With her will or against it, by the impulse of enthusiasm still left or under the law of good pleasure, France followed her insatiable master upon the ever open battle-fields. Napoleon was not deceived as to his arbitrary measures. “I wish to call out 30,000 men by the conscription of 1810,” he wrote on the 21st March to General Lacuée, director-general of the reviews and conscription; “I am obliged to delay the publication of the ‘Senatus- consulte,’ which can only be done when all the documents are published. Let the good departments be preferred in choosing. The levy for France generally will only be one fourth of this year’s conscription. The prefects might manage it without letting the public know, since there is no occasion for their assembling or drawing lots.”
Financial difficulties also began to be felt. For a long time, by war contributions and exactions of every kind imposed upon the conquered countries, Napoleon had formed a military treasury, which he alone managed, and without any check. This resource allowed him to do without increasing taxes or imposing additional burdens. The funds, however, became exhausted, and war alone could renew them. “Reply to Sieur Otto,” he wrote on the 1st April, 1809, to Champagny, “that I will have nothing said about subsidies. It is not at all the principle of France. It was well enough under the ancient government, because they had few troops, but at the present day the power of France, and the energy impressed upon my peoples, will produce as many soldiers as I wish, and my money is employed in equipping them and putting them on the field.”
Negotiations were still being carried on. The fifth coalition was secretly formed, and diplomatic plots were everywhere joining their threads. Napoleon strove to engage Russia in a common declaration against Austria; England enrolled against France the new government just established at Constantinople by revolution. On both sides the preparations for war became more patent and hurried. Metternich complained at Paris of the hostile attitude of France, and announced the reciprocity imposed upon his master. On the 1st April, Napoleon wrote, “Get articles put in all the journals upon all that is provoking or offensive for the French nation in everything done at Vienna. You can go as far back as the first arming. There must be an article of this tendency every day in the _Journal de l’Empire_, or the _Publiciste_, or the _Gazette de France_. The aim of these articles is to prove that they wish us to make war.”
In France the decided, if not expressed, wish of the Emperor Napoleon, and in Austria the patriotic indignation and warlike excitement of the court and army, must necessarily have brought on a rupture; and the most trifling pretext was enough to cause the explosion. The arrest of a French courier by the Austrians at Braunau, the violation of the imperial territory by the troops of Marshal Davout then posted at Wurzburg, provoked hostilities several days sooner than Napoleon expected; and Metternich had already asked for his passports when, on the 10th April, the Archduke Charles crossed the Inn with his army. The Tyrol at the same time rose in insurrection under the orders of a mountain innkeeper, Andrew Hofer; and the Bavarian garrisons were everywhere attacked by hunters and peasants. Like the Spanish, the Tyrolese claimed the independence of their country.
The troops of the Emperor Napoleon already covered Germany; Davout being at Ratisbon, Lannes at Augsburg, and Masséna at Ulm. Marshal Lefebvre commanded the Bavarians, Augereau was appointed to lead the Wurtembergers, the men of Baden and Hesse; the Saxons were placed under the orders of Bernadotte. On the evening of the 9th April, the Archduke Charles wrote to the King of Bavaria that his orders were to advance, and treat as enemies all the forces which opposed him; that he fondly trusted that no German would resist the liberating army on its march to deliver Germany. The Emperor Napoleon had already offered to the Kings of Saxony and Bavaria one of his palaces in France as an asylum, should they find themselves compelled to temporarily abandon their capitals. The King of Bavaria set out for Augsburg.
The unexpected movement of his enemies modified Napoleon’s plan of attack. A delay in the arrival of the despatches sent to Major-General Berthier caused some difficulty in the first operations of the French army. When the emperor arrived at Donauwerth, on the morning of the 17th, his army was spread over an extent of twenty-five leagues, and was in danger of being cut in two by the Archduke Charles. It was Napoleon’s care and study on beginning the campaign to avoid this danger, which soon afterwards he subjected his adversary to. The Austrians, after passing the Isar at two places, and driving back the Bavarians who had been appointed to defend the passage, advanced towards the Danube.
Already, before touching Donauwerth, Napoleon’s orders had begun the concentration of his forces. Masséna was at Augsburg, and received the order to march upon Neustadt, and similarly Davout left Ratisbon to advance to the same place. The Archduke Charles was also striving to reach it, hoping to gain upon the French by speed, and pass between the divisions posted at Ratisbon and Augsburg. This manoeuvre was baffled by Napoleon’s prompt decision. “Never was there need for more rapidity and activity of movement than now,” he wrote on the 18th to Masséna. “Activity, activity, speed! Let me have your assistance.”
The emperor’s lieutenants did not fail him in this brilliant and scientific movement, everywhere executed with an ability and precision worthy of the great general who had conceived it. The Archduke Charles was a consummate tactician, but often his prudence degenerated into hesitation–a dangerous fault in presence of the most overpowering military genius whom the world had yet beheld. Napoleon himself said of Marshal Turenne that he was the only general whom experience had made more daring. A long military experience had not exercised that happy effect on the archduke; he still felt his way, and neglecting to take advantage of the concentration of his forces, dispersed the different parts of his army. The chastisement was not slow in following the fault. On the 19th, Marshal Davout, ascending the Danube from Ratisbon to Abensberg, met and defeated the Austrian troops at Fangen, thus being able to effect his junction with the Bavarians. On the 20th, the emperor attacked the enemy’s lines at several points, and forced his way through them towards Rohr after several active engagements, thus securing the point of Abensberg, and separating the Archduke Charles from General Hiller and the Archduke Louis. On the 21st, this last part of the enemy’s army precipitated itself in a body upon the important position of Landshut, where all the Austrian war material was collected, with a large number of wounded; but at the same moment the emperor himself came up, eagerly followed by Lannes and Bessières, commanding their regiments. Masséna also made haste to join them. The bridges on the Isar were all attacked at once, and bravely defended by the Austrians: when carried they were already in flames. The Archduke Charles, however, attacking Ratisbon, which Davout was obliged to leave protected only by one regiment, easily took possession of that important place, commanding both banks of the Danube. He was thus, on the 22nd, before Eckmühl opposite Davout. Informed of this movement, which he had partly guessed from the noise of the cannon on the 21st, the emperor directed the main body of his army towards Eckmühl. His troops had already been fighting for three days, and Napoleon asked a fresh effort from them. “It is four o’clock,” he wrote to Davout, “I have resolved to march, and shall be upon Eckmühl about midday, and ready to attack the enemy vigorously at three o’clock. I shall have with me 40,000 men. I shall be at Ergoltsbach before midday. If the cannon are heard I shall know I am to attack. If I don’t hear it, and you are ready for the attack, fire a salvo of ten guns at twelve, another at one, and another at two. I am determined to exterminate the army of the Archduke Charles to-day, or at the latest to-morrow.”
The day was not finished, and the cuirassiers were still fighting by moonlight to carry and defend the Ratisbon highway, yet the victory was decisive. The Archduke Charles was beaten, and falling back upon Ratisbon, he, during the night, took the wise step of evacuating the town and withdrawing into Bohemia, where General Bellegarde and his troops awaited him. Henceforth the Austrian army formed two distinct bodies. On the 23rd, Napoleon marched upon Ratisbon, which bravely defended itself. Slightly wounded in the foot by a ball, the emperor remained the whole day on horseback, Marshal Lannes directing the assault. At one moment the soldiers hesitating because the Austrians shot down one after another of those who carried the ladders, Lannes seized one, and shouted, “I shall show you that your marshal has not ceased to be a grenadier.” His aides- de-camp went before him, and they themselves led the troops to the escalade. At last the gates were opened, and Napoleon entered Ratisbon.
He spent three days there, preparing his movement of attack against Vienna, which was slightly and badly defended, fortifying his positions, and taking precautions against an unexpected return of the Archduke Charles. At the same time, by his proclamations to the army, as well as by his letters to the princes of the Rhenish Confederation, he spread throughout all Europe his inebriation with success, and the declaration of his projects.
“Soldiers!
“You have justified my expectations; you have made up for numbers by bravery. You have gloriously proved the difference which exists between the soldiers of Cæsar and the armed hordes of Xerxes.
“In a few days we have triumphed in the three pitched battles of Thann, Abensberg, and Eckmühl, and in the engagements of Peising, Landshut, and Ratisbon. A hundred cannon, forty flags, 50,000 prisoners, three sets of bridge-apparatus, all the enemy’s artillery, with 600 harnessed wagons, 3000 harnessed carriages with baggage, all the regimental chests,–that is the result of your rapid marches and your courage.
“The enemy, intoxicated by a perjured cabinet, seemed to have retained no recollection of you; his awakening has been speedy, you have appeared to him more terrible than ever. Recently he crossed the Inn, and invaded the territory of our allies. Recently he was in full hopes of carrying the war into the bosom of our country; to-day defeated, terrified, he flies in disorder. My advance-guard has already passed the Inn. Within a month we shall be at Vienna.”
It was at Ratisbon that the emperor at last received the news of the army of Italy which he was impatiently demanding. When attacked, on the 10th April, by the Archduke John, as the generals separated by Napoleon had been in Germany by the Archduke Charles, Prince Eugène, who was in command for the first time, had not been able, as Napoleon was, to retrieve, by a sudden stroke and powerful effort, an engagement badly begun. Being unable to hold head against the Austrian forces, he resolved to retire, in order to rejoin the main body of his army. This retrograde movement he performed with regret; hesitating, and feeling annoyed by the grumbling of the soldiers, because they wished to march to the enemy, and by the hesitation of the generals who dared not offer him advice, he halted on the 15th before the town of Sacile, and on the 16th made an unexpected attack on the Archduke John, who on the previous evening had surprised and beaten the French rearguard at Pordenone, though, as it now appeared, not any better guarded himself. Confused at the first moment by an unlooked-for attack, the Austrians defended themselves with great bravery. Their superior forces threatened to cut off our communications, and the prince, afraid of being isolated, ordered retreat when the issue of the battle was still uncertain. He had just left the battle-field–which the soldiers would scarcely leave, furious at not having gained the day–when the Viceroy of Italy, modest and brave, but evidently not equal to the task which the emperor had imposed upon him, wrote thus to the latter:–“My father, I have need of your indulgence. Fearing your blame if I withdrew, I accepted battle, and I have lost it.” He accompanied this sad news with no message nor any details, and the want of information annoyed Napoleon still more than the check undergone by his troops. “Whatever evil may have taken place,” he wrote, “if I had full knowledge of the state of things I should decide what to do; but I think it an absurd and frightful thing that a battle taking place on the 16th, it is now the 26th, without my knowing anything about it. That upsets my plans for the campaign, and I cannot understand what can have suggested to you that singular procedure. I hope to be soon at Salzburg, and make short work in the Tyrol; but for God’s sake! let me know what is going on, and what is the situation of my affairs in Italy.” And on the 30th April: “War is a serious game, in which one can compromise his reputation and his country. A man of sense must soon feel and know if he is made for that profession or not. I know that in Italy you affect some contempt for Masséna; if I had sent him, that which has happened would not have taken place. Masséna has military qualities before which one must humble himself. His faults must be forgot, for all men have their faults. In giving you the command of the army I made a mistake, and ought to have sent you Masséna, and given you the command of the cavalry under his orders. The Prince Royal of Bavaria commands a division under the Duke of Dantzic. Kings of France, emperors, even when reigning, have often commanded a regiment or division under the orders of an old marshal. I think that if matters become pressing you ought to write to the King of Naples to come to the army: he will leave the government to the queen. You will hand over the command to him, and serve under his orders. The case simply is, that you have less experience of war than a man who has served since he was sixteen. I am not displeased at the mistakes you have made, but because you don’t write to me, and put me in a position to give you advice, and even direct operations from this place.”
Fortunately for Prince Eugène, as well as the army of Italy, General Macdonald had just arrived at head-quarters, then moved beyond the Pena. Able, honorable, and brave as he had shown himself in the wars of the revolution, Macdonald underwent the weight of imperial disgrace on account of his intimacy with General Moreau. The young officers of the empire used to turn to ridicule his grave disposition and simple habits; but the soldiers loved him, and had confidence in him, and Prince Eugène had the good sense to let himself be guided by his advice. The retreat being continued to the Adige, the army rested there, waiting for the enemy, who were slow in coming in. When at last the Archduke John appeared, he durst not attack the line of the river, and waited for news from Germany. Prince Eugène was still ignorant of the emperor’s success. On the 1st of May, Macdonald, who was taking observations, believed he saw a retreating movement of the enemy towards the Frioul. “Victory in Germany!” he shouted, running towards the viceroy; “now is the moment to march forward!” True enough, the Archduke John, being informed of Napoleon’s movement upon Vienna, made haste to return to Germany, in the hope of joining his brother, the Archduke Charles. Prince Eugène immediately started in pursuit, passed the Piave hurriedly, and driving the archduke through the Carnatic and Julian Alps, marched himself, with a part of his army, towards the victorious emperor. On the 14th May, after dividing his forces, he sent General Macdonald with one part to meet General Marmont, who was advancing towards Trieste. The army of Italy was soon after reunited at Wagram.
The first reverses of Prince Eugène were not the only thing to disturb the emperor’s joy at Ratisbon. In Tyrol a rising of the peasants, prepared and encouraged by Austrian agents, had suddenly engaged the whole population, men, women, and children, in a determined struggle against the French conquest and the Bavarian domination. A proclamation of the Emperor Francis was spread through the mountains, and General Chasteler was sent from Vienna to put himself at the head of the insurrection. The Bavarian garrisons were few, and the French detachments which came to their assistance being composed of recruits, the patriotic passion of the mountaineers easily triumphed over an enemy of inferior numbers. From Linz to Brunecken all the posts were carried by the Tyrolese; Halle, Innspruck, and Trente quickly fell into the power of the insurgents. A French column arriving beneath Innspruck when General Chasteler and Hofer had just taken possession of the place, was surrounded, and compelled to capitulate. General Baraguey d’Hilliers, who occupied Trente, had to fall back upon Roveredo, and then upon Rivoli. The Italian as well as the German Tyrolese had reconquered their independence; from one end of the mountains to the other re-echoed the name of the Emperor Francis and that of the Archduke John, whom the peasants were impatiently awaiting since the news of his first successes in Italy. The insurrection had been entirely patriotic, religious, and popular: the first leader, Andrew Hofer, was a grave and pious man, who rejoiced and triumphed with simplicity, asking God’s pardon in the churches for the crime and violence which he had been unable to prevent, and which were only acts of reprisal for the Bavarian oppression. The modest glory of the honest innkeeper reached the Emperor Napoleon with the news of the loss of the Tyrol.
The whole of Germany seemed moved by the same breath of independence in the subject or conquered countries. In Swabia, Saxony, Hesse, a silent emotion thrilled all hearts; at certain points bands of insurgents collected together. In Prussia, the instinct of patriotic vengeance was still more powerful; the commandant of Berlin gave to the garrison as watchword “Charles and Ratisbon;” one of the officers at the head of the cavalry here, Major Schill, formerly known as leader of the partisans in 1806 and 1807, had just resumed his old task, drawing with him the body which he commanded; and several companies of infantry deserted to join him. The protestations of the Prussian ministers were not enough to convince Napoleon of the ignorance of government with regard to these hostile manifestations. The Archduke Ferdinand at the head of an army of 35,000 men, had just entered Poland, taking by surprise Prince Poniatowski and the Polish army, still badly organized. After a keenly-contested battle in the environs of Raszyn, near Warsaw, Prince Poniatowski was obliged to surrender his capital, and fall back upon the right bank of the Vistula.
Napoleon alone had conquered, and his lieutenants acting for him in more distant parts, by being surprised or incapable, had only caused him embarrassment. This was a natural and inevitable consequence of a too extensive power, and a territory too vast to be at all points usefully occupied and skilfully defended. All these events confirmed the emperor in the resolution which he had already taken to march upon Vienna. Neglecting the Archduke Charles’s army, the Marshals Lannes and Bessières crossed Bavaria, Napoleon himself setting out for Landshut in order to take the management of his forces. Thus the whole army advanced towards the Inn. Masséna took possession of Passau, and by the 1st May all the troops had crossed the river. Masséna was ordered to make himself master of Linz, and secure the bridge over the Danube at Monthausen. There the archdukes and General Hiller might effect their junction, and there, therefore, must the road to Vienna be opened or closed.
Masséna never hesitated before a difficulty, and never drew back before the most fatal necessities. The Austrians were superior to him in number, and occupied excellent positions. Linz was carried and passed through in a few hours. When Napoleon arrived before the small town of Ebersberg which defended the bridge, the place, the castle and even the bridge were in our power, at the cost of a horrible carnage which caused some emotion to the emperor himself. He refused to occupy Ebersberg, everywhere swimming in blood and strewed with dead bodies. There was still a rallying-point left to the archdukes at the bridge of Krems, but they did not think they could defend it. The Archduke Louis and General Hiller passed to the right bank of the Danube, and the road to Vienna lay open.
Generally slow in his operations, the Archduke Charles was too far from the capital to assist it. The place had made no preparations for defence, but the population was animated by great patriotic zeal, and the sight of the French troops before the gates at once caused a rising. The new town, which was open and without ramparts, was quickly in our power. Preparations were made to defend the walls of the old town, behind which the Archduke Maximilian was entrenched, with from 15,000 to 18,000 regular troops.
Napoleon took up his abode at Schönbrunn, in the palace abandoned by the Emperor Francis; and after appointing as governor of Vienna, General Andréossy, recently his ambassador in Austria, waited calmly for the result of the bombardment. The archduke had imprudently exposed the town to an irresistible attack: on the morning of the 12th May he left Vienna with the greater part of his troops, leaving to General O’Reilly the sad duty of concluding the capitulation. The French took possession of the place on the 13th. The population were still excited when Napoleon issued a proclamation denouncing the princes of the house of Lorraine for having deserted, “not as soldiers of honor yielding to the circumstances and reverses of war, but as perjurers pursued by their remorse. On running away from Vienna their farewells to its inhabitants were fire and bloodshed; like Medea, they have cut the throats of their children with their own hands. Soldiers! the people of Vienna, to use the expression of the deputation from its faubourgs, are forsaken, abandoned, and widowed; they will be the object of your regards. I take the good citizens under my special protection. As to turbulent and bad men, I shall make examples of them in the ends of justice. Soldiers! Let us treat kindly the poor peasants, and this good population who have so many claims upon our esteem. Let us not be made haughty by our success; but let us see in it a proof of that divine justice which punishes the ungrateful and the perjured.”
That boundless vanity which always pervaded Napoleon’s soul, in spite of his protestations of thankfulness towards divine justice, did not prevent him from clearly seeing beforehand the difficulties which surrounded him, and the obstacles still to be overcome, even after reaching Vienna, and gaining the victory in every battle. Success had again attended on all his combinations, and the extreme extension of his forces. Prince Eugène after recovering the advantage over Archduke John, was now coming nearer the emperor as he pursued the enemy. Marshal Lefebvre at the head of the Bavarians and French divisions, had commenced offensive operations against General Chasteler and Jellachich, come to the assistance of Tyrol, and after beating their forces and those of the mountaineers combined at Worgel, on the 13th May, advanced to Innspruck and took possession of it. The peasants had retired to the mountains, and the Austrian forces fell back upon Hungary. Prince Poniatowski defended victoriously the right bank of the Vistula, and threatened Cracow, while Galicia was rising in favor of Polish independence. The Archduke Charles’s army, however, still existed–large, powerful and eager to avenge its defeats. The Archduke Louis had brought him the remainder of the troops, and the Archduke John was advancing to the assistance of his brothers. In order to prevent this junction, and conquer his enemy before he had been reinforced by the army of Italy, Napoleon decided upon crossing the Danube in the very suburbs of the capital, by making use of the numerous islets there. At the island of Lobau, which was the point chosen for the passage, the bed of the Danube was broad and deep; and the island not being in the middle of the stream, the branch separating it from the bank was comparatively narrow. The emperor gave orders to construct bridges.
The attempt was a bold one at any time; it was rash, at the moment when the waters of the Danube, swollen by the melting of the snow, threatened to sweep away the bridges, prepared with difficulty, on which depended the success of the operation. On the 20th May, Marshal Masséna’s troops crossed the river entirely, and took up position in the villages of Aspern, and Essling; a ditch full of water joined the two villages, and its banks were immediately covered with troops. The archduke’s advance- guard had alone appeared, till at three o’clock in the afternoon of the 21st May, the Austrian army, 70,000 to 80,000 men strong, at last poured on the plain of Marchfeld. The large bridge thrown from the right bank to the island of Lobau had been broken for the second time during the night, and therefore only 35,000 or 40,000 Frenchmen were there to meet the enemy. The emperor, however, was there, the bridge was about to be repaired, and the generals were opposed to every thought of retreat. Marshal Lannes had gone forward to occupy Essling, while General Molitor had fortified himself in Aspern. The struggle began with the passionate ardor of men playing the great game in which their glory or their country’s liberty is at stake. The position at Aspern, covering the bridge to the island of Lobau, was several times taken and retaken, till at last Molitor barricaded the houses of the village, and drove back the Austrian attack with the bayonet. No assault, however fierce, was able to dislodge Masséna from the burying-ground, nor Lannes from the village of Essling. At one time the Prince of Hohenzollern’s division was very nearly cutting off our communication between the two villages, at sight of which Lannes, turning towards Marshal Bessières, ordered him, in a voice of thunder, and without regard for his rank or age, to put himself at the head of the cuirassiers for a “thorough” charge. Deeply hurt by this order, and the tone in which it was given, Bessières deferred demanding an explanation, and made a dash upon the Austrian lines. He had to meet in succession the artillery, the infantry, and the cavalry; General Espagne, who was in charge of the heavy horse, was killed by his side; then General Lasalle made a charge in his turn, bringing to the marshal assistance of which he stood in great need, and Prince Hohenzollern’s division was stopped. In the evening, when bivouacking, the emperor was obliged to interpose to prevent Lannes and Bessières from using against each other the swords which they had so gallantly used during the fighting against the enemy.
The archduke having ordered retreat after nightfall, both armies camped in their positions. Large forces had already crossed the Danube, including the whole corps of General Lannes. The guard also arrived, which had not yet shared in any engagement during the campaign. Seventy or seventy-five thousand men having reached the left bank, they only waited for Marshal Davout’s corps, which had received orders to hasten its march, when the large bridge broke for the third time. Part of the artillery and most of the ammunition-wagons were still on the right bank. When communication was again affected, the fighting was everywhere carried on with fresh fury.
Another attack was made on the villages of Aspern and Essling, which had already been reduced to ruins. One after another, Masséna recovered the positions which Molitor was forced on the previous evening to abandon; he also carried the church occupied by the Austrian general, Vacquant. Lannes had received orders, while protecting Essling, to march into the plain, and by a circular movement pierce the enemy’s line and cut them in two. This operation was about to be accomplished, and the marshal sent an aide- de-camp to the emperor to ask him to have his rear protected by the guard on his leaving Essling unprotected, when frightful news was brought to Napoleon. The trunks of trees, stones, and rubbish of every kind, brought down by the rapid current of the river, had again broken the cables which held together the boats composing the great bridge, and both parts were carried down the stream, taking with them a squadron of cuirassiers, who were then defiling over. The passage of the troops being stopped, and the ammunition running short, Napoleon ordered Lannes to fall back on the line of the villages and abandon the pursuit of the Austrians, who were just before that hardly pressed everywhere. Whilst the marshal, bitterly disappointed, was effecting this backward movement, the archduke ordered all his artillery to be directed upon him: General St. Hilaire was killed at the head of his division, and whole files of General Oudinot’s regiments were shot down–unfortunate lads, so recently enrolled that their officers durst not deploy them before the enemy. It was now midday; Major-General Berthier had just written to Marshal Davout, retained on the opposite bank of the Danube: “The interruption of the bridge has prevented provision-supplies: at ten o’clock we were short of ammunition, and the enemy, perceiving it, marched back upon us. Two hundred guns, to which we cannot reply, have done us much harm. In these circumstances, it is extremely important to repair the bridges and send ammunition and food. Write to the Prince of Ponte Corvo (Bernadotte) not to open a campaign in Bohemia, and to General Lauriston to be ready to join us. See that Daru sends us ambulance-stores and provisions of every kind. As soon as the bridge is ready, or during the night, come and have a consultation with the emperor.”
At the same moment the Austrians began a movement similar to that which Lannes so recently was on the point of effecting. The Archduke Charles combined his best troops, to overpower our centre and finally break our lines. Marshal Lannes was immediately on the spot, bringing up in close succession the already decimated divisions–the cuirassiers, the old guard; and these were soon supported by the charges of the light cavalry. The conflict was now frightful. The French artillery, placed on the bank of the ditch connecting Aspern and Essling, fired slowly, with the precaution and prudence due to their shortness of ammunition, while the Austrian cannons thundered unceasingly. Lannes galloped in front of his regiments, which were immovable before the enemy, whose advance had been stopped; and when encouraging his soldiers by gesture and voice, one of his aides-de-camp conjured him to dismount. When in the act of obeying, a cannon-ball struck him, shattering both his knees. Marshal Bessières assisted his terrified officers in wrapping round him a cuirassier’s cloak and getting him carried to an ambulance; but, recollecting his irritation of the evening before, he turned away his head as he grasped the hand of his dying friend, lest the sight of him should cause any sorrow or vexation.
Ominous news were now coming from all parts to Napoleon, who had not quitted the angle formed by the line between Aspern and Essling. Marshal Masséna still kept in the midst of the smoking ruins which marked the spot where stood so recently the pretty village of Aspern. The Austrians were advancing in dense masses against the village of Essling. Marshal Bessières defended that post, indispensable to the safety of the army. The emperor sent for the fusileers of the guard and placed them under General Mouton’s orders. “I give them to you,” said he; “make another effort to save the army; but let us put an end to this! After these, I have only the grenadiers and chasseurs of the old guard; they must be reserved for a disaster.” General Mouton advanced, and his first effort was rewarded by freeing General Baudet, who was hemmed in in a barn, which he defended like a fortress. Five times did the enemy return to the charge, and now they prepared for a new attack, when General Rapp, shouting, “The emperor says we must put an end to this!” combined his forces with Mouton’s, and both rushed forward, followed by their soldiers, with their bayonets in front and their heads held low. The Austrians at last recoiled, and Essling remained in our hands. The battery which had been raised on the island of Lobau had fired with effect upon the masses of the enemy when, for a short time, they were near the river. The bridge was free, the only way left us to effect our retreat, when night at last permitted us to withdraw without disgrace or danger. The long summer’s day was at its close.
Having for a long time understood the necessity of this backward movement, the emperor longed only for its execution, and wished to inspect himself the resources of defence afforded by the island of Lobau. He would not hear of leaving the battlefield without being certain of the position of Aspern, and sent to ask Masséna if he could undertake to hold the village, as he had constantly done for the two previous days. The old soldier was sitting on a heap of ruins, in the midst of the smoking remains of the place, and, rising at the first words of the aide-de-camp, he stretched out his arm towards the Danube, as if to hasten the messenger’s return: “Go and tell the emperor that I shall keep here two hours, six, twenty- four, if need be–so long as the safety of the army requires it.”
The Archduke Charles, however, was himself tired of a struggle that led to no decision–cruel and bloody beyond all that he had seen in his long military career. He had brought together all his forces, and placed all his artillery in a line, in order to crush once more with his cannon-shot the invincible battalions which separated him from the river and still forbade his passage. General Mouton brought to this threatened point the fusileers of the guard who had just freed Essling; our dismounted guns replied at rare intervals to the continued fire of the enemy; the bodies of infantry, slightly protected by the inequalities of the ground, were massed behind useless cannon, and supported by the cavalry, which covered at one part the road from Essling to Aspern, and at another the unprotected space between Essling and the Danube. Parallel to them were arranged the guard in order. All these glorious remnants of a two days’ unexampled struggle, motionless under the cannon-balls, looked in silence upon their officers moving about in front of the lines between the cannon of the enemy and the men whom they commanded. “Only one word escaped our lips,” said General Mouton, afterwards Count Lobau, when telling the story of that day; “we had only one thing to say, ‘close up the ranks!’ whenever the soldiers fell under the fire of the archduke’s 200 guns.”
On crossing to the entrance of the bridge on the river’s bank, where there were confused heaps of wounded men, transport carts, empty artillery- wagons, and dismounted guns, Napoleon went to see Marshal Lannes, who had just undergone amputation, and showed more emotion than he usually showed at the tragical end of his lieutenants. The dying farewell of the illustrious officer to his chief, still unsated with glory and conquest, has been told in various ways. The emperor himself reported the words as he wished them to be known, full of kindness and sadness on the part of Lannes. Some of those who stood by reported that the instinct of the dying soldier awoke with the bluntness frequently characterizing it, and that Lannes cursed the cruel ambition which strewed Napoleon’s brilliant route with the corpses of his friends. He only survived that scene two days, and was praised as he deserved by Napoleon. On again mounting his horse, the emperor inspected the island of Lobau in detail, and satisfied himself that the position could be easily defended by a large body of troops well equipped and well commanded. He resolved to leave Masséna there–the natural leader in all cases of supreme resistance–while he made preparations at Vienna and on the right bank of the Danube for definitively crossing the river and bringing the campaign to a close. His project thus conceived, and combinations decided on in his mind, the emperor repassed the small arm of the river, and, stopping at the head of the bridge, called his generals around him. It was nightfall; the battle had finished; on both sides they were still occupied in removing the wounded; the dead everywhere strewed the plain, the border of the ditch, and the ruins of the villages. Napoleon held a council of war on the field, on that bank of the Danube defended during two days with so much obstinacy.
The emperor was not accustomed to consult his generals, his thought was spontaneous as his will was imperious. On the evening of the 22nd of May, he listened patiently to the ideas, the objections, even the complaints of the generals who surrounded him. Nearly all were discouraged, and conceived the necessity of a complete and long retreat; they weighed, however, all the inconveniences of this, and felt beforehand all the humiliation; their perplexity was extreme. Napoleon at last spoke; his plan was decided. By abandoning the island of Lobau, and repassing the great arm of the Danube with the entire army, it would be necessary to leave behind 10,000 wounded, the whole of the artillery, to be covered with disgrace, and consequently to bring about at once a rising in Germany, which was ready to fall eagerly upon an enemy she believed vanquished. It was not the retreat on Vienna, which would be thus prepared; it was the retreat upon Strasburg. What they must do was to occupy the island of Lobau with 40,000 men, under the orders of Masséna; to appoint Davout to protect Vienna and the right bank of the Danube against the attacks of the Archduke Charles, and prevent him from effecting his junction with the Archduke John; while all the personal efforts of Napoleon would be directed to repairing the great bridge, preparing provisions and transports, concentrating his troops until the day when, rejoined by Prince Eugène, and sure of traversing the Danube victoriously, he would again unite the entire army to crush his enemies by a decisive blow, thus terminating the campaign gloriously on a field of battle already chosen in the conqueror’s mind.
As he spoke, developing his plan with that powerful and spontaneous eloquence which he drew from the abundance and clearness of his thoughts, his generals listened, and felt their trouble disappear, and the heroic ardor of the combat take possession of their hearts. Masséna rose, carried away by his admiration, forgetful of his habitual ill-humor and the discontent he so constantly manifested. He took several steps towards the emperor. “Sire, you are a great man,” cried he, “and worthy to command men like myself. Leave me here, and I promise you to fling into the Danube all the Austrian forces who may try to dislodge me.” Marshal Davout undertook, in the same way, to defend Vienna. Tranquillity had reappeared on every face. Within the limits of that plain covered with dead, by the side of the wagons ceaselessly defiling with wounded and dying, a great work remained to be done, a great enterprise to be achieved, whatever obstacles might present themselves. Hope had reappeared, together with the end to be pursued. Napoleon crossed the island and embarked with Berthier and Savary in a small boat, which brought him back safely to the right bank of the river. Masséna returned to Aspern, momentarily invested with the chief command. The retreat commenced.
The cannonade was still heard in the plain, but faint, and separated by long intervals; the artillerymen, worn out, stood to their guns with great difficulty. The Austrians were overcome with fatigue; already several corps had passed into the island under cover of the darkness, when the Archduke Charles at length perceived that we were escaping from him. He at once began to follow, but slowly, without spirit or eagerness. The troops defiled in order over the little bridge which Marshal Masséna protected in person. He remained almost alone upon the bank, his entire army having effected its retreat; and after collecting the arms and horses abandoned by the soldiers, he at last resolved to follow his men and destroy the bridge behind him, intrepid to the last moment in his retrograde movement, as the captain of a shipwrecked vessel is the last to quit the remains of his ship. Day was now dawning; the balls from the enemy’s batteries recommenced to rain around him, when the marshal at length gained the centre of the island, beyond their range.
More than 40,000 French or Austrians, dead or wounded, had fallen in the struggle of these two terrible days. In spite of the emphatic bulletins of the Emperor Napoleon, Europe looked upon the battle of Essling as a striking check to our arms. The warlike excitement of Germany increased; the Tyroleans were again rising, and General Deroy found himself forced to evacuate Innspruck; a corps of German refuges, under the orders of the Duke of Brunswick-Oels, took the road to Dresden, the court immediately taking refuge in Leipzic; a second detachment threatened King Jerome in Westphalia. He was afraid for his crown, and the emperor wrote to him on the 9th June: “The English are not to be feared; all their forces are in Spain and Portugal. They will do nothing–they can do nothing, in Germany; besides, time enough when they do. As to Schill, he is of little moment, and has already put himself out of the question by retreating towards Stralsund. General Gratien and the Danes will probably give an account of him. The Duke of Brunswick has not 8000 men; the former Elector of Cassel has not 600. Before making a movement it is well to see clearly. Experience will show you the difference there is between the reports spread by the enemy and the reality. Never, during sixteen years that I have commanded, have I countermanded a regiment, because I always wait for an affair to be ripe, and have thorough knowledge before commencing operations. There is no need for anxiety; you have nothing to fear, all this is nothing but rumor.”
At Paris, where the most confident had become anxious, Napoleon severely reprimanded the timid. He wrote, on the 19th May, to General Clarke, the minister of war: “Sir, you have alarmed Paris too much about the affairs of Prussia, even if it were true that she had attacked us. Prussia is of very small importance, and I shall never want for means to enforce her submission–all the more so when these reports are contradicted. You have not used sufficient prudence on this occasion; it produces a bad effect for any power to imagine that I am without resource. The minister of police has taken his text from this to make a lot of foolish talk, which is very much out of place.”
Austria had in fact sent to Prussia an ambassador with instructions to engage King Frederick William to break his chains, and take at last his part in the resistance; but that monarch had refused. “Not yet,” said he; “it is too soon I am not ready; when I come, I will not come alone. Only strike one other blow.” The efforts of Major Schill had not been supported, and that courageous partisan had failed under the walls of Stralsund. The secret diplomacy of Austria appeared to have met with more favor at St. Petersburg; the declaration of war by Russia against Austria remained absolutely without result; the Russian troops which were in Poland seemed more disposed to suppress the insurrection of Galicia than to second the efforts of Prince Poniatowski.
It was one of the great characteristics of the genius of the Emperor Napoleon to place no importance upon reports or appearances, although he was not ignorant of their action on the public. In his public proclamations he made an effort to disguise the check he had received at Essling; but in practice, in his military operations he comprehended all the gravity of it, without allowing himself to be troubled an instant by bad fortune; he even derived original and powerful combinations from the embarrassments of his situation. Prince Eugène had already joined him near Vienna (26th May, 1809), driving back the Archduke John upon Hungary, and overthrowing the corps of the Jellachich Ban, which had in vain tried to stop his progress at Mount Saint-Michel, near Leoben. The army of Italy was not to rest long, the emperor having immediately sent his adopted son to follow the traces of the archduke. “To do the utmost harm to the archduke; to drive him back to the Danube; to intercept his communications with Chastelar and Giulay, who apparently intend to join him; to reduce the fortress of Graetz by isolating it, and to maintain your communications on the left with the duke of Auerstaedt, to construct the bridges on the Raab–these should be your aims,” wrote the emperor to Prince Eugène, on the 13th June, and on the 15th: “It is probable that Raab has not sufficient fortifications for the enemy to dare to place a considerable garrison there of his best troops. If he only puts in bad ones the town will surrender on being invested, which will give us the advantage of taking his men, and of having a good post. If the archduke flies before you, you will pursue him, so that he may not be able to pass the Danube at Komorn, where there is, I think, no bridge, but he may be obliged to take refuge at Bude: do not go farther from me. The line behind the Raab is, I think, suitable for you, because my bridges over the Danube will be completed, and I can recall you in four days, taking at least two from the enemy, which will permit you to be present at the battle, while the enemy will be unable to be there. Your aim, then, is to hinder him from passing to Komorn, and then to oblige him to throw himself upon Bude, which will take him away from Vienna.”
On the 14th June, even before Napoleon had written these last lines, Prince Eugène, after an obstinate combat, had taken from the Archduke John, and his brother the Archduke Palatine, the important line of the Raab. Generals Broussier and Marmont had effected their junction in the environs of Graetz, repulsing the attacks of the Giulay Ban; General Macdonald, whom the Viceroy of Italy had left behind at Papa, for the purpose of facilitating this concentration of forces, arrived on the field of battle when the day was gained; the archdukes were driven behind the Danube, and the troops furnished by the Hungarian nobility, were dispersed. “I compliment you on the battle of Raab,” wrote the emperor to Prince Eugène; “it is the grand-daughter of Marengo and Friedland.” General Lauriston immediately laid siege to the place, which capitulated on the 23rd June. Marshal Davout had bombarded Presburg without effect for several days, in the hope of succeeding in destroying the bridge; the garrison defended itself heroically. Every means had been adopted to rapidly concentrate the whole of the French forces upon Vienna, and to frustrate everywhere the progress of the enemy. Large reinforcements had arrived from France. The emperor himself directed the preparations on the Danube, displaying in this work all the resources of his most inventive genius, and that faculty of usefully employing the talent of others which constitutes one of the most necessary elements of government. At the commencement of July all was at length ready–men, provisions, ammunition, and bridges. “With God’s help,” wrote Napoleon to King Jerome, on the 4th July, “in spite of his redoubts and his entrenched camps, I hope to crush the army of the Archduke Charles.”
During the forty days which had elapsed since the battle of Essling, the Archduke Charles had limited his efforts to fortifying his positions on the left bank of the Danube, without attempting any offensive operations against Napoleon, and had in vain waited for the reinforcements that his brothers, and the generals dispersed over the Austrian territory, were to bring him. The skilful generals of Napoleon had everywhere intercepted their communications. However, 130,000 or 140,000 of the enemy prepared to dispute with us the passage of the Danube. One hundred and fifty thousand French were assembled around Vienna; Massena had not quitted the island of Lobau; Napoleon established himself there with his staff on the 1st July.
Skilful and learned in the theory of war, the Archduke Charles felt his inferiority in face of the unexpected genius of the Emperor Napoleon. He had carefully fortified Aspern, Essling, Ensdorf, but he had not foreseen that the place of disembarkation, and the point of attack, would be changed. The heights which ranged from Neusiedel to Wagram, well occupied by excellent troops, were not furnished with redoubts; it was, however, these same heights the conqueror was about to attack.
The bridges which united the right bank to the island of Lobau were at present out of danger from all inundations and accidents. New and ingenious inventions had utilized all the resources drawn from the magazines of Vienna and the vast forests of Austria. A stockade protected the roadway, and flying bridges of an extraordinary size and solidity could be thrown in several hours over the small arm of the stream which separated the island of Lobau from the left bank. Two days previously the archduke had quitted the heights to approach the banks of the Danube, waiting uselessly for the attack of the enemy; on the 3rd July he drew back his forces towards the hills. The columns of the French continued to defile over the great bridge, and massed themselves little by little on the island. The cannon-balls of the enemy began to rain on the shores of Lobau, but the space was too vast to permit the Austrian batteries to sweep the interior. During the night of the 4th the first bridges were thrown over the small arm of the Danube between the island and the mainland; flat-bottomed boats brought over soldiers without interruption, and these moored the boats and fixed the plankings. The enemy’s fire had become incessant and deadly. The engineers continued their work without appearing to perceive the danger which threatened them, any more than the thunder which rolled over their heads, the lightning which flashed through the darkness, or the rain, which did not cease to fall in torrents. The batteries of the island of Lobau were at length unmasked, everywhere furnished with guns of the largest calibre, and the fire was directed towards the little town of Enzensdorf; after that the Archduke Charles could not deceive himself as to the menaced point. The troops of the Austrian General Nordmann, which had occupied the plain, had fallen back under the fire of the guns. The day rose brilliant and pure, the last clouds massed by the storm were dispersed by the rays of the sun. The long files of our troops advanced without precipitation and without disorder; at the first break of day, the emperor himself had crossed the river.
The Archduke Charles contemplated this scene from the heights of Wagram. His advanced posts had already been forced to give up to their enemies the ground they had occupied the day before. The Austrian general had not yet counted on the irresistible impetuosity of the torrent of men, horses, and artillery, which the island of Lobau continued to vomit on the shores of the Danube. “It is true that they have conquered the river.” said the Archduke Charles to his brother the Emperor Francis, standing by his side. “I allow them to pass, that I may drive them presently into its waves.” “All right,” said the emperor, dryly; “but do not let too many pass.” Seventy thousand French already deployed in the plain. As they defiled past, the soldiers cried, “Long live the emperor !”
The town of Enzensdorf was merely a mass of ruins when Marshal Masséna commanded the attack upon it, and the little corps of Austrians defending it were soon put to the sword; while on the right, General Oudinot had taken possession of the chateau of Sachsengang. The entire army advanced, without obstacle, against the heights of Wagram; Essling and Aspern were occupied by our troops. The dispositions of the troops of the Archduke Charles were not made; he was obliged to order detached bodies to retreat, abandoning positions which were badly defended; the great battle was deferred till the morrow. A rash attack against the plateau of Wagram was repulsed, and for a moment several corps were in disorder; the retreat sounded, and the troops bivouacked at their posts. The last instructions had been given. Marshal Davout alone still remained with the emperor. The Archduke Charles did not sleep–the supreme effort of the Austrian monarchy was to be tried at the break of day.
The extent of the field of battle, and the distance between the positions, presented serious difficulties for both armies. The genius of organization possessed by the Emperor Napoleon had in some measure obviated this by the care he had taken of his centre; the Archduke Charles felt it from the commencement of the combat. Obliged to send his orders great distances, he saw them badly obeyed; the left wing of his army attacked us first, whereas the right wing had been intended to take the offensive. Contrary to his custom, the Emperor Napoleon had ordered his troops to wait for the enemy.
It was four o’clock in the morning when the fire commenced. Marshal Bernadotte, who had remained in advance on the field of battle after his attack of the previous night against the plateau of Wagram, found himself menaced by the Austrians, and fell back on Marshal Masséna, still ill from a fall from his horse, and commanding his corps from an open carriage. The two marshals had brought back their troops against the little village of Aderklaa; but the archduke occupied it; the French were repulsed, and pushed by the enemy beyond Essling, which had again fallen into the hands of the Austrians.
Meantime, Marshal Davout, on the extreme right, had vigorously resisted the first attack of the columns of Rosenberg, and obliged the Austrians to repass the rivulet of Russbach, and fall back upon Neusiedel. The marshal threw all his forces immediately against them. It was to him that was confided the honor of taking the plateau of Wagram.
The emperor had joined Marshal Masséna, talking a few minutes with him under a storm of balls which fell round the carriage: Napoleon walked his horse across the plain, impatiently waiting the great movement that he had ordered on the centre. At the head advanced a division of the army of Italy, commanded by Macdonald, little known to the young soldiers because of his long disgrace; he marched proudly, attired in his old uniform of the armies of the republic. Napoleon saw him unmoved under the fire, attentive to the least incidents of the battle: “Ah, the fine fellow! the fine fellow!” he repeated in a low voice.
The artillery of the guard arrived at a gallop, supporting by its hundred guns the impetuous attack of the centre: the Austrians recoiled from this enormous mass, the irresistible impulse of which nothing could stay. Macdonald had already reached Sussenbrunn, where the archduke and his generals had concentrated their last effort; and the French columns were stopped by their desperate resistance. For a moment they seemed destined to retreat in their turn; but Davout had succeeded in his attack against the heights of Neusiedel. The plateau of Wagram was in our hands; General Oudinot had effected his junction, after taking the position of Baumersdorf; and the Prince of Hohenzollern retreated before them. In vain the Archduke Charles had hoped to see his brother, the Archduke John, arrive in time to restore their chance; the struggle lasted for more than ten hours–all the positions had fallen into our power; the retreat of the Austrian army commenced, regular and well ordered, without precipitation or rout. Disorder, on the contrary, showed itself in the ranks of the conquerors, when, at the last moments of the struggle, some soldiers of the vanguard of the Archduke John appeared in the environs of Leopoldsdorf. The young troops, already disbanded in the joy of the victory–the servants of the army, the sutlers, the carriers of the wounded, were seized with a panic terror, and fell back with loud cries on the main body of the army, announcing that the enemy were returning to crush us. It was too late; the Archduke John had slowly executed the orders tardily received. His arrival could not change the issue of the battle; he fell back upon Hungary. The Archduke Charles had taken the road to Bohemia before the Emperor Napoleon was well informed of his march. The pursuit was, therefore, divided between Bohemia and Moravia. The forces of the enemy were dispersed during their retreat. The archduke had with him about 60,000 men, when General Marmont, with a corps of only 10,000, rejoined him at Znaïm, on the road to Prague.
It was there that Napoleon arrived on the 11th; Masséna was in advance, and a battle took place on the banks of the Taya, and after a sharp combat the bridge was forced. But already Prince John of Lichtenstein had come to ask a suspension of hostilities, announcing openly the intention of the Austrian government to begin negotiations for peace. The deliberations were carried on at the head-quarters, while the army ranged itself in the plain of Znaïm. The emperor recapitulated rapidly in his mind the dangers and chances of a prolonged war. The opinion of several of his generals was to follow up Austria, and crush the coalition finally. Napoleon felt the enormous burden weighing on his shoulders: he saw a difficult and lingering war in Spain, Prussia agitated, Russia cold and secretly ill- disposed, the difficulties of Rome, England for the future taking her part in the continental struggle: he cried, “Enough blood has been shed; let us make peace!” It was necessary to repeat his words several times to the hostile parties at Znaïm, to induce them to cease fighting. The officers whose duty it was to carry the intelligence to the field of battle were wounded before they were able to stop the combat.
The armistice was signed in the night of the 11th July, and Napoleon immediately returned to Schoenbrunn. Negotiations had commenced, but their success was by no means sure. The Austrian armies had been brilliantly vanquished, but they were neither dispersed nor destroyed, and the efforts their resistance had cost sufficiently proved the military qualities of the chief and his soldiers. The Emperor Napoleon, encamped in the centre of the Austrian monarchy–of which he occupied the capital; he could not, and durst not in any way, relax his warlike watchfulness. New bodies of men were summoned from France. The Tyrol not being comprised in the armistice, the Bavarians and Prince Eugène were ordered to reduce its two portions, German and Italian. The posts were everywhere fortified, and works of defence pursued with vigor. The greater part of the army occupied vast barracks in the suburbs of Vienna. Napoleon distributed rewards to the officers and soldiers; he even showed his displeasure to Marshal Bernadotte, who had presumed to address a personal order of the day to the corps of the army under his direction at Wagram.
“His Majesty commands his army in person,” he sent word to the Prince of Pontecorvo by Major-General Berthier; “it belongs to him alone to distribute the degree of glory with each merits.” Napoleon added, in a letter to the minister of war, “I am glad also that you are aware that the Prince of Pontecorvo has not always conducted himself well in this campaign. The truth is, that this column of bronze has been constantly in disorder.” By thus wounding his vanity, unexpected political difficulties afterwards arose, by leaving in the heart of Bernadotte implacable resentment against the emperor.
I wished to pursue without interruption the history of the campaign of Germany during these three months, so fertile in obstinate combats, in works as vast as they were novel, in pitched battles, more sanguinary and important from the number of troops engaged than any which had preceded them. Germany was not, however, the only theatre of the struggle; and the attention of Europe, always attracted to the places where Napoleon commanded in person and carried out his own plans, was occasionally diverted towards the Spanish and Portuguese peninsula. There several of the most skilful generals of the emperor fought against populations eagerly struggling for their independence; there gradually rose to greatness the name of Sir Arthur Wellesley, and that reputation for stability and heroic perseverance which at a later date constituted his power and splendor.
Fighting was carried on in Spain, not without glory or success; the insurgents having more than once had the honor of annoying the all- powerful conqueror in the midst of his triumphs. There was no fighting at Rome, and oppression reigned there without material resistance; yet for more than a year a struggle continued between the Emperor Napoleon and the Pope, Pius VII., without all the advantages remaining on the side of force, or the conqueror feeling certain that he held the prey he had confided to the care of General Miollis. On the 6th July, 1809, the same day as the battle of Wagram, the Pope was suddenly taken away from Rome, and conducted as a prisoner out of that palace and that town which he had never previously quitted, except to visit Paris for the purpose of consecrating the very man who was to-day stripping him of his throne. Since the month of February, 1808, the thoughts and hearts of many had still found time to seek the aged pontiff at the Quirinal, and they now followed him with sympathy into exile and captivity.
After the occupation of Rome by General Miollis, when the foreign cardinals had received orders to return to their respective countries, and the Pope had recalled his legate from Paris, the Emperor Napoleon, on stepping into his carriage to visit Bayonne, had ordered Champagny to transmit to Cardinal Caprara the following note:—
“The _sine quâ non_ of the emperor is, that all Italy, Rome, Naples, and Milan make a league offensive and defensive, so as to remove disorder and war from the peninsula. If the holy father consents to this proposition, all is terminated; if he refuses, by that he declares war against the emperor. The first result of war is conquest, and the first result of conquest is change of government. This will not occasion any loss to the spiritual rights of the Pope; he will be Bishop of Rome, as have been all his predecessors in the eight first centuries, and under Charlemagne. It will, however, be a subject of regret, which the emperor will be the first to feel, to see foolish vanity, obstinacy and ignorance destroy the work of genius, policy and enlightenment.
“The recall of your Eminence is notified contrary to custom, against the formalities in usage, and on the eve of the Passion week–three circumstances which sufficiently explain the charitable and entirely evangelical spirit of the holy father. No matter, his Majesty recognizes your Eminence no more as legate. From this moment the Gallican Church resumes all the integrity of its doctrine. More learned, more truly religious, than the Church of Rome, she has no want of the latter. I send to your eminence the passports you have demanded. We are thus at war, and his Majesty has given orders in consequence. His Holiness will be satisfied–he will have the happiness of declaring war in the holy week. The thunders of the Vatican will be all the more formidable. His Majesty fears them less than those of the castle of St. Angelo. He who curses kings, is cursed by God.”
At the same time, and by order of Napoleon, a decree was prepared enumerating all the grievances of which he accused the court of Rome, and enacting that “the provinces of Urbino, Ancona, Macerata, and Camerino, should be irrevocably and forever united to the kingdom of Italy, to form three new departments.” The Code Napoleon was to be proclaimed there.
The violent and arbitrary measures employed by the emperor towards the Pope naturally bore their fruits. In removing from Pius VII. the cardinals who were not natives of the Roman states, he had deprived the pontiff of the most enlightened and moderate counsels which could reach his ears, and had delivered him, in his weakness and just indignation, to all the influences against which Cardinal Consalvi had constantly struggled. From this time every despotic act of Napoleon, every rude word of the soldiers charged to execute his orders, increased the irritation of the Pope, and urged him to advance on a course of blind resistance. A prohibition to swear allegiance to the new government was addressed to the bishops and all the priests of the territories taken away from the pontifical states; this prohibition was founded upon principles of dogma and religion. Henceforth the personal will of the Pope, his dignity as a sovereign, and his conscience as a priest, were all engaged in the struggle against the Emperor Napoleon. “Those who have succeeded in alarming the conscience of the holy father are still the strongest,” Lefebvre, the chargé-d’affaires of France, who had not yet quitted Rome, wrote to Champagny. “The tenor of the reply to the ultimatum that I have been instructed to remit to him has been changed twice this morning–so much did they still hesitate upon the decision to take. The theologians themselves were divided even in the Sacred College, and I doubt not that the refusal of his Holiness to agree with the emperor will throw into consternation a number of his warmest partisans.”
The rupture was from this time official, and the relations of the Pope with the French authorities who occupied the pontifical city became every day more bitter. Pius VII. had chosen for his secretary of state, Cardinal Pacca, witty, amiable, devoted to the holy father, but strongly attached to the most narrow ideas as to the government of the Roman Church in the world; in other respects, prudent in his conduct towards General Miollis, and often excited to action by the Pope, who complained of his timidity. “They pretend in Rome that we are asleep,” said Pius VII. to his minister; “we must prove that we are awake, and address a vigorous note to the French general.” The protest was posted everywhere in Rome, on the morning of the 24th August, 1808; eight days later, and under the pretext that the secretary of state interfered with the recruiting for the civic guard, Cardinal Pacca received the order to quit Rome in twenty-four hours. “Your Eminence will find at the gate of St. John an escort of dragoons, whose duty is to accompany you to Benevento, your native town.” In the meantime a French officer was appointed to watch over the cardinal. The latter was still talking with his jailer, when Pius VII. suddenly entered the cabinet of his minister.
“I was then witness of a phenomenon which I had often heard spoken of,” relates Cardinal Pacca in his memoirs. “In an access of violent anger, the hair of the holy father bristled up, and his sight was confused. Although I was dressed as a cardinal, he did not know me. ‘Who is there?’ he demanded, in a loud voice. ‘I am the cardinal,’ I replied, kissing his hand. ‘Where is the officer?’ demanded the holy father; and I pointed him out near me, in a respectful attitude. Then the Pope, turning towards him, ‘Go and tell your general that I am weary of suffering so many insults and outrages from a man who dares still to call himself a Catholic. I command my minister not to obey the injunctions of an illegitimate authority. Let your general know, that if force is employed to tear him from me it shall only be after having broken all the doors; and I declare him beforehand responsible for the consequences of such an enormous crime.’ And making a sign to the cardinal to follow him, ‘Let us go,’ said the Pope. The officer had gone out to carry to the general the message of the holy father. The secretary of state was installed in an apartment which opened into the Pope’s bedroom. The gates of the Quirinal remained closed to all the French officers, and General Miollis did not claim his prisoner.”
Months had meanwhile passed away. The emperor had quitted Spain to make preparations for the campaign of Germany. Without ever ceasing to load the Pope with unfriendly words and treatment, Napoleon had been engaged in affairs more important than his troubles with the pontifical court. Public order was maintained in Rome, thanks to the Italian prudence of the secretary of state, and the strict discipline which General Miollis knew how to maintain among his troops, and even among the auxiliaries he had recruited from the revolutionary middle-class. The time arrived, however, when this situation, more violent in fact than in form, was suddenly to assume its real character. Napoleon was at Schoenbrunn, already victor in the five days’ battle which had rendered him master of Vienna, and more certain than he was immediately after Essling of the promptitude and extent of his success. It was then that he drew up, and sent by Champagny, two decrees relating to the taking possession, pure and simple, of the States of the Pope. He explained the reasons of this to his minister in a long letter, which was to serve as a basis for Champagny’s report, and which, by its singular mixture of thoughts and principles, showed the historical heredity connecting the power of Napoleon with that of Charlemagne, united to the sovereign power which disposed in the name of conquest of territories and states, were confused in the imagination of the emperor, and made him look upon the independent attitude of the Pope as an act of criminal opposition.
“When Charlemagne made the popes temporal sovereigns, he wished them to remain vassals of the empire; now, far from thinking themselves vassals of the empire, they are not even willing to form a part of it. The aim of Charlemagne in his generosity towards the popes was the welfare of Christianity; and now they claim to ally themselves with Protestants and the enemies of Christianity. The least impropriety that results from these arrangements is to see the head of the Catholic religion negotiating with Protestants; whilst according to the laws of the Church he ought to shun them, and excommunicate them. (There is a prayer to this effect recited at Rome.)
“The interest of religion, and the interest of the peoples of France, Germany and Italy, require that an end should be made of this ridiculous temporal power–the feeble remnant of the exaggerated pretensions of the Gregories, who claimed to reign over kings, to give away crowns, and to have the direction of the affairs of earth as well as of heaven. In the absence of councils, let the popes have the direction of the affairs of the Church so far as they do not infringe on the liberties of the Gallican Church–that is all right; but they ought not to mix themselves up with armies or state policy. If they are the successors of Jesus Christ, they ought not to exercise any other dominion than that which He Himself exercised, and His ‘kingdom is not of this world.’
“If your Majesty does not do that which you alone can do, you will leave in Europe the seeds of dissension and discord. Posterity, whilst praising you for having re-established religion and re-erected her altars, will blame you for having left the empire (which is in fact the major portion of Christendom) exposed to the influence of this fantastic medley, inimical to religion and the tranquillity of the empire. This obstacle can only be surmounted by separating the temporal from the spiritual authority, and by declaring that the states of the Pope form a portion of the French Empire.”
It is too often an error of men, even of the first rank, to believe in the universal power and duration of their wishes and decisions. The Emperor Napoleon though he had solved forever this question of the temporal power of the popes-a question which we have so many times heard discussed by the most eloquent voices; we have seen armies upholding on fields of battle contradictory principles on this subject, and diplomacy painfully accomplishing imperfect settlements.
He displayed towards Pope Pius VII. the most arrogant contempt of the rights and independence of others, and a passionate self-will as regards all resistance. Under shelter of ancient authority, of which he retrospectively took possession, he boldly invoked the highest reasons and the most venerated names, in order to justify an arbitrary resolution, and the grasping selfishness which swayed his mind. It was the practice of the French Revolution to prop up its violent and despotic proceedings by the loftiest principles; the Emperor Napoleon had not forgotten this tradition.
In all the manifestly criminal acts of his powerful career–in the fatal resolves of his mistaken and culpable caprices, whether it was a question of the assassination of the Due d’Enghien or the brutal removal of the Pope from Rome–Napoleon always chose his part in the complete isolation of his soul, and by the spontaneous act of a personal decision; he made sure of the execution of his will with minute precautions: he did not the less subsequently seek to throw back the responsibility of the acts themselves upon the instruments too ready to obey him. When Europe suddenly learnt that the Pope had been removed from the states henceforth united to the French Empire, Napoleon wrote to Fouché, “I am vexed that the Pope has been arrested; it is a great folly. It was necessary to arrest Cardinal Pacca, and leave the Pope in tranquillity at Rome;” and to Cambacérès, the 28th July: “It is without my orders, and against my will, that the Pope has been made to leave Rome.”
Measures had, however, been taken with that provident exactitude which characterized the personal orders of the Emperor Napoleon. Immediately he had resolved upon the confiscation of the Roman States he had divined the consequence and importance of this act; the new government was organized, Murat had been charged with the command of the troops, and to hold himself ready for any event. “Since your Majesty has made me aware of your intentions as to Rome, I shall not withdraw from Naples,” wrote Murat to the emperor. “Word has been sent me that the Pope wished to send forth an excommunication, but that the majority of the Consistory were opposed to it. All your orders will be fulfilled, and I hope without trouble.”
This was hoping for much from the patience of the holy father, and maintaining great illusions as to the decision long since taken by the Court of Rome. The project of the spoliation of the pontifical states had not been kept so secret that the Pope and his minister had not been apprised of it; and several times Pius VII. had let it be understood that he was prepared for resistance. “We see plainly that the French wish to force us to speak Latin,” he had said quite recently; “ah, well! we will do it.”
General Miollis, supported and directed by the King of Naples, did not take much account of the Latin of the court of Rome when it was a question of obeying the orders of the Emperor Napoleon. The military preparations completed (the 10th June, 1809), the tricolor flag was mounted upon the castle of St. Angelo in place of the pontifical arms, and the imperial decrees were everywhere read before the population of Rome and the assembled troops. The report of these things soon reached the Quirinal. “I rushed suddenly into the apartment of the holy father,” writes Cardinal Pacca, “and on meeting we both pronounced the words of the Redeemer, _Consummatum est!_ I was in a condition difficult to describe, but the sight of the holy father, who maintained an unalterable tranquillity, much edified me, and reanimated my courage. A few minutes afterwards my nephew brought me a copy of the imperial decree. Observing the Pope attentively at the first words, I saw emotion on his countenance, and the signs of indignation only too natural. Little by little he recovered himself, and he heard the reading with much tranquillity and resignation.” Cardinal Pacca was even obliged to urge the pope to promulgate the bull of excommunication, which had been prepared already since 1806. Pius VII. still hesitated. “Raise your eyes towards heaven, Thrice Holy Father,” said the secretary of state, “and then give me your order, and be sure that that which proceeds from your mouth will be the will of God.” “Ah, well! let the bull go forth,” cried the Pope; “but let those who shall execute your orders take great care, for if they are discovered they will be shot, and for that I should be inconsolable.”
The bull of excommunication against the Emperor Napoleon was everywhere placarded in Rome, without the agents of Cardinal Pacca undergoing the vengeance dreaded by the Pope. Anger and fear were wrestling in a higher sphere. The instructions of the emperor had been precise: “I have confided to you the care of maintaining tranquillity in my Roman states,” he wrote to General Miollis. “You are to have arrested, even in the house of the Pope himself, those who plot against public tranquillity, and against the safety of my soldiers. A priest abuses his character, and merits less indulgence than another man, when he preaches war and disobedience to temporal power, and when he sacrifices spiritual things for the interest of this world, which the Scripture declares not to be his.” And to the King of Naples, in two different letters, of the 17th and 19th of June: “If the Pope wishes to form a reunion of caballers like Cardinal Pacca, it will be necessary to permit nothing of the kind, and to act at Rome as I should act towards the cardinal archbishop of Paris…. I have given you to understand that my intention was that the affairs of Rome should be quickly settled, and that no species of opposition should take place. No asylum ought to be respected, if my decrees are not submitted to; and under no pretext whatever ought any resistance to be allowed. If the Pope, in opposition to the spirit of his office and of the Gospel, preaches revolt, and wishes to make use of the immunity of his house for the printing of circulars, he ought to be arrested. The time for this sort of thing is past. Philippe le Bel caused Boniface to be arrested; and Charles V. kept Clement VII. in prison for a long time, for far less cause. The priest who to the temporal powers preaches discord and war, instead of peace, abuses his character.”
The orders were precise, and admitted of no hesitation. The confiscation of the papal states had been responded to by the papal bull; open war had broken out between Pius VII., and the Emperor Napoleon. The latter was desirous of insuring the execution of his will by sending to Rome General Radet, less honorably scrupulous than General Miollis; an instrument docile and daring, as regards the details of the general scheme. Radet has himself given an account of the removal of the Pope in a report to the minister of war, dated July 13th, 1809. In 1814, he had forgotten the existence of this letter, and vainly sought to minimize the importance of the part which he played on the 6th of July. History must preserve for General Radet his place in her annals. The man to carry out the projects of Napoleon had been well chosen.
Already for several months the Pope had been carefully guarding himself in the Quirinal; the precautions had been redoubled since the decrees, and the publication of the bull. Pius VII. and his counsellors foresaw the removal. General Radet took all possible measures to turn aside suspicion. “On the 5th, at the break of day,” he himself wrote, “I made the necessary arrangements, which I succeeded in screening from the eyes of the Romans by double patrols and measures of police. I kept the troops in the barracks all day, in order to lull the public and the inhabitants of the Quirinal into a feeling of security. From that spot the Pope governed with his finger more than we did with our bayonets. At nine o’clock, I caused the military chiefs to come to me, one after another, and gave them my orders. At ten o’clock, we were collected in the place of the Holy Apostles, and at the barracks of La Pilota, which was the centre of my operations. At eleven o’clock I myself placed my patrols, my guards, my posts, and my detachments for carrying out the operations, whilst the governor-general caused the bridges of the Tiber and the castle of St. Angelo to be occupied by a Neapolitan battalion.”
General Radet had received a written order from General Miollis, for the arrest of Cardinal Pacca. The order to arrest the Pope was not written down. Nobody had dared to put his signature to it; verbal instructions only were given.
Three detachments of soldiers, furnished with scaling-ladders, ropes and grappling-irons, surrounded the Quirinal. At half-past ten, the sentinel who kept guard on the tower of the Quirinal disappeared. The signal was immediately given. With varying success the small battalions introduced themselves into the palace. The Swiss guard was disarmed; it had for a long time previously received orders to make no resistance. The chief anxiety of the Pope had always been that he might be up and about when they should come to arrest him. He had gone to bed late, and was roused up by the noise in the middle of his first sleep. Cardinal Pacca, however, found him completely dressed, when the former rushed precipitately into his chamber. The gate was already yielding to the efforts of the assailants. Pius VII. seated himself under a canopy; making a sign to the secretary of state, and to Cardinal Desping, to place themselves near him. “Open the gate,” said he.
General Radet had never seen the Pope; he recognized him by the attitude of his guides; and immediately sending back the soldiers, he caused the officers to enter with drawn swords; a few gendarmes, with muskets in their hands, also glided into the chamber. The priest was waiting in silence; the soldier was hesitating. At length the latter, hat in hand, spoke: “I have a sorrowful mission to accomplish,” said General Radet; “I am compelled by my oaths to fulfil it.” Pius VII. stood up. “Who are you,” said he, “and what is it you require of me, that you come at such an hour to trouble my repose and invade my dwelling-place?” “Most Holy Father,” replied the General, “I come in the name of my government to reiterate to your Holiness the proposal to officially renounce your temporal power. If your holiness consents to it, I do not doubt but that affairs may be arranged, and that the emperor will treat your holiness with the greatest respect.” The Pope was resting one hand upon the table placed before him. “If you have believed yourself bound to execute such orders of the emperor by reason of your oath of fidelity and obedience, think to what an extent we feel compelled to sustain the rights of the holy see, to which we are bound by so many oaths? We can neither yield nor abandon that which belongs to it. The temporal power belongs to the Church, and we are only the administrator. The emperor may tear us in pieces, but he will not obtain from us what he demands. After all that we have done for him, ought we to expect such treatment?”
“I know that the emperor is under many obligations to your holiness!” replied Radet, more and more troubled. “Yes, more than you are aware of; but, finally, what are your orders?”–“Most Holy Father, I regret the commission with which I am charged, but I must inform you that I am ordered to take you away with me.” The pontiff bent slightly towards the speaker, and said in tones of sweet compassion, “Ah! my son, your mission is one that will not draw down upon you the divine blessing.” Then, turning again towards the cardinals, and appearing to speak to himself, “This, then, is the recognition which is accorded to me of all that which I have done for the emperor! This, then, is the reward for my great condescension towards him and towards the Church of France! But perhaps in this respect I have been culpable towards God. He wishes to punish me; I submit with humility.”
General Radet had sent for the final orders of General Miollis. The brigadier of gendarmerie charged with this commission re-entered the chamber of the Pope. “The order of his excellency,” said he, “is, that it is necessary for the holy father and Cardinal Pacca to set out at once with General Radet: the other persons in his suite will follow after.” The Pope rose up; he walked with difficulty. Moved in spite of himself, Radet offered his arm to support him, proposing to retire, in order to leave the holy father free to give his orders and dispose of any valuable objects that he might have a fancy for. “When one has no hold upon life, one has no hold upon the things of this world,” replied Pius VII., taking from a table at the side of his bed his breviary and his crucifix. “I am ready,” said he.
The carriage was already at the palace gate, the postillions ready to start. The Pope stood still, giving his benediction to the city of Rome, and to the French troops ranged in order of battle on the place. It was four o’clock in the morning; the streets were deserted. The Pope got into the carriage beside Cardinal Pacca; the doors were locked by a gendarme. General Radet and a marshal of the household got on to the box-seat; the horses set off at a quick trot along the road to Florence.
General Radet offered a purse of Gold to the Pope, which the latter refused. “Have you any money?” asked the holy father of his companion. “I have not been permitted to enter my apartment,” said the cardinal; “and I did not think of bringing my purse.” The Pope had a papetto, value twenty sous. “This is all that remains tome of my principality,” said he, smiling. “We are travelling in apostolic fashion,” responded Pacca. “We have done well in publishing the bull of the 10th of June,” replied Pius VII.; “now it would be too late.”
For nineteen hours the coach rattled along; the stores were getting low. Everywhere, and in spite of a few accidents, the passage of the Pope forestalled the news of his capture. The suite of the holy father joined him on the morrow; the Pope was suffering, he was in a fever. The populace began to be stirred up with the rumors which were circulating: they crowded round the carriages. “I disembarrassed myself of them,” writes Radet, “by calling out to them to place themselves on their knees on the right and left of the road, in order that the holy father might give him his benediction; then all of a sudden I ordered the postillions to dash forward. By this means the people were still on their kness whilst we were already far away, at a gallop. This plan succeeded everywhere.”
Arrived on the 8th of July at the chartreuse of Florence, Pius VII. expected to rest there a few days: but the Princess Baciocchi had not received instructions from the emperor: she hurried the departure. “I see well that they want to cause my death by their bad treatment,” said the exhausted old man; “and if there is but a little more of it I feel that the end will not be far off.” Cardinal Pacca was no longer with him. At Genoa the Prince Borghese, who was commanding there, was seized with the same panic as the Princess Baciocchi. After a few moments of repose at Alexandria, Pius VII. was carried, by way of Mondovi and Rivoli, towards Grenoble. In the last stages, in the little Italian villages, the bells pealed forth, and the crowd who besought the benediction of the prisoner everywhere retarded the advance. It was the same in all the districts of Savoy and Dauphiny. When the Pope made his entry into Grenoble, on the 21st of July, the ardor of the population had not diminished, but the bells rang no longer; the clergy had been forbidden to present themselves before the pontiff. The prefect was absent, Fouché having been designedly detained at Paris. The orders of the emperor had at length arrived from Schoenbrunn. “I received at the same time the two letters of General Miollis and that of the Grand Duchess,” he wrote, on the 18th of July, to Fouché. “I am vexed that the Pope has been arrested; it is a great folly. It was needful to arrest Cardinal Pacca, and to leave the Pope quietly at Rome. But there is no remedy for it now; what is done is done. I know not what the Prince Borghese will have done, but my intention is that the Pope should not enter France. If he is still in the Rivière of Genoa, the best place at which he could be placed would be Savona. There is a house there large enough, where he would be suitably lodged until we know what course he decides upon. If his madness terminates, I have no objection to his being taken back to Rome. If he has entered France, have him taken back towards Savona and San Remo. Cause his correspondence to be examined. As to Cardinal Pacca, have him shut up at Fenestrella; and let him understand that if a single Frenchman is assassinated through his instigation, he will be the first to pay for it with his head.”
Fifteen days later (August 6th, 1809), in the midst of his prudent and foreseeing preparations for the possible resumption of hostilities, enlightened by reflection, or by the report of the popular emotion in the provinces traversed by Pius VII., Napoleon modified his orders as to the residence of the Pope. “Monsieur Fouché, I should have preferred that only Cardinal Pacca had been arrested at Rome, and that the Pope had been left there. I should have preferred, since the Pope has not been left at Genoa, that he had been taken to Savona; but since he is at Grenoble, I should be vexed that you should make him set out to be re-conducted to Savona; it would be better to guard him at Grenoble, since he is there; the former course would have the appearance of making sport of the old man. I have not authorized Cardinal Fesch to send any one to his holiness; I have only had the minister of religion informed that I should desire Cardinal Maury and the other prelates to write to the Pope, to know what he wishes, and to make him understand that if he renounces the Concordat I shall regard it on my side as null and void. As to Cardinal Pacca, I suppose that you have sent him to Fenestrella, and that you have forbidden his communication with any one. I make a great difference between the Pope and him, principally on account of his rank and his moral virtues. The Pope is a good man, but ignorant and fanatical. Cardinal Pacca is a man of education and a scoundrel, an enemy of France, and deserving of no regard. Immediately I know where the Pope is located I shall see about taking definitive measures; of course if you have already caused him to set out for Savona, it is not necessary to bring him back.”
The Pope was at Savona, where he was long to remain. Already the difficulties of religious administration were commencing, and the emperor’s mind was engrossed with the institution of bishops to the vacant sees. He had ordered all the prelates to chant a public _Te Deum_ with reference to the victory of Wagram. The bishops of Dalmatia alone had frankly and spiritedly replied to the statement of reasons which preceded the circular. In France the silence was still profound. The emperor had beforehand forbidden the journals to give any news from Rome. “It is a bad plan to let articles be written,” he wrote to Fouché; “there is to be no speaking, either for or against, and it is not to be a matter for discussion in the journals. Well-informed men know perfectly that I have not attacked Rome. The mistaken bigots you cannot alter. Act on this principle.” The _Moniteur_ held its tongue. All the journals followed its example. No one talked of the bull of excommunication. The circuits of the missionary priests were forbidden, as well as the ecclesiastical conferences of St. Sulpice. “The missionaries are for whoever pays them,” declared the emperor, “for the English, if they are willing to employ them. I do not wish to have any missions whatever; get me ready a draft of a decree on that subject; I wish to complete it. I only know bishops, priests, and curates. I am satisfied with keeping up religion in my own country; I do not care about propagating it abroad.” All the cardinals still remaining at Rome were expelled. In the depths of his soul, and in spite of the chimerical impulses of his irritated thoughts, Napoleon was already feeling the embarrassments which he had himself sown along his path. The Pope a prisoner at Savona, indomitable in his conscientious resistance, might become more dangerous than the Pope at Rome, powerless and unarmed. The struggle was not terminated; a breath of revolt had passed over Europe. Henceforth Napoleon was at war with that Catholic religion, the splendor of whose altars he had deemed it a point of honor to restore; he struggled at the same time violently against that national independence of the peoples which he had everywhere in his words invoked in opposition to the arbitrary jealousy of the monarchs. The Spanish sovereigns had succumbed to his yoke; the Spanish people, henceforth sustained by the might of England, courageously defended its liberties. At the moment when the supreme effort of the victory of Wagram was about to snatch humiliating concessions from the Emperor Francis, the captive Pope and the Spanish insurgents were presenting to Europe a salutary and striking contrast, the teachings of which she was beginning to comprehend.
Not the least significant of the lessons on the frailty of the human colossi raised by conquerors is the impossibility of tracing their history on the same canvas. For a long time Napoleon alone had filled the scene, and his brilliant track was easily kept in view. In proportion as he accumulated on his shoulders a burden too heavy, and as he extended his empire without consolidating it, the insufficiency of human will and human power made itself more painfully felt. Napoleon was no longer everywhere present, acting and controlling, in order to repair the faults he had committed, or to dazzle the spectators with new successes. In vain the prodigious activity of his spirit sought to make up for the radical defect of his universal dominion. The Emperor Napoleon was conquered by the very nature of things, before the fruits of his unmeasured ambition had had time to ripen, and before all Europe, indignant and wearied out, was at length roused up against him.
There was already, in 1809, a confused but profound instinctive feeling throughout the world that the moment for resistance and for supreme efforts had arrived. The Archduke Charles had proved it in Austria by the fury of his courage; the English cabinet were bearing witness to it by the great preparations they were displaying on their coast and in their arsenals, as well as by the ready aid lent by them to the insurgents of the Peninsula. The Emperor Napoleon on quitting Spain, in the month of January, had left behind him the certain germs of growing disorder. Obliged of necessity to commit the chief command to King Joseph, he had been desirous of remedying the weakness and military incapacity of the monarch whom he had himself put on the throne by conferring upon the marshals charged with continuing the war an almost absolute authority over their _corps d’armée_. Each of them was to correspond directly with the minister of war, supremely directed by Napoleon himself. Deprived thus of all serious control over the direction of the war, King Joseph saw himself equally thwarted in civil and financial affairs. Spanish interests were naturally found to conflict with French interests. King Joseph defended the former; an army of imperial functionaries were charged with the protection of the second. In this mission they proceeded at times even to insult. King Joseph threatened to place in a carriage M. de Fréville, administrator for the treasury of confiscated goods, and to send him directly to France. The complaints of the unfortunate monarch to his brother were frequent and well founded. “Your Majesty has not entire confidence in me,” he wrote on the 17th of February to Napoleon, “and meanwhile, without that, the position is not tenable. I shall not again repeat what I have already written ten times as to the situation of the finances; I give all my faculties to business from eight o’clock in the morning to eleven o’clock in the evening; I go out once a week; I have not a sou to give to any one; I am in the fourth year of my reign, and I still see my guard with the first frock-coat which I gave it, three years ago; I am the goal of all complaints; I have all pretensions to overcome; my power does not extend beyond Madrid, and at Madrid itself I am daily thwarted. Your Majesty has ordered the sequestration of the goods of ten families, it has been extended to more than double. All the habitable houses are sealed up; 6000 domestics of the sequestrated families are in the streets. All demand charity; the boldest of them take to robbery and assassination. My officers–all those who sacrificed with me the kingdom of Naples–are still lodged by billets. Without capital, without income, without money, what can I do? All this picture, bad as it is, is not exaggerated, and, bad as it is, it will not exhaust my courage; I shall arrive at the end of all that. Heaven has given me everything needful to overcome the hindrances from circumstances or from my enemies; but that which Heaven has denied me is an organization capable of supporting the insults and contradictions of those who ought to serve me, and, above all, of contending with the dissatisfaction of a man whom I have loved too well to be ever willing to dislike him. Thus, sire, if my whole life has not given you the fullest confidence in me; if you judge it necessary to surround me with petty souls, who cause me myself to redden with shame; if I am to be insulted even in my capital; if I have not the right to appoint the governors and commandants who are always under my eyes,–I have not two choices to make. I am only King of Spain by the force of your arms. I might become so by the love of the Spaniards; but for that it would be necessary to govern in my own manner. I have often heard you say, ‘Every animal has its instinct, and each one ought to follow it.’ I will be such a king as the brother and friend of your Majesty ought to be, or I will return to Mortefontaine, where I shall ask for nothing but the happiness of living without humiliation, and of dying with a tranquil conscience.”
Joseph Bonaparte had presumed too much on his forces and the remains of his independence. Constantly hard and severe with regard to his brothers, the emperor replied with scorn to King Joseph: “It is not ill-temper and small passions that you need, but views cool and conformable to your position. You talk to me of the constitution. Let me know if the constitution forbids the King of Spain to be at the head of 300,000 Frenchmen? if the constitution prohibits the garrison from being French, and the governor of Madrid a Frenchman? if the constitution says that in Saragossa the houses are to be blown up one after another? You will not succeed in Spain, except by vigor and energy. This parade of goodness and clemency ends in nothing. You will be applauded so long as my armies are victorious; you will be abandoned if they are vanquished. You ought to have become acquainted with the Spanish nation in the time you have been in Spain, and after the events that you have seen. Accustom yourself to think your royal authority as a very small matter.”
The emperor had correctly judged the precarious condition of the French power in Spain; he had reckoned, and he still reckoned, on the success of his arms. The military counsellor whom he had left near his brother possessed neither his esteem nor his confidence. Marshal Jourdan was a cold and prudent spirit, always imbued with the military habits of the French Revolution, and had never courted the favor of Napoleon; King Joseph was attached to him, and had brought him with him to Naples. The lieutenants of the emperor showed him no deference; it was, however, by his agency that the orders of the minister of war passed to the staff- officers at Madrid. Already, and by the express instructions of the emperor, Marshal Soult was on march for Portugal. His rapid triumphs did not appear doubtful; and the operations of Marshal Victor in the south of Spain were to be dependent on the succors that were to reach him when Lisbon was conquered. The difficulties everywhere opposed to Marshal Soult by the passionate insurrection of the Portuguese population, however, retarded his march. He only arrived on the banks of the Minho on the 15th of February; the peasants had taken away the boats. An attempted passage near the mouth of the river having failed, the _corps d’armée_ was compelled to reascend its course, after a series of partial combats against the forces of the Marquis of Romana, who had given his support to the Portuguese insurrection. When he had at length succeeded in crossing the Minho at Orense, Soult seized successively the towns of Chaves and Braga, which were scarcely defended. The chiefs of the insurgents had been constrained by their soldiers to this useless show of resistance, General Frère having been massacred by the militia whom he ordered to evacuate Braga. At Oporto the disorder was extreme; the population fought under the orders of the bishop. The attack had been cleverly arranged. At the moment when the bewildered crowd was pressing tumultuously over the bridge of boats across the Douro, the cables broke; men, women, and children were engulfed in the waves. In spite of the efforts of the general, the city was sacked. The long wars, the rude life of the camps, the daily habit of subsisting by pillage, had little by little relaxed the bonds of discipline. Marshal Soult established himself at Oporto, incapable of advancing even to Lisbon with his forces reduced by garrisoning towns, in presence of the English troops, who had not ceased to occupy the capital. He could not, or he would not make known at Madrid the position in which he found himself. Behind him the insurrection had closed every passage. He found himself isolated in Portugal, and conceived the thought of submitting the environs of Oporto to a regular and pacific government, re- establishing order all round, and constantly attentive to gain the favor of important persons. Perhaps the marshal raised his hopes even to the foundation of an independent and personal power, more durable than imperial conquests. It was with his consent that the draft of a popular pronunciamento was circulated in the provinces of Minho and Oporto, praying “his Excellency the Duke of Dalmatia to take the reins of government, to represent the sovereign, and to invest himself with all the attributes of supreme authority, until the emperor might designate a prince of his house or of his choice to reign over Portugal.”
The sentiments of the army were divided, and an opposition was preparing to the schemes of the marshal, when the latter learned that an enemy more redoubtable than the Portuguese insurrection was threatening him in this province, where he had dreamed of founding a kingdom. Sir Arthur Wellesley had arrived at Lisbon on the 22nd of April, with reinforcements which swelled the English _corps d’armée_ to 25,000 men; fifteen or twenty thousand Portuguese soldiers marched under his orders; a crowd of insurgents impeded rather than aided his operations. He advanced immediately against Marshal Soult, now for five weeks immovable at Oporto. On the 2nd of May he was at Coimbra. Well informed of the plots which were preparing at Oporto, to which a French officer named Argentan had been engaged to lend a hand, he resolved upon attacking as speedily as possible the positions of the marshal. When the latter was informed of the projects of the English general, retreat was already cut off in the valley of the Tamega by a strong assemblage of the insurgents, and in the valley of the Douro by the English general Beresford. Only one route remained still open to Marshal Soult–by Braga and the provinces of the north. Retreat was resolved upon, the powder saturated, the field artillery horsed; the departure was ordered for twelve at noon, and a part of the army was already defiling on the road to Amarante.
In the night between the 11th and 12th two English battalions had crossed the Douro at Avinto, three leagues above Oporto, collecting all the vessels which were to be found on the river, and descending the course of the stream under cover of the darkness. The army of Sir Arthur Wellesley had meanwhile occupied the suburbs of the left bank, concealing his movements behind the heights of La Sarca. Marshal Soult was ignorant of that operation. At daybreak a small body of picked men, boldly crossing the river within sight of our soldiers, took possession of an enclosure called the Seminary. Entrenching themselves there, and constantly receiving new reinforcements, the English made a desperate defence against the attempts of General Delaborde. The main body of the enemy’s army beginning to fill all the streets of Oporto, the marshal at once sounded retreat, and the wounded and sick were left to the care of the English. When, on the evening of the 12th, the army reached the town of Baltar, Soult learned that the roads by Braga had been intercepted, as well as by the valley of the Douro. General Loison, unable to force the passage of the Tamega, had evacuated Amarante. The roads from the north would bring the army back to the suburbs of Oporto. The marshal, not wishing to risk a fresh encounter with the enemy, at once made up his mind to sacrifice without hesitation his baggage, ammunition, artillery, and even the greater part of the treasure of the army, to enter the mountain passes, and join at Guimaraens the divisions which had preceded him. When at last the army reached Orense, after seven days’ marching, varied by small skirmishes, the soldiers were exhausted and depressed. Portugal was for the second time lost to us. Marshal Soult immediately marched towards Galicia, which had for two months been the theatre of Ney’s operations, and freed Lugo, while that marshal was making a brilliant expedition in the Asturias along with General Kellermann. The two chiefs made an arrangement as to the measures to be taken against the insurgents who had assembled at St. Jago under the orders of the Marquis Romana; after which Soult was to march upon Old Castile as far as Zamora, to be near the English, who were said to be threatening the south of Portugal. Ney proposed to attack Vigo, where General Noriena had fortified himself, supported by the crews of several English vessels. From the very first, since the junction of the two armies, both officers and soldiers had exchanged keen and bitter recrimination. A better feeling, however, had reappeared, and the mutual good-will of the chiefs for each other silenced the ill-disposed. After their separation, Ney freed St. Jago; but after advancing to the suburbs of Vigo, and seeing its strong position, he waited for the result of Soult’s movement against Romana.
Several days having elapsed, he learned that, after driving Romana back to Orense without fighting, and staying several days at Montforte, the marshal had taken the road to Zamora, without replying to the letters of his companion-in-arms. From information received from Lugo, Ney was persuaded that Soult’s project had long been premeditated, and that he had of deliberate purpose broken the bargain stipulated between them. His anger burst forth with a violence proportioned to the frankness he had shown when treating with Soult, and this anger was shared by the officers and soldiers of his army. He at once determined to evacuate Galicia, which was threatened both by the English and the Spanish insurgents. Leaving a strong garrison at Ferrol, Ney slowly advanced towards Lugo, where he collected the sick and wounded left by Soult, and then returned to Astorga, in the beginning of July. He wrote to King Joseph: “If I had wished to resolve to leave Galicia without artillery, I could have remained there longer, at the risk of being hemmed in; but, avoiding such a mode of departure, I have retreated, bringing with me my sick and wounded, as well as those of Marshal Soult, left in my charge. I inform your Majesty that I have decided not to serve again in company with Marshal Soult.”
King Joseph now had a most troublesome complication, and a position that daily became more serious. At one time, in April, he was in hopes of seeing his affairs right themselves again, in spite of the absence of all news of Soult’s operations in Portugal. Marshal Victor, urged by the King of Spain and by his staff to obey the emperor’s instructions and invade Andalusia, had crossed the Tagus in three columns, and, reforming again on the Guadiana, had, after passing that river, joined near Medellin Don Gregorio de la Cuesta, who retreated for several days before him. A severe battle having dispersed those large forces of the Spanish insurgents, on the 28th March, the marshal took up his position on the banks of the Guadiana, at the very time when General Sebastiani, at the head of two divisions, was defeating the army of Estremadura at Ciudad Real, and driving it back to the entrance of the Sierra Morena. There they awaited the movement ordered in the instructions given to Soult, the pivot of the whole campaign, projected by Napoleon before his departure for Paris. It was in Germany, just after the battle of Essling, that the emperor learned of the check caused to all his combinations by Soult’s immobility at Oporto. Obstinate in directing himself the operations of armies at a distance, without the power of taking into account the state of public opinion, and without any knowledge of all that had occurred between the departure of the couriers and the arrival of peremptory orders no longer suitable to the situation, the emperor conceived the idea of concentrating three armies under one man. Making all personal considerations bend to the order of seniority, he entrusted the command to Marshal Soult, thus investing him with supreme authority over Marshals Mortier and Ney. The order reached Madrid at the moment when the leaders of the armies were most keenly antagonistic. “You will send a staff-officer to Spain,” Napoleon had written to the minister of war, “with the orders that the forces of the Duke of Elchingen, the Duke of Trevisa, and the Duke of Dalmatia will form only one army, under the command of the Duke of Dalmatia. These forces must only move together, to march against the English, pursue them incessantly, defeat them, and throw them into the sea. Putting all considerations aside, I give the command to the Duke of Dalmatia, as being senior in rank. These forces ought to form from 50,000 to 60,000 men, and if the junction is promptly effected, the English will be destroyed, and the affairs of Spain arranged finally. But they must keep together, and not march in small parties. That principle applies to every country, but especially to a country where there can be no communication. I cannot appoint a place for the armies to meet, because I do not know what events have taken place. Forward this order to the king, to the Duke of Dalmatia, and to the two other marshals, by four different roads.”
Whilst thus writing, constantly and justly apprehensive of the danger caused by the English army, Napoleon was still ignorant of the evacuation of Portugal. “Let your instructions to them be, to attack the enemy wherever they meet him,” he said three days previously to General Clarke, “to renew their communications with the Duke of Dalmatia, and support him on the Minho. The English alone are to be feared; alone, if the army is not directed differently, they will in a few months lead it to a catastrophe.”
The order sent by the emperor necessarily assisted in bringing about the catastrophe of which he was afraid. Marshal Soult, being deceived as to the plan of the English, and meditating an attack upon Portugal by Ciudad Rodrigo, wished to concentrate large forces for this purpose. He sent for Marshal Mortier, who was posted at Villacastín, where he covered Madrid, and demanded reinforcements from Aragon and Catalonia. The latter troops were refused him, and Generals Suchet and St. Cyr had great difficulty in keeping those two provinces in respect. Marshal Jourdan had foreseen the attack of the English on the Tagus, and was anxious about the position of Marshal Victor, isolated in Andalusia. Like the other leaders, the marshal acted independently, without attending to the orders from Madrid: he found himself compelled to fall back upon Talavera.
He was not to hold that post long. In spite of the extreme difficulty experienced by Sir Arthur Wellesley in maintaining a good understanding with his Spanish allies, he had marched to attack Marshal Victor, to whom King Joseph was sending reinforcements as quickly as he could. About 22,000 English soldiers were now on the field, reduced to such scarcity of provisions and money as to cause pillage and disorder, in spite of their commander’s anger. Don Cuesta, with about 40,000 men under his orders, had been appointed, much against his will, to occupy the mountain passes. A Spanish army of 30,000 men, collected by General Venegas, was expected to join the two principal armies. On leaving Madrid, with the forces at his disposal, King Joseph had impressed upon Soult the necessity of attacking the enemy’s rear, so that the Anglo-Spanish army might be crushed between superior forces. The marshal announced his departure.
Victor had had time to fall back upon Vargas, behind the Guadarama. Sir Arthur Wellesley crossed the Alberche, a tributary of the Tagus, and as soon as he found himself in presence of the enemy, wished to offer battle, urging Cuesta to join him in attacking Victor before the arrival of the enemy’s reinforcements. The Spanish general declared that his honor was at stake in holding his positions, and absolutely refused to fight. The English alone, had not men enough at their disposal to contend with the French troops. Scarcely had the latter commenced their retreat when the Spanish, suddenly seized with the ardor of battle, rushed in pursuit, complaining that the “rascals withdrew so fast,” wrote Cuesta to Wellesley, “that one cannot follow them in their flight.” “If you run like that, you will get beaten,” replied the English general, scornfully, annoyed at seeing himself perpetually thwarted in his able plans.
In fact when the Spaniards, a few days afterwards, at last engaged with the French, Marshal Victor’s advance-guard were sufficient to drive Cuesta back as far as the English battalions, which had been prudently told off to support him. The fighting was gallant on the part of our troops, and helped to excite their ardor. King Joseph was urged to join battle: he feared an attack on Madrid, which he had been compelled to leave undefended, and reckoned upon the rapid movements of Soult, who had received orders to advance with all haste from Salamanca to Placentia. He had no experience of war, and neglected to take into account the chances of delay and the loss of troops during the march. Marshal Victor was daring, full of contempt for the Spanish troops, and ignorant of the qualities of the English army, which had not for a long time been seen on the continent. The French army advanced upon Talavera, which was strongly held by Sir Arthur. Hampered by the obstinacy and want of discipline of his Spanish allies, the English general had relinquished all attempts at daring, entrenching himself on the defensive. Marshal Soult had not arrived, being unable, he wrote, to effect his operation on the enemy’s rear before the beginning of August. On the 27th of July, however, on occupying the ground before the English positions at Talavera, Victor gave orders to attack a height which was badly defended, and was driven back with heavy loss. Marshal Jourdan insisted on a delay of a few days, to allow Soult time to arrive; but the anxiety of King Joseph, and Victor’s impatience, gained the day, and on the 28th, at daybreak, they attacked the mamelon, already threatened on the 27th.
Our troops gained the top under the English fire, but Sir Arthur had doubled the ranks of those in defence, and a terrible charge under General Hill compelled the French again to abandon the position.
The check was serious, and the soldiers began to be discouraged. By common consent, and without orders given by the leaders, the fight ceased. The English and French crowded on the two banks of a small brook which separated the two armies, and all quenched their thirst, without suspicion of treason or perfidy, and without a single shot being fired on either side. The French generals again discussed the question of resuming hostilities. “If this mamelon is not taken,” exclaimed Victor, impetuously, “we should not take any part in a campaign.” King Joseph, deficient in authority both of position and character, gave way. Sir Arthur Wellesley, seated on the grass at the top of a hill, surveyed the enemy’s lines, and the defences, which he had just strengthened by a division, and a battery of artillery obtained with great difficulty from Cuesta. Till then the English had borne the brunt of the fighting; on General Donkin coming to tell Sir Arthur that the Spanish were betraying him, the general-in-chief quietly said, “Go back to your division.” The attack was again begun, and this time directed against the whole line of the English positions, while Village’s brigade turned the mamelon to assail them in flank.
At this moment a charge of the enemy’s cavalry poured upon our columns. A German regiment followed Seymour’s dragoons, but were stopped by a watercourse, and pulled up: the English horsemen alone, boldly crossing the obstacle, made a furious attack on the French ranks, which opened to let them pass. In their daring impetuosity the dragoons went as far as our rear-guard, where they were stopped by new forces, and finally brought back with great loss to the foot of the mamelon. They stopped the flank movement however; and the centre of the English army, shaken for a moment, formed again round Colonel Donellan after a brilliant charge, and our soldiers were again driven back towards their position. The losses were great on both sides. The English did not attempt to pursue their advantages, and when the fight had ceased were satisfied with encamping on the heights of Talavera. Next day the French army withdrew beyond the Alberche without being disturbed by the enemy, and waited finally for Marshal Soult’s arrival.
He appeared on the 2nd of August at Placentia, too late for his glory as well as for the success of the French arms, though in time to modify Wellesley’s plans. The latter had commenced to advance towards him, thinking he should meet forces inferior to his own; but Mortier had already followed Soult, Ney’s troops were advancing by Salamanca, and King Joseph was preparing to put under him all his regiments, except those accompanying General Sebastiani in his march towards Madrid. Sir Arthur Wellesley understood the dangers of his position: his troops were tired, and badly fed; and not wishing to risk again the lot of arms, he hurriedly re-crossed the Tagus, taking care to blow the bridges up, and fell back upon Truxillo, by the rugged mountain passes. The want of a proper understanding, and the mutual distrust which during the whole campaign had reigned between the English and Spanish, had borne their fruits. Wellesley’s soldiers, deprived of the resources to which they had been accustomed, and which they had a right to expect from their allies, died in great numbers in their encampments on the bank of the Guadiana: their wounded had been abandoned at Talavera, when Cuesta evacuated that position. Sir Arthur gave vent to his bitter complaints in writing to Frère, the English _chargé d’affaires_ at the insurgents’ head-quarters: “I wish the members of the Junta, before blaming me for not doing more, and charging me beforehand with the probable results of the faults and imprudence of others, would be good enough to come here, or send somebody to supply the wants of our army dying of hunger, and actually after fighting two days, and defeating in the service of Spain an enemy of twice their number, without bread to eat. It is a positive fact that for the last seven days the English army has not received a third of its provisions, that at this moment there are 4000 wounded soldiers dying for want of the care and necessaries which any other country in the world would have supplied, even to its enemies, and that I can derive assistance of no kind from the country. I cannot even get leave to bury the dead bodies in the neighborhood. We are told that the Spanish troops sometimes behave well: I confess that I have never seen them behave otherwise than badly.”
The emperor’s anger was extreme on learning the check our troops had received at Talavera. He wrote to Marshal Jourdan, indignantly recapitulating all the blunders made during the campaign, without at all considering the difficulties everywhere caused by orders sent from a distance, in ignorance of the actual facts of the situation. “When at last they decided to give battle,” Napoleon summed up, “it was done without energy, since my arms were disgraced. Battle should not be given, unless seventy chances in one’s favor can be counted upon beforehand: even then, one should not offer battle unless there are no more chances to be hoped for, since the lot of battle is from its nature always doubtful: but once the resolution is taken, one must conquer or perish, and the French eagles must not withdraw till all have equally put forth every effort. There must have been a combination of all these faults before an army like my army of Spain could have been beaten by 30,000 English: but so long as they will attack good troops, like the English ones, in good positions, without reconnoitring these positions, without being certain of carrying them, they will lead my men to death, and for nothing at all.”
The Spanish armies were, after the battle scattered everywhere, according to their custom, to appear again in a short time like swarms of wasps to harass our soldiers. Sir Arthur Wellesley entrenched himself at Badajoz, ready to fall back upon Portugal. No definitive result had crowned the bloody campaign just completed, but it had an influence upon the negotiations then being carried on in Spain. An attempt, long prepared by the English, and to which they attached a great importance, now occupied the Emperor Napoleon’s mind still more than the affairs of Spain.
For several weeks it was believed that the great maritime expedition organized on the coasts of England was for the purpose of carrying overwhelming reinforcements to Spain. A first attempt, of less importance, was directed against our fleets collected at the island of Aix, near Rochefort. Admiral Willaumez, in charge of an expedition to the Antilles, had to rally the squadrons of Lorient and Rochefort, and being unavoidably delayed at the latter place, it was there that Admiral Gambier came to attack our vessels. Vice-Admiral Allemand carefully fortified the isle of Aix against an attack, the nature of which he had foreseen, though not the extent. During the night of the 11th and 12th April, conducted by several divisions, composed of frigates and brigs, thirty large fire-ships were suddenly launched against our vessels, exploding in all directions, breaking the wooden bars by the weight of their burning masses, adhering to the sides of the ships and compelling even those which they did not set on fire to go aside to avoid dangers which were more to be dreaded. Thanks to the skill and bravery of our sailors, none of the vessels perished by fire; but four of them ran aground at the mouth of the Charente, and were attacked by the English. The _Calcutta_ surrendered after several hours’ fighting–her commander, Captain Lafon, having to pay with his life for the weak resistance he is said to have made. The English blew up the _Aquilon_ and _Varsovie_, and Captain Roncière himself set fire to the _Tonnerre_, after landing all his crew. Napoleon’s continued efforts to form a rival navy in France constituted a standing menace to England. After the cruel expedition of the isle of Aix, the principal effort was to be directed against Antwerp, always an object of English jealousy and dissatisfaction, as a commercial port, or as a place of war. The works which the emperor had been carrying on there increased their anxiety, and on the 29th July forty vessels of the line and thirty frigates appeared in sight of the island of Walcheren. From 700 to 800 transport-ships brought an army to be landed, under the orders of Lord Chatham, Pitt’s elder brother, and containing about 40,000 men, with much artillery. The emperor was at once informed, and M. Decrès, minister of the marine, proposed to station at Flushing the fleet of Admiral Missiessy. The latter refused, saying that he would not let himself be taken, and did not wish to see his crews decimated by the Walcheren fever. That was the auxiliary upon which Napoleon reckoned against the English expedition; and rightly, too.
Walcheren was slightly and badly fortified; the emperor considering Flushing to be quite impregnable. “You say that the bombardment of Flushing makes you apprehensive of its surrender,” he wrote on the 22nd August. “You are wrong to have any such fear. Flushing is impregnable so long as there is bread in it, and they have enough for six months. Flushing is impregnable, because there is a moat full of water, which must be crossed; and finally, because by cutting the dykes they can inundate the whole island. Write and tell everywhere that Flushing cannot be taken, unless by the cowardice of the commandants; and also that I am certain of it, and that the English will go off without having it. The bombs are nothing–absolutely nothing; they will destroy a few houses, but that has no effect upon the surrender of a place.”
General Monnet, who commanded at Flushing, was an old officer of the revolution wars, brave and daring and he did his best in opposing the landing of the English, with a part of his forces, and in gallantly defending the place; but the inundation did not succeed, on account of the elevation of the ground and the wind being contrary. Therefore when Napoleon wrote to Fouché, Flushing had already capitulated, under the efforts of the most formidable siege artillery. The Dutch commandant surrendered the forts Denhaak and Terwecre at the same time as Middelburg. The feeling of the Dutch nation, formerly favorable to republican France, had been modified since the imperial decrees ruined all the transit trade, the source of Holland’s wealth. King Louis alone hastened to the assistance of the French army, advancing with his little army between Santvliet and Antwerp. Four Dutch regiments were fighting in Germany, and a small corps had been sent into Spain. Thus, while extending his enterprises in remote parts, the unbounded ambition of Napoleon left unprotected the very centre of his empire.
General Rousseau, however, succeeded in protecting the island of Cadsand, and Admiral Strachan and Lord Chatham recalled to the eastern Scheldt the forces which had been intended for the attack on that island. The English forces began to land upon the islands of North and South Beveland, in order to attack Fort Batz at the junction of the two Scheldts, and thus outflank the French fleet lying in the western Scheldt. Fortunately, Admiral Missiessy had the advantage over the English commanders in speed, and sailing up into the higher Scheldt, formed by the two branches of the river, he arranged his vessels under forts Lillo and Liefkenshoek which by their cross-fires protected the river from bank to bank. Antwerp was thus safe from attack by sea; at Paris there was great anxiety as to attacks by land.
A few provisional demi-brigades, the gendarmes, and picked national guards, about 30,000 men altogether–such were the forces at the disposal of the war minister. He durst not–nobody durst, change the destination of the troops already marching to Germany. The minister of marine and Fouché at once proposed a general levy of the national guard, under the orders of Bernadotte–one being daring and dissatisfied, the other fostering discontent of every kind openly or secretly, and still remembering the revolutionary procedure. The Council, presided over by the Arch-chancellor Cambacérès, refused to authorize the calling out of the national guards without the emperor’s express order; but Fouché, without waiting for orders, wrote on his own authority to all the prefects, and stirred up everywhere a patriotic zeal. At first Napoleon approved of the ardor of his minister of police, and severely rated the arch-chancellor and minister of war for their prudence. “I cannot conceive what you are about in Paris,” he wrote to General Clarke on the 10th August; “you must be waiting for the English to come and take you in your beds. When 25,000 English are attacking our dockyards and threatening our provinces, is the ministry doing nothing? What trouble is there in raising 60,000 of the national guard? What trouble is there in sending the Prince of Pontecorvo to take the command there, where there is nobody? What trouble is there in putting my strongholds, Antwerp, Ostend, and Lille, in a state of siege? It is inconceivable. There is none but Fouché who appears to me to have done what he could, and to have felt the inconvenience of remaining in a dangerous and dishonorable position:–dangerous, because the English, seeing that France is not in movement, and that no impulse is given to public opinion, will have nothing to fear, and will not hurry to leave our territory; dishonorable, because it shows fear of opinion, and allows 25,000 English to burn our dockyards without defending them. The slur thus cast upon France is a perpetual disgrace. Circumstances vary from moment to moment. It is impossible for me to give orders to arrive within a fortnight. The ministers have the same power as I, since they can hold a council and pass decisions. Make use of the Prince of Pontecorvo–make use of General Moncey. I send you besides Marshal Bessières, to remain in Paris in reserve. I have ordered a levy of 30,000 men of the national guard. If the English make progress, make a second levy of 30,000 in the same or other departments. It is evident that the enemy, feeling the difficulty of taking Flushing, intend marching straight to Antwerp, to make a sudden attempt upon the squadron.”
Flushing had succumbed, but the operations of the English were delayed by their indecisive generalship. Hope’s division easily took possession of Fort Batz, but the main body of the army remained behind. The fortifications of Antwerp were daily increased and strengthened. The engineers, under Decaux, who checked the warlike ardor of King Louis, rendered the forts impregnable to sudden assault, inundated the country all round, and erected the old dams on the Scheldt; and troops also began