring by conquest or negotiation the fleets of other powers forced the British government into mounting several expeditions of questionable legality as the long saga of the wars unfolded.

  There is no doubt that the Royal Navy constituted one major factor in the ultimate defeat of France and Napoleon, although the conditions of service in Britain’s ships remained appalling throughout the wars despite the salutary lessons of the Nore and Spithead Mutinies in 1797. Fortunately Great Britain possess
ed a number of exemplary admirals—Lord Howe, Lord St. Vincent and of course Horatio Nelson. These gifted sailors could inspire their men, however unwillingly recruited by the notorious press gangs, to deeds of great valor in action or endurance in blockade, and as a result the Royal Navy drove its rivals from the seas (by 1805) and thereafter bottled the survivors into continental ports, protected England’s prosperity-giving commerce, blockaded the coasts of a hostile Europe (depriving the French and their allies of vital imports) and transported, supplied and if need be evacuated the British Army on many an overseas expedition, both large and small.

  Passing on from the forces of His Britannic Majesty, King George III, let us turn to consider the armies of Republican France’s largest continental enemy—namely, the soldiers of the Hapsburg Empire. The Emperor probably disposed of as many as 350,000 troops during the 1790s, including 58,000 superb cavalry, generally admitted to be the finest in Europe. This military façade was, however, more imposing in appearance than reality. The Hapsburg armies were inevitably multinational in composition, containing Serbs and Croats as well as Austrians and Hungarians. The language problems so caused were never fully overcome, for the Austrian forces could not boast an efficient staff system that might have tackled these difficulties. Every commander in the field was deluged with paperwork, for the Viennese war cabinets and ministries appeared to possess an insatiable appetite for strength returns and endless reports.

  In common with the other armies of the European monarchies, the Austrian tactics were based on the old linear pattern. In the very early years of the War of the First Coalition, these methods proved reasonably effective against the ill-trained rabbles which constituted the greater part of France’s armies, but by 1796 the improvements in the Republic’s forces were becoming manifest and were beginning to show up the weaknesses of the old tactical system—as convincingly demonstrated by General Massena at the battle of Loano the previous year. The Austrians put their faith in platoon, company and battalion volleys—and made little attempt to protect their three-or four-deep white-coated ranks behind either natural cover or a skirmisher screen. Austrian generals failed to make the most effective use of their well-trained and superbly mounted cavalry, while Hapsburg artillery units were commonly positioned with little care. It soon became evident that such methods were hopeless against the swarms of elusive French sharpshooters and their well-served batteries, which between them decimated the Austrian formations before even the main action was joined, but the Hapsburg generals and their masters proved incapable of improving their systems until after the cataclysm of 1805.