The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

  Measures were immediately taken to ensure the protection of the whole area against surprise attack. Vaubois’ division, 10,000 strong, was stationed at Lavis to block the approaches to Lake Garda, while Massena occupied Bassano. These two forces were in communication through the Brenta valley which connected them laterally, and Bonaparte felt confident that his generals would be able to provide him with early warning of any Austrian advance from the north. In Sérurier’s continued absence, the siege of Mantua was now entrusted to General Kilmaine. In the center of the strategical triangle formed by these three vital posts, Bonaparte established his headquarters at Verona, and placed Augereau’s division in central reserve around the same town. Smaller detachments held the lower Adige and the area around Brescia. Inevitably these dispositions involved a considerable amount of dispersal over a large area, but distances had been carefully calculated to allow for speedy concentration once the enemy had revealed his line of attack.

  The month of October, however, presented Bonaparte with many other problems in addition to the threat of a renewed Austrian invasion. The unpopularity of the French troops throughout Italy had reached a new height. To the Directory’s endless demands for contributions, ruthlessly collected by Saliceti and his rapacious colleagues, were added the systematic depredations of the troops. The first rapturous welcome had long since turned to bitter recrimination and hatred, as the Italians found they had exchanged the Austrian “King Log” for the far more demanding French “King Stork.” The Pope continued to conspire with Naples, Sardinia, Modena and Venice with a view to destroying the French parasite, and it took a great deal of political guile and ruthlessness on Bonaparte’s part to prevent an irruption.

  Considering his lines of communication through the Col di Tende far too exposed, the French commander compelled the Republic of Genoa to accept a French base and to exclude British interests. In similar fashion, the tiny principality of Modena was occupied on a flimsy pretext, and a series of military demonstrations were mounted to overawe the Serene Republic of Venice. The Pope’s plot to put 30,000 Neapolitan soldiers into the field against the French was narrowly forestalled by a new French treaty with Naples signed on 10th October. However, at the very best, these were short-term remedies to a very complex problem. In his search for a more permanent solution—and aware that his early attempt to ally himself with the incipient forces of Italian nationalism had failed—Bonaparte set up three new Republics: the Cisalpine, comprising the Milanese; the Cispadena, linking Modena and Reggio together, and the Transpadena, joining Bologna and Ferrara. At a more propitious moment, Bonaparte planned to unite these three states into a single North Italian Republic, but, as might be expected, his schemes stirred up immense hostility from vested interests, and did little to ensure the political stability they were intended to foster.

  These political problems were soon overshadowed by pressing military difficulties. Once again the Austrian army was ready to take the field. A new force of 46,000 men (exclusive of the garrison of Mantua) was placed under the command of Baron Joseph d’Alvintzi, an experienced veteran who had seen much service in the Netherlands and on the Rhine. Determined to profit from the scattered dispositions of the French, the Aulic Council decreed yet another concentric advance by two quasi-independent forces under d’Alvintzi and Davidovitch respectively. Bassano and Trent were set as the initial objectives for the two forces, for the recapture of these towns would provide the two generals with the valuable lateral link of the Brenta pass, and enable d’Alvintzi to mass his forces at will along either line of operations or, after a concentric advance, unite them at Verona on the Adige for the concentrated drive on the French forces besieging Mantua. An elaborate scheme of deception was devised to persuade Bonaparte that d’Alvintzi’s 28,000 men constituted the sole threat to his security, in the hope that Davidovitch’s onslaught with 18,000 at Trent would find the French off balance and cause a measure of confusion that would act to the Austrian advantage.

  When the offensive got under way in the first days of November, Bonaparte delighted the Austrians by reacting as they had hoped. Believing the enemy forces north of Trent to be very weak, the French commander ordered Vaubois to advance and rout the foe, and thereafter transfer 3,000 of his men to the central position around Verona where the remainder of the field army was concentrating prior to falling on d’Alvintzi. Vaubois obeyed his orders, but the preliminary reports that reached headquarters on November 5 made it clear that he was faced by a far stronger enemy than had been anticipated, and Bonaparte at once modified his original plan. He no longer expected that Vaubois would destroy Davidovitch, but instructed him to hold his ground while the main attack against d’Alvintzi took place as planned, for Bonaparte now hoped to drive the Austrian commander in chief out of the Brenta valley before falling on Davidovitch’s rear. Meanwhile, Massena slowly withdrew before the two columns of d’Alvintzi’s advancing army toward Vicenza, but two attempts to check the foe’s pursuit on November 6 at Fontanove and Bassano proved abortive, although the fierceness of the fighting somewhat daunted d’Alvintzi’s determination. Bonaparte’s second plan had to be abandoned, however, when some grim news from the northern sector reached Verona on the 6th. Far from holding his position near Trent, Vaubois had been completely routed on November 4; both Trent and Roveredo fell to the enemy in quick succession, and Vaubois was able to rally his fleeing men only near Rivoli.

  The unforeseen disaster threw the French plans back into the melting pot. Bonaparte was forced to abandon for the time being his blow against d’Alvintzi and ordered both Massena and Augereau to fall back to the line of the Adige and the “central position.” To bolster Vaubois’ shaken troops, Joubert was ordered to march on Rivoli, reinforced with two brigades withdrawn from the forces besieging Mantua. Altogether these troops reinforced Vaubois to a total of 13,000 men. On November 7, Bonaparte paid a flying visit to the sector and blistered the recalcitrant troops of Vaubois’ command with a fiery rebuke: “Soldiers, I am not satisfied with you. You have shown neither bravery, discipline, nor perseverance…. You have allowed yourselves to be driven from positions where a handful of men could have stopped an army. Soldiers of the 39th and 85th, you are not French soldiers. General, Chief-of-Staff! Let it be inscribed on their colors: ‘They no longer form part of the Army of Italy!’”22 The shamefaced soldiers wilted before the lash of his tongue, and better discipline and a higher state of morale were soon reestablished.

  However, Bonaparte was still not satisfied that the sector would hold in the face of a further determined attack by Davidovitch, and consequently he alerted Massena to be ready to march up from the Adige. The events of the next days made this unnecessary. Massena made a personal reconnaisance of the forward areas on November 7-8 and reported that there were no signs of an imminent advance by Davidovitch, and this impression was confirmed by Vaubois on the 9th. For the time being, all remained quiet on the Rivoli front.

  Reassured about his northern flank, Bonaparte devised a fourth plan of operations. Once again the major emphasis of French attentions was switched to d’Alvintzi so as to ensure the safety of Verona and make it impossible for the two horns of the Austrian attack to join. The Austrian commander in chief had meantime made up his mind to march to Davidovitch’s assistance before embarking on operations in the direction of Mantua, and had crossed the River Alpone at Villa Nova with 17,000 men. A preliminary probe toward Verona on the 11th was repulsed, and this persuaded d’Alvintzi to close up his main body on the village of Caldiero after posting 4,000 men at Arcola to watch the River Adige and protect his southern flank. Although he had only 16,000 troops in the whole area, Bonaparte reinforced Massena’s division to a strength of 13,000 men and launched him in an attack on the 12th against Caldiero. Once again, this miscarried, d’Alvintzi inflicting a distinct defeat on the French who lost 2,000 men and two guns before being forced to take shelter on the west bank of the Adige. Bonaparte was left with no option but to bring both his defeated divisions back
to Verona.

  The Army of Italy was clearly in an increasingly precarious position. Two strong foes, each with a record of successes against French troops, continued to threaten to converge on Verona; to meet them with a reasonable force, Bonaparte might be compelled to raise the siege of Mantua yet again, but such an action would release at least a further 17,000 Austrian troops to operate against his rear, affording the enemy with an overall advantage of 20,000 men. Bonaparte’s intelligence staff estimated the Austrian strength as at least 50,000, and the young commander became very despondent about his chances of survival. “Perhaps the hour of the brave Augereau, of the intrepid Massena, of my own death, is at hand,” he wrote gloomily to the Directory. “We are abandoned in the depths of Italy.”23 He advised Josephine to quit Milan and make for Genoa. Understandably, however, the tone of his proclamation to the troops sounded a somewhat different note: “We have but one more effort to make and Italy is our own. The enemy is, no doubt, more numerous than we are, but half his troops are recruits; if we beat him, Mantua must fall, and we shall remain master of everything.”24

  The “last effort” he called for was imposing enough. It was clear that Augereau and Massena with their 18,000 men would have to drive back d’Alvintzi from the Adige, and the Austrians had now received reinforcements to bring their forces in the Caldiero-Arcola area to a total of at least 23,000. To fight at a numerical disadvantage was contrary to Bonaparte’s strategic theory of concentration, but in this case he had no apparent alternative. Vaubois away to the north was already outnumbered, and any major weakening of his slender forces might cause irretrievable disaster; similarly, no further troops could be drawn away from Mantua without abandoning the siege and releasing the garrison. Like a juggler keeping three balls in the air at once, Bonaparte had to balance the dangers of the three sectors against each other, keeping them in clear relative perspective. Although he had singled out d’Alvintzi as his main target, it was only too clear that an aggressive move on the part of Davidovitch or even by Würmser might compel the French to abandon their operations against the main Austrian army and move every available man to reinforce the threatened area. Defeat on any sector could well spell catastrophe and the destruction of the Army of Italy.

  The Battle of Arcola: the first day, November 15, 1796

  This atmosphere of strategic uncertainty and impending peril forms the vital background to the drawn-out three-day struggle of Arcola. During the period of stress Bonaparte revealed some of his greatest talents. The Italian historian, Carlo Botta, generally no admirer of Napoleon, wrote: “His movements and tactics on this critical occasion were those of a consummate master of the art of war…. They were conceived and executed with the rapidity of lightning, nor had the Austrians any notion of what he was doing until Bonaparte had chosen his own ground and entirely changed the state of the campaign.”25

  Bonaparte’s plan was a reversion to the type of operation carried out against Beaulieu at Lodi and Würmser at Bassano—une manoeuvre sur les derrières. He intended to rush all available troops from Verona to seize Villa Nova, using the Adige to cover his advance, in order to seize the field park and convoys of the Austrian army. This move would without a doubt compel d’Alvintzi to abandon his advance on Verona and retreat to reopen his lines of communication. To do this, he would be forced to fight the French on a ground of their own choosing in the marshy area enclosed between the rivers Alpone and Adige, and on a narrow front where the Austrians, losing all the advantages of their numerical superiority, would find it extremely difficult to deploy. The great facility the French troops had displayed in adapting themselves to difficult terrain augured well for their chances, but at best it was a gamble.

  To succeed fully, the plan depended upon the rapid capture of Villa Nova before d’Alvintzi could react. The problem to be solved, therefore, was the means of transferring the army to that point without fatally weakening the defenses of Verona or prematurely revealing the French intention. D’Alvintzi’s advance guard was within sight of the city on the 14th, and if Verona fell to the Austrians while Bonaparte was still marching against their rear, all would be lost, for only Vaubois would then stand between d’Alvintzi and Davidovitch. To minimize this risk as far as was possible, Bonaparte entrusted the city’s defense to General Macquard and some 3,000 men drawn from Vaubois, and set off during the night of November 14 for the village of Ronco, 18 miles away from Verona, accompanied by most of his field force of 18,000 men. By daybreak on the 15th, Andréossy, the army’s chief engineer, had built a pontoon bridge over the Adige and the French troops were soon crossing into the vast marshes adjoining the north bank, which were crossed by only three causeways. Bonaparte, however, was by no means confident of success: “The weakness and exhaustion of the army,” he wrote, “causes me to fear the worst. We are perhaps on the eve of losing Italy.”26

  Augereau’s troops were the first across, Massena’s following on their heels. The latter set off to the left to seize the village of Porcile. They soon brushed with Provera’s advance guard, but in no time the village was in French possession and the Army of Italy’s west flank was at least temporarily secure. D’Alvintzi was still blissfully unaware of Bonaparte’s intentions, although he now knew he had divided his army. Augereau unfortunately met with less success. His mission was to sweep over the Alpone and capture the village of Villa Nova, but as the head of his column approached the bridge at Arcola it was met by a withering fire from the dyke on the left bank of the Alpone, a mere hundred yards from the causeway the French were using. Two battalions of Croatian infantry and several guns were well sited to sweep the exposed roadway for a distance of more than half a mile, and faced by this formidable obstacle the French troops refused to advance, but took cover behind the dykes. This check had a crippling effect on the development of Bonaparte’s original plan. “It became of the greatest importance,” he recorded, “to seize Arcola and thereafter fall on the enemy’s rear, taking the bridge over the Alpone at Villa Nova, which provided his only retreat and beyond which lay the only place where his army could fully deploy.”27 Every hour that passed made it more improbable that d’Alvintzi would be trapped, and Bonaparte strained every nerve to secure the crucial crossing over the river. He sent off Guieu with 3,000 men to search for a crossing near Albaredo to take Arcola from the east, but this inevitably took valuable time. Meanwhile 3,000 Austrian reinforcements moved up on Porcile, and a similar force under Metrouski arrived to strengthen the defense of Arcola, while under the cover of these forces an alarmed d’Alvintzi was already retiring with half his army from the approaches to Verona and the chance of cutting him off was fast receding. At one period a desperate Bonaparte seized a tricolor and led Augereau’s men forward in a new attack against the bridge of Arcola, but at the critical moment when success hung in the balance an unknown French officer flung his arms round his commander in chief and exclaimed: “General, you will get yourself killed, and if you fall we are lost; you shall not go farther; this is not your place.”28 In the ensuing confusion Bonaparte fell into a canal, and was only saved by the devotion of his aides-de-camp, who hauled their bedraggled commander to safety under the very bayonets of the Austrian counterattack. Thus all direct attacks failed to penetrate the Austrian defenses.

  The Battle of Arcola: the second day, November 16, 1796

  All this time d’Alvintzi’s retreat to Villa Nova continued. “From the top of the church spire at Porcile the French watched, with chagrin, their victim escape,”29 but there was nothing they could now do to close the trap. Guieu’s intrepid troops captured the town of Arcola at seven in the evening, but this was six hours too late for, even if it had been possible to press on to Villa Nova, at least half of the main Imperial army was already safely drawn up to defend the town. Disturbing news had also reached French headquarters from the northern sector, where it appeared that Vaubois had been driven back to Bussolengo. In the light of this information Bonaparte took the hard but sensible decision to abandon Arcola an
d his hardwon gains on the farther bank of the Alpone, and withdraw his troops over the Adige in case it should be necessary to march off in haste to succour Vaubois.

  Nevertheless, the first day of Arcola had not been without its successes; the threat to Verona was over, and d’Alvintzi had clearly given up all hope of an early junction with Davidovitch, while the precipitation of the Austrian retreat showed how much the unexpected French maneuver had alarmed the enemy.

  The next morning Bonaparte decided to renew the attack on Arcola, as no news of further activity by Davidovitch had come in. Naturally enough the Austrians had reoccupied Arcola and Porcile during the night, and so everything had to be fought for again. A day of bitter fighting among the dykes resulted in the recapture of Porcile, but Arcola remained in Austrian hands, and General Vial’s attempt to bridge the Alpone near its mouth also failed. However, the Austrians were suffering severe casualties, and d’Alvintzi’s nerve was becoming ever more shaken. Consequently, early on the following day, the Austrian commander in chief sent a message to Davidovitch stating that he would only be able to beat off one more French attack. The battle of attrition, as it had now become, was working in the French favor. In the evening, Bonaparte again withdrew his forces to the right bank of the Adige so as to be prepared for any sudden emergency in the north, leaving only a small advance guard on the opposite side. That night, General Kilmaine brought up 3,000 welcome reinforcements from Mantua.