Part 13
Through the rest of this campaign, which numbered the victories of Lodi, Castiglione, Bassano, Arcole, the most noteworthy thing except his own personal diligence is the speed with which Napoleon manœuvred his troops. To state an instance: from September 5 to September 11, six days, Napoleon’s men fought one pitched battle and two important combats and marched, Masséna eighty-eight miles, Augereau ninety-six miles, and the other corps less distances. He was far from being uniformly lucky. He had many days of serious backsets. But whenever luck ran in his favor, he seized it and made it useful; when against him, he gamely strove to stem its tide. If Fortune frowned, he wooed her unceasingly till she smiled again.
The campaign which began in April, 1796, really lasted till April, 1797. Napoleon pushed the Austrians out of Italy and well back towards Vienna. His triumphs culminated in the brilliant victory of Rivoli, and his success at the truce of Leoben. At Rivoli, with thirty thousand men, Napoleon defeated the enemy and captured twenty thousand prisoners. The men who had left Verona and fought at San Michele on the 13th of January, marched all night to Rivoli, there conquered on the 14th, and again marching to Mantua, some thirty miles, compelled Provera to lay down his arms on the 15th. Napoleon could rightfully boast to have equalled Cæsar in speed of foot.
The men of the Revolution had cut loose from eighteenth century methods of warfare by rising en masse and putting the personal element into the scale. But it was reserved for Napoleon to substitute a new method for the old. From Nice to Leoben he showed the world what modern war can do. He made himself independent of magazines, as Frederick had done but rarely. With a smaller army he always had more men at the point of contact. This was Napoleon’s strongest point. He divined what his enemy would do, not from his tent but from the saddle, seeing with his own eyes and weighing all he saw and heard. He was every day and all day long in motion; he rode unheard-of distances. He relied on no one but himself, as, with his comparatively small army, he could well do; and correctly seeing and therefore correctly gauging circumstances, he had the courage to act upon his facts. He sought battle as the result of every manœuvre. The weight of his intellect and his character were equally thrown into all he did. And his abnormal ambition drove him to abnormal energy. In this his first campaign and in one year, with moderate forces, he had advanced from Nice to within eighty miles of Vienna, and had wrung a peace from astonished Austria.
Napoleon next undertook the Egyptian campaign. His ambition had grown with success. But matters in France were not in a condition of which he could personally avail, and he believed he could increase his reputation and power by conquests in the East. His imagination was boundless. Perhaps no great soldier can be free from imagination, or its complement, enthusiasm. Napoleon had it to excess, and in many respects it helped him in his hazardous undertakings. At this time he dreamed himself another Alexander conquering the Eastern world, thence to return, as Alexander did not, with hordes of soldiers disciplined by himself and fanatically attached to his person, to subjugate all Europe to his will. The narration of this campaign of sixteen months may be made to sound brilliant; its result was miscarriage. It is full of splendid achievements and marred but by one mishap,--the siege of Acre. But the total result of the campaign was failure to France, though gain to Napoleon, who won renown, and, abandoning his army when the campaign closed, returned to Paris at a season more suited to his advancement. Napoleon’s military conduct in this campaign shows the same marvellous energy, the same power of adapting means to end, of keeping all his extraordinary measures secret, the better to impose on the enemy by their sudden development, the same power over men. But the discipline of the army was disgraceful. The plundering which always accompanied Napoleon’s movements--for, unlike Gustavus and Frederick, he believed in allowing the soldier freedom beyond bounds if only he would march and fight--was excessive. The health of the army was bad; its deprivations so great that suicide was common to avoid suffering which was worse. And yet Napoleon, by his unequalled management, kept this army available as a tool, and an excellent one.
Napoleon now became First Consul. The campaign of 1800 was initiated by the celebrated crossing of the Alps. This feat, of itself, can no more be compared, as it has been, to Hannibal’s great achievement, nor indeed to Alexander’s crossing the Paropamisus, than a Pullman excursion to Salt Lake City can be likened to Albert Sidney Johnston’s terrible march across the Plains in 1857. Napoleon’s crossing was merely an incident deftly woven into a splendid plan of campaign. From Switzerland, a geographical salient held by them, the French could debouch at will into Italy or Germany. Mélas, the Austrian general in Italy, had his eyes fixed upon Masséna in Genoa. A large reserve army was collected by Napoleon in France, while Moreau pushed toward the Danube. Mélas naturally expected that the French would issue from Provence, and kept his outlook towards that point. When Napoleon actually descended from the Great St. Bernard upon his rear, he was as badly startled as compromised. This splendid piece of strategy was followed up with Napoleon’s usual restless push, and culminated in the battle of Marengo. This was at first a distinct Austrian victory, but good countenance, Mélas’ neglect to pursue his gain, and Napoleon’s ability to rally and hold his troops until absent Dessaix could rejoin him, turned it into an overwhelming Austrian defeat. And Napoleon, by the direction given to his mass, had so placed Mélas that defeat meant ruin. He was glad to accept an armistice on Napoleon’s own terms.
This superb campaign had lasted but a month, and had been characterized by the utmost dash and clearness of perception. Again Napoleon’s one mass projected on one properly chosen line had accomplished wonders.
Napoleon once said to Jomini, “The secret of war lies in the secret of communications. Keep your own and attack your enemy’s in such a way that a lost battle may not harm you, a battle won may ruin your adversary. Seize your enemy’s communications and then march to battle.” Napoleon’s success came from study of the situation. His art was founded on an intimate knowledge of all the facts, coupled with such reasoning power as enabled him to gauge correctly what his enemy was apt to do. Without the art the study would be useless. But the art could not exist apart from study.
After Marengo there were five years of peace. These and the four years between Wagram and the Russian campaign were the only two periods of rest from war in Napoleon’s career. Succeeding this came the memorable Austerlitz campaign. Napoleon had had for some months three of his best officers in Germany studying up topography, roads, bridges, towns, in the Black Forest region and toward the Tyrol and Bohemia. To thus make himself familiar with the status was his uniform habit.
Napoleon, now Emperor, was at Boulogne, threatening and perhaps at times half purposing an invasion of England. He commanded the best army he ever had. The Austrians, not supposing him ready, inundated Bavaria with troops, without waiting for their allies, the Russians, and marched up the Danube to the Iller, under Field-Marshal Mack. Napoleon put an embargo on the mails, broke up from Boulogne at twenty-four hours’ notice, and reached the vicinity of the enemy with an overwhelming force before Mack was aware of his having left the sea. His line of march was about Mack’s right flank, because this was the nearest to Boulogne and gave him a safe base on the confederate German provinces. So well planned was the manœuvre, so elastic in its design for change of circumstances, that it fully succeeded, step for step, until Mack was surrounded at Ulm and surrendered with his thirty thousand men. Here again we find the Napoleonic rule fairly overwhelming Mack with superior numbers. Except in 1796 and 1814, Napoleon always had more men than the enemy on the field at the proper time. “They ascribe more talent to me than to others,” he observed, “and yet to give battle to an enemy I am in the habit of beating, I never think I have enough men; I call to my aid all that I can unite.”
The chart herewith given of the grand manœuvre of Ulm is so simple as to suggest no difficulties of execution. But there is probably nothing in human experience which taxes strength, intellect, judgment, and character to so great a degree as the strategy and logistics of such a movement, unless it be the tactics of the ensuing battle. The difficulties are, in reality, gigantic.
Napoleon headed direct for Vienna, and on the way absolutely lived on the country. “In the movements and wars of invasion conducted by the Emperor, there are no magazines; it is a matter for the commanding generals of the corps to collect the means of victualling in the countries through which they march,” writes Berthier to Marmont. Napoleon took Vienna and marched out towards Brünn, where the Austrians and Russians had concentrated. Here he was far from secure, if equal talent had been opposed to him; but he took up a position near Austerlitz, from which he could retreat through Bohemia, if necessary, and, calmly watching the enemy and allowing several chances of winning an ordinary victory to pass, he waited, with an audacity which almost ran into braggadocio, for the enemy to commit some error from which he could wrest a decisive one. And this the allies did, as Napoleon divined they would do. They tried to turn his right flank and cut him off from Vienna. Napoleon massed his forces on their centre and right, broke these in pieces, and won the victory of which he was always most proud. Napoleon’s conduct here showed distinctly a glint of what he himself so aptly calls the divine part of the art.
There is always a corresponding danger in every plan which is of the kind to compass decisive results. In this case Napoleon risked his right wing. But to judge how much it is wise to risk and to guess just how much the enemy is capable of undertaking is a manifestation of genius.
The era of the great battles of modern war dates from Austerlitz. Marengo was rather two combats than one great battle. Frederick’s battles were wonders of tactics and courage, but they differ from the Napoleonic system. In Frederick’s battles the whole army was set in motion for one manœuvre at one time to be executed under the management of the chief. If the manœuvre was interrupted by unforeseen events, the battle might be lost. In Napoleon’s system, the centre might be broken and the wings still achieve victory; one wing might be crushed while the other destroyed the enemy. A bait was offered the enemy by the exhibition of a weak spot to attract his eye, while Napoleon fell on the key-point with overwhelming odds. But in this system the control passed from the hand of the leader. All he could do was to project a corps in a given direction at a given time. Once set in motion, these could not readily be arrested. Such a system required reserves much more than the old method. “Battles are only won by strengthening the line at a critical moment,” says Napoleon. Once in, Napoleon’s corps worked out their own salvation. He could but aid them with his reserves.
There is a magnificence of uncertainty and risk, and corresponding genius in the management of the battles of Napoleon; but for purely artistic tactics they do not appeal to us as do Frederick’s. The _motif_ of Alexander’s battles is more akin to Napoleon’s; that of Hannibal’s, to Frederick’s.
It has been said that Napoleon never considered what he should do in case of failure. The reverse is more exact. Before delivering a battle, Napoleon busied himself little with what he would do in case of success. That was easy to decide. He busied himself markedly with what could be done in case of reverse.
Like all great captains, Napoleon preferred lieutenants who obeyed instead of initiating. He chafed at independent action. This was the chief’s prerogative. But as his armies grew in size he gave his marshals charge of detail under general instructions from himself. Dependence on Napoleon gradually sapped the self-reliance of more than one of his lieutenants, and though there are instances of noble ability at a distance from control, most of his marshals were able tacticians, rather than great generals. Napoleon grew impatient of contradiction or explanation; and he sometimes did not learn or was not told of things he ought to know. He was no longer so active. Campaigning was a hardship. His belief in his destiny became so strong that he began to take greater risks. Such a thing as failure did not exist for him. His armies were increasing in size, and railroads and telegraphs at that day did not hasten transportation and news. The difficulties he had to contend with were growing fast.
These things had the effect of making Napoleon’s military plans more magnificent, more far-reaching. But all the less could he pay heed to detail, and from now on one can, with some brilliant exceptions, perceive more errors of execution. In the general conception he was greater than ever, and this balanced the scale. His ability to put all his skill into the work immediately in hand was marvellous. But with a vast whole in view, the parts were, perhaps of necessity, lost sight of.
The campaigns of 1806 and 1807 were in sequence. To move on the Prussians, who, under the superannuated Duke of Brunswick, were concentrated in Thuringia, Napoleon massed on his own right, disgarnishing his left, turned their left,--in this case their strategic flank, because the manœuvre cut them off from Berlin and their allies, the Russians,--and with overwhelming vigor fell on the dawdling enemy at Jena and Auerstädt. The Prussians had remained stationary in the art of war where they had been left by Frederick, and had lost his burning genius.
It was at the outset of this campaign that Jomini handed in to Marshal Ney, his chief, a paper showing what Napoleon must necessarily do if he would beat the Prussians and cut them off from their approaching allies. He alone had divined the strategic secrets of the Emperor.
In this campaign we plainly see the growth of risk commensurate within the magnitude of plan, but we also recognize the greater perfection of general intuitions, the larger plan and method. Details had to be overlooked, but the whole army was held in the Emperor’s hand like a battalion in that of a good field officer. In forty-eight hours his two hundred thousand men could be concentrated at any one point. And the very essence of the art of war is to know _when_ you may divide, to impose on the enemy, subsist, pursue, deceive, and to know _how_ to divide so that you may concentrate before battle can occur.
Again Napoleon had carried out his principle of moving on one line in one mass on the enemy, and a few great soldiers began to see that there was a theory in this. Jomini first grasped its full meaning and showed that only battle crowns the work. Without it a general is merely uncovering his own communications. Victory is essential to the success of such a plan. Napoleon pushed restlessly in on the enemy. “While others are in council, the French army is on the march,” quoth he.
In the Austerlitz and Jena campaigns, Napoleon’s manœuvre was so admirably conceived that he kept open two lines of retreat, which he could adapt to the enemy’s evolutions,--at Austerlitz via Vienna and Bohemia, at Jena still more secure lines on the Rhine and on the Main or Danube. This is a distinct mark of the perfection of the plans.
The succeeding Friedland campaign has several items of interest. At his first contact with the Russians, Napoleon, instead of sticking to his uniform plan of one mass on one line, tried to surround his enemy before he knew where the tactical decision of the campaign would come. Result, a thrust in the air by one corps, another did not reach the appointed place, a third met unexpected and superior forces, and the enemy broke through the net. Napoleon seemed to be experimenting. The captain of 1796, Ulm, Jena, is for the moment unrecognizable.
The Russians attacked Napoleon in his winter-quarters, and the bloody and indecisive battle of Eylau resulted, where for the first time Napoleon met that astonishing doggedness of the Russian soldier, on which Frederick had shattered his battalions at Kunersdorf. Later came the victory of Friedland. Napoleon’s order for this day is a model for study. Every important instruction for the battle is embraced in the order; details are left to his lieutenants. Only the time of launching the first attack is reserved to the chief. But the strategy of the Friedland campaign was not so crisp. The true manœuvre was to turn the Russian left, their strategic flank, and throw them back on the sea. Napoleon turned their right to cut them off from Königsberg. It was mere good luck that Friedland ended the campaign. Even after defeat the enemy could have escaped.
In the Spanish campaign of the winter of 1807–8, Napoleon reverted to his 1796 manœuvre of breaking the enemy’s centre. But Napoleon had undertaken what could not be accomplished,--the subjugation of Spain. His own strategy and the tactics of his marshals were both brilliant and successful; he could have compelled a peace, had such been the object. But to subdue a people fanatically fighting for their homes, in a mountainous country, is practically impossible by any means short of extermination. It was in the political, not the military, task that Napoleon failed.
While Napoleon was struggling in Spain, Austria deemed the occasion good again to assert herself. This gave Napoleon an opportunity of leaving to his lieutenants a game he already saw he could not win, but in which he had achieved some brilliant openings, and hurry to fields on which he felt a positive superiority. His army and allies were already on the scene.
Berthier was in charge, and to him Napoleon had given full and explicit instructions. But Berthier, though a good chief of staff, had no power to grasp a strategic situation. By not obeying orders, he had, by the time Napoleon arrived, muddled the problem, and instead of concentrating behind the Lech, had got Davout’s corps pushed out to Ratisbon, where it was liable to be cut off. Napoleon was in perilous case. But by a beautiful and rapid series of manœuvres, in which he cut the enemy in two, he wrought victory out of threatening defeat. He was justly proud of this. “The greatest military manœuvres that I have ever made, and on which I most flatter myself, took place at Eckmühl, and were immensely superior to those of Marengo or other actions which preceded or followed them.” It is the rapidity and suddenness of these manœuvres which distinguished them from 1805. There was a regular plan. Here a constant series of surprises and changes.
In making his plans, Napoleon never began by “What can the enemy do?” but he first sought to place his army in the best position, and then asked, “What now can the enemy do?” This gave him the initiative. But his plan was always elastic enough to bend to what the enemy might do. He never made plans colored by the enemy’s possibilities. He chose his own plan intelligently, according to the geography, topography, and existing conditions, and made it elastic enough to be equal to the enemy’s. “The mind of a general should be like the glass of a telescope in sharpness and clearness, and never conjure up pictures.” The elasticity of Napoleon’s Eckmühl plan is well shown by his ability to turn threatening disaster into brilliant success.
During all these days, Napoleon was tremendously active. He was personally at the important points. He hardly ate or slept. His body was governed entirely by his will. The soldier of 1796 was again afoot. But he was well and hearty. The lapse he now made is all the more singular. The Archduke Charles had been beaten at Eckmühl and was retiring into Ratisbon to cross the Danube; Napoleon neglected to pursue. They say he was persuaded by his marshals that the troops were too tired. For the first time in his life he succumbed to an obstacle. “Genius consists in carrying out a plan despite obstacles, and in finding few or no obstacles,” he once said.
Failure to pursue may come from the difficulty of leaving one’s magazines, as in Frederick’s era, or because the captain is exhausted, as well as the troops. But if the captain wants to pursue, the troops can always do so. If the enemy can fly, the victor can follow. Some part of the army is always in condition to march.
Jomini says that if Napoleon had here pursued like the Prussians after Waterloo, it would have greatly modified the campaign. As it was, the Archduke made good his escape. Napoleon had broken in between the two wings of the Austrian army, but he had not crippled the one before turning against the other. So that when he reached Vienna on the heels of the left, he found ready to meet him the right wing, which he ought to have crushed beyond so quick recovery at Ratisbon. This failure to pursue is the first symptom of a habit which from now on is more observably of not utilizing every advantage.
Then followed the crossing of the Danube at Lobau and the battles around Aspern and Essling, which terminated with defeat and great loss. The Archduke was on hand, received in overwhelming numbers that part of the French army which crossed; the bridges were broken behind the French; and a disastrous retreat to Lobau followed.
Napoleon’s difficulties were growing apace with the size of his armies, and he was now opposed by abler men. But it also seems as if occasional fits of apathy or impatience of exertion were growing on him. His splendid energy at Eckmühl did not continue. Details received less personal attention. He was more rarely at the front. He began to rely on the eyes of others more than, with his ancient vigor, he would have done--despite his dictum that “a general who sees through the eyes of others will never be in condition to command an army as it should be commanded.” Until battle actually opened, he lacked his old enthusiasm. After the first gun he was himself again. But his method of conducting war was no longer so crisp as of yore. He was more daring than careful; he relied on his luck, and strove to cover errors of omission by stupendous blows. He was suffering from not having about him a well-educated, properly selected staff, each member drilled in his specific duties. Till now Napoleon had been his own staff; but with lessening activity, he had no one on whose eyes and judgment he could rely. “The general staff is so organized that one cannot see ahead at all by its means,” said he in the next campaign. Still it must constantly be borne in mind that one hundred and fifty thousand men cannot be commanded as readily as forty thousand. And Napoleon’s breadth of view, his power of grasping the _tout ensemble_, were still present in greater measure; and when he chose he could summon up all his old spirit.