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second irruption of the Germans took place, and CHAP. Wurmser still continued the system of dividing his troops, it was by a skilful use of his central position that 1797. the French general defeated these efforts; first assailing with a superior force the subsidiary body at Roveredo, and then pursuing with the rapidity of lightning the main body of the invaders through the gorges of the Brenta. When Alvinzi assumed the command, and Vaubois was routed in the Tyrol, the affairs of the French were all but desperate; but the central positions and rapid movements of Napoleon again restored the balance; checking, in the first instance, the advance of Davidowich on the plateau of Rivoli, and next engaging in a mortal strife with Alvinzi in the marshes of Arcola. When Austria made her final effort, and Alvinzi surrounded Joubert at Rivoli, it was only by the most rapid movements, and almost incredible activity, that the double attack was defeated; the same troops crushing the main body of the Austrians on the steeps of the Montebaldo, who afterwards surrounded Provera on the lake of Mantua. The same system was afterwards pursued with the greatest success by Wellington in Portugal, and Napoleon himself at Dresden, and in the plains of Champagne.

opera

against

equally

But towards the success of such a system of tions it is indispensable that the troops who under-But it will take it should be superior in bodily activity and moral not succeed courage to their adversaries, and that the general-in-troops with chief can securely leave a slender force to cope brave and the enemy in one quarter, while he is accumulating skilful. his masses to overwhelm them in another. Unless this is the case, the commander who throws himself at the head of an inconsiderable body into the midst of the enemy, will be certain of meeting instead of in

CHAP. flicting disaster. Without such a degree of courage XX. and activity as enables him to calculate with certainty 1797. upon hours, and sometimes minutes, it is impossible to expect success from such a hazardous system. Of this a signal proof occurred in Bohemia in 1813, when the French, encouraged by their great triumph before Dresden, threw themselves inconsiderately into the midst of the Allies in the mountains of Toplitz; but, meeting there with the undaunted Russian and Prussian forces, they experienced the most dreadful reverses, and in a few days lost the whole fruit of a mighty victory.

The disasters of the Austrians were mainly owing Causes of to the injudicious plan which they so perseveringly the disas adopted, of dividing their force into separate bodies, Austrians. and commencing an attack at the same time at sta

ters of the

tions so far distant that the attacking columns could render little assistance to each other. This system may succeed very well against ordinary troops, or timorous generals, who, the moment they hear of their flank being turned, or their communications menaced, lay down their arms, or fall back; but against intrepid soldiers, and a resolute commander, who turn fiercely on every side, and bring a preponderating mass first against one assailant, and then another, it is almost sure of leading to disasters. The Aulic Council were not to blame for adopting this system, in the first instance, against the French armies, because it might have been expected to succeed against ordinary troops, and had done so in many previous instances; but they were inexcusable for continuing it so long, after the character of the opponents with whom they had to deal had so fully displayed itself. The system of concentric attacks rarely succeeds against an able and determined enemy, because the

XX.

chances which the force in the centre has of beating CHAP. first one column and then another, are so considerable. When it does, it is only when the different 1797. masses of the attacking party, as at Leipsic and Dresden, are so immense, that each can stand a separate encounter for itself, or can fall back, in the event of being outnumbered, without seriously endangering, by such a retreat, the safety of the other assailing columns.

Reflections

The Italian campaign demonstrates, in the most signal manner, the vast importance of fortresses in General war, and the vital consequence of such a barrier to on the arrest the course of military conquest. The sur-campaign. render of the fortresses of Coni, Alexandria, and Tortona, by giving the French a secure base for their operations, speedily made them masters of the whole of Lombardy; while the single fortress of Mantua arrested their victorious arms for six months, and gave time to Austria to collect no less than four powerful armies for its deliverance. No man understood this better than Napoleon; and accordingly, without troubling himself with the projects so earnestly pressed upon him of revolutionizing Piedmont, he grasped the fortresses, and thereby laid the foundation for all his subsequent conquests. Without the surrender of the Piedmontese citadels, he would not have been able to push his advantages in Italy beyond the Po; but for the bastions of Mantua, he might have carried them, as in the succeeding campaign, to the Danube.

It is melancholy to reflect on the degraded state of the Italian powers during this terrible struggle. An invasion, which brought on all her people unheard-of calamities, which overspread her plains with bloodshed, and exposed her cities to rapine, was un

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1797.

CHAP. able to excite the spirit of her pacific inhabitants; and neither of the contending powers deemed it worth their while to bestow a serious thought on the dispositions or assistance of the twenty millions of men who were to be the reward of the strife. The country of Cæsar and Scipio, of Cato and Brutus, beheld in silent dismay the protracted contest of two provinces of its ancient empire, and prepared to bow the neck in abject submission to either of its former vassals which might prove victorious in the strife. A division of the French army was sufficient to disperse the levies of the Roman people. Such is the consequence of political divisions and long-continued prosperity, even in the richest and most favoured countries; of that fatal policy which withers the spirits of men by fettering their ambition; of that indulgence of the selfish passions which ends in destroying the generous; and of that thirst for pleasure which subverts the national independence by destroying the warlike spirit by which alone it can be maintained.

Unconquerable

tenacity of the Austrians.

Finally, this campaign evinced, in the most signal manner, the persevering character and patriotic spirit of the Austrian people, and the prodigious efforts of which its monarchy is capable, when roused by real danger to vigorous exertion. It is impossible to contemplate, without admiration, the vast armies which they successively sent into the field, and the unconquerable courage with which they returned to a contest where so many thousands of their countrymen had perished before them. Had they been guided by greater, or opposed by less ability, they unquestionably would have been successful; and even against the soldiers of the Italian army, and the genius of Napoleon, the scales of fortune repeatedly

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hung equal. A nation, capable of such sacrifices, CHAP. can hardly ever be permanently subdued; a government, actuated by such steady principles, must ulti- 1797. mately be triumphant. Such, accordingly, has been the case in the present instance: aristocratic firmness in the end asserted its wonted superiority over democratic vigour; the dreams of Republican equality have been forgotten, but the Austrian government remains unchanged; the French eagles have retired over the Alps; and Italy, the theatre of so much bloodshed, has finally remained to the successors of the Cæsars.