Читать книгу The History of Napoleon Buonaparte - J. G. Lockhart - Страница 22

Napoleon was now master of all northern Italy, with the exception of the territories of Venice, which antique government, though no longer qualified to keep equal rank with the first princes of Europe, was still proud and haughty, and not likely to omit any favourable opportunity of aiding Austria in the great and common object of ridding Italy of the French. Buonaparte heard without surprise that the Doge had been raising new levies, and that the senate could command an army of 50,000, composed chiefly of fierce and semi-barbarous Sclavonian mercenaries. He demanded what these demonstrations meant, and was answered that Venice had no desire but to maintain a perfect neutrality. Meantime there was not wanting a strong party, throughout the Venetian territories of the mainland, who were anxious to emulate the revolutionary movements of the great cities of Lombardy, and to emancipate themselves from the yoke of the Venetian oligarchy, as their neighbours had done by that of the Austrian crown. Insurrections occurred at Bergamo, Brescia, and elsewhere; and Buonaparte, though little disposed to give the inhabitants of these places the boon they were in quest of, saw and profited by the opportunity of dividing, by their means, the resources, and shaking the confidence, of the senate. After some negotiation, he told the Venetian envoy that he granted the prayer of his masters. "Be neuter," said he, "but see that your neutrality be indeed sincere and perfect. If any insurrection occur in my rear, to cut off my communications in the event of my marching on Germany—if any movement whatever betray the disposition of your senate to aid the enemies of France, be sure that vengeance will follow—from that hour the independence of Venice has ceased to be."

More than a month had now elapsed since Alvinzi's defeat at Rivoli; in nine days the war with the Pope had reached its close; and, having left some garrisons in the towns on the Adige, to watch the neutrality of Venice, Napoleon hastened to carry the war into the hereditary dominions of the Emperor. Twenty thousand fresh troops had recently joined his victorious standard from France; and, at the head of perhaps a larger force than he had ever before mustered, he proceeded to the frontier of the Frioul, where, according to his information, the main army of Austria, recruited once more to its original strength, was preparing to open a sixth campaign—under the orders, not of Alvinzi, but of a general young like himself, and hitherto eminently successful—the same who had already by his combinations baffled two such masters in the art of war as Jourdan and Moreau—the Archduke Charles; a prince on whose high talents the last hopes of the empire seemed to repose.

To give the details of the sixth campaign, which now commenced, would be to repeat the story which has been already five times told. The Archduke, fettered by the Aulic Council of Vienna, saw himself compelled to execute a plan which he had discrimination enough to condemn. The Austrian army once more commenced operations on a double basis—one great division on the Tyrolese frontier, and a greater under the Archduke himself on the Friulese; and Napoleon—who had, even when acting on the defensive, been able, by the vivacity of his movements, to assume the superiority on whatever point he chose to select—was not likely to strike his blows with less skill and vigour, now that his numbers, and the acquiescence of Italy behind him, permitted him to assume the offensive.

Buonaparte found the Archduke posted behind the river Tagliamento, in front of the rugged Carinthian mountains, which guard the passage in that quarter from Italy to Germany. Detaching Massena to the Piave, where the Austrian division of Lusignan were in observation, he himself determined to charge the Archduke in front. Massena was successful in driving Lusignan before him as far as Belluno, (where a rear guard of 500 surrendered,) and thus turned the Austrian flank. Buonaparte then attempted and effected the passage of the Tagliamento. After a great and formal display of his forces, which was met by similar demonstrations on the Austrian side of the river, he suddenly broke up his line and retreated. The Archduke, knowing that the French had been marching all the night before, concluded that the general wished to defer the battle till another day; and in like manner withdrew to his camp. About two hours after Napoleon rushed with his whole army, who had merely lain down in ranks, upon the margin of the Tagliamento, no longer adequately guarded—and had forded the stream ere the Austrian line of battle could be formed. In the action which followed (March 12) the troops of the Archduke displayed much gallantry, but every effort to dislodge Napoleon failed; at length retreat was judged necessary. The French followed hard behind. They stormed Gradisca, where they made 5000 prisoners; and—the Archduke pursuing his retreat—occupied in the course of a few days Trieste, Fiume, and every stronghold in Carinthia. In the course of a campaign of twenty days, the Austrians fought Buonaparte ten times, but the overthrow on the Tagliamento was never recovered; and the Archduke, after defending Styria inch by inch as he had Carinthia, at length adopted the resolution of reaching Vienna by forced marches, there to gather round him whatever force the loyalty of his nation could muster, and make a last stand beneath the walls of the capital.

This plan, at first sight the mere dictate of despair, was in truth that of a wise and prudent general. The Archduke had received intelligence from two quarters of events highly unfavourable to the French. General Laudon, the Austrian commander on the Tyrol frontier, had descended thence with forces sufficient to overwhelm Buonaparte's lieutenants on the upper Adige, and was already in possession of the whole Tyrol, and of several of the Lombard towns. Meanwhile the Venetian Senate, on hearing of these Austrian successes, had plucked up courage to throw aside their flimsy neutrality, and not only declared war against France, but encouraged their partizans in Verona to open the contest with an inhuman massacre of the French wounded in the hospitals of that city. The vindictive Italians, wherever the French party was inferior in numbers, resorted to similar atrocities. The few troops left in Lombardy by Napoleon were obliged to shut themselves up in garrisons, which the insurgent inhabitants of the neighbouring districts invested. The Venetian army passed the frontier; and, in effect, Buonaparte's means of deriving supplies of any kind from his rear were for the time wholly cut off. It was not wonderful that the Archduke should, under such circumstances, anticipate great advantage from enticing the French army into the heart of Austria; where, divided by many wide provinces and mighty mountains and rivers from France, and with Italy once more in arms behind them, they should have to abide the encounter of an imperial army, animated by all the best motives that can lend vigour to the arm of man; fighting for their own hearths under the eyes of their own sovereign; seconded everywhere by the loyalty of the peasants; and well convinced that, if they could compel their enemy to a retreat, his total ruin must be the consequence.

The terror of the Aulic Council stepped in to prevent the Archduke from reaping either the credit or the disgrace of this movement. Vienna was panic-struck on hearing that Buonaparte had stormed the passes of the Julian Alps; the imperial family sent their treasure into Hungary; the middle ranks, whose interest is always peace, became clamorous for some termination to a war, which during six years had been so unfortunate; and the Archduke was ordered to avail himself of the first pretence which circumstances might afford for the opening of a negotiation.

That prince had already, acting on his own judgment and feelings, dismissed such an occasion with civility and with coldness. Napoleon had addressed a letter to his Imperial Highness from Clagenfurt, in which he called on him, as a brother soldier, to consider the certain miseries and the doubtful successes of war, and put an end to the campaign by a fair and equitable treaty. The Archduke replied, that he regarded with the highest esteem the personal character of his correspondent, but that the Austrian government had committed to his trust the guidance of a particular army, not the diplomatic business of the empire. The prince, on receiving these new instructions from Vienna, perceived, however reluctantly, that the line of his duty was altered; and the result was a series of negotiations—which ended in the provisional treaty of Leoben, signed April 18, 1797.

It was here, at Leoben, that Buonaparte's schoolfellow, De Bourienne, who had been summoned to act as secretary to the general, reached headquarters. He found his old comrade (whom he had not met with since the days of his envying small houses and cabriolets in Paris) in the midst of a splendid staff. "So thou art come at last," cried Napoleon, in the ancient tone of familiarity; but De Bourienne knew the world, and greeted the general of the army of Italy with profound and distant respect. When the company were gone, Buonaparte signified that he understood and approved this change of demeanour.

But to resume—no sooner was the negotiation in a fair train, than Napoleon, abandoning for the moment the details of its management to inferior diplomatists, hastened to retrace his steps, and pour the full storm of his wrath on the Venetians. The Doge and the Senate, whose only hopes had rested on the successes of Austria on the Adige, heard with utter despair that the Archduke had shared the fate of Beaulieu, of Wurmser, and of Alvinzi, and that the preliminaries of peace were actually signed. The rapidity of Buonaparte's return gave them no breathing-time. They hastened to send offers of submission, and their messengers were received with anger and contempt. "French blood has been treacherously shed," said Napoleon; "if you could offer me the treasures of Peru, if you could cover your whole dominion with gold—the atonement would be insufficient—the lion of St. Mark[17] must lick the dust." These tidings came like a sentence of death upon the devoted Senate. Their deliberations were unceasing; their schemes innumerable; their hearts divided and unnerved. Those secret chambers, from which that haughty oligarchy had for so many ages excluded every eye and every voice but their own, were invaded with impunity by strange-faced men, who boldly criticised their measures, and heaped new terrors on their heads, by announcing that the mass of the people had ceased to consider the endurance of their sway as synonymous with the prosperity of Venice. Popular tumults filled the streets and canals; universal confusion prevailed. The commanders of their troops and fleets received contradictory orders, and the city which

"—had held the gorgeous East in fee,"

seemed ready to yield everything to a ruthless and implacable enemy, without even striking a blow in defence.

Buonaparte appeared, while the confusion was at its height, on the opposite coast of the Lagoon. Some of his troops were already in the heart of the city, when (31st May) a hasty message reached him, announcing that the Senate submitted wholly. He exacted severe revenge. The leaders who had aided the Lombard insurgents were delivered to him. The oligarchy ceased to rule, and a democratical government was formed, provisionally, on the model of France. Venice consented to surrender to the victor large territories on the mainland of Italy; five ships of war; 3,000,000 francs in gold, and as many more in naval stores; twenty of the best pictures, and 500 manuscripts. Lastly, the troops of the conqueror were to occupy the capital until tranquillity was established. It will be seen in what that tranquillity was destined to consist.

Such was the humiliation of this once proud and energetic, but now worn-out and enfeebled, oligarchy: so incapable was that hoary polity of contending with the youthful vigour of Napoleon.