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 SKETCH OF SUWAROW, 
 
 AND 
 
 HIS LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 WITH OBSEKVATIONS ON MR. AXISON'S OPINION OF THE 
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC, AND 
 
 A FEW OBJECTIONS TO CERTAIN MILITARY 
 
 STATEMENTS IN MR. ALISON'S 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 MAJOR EDWARD NEVIL MACREADY. 
 
 (EDITED BY AN OFFICER OF RANK.) 
 
 ' Inveniet viam aut faciet." — Seneca. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
 
 185L
 
 London : 
 Printed by Stewakt & Mi-eeay, Old Bailey.
 
 TO THE 
 
 COMPANIONS IN AEMS 
 
 OF HER DEPARTED HTJSBAND, 
 THE 
 
 OFFICERS, NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS, AND PRIVATES, 
 
 OF 
 
 THE XXXth REGIMENT; 
 
 IN WHICH GALLANT CORPS HE PASSED SO MANY HAPPY YEARS, 
 
 THIS WORK IS DEDICATED. 
 
 BY THEIR FRIEND AND ADMIRER, 
 
 M. S. MACEEADY.
 
 PREFATOKY NOTICE BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 It was the purpose of the late Major Macready to illus- 
 trate the account of Suwarow's last and brilliant cam- 
 paign by plans of his actions and important operations, 
 corrected from personal examination of the localities : 
 and we have to regret that he did not live either to 
 fulfil this intention, or to give a final revision to his 
 MS. The memoir is now printed from a transcript 
 by Mrs. Edward Macready, which she placed in the 
 Editor's hands, accompanied by her husband's private 
 journals ; a perusal of which has led him to form a 
 very high estimate of the writer, both as a soldier 
 and a man. The following were the leading inci- 
 dents in the career of this accomplished officer. 
 
 In 1814, at the age of sixteen, he joined, as a 
 volunteer, the second battalion 30th Regiment, then 
 serving in Holland under Lord Lynedoch, and in the 
 following year he fought both at Quatre Bras and
 
 VUl PREFACE. 
 
 "Waterloo; commanding the Light Company to- 
 wards the close of the great battle, when only 
 an Ensign. The gallantry he displayed on these 
 memorable occasions procured his promotion to a 
 Lieutenancy. 
 
 His next active service was in India, where he 
 took part in the assault and capture of the strong 
 fortress of Asseerghur, although labouring at the 
 time under so severe an illness, that it was with 
 the utmost difficulty he could obtain permission 
 to share in the attack. His journal of this period 
 is very interesting, both as giving a most graphic 
 description of the country traversed, and also con- 
 taining opinions of men and measures, by a mind 
 of no ordinary stamp. 
 
 On the appointment of Sir John Wilson to the 
 Staff of Ceylon, the Commander-in-Chief, Lord 
 Hill, recommended Captain Macready as Military 
 Secretary, solely from the favourable opinion he 
 had formed of his zeal, abilities, and professional 
 acquirements. 
 
 The following extract from a speech of the 
 Governor of the island, the Right Hon. Stewart 
 McKenzie, will serve to show how ably Captain 
 Macready filled that office : — 
 
 "Nor can I pass over in silence the services of the Mili- 
 tary Secretary, of which, at the same time that we shall lose the
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 able assistance and advice of our gallant Commander of the 
 Forces and trusty Counsellor, Sir John Wilson, we are soon 
 to be deprived : for an abler and more excellent officer in the 
 department he occupies, than Captain Macready, is rarely to be 
 met with ; combining, with assiduity in business and accuracy 
 in its details, a fairness which always renders access to him 
 at all times, and discussion with him of all matters, easy and 
 profitable. With Captain Macready, our Colonial Secretary- 
 has for a long period held constant and varied communica- 
 tions on official business, without one interruption by serious 
 difference. I the more readily embrace this occasion to offer 
 this tribute, due to the character and services of Captain 
 Macready, in his presence and in yours, who form so large 
 a body of the civilians of Ceylon, because I am confident 
 that you, and my honourable guest, will be equally eager 
 to confirm what I am about to add : — that it will be no 
 easy task to fill his situation with his equal — with any one 
 surpassing him in the essential qualities of an intelligent 
 officer and a gentleman, which distinguish Captain Macready, 
 I am persuaded it cannot be filled." 
 
 In addition to this public testimony of his ser- 
 vices and character from the lips of the Governor, 
 he received a private tribute to his worth, in 
 the form of a handsome piece of plate, in the 
 names of " his friends ; " which title comprehended, 
 we believe, every officer then at Ceylon. This 
 was the most gratifying event of his life. 
 
 On further promotion, he quitted the 30th, in 
 which he was endeared to all, and withdrew from 
 military service : but " not forgotten," writes Colonel 
 Slade, long afterwards ; " for often and often when
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 I have praised the appearance of the Light Com- 
 pany, the answer has been, * Oh ! Macready in- 
 fused a spirit into that company, which they have 
 retained ever since.'" 
 
 Leisure being now afforded him to indulge the 
 long-cherished desire of visiting scenes of important 
 military operations, he went abroad, and trod many 
 a battle-field in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. 
 Being dissatisfied with the versions of Suwarow's 
 last Campaign by French, Austrian, and even 
 English writers, he resolved that tardy justice 
 should be done to the Russian hero ; and accord- 
 ingly penned the following able disquisition. 
 
 It must be distinctly understood that the Editor 
 has simply sought to fulfil the intentions of the 
 Author ; scrupulously abstaining from doing more 
 than striving to render the sense clear. All essen- 
 tials remain untouched : had he felt warranted to 
 alter anything, he might have ventured to soften 
 some of the expressions used in reference to a dis- 
 tinguished British historian.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGI 
 
 Introduction xiii 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A Sketch of Suwaeow 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SuwAjaow's Last Campaign. — Suwarow joins the anny — Second 
 coalition — Advance of the Allies — Passage of the Adda — 
 Eemarks on the foregoing operations — Moreau occupies the 
 position of San Salvadore — Suwarow's proceedings — Suwarow 
 moves on Turin — Advance of Macdonald — Actions of the 
 Tidone and Trebbia — Remarks 35 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 Fall of Alexandria and Mantua — Joubert's advance — Battle of 
 Novi — Observations 92 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Suwarow ordered to Switzerland — Archduke Charles leaves 
 Switzerland — Position of AUies and French in Switzerland — 
 Suwarow takes leave of the Austrian army — Detention of 
 Russians at Taverne — Route by the St. Gothard — Attack of
 
 XU CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 the St. Gothai'd — Attack on the Devil's-hridge, &c. — March 
 from Altorf to Mutten — Suwarow hears of Korsakow's defeat 
 — Action at Nafels and Mollis — Actions in the Muttenthal — 
 March to the Rheinthal by the Semfthal 125 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Previous events in Switzerland — March by Coire and Feldkirch 
 to Lindau — Suwarow's dissatisfaction with the Archduke 
 Charles — Of Suwarow's military character — The Czar Paul 
 quits the Coalition — Suwarow sets out for Russia — His 
 illness — Is publicly censured by Paul — Reaches St. Peters- 
 bui-gh — His death 165 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 On Mr. Alison's Opinion of the Archduke Chables as a 
 Military Critic 197 
 
 CHAPTER Vll. 
 
 A few Objections to certain Military Statements and 
 Opinions in Mr. Alison's History 260
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 As at this moment (1847) considerations of a mili- 
 tary nature are occupying attention in England, the 
 following sketch, compiled by an idle soldier for his 
 own satisfaction, during a course of professional 
 reading, is submitted to the public. 
 
 Suwarow especially admired the English, because 
 he believed them to be brave, earnest, and honest ; 
 and for the same qualities does the Writer admire the 
 character of Suwarow, feeling confidently persuaded, 
 that the more his spirit infuses itself into the mind 
 and heart of any man, the better man and soldier will 
 he prove. There are few that will not smile at the 
 eccentricities, or listen with compassionate interest 
 to the misfortunes, of this strangely constituted man ; 
 but to the soldier more particularly, or to him who 
 looks to be one, the mixed nature of his military
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 qualities, presents a pleasing and repaying subject of 
 contemplation. 
 
 Suwarow cannot rank with those who have thrown 
 new light upon tactics or strategy ; nor does he 
 astonish and delight us by those simple and sublime 
 combinations of battle, which multiply the chances 
 and the consequences of victory. The words 
 " forward and strike," in his estimation, condensed 
 the better half of what could be learnt of war : 
 *' system-mongers," ** precise talkers," — " scriben- 
 tismus," and *' methodismus," — were the terms in 
 which, from his own pecuKar vocabulary, he ex- 
 pressed his contempt for the military theory of his 
 day, and its admirers. 
 
 His professional career had commenced in the 
 Seven Years' War, in which he witnessed glorious 
 opportunities lost, and gross absurdities defended, by 
 an adherence to the rules of an erroneous system. It 
 was at Kunersdorf, that he first saw fire, and there 
 the desperate courage of his countrymen, in their 
 broken masses, baffled one of the ablest dispositions 
 of the immortal Frederick. 
 
 This early experience, therefore, as well as his 
 after service against the Turks and Poles, equally 
 tended to strengthen the bias of his mind, which
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 led him to calculate on rapidity and valour alone, 
 and to undervalue the mighty influence of scien- 
 tific combinations. He grew up a zealot in his 
 honest bigotry to this prejudice ; which, like every 
 other prejudice, repaid his devotion with injury : 
 it stamped him a General of the secondary class. 
 
 But his mind and actions are not the less deserving 
 our consideration. He is a glorious instance of what 
 may be eflTected by the energetic development and 
 exercise of qualities, the germs of which are in 
 almost every human heart. Examples of a loftier 
 class may readily be found, but none of more general 
 application. His faults (at once so serious and so 
 palpable) convey an universal lesson. His excel- 
 lences every soldier may aspire to emulate. The 
 first show us how incumbent on us is the study of 
 our art ; the second, what earnest courage and devo- 
 tion can effect towards covering with success our 
 greatest errors. These qualities dignify our nature, by 
 elevating a common energy to a level (as far as regards 
 results) with rare and accidental gifts of intellect ; 
 they teach confidence to the soldier who distrusts 
 his ability, by showing irrefutably that to strike 
 strongly is next to striking skilfully ; and they bid him 
 " on and fear not ;" secure in the conviction that if
 
 XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 his country be not benefited by his talent it will at 
 least by the example of his devotion. 
 
 The sketch of the character of Suwarow has been 
 attempted, in the hope of adding to the interest of 
 the military details that follow it ; our assent to 
 abstract truth being frequently the extent of its 
 effect upon us, whereas an illustration that awakens 
 our sympathy may produce a deeper, and occasionally 
 an influential, impression. 
 
 The authorities consulted have been chiefly Dubos- 
 cage, Dumas, Segur, Jomini, St. Cyr, the Archduke 
 Charles, and Suwarow's published correspondence ; 
 and the Writer has visited most of the ground of 
 which he has occasion to speak.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 SuwAROW, In the sixty-ninth year of his age and 
 the second of his banishment from the court of St. 
 Petersburg, was leading an ahnost patriarchal life 
 on his estate of Khantschansk, attending to agricul- 
 tural matters, arranging the disputes, and not un- 
 frequently the marriages and love affairs of his 
 peasants, and accomplishing himself in the arts of 
 psalm-singing and church-bell ringing, by a diligent 
 and public practice of both, when, in February 1799, 
 an official despatch addressed to "Field-Marshal 
 Suwarow" was put into his hands. *' This is not for 
 me," he said ; " a Field-Marshal is at the head of 
 armies. I am nothing but an old soldier called 
 Suwarow," and he returned the letter. Some days 
 later, a similar packet, addressed "to my faithful 
 subject Suwarow," was presented to him, and he 
 read: — "I have resolved to send you into Italy to 
 
 B
 
 2 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 the assistance of his Majesty the Emperor and King, 
 my brother and ally. Suwarow has no need of 
 triumphs nor of laurels, but the country has need of 
 him, and my wishes agree with those of Francis II., 
 who having conferred on you the supreme command 
 of his Italian army, begs you to accept that dignity. 
 It depends on Suwarow alone to satisfy the hopes 
 of his country and the desire of the Emperor, 
 Paul I." 
 
 But little enthusiasm is requisite to imagine the 
 old man's transport, as with a bounding heart he 
 hurried over the words of this unexpected and wel- 
 come commission ; nor can even the chivalrous 
 Francis, as he leapt into the saddle and scoured 
 along the plain, joyously proclaiming himself " once 
 more a king," be deemed more enviable in the wild 
 rapture of his exultation, than poor Suwarow at that 
 recompensing moment. It gave him freedom, and it 
 promised glory ; and in the fervour of his emotion, 
 he pressed the letter to his heart and to his wounds, 
 and crying aloud, "It is new life to me," accepted 
 the appointment. 
 
 Suwarow's devotion and loyalty were those of a 
 Russian soldier of his day. He looked on the revo- 
 lutionary French as the apostles of anarchy and 
 irrcligion, for his sovereign (" the God on earth" of 
 every true ^Muscovite) had declared them to be so.
 
 HIS ENMITY TO THE FRENCH. 3 
 
 and he had a standard in his own energy by which 
 he could appreciate their baneful power. " Do you 
 know," said he, to a French nobleman, "why the 
 Jacobins triumph ? It is because their will is strong 
 and deep — to succeed, it must be undivided. You 
 Emigres don't half will." The constant wish of his 
 heart was to meet these enemies of God and man in 
 battle. " Lady mother," he often wrote to Catherine, 
 *' let me march against the French ;"* and when, in 
 1796, Buonaparte's successes were the daily subjects 
 of conversation, he constantly repeated, — '* Yes, 
 that youngster goes too fast, it is full time to stop 
 him." 
 
 * The Empress Catherine had banished every Frenchman 
 from her dominions who would not swear eternal hatred to the 
 Republic. She had courted the Academicians as long as they 
 amused her with mere speculative discussions, or pleased her by 
 contrasting the good she had done for her subjects, with the 
 abuses to which the great in other lands clung with irrational 
 and perilous pertinacity. There was, in fact, a generalization 
 in the doctrines, as in the terms of " Philosophy, Reason, and 
 Liberty," which allured very many of the privileged classes to 
 aid in their development, almost as ardently as the patriot 
 or the demagogue. But there was no mistaking the word 
 "Equality" — the most tremendous in import and effect that 
 the voice of man has uttered. It was the war-cry of every 
 political hope and interest in Europe. " i/e suis aristocrate: 
 il faute fair mon mitier" was the declaration of the imper- 
 turbable Catherine.
 
 4 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 In 1798, he was confidently persuaded that the 
 policy of the French Directory, both at home and 
 abroad, had rendered the capture of Paris and the 
 restoration of the Bourbons easily attainable by the 
 powers coalesced against France, provided only they 
 would set themselves heart and soul to the work; 
 and on the 17 th Sept. he dictated the following 
 memorandum on the subject, to his friend M. 
 General Prevot de Lumian : 
 
 " Austria and Russia should act against France 
 with 100,000 men, on the following principles : — 
 1st. Nothinof to be thouo-ht of but the offensive. — 
 2nd. Quick marches ; energy in attack ; the naked 
 steel. — 3rd. No theory (methodik) ; Coup (Toeil. — 
 4th. Full powers to the General-in-Chief. — 5th. 
 Seek the enemy in the field and beat him. — 6th. 
 Lose no time in sieges, unless in coming on a 
 grand depot (as Mayence) ; if necessary, now and 
 then blockade a place, and occasionally carry a 
 fortress by surprise or storm. Time and men are 
 saved by this. — 7th. Never scatter forces to cover 
 many points. If the enemy passes the unguarded 
 points, so much the better; he comes to us to be 
 crushed. — 8th. An observation corps is only necessary 
 at Strasburg, and a flying corps near Luxembourg. 
 "WTien one has to go forwai'd, there should be no 
 halting. Push direct on Paris as the grand point
 
 HIS PLANS AGAINST FRANCE. 5 
 
 — do not halt before Landau, but observe it with a 
 suflficient force — not to cover a retreat, which must 
 not be thought of, but to protect the convoys. There 
 must be no idle manoeuvring, countermarches, and 
 what are called ruses de guerre. Such things are 
 only fit for wretched pedants. — 9th. Italy and the 
 Netherlands fall easily after Paris. The King of 
 Sardinia declares himself against France. There 
 are still madmen enough in Italy, but all but they 
 are for the good cause. The King of Naples will be 
 alive again. The English clear the Mediterranean. 
 No delay ! False prudence and envy are the 
 Medusa heads of cabinets and ministries." 
 
 After a solemn thanksgiving for his good fortune, 
 the Field-Marshal hastened to St. Petersburg to 
 pay his duty to his sovereign. The interview was 
 short and embarrassing — painful to Suwarow and 
 humiliating to Paul. The faithful veteran, recalled 
 by the necessities of his country from an exile, the 
 reward of his valour and devotion, knelt before his 
 master, at once the memorial of his ingratitude and 
 the dependence of his hope. Neither party was 
 anxious to prolong the conference. Suwarow with 
 all his loyalty, could not respect the Emperor ; and 
 Paul was too conscioua of his own injustice, ever 
 sincerely to forgive the object of it. The circum- 
 stances of their misunderstanding were these : —
 
 6 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 during Paul's reformation of the Russian costume, 
 Suwarow received a package of sticks as models of 
 the tails and curls, which, with the addition of powder, 
 were to adorn the troops under his command. The 
 conqueror of the Turks and Poles replied to this ex- 
 traordinary despatch with three lines, which may be 
 freely rendered: — 
 
 " The tails have not the bayonet's powers, 
 The curls are not long twenty- fours, 
 The barber's powder is not ours." 
 
 Bad as these are (and the originals are little better), 
 it was a severe canon of criticism that punished them 
 with banishment. But it was the ill fortune of the 
 Emperor Paul to miscalculate on hiding the fears 
 that haunted him, by a wilful and eccentric exercise 
 of his authority ; and unhappily these timid experi- 
 ments, in almost every instance, fell more heavily on 
 his true and faithful subjects than on his enemies. 
 
 On receiving his sentence of banishment, the 
 obedient warrior assembled his troops, and took 
 leave of them ; concluding thus : — " I do not despair 
 but that the Emperor, our common father, will one 
 day relent, in consideration of my age. Then, when 
 Suwarow shall reappear among you, he will resume 
 these badges, (taking off all his brilliant orders) which 
 he leaves you as a pledge of his friendship, and as a 
 token of your remembrance. You will not forget
 
 HIS BANISHMENT AND KECALL. 7 
 
 that he wore them in the victories to which he led 
 you." At these words he laid them on the drums in 
 front of the line, and retired amidst the tears and 
 groans of the soldiery. It was a day of delight, such 
 as none but a chief like him, or a soldier who has 
 followed one whose word was victory, can well 
 imagine, when he rode once more among them as 
 their leader. 
 
 But little time was lost in gratulation ; he hurried 
 onward towards Vienna, and at Mittau paid his re- 
 spects to Louis XVIII., declaring "that would be 
 the happiest day of his life, in which he should pour 
 forth the last drop of his blood, to place him on the 
 throne of his ancestors." The Emperor Francis 
 received him with distinguished honours, and the 
 Austrian troops who had christened him on the 
 bloodstained field of Fokschau, welcomed with accla- 
 mations their old deliverer, ** General Vorwarts." 
 The Emperor asked what was his plan of operations : 
 " I never make any, your Majesty," he replied ; 
 " time, place, and circumstances decide me." " You 
 must have some plan," continued Francis ; " I wish 
 to know it." Suwarow smiled and said, " If I had, 
 sire, I should not tell it; your Majesty's council 
 would know it this evening, and the enemy to- 
 morrow." So steadily did Suwarow adhere to his 
 views on this point, that the Emperor, to the great
 
 8 A SKETCH OF SUWAEOW. 
 
 dissatisfaction of his minister, Baron Thugut, was 
 forced to assent to his demand that he should act in 
 all respects independently of the council of war, and 
 only communicate his views direct to the Emperor 
 himself. 
 
 Speaking on this subject to Duboscage, Suwarow 
 said, — '* When the Empress Catherine honoured me 
 with the command of armies, she did so because she 
 thought I could lead them to victory. How could 
 she judge better than an old soldier on the spot, how 
 that victory could be won ? When I received orders 
 that were contrary to her interests, I considered them 
 as suggested by courtiers or enemies, and I acted 
 according to what I thought conducive to her 
 glory."* 
 
 The man who acted thus towards sovereigns, was 
 in person miserably thin, and five feet one inch in 
 height. A large mouth, pug nose, eyes commonly 
 
 * Duboscage adds an anecdote of a very gallant, but glaring 
 disobedience on the part of Suwarow, who reported it, forward- 
 ing his sword and writing : — " As a soldier, I am guilty ; as a 
 Russian, I have done my duty, &c" The less said on such 
 matters the better. The rule is wise and positive against them ; 
 but the exceptions are so brilliant, so heart-stirring ; there is 
 such an entire devotedness in them, that, perhaps, many will 
 say, with a young friend of mine :— " I would sentence the man 
 who did so to be shot ; but I would do it, and be proud to be 
 shot for it mj'self."
 
 HIS APPEARANCE. 9 
 
 half shut, a few grey side locks, brought over the top 
 of his bald crown, and a small unpowdered queue, 
 the whole surmounted by a three-cornered felt hat 
 ornamented with green fringe, composed the " head 
 and front" of Field-Marshal Suwarow ; but his eyes 
 when open, were piercing, and in battle they were 
 said to be terrifically expressive. 
 
 When anything said or done, displeased him, a 
 wavey play of his deeply wrinkled forehead betrayed, 
 or rather expressed, his disapproval. He had a 
 philosophical contempt of dress, and might often be 
 seen drilling his men in his shirt sleeves. It was 
 only during the severest weather that he wore cloth, 
 his outer garments being usually of white serge 
 turned up with green. These were most indif- 
 ferently made, as were his large, coarsely greased 
 slouching boots; one of which he very commonly 
 dispensed with, leaving his kneeband unbuttoned, 
 and his stocking about his heel. A huge sabre and 
 a single order completed his ordinary costume ; but 
 on grand occasions his Field-Marshal's uniform was 
 covered with badges, and he was fond of telling 
 where and how he had won them. 
 
 He often arose at midnight, and welcomed the first 
 soldier he saw moving, with a piercing imitation of 
 the crowing of a cock, in compliment to his early 
 rising. It is said that, in the first Polish war, know-
 
 10 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 ing a spy was in camp, he issued orders for an attack 
 at cock-crow, and the enemy expecting it in the 
 morning, were cut to pieces at nine at night ; Su- 
 warow having turned out the troops an hour before, 
 by his well-known cry. The evening before the 
 storm of Ismail he informed his columns : " To- 
 morrow morning, an hour before daybreak, I mean 
 to get up, I shall then dress and wash myself, then 
 say my prayers, and then give one good cock-crow 
 and capture Ismail !" 
 
 When Segur asked him if he never took off his 
 clothes at night, he replied, " No ! when I get lazy 
 and want to have a comfortable sleep, I generally 
 take off one spur." Buckets of cold water were 
 thrown over him before he dressed, and his table was 
 served at seven or eight o'clock with sandwiches and 
 various messes which Duboscage describes as " des 
 ragouts Kosaks detestables ;" to which men paid " the 
 mouth honour, which they would fain deny, but dare 
 not," lest Suwarow should consider them effeminate. 
 He had been very sickly in his youth, but by spare 
 diet and cold bathing had strengthened and har- 
 dened himself into first-rate condition. English ale 
 was his favourite drink. Soldiers, indifferently 
 from any regiment, were his servants. His food, 
 straw (for he used no bed), and lodging were the 
 same as theirs. He saluted as they did, dispensed
 
 HIS HABITS IN CAMP. 11 
 
 with pocket-handkerchiefs, like them ; would be seen 
 half-naked, airing his shirt and dressing himself at 
 a watch fire, among a crowd of them: in short, 
 he adopted all their habits. Descending to be their 
 friend and model, he did not only what they were 
 obliged to do, but whatever it was to their advan- 
 tage should be done ; and they were proud to imitate 
 the man who was not less their comrade than their 
 commander, and the companion of princes. The con- 
 straint of duty was unfelt — obedience was a delight 
 to them. They called themselves his children, and 
 him their father, and while he attended to their 
 wants like one, his familiar jests with them, or in 
 their presence, made every condescension convey 
 some lesson. " What I say to a soldier," he ob- 
 served, " is told to his comrades at night, and next 
 day the army know it." 
 
 To impress on them the duty of implicit obedience, 
 his aides-de-camp were accustomed to interrupt his 
 dinner or his doze with "you must eat no more," 
 or "you must walk." "Ah!" he would answer in 
 affected surprise, " by whose order ? " " By that of 
 Field-Marshal Suwarow," was the reply ; and *' he 
 must be obeyed," was the laughing and submissive 
 rejoinder. He once had his arm raised to strike a 
 soldier, when an officer boldly exclaimed, " The 
 Field-Marshal has commanded that no one shall give
 
 12 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 way to passion," he desisted, saying " What the 
 Field-Marshal orders, Suwarow obeys." 
 
 His instructions tended to form the man as well 
 as the soldier. " If you perceive a cannon with 
 lighted match," he directs, "rush upon it creeping, 
 the ball will pass over your head — cannon and can- 
 noniers are your own — overset the gun and spike it 
 — the men may receive quarter. It is a sin to slay 
 Avithout a cause. Do no wrono; to an unofFendins: 
 party. He supplies you with meat and drink. A 
 true soldier is no robber. Spoil is to be held sacred 
 — if you capture a camp or fortress, it is all your 
 own ; but beware of laying your hands upon spoil 
 without previous orders. Seek to die for the honour 
 of the Virgin Mary — your mother (the Empress), 
 and all the royal family. The church offers up 
 prayers for those who fall — honours and rewards 
 await those who live. A soldier should be healthy- 
 minded, brave, intrepid, decisive, loyal and honour- 
 able. Let him pray to God, from whom proceed 
 victory and miraculous interpositions. God be our 
 guide ! God is our leader ! " "I don't know — I 
 can't — impossible — ^" were words he hated: "learn 
 — do — try — " he would exclaim. When a soldier is 
 expected to act, and does nothing, he must do wrong 
 — if he does something, there are chances he does 
 rightly. Many a man has resources within himself
 
 HIS POWERS OF ENDUEANCE. 13 
 
 that he is not aware of. Under Suwarow he was 
 sure to do his best. 
 
 If he went into a house, when the army bivouacked, 
 he frequently ordered away the doors and windows. 
 " I am not cold nor afraid," he would say, and the 
 soldiers who laughed as they obeyed the order, 
 would try to brave the cold like " their father." 
 When provisions were very scarce, he not unfre- 
 quently met the difficulty by ordering a general 
 fast ; which, as he kept it religiously, was cheerfully 
 acquiesced in by the men. 
 
 The extremes of courage and endurance were 
 spoken of by him, before them, as common-place 
 exertions. Soldiers marched and fought till they 
 fell, as a matter of course. " I often march forty 
 miles," he has said ; " the General is with the head 
 — the head never waits for the tail — I leave stras:- 
 glers behind — the worse for them — they miss the 
 victory. The brave fellows who keep up, are always 
 enough to surprise and beat the enemy." In thirty- 
 six hours, he marched twenty-four leagues with 
 cannon, to Fokschany, and arriving there at five 
 o'clock ; his order of battle, issued at eleven, began : 
 troops having rested, will march at two, to attack 
 the enemy." 
 
 In Poland, in 1769, his force marched nearly 300 
 miles in twelve days, and as much in 1771, fighting
 
 14 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 almost every second day. His ordinary routine of 
 march in Italy, was for the cooks and provisions to 
 move on at midnight, two German miles. At three 
 in the morning the troops marched a mile, then 
 rested an hour, and marched the other mile to their 
 cooks; where, in Suwarow's words, "Food is ready — 
 wine is there — not a marauder to be heard of." After 
 four hours' rest, another mile was marched — then 
 another halt, and another mile marched brought the 
 troops to their ground— and at three next morning 
 they were again en route. In directing Bellegarde to 
 adopt this practice, Suwarow's concluding words are, 
 *' Hasten, your Excellency — money is valuable — 
 man's life much more so — but the most valuable of 
 all is time." 
 
 When the fire of battle opened on the Russians, 
 the solemn murmur of ** God have mercy upon us," 
 rose along the line ; and Suwarow, stationed on some 
 conspicuous spot, always crossed himself and reve- 
 rentially kissed the picture of St. Nicholas, to add 
 the stimulus of his soldiers' love to him (for all be- 
 lieved he would not survive defeat) to that admi- 
 rable sense of duty, which saw no alternative in 
 battle, but the triumph of their earthly, or the 
 judgment of their heavenly master. " I must die !" 
 he has cried aloud, when a fight went badly — " I 
 cannot live if it be lost." At Ejnburn, in 1787,
 
 HIS SAYINGS IN THE FIELD. 15 
 
 A'lien desperately wounded, seeing his troops in con- 
 fusion, he left his litter and mounted to rally them ; 
 and when his efforts to restore order seemed in- 
 effectual, he threw himself from his horse, almost 
 among the Turks, calling to his own men, " Run, 
 do run ! and leave your wounded General to the 
 enemy." 
 
 Even in the conflict's fiercest fury, nothing that 
 affected his children's progress could escape him : 
 " Never look at their eyes, boys," he once exclaimed 
 as they seemed to shrink before some Turks, " look 
 at their breasts, there's the mark for your bayonets." 
 He practised no retreat movements, and hardly 
 any firings. Charles XII. used to say, " don't fire, 
 friends : let coAvards do that," Suwarow's expression 
 was " the ball's a fool, the bayonet a hero." 
 
 He drilled his people to charge, infantry against 
 infantry or cavalry indifferently, and cavalry against 
 horse or foot. In the midst of a tremendous fire of 
 Artillery, with loud shouts of " Forward, forward ! 
 hurrah, hurrah ! the sabre ! the bayonet ! never fear, 
 boys ! forward, forward ! " would they press onward 
 against each other, as if in battle, the infantry at the 
 pas de charge, the cavalry at the trot and gallop. At 
 the moment of meeting, the bayonets were thrown 
 up, and the foot soldiers making a half-turn, passed 
 iach other. The cavalry files were loosened for
 
 16 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 this purpose, and the horses in all cases were made 
 to break through the body against which they 
 charged ; but knees were crushed, horsemen dis- 
 mounted, and sometimes sabre cuts exchanged in 
 this rough training, which Suwarow never saw.* 
 The Artillery exerted themselves so earnestly to 
 keep up with the infantry, that Duboscage saw 
 five men accidentally killed or maimed on one oc- 
 casion at a single gun, without any delay occurring 
 in its advance. 
 
 Forts were constructed, pallisaded, and covered 
 with abaitis, trous de hup, &c., and in the attack and 
 defence of these, the troops were practised both by 
 day and night. Figures of straw and clay were put 
 up in every quarter, and Suwarow's smile rewarded 
 him whose sabre cut the deepest. In the bayonet 
 practice, his personal feelings were oddly shown. 
 At the words " charge on the Poles," the recruit 
 advanced and gave a thrust ; at " charge on the 
 Prussians," the recruit stabbed twice (Suwarow 
 hated the military foppery and pretension of that 
 people) ; at " charge on the French," (" the light, 
 skipping, God-forgetting French" he called them) 
 
 * Marshal Marmont, in his work, " De I'Esprit des Institu- 
 tions Militaires,'' strongly recommends a course of drill pre- 
 cisely similar to this of Suwarow's, hut without acknowledging 
 it to have been Suwarow's practice.
 
 HIS SYSTEM OF DRILL. 17 
 
 the recruit stabbed twice horizontally, and once 
 downwards into the ground. ^Vhen the victim was 
 supposed to be a Turk, the soldier was cautioned 
 in addition, to shake him from the bayonet : " he 
 must be very dead," Suwarow used to say, " when 
 he does not try a sweeping cut." All his drill was 
 applicable to actual battle, where the men had to 
 conquer or die. It was their interest to kill fast, 
 and they were taught what was at once best for 
 themselves and " for the honour and safety of their 
 sovereign and his dominions."* 
 
 " The absolutely defensive in war, is an absurdity. 
 A weak force spread out to cover many points, 
 exposes itself to be inevitably pierced and beaten. 
 Mass it, and occupy the most important points, and 
 act vigorously, as opportunities offer ; this is still 
 more advisable if your force be strong. An army 
 
 * The following anecdote, from Duboscage, reminds one of 
 the Lancers in the rear of Henry of Trastamare's army, who, 
 according to Froissart, " Kept up the courage of the combat- 
 ants, by driving such as fled back to their divisions." A Colonel 
 of Cavalry having dropped behind his people in a charge, 
 Suwarow called to the Cossacks near him : — " Look ! a Colonel 
 behind his men ! He'll be taken by the Infidels — what a dis- 
 grace to us. Kill him ! — kill him ! — kill him ! " The Cossacks 
 were off, pike in hand ; but before their speed could bring them 
 to the Colonel, he had driven both spurs into his horse, and was in 
 front of his men, leading them like a hero into a cloud of Turks. 
 
 C
 
 18 A SKETCH OF SUWAEOW. 
 
 disseminated like men on a chess-board, each por- 
 tion to support another, may be ruined by the 
 cowardice, stupidity or caprice of any one of 
 its constituent parts. Force is multiplied by 
 activity — a rapid march will seldom find an enemy 
 prepared for battle ; if it does, a general with 
 coup deceit and good troops, can make his disposi- 
 tions. The fire of infantry is for defence — the 
 bayonet for attack. All killed by an exchange of 
 fire, after lines or columns of attack can be formed, 
 are uselessly sacrificed. While bodies fire, the loss 
 is tolerably equal ; it is in the pursuit that casualties 
 preponderate. Bad troops stand fire; few good 
 ones stand the bayonet ; those that do, can hardly 
 use it too soon. The leader of an army is its 
 Genius ! He must not be made the tool of pen-and- 
 ink men {scrihentismus). Their plans of campaign 
 may be eloquent, but they are not natural : they 
 may be fine, but they are not good : they may look 
 brilliant, but they are not to be reckoned on. It is 
 the Commander-in-Chief who alone can appreciate 
 and decide on the unforeseen contingencies of war, 
 as they occur. He must not hesitate — must be 
 indefatigable: he alone must direct his troops. 
 Nobody — nothing should shackle him. He must be 
 without self-love. On him the fate of all must rest." 
 These were the opinions with which Suwarow
 
 HIS STRATEGY. 19 
 
 sought his enemy, and he could depend upon his 
 soldiers and upon himself. 
 
 Science is nothing but a record of the best deduc- 
 tions from human sagacity and experiment, and 
 as human reason is not infallible, there may be 
 soi-disant systems that are based on error. Such 
 Suwarow deemed the system he ridiculed ; but we 
 are not for that reason to suppose that in his pro- 
 ceedings he never adopted plans,from his own saga- 
 city and reflection, which the rules of science would 
 approve. All his battles in Italy were fought on 
 the one simple and uniform principle of an advance 
 in direct echelon from his right; and alike at the 
 Adda, the Trebbia, and at Noir, this was the pro- 
 ceeding which true science would have dictated. 
 He scoffed at " system-mongers, precise-talkers, De- 
 mosthenes, Hannibal's senate, Scribentismus, and 
 the hellish abysses of methodismus," because he 
 very commonly found those who preached theory, 
 to him or to the world, slow to do and backward 
 to dare, and because they quoted " words of ex- 
 ceeding good command" from their theoretical 
 vocabularies, in justification of their short-comings. 
 On such science he pronounced, like Corporal Trim 
 on Captain Tripet's peculiar evolutions, that " one 
 home thrust of the bayonet was worth the whole 
 of it."
 
 20 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 A system like Suwarow's has an essential ten- 
 dency to degenerate into rashness ; for extraordinary 
 successes induce exti'avagant expectations, and where 
 so much is referred to courage (the effects of which 
 depend less on its own intrinsic power than on the 
 weaknesses of others) calculation must occasionally 
 be disappointed. But seldom, even in his last cam- 
 paign (when he came, weakened by age, to the 
 encounter of his most formidable antagonist) do we 
 find his dispositions exacting more than his troops 
 could well perform. It was not rashness to hurry 
 an attack at Rymnik, when every hour strengthened 
 his enemy's entrenchments ; nor to surprise by an 
 assault, the confident valour that declared "the 
 Danube should stay its course, and the heavens bow 
 to earth, before Ismail surrendered." Months had 
 already been lost before that fortress, when Potem- 
 kin ordered Suwarow to carry it in a given number 
 of days. " The will of the Empress must be 
 obeyed," said he; and at the appointed time he 
 wrote " the Russian flag waves over Ismail." 
 
 This capture, and those of Bender and OczakofF 
 illustrate most remarkably the want of science and 
 the excess of courage in Catherine's armies. All 
 these towns were besieged for months — in none was 
 a breach effected ; at each, the troops (in one case 
 almost mutinously) called for the assault, and all
 
 HIS ATTACKS ON TURKS AND POLES. 21 
 
 were carried; neither of the storms costing 5000 
 men, whereas eight times that number had been 
 expended in the procedures called sieges. A breach 
 is likely to be as hard to win from Turks as a wall, 
 and it is certain to be far more closely watched. 
 The siege of Acre is a study for those who cavil 
 at the storm of Ismail. 
 
 Suwarow's daring exploits, both against Turks 
 and Poles, were based on a thorough knowledge 
 of his own troops, and of the military deficiencies 
 of those people. The artillery of both was con- 
 temptible : the one religiously adhered to the 
 barbarous tactics of their ancestors, while the other 
 was a mob of noblemen too proud to be obedient 
 soldiers, or of slaves too degraded at once to be- 
 come brave ones. Rhuliere, the historian of the 
 fall of Poland, says somewhat naively of these latter, 
 *' Us ne connaissent point cette insensibilite stupide avec 
 laquelle les Russes se laissent oter leur miserable vie, 
 dont lis ne croient pas avoir la propritte ; " adding, 
 " les Russes n hesitaient jamais, quelque fut leur petit 
 nombre, a marcher au premier avis centre tout parti 
 Polonais." It requires an effort of the imagination 
 to conceive what could be rashness, under such cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 Suwarow, trusting to his Cossacks to guarantee 
 him from surprise, seldom reconnoitred, or patrolled
 
 22 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 to any great distance. Parties for either purpose, 
 he was accustomed to say, tell more by their appear- 
 ance than they learn by their observation. He had 
 a still stronger objection to parleys, or communi- 
 cations under flags of truce. " Parlementaires ! " he 
 would say contemptuously, " an Austrian receives 
 one, and while he parleys, the French cross the 
 Rhine and beat his division ; he has scarcely done 
 his parley, when he finds himself a prisoner." A 
 parley is usually an admission of weakness, or an 
 attempt to overreach. In the one case, the enemy 
 hopes to give less than he knows his antagonist can 
 take; on the other, to keep him in inaction. In 
 both, it is safer to act, than to treat. 
 
 Ridiculously enough, the slaughter attendant on 
 his successes, has been made the subject of Su- 
 warow's vituperation ; as if any but the weak or 
 treacherous would hesitate to take the most effectual 
 means against the enemies of his country. Suwarow 
 conquered Poland in two months ; it had been well 
 for that unhappy land if Repnin and Weymann had 
 done so.* " I have three ways of treating an 
 
 • Prince Repnin was ambassador at Warsaw during the pre- 
 vious protracted war, and Poland was fallen indeed, when he sur- 
 vived the outrages and insults he had heaped upon her. But none 
 are all evil. His brother, the General, being taken by the Turks, 
 was not employed again, and died broken-hearted. The Prince
 
 HIS TREATMENT OP ENEMIES. 23 
 
 enemy," he observed ; " when he meets me and we 
 are reconciled, he is my friend, my brother ; when 
 he opposes me, and capitulates he is my prisoner ; 
 when we cross swords, he dies. Thus the terror of 
 my arms diminishes the number of my enemies, 
 and one bloody battle prevents many others that 
 might be more so." 
 
 It was acknowledged by his enemies that he was 
 kind to prisoners ; that he welcomed them to his 
 table, and severely punished such of his own army 
 as ill-treated them ; but writers on Poland have 
 vilified him, because he was in that country (what 
 every soldier is liable to be) the champion of an 
 atrocious policy. We find him nicknamed Muley 
 Ismael, after a Moorish emperor of that name who 
 was a great shedder of blood, because much was shed 
 before the capture of Ismail was effected. During 
 the operations of that siege, Suwarow was so unlucky 
 as to say to his men, " Provisions are scarce, boys ; 
 yonder merry fellows are choking with them ; come 
 now, let us take the town" : and this jocular expres- 
 
 followed him to the grave, and looking for the last time on his 
 remains, he said, " No ; you shall not become dust without some 
 mark of honour " — casting on the coffin a splendid honorary 
 sword, the reward of one of his own triumphs, he continued, 
 " You were at least as worthy of it as I." This is touching, 
 hut it would not be believed in Poland.
 
 24 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 slon has not only been condensed, in Castera's his- 
 tory of Catherine, into " no quarter, provisions are 
 dear" ; but the author proceeds to charge Suwarow 
 with *' putting to the sword all the inhabitants of 
 Praga, without distinction of age or sex," adding 
 that " the barbarian entered Warsaw covered with 
 the blood of these unfortunates." The solitary truth 
 in this comprehensive passage, seems to be the fact 
 that Suwarow entered Warsaw ; which, however, he 
 did not for a week after the assault of Praga. The 
 fifteenth article of the orders for that attack, runs 
 thus: — "We must act with the greatest energy 
 against such as bear arms : but the inhabitants, the 
 men without arms, and such as ask for quarter, 
 will be spared." 
 
 Sad atrocities are committed at every storm — 
 humanity and discipline are alike forgotten on such 
 occasions by the soldiery of every nation ; but when 
 the deputation from Warsaw stood before Suwarow, 
 after the fall of Praga, confused and silent (for they 
 had to account to the Russians for the massacre of 
 their comrades), he threw down his sabre, and 
 stepping on it, clasped the nearest of them in his 
 arms, saying in Polish, — " Peace, peace : I am not 
 come to destroy you — name your terms, I will accept 
 them." An officer of his staff insists that he had 
 the bridge between Praga and Warsaw in part shot
 
 HIS EXTRY INTO WARSAW. 25 
 
 away, to prevent the sack of the capital ; but, how- 
 ever we may discredit this, it is certain that he allowed 
 the Poles to continue negociations longer than was 
 deemed advisable by his brother officers, who recom- 
 mended him to seize Potocki as an hostage. " What's 
 an hostage ijood for?" he exclaimed: "besides, it 
 would be criminal — he came here on the faith of 
 the armistice." "VThen at length conditions were 
 agreed upon, and he entered "Warsaw in triumph, on 
 the keys being presented to him, — " Almighty God," 
 he was heard to say, '* I thank thee that I have not 
 bought these keys as dearly as " he turned to- 
 wards Praga — his eyes filled with tears, and the 
 words died away upon his lips. And this was not 
 cant : w^ho was there for Suwarow to cant before ? 
 He feared no man, he braved the prejudices of the 
 great, and when he practised insinuation, it was to 
 make the lowly happy. He was uncompromising 
 and straight-forward : when he differed with men 
 he told them so ; when he despised them, he showed 
 he did so. Being called to court by Catherine, 
 people of whom he knew nothing crowded round 
 him, full of professions of sympathy and friendship ; 
 he disentangled himself from them to walk up to a 
 dirty stove-heater, and embraced him, requesting 
 his esteem and countenance. " I am on new ground 
 here," he remarked, " and they tell me every one at
 
 26 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 court may be dangerous." The Emperor Paul one 
 day sent to him Count de KutaijofF, a menial Turk 
 whom he had ennobled ; and Suwarow, turning to his 
 attendant, thus addressed him, — "Iwan, you see this 
 nobleman — he has been what you are, he is now 
 a Count, and wears orders. It is true he has been 
 near the person of our gracious Sovereign : but 
 behave well, Iwan; who knows what you may 
 come to be?" 
 
 Suwarow has been called avaricious, whereas he 
 set so little value on money that he scarcely meddled 
 with it. Colonel Sichinka, who had saved his life 
 when a private, managed his household affairs ; and 
 not only provided him with the detestable ragouts 
 before mentioned, but (much to his own advantage, 
 it is said) with " shirts to his body, horse to ride, and 
 weapon to wear." His extraordinary disinterested- 
 ness might have been no virtue, for it was no effort. 
 He accepted no lands from Catherine until after he 
 had children ; and when she was distributing favours 
 at Kresnentschouk, and asked him, " Do you want 
 nothing. General?" "Nothing, your Majesty," he 
 replied, " unless you '11 order me my lodging-money," 
 a few roubles. An officer of his staff at Warsaw, in 
 1794, having misapplied a very considerable sum of 
 money, Suwarow punished him and paid the amount. 
 " It is just," he observed, " that I answer for those
 
 HIS DISINTERESTEDNESS. 27 
 
 I employ." In 1796, he made an application to 
 Catherine, through his son-in-law ZouboiF, in favour 
 of a deserving officer. ZoubofF neglected the busi- 
 ness, and Suwarow wrote to him, — "I see my 
 request was ill-timed. I have given an estate to 
 the officer. I shall always do thus. Rich as we are 
 by the bounty of the Empress, it is but right that we 
 should share our fortune with those who serve her 
 well." On being banished, he offered to surrender a 
 large estate to Paul ; and on his recall, he sent for a 
 rich peasant with whom he often conversed, and said to 
 him, — " See the goodness of God — a little hour ago 
 I was in disgrace, now I am a chief of armies. I 
 know your friendship, and I wish you to share my 
 happiness. Lend me 100 roubles for this campaign 
 — there's no knowing what may happen, and its 
 prudent to have money by one." 
 
 Though his language was often harsh, we some- 
 times find a dignified courteousness in his style ; and 
 he was forgiving even to weakness. It is, however, 
 observable, that he treated soldiers far more kindly 
 than officers ; and among the latter, those of inferior 
 grades, generally better than those of highest rank 
 or of his own immediate staff. Contrary to custom, his 
 sympathy was bestowed most where it was most 
 wanted : and when a man's devotion to a service is 
 of the entire and exclusive nature of Suwarow's, we
 
 28 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 can hardly wonder to find him taxing that of others 
 severely, and after all, seeing nothing extraordinarily 
 meritorious in their exertions. With him, as with 
 our heroic Nelson, the simple term *' duty " was 
 equivalent to, and exacted, the utmost devotion of 
 which a man was capable ; and it is the soul of all 
 military organization, and the surest sign of a mind 
 made to elevate a nation, so to identify it. No true 
 soldier or sailor of a country ever did, or can 
 do, more than his duty. Suwarow strove, however 
 eccentrically, to impress this truth upon his people, 
 and to overlay their personal vanity, by that simple 
 and sublime abnegation of self, which has ever been 
 the singular and majestic characteristic of those few 
 armies that live in history, as perfect models of what 
 armies should be. 
 
 St. Nicholas, the tutelar saint of Russia, had no 
 more constant votary than Suwarow ; but he testi- 
 fied his respect for every phase of Christianity alike, 
 by asking the blessing of ministers of every sect, 
 when he encountered them. He could, however, 
 distinguish between the man and the function : the 
 priest of Altorf had scarcely bestowed his benedic- 
 tion, when a charge being brought against him, he 
 was sentenced to receive a dozen coups de baton. A 
 child seldom passed him but he would caress and bless 
 it ; and Duboscage mentions, that, when travelling day
 
 HIS AFFECTIONATE NATURE. 29 
 
 and night to join the army, he suddenly turned off the 
 road towards Moscow, and arriving at his hotel at mid- 
 night, knocked, and, being admitted, stole up gently, 
 with a light in his hand, to the bed where his chil- 
 dren lay. He undrew the curtains, gazed on them 
 as they slept, whispered a blessing on them as he 
 softly kissed their lips, and, drawing the curtain 
 again with the greatest care, cautiously descended 
 step by step, and throwing himself into his kabitka, 
 pursued his journey. After sitting a length of time 
 in fond and silent admiration of his daughter, the 
 Countess ZoubofF, he would start up, kiss her hand 
 again and again, and leap about the room, thanking 
 Heaven for the treasure it had given him. Although 
 separated from his wife, he regarded her as a friend, 
 and paid her all due respect. She was mistress of 
 herself, and of his fortune. But he did wrong in 
 marrying : his heart and soul were in his profession. 
 War was his element, not home. 
 
 " As if increase of appetite had grown by what it 
 fed on," his yearning after action made the consider- 
 ation of his advancing age most painful to him ; and, 
 with the ingenious sophistry so common to our na- 
 ture, he eagerly availed himself of any circumstance 
 that flattered the hope he clung to, that the time 
 when he must bid farewell to battles was still far 
 distant. He ordered Duboscaore to write a letter
 
 30 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 to Charrette, saying, " Tell him, I admire and con- 
 gratulate him. Glory to God ! glory to him ! * Bring 
 it this evening." Duboscage produced the epistle 
 that goes under Suwarow's name (though no more 
 resembling his style, than Racine's " Achille" does 
 Homer's "Achilles") and as he read, "such are the 
 wishes of a soldier grown gray in the fields of hon- 
 our," a very rapid undulation of the Field-Marshal's 
 forehead and wrinkles was perceptible at the word 
 " gray. " It was not long after, during a conversa- 
 tion with a French duke, that Suwarow squeezed 
 Duboscage's arm, and pointing to the nobleman, said, 
 " Why, look ! he has gray hairs ; and, pray, have not 
 you?" 
 
 The aversion which, from his youth, he had enter- 
 tained to looking-glasses, as an unmanly piece of fur- 
 niture, increased to perfect abhorrence when they 
 besan to exhibit the ravages that time was making 
 
 o o o 
 
 * This was a staple phrase in Suwarow's correspondence ; ex. 
 gr.: — Despatch to RomanzoflF — 
 
 " Glory to God— glory to thee; 
 Tourtakaye's taken, and taken by me." 
 Despatch to the Empress — 
 
 " Islawa Boga, Islawa wam ! 
 Ismail wsjat ; Suwarow tam !" 
 Anglicc: — 
 
 " Glory to God — glory to thee ; 
 Ismail is taken ; Suwarow is there I "
 
 HIS WHIMSICALITIES. 31 
 
 on his person ; and if he chanced to come unexpect- 
 edly upon one, he would shut his eyes, make hideous 
 faces, and canter out of the room. To prove to those 
 about him how little time had affected his hardihood, 
 he frequently delivered long and somewhat unintelli- 
 gible harangues to troops in the very coldest weather, 
 and the incessant coughing and sneezing consequent 
 on his eloquence, was perfect music to him. 
 
 Segur tells us, that, on his appointment to the 
 rank of Field-Marshal, his uniform was placed on the 
 altar of the cathedral at Warsaw, and as many chairs 
 ranged up the aisle as there had been generals above 
 him ; when, as if to show at once what he had done 
 and what he could do, he entered the aisle at a run, 
 jumped over chair after chair, and having deliberately 
 arrayed himself in his new uniform, joined most de- 
 voutly in the " Te Deum" that was chanted. It was 
 on this occasion that Catherine wrote to him, — "You 
 know I promote no one out of his turn : I am inca- 
 pable of doing any such injustice to my old officers ; 
 but it is you who have made yourself a Field- Mar- 
 shal, by having conquered Poland." 
 
 Amongst his other whimsicalities, he entertained an 
 idea that nothing ought to disturb a man's — and espe- 
 cially a soldier's — self-possession; and, in consequence, 
 he asked the most abrupt and extravagant ques- 
 tions, to try the presence of mind of strangers. Ac-
 
 32 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 cording to Duboscage, he sometimes amused himself 
 with telling fortunes, and amongst others, his (D.'s) 
 in these words : — Peter, son of Gabriel, no great 
 event will agitate thy destiny : thy life will be calm 
 and tranquil"; the fulfilment of which prediction 
 seems to have astonished the marquis more than it is 
 likely to do those who read his memoir. 
 
 Suwarow's extravagances were remarkable among 
 a people with whom buffoonery was a fashion. How- 
 ever it may be ridiculed, a character for eccentricity 
 has its advantages, and is commonly allied to a degree 
 of cunning, sagacious enough to appreciate them. 
 There are a thousand difficulties to be removed with 
 care and circumspection by the generality, which the 
 eccentric man may overleap or disregard ; and there 
 is nothing incompatible with the possession of such 
 military qualities as Suwarow's (which include no 
 high intellectual gift) and the degree of eccentricity 
 he associated with them. Some, however, assume 
 for the Field-Marshal a lofty position, and assert that 
 his singularities, in their design and effect, do honour 
 to his sagacity and perseverance. Military employ- 
 ment, as they contend, was his object, and he was 
 aware how much these oddities make men known and 
 talked of. Having neither figure nor inclination to 
 rise by the intrigues, amatory or political, that made 
 men great in Russia, he laboured to acquire the
 
 SUMMARY OF HIS CHARACTER. 33 
 
 character of so brave and able an officer, that all would 
 find him useful, and so eccentric a one that none 
 would deem him dangerous. If such were his design, 
 his success was most complete, and his contempora- 
 ries relate, that his name occurred as a natural and 
 inevitable association, whenever a daring measure 
 was contemplated at St. Petersburg. Whether or 
 not his extravagances were originally assumed from 
 80 admirable a motive, the essential excellences of his 
 mind and character are undeniable. The impressive 
 unity of a cathedral is the same, though the eye may 
 rest for a moment on a grotesque corbeille, or occa- 
 sionally shrink from dwelling on groups still less in 
 keeping with the majestic ensemble of the structure. 
 Devotion to his country's service is man's noblest 
 duty, and never was such devotion more earnest and 
 indefatigable than Suwarow's. 
 
 In addition to the military qualities of first-rate 
 courage, enterprise, sagacity, coup d'oeil, decision, 
 perseverance, and the master-power of stimulating 
 to their highest stretch, these qualities in others, 
 which gained him the imperishable fame of a prac- 
 tical and distinguished General who never knew 
 defeat, Suwarow possessed, together with his ardent 
 and irritable zeal, a degree of self-command and a 
 self-sacrificing sense of duty, rarely found in men 
 accustomed to command. He was a keen observer, 
 
 D
 
 34 A SKETCH OF SUWAROW. 
 
 and most accurate appreciator of men, always endea- 
 vouring to make them talk on what they were sup- 
 posed to know best. His reading, both historical 
 and military, was extensive : he spoke six languages, 
 and read four others. However neglectful of the 
 elegancies of life, no one was more observant of its 
 duties. He despised wealth and disregarded plea- 
 sure ; and, amid the moral and political profligacy 
 that disgraced his country, we look in vain for a 
 single fact that impugns the honour, the probity, the 
 disinterestedness or the loyalty of this extraordinary 
 man.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 o • • SuwAROW, having; received the rank 
 
 Suwarow joins ' c 
 
 the army. ^f Field- Marshal in the Austrian 
 armj, and the Emperor's instructions regarding 
 his operations, quitted Vienna, after a solemn invo- 
 cation of the Divine assistance in the cathedral of 
 St. Stephen. At Villach, he overtook his country- 
 men, marching by an Austrian route from St. 
 Polten, which they had left on the 12th March, 
 doing fifty-one German miles in twenty-six days. 
 He altered this, and they did the remaining fifty-two 
 miles to Verona in ten. He reached Verona on the 
 9th April, and as its garrison defiled before him, he 
 exclaimed, " Oh ! their step is good. Victory ! vic- 
 tory ! " At the palace prepared for him, the mirrors 
 were ordered out, and straw was ordered in; he 
 received the compliments of the municipality, and 
 the blessing of the Bishop, issued a stirring procla-
 
 36 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 raation to the Italians, promising the protection of 
 God and the victorious Imperial armies to the well- 
 conducted, and a musket-ball and confiscation of pro- 
 perty to the supporters of the Frencli republic ; and 
 on the morning of the 15th, set out for the Austrian 
 head-quarters near Valeggio. On meeting General 
 Kray, he said, " It is to you, sir, I shall owe the 
 success I hope to meet : you have shown me the 
 way to victory." 
 
 g , ,. The seizure of Piedmont, Switzer- 
 
 *^°°- land, and the Papal territories by the 
 
 unprincipled French government in 1798, justi- 
 fied, if it did not excite, the second coalition against 
 France, of which England, Austria, Russia, Naples 
 and Turkey, were the members ; but the king of 
 Naples, prematurely commencing hostilities, was 
 driven from his Italian dominions, before the migh- 
 tier continental powers had drawn the sword. Early 
 in 1799, the Archduke Charles in Bavaria, Belle- 
 garde in the Tyrol, and Kray on the Adige, with 
 the armies under their command, amounting to near 
 200,000 men, awaited the arrival of Suwarow and 
 the Russians, to march upon the French. But the 
 Directory, ill prepared for the struggle they had pro- 
 voked, in the hope of striking a decisive blow before 
 the junction of the Allies, declared war in March, 
 and pushed forward Jourdan in Germany, Massena
 
 ADVANCE OF THE ALLIES. 37 
 
 in Switzerland, and Scherer in Italy, all with forces 
 inferior to those of their enemies. After much 
 preliminary fighting, with various success, the 
 republicans were defeated at Stockach in Germany, 
 at Feldkirch in Switzerland, and at Magnano in 
 Italy. When Suwarow with 22,000 Russians, 
 reached the seat of war, Massena, into whose army 
 Jourdan's had merged after its defeat, defended the 
 Rhine from Basle to the Engadine, against the 
 Archduke and Bellegarde; while in Italy, Scherer 
 was falling back on the Oglio, his troops reduced 
 below 30,000 by their losses, and the garrisons 
 thrown into Mantua, Peschiera, and Brescia. A 
 division of 6,000 men, under Gauthier, occupied 
 Tuscany ; three times that number were scattered 
 throughout Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria ; while 
 the army of Naples under Macdonald, 30,000 strong, 
 had received instructions to prepare itself to march 
 upon the Po. 
 
 , , On the 17th April, the first, and 
 
 theAlUes. on the 18th, the second of two Rus- 
 sian divisions, each near 10,000 strong, with six 
 regiments of Cossacks, joined the Austrians ; and 
 Chastelar, the chief of the staff, proposed a recon- 
 naissance preparatory to their advance. " No, no ! 
 no reconnoitring," answered Suwarow, " I want no 
 reconnoitring. It is only useful to the timid, to tell
 
 38 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 the enemy they are coming. One always finds the 
 enemy when one wishes. Columns — the bayonet — 
 the naked steel — attack — dash through ! That's 
 my reconnoitring ! " " An answer," says Jomini, 
 "in which many see an empty boast, but which 
 exhibits, more than is thought, the true genius of 
 war."* On the 19th April, the army advanced to 
 the Chiese, and on the 20th (Ferrara, Peschiera and 
 Mantua being blockaded) broke up from that river ; 
 the right under Kray, advancing on Brescia, the left 
 under Melas, on Chiari, while detached corps under 
 Wuckassovich, towards the mountains, and Hohen- 
 
 * " For instance, to apply this answer to the position of the 
 Oglio, is it not to say in other words, ' The French are behind 
 the OgUo, either scattered along its course, or massed at the most 
 advantageous point.' Well ! what matter ? Let us make our 
 main effort on a point conforming to strategic rule, and be satis- 
 fied with a strong demonstration on the rest of the line. If we 
 find the enemy scattered, the demonstration will keep him so, 
 and the mass will crush him. If, on the contrary, we find him 
 massed in face of our main attack, the demonstration will act on 
 its side, and become a column of manoeuvre to take the enemy 
 in flank. Here the decisive point is at Soncino, or at Ponterico ; 
 because, successful there, we should have turned everything 
 posted along the saillant of the lower Oglio, and could drive it 
 into the Po. It is there then that we should direct our attack, 
 and break through the enemy." — Jomini. This note is copied 
 for its intrinsic excellence, rather than as a paraphrase of 
 Suwarow's words.
 
 HIS LETTER TO MELAS. 39 
 
 zollern on the lower Oglio, threatened the flanks of 
 Scherer's army. Kray gallantly blew open the gate, 
 and carrying the town of Brescia, prepared to esca- 
 lade its citadel; which surrendered, with a garrison 
 of 1200 men, on the 21st. Melas, delayed by bad 
 roads and swollen streams, halted on the Malla. 
 Suwarow wrote to him, " I hear people complain 
 that the infantry have had their feet wet. It was 
 the fault of the weather. The march was ordered 
 for the service of the Emperor. Women, coxcombs 
 and idlers alone require fine weather. Your chat- 
 terers who grumble at their sovereign's service, 
 must be treated henceforth as egotists, and put out 
 of command. Operations once resolved on, must be 
 carried out without a moment's loss, that the enemy 
 may not have time to recollect himself. Those who 
 have bad health, may stay in the rear. Italy must 
 be delivered from the yoke of Atheists and French- 
 men. Every brave officer ought to sacrifice himself 
 to effect this. Reasoners cannot be tolerated in any 
 army. Coup d'oeil, quickness and vigour are what 
 we want just now." 
 
 Suwarow immediately pushed his head-quarters 
 beyond Brescia, his advance attacked the bridge of 
 Pallazuolo ;- and Wuckassovich, descending to turn 
 the upper Oglio by Lovere, the main body of the 
 French fell back, and was withdrawn over the Adda.
 
 40 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 The weather had been severe, and it was the 24th 
 April before the allied army had crossed the Oglio ; 
 their right moving on Bergamo, their left on Trivul- 
 gio. Hohenzollern's force entered Cremona on the 
 following day, after some resistance. Almost simul- 
 taneously Bergamo surrendered, after a sharp en- 
 counter ; and the Allies approached the Adda, in 
 three masses, opposite Lecco, Vaprio, and Cassano ; 
 head-quarters on the 25th being at Trivulgio. The 
 siege of Peschiera and the blockade of Mantua were 
 entrusted to General Kray, who remained behind 
 with 20,000 men. 
 
 „ e^i. At this iuncture Scherer had re- 
 
 Passage of the -^ 
 
 Adda. signed to Moreau the command of the 
 
 French army, when barely numbering 28,000 
 men ; it was stretched behind the Adda from Lecco 
 to the Po. All the bridges had been destroyed but 
 four. The left of the army under Serrurier, held 
 that of Lecco ; Grenier and Victor from the neigh- 
 bourhood of Inzago (head-quarters), supported the 
 defenders of those of Cassano and Lodi ; while the 
 extreme right under La Boissiere held Pizzighettone 
 and the tete-du-pont of Gera, having detachments at 
 Pusterlengo and Placentia. The Adda is deep and 
 very rapid, the fall between Lecco and Trezzo 
 (little more than twenty miles), being near 260 feet. 
 From the lake to Cassano, the right bank commands
 
 PASSAGE OF THE ADDA. 41 
 
 the left, and artificial water-courses, especially in 
 front of Cassano, add to its defensibility. On the 
 26th, the Allies 50,000 strong, prepared to cross. 
 Demonstrations were made during the day on 
 various points ; by the extreme right, on Lecco, in 
 such strength as to lead to a serious action between 
 the French and Russians, in which the Cossacks 
 highly distinguished themselves on foot as tirailleurs, 
 previous to the arrival of the infantry ;* and towards 
 evening, two central columns closely approached the 
 river, the one near Brivio, the other some miles 
 lower. Their orders were to establish bridges, and 
 having passed over, to descend the stream, rein- 
 forcing themselves with the other divisions as they 
 crossed, or turning the enemy who disputed their 
 passage. 
 
 The left under Melas was to attack Cassano on 
 the followino- morning. From Brivio to Cassano is 
 a short march. The allied right centre surprised a 
 
 • This is noticed as exhibiting these wild warriors as a more 
 available force than we generally suppose them to be ; and there 
 is a similar and very striking instance of their effective employ- 
 ment, as infantry, in Varnhagen Von Ense's spirited account of 
 Tettenborn's defeat of General Morand ; the latter having 2,500 
 regular infantry, and Tettenborn not a soldier of that arm — 
 all the work pertaining to it (which was far from trifling) 
 having been gloriously carried out by these dismounted horse- 
 men.
 
 42 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 passage at Brivio, repairing the ruined bridge, and 
 driving such of Serrurier's people as they encoun- 
 tered, towards Lecco. The greater part of that 
 General's division had marched with him on Vaprio, 
 attracted there by the movements of the Allies ; but 
 hearing of the threatening aspect of affairs towards 
 Brivio and Lecco, they countermarched, leaving a 
 battalion at Trezzo, and the whole disposable French 
 force was directed towards the left. 
 
 But their game was already all but lost. During 
 the night, the allied centre, under Generals Ott and 
 Zoph, had fixed a bridge near Trezzo, and were 
 rapidly passing over their troops ; the battalion left 
 by Serrurier (which, trusting to the inclemency of 
 the weather and the rapidity of the stream, had 
 neglected its duty), being driven in confusion to- 
 wards Vaprio. Here, early in the morning, Gre- 
 nier's division arrived, and rallying the fugitives, 
 vigorously attacked the Austrians; wlio formed to 
 face him, with their left upon th*e river, covering the 
 road which led from their bridge at Trezzo. While 
 the affair was warmly contested, a part of Victor's 
 division readied the ground and fell on the exposed 
 right flank of the Allies. A sanguinary struggle 
 followed, and success seemed doubtful, till the 
 numerous reinforcements successively crossing the 
 stream, became too much for the French ; and by a
 
 DEFEAT OF THE FRENCH. 43 
 
 gallant and simultaneous advance with the bayonet, 
 headed by the Quarter-Master-General Chasteler, 
 they were driven beyond Vaprio and Inzago; the 
 latter village being carried by the Austrian General 
 Ott, after a desperate hand to hand melee, in which 
 Suwarow states that at one moment Moreau was 
 actually taken by the allied Hussars, though sub- 
 sequently rescued. 
 
 Melas had attacked the canal and entrenchments 
 in front of Cassano at seven in the morning, and this 
 strong ground was resolutely defended ; at length 
 the canal was passed under a heavy fire, and the 
 advanced batteries being carried, the conflict re- 
 commenced at the tete-du-pont of Cassano. It was 
 four o'clock, and great confusion was already percep- 
 tible in their rear, as fugitives and wounded came 
 away from the Vaprio fight, before the French set 
 fire to the bridge, and abandoned Cassano. The 
 bridge was soon repaired ; the French line, pierced 
 on three points, fell back on Como, Milan, Melig- 
 nano, and Placentia, and the allied centre and left 
 halted for the night on the field of battle, head- 
 quarters being at Gorgonzola. General Serrurier, 
 finding the Allies had passed the river at Brivio in 
 the direction of his march, and again at Trezzo in 
 the direction he had left, became confused, and took 
 up a position at Verderio. Next day (28th) he
 
 44 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 found himself surrounded by Generals Wuckasso- 
 vich and Rosenberg, and after a gallant resistance 
 was forced to surrender, with 3,000 men. Moreau 
 — having lost a third of his army, with the Generals 
 Serrurier, Fressier, and Becker, twenty-two guns, 
 and a colour, — fell back on the Ticino, and Suwarow 
 made his triumphal entry into Milan on the 29th, 
 the tenth day only since his array broke up from 
 the Chiese. " I come," he said to the Archbishop, 
 " to restore Religion and the Pope, and to renew in 
 the people the respect they owe to their rulers : your 
 office should incline you to assist me ;" and when, in 
 a solemn ceremony at the Duomo, this dignitary 
 turned to Suwarow with the words " Great chief, 
 may the Almighty bless your entrance into our 
 city," he replied aloud in Italian " Rather pray that 
 God may aid me to defend your temples and your 
 monarch's throne." To the deputies from the city 
 he observed, — " I am gratified by your reception : I 
 hope the sentiments of your hearts correspond with 
 those you have expressed." A violent political re- 
 action broke out at Milan, and the partizans of 
 France owed their lives to the protection aiforded 
 them by Suwarow. " Where shall you retire to? " 
 he asked Serrurier at dinner. " To Paris," he 
 replied. " Oh ! then I shall meet you there " ; "I 
 hope so," answered the republican. Suwarow wrote
 
 MILITARY COMMENT. 45 
 
 to the Emperor Francis — " Your Majesty's soldiers 
 behave like heroes, and the Russians like Austrians." 
 And to his own sovereign — " Your troops never 
 give way, and are but too happy to obey your orders 
 in annihilating this ridiculous system of liberty and 
 equality. 
 
 Napoleon is made to observe (in 
 
 Remarks on 
 
 the foregoing Sir W. Scott's life of him) that " the 
 
 operations. 
 
 passage of a river is one of the 
 most critical operations in modern war," while he 
 writes to the Directory "jamais depuis que Tldstoire 
 nous retrace des operations militaii'es, une riviere n^a 
 pu etre un obstacle reeV This apparent contradiction 
 involves no real one. From the difficulty of pass- 
 ing a river by open force, secresy is, or should be 
 observed, in preparing for it ; this most commonly 
 precludes the possibility of the inferior army which 
 has to guard its whole course, acting with effect 
 upon any one point, before the assailant shall have 
 established himself. But the passage of a river 
 becomes a most critical operation, both when a 
 General crosses it in front of his enemy's stronger 
 mass, as Napoleon did at Aspern, and when its 
 rapidity and localities enable the defendant to render 
 its few available points tenable, till he can sup- 
 port them with his masses, as Vendome did in his 
 defence of this very Adda against Prince Eugene
 
 46 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 in 1705. At each and every point where Suwarow 
 succeeded, that illustrious leader was baffled. On 
 the 10th August, before he could fix a bridge at 
 Trezzo, Vendome anticipated him, and again higher 
 up the river on the 14th. He expected, two days 
 after, to carry Cassano, before it could be supported ; 
 but he was repulsed, and finally fell back to winter 
 quarters on the Adige. 
 
 Some writers say that Moreau endeavoured to 
 defend the Adda that Dessoles and Gauthier might 
 join him from Switzerland and Tuscany ; but it is 
 known that in a previous council of war, he had 
 already strenuously recommended a retreat on Pied- 
 mont — that Montrichard had been passed over the 
 Po with a detachment of Scherer's army, to co- 
 operate with Gauthier on the right of the river, and 
 that the allied attack was simultaneous with Mo- 
 reau's assumption of the command. Whoever is 
 responsible for it, the dissemination of 28,000 men, 
 along a line of twenty-four leagues, rendered the de- 
 fence of the Adda almost hopeless before 50,000, two- 
 thirds of whom could have been united on any point 
 of the ground they covered, by a single march ; but 
 the secresy, promptitude, and energy of the Allies 
 are not the less exemplary. The completion of the 
 bridge at Trezzo, in spite of difficulties which the 
 French believed, and the Austrian pontoneers de-
 
 COMMENT OF PRINCE DE LIGNE. 47 
 
 clared to be insurmountable, did them the highest 
 honour. " Scribentismus" might possibly object to 
 the determined assaults made on the strong post of 
 Cassano, and urge that had these attacks been 
 merely serious enough to occupy the French while 
 the bulk of the allied army passed the Adda at 
 Trezzo and Brivio, Cassano would have been won at 
 infinitely less cost, and probably with the destruction 
 or captivity of its defenders. 
 
 " There are circumstances," says Jomini, "in which 
 to attack an enemy on all points is to do him service ; 
 because he is thus forced to abandon posts where he 
 would be surrounded, if he were let alone." It is 
 more difficult to understand why the small and beaten 
 army of the French, hurrying from the field in three, 
 if not four, eccentric directions, was not vigorously 
 pursued. The case was one to which the comments 
 of the lively Prince de Ligne are almost applicable ; 
 " It will be said," observes the Prince, " as an excuse 
 by those who have won the battle, that they are as 
 tired as they who have lost it ; that their Generals are 
 wounded. Who wants Generals ? Give a good horse 
 to the first Lieutenant of Croats you meet ; let him 
 cry, * Long live Joseph II.!' and carry along with 
 him the crowd of willing fellows whom the love of 
 booty will bring around him. But there must be 
 order, it will be said. There is no more need of it.
 
 48 StJWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 It would seem there has been order, because the battle 
 is won ; and it would seem there is no longer order in 
 the enemy's army, because the battle is lost. Sup- 
 posing both out of order, the odds are surely against 
 those who turn their backs." 
 
 But Suwarow had neither temptation nor need to 
 profit by the Prince's tactics, he having, at the Adda, 
 near 7,000 of the finest cavalry in Europe, the greater 
 part of whom had not drawn a sabre in the battle. 
 Nor is this the only instance in which we have to won- 
 der at his curious disregard of that profitable duty of a 
 General — a vigorous pursuit of a thoroughly beaten 
 enemy. It is, however, unquestionable that a victo- 
 rious army after a battle is often in a state of momen- 
 tary disorganization, which renders it more difficult 
 than it may seem to a critic at his writing-desk, to 
 detach a compact body of troops from the field. Even 
 Napoleon, who, in the talent of largely profiting by 
 success, bears the palm amongst warriors, was seldom 
 able to pursue a beaten Russian army with any great 
 effect ; and it may, moreover, be urged, that Suwa- 
 row's right wing was absent from the battle-field, and 
 that the infantry of his left and centre had had hard 
 work. Still, he had his noble cavalry in hand; and, 
 odd as it may sound, the conjecture forces itself upon 
 one, that Suwarow's interest in his enemy declined 
 the moment that enemy ceased to hold a formidable
 
 CONDUCT OF SERRURIEE. 49 
 
 attitude, and that he almost despised the gathering 
 in of the glorious harvest he so loved to reap. At 
 the Trebbia and St. Gothard only do we find his 
 practice and theory in accord on this important point. 
 Serrurier's halt at Verderio is the more unaccount- 
 able, as it was an established and admirable custom 
 among the revolutionary Generals, if at a loss for 
 orders, to march wherever they heard the fire of can- 
 non. He knew the Russians had crossed at Brivio ; 
 the firing must have told him that a passage was 
 forced or contested towards Vaprio ; to remain sta- 
 tionary was the very worst he could do.* Every- 
 thing lost in war may be recovered or renewed, but 
 time. His conduct, in this instance, recalls Buona- 
 parte's opinion of him, given to the Directory in 
 1796 ; " Serrurier se hat en soldat — ne prend rien 
 sur lui — ferme — na pas assez bonne opinion de ses 
 troupes — est maladeJ" That part of his division 
 which maintained itself at Lecco, after occupying 
 the Russians so as to prevent their descending the 
 right bank of the river on the 27th, finding itself 
 altogether cut off from the army, blew up the works 
 it had defended, embarked on the lake and landing at 
 
 * " La resolutiou est la premifere qualite dans un General. 
 Aussi le plus mauvais parti que Ton puisse prendre a la guerre, 
 est il presque toujours de n'en prendre aucun." — Philosophie 
 de la G uerre. 
 
 E
 
 50 SUWAROVS LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Menaggioj crossed the hill to Porlezza, and rejoined 
 Moreau on the Ticino ; thus exhibiting a glorious and 
 palpable contrast to the indecision of their General. 
 Colonel Loyez and Captain Letort have the honour 
 of this soldierlike proceeding. Such examples can- 
 not be too indelibly impressed on officers of the 
 lower ranks : disasters offer them their noblest op- 
 portunities. 
 
 Moreau occu- The strongest body of the French 
 pies the posi- ^rmy, under Victor and La Boissiere, 
 
 tion 01 ban ." ' 
 
 Salvaclore. f^jj j^^^^j^ j^^ ^Y\e Pavia and Vigevano 
 roads, on Alexandria; the troops from Lodi and 
 Pizzighettone, under Lemoine, by Placentia on Tor- 
 tona ; while Moreau, with a part of Grenier's 
 division, hurried, by Novara, to Turin, to provide for 
 the defence of that city. He wrote to press the ad- 
 vance of the army of Naples, directed Perignon to 
 secure the passes into Liguria, and on the 7 th INIay, 
 having completed his arrangements, rejoined his col- 
 lected little army of 20,000 men, in a masterly position 
 behind the confluence of the Po and the Tanaro ; 
 saying, as palpably as one who "speaks though he 
 says nothing" could do, to the numerous army of 
 his enemy, "Come on, if you dare." The rivers 
 alike covered his front and flanks, the right of which 
 rested on the citadel of Alexandria, and the left 
 on Valenza, the centre occupying the high ground of
 
 POSITION OF THE FRENCH. 51 
 
 San Salvaclore. In his rear, Casale was garrisoned, 
 and the rloht bank of the Po, which even to Turin 
 commands the left, watched by small detachments. 
 The French army thus formed the base of a nearly 
 equilateral triangle, of which the rivers were the 
 sides, barely occupying four leagues from right to 
 left. It covered the roads to Turin by Asti, and to 
 Genoa by Acqui and Savona, and could, by a single 
 march, have placed itself across the Po or Boi'mida, 
 on the flank of an enemy threatening either Turin or 
 Genoa. 
 
 Suwarow'spro- Mr. Alison states that Suwarow, 
 ngs. jj £^^ above a week, gave himself up 
 to festivities at Milan ;" but this is utterly at 
 variance with the dates of his orders and his letters, 
 by which he is shown to have resumed operations on 
 the 1st May, on which day his head-quarters were 
 transferred to Lodi. Wuckassovich with seven batta- 
 lions and cavalry, on the Novara road, covered the 
 siege of the citadel of Milan under Lattermann ; Avhile 
 the main army, on the 1st and 2nd May, moved in 
 two columns to the Po, opposite to Castel San 
 Giovanni and Placentia — head-quarters being suc- 
 cessively at Lodi and Pasterlengo. Suwarow's 
 object in this movement was to have crossed the 
 Po to fight Macdonald, and after beating him, to 
 recross tlie river to Pavia, and thence march on
 
 52 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Turin by Trlno and Chivasso, leaving Tortona to 
 be invested by Kray, when he should have taken 
 Peschiera and Mantua ; but having ascertained that 
 Macdonald's army was still far distant, and having 
 likewise heard from Wuckassovich that nothing 
 hostile was in force near the Ticino, he on the 4th 
 directed the latter officer to clear the country to the 
 north of the Po by Vercelli and Mortara, and to 
 push his posts to Trino and Santhia above and below 
 Casale, and marched himself with the main array on 
 Pavia. Here he changed his plan and divided his 
 force, moving Bagration's advance guard and the 
 Austrian divisions of Zoph and Frohlich across the 
 Po, and directing Rosenberg with two Russian 
 divisions, on Lomello, to threaten Valenza and com- 
 municate with Wuckassovich. Generals Ott and 
 Klenau had been detached by Placentia, to push 
 back Montrichard and to occupy the rich corn 
 countries of Parma and Ferrara, communicating 
 across the Po with Kray ; who with 20,000 men 
 besieged Peschiera and blockaded Mantua. Suwai'ow, 
 accompanying the left portion of his army, was at 
 Voghera on the 7th, and Bagration and Karacsay 
 having blown open the gate, and carried the town of 
 Tortona with the bayonet on the 9th (the enemy 
 retiring to its citadel) ; this place became head- 
 quarters on the 10th.
 
 HIS PLAN OF OPERATIONS. 53 
 
 Suwarow was, however, now aware of Moreau's 
 threatening position; and on the day he entered 
 Tortona, his troops forded the Scrivia breast high 
 (the stream being too rapid to fix a pontoon bridge), 
 to close upon the Bormida and Tanaro, and face 
 their enemy. While ignorant of Moreau's inten- 
 tions, and informed that Valenza was abandoned, or 
 but slightly occupied, he had, on the 7th and 9th, 
 instructed Rosenberg to send General Tschubaroff 
 with four battalions, a regiment of Cossacks, and 
 two squadrons of dragoons, to take possession of 
 Valenza and to push his posts on Alexandria and 
 Casale ; but now these orders were necessarily 
 countermanded, and on the 11th, Suwarow wrote to 
 Rosenberg : " We will leave Valenza to the future. 
 Call in Tschubaroff; which you will have already 
 done, if necessary. Make all haste by day and night 
 to join us near Tortona." Unfortunately, however, 
 after a fruitless attempt to pass the Po on the 11th, 
 General Tschubaroff, by swimming over his Cossacks, 
 and seizing a ferry-boat, had succeeded early in the 
 morning of the 12th, in effecting a passage near 
 Busignauo ; and Rosenberg's zeal led him to support 
 and follow him. They were marching on the French 
 out-posts when the order of recall arrived, and either 
 supposing themselves too far committed to get away 
 without a fight, or looking to success to palliate their
 
 54 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 disobedience, fell on the people before them, and the 
 division of Grenier as it arrived to their support, 
 with such determined energy, that they were winning 
 rapidly ; when Victor's whole division (which Moreau, 
 apprehensive of other attacks, had for a time held 
 back) joined in the action, and turning the Russians 
 on both flanks, compelled them to form square and 
 fight their way back to the river, with the loss of half 
 their number, including General TschubarofF killed 
 or wounded. 
 
 Suwarow, in his order to the army of the 14th, 
 thus bitterly comments on this transaction : " No one 
 can judge rightly of circumstances but upon the spot. 
 There the hourly vicissitudes of their course can be 
 ascertained and provided for, according to the rules 
 of war. Report had stated that Valenza was evacu- 
 ated or only weakly held. This report was false. 
 Orders were sent to the Russian troops in that 
 neighbourhood to unite with the army, but these 
 orders only reached them when a portion of their 
 advanced -guard had passed from Borgo Franco to 
 the first island in the Po. It was not enough that 
 these people did not immediately return, but the 
 rest of the corps, disobeying the orders, continued 
 the passage by a single ferry and by means of boats. 
 Without foresiglit — as if bereft of reason — the batta- 
 ions first over, fell upon the enemy's out-posts.
 
 RETREAT OF MOREAU. 55 
 
 without considering that the troops following them 
 could scarcely pass at the rate of a battalion in an 
 hour and a half, &c." After praising the gallantry 
 of the troops, he concludes ; " Demonstrations are 
 puerilities — generally useless, always fatiguing to the 
 troops, and often mischievous. For the rest, a court- 
 martial shall decide." On hearing of the passage, 
 Suwarow ordered it to be supported, and moved a 
 division to make a diversion in its favour; but all 
 was fruitless, and nothing followed these disjointed 
 efforts, but the arrival in camp of General Forster's 
 Russian division, and a countermand to Rosenberg, 
 bidding him stand fast at Lomello, until the 16th; 
 
 Suwarow when Suwarow, reverting to his original 
 
 moves on Turin. • , .• n • rn • i ,i 
 
 intention or moving on iunn by the 
 
 north of the Po, ordered the divisions with him to 
 move in succession to their right, to cross that river, 
 and Wuckassovlch to threaten Casale. 
 
 A general insurrection against the French, excited 
 by Suwarovv's proclamations, now existed through- 
 out Piedmont ; and not only was Moreau's communi- 
 cation with France entirely interrupted by it, but 
 his park at AstI had been vigorously attacked by a 
 crowd of Piedmontese Insurgents, calling themselves 
 the " Christian mass." Uneasy at these circumstances, 
 and at the perfect lull which had followed the action 
 of the 12th on the side of the Allies, he determined
 
 56 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 to ascertain whether the latter remained in force 
 between the Bormida and the Scrivia, or whether 
 the route to Genoa by Novi was open to him ; and 
 accordingly, on the 16th, crossing the Bormida with 
 8,000 or 10,000 men, he attacked the troops at Maren- 
 go and San Giuliano as they were preparing to move 
 towards the Po. General Lusignan distinguished 
 himself greatly in resisting the French, but they 
 were gaining ground, when Bagration's force, march- 
 ing from Novi in compliance with the orders issued 
 to pass the Po, appeared upon their right flank, and 
 with the reinforcements which the firing had brought 
 to the Austrians from the neighbouring camp, assailed 
 them so fiercely that they fell back in the greatest 
 disorder to the bridge over the Bormida, with the 
 loss of full 2,000 men. Learning nothing by this 
 reconnaissance but the strength of his enemy on this 
 side, finding himself seriously threatened towards 
 Casale and Valenza, and beset on all sides by insur- 
 gents, Moreau determined on retreat. Having des- 
 patched Victor with ten battalions to Acqui and 
 Savona on Genoa, whence he was to join the army 
 of Naples, he marched on the 18th May to Asti, and 
 in twenty-four hours his advance was at Moncaglieri 
 south of Turin, on the road thence to Liguria. Here 
 he learned that the insurgents had gained possession of 
 Ceva and Mondovi, both towns (the former a strong
 
 RETREAT OF MOREAU. 57 
 
 fortress) blocking up the best line of his further re- 
 treat. An officer with four battalions was despatched 
 to recapture them ; the heavy artillery was sent to 
 Fenestrelles with an escort of 2,000 men, who were to 
 rejoin Moreau near ConI ; while another detachment 
 had to protect from the insurgents the interminable 
 convoy of Italian plunder which happened at this 
 moment to be passing into France. Mondovi Avas 
 taken, but abandoned by the officer in command, 
 on a report that the Austrians were approaching. 
 Grouchy superseded him, and again took Mondovi, 
 but failed in all his efforts to recover Ceva; into 
 which an Austrian detachment from Tortona, under 
 Captain Schmelzer, had thrown itself and maintained 
 it gallantly. 
 
 In this perplexity Moreau, who had marched on 
 Coni and provided for its defence, unwilling to retire 
 by the Col di Tende, and yet desirous to keep his 
 field artillery with him, ordered a reconnaissance 
 of the mountains towards Garessio, to see if a way 
 could be made there, so as to turn Ceva and regain 
 the highroad beyond it. All the reports declared the 
 impracticability of cutting a passage for artillery, 
 except that of the Aide-de-camp Guilleminot, which 
 pronounced that 2,000 workmen would effect it in 
 three days. The road was made — the army working 
 day and night, and on the 7th June, every gun and
 
 58 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 man, passing by Garessio and Ormea, were safe in 
 Llgurla, in spite of the "Christian mass" on one side 
 the mountains, and the insurgents of Oneglia on the 
 other. Casale had already been carried by Wuckas- 
 sovich, when Moreau's retreat, delivering Valenza to 
 the Allies, they occupied it, and on the 21st entered 
 Alexandria and blockaded its citadel. The divisions 
 on the south of the Po continued to cross that river 
 after the action of the 16th, and the army moved in 
 two columns on Turin. 
 
 Owing to the weather and the swollen streams, it 
 was the 26th before the army approached the city, 
 and on the following day the excited people rose 
 upon the French and opened the gates to the Allies, 
 who speedily drove the enemy into the citadel, 
 which was immediately invested. Above 300 pieces 
 of artillery, with immense supplies of all kinds were 
 found in Turin, where 4,000 Piedmontese soldiers 
 abandoned the republican colours and joined Count 
 Latour, to whom Suwarow had entrusted the reorga- 
 nization of their army.* Columns were directed up 
 
 * Though the barefaced brigandage and impudent fallacies of 
 French rule and fraternity in Italy had prepared its people for 
 the general rising, which, from Calabria to the Alps, occurred on 
 the appearance of the Allies, the energetic insurrection in Pied- 
 mont was more immediately due to Suwarow's proclamations, 
 promising the restoration of their monarch and their former
 
 THE PIEDMONTESE ARMY. 59 
 
 the Alpine passes on Pignerol, Susa, Fenestrelles, 
 and Aosta ; the two former posts were carried, and 
 Bagration's Dragoons pursued fugitives to the fron- 
 
 government. In fulfilment of this promise, and for the interest 
 of the common cause, he immediately proceeded to reorganise 
 the Piedmontese army and militia, by which the Allies would 
 have gained an accession of 30,000 good troops, and a local 
 force equal to the duties of the country. But Austrian policy 
 at once put a stop to this. On the 17th May, the Emperor 
 Francis expressed to him his entire disapprobation of his pro- 
 ceedings ; declaring he would admit of no government but his 
 own in the conquered countries, which he would send a Civil 
 Commissioner to administrate, and forbidding the reorganisation 
 of the Piedmontese army ; directing instead that some battalions 
 of Piedmontese light troops should be raised for his service. 
 The result of this selfish and, to the general cause, suicidal 
 policj', is detailed in one of the last letters Suwarow wrote 
 before leaving Italy ; striving then as ever, in spite of the un- 
 worthy treatment he had received, to realize whatever could 
 forward the general cause : — 
 
 " September \st, 1799. 
 " To THE Emperor Francis, 
 
 " Having constantly before me the great aim of the 
 united Cabinets to secure the conquests made in Italy, I consider 
 it my duty to submit the following statement to your Imperial 
 Majesty. For the last three months we have been doing our 
 utmost to form light battalions of Piedmontese soldiers for your 
 Majest}', but all we have been able to effect is, in some degree, to 
 strengthen the regiment, Belgioioso ; and to form on paper a 
 battalion out of the Jjiger corps, Brentano; and the light bat-
 
 60 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 tiers of Daupliine ; a hundred pieces of field artil- 
 lery and sixty mountain guns were sent to Valenza, 
 where an entrenched camp was formed. Pescliiera 
 had surrendered on the 7th, and Pizzighettone on 
 the 10th ; Ferrara, Ravenna, and the citadel of 
 Milan had since fallen into the hands of the Allies. 
 General Ott had seized the pass of Pontremoli and 
 pushed his posts to Sarzana and Massa, on the 
 road between Genoa and Tuscany ; and on the 30th 
 May, Bellegarde descending from the Engadlne had 
 reached Chlavenna with a reinforcement of 17,000 
 Austrians. 
 
 talion Bona Casa ; as the men who enter, desert daily in such 
 numbers that scarcely any remain. Thousands of these deserters, 
 hungry and penniless, infest the country, and there are full 
 10,000 of them in Turin. The cause of the disinclination of 
 the Piedmontese to remain in the service, is to be found in their 
 devotion to their own officers, and the hostile feeling of the 
 latter towards us, now they are removed from the service. 
 Under these circumstances, I see no way of employing these 
 destitute, idle, and desperate men for the public good, but by 
 the re-formation of the Piedmontese regiments and corps under 
 their former officers, which could be effected in a week. These 
 troops could be disseminated in brigades or regiments through 
 the Imperial army, and thus powerfully reinforce it. Their 
 local knowledge would be invaluable in the approaching moun- 
 tain operations. Be pleased to consider this respectful proposal, 
 which may be right or may be wrong, and communicate your 
 Majesty's decision. " Scwarow."
 
 HIS PLAN OF OPERATIONS. 61 
 
 The capture of the city of Turin, a ten days' labour 
 completed in a month, seems all connected with these 
 operations ; on which even flatterers could have con- 
 gratulated Suwarow. Moreau's weak and beaten 
 army falling back from the Adda on diverging roads, 
 was not followed in its retreat on Alexandria and 
 Turin, and the insurgents alone impeded or harassed 
 either its march to Moncaglieri or its subsequent 
 operations of a fortnight's duration previous to its 
 descent upon Liguria.* 
 
 On leaving Milan on the 1st May, Suwarow in 
 the plan of operations signed by his Quarter- 
 Master-General, declares his intention of " beating 
 the French force advancing from Naples, Rome, and 
 Tuscany, to the help of the enemy in Piedmont, 
 before their junction, and then to move by Pavia 
 
 * Schmelzer's detachment of 250 men moving through the 
 mountains on the 19th and 20th May, by Acqui and Spigno, on 
 Ceva, passed near both Victor's and Grouchy's people, and may 
 thus account for the erroneous statement in the " Victoires at 
 Conquetes," that after Moreau's repulse on the 16th, Bagration 
 and Karacsay returned towards Novi and Acqui. These Gene- 
 rals and their troops having both moved with the army to the 
 north of the Po, Wuckassovich was the first and only General 
 of the Allies that came near Moreau's army in its retreat on 
 Liguria; his advance guard from Moncaglieri, and Mondovi 
 reaching Ceva on the evening of the 2nd June, on the morning 
 of which day the last French posts had withdrawn from before it.
 
 62 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 and the left of the Po on Turin ;" and in accordance 
 with this just design, we find him at Pasterlengo on 
 the 4th (having ascertained that Macdonuld's army 
 was still far distant), ordering the march of the army 
 on Pavia. But here he changed his views, and, 
 apparently supposing Moreau too weak to interfere 
 with him, and hoping to secure Tortona if not Alex- 
 andria, before advancing on Turin, divided his army, 
 and proceeded himself with the greater portion of it 
 across the Po, to beleaguer Tortona and point on 
 Genoa ; till, roused by the threatening attitude 
 assumed by Moreau at San Salvadore, his instinct of 
 direct attack led him to concentrate upon his front, 
 as closely as the intervening streams of the Bormida 
 and Tanaro would let him. Here, separated by the 
 swollen Po, and beyond the reach of mutual support, 
 the two great divisions of his army were held in 
 check by Moreau's inferior force, while Suwarow 
 vacillated : first angrily ordering Rosenberg to join 
 him, then countermanding his order, till at length, 
 overcoming his reluctance to show himself baffled, he 
 readopted his original idea of marching on Turin by 
 the left of the Po, recklessly leaving his antagonist 
 to march on Genoa and unite with Macdonald if he 
 chose.* 
 
 * Accident and numbers saved Suwarow from the usual con- 
 sequences of such chivalrous generalship. TempelhofF tells us,
 
 MILITARY COMMENT. 63 
 
 In carrying out this operation, Suwarow's head- 
 quarters were on the 21st at Candia; where, had he 
 adhered to his original intention, they would have 
 been at latest, on the preceding 7th ! Which 
 result, at a period when, whether as regarded 
 Moreau's or Macdonald's proceedings, time was in- 
 valuable to his antagonists, flagrantly exposes the 
 emptiness of his dogma — " No rule and line work : 
 coup d'ail,^'' compared to the simple strategic rule of 
 adopting the most advantageous measure, and allow- 
 ing no secondary object to divert you from it. From 
 the Adda to Turin is seven marches, and a direct 
 move on it would not only at once have given that 
 city to Suwarow, but have forced Moreau with 
 greater or less loss, to have saved himself in Liguria, 
 or perhaps even in France. With so plain and so 
 
 " That the Duke of Brunswick allowed Kellermann to join 
 Dumouriez, that he might fight one battle instead of two, and 
 accordingly his Highness fought only one ; it was that of Valmy, 
 which sent him out of France.'' One of our poets says well : 
 "Discretion and hardy valour are the twins of honour, and 
 reared together make a conqueror ; — divided, but a talker." Of 
 all errors in war, none is so hazardous (and, wonderful to say, 
 none so frequent) as a gratuitous dissemination or separation of 
 a force before it has struck its " swashing blow ;" unless it be a 
 voluntary disregard of an opportunity to crush an important 
 portion of a hostile force, before it shall unite with another 
 kindred army.
 
 64 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 easily attainable an object before him, and which his 
 own sagacious common sense had already adopted, 
 we seek in vain (even in Suwarovv's own corre- 
 spondence) for any palliating answer to the Arch- 
 duke's biting but natural query : " by what incon- 
 sistency did he march on Tortona, to change his 
 mind again a fortnight after ? " The fact is palpable 
 that Suwarow, having clearly seen and at once adopted 
 what was most advantageous, allowed himself to be 
 diverted from it by secondary and uncertain advan- 
 tages, — an error as detrimental in its consequences 
 as any slowness and want of energy, in the methodi- 
 cal Generals he despised. When in ridiciding the 
 maxim of " slow and sure," he affirmed that " the 
 slow in war can only be sure of paying more dearly 
 than they need, for all they gain" it might have 
 occurred to him that the General who loses sight of 
 a primary object, for a secondary one, is in a pre- 
 cisely similar predicament ; and that measures which 
 gain nothing or little, are as completely nullified in 
 war by grand results, as absolutely in action. The 
 man who walks ever so quickly on a wrong road, 
 may be longer in reaching his object, than he who 
 goes even slowly towards it by a more direct route ; 
 besides that he will do his work at a greater cost of 
 wear and tear, fatigue and trouble, and be by so 
 much less capable of pursuing ulterior objects. This
 
 EUL0GIU3I OF MOREAU. 65 
 
 was unquestionably the case In Suwarow's move- 
 ment from Milan to Turin. 
 
 In the operations now referred to, INIoreau shone 
 a consummate leader; sustaining to a noble tone, 
 the morale of a beaten army, scarce a thii^d the 
 strength of his adversary's ; and in a Aveek after Its 
 defeat and apparent dispersion (having, meantime, 
 himself provided for the defence of Turin), fixing It 
 in a position so justly studied, that In it, for ten 
 days, he paralyzed the overwhelming force which 
 threatened him, and severely punished the only por- 
 tion of It that attempted to assail him. His able 
 and honest brother-soldier St. Cyr, characterizes the 
 reconnaissance of the 16th on San Guiliano as im- 
 prudent and rash, likening It to Rosenberg's affair of 
 the 12th at Baslgnano, and saying that good luck on 
 both sides alone saved the leaders from the signal 
 punishment they respectively so well deserved. But 
 surely this is hypercrlticism as regards Moreau. 
 Never was reconnaissance more fully justified by the 
 importance of its object : that of ascertaining if the 
 route to Genoa by Novi were open to his army ; 
 nor could any reconnaissance ascertain this, but one 
 made In strength and well pushed out. Had accident 
 deferred it for a single day, the full success that 
 would have crowned It, might have changed the for- 
 tune of the campaign ; but, through one of those 
 
 P
 
 66 SUAVAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 cross purposes tliat mock the best designs of the 
 ablest players in the game of war, at the very 
 moment that Suwarow, baffled by Moreau's skill and 
 boldness, was leaving the Novi road to Genoa open 
 to him, the repulse of his reconnaissance by the 
 troops crossing his front to move out of his way, 
 convinced him that it was hopelessly closed against 
 him, and that he had nothing for it but to gain 
 the Ligurian territory through insurgent Piedmont. 
 And how nobly he did this ! What chivalrous self- 
 forgetfulness seems to characterize his proceedings! 
 What preux knight ever shone more brilliantly 
 generous and daring than Moreau appears, in 
 sending his efficient infantry under Victor to rein- 
 force Macdonald, and then plunging with his little 
 band, amid countless insurgents liable at any mo- 
 ment to be joined by an army six- fold his strength, 
 to preserve to his country the guns she had con- 
 fided to more favoured chiefs, and the discreditable 
 trophies which, for a season, raised their fame 
 above his own honest and well-earned reputation. 
 Nor was this done at any sacrifice of duty as a 
 prudent chief. His one rapid march on Moncaglieri, 
 at once placed his army on the double line of retreat 
 by Mondovi and the Col di Tende, and all he after- 
 wards did, was executed in comparative security. 
 However, threatened by overwhelming numbers.
 
 EULOGIUM OP MOREAU. 67 
 
 even had he failed in turning Ceva and passing by 
 Garissio, a retreat by Coni and the Col di Tende 
 was open to him as a certain last resource. 
 
 His grand merit was in not having allowed himself 
 to be deterred from what he desired to do, by the 
 idea that his enemies might have prevented him 
 had they chosen ; and though it taxes our credulity 
 too strongly to assume, as Jomini does, that his 
 object was to decoy the Allies from Macdonald who 
 was far away, by bringing their numerous force 
 upon his little band, with which they were almost 
 in contact, — more especially when we consider that 
 one of his prime objects was the protection of 
 the vast convoys moving to France by the Col di 
 Tende and Mont Cenis, — it cannot be doubted that 
 he was prepared fearlessly to meet the worst they 
 could have done, after he had placed himself on his 
 new line of retreat. Luckily the allied army did not 
 pursue him, and the opposition and obstacles he 
 encountered, were attended with no worse effect 
 than that of procrastinating his and Macdonald's 
 junction. It was, however, on this junction previous 
 to a battle, that the cause of France in Italy 
 depended ; and it may be observed that nothing could 
 have prevented its being thus effected, had Moreau 
 thought it expedient to have left his heavy material 
 at Alexandria, and to have marched on Genoa by
 
 68 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Acqul and Savona, as Victor did — arriving there on 
 the 22nd May. He, however, deemed it fittest to 
 adopt the more hazardous line and the arduous duties 
 associated with it, and he triumphantly surmounted 
 its various and perplexing difficulties, with a calm, 
 an enterprising, and an heroic spirit which every sol- 
 dier must dellsrht to honour. 
 Advance of ^^ the last week of May, Macdonald's 
 
 army reached Tuscany, and together 
 with the troops who held that province and Bologna, 
 comprised a force of near 35,000 men. His 
 left, on the 30th, easily carried Pontremoli and 
 effected a junction with Victor's division, which had 
 marched from Genoa to the head of the Val di Taro. 
 Having refreshed his troops and received Moreau's 
 assurance that he would join him with his army, if 
 not by Pontremoli, by the Bochetta and Novi, Mac- 
 donald on the 9th June moved on Modena — two divi- 
 sions of his army advancing by Bologna, and three 
 descending the passes of the Apennines by both banks 
 of the Secchia. Victor's division remained in the 
 mountains till the main body should approachParma. 
 Five thousand Austrians of Kray's army under 
 Hohenzollern held Modena, between which city and 
 Bologna, Kleiiau stood with 4,000 men, to cover the 
 passage of the Panaro. Forty miles west of Modena, 
 Ott with his division, composing BeUegarde's advance,
 
 POSITION OP THE ALLIES. 69 
 
 occupied Fornovo and observed the valleys of the 
 Taro and Trebbia ; with orders from Suwarow to 
 avoid all needless fighting, but should it be unavoid- 
 able, to do it with the naked steel : all experience 
 showing that the enemy could not stand that fight- 
 ing. As the ridge of the Apennines runs parallel 
 to the high road from Modena to Parma, and its 
 lateral vallies descend upon it at right angles, these 
 detachments were perilously placed ; no delusion 
 could possibly have supposed that these corps 
 were capable of throwing back Macdonald ; and the 
 childish futility of their position is most evident, when 
 we reflect that, even if they could have done so, 
 their success would only have forced him to do 
 exactly what he ought to have done : i. e., to have 
 united with Moreau behind the Apennines by Sar- 
 zana and Sestri. Kray, who commanded on this 
 side, was on the left of the Po with 10,000 men, 
 whom he had drawn from the force blockading; 
 Mantua. The position of these bodies illustrates the 
 Austrian system of war, in which armies are par- 
 celled out and exposed to ruin, to do the duty of a 
 brigade of cavalry. On the 10th and 11th, there 
 was skirmishing before Modena, but on the 12th, 
 the Austrians there were attacked at once from 
 Bologna and the mountains, and completely over- 
 powered. The wreck of Hohenzollern's corps escaped
 
 70 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 on Mlrandola; indebted for the power of doing 
 so to Klenau, who vigorously opposed the French 
 right, and prevented their passage over the Panaro, 
 and consequent seizure of the Mirandola road, till 
 hearing of Hohenzollern's disaster, he fell back on 
 Ferrara. Macdonald, who was wounded in this 
 affair, continued his advance, and entered Parma on 
 the 14th ; Victor descended the Val di Taro, and 
 General Ott retired upon Placentia ; whence, having 
 garrisoned the citadel and destroyed the bridge, he 
 was driven on the 1 6th, and hotly pursued over the 
 Tidone. 
 
 On Macdonald's advance, Suwarow, 
 
 Actions of the 
 
 Tidone and . -with 30,000 men, besieged the citadel of 
 
 Trebbia. _ . 
 
 Turin ; 7,000, under Schweikowsky and 
 
 Seckendorf, blockaded Tortona and Alexandria ; 
 Bellegarde was at Pavia with 15,000. Kray's block- 
 ading army and detachments to 38,000 men, and full 
 two-thirds of that number under Frohlich, Lusignan, 
 Wuckassovich, and Haddik, observed passes and car- 
 ried on operations against the enemy in the Alps and 
 Apennines; while more than 20,000 insurgent Italians, 
 some armed and the rest desirous of being so, had 
 attached themselves to different bodies of the army. 
 This dissemination of such an army, however faulty,* 
 
 * Jornini says : — " Ainsi le Marechal force d'obtemp^rer aux 
 ordres duConseil Aulique,avait tellement ^parpille ses forces,"&c.
 
 HIS LETTER TO KRAY. 71 
 
 was in no way dangerous, while Moreau's 25,000 men 
 were extended 100 miles, from Bardinetto to the Val 
 di Taro ; but on the 10th June, under the impression 
 that Macdonald's army had already joined that of 
 jNIoreau, by Sestri and the Corniche road, Suwarow 
 prepared to concentrate his forces, and wrote to Kray, 
 — " The enemy intends to move with his collected 
 force from Genoa on Alexandria and Milan. Your 
 Excellency well knows what may result from this. 
 Your known success in war, your experience and 
 activity, of which you gave so striking an example at 
 Verona, make me desire, my dear and brave friend, 
 to have you by my side in the battle we are about to 
 fight ; which will probably decide the fate of Italy. 
 I beg your Excellency to come as soon as possible to 
 Alexandria. Let every disposable regiment of in- 
 fantry and cavalry move with all despatch. I hope, 
 with the aid of God and such troops, to beat the 
 enemy. It will be a pleasure to me, my true friend, 
 to owe to you a part of this victory. You will leave 
 the command of the blockade of Mantua to Lleut.- 
 Colonel Dano." 
 
 Kray did not comply with this pressing and per- 
 suasive invitation. He had received an autographic 
 order from the Emperor Francis, to act independently 
 of Suwarow, till Mantua had fallen ; and, in conse- 
 quence, he had posted Klenau and Hohenzollern as
 
 72 SUWAKOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 described ; he now sent three battalions and six 
 squadrons to join Suwarow, and remained with the 
 rest of his troops near Mantua. All was, however, 
 bustle in Piedmont : engineers were despatched 
 from Turin to strengthen Valenza and Pavia, guns 
 were sent to the tetes-de-pont and field-works, the 
 fortresses were ordered to be provisioned for three 
 months, detached corps hastened in from all sides to 
 Turin ; and on the 11th June Suwarow marched from 
 that city to Asti with the Russian battalions, leaving 
 General Kaim, with twelve battalions and cavalry, to 
 besiege the citadel and watch the Alpine passes. On 
 the 13th, at Alexandria, Suwarow first received cer- 
 tain news of the fact and direction of Macdonald's 
 advance ; on which he reiterated his orders to Ott, 
 " to avoid all eno;ao;ements till the arrival of the 
 army ;" directed Bellegarde to call in all his detach- 
 ments, and to take post under Alexandria, on the left 
 of the Bormida, occupying its tete-de-pont, and leav- 
 ing only cavalry posts across the river ; wrote to 
 Kray to reinforce Ott or Plohenzollern, to send all 
 he could to meet the enemy ; and in two successive 
 orders, impressed upon the troops his expectations 
 and their duties. " The enemy's army must be put 
 to flight, with the cold steel — bayonets, sabres, and 
 pikes. It is 27,000 strong, of which 7,000 only are 
 French soldiers, the rest a mob of conscripts. The
 
 HIS ORDERS BEFORE BATTLE. 73 
 
 artillery to fire as it sees occasion ; it need not con- 
 fine itself to the line. The cavalry and Cossacks must 
 fall on the enemy's flanks. In the attack, there must 
 be no hesitation ; nor, when the enemy is beaten, must 
 he have time given him to get into order. If he sur- 
 render, he must be spared, and told to throw down 
 his arms. All the troops in the attack are to call out 
 " surrender," and the Cossacks, as they charge, wiU 
 cry, "balesarm — pardon — ^jettelesarm."* The cavalry 
 must raise this cry as they charge home, and dash 
 headlong on the batteries, which is their particular 
 duty. The Cossacks must destroy the bridges in 
 rear of the enemy, and thus reduce him to despair. 
 All must be merciful to the prisoners. Every one 
 must do his utmost ; and without any consideration of 
 fatigue, the enemy must be followed night and day, 
 till he is destroyed. In the attack, the drums will 
 roll and the soldiers cheer. The music must play 
 while the battle goes on, and in the pursuit, while the 
 cavalry are cutting and slashing, that they may hear 
 it. The Cossacks will know the Generals by their 
 staff, and will cry "pardon" to them ; and if they don't 
 surrender cut them down. On reaching the enemy, 
 the kettles, &c., must not be sent too far to the rear, 
 that the cooking may go on immediately on his de- 
 
 * Suwarow's mode of spelling " A bas les armes — Jettez les 
 &rraes."
 
 74 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 feat ; but the conquerors must also have bread in 
 their havresacks and water in their canteens. The 
 cavalry must forage for themselves." 
 
 The state of the roads greatly delayed the pon- 
 toons, which had to be carried to the river by hand, 
 and it was late on the 15th before the Bormida 
 bridge was laid, and the troops began to pass. The 
 Austrian division of Frohlich, and what remained of 
 Ott's, in the left column ; twenty Russian battalions, 
 under Rosenberg and Forster, in the right ; thirty 
 squadrons of cavalry, with Cossacks; a sufficient 
 artillery and a pontoon train with each column; 
 composed this perfectly efficient force of about 30,000 
 men. As it, was crossing the Scrivia, news came that 
 Moreau's people were showing themselves on the 
 descending slopes of the Bochetta ; but Suwarow was 
 not now, with an enemy's army as his object, to be 
 deluded from it by any secondary motives. He bade 
 Alcaini blow up the works of the town of Tortona 
 and join Bellegarde with his blockading force, as 
 soon as the rear-guard of the army had passed him; and 
 to Bellegarde himself he wrote : " It is not possible to 
 halt the army now ; concentrate all you have except 
 your observation posts on Alexandria and the other 
 side of the Bormida ; if you cannot continue the 
 blockade of Alexandria, fall back on Valenza, but 
 that you must defend." On the same day (16th
 
 ACTION OF THE TIDONE. 75 
 
 June) he writes to Kalni : " My dear Kaim, I am 
 oiF to Placentia to beat Macdonald ; make haste and 
 take the citadel, or I shall sing Te Deum before 
 you." 
 
 At noon on the \lih., the allied army approached 
 the Tidone — near fifty miles from theBormida — where 
 they found Ott's corps falling back in great disorder. 
 Chasteler, Avith the advance, supported him ; but the 
 French, who had three divisions present, still pressed 
 onward ; their cavalry charging up the high road, 
 carried a battery of eight pieces, and Dombrowsky's 
 Poles, upon their left, pushed back the force opposed 
 to them ; when Suwarow directed four Russian batta- 
 lions to charge with the bayonet on their front, and 
 two corps of Cossacks with their levelled pikes upon 
 their left flank. This broke them bodily, and they 
 fled in disorder ; leavins^ the French right wins; un- 
 covered, to be charged in front and flank with similar 
 impetuosity and success. 
 
 The republicans fought bravely, and a part of 
 their infantry halted in squares ; but the increasing 
 numbers of the Allies, and their reiterated attacks 
 with the bayonet, were too much for them. The 
 whole force was broken, and those who escaped were 
 chiefly indebted for their safety to the numerous 
 ditches and water courses which impeded the pursuing 
 horsemen. These latter halted on the Tidone. This
 
 76 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 river, with the Trebbia and Nura, runs from south 
 to north across the field of the approaching conflict, 
 into the Po, the course of which is from west to 
 east. Placentia is on the Po, a short league east 
 of the right bank of the Trebbia ; in front of which 
 river the French army, of upwards of 30,000 men, 
 Avas posted, its right occupying the village of San 
 Nicolo, its left that of Castellegio. The hostile 
 armies were very nearly of equal strength, but that 
 of the Allies received slight augmentations during the 
 battle, to facilitate the junction of which they had 
 thrown a bridge across the Po. A small detached 
 corps, under General Wellesky, covered the right of 
 their army towards Bobbio. 
 
 In addition to Suwarow's general order of battle, 
 already given, the particular directions for the 18th 
 June were, that the three attacking columns should 
 march upon the Nura ; the right, under Rosenberg, 
 by Castellegio, Settimo, and Caselle ; the centre, 
 under Forster, by Grignano and Valera ; the third 
 and left, under Melas, by the high road to Placentia, 
 passing to the right of that city, and reinforcing himself 
 with the garrison of its citadel. The advance to be 
 in a direct successive echelon from the right ; each 
 column improving the success obtained by its pre- 
 ceding one, and turning the enemy upon the Nura 
 and the Po, from the mountains and their expected
 
 ACTION OF THE TREBBIA. 77 
 
 reinforcements. The cavalry were directed to attack 
 in two cliequered lines, with squadron intervals, so 
 that the second line, if necessary, could come into, 
 or pass through those of the first. The enemy's 
 flanks and the bridges in his rear were again pointed 
 out as the special objects of their exertions, and 
 mercy was again enjoined, whenever the enemy 
 should cry "pardon." The infantry were desired to 
 fire as little as possible, but to push on with the 
 bayonet and make prisoners. All were directed to 
 forget that such a word as "halt" existed. "We 
 are not now going to a drill ground," are the words 
 of this earnest soldier ; " the only battle words are — 
 forward — dash on — the sabre — the bayonet — liurrah, 
 boys!" and the pursuit was directed to be headlong, 
 that the defeated enemy might be utterly annihi- 
 lated. 
 
 The parole issued was Theresa — the countersign 
 Kolin — the IStli being the anniversary of that 
 famous Austrian victory. At ten o'clock a discharge 
 of artillery gave the signal to advance, and every 
 band struck up some martial air, as the directing 
 wing of this gallant army stepped off exultingly to 
 battle. It was near two o'clock when the French 
 opened their fire on the approaching columns, the 
 right of which impetuously attacked the Polish 
 legion. Victor's division, and successive reinforce-
 
 78 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 ments from the French centre, obstinately but vainly 
 opposed the Russians ; and after an enormous loss, 
 the French left wing was entirely thrown over the 
 Trebbia and pursued by the Russians, till the dark- 
 ness of night obliged them to halt at Settimo — a 
 league beyond the river. The fighting in the centre 
 was lukewarm. The French had weakened theirs 
 to support their left, and General Melas, under some 
 apprehension for the Tortona high road on the allied 
 left, had withdrawn so large a force to that direction, 
 from the centre, that the remainder were unable to 
 improve or second Rosenberg's success. This mis- 
 directed reinforcement found General Ott combat- 
 ting successfully the French right ; which, with its 
 aid, he was enabled to drive in great confusion over 
 the Trebbia. At night the French centre also Avith- 
 drew over the river, and a heavy cannonade appeared 
 to have closed the battle. 
 
 The arms had been piled, and the tired men were 
 sleeping, when confused sounds from the French 
 position attracted the attention of the allied out- 
 posts ; and their patrols, on entering the bed of the 
 river, saw dark masses moving rapidly towards them. 
 The cry " to arms" and the opening fire, awoke the 
 men, who rushed tumultuously, horse and foot, down 
 to the stream, while the artillery on both sides 
 opened, and a sanguinary melee took place in the
 
 ACTION OF THE TREBBIA. 79 
 
 river's bed by moonlight. The French at length 
 withdrew, and the Trebbia again separated the com- 
 batants ; except where Rosenberg and his brave 
 men passed the night in square by Settimo, whence, 
 at daybreak, finding themselves unsupported, they 
 marched back to their comrades across the river. 
 
 Suvvarow, having repeated his preceding orders for 
 the next day's battle, and particularly commanded 
 Melas not to move his reserve to the left, wrapt 
 himself in his cloak and slept among his soldiers. 
 In the morning Kray's detachment and two bat- 
 talions from Valenza joined the AlUes, who were 
 preparing to advance, when a cloud of light troops 
 passed the river along the whole line, while heavy 
 columns appeared to threaten their right, in front 
 and flank. Bagration, with the extreme right, was 
 marched at once against the outflanking body com- 
 posed of Dombrowsky's legion, and attacking them 
 with vigour, drove them back, capturing both guns 
 and colours. The absence of his troops, however, 
 enabled Victor and Rusca's divisions to make a 
 serious impression on the right of Schweikowsky's 
 troops, driving them back, and surrounding the 
 regiment of Rosenberg, which extricated itself with 
 distinguished intrepidity.* A part of the reserve 
 
 * Most troops disperse when broken ; the Russians always 
 mass themselves. They owe this admirable point of discipline
 
 80 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 checked the enemy, till Bagration, returning from 
 the repulse of Dombrowsky, appeared upon his 
 flank, when a simultaneous attack obliged the re- 
 publicans to fall back on the Trebbia, where they 
 maintained themselves. The French centre advanced 
 in two columns, the right composed of Olivier's divi- 
 sion, the left of Montrichard's. This latter had 
 scarcely passed the Trebbia, when its leading regi- 
 ment, attacked in front by the Russian infantry under 
 Forster, and seeing the Austrian cavalry on its 
 flank, was seized with a panic and fled ; communi- 
 cating fear and disorder to the whole division, which 
 was driven in frightful confusion across the river. 
 The Austrian cavalry, recalled by Melas to the left, 
 hurried to a second charge on the exposed flank of 
 Olivier's division, which was also driven beyond the 
 Trebbia. The French right had been directed to 
 move round the left flank of the Allies on the 
 Tidone, and having done so, found itself compro- 
 mised, and fought its way back again with difiiculty 
 and loss. 
 
 Suwarow was anxious to continue the battle 
 during the night, but his troops were quite ex- 
 hausted, and the attack was delayed until four 
 
 ia some degree, to the Turks, whose numerous cavalry being 
 paid for heads, decapitate fugitives ; so that though resistance 
 may be dangerous, flight is certain death.
 
 PURSUIT OF MACDONALD. 81 
 
 o'clock on the following morning. At that hour 
 they advanced, and were quickening their march on 
 finding the French fires abandoned, when an inter- 
 cepted letter from Macdonald to Perlgnon exposed 
 to Suwarow the state of the enemy's army, and the 
 direction of its retreat. 
 
 Macdonald had lost 12,000 men and nearly all 
 his Generals, his cavalry was half destroyed, his 
 artillery unserviceable, and his ammunition almost 
 expended. Under these circumstances, hearing no- 
 thing of Moreau or Lapoye,* knowing his enemy 
 was receiving reinforcements, and that Parma, 
 Reggio, and Modena, in his rear, were already 
 occupied by the Austrians, he determined to fall 
 back. The allied columns were directed to hurry 
 the pursuit, and Suwarow accompanying that of 
 the right, overtook Victor's division at the Xura, 
 attacked it in front and flank, and completely dis- 
 persed it, obliging the 17th demi-brigade to lay 
 down its arms. Melas, on the left, contenting him- 
 self with the capture of the French wounded at 
 Placentia, including Generals Olivier, Rusca, Talm, 
 
 * This officer, despatched from Liguria with 2,500 to join 
 Macdonald by the Val di Trebbia, was at Bobbio on the IGth ; 
 it was, however, the 20th before he appeared on the flank of the 
 Allies, when Wellesky's detachment drove him to the mountains , 
 with consiucrable loss. 
 
 G
 
 82 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 and Cambray, and above 7,000 men and officers, 
 despatched a single division after the enemy who 
 repulsed it at the Nura. Next day the army 
 reached the Larda, where Suwarow halted on the 
 22nd, heard of Bellegarde's defeat by Moreau, and 
 facing about on the following day to meet him, en- 
 trusted the further pursuit of Macdonald to General 
 Ott. He wrote to the Emperor Francis : " Captain 
 Torres can inform your Majesty of the glorious and 
 celebrated events that have occurred. The enemy 
 made wonderful exertions, but the heroism of the 
 Allies surpassed them. As to me, my only merit 
 is that of having fulfilled your Majesty's commands. 
 You directed me to attack the enemy and deliver 
 Italy. The enemy is vanquished and Italy is free." 
 
 It is said, that in the course of these operations, 
 finding a corps of Austrian cavalry waiting on the 
 bank of one of the rivers for pontoons, he gave them 
 a practical reproof, by ordering up a regiment of 
 Cossacks, and coolly placing himself at their head, 
 swam the stream. On the 23rd and 24th, he made 
 forced marches to reach Moreau, who had debouched 
 from the Bocchetta with 14,000 men, occupied Gavi 
 on the 16th, and Novi on the 18th, and subsequently 
 (having first raised the blockade of Torton a) defeated 
 Bellegarde on the 20th near San Giuliano, with a 
 loss of 2,500 men ; this General having left the
 
 HIS INTENDED OPERATIONS. 83 
 
 strong position assigned to him by Suwarow, to cross 
 the Bormida, and court a collision to which his force 
 was in all respects unequal. The reason given by 
 him for having done this, was that the ground on the 
 right of the river was good for cavalry action, and 
 that he feared Moreau would embarrass Suwarow, 
 if he did not engage him. After his defeat, however, 
 having resumed his position on the left of the Bor- 
 mida, he found Moreau equally unwilling to leave 
 him in it, or to attack it ; and after a vacillation very 
 like Suwarow's, when he (Moreau) occupied the 
 ground in question, and a loss of four days at this 
 interesting period, Moreau (having re- victualled the 
 citadel of Tortona) fell back on the 25th, on which 
 day Suwarow reached the Scrivia. 
 
 On the 27th, the allied army encamped on the 
 Orba, and Moreau's resumed its position on the 
 Bocchetta. Suwarow had written to Bellegarde on 
 the 22nd from Firenzuola. "To-morrow I march 
 from this. On the 25th without fail I will be at 
 Castel Nuovo di Scrivia. Haddick will have rein- 
 forced you with twelve battalions, so that if the 
 enemy will stay, we shall have him about San 
 Giuliano or Bosco, between our two fires. This 
 is our game. I depend on you : — you trust in me, 
 and we will serve Moreau as we have served Mac- 
 donald."
 
 84 SDWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN, 
 
 The latter, after fighting his way through Hohen- 
 zoUern's and Klenau's corps, which had re-occupied 
 his line of retreat, and repulsing the troops that 
 pursued him, reached Tuscany and proceeded thence 
 by the Sarzana and Sestri road to Genoa, which he 
 reached on the 17 th July : Victor having already 
 arrived there by Pontremoli. The citadel of Turin 
 had surrendered on the 20th June to General Kaim, 
 who found in it vast supplies of arms and ammunition, 
 and upwards of 600 pieces of artillery. 
 
 Suwarow deserved to conquer on 
 
 Eemarks. 
 
 the Trebbia ! The concentration of his 
 army as he marched on Macdonald, the orders left 
 with Bellegarde for his conduct and the security of 
 the general communications, the direction and the 
 perseverance of his attacks, and the rapidity of his 
 return upon Moreau, are alike admirable. If Melas 
 had obeyed his orders, the victory of the 18th Avould 
 have been complete ; and had Kray joined him with 
 half the men he uselessly retained on the left of the 
 Po, or of those more than uselessly employed on its 
 right, Macdonald could hardly have escaped com- 
 plete destruction. As it was, full half his army was 
 put hors de combat, the prisoners alone amounting 
 to 4 Generals, 506 Officers, and 12,778 men. 
 
 How little the disposition and dispersion of the 
 men at Modena and Ferrara was expected by
 
 HIS OPERATIONS EULOGIZED. 85 
 
 Suwarow appears from his letter of 11th June to 
 Bellegarde : " Count HohenzoUern who commands 
 Kray's advance, will leave four squadrons, a batta- 
 lion, and a detachment of chasseurs at Fornovo, and 
 send your Excellency the six battalions and chasseurs 
 that remain, by forced marches." There is not a more 
 spotless Avreath of gloiy than that won by Suwarow 
 on this occasion. The junction of his antagonists 
 failed, from Moreau's determination to attempt it by 
 the Bocchetta. The reason given by him for taking 
 this road, occupied in force by his enemies, instead of 
 others that were perfectly open, is, " that it is eight 
 marches from Genoa to Parma by Pontremoli, and 
 that he could not move by the 9th June." Had he 
 moved on the 10th with such part of his army as had 
 arrived at Genoa, to be followed by the rest, he 
 would have been at Parma on the 17th by Pontre- 
 moli, or on the 15th by Val di Taro.* Macdonald 
 leaving Tuscany on the 9th, was six marches from 
 that city, and his route was occupied by 15,000 
 Austrians. All Suwarow's promptitude could not 
 have brought him to Parma before the 19th June; 
 and his letter, as well as common sense, proclaims 
 that he would not have dreamt of marching eastward 
 
 * From Genoa to Parma, by Pontremoli, is 130 miles ; by 
 the Val di Taro, 80. Neither road was at that time practicable 
 for artillery.
 
 86 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 till he was assured, by Macdonald's descent from the 
 Apennines, that he did not intend (as Suwarow and 
 the Austrian cabinet alike expected) to join Moreau 
 by Sestri, and debouch with their united armies from 
 the Bocchetta, A delay of four days in Macdonald's 
 advance — if not less — would have assured the junc- 
 tion. In the measure adopted, a junction previous 
 to a battle was next to impossible. Macdonald had 
 to march near two hundred miles to Tortona (where 
 the junction was to be effected) whereas not one of 
 the 100,000 Allies, except the corps before him, was 
 half that distance from it. Moreau writes — erro- 
 neously indeed — as early as the 7th of June, "that 
 the enemy were sending all they could towards 
 Parma," supposing Macdonald, by forced marches of 
 a week, upon the Trebbia. As he was, he could not 
 have moved without the knowledge of the corps in 
 his front; and the Allies had 60,000 men not three 
 marches from it, and 30,000 men more, not six. How 
 could a junction be expected without a battle, when 
 Tortona is still 40 miles from the Trebbia ? And yet 
 the object of the French was to unite before they 
 fought ! 
 
 It was not three years before this event, that the 
 junction of Davidovich and Alvinzi failed, from the 
 former attempting to force a passage between the 
 Adige and the lake of Garda, when the road down
 
 ENEKGY OF MACDONALD. 87 
 
 the valley of the Brenta was entirely open to him ; 
 and this short sketch will furnish another instance 
 of a similarly hazardous experiment. When Moreau 
 had descended on Gavi on the 16th, his weakness 
 caused him to be so circumspect that he did not 
 leave Novi (two leagues from Gavi) till the 19th; 
 and then to be diverted from the one great object of 
 his movement. 
 
 Our sympathies are all in favour of Macdonald, 
 for he was brave, unfortunate, and slandered ; but 
 doubtless he erred in neglecting Moreau's wise pre- 
 caution to keep near the mountains, and in extend- 
 ing his army on the 19th to turn botii flanks of an 
 enemy who acted in masses and had already proved 
 too strong for him. Still his resolution to attack, as 
 well as his original idea of seizing a bridge over the 
 Po, hberating the garrison of Mantua, and cutting 
 Kray's force to pieces, to fight Suwarow afterwards 
 on the line of his communications, were just and 
 energetic conceptions; while his determined resis- 
 tance, to give Moreau time to join, and his lion-like 
 retreat, demand our highest praise. The ungenerous 
 reproaches of his rulers have been repeated by 
 Jomini, with reflections of his own, calculated 
 to justify and perpetuate them. The Baron is 
 doubtless "a man having authority," but it is 
 hoped the annexed note will show that in this
 
 88 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGjST. 
 
 case, at least, his censure has no right to become 
 history.* 
 
 * He says, (chap. 87, Wars of the Revolution) " prudence 
 required that Macdonald should act quickly ; nevertheless, 
 from motives unknown to us, he remained ten days in com- 
 plete inaction, and certainlj^ half that time was enough to rest 
 his army and concert his operations with Moreau." And 
 again : " If the reproach of staying too long at Naples be un- 
 founded, it will be more difficult to refute that of having de- 
 bouched too slowly from Tuscany." In the correspondence of 
 Moreau and Macdonald, as given in the "Precis des evfenemens 
 Militaires," we find the former writing from Alexandria on the 
 16th INIay, that " he is about to retire on Coni, but that he will 
 join Macdonald as soon as possible by Genoa." Macdonald on 
 the 19th May, from Montefiascone, expressly states that five or 
 six days is the time he requires to refresh his army, and after- 
 wards from Lucca, that he is ready to march to Moreau, either 
 by the Corniche or Modena road, but that he should prefer 
 the latter. A despatch from Dessoles, (Moreau's Chef d'Etat 
 Major) dated Genoa, May 23, mentions that Moreau is near 
 Coni, but that all communication Avith him is cut oflT by the 
 insurgents, and continues : " Victor, who arrived here yester- 
 day, will first operate his junction with you, and according to 
 what he told me, General Moreau, after putting his artillery in 
 safety, will march to join you by Genoa. Without knowing 
 General Moreau's dispositions, it strikes me that, at present, it 
 is your business to wait, especially if the junction of Victor is 
 not sufficient to ensure you success, for, if the enemy manoeu- 
 vres, your position will force you to oirer battle with inferior 
 forces."
 
 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 89 
 
 The next communication is from Moreau, dated Genoa, June 
 7th. It says : " The troops shall debouch on your left in suc- 
 cession, as they come from the mountains. Push on — you will 
 be successful. I expect the army within four or five days. As 
 soon as your reply shall inform me of your march, I will set 
 off to join you, probably by Pontremoli." This is dated June 
 7th. Genoa is above 150 miles from Florence, and Macdonald 
 broke up on the 9th. Can anything be more conclusive ? He 
 is to co-operate with an army, and to learn from Genoa where 
 that army is ; he is told all communication with it is cut off, 
 and the confidential officer of its conmiander, recommends him 
 to wait ; he receives directions to march, and can hardly have 
 read the letter, when he is off. 
 
 Jomini states that the Directory complained he " might have 
 arrived towards the end of May, in the plains of Placentia ; 
 then, as Bellegarde was only descending from the Valteline, his 
 junction with Moreau could not have failed between Tortona 
 and the Trebbia ;" adding from himself, " to appreciate these 
 observations, it is necessarj^ to have before one the private cor- 
 respondence of the Generals." It would seem not ; for even, if 
 Macdonald could have been quicker, when Jomini himself has 
 told us that Moreau retreated towards Coni on the 1 7th Ma}^ 
 and that his army was not extricated from the mountains before 
 the 7th June, it can require no private correspondence to es- 
 tablish the querulous unfairness of the Directors' reasoning. It 
 appears quite a fashion to traduce Macdonald. The author of 
 the " Campagne des Austro-Russes " not only accuses him of 
 causing the failure of the junction, but, neglecting to consult 
 the map, says, he (Macdonald) ought to have effected it by 
 Sarzana and Pontremoli ! He means, by the Corniche. 
 
 The following extracts from the correspondence already
 
 90 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 quoted, show who suggested (for, of course, Moreau only could 
 command) the junction at Tortona. 
 
 Moreau's letter, 8th June, says : " I approve all your ar- 
 rangements, &c. : from the obstacles the troops have met in 
 passing the mountains, I shall confine myself to directing what 
 I have nearest towards Bobbio, and shall debouch with the rest 
 by the Bochetta and Novi. Nevertheless, if it be possible to 
 move to-morrow evening, I will go by Pontremoli, but it is 
 difficult." 
 
 His letter of the 11th says definitely, he shall be near Novi 
 on the 16th or 17th. These difficulties, which, as we see, pre- 
 vented the junction of the armies by Pontremoli, were conse- 
 quent on Moreau's choice of a retreat from Alexandria by Asti 
 on Coni, in preference to falling back on Genoa by Acqui and 
 Savona, as Victor did. Had he done so, like that General, he 
 could have reached Genoa on the 22nd ]\Iay, and have joined 
 Macdonald on the 30th. 
 
 Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, who served in Italy in 1799, says 
 on this much discussed question : " On the 29th May, Mac- 
 donald had his head-quarters at Lucca — his right held the 
 passes on Modena — his centre was at Pistoia, and Dombrowski, 
 with the left wing, held Sarzana. Thus, the communication 
 between the two armies was perfectly established, and one may 
 say, their junction eiFected ; but they would not have it so, 
 because there were no good roads on which to pass artillery, 
 as if they could not have embarked it at Lerici or elsewhere. 
 They preferred hazardous operations. The junction actually 
 effected on the 29th May at Sarzana, was directed to be made in 
 the middle of June at Tortona, where it was impossible it could 
 be made ; so that after the loss of much time and several battles, 
 they were only too glad to come back a month later, to do what
 
 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 91 
 
 they should have done a month before. The army of Naples, 
 notwithstanding its losses at the Trebbia, found no difficulty 
 whatever in thus effecting a junction Avith Moreau, which 
 shows incontestibly that those losses might have been avoided, 
 and the union of the two armies duly effected at a much earlier 
 period." 
 
 Both Macdonald and Moreau evidently saw more advan- 
 tage in winning a battle near Parma than at the foot of the 
 Bocchetta ; but their best chance of winning any where depended 
 on their union before the battle, and as Moreau did not choose 
 to draw Macdonald to him, one wonders he did not defer his 
 advance for the few days that were requisite to ensure their 
 previous union.
 
 92 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Fall of A REINFORCEMENT of 1 1 ,000 Russians, 
 Alexandria and 
 
 Mantua. under Rehbinder, more than replaced 
 
 the casualties of the Trebbia. Kaim's force from 
 
 Turin, and Haddick's from the Valais had joined 
 
 Suwarow, who, early in June, could have marched 
 
 60,000 men against Moreau, while Macdonald 
 
 would have been taken in flagrante in Tuscany. 
 
 He expected the co-operation of the English 
 
 fleet, and wrote to Nelson : " I trust the Baron 
 
 of the Nile will soon be Duke of the Riviera di 
 
 Ponente."* 
 
 * At a somewhat later period, the followmg letters passed 
 between Nelson and Suwarow : — 
 
 " Dear Pkince and Brothek, 
 
 "No man in Europe loves you as I do. All admire 
 your brilliant achievements, as does Nelson, who more parti- 
 cularly respects you for your contempt of wealth. Duty makes 
 you true and faithful to your monarch, and in this I dare to call 
 myself your brother. I know my actions are not to be com-
 
 NELSON AND SUWAROW. 93 
 
 But the Emperor's autographic letters commanded 
 hhii to attempt nothing until Mantua, Alexandria, 
 
 pared to yours ; but the generosity of my Sovereign rivals that 
 of 3'our own. The Emperor of all the Russias, the King of the 
 Two Sicilies, and the Grand Signor, have overloaded me with 
 honours and riches. In this respect we mutually present an 
 example to the world of true service zealously rewarded. To- 
 day has made me the proudest man in Europe, for a certain 
 person who has been near you for years, has told me that there 
 are not two men living more alike in face, figure, and manners, 
 than we are. "We must be relations, and I beg you not to refuse 
 me the dear title of your loving brother, 
 
 "Nelson." 
 
 " Prague, \2th January 1800. 
 "Dear Lord and Brother, 
 
 " If any recollection will remain dear to me, it is 
 that of resembling so distinguished an Admiral as yourself. In 
 looking at j'our portrait, I really do observe a resemblance be- 
 tween us, and thus it may he said, " Lea beaux esjirits se 
 rencontrent.'''' This new distinction enchants me ; but even more 
 than our likeness does our relationship rejoice me. There can 
 be no rewards for your brilliant merits, dear Admiral, in which 
 your brother and friend does not take the warmest and most 
 joyful interest. Jealous of this title and your friendship, I 
 earnestly request you to continue your correspondence with me, 
 and to be persuaded of the reciprocity of my feelings, which Avill 
 always continue me your sincere friend and brother. Victory, 
 glor}', and good fortune for the new year. 
 
 " SuWAROW."
 
 94 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 and Tortona had fallen ; declared that in no case 
 would he tolerate any movements either into France 
 or against Nice or Savoy ; and as regarded the 
 enemy's dislodgment from Liguria, he absolutely 
 twice uses the precise expression of Sir Abel Handy 
 when his checks on conflagration are none of them 
 at hand — " perhaps it will go out of itself." On 
 reading these effusions, Suwarow exclaimed, — " Thus 
 are armies sacrificed," and immediately despatched 
 additional men and artillery to Kray, and sent for a 
 battering train to Alexandria, ordering Haddick to 
 return to his former ground, which the Archduke 
 Charles peremptorily refused to occupy, as he had 
 been commanded. If there be one of the strongly 
 marked characteristics of Suwarow's practical and 
 honest nature, which more than any other wins for 
 him the cordial sympathy of all good men and true, 
 it is the zealous manner in which in every instance 
 he carries out the measures forced upon him by the 
 Austrian Government, in direct breach of their pro- 
 mise to leave him independent, and in utter nullifi- 
 cation of all his own plans of operation. In addition 
 to this grievance, the council of war at Vienna was 
 allowed to send orders to the individual Generals 
 employed in carrying out his orders, actually revers- 
 ing them ; while the Archduke Charles, when per- 
 emptorily ordered to relieve Iladdick's corps on the
 
 HIS MAGNANIMITY. 95 
 
 St. Gothard, that it might join Suwarow's army to 
 which it properly belonged, pertinaciously refused 
 throughout the whole campaign to comply with these 
 instructions. 
 
 Still we see Suwarow — provoked, and writhing 
 under such contumacious injustice — in every instance 
 earnestly exerting himself, and stimulating others, to 
 carry out successfully the measures he disapproved, 
 and cordially making the best of things as they were, 
 in furtherance of the public good. But a few ex- 
 tracts from his letters will show the difficulty of his 
 position far better than any general expressions. As 
 early as the 27th May, he wrote from Turin to 
 Rasumowsski, the Russian ambassador at Vienna: 
 " Your highness well knows that in the instructions 
 I received on leaving Vienna, it is said with respect 
 to Mantua that it shall be besieged or blockaded, as 
 I think best. The latter was done, and Kray and 
 Klenau, after eifecting it, proceeded with the rest of 
 their troops to join Ott, in order to obviate all 
 danscer to Mantua from the union of Montrichard 
 and Gauthier with Macdonald. They were, how- 
 ever, suddenly recalled by the council of w^ar, to 
 besiege Mantua, without my having received the 
 slightest intimation on the subject — so you see I am 
 not wanted here. This decree disturbs the con- 
 nection of all my operations, and in consequence I
 
 96 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 must prolong my stay at this place. I must send for 
 Bellegarde. Haddick hesitates, and makes more 
 danger for us. He comes to us weak, so that we 
 are weak. Each individual General addresses him- 
 self, not only on his own affairs, but on the general 
 operations, to the council of war, and can thus in- 
 trigue for his own particular ends, so that the coun- 
 cil, having the right to order them, can always shackle 
 me. I could do much here with the Piedmontese 
 troops, and arm them and maintain them without 
 any cost to Austria. I could garrison towns with 
 the best of them, and, with the troops they would 
 liberate, act freely in the field ; but now, garrisons 
 take half our men. Was not this the grand rule of 
 the French in their rapid conquests ? Is it not the 
 specious phrase " Liberte et egalite^'' that has trod down 
 religion and sovereign power ! If the council of war 
 had left me unshorn, its work for two campaigns 
 would not have cost me as many months ; but with 
 its power of hyper-generalissimo-izing, a month of its 
 campaign would find me work for all the summer." 
 
 On the very day following that on which he thus 
 complains of the council of war, we find him direct- 
 ing Kray, in obedience to their orders, to press the 
 siege of Mantua with all his energy and means ; and 
 acquainting him, as regards the latter, that he has 
 ordered Hohenzollern to join him from Milan, which
 
 HIS DISSATISFACTION. 97 
 
 would raise his force to 32,000 men. On the 6th 
 July, he writes again to Rasumowski, — " So the 
 siege did not win us Turin ! It was luck, in the 
 Roman emperor's opinion! The directing Thugut 
 knows the scales; he is always ready — so are pre- 
 texts. ' Oh ! you require troops What 
 
 would you do if you were beaten?' His Excel- 
 lency does not know that to profit by victory, you 
 must have troops ; and now they want to take from 
 me my poor lamb Rehbinder ; and the Archduke, 
 while he carves so charmingly for himself, refuses to 
 give me what he is ordered. Anger flows with the 
 Tidone and the Trebbia. What will become of me ? 
 I must turn Cincinnatus. My late victories have 
 cost me 5,000 men, but the fine talkers have cost me 
 more than 10,000. The general good Avould demand 
 the replacement of these, and not the additional with- 
 drawal of Rehbinder. If he leave me, I must leave 
 this. Does the cabinet understand that no siege can 
 be carried on without a corps of observation ? I can- 
 not by any means dispense with Rehbinder, nor with 
 the relief of Iladdick by the Archduke. If his High- 
 ness's roof is to be covered, mine must not be left 
 open. I wish these gentlemen would fight the 
 French, instead of warring on me and the general 
 good. Vienna cannot have the same insight into 
 what is doing here, as I have. Let us have no more 
 
 II
 
 98 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 of these counsellors of war : all must depend on my 
 truth, and confidence in me." 
 
 Again he writes, — "I wish to be away from this. 
 Everywhere these counsellors of war with their un- 
 alterable routine will cause disaster. Security ! rule- 
 preachers ! — these latter have cost my army thrice as 
 much, and the detached corps still more, than our three 
 last battles — at least 10,000 men; while the order to 
 relieve Haddick remains unfulfilled by the Arch- 
 duke, because his Highness talks like a book. They 
 speak of some of Korsakow's people coming here, but, 
 in the mean time, they take from me the Germans, 
 as well as Rehbinder. Why should not the con- 
 quered countries undertake their own local duties, 
 under the protection of the army ? I have arms 
 enough to give them. The Emperor desires that 
 when I want to fight a battle to-morrow, I should 
 first address myself to Vienna; as if circumstances 
 in war did not change in a moment ! Fortune is 
 bald behind, but wears long locks in front ; if you 
 don't seize her by them, she will soon have her back 
 to you. I never knew I was following Hannibal's 
 teaching, either at the Trebbia or the Tidone, nor at 
 Turin, where an accident gave us everything ; nor at 
 Milan, the gates of which I fancied had been opened 
 to us by what we did at Yaprio and Cassano ! Is 
 one campaign or ten to be preferred ? or is it better
 
 Hig LETTER TO PAUL. 99 
 
 to have Paris as a goal to be speedily reached, or to 
 block up the way to it by impediments we make our- 
 selves ? My friend and benefactor, give me full 
 powers, or give me freedom." 
 
 At this period he wrote to the Emperor Paul, — 
 " As our many victories and conquests have neces- 
 sarily weakened the army, and as I have lost all hope 
 in the Archduke, the arrival of Rehbinder's corps 
 was most opportune. Having strengthened Kray 
 before Mantua, I have ordered Rosenberg (who now 
 commands Rehbinder's division) to cover the siege 
 and the conquered parts of Lombardy. The med- 
 dlino; nervousness of the council of war ; their dislike 
 of me as a foreigner ; the intrigues of individual 
 Generals, who address themselves direct to it, and 
 receive from it orders interfering with my operations ; 
 together with the impossibility of carrying out instruc- 
 tions sent to me by persons a thousand wersts from 
 the scene of action ; all oblige me, most respectfully, 
 to solicit your Majesty to recall me, if things are to 
 continue thus. My only wish is to lay my bones in 
 my own country, and to pray to God for my Em- 
 peror." 
 
 The citadel of Alexandria surrendering on the 22nd 
 July, after twelve days open trenches — during the last 
 seven of which, 42,000 projectiles had been thrown 
 into it — and a few days after, the more important one
 
 100 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 of Mantua having yielded — its garrison to march out 
 on the 30th ; Suwarow writes to Melas on the 31st, — 
 "Mantua having fallen, we must no longer delay- 
 operations against the Riviera. Your Excellency 
 knows, as well as I do, what we should gain, could 
 we move at once. Whatever will facilitate our 
 operations must be had, and we must take the re- 
 sponsibility on our own shoulders. Kray will be 
 here in a week. In twelve days, we may be on the 
 Col di Tende, and all our preparations for this must 
 be ready in ten. The quickest measures are the 
 best : don't hear of excuses. The object is of first- 
 rate importance, and its results will repay double 
 whatever it may cost us, I conjure your Excellency, 
 by your devotion to your sovereign, and your well- 
 proved zeal, to employ alike your authority and your 
 energy, that all our preparations may be completed 
 within ten days. Rapidity is everything at this 
 moment ; delay a crime : there can be no excuse for 
 failure. Report fully all you have done, and what- 
 ever is not completed, stating the reasons of the 
 latter." 
 
 Suwarow's plan of operation here alluded to was, 
 that Kray, Klenau, and Rosenberg should conjointly 
 operate against Genoa, while he, personally, led a 
 corps on Nice ; so as to induce the enemy to evacuate 
 Li2,uria for the defence of their own frontier, or to
 
 JdUBEET's INDECISION. 101 
 
 destroy them by a combined attack upon their flank, 
 and rear, along the narrow line of the Riviera. 
 But the month of July had been sacrificed, as re- 
 garded field operations, to the sieges of Alexandria 
 and INIantua ; the French in Liguria had been rein- 
 forced by Macdonald's people and fresh troops from 
 France, so as now to number more than 40,000 men ; 
 while a considerable force was collecting in the mari- 
 time Alps, under Championnet, to co-operate with 
 them. 
 
 Joubert's -^.s Kray's army from Mantua was 
 
 Advance. i • o i • i 
 
 approachmg feuwarow, he issued one 
 
 of his exciting and threatening proclamations to 
 
 the Genoese ; and to facilitate the impending 
 
 operations, ordered an attack on Serravalle, wliich 
 
 surrendered on the 7th August. Klenau, strongly 
 
 reinforced, had cleared Tuscany of the enemy, and 
 
 pushed along the Corniche road, as far as Sestri, and 
 
 12,000 men around Cherasco observed Championnet's 
 
 force; when, on the 11th, 12th, and 13th of August, 
 
 the French army, near 40,000 strong, descended the 
 
 Bocchetta, and the valleys of the Orba and Bormida, 
 
 under the command of Joubert. " We must give the 
 
 boy a lesson," was Suwarow's comment on hearing 
 
 this intelligence. Joubert had beo-o-ed Moreau to 
 
 remain with him, and even to share his command. 
 
 " Neither you nor I can sanction that arrangement,"
 
 102 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 replied his friend ; " but I will not say farewell to 
 Italy, till I have had the pleasure of fighting by the 
 side of my brave Joubert." 
 
 On the 14th, soon after noon, the right of the 
 French army, under St. Cyr, had driven the Russian 
 posts from Novi, and the left had halted behind Pas- 
 turana ; while Joubert and his Generals proceeded to 
 reconnoitre the allied army encamped on the plain 
 before them, and covering the siege of the citadel of 
 Tortona, with its centre near the village of Pozzolo 
 Formigaro. The extent of the encampment, and the 
 masses of troops which their glasses showed them, 
 moving in the direction of Bosco and Rivalta, at once 
 convinced Joubert, that, contrary to his hope and 
 expectation, Kray's force from Mantua must have 
 joined Suwarow ; when his perplexity and indecision 
 became such, that he could literally resolve on no- 
 thing, and night had set in before he could bring him- 
 self to determine whether he would fall back or 
 fight.* 
 
 * It is so much a fashion, especially among a large literary 
 class, to undervalue the highest military qualities as common- 
 place endowments, that it may not be altogether uninteresting to 
 show, from St. Cyr's account of Joubert, at this moment, how 
 wretchedly inefficient and incompetent the most admirable 
 executive, and personally heroic officers may show themselves 
 when called on to exercise the higher duties of command. St. 
 Cyr states, that on returning to Joubert, after witnessing
 
 ST. cyr's account of joube-rt. 103 
 
 While Joubert was still upon the Novi plateau, a 
 couple of battalions were seen to quit the allied 
 camp ; and, advancing, to extend and lie down in the 
 
 Suwarow's reconnaissance, he found him on the heights with 
 Moreau, Dessoles, Sachet, and Perignon, the latter most impa- 
 tient to rejoin his corps to put it in position. But Joubert was 
 totally undecided what he would do, and seemed to regret that 
 he had left the mountains. St. Cyr here remarks, that Joubert 
 had served the Italian campaigns with the greatest distinction, 
 but that now he afforded an example of the difference between 
 carrying out the orders of an able chief, and exercising respon- 
 sible command. Then he was all decision, now he was utterly 
 without it. He had simply to decide whether he would attack 
 Suwarow, or retire into the Apennines. The first was abso- 
 lutely irrational ; the second, attended with no single incon- 
 venience. For some time the enemy had been preparing to 
 attack Liguria, had even intended to have done so on the 12th, 
 but circumstances had delayed him, and now the arrival of the 
 French on the plain was a positive god-send to him. These 
 considerations were urged on Joubert. There was no necessity 
 to fight. Tortona would hold out, and use up the enemy's 
 means, as long as its provisions lasted ; in ten days Champion- 
 net might be in the plains with 35,000 men to co-operate. 
 Should the enemy attack them in the mountains, the French 
 knew every foot of the ground, and no affair of a few hours 
 would there decide matters ; but twenty actions sustained ac- 
 cording to circumstances, on difiicult ground, where the enemy's 
 superior cavalry and artillery would be next to useless. Joubert 
 was assured that whatever he decided on should be zealously 
 carried out, but he was entreated to decide at once, whether the
 
 104 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 grain opposite the French vedettes ; while, from a 
 group of staff officers behind them, a short figure, 
 with nothing on but a shirt and trousers, rode for- 
 
 army should retire or fight, and in the latter case whether the 
 battle should be offensive or defensive ; as in either, there was 
 not a moment to lose in making the necessary dispositions : but 
 Perignon and St. Cyr found it impossible to persuade their 
 chief to decide on anything, and they went on talking until 
 evening without the slightest result. From the windows of the 
 casino where they sat, they could see all the enemy's dis- 
 positions, movements, and preparations for the battle. Perignon 
 was on thorns to get back to his men, and to take up his 
 ground. St. Cj'r fortunately had occupied his : but he, too, 
 was most anxious to be authorized to call in Watriu's division, 
 which had been carried considerably too far to the right. 
 Joubert, however, would not part with them till he had made up 
 his mind. At last he stated that he believed the best they could 
 do would be to regain their former position, but that he feared 
 they were too far advanced, and too near the enemy, to venture 
 on a retrograde movement. St. Cyr combated this objection, 
 urging that the night would conceal the movement, and that he, 
 with the right, would check the enemy near Gavi, while the 
 left fell back upon Savona. 
 
 This proposal, however, did not allay Joubert's indecision ; 
 which so agitated him, that he seemed ashamed of it, and begged 
 the oflScers to excuse him : saying he had never before yielded to 
 such weakness, that he had often been useful to Bonaparte, by 
 offering suggestions in very difficult emergencies, and that he 
 could not account for the irresolution, from which, at this 
 moment, he found it impossible to free himself Finally, he
 
 SUWAROW AT NOVI. 105 
 
 ward, followed by a single orderly, and approached 
 the French position. This was Suwarow, who, after 
 making his observations, and occasioning a slight 
 
 seemed to have determined on a retreat, and told the Generals 
 to join their troops, and that in an hour or two they should 
 have the orders to move ; but they had seen too much of his 
 fatal indecision to expect him to adhere to this opinion, and 
 made what arrangements they could, rather for defence than 
 retreat. 
 
 Perignon's people were asleep, and he contented himself with 
 supporting the vedettes they had thrown out, by a brigade. At 
 nine o'clock St. Cyr again waited on Joubert, and found him 
 as undecided as before, and on quitting him, was again told he 
 had definitively determined on retreat, the orders for which 
 should shortly be circulated — none, however, came, except a 
 caution to keep the bivouack fires as much concealed as possible. 
 At ten, Joubert sent word to St, Cyr, that from noises in the 
 enemy's camp, it seemed they were retreating ; to Vi^hich St. Cyr 
 answered they were drawing back their artillery into camp, and 
 that he was persuaded they would attack the French at day- 
 break. Thus, then, at midnight, of four French divisions, one 
 only was in position — two were to take up their ground at day- 
 break, and the fourth was two leagues away, while within 
 cannon shot lay a superior enemy, headed by a chief of despe- 
 rate resolution ; and yet, looking at these circumstances, from 
 noon till midnight, a soldier, like Joubert, for want of 
 one only of the thousand qualifications required to perfect a 
 leader of armies, had continued paralysed to an absolute nullity. 
 
 Be assured, gentle reader, that a great Commander is not a 
 commonplace individual, and that Capt. Buck can scarcely be
 
 106 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 interchange of fire between the skirmishers, rejoined 
 his staff. He naturally wanted his enemy on the 
 plain; but, justly distrustful of his intention to ad- 
 vance, he had determined to attack, and would im- 
 mediately have done so on this day, before the 
 enemy's army was united, but that Kray's people 
 required rest. The Austrian Generals are said to 
 have been unanimous in opposition to SuAvarow on 
 this occasion, but he vehemently urged the danger of 
 delay in a possible junction between Joubert and 
 Championnet; made light of the strength of the Novi 
 position and the quality of the enemy's troops ; 
 boasted of the gallant men he led, all accustomed to 
 carnage and victory, and finally overruled them, — 
 Melas characteristically remarking, that at the worst 
 their numerous cavalry, which would be next to use- 
 less in the battle, would effectually cover their retreat 
 across the plain to Pozzolo. 
 
 said to overstep hyperbole wheI^ he liberally admits that 
 " Hannibal was a pretty fellow in his day." 
 
 Sir AValter Scott was somewhat of Capt. Buck's opinion. 
 " I need hardly repeat," says Mr. Lockhart, " that Scott never 
 considered any amount of literary distinction as entitled to be 
 spoken of in the same breath with mastery in the higher de- 
 partments of practical life — least of all with the glory of a first- 
 rate Captain. Literary fame, he said, was a bright feather 
 in the cap, but not the substantial cover of a well protected 
 head."
 
 HIS ORDERS FOR BATTLE. 107 
 
 The moment battle was resolved on, Kray solicited 
 that to him and his countrymen might be assigned 
 the honour of the grand attack, and Suwarow re- 
 plied, " I assent to your Excellency's proposition to 
 attack the enemy at daybreak on the 15th, with all 
 your forces, and I fully depend on you to dispose of 
 his left wing. Attack him with the greatest impe- 
 tuosity and drive him past Novi on Serravalle, i. e., 
 from the plain of the Lemme to that of the Scrivia, 
 turning him as early as possible from Gavi. I will 
 follow your attack in the plain with the troops from 
 Pozzolo. I confide implicitly in my hero-friend ! " 
 To the troops he announced, " God wills — the Czar 
 commands, and Suwarow orders that to-morrow the 
 enemy shall be vanquished ;" and the order for battle 
 was simply, " At daybreak the corps of Generals 
 Kray and Bellegarde (thirty battalions and twenty 
 squadrons) will attack the left wing of the enemy at 
 Pasturana, while the Russians (two divisions and 
 reserve of cavalry) attack the centre, and Melas 
 (thirteen battalions and sixteen squadrons) the 
 right " ; but most unaccountably the Russians were 
 directed to advance at nine o'clock, and Melas at 
 noon. The army amounted to full 42,000 men — 
 6,000 were posted at Spinatti, and 13,000 remained 
 around Tortona. 
 
 It would be difficult to conceive more favourable
 
 108 SUWAROAV'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 fighting ground for a brave army than that taken 
 up by the French on the morning of the 15th 
 August, on the plateau behind Novi. Its command 
 of 100 feet or more over the plain in its front, and 
 to the rio;ht and left along its whole extent of about 
 a league, is perfect — it is only assailable from below 
 by a stiff unbroken slope, breathing to mount, but 
 good to charge down, and along which the fire of 
 musquetry would sweep as over the glacis of a 
 fortress ; while in front of its right, the small town 
 of Novi, compact within its walls and towers, pro- 
 trudes like an immense bastion, giving a splendid 
 flank command to right and left on anything assault- 
 ing the front of the plateau. Its rear is effectually 
 covered by a deep and rugged ravine, opening to the 
 plain behind Pasturana, which separates and isolates 
 the position from the neighbouring heights; except 
 immediately in rear of Novi, where a narrow isthmus 
 of its table ground trends backward, ascending gra- 
 dually to the Monte Rotondo, and carrying with it 
 the road to Gavi : the eastern falls of this ridge over- 
 look the Serravalle road, which runs at their base, as 
 well as the whole of the low ground intervening be- 
 tween it and the Scrivia. 
 
 These heights, the town of Novi and the ground 
 behind it, were held, on the morning of the 15th 
 August, by one of St. Cyr's divisions (La Boissiere's)
 
 POSITION OF THE FRENCH. 109 
 
 till the other (Watrln's) should arrive from Betoli di 
 Novi by a circuitous route, the hostile fort of Serra- 
 valle being on the direct road. Grouchy and Le- 
 moine's divisions, under Perignon, were to occupy the 
 rest of the position to St. Cyr's left, with their imme- 
 diate reserves in front of Pasturana. Dombrowski, 
 who, with 3,000 men, blockaded Serravalle, was, if 
 necessary, to support St. Cyr. Several country seats, 
 half a mile or so apart, near the edge of the plateau, 
 served admirably as points for observation, and the 
 terraced grounds about them for the service of artil- 
 lery. At one of these, called Collinetta, not far to 
 the left of Novi, so powerful a battery was established, 
 as, with the flank defence of the town, to render an 
 attack on that part of the position next to hopeless. 
 On lookino; from this casino over the battle-2;round, 
 a soldier will almost sympathize with the fatal disin- 
 clination of poor Joubert to abandon it ; but its fight- 
 ing advantages are not a whit more evident to the 
 meanest capacity, than is its grand defect in case of 
 disaster. The deep and precipitous ravine which 
 runs along its rear, restricts all retreat from it to the 
 narrow isthmus along which goes the road to Gavi, 
 on the extremity of the right flank, and the steep, 
 zig-zag defile of car-road which descends from Pas- 
 turana, on that of the left: the one an indiflferent, 
 the otlier a desperate communication for a retreating
 
 110 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 army ; and both, from their position, lending them- 
 selves to almost certain seizure by an energetic 
 enemy. 
 
 At daybreak on the 15th August, 
 Battle of No^i. / ° 
 
 a dropping fire began on the left 
 
 of the French advanced posts, and their troops 
 rapidly stood to their arms. Joubert, the brave 
 Joubert, galloped towards the left exclaiming as he 
 passed, " Comrades, the republic orders you to 
 battle," when shouts of " Vive la rtpublique,'^ taken 
 up frojn corps to corps, pealed lustily from end to 
 end of the plateau, and welcomed the coming fight. 
 The left wing of the army was hurriedly taking up 
 its ground, when Joubert, riding in among the tirail- 
 leurs to keep them to their work in face of Kray's 
 numerous columns, now pressing on to the attack, 
 was shot dead. He was only in his thirtieth year ! a 
 private soldier in 1791, General of Brigade in 1796, 
 he died in 1799. But a short time before, he had 
 married Madlle. de Montholon, sister of Lieut.- 
 General the Count de Montholon, who accompanied 
 Napoleon to St. Helena, and so faithfully served 
 him to the last. He wore her portrait, and as he 
 looked on it for the last time, he said, " I '11 conquer : 
 I have promised the republic, and I have promised 
 her that I will do it, or die." He was cheering on 
 his men below the villa called the Belyidere, waving
 
 JOUBERT IS KILLED. Ill 
 
 his sword and crying, " En avant, en avant ! marchez 
 toujours /" and they were rallying at his words when 
 he dropped lifeless from his horse.* On the death 
 of their leader, the French light troops fled, and the 
 Austrian columns, pressing up the slope in despite of 
 the confused resistance of the forming troops, were 
 already on the plateau, when Moreau by his exer- 
 tions restored order ; sent to St. Cyr for Colli's bri- 
 gade, and, after a gallant and protracted struggle, 
 succeeded in driving back the Austrians. 
 
 Kray, however, immediately re-formed his men on 
 the plain below, and soon led them on, under cover 
 of a furious cannonade, to a second attack ; while 
 Bellegarde led his cavalry round to the opening of 
 the great ravine, to turn the left of the position. 
 He had penetrated up a gully which opens on the 
 plateau to the left of Pasturana, and the French 
 front seemed yielding before Kray, when Perignon 
 directed his reserve, in column of battalions, on 
 the flank of Bellegarde's cavalry, while Richepanse, 
 
 * St. Cyr seems to imply that he sought his death, observing, 
 that when he saw the enemy's cokimns advancing : — " II realiza 
 aussitot ce que quelques mots qui lui, etaient echappes la veille, 
 devaient faire prevoir. II dit aux aides-de-camp dont il etait 
 entoure, ' jetons nous parmi les tirailleurs ' — ce qu'ils firent au 
 m^me instant. II fut aussitot atteint d'une balle qui le renversa 
 mort."
 
 112 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 with his horsemen, charged their front. This 
 vigorous movement cleared the flank of the position, 
 and Kray was again repulsed by the superior 
 numbers the enemy were now able to oppose to 
 him. On this second repulse (at near eight o'clock), 
 Kray sent to press the attack of Bagration, who was 
 waiting near Pezzolo in full view of the French 
 army, for nine o'clock ; but seeing Kray's diflSculties 
 he marched at once on Novi ; before reaching which, 
 he found himself checked by a battalion of light 
 troops, with which Gardanne had most judiciously 
 occupied the dry water channels in front of the 
 town. Weak as was this force, notwithstanding 
 the support received from Novi, yet by the most 
 determined courage, the struggle against its nu- 
 merous and brave assailants was so much prolonged, 
 that St. Cyr particularizes the fighting here as 
 amongst the very hardest of the day ; declaring that 
 the ground had to be taken and retaken several 
 times, before these admirable fellows were finally 
 driven into Novi, against which Bagration's attacks 
 were then directed, but utterly without success, and 
 at a very serious cost ; the height of the walls and 
 the strength of the barricaded gates eifectually 
 baffling all attempts to escalade or storm them. 
 
 Repulsed in front, Bagration next attacked the 
 French, left of the town ; but this so fatally exposed
 
 BATTLE OF NO VI. 113 
 
 his people to the artillery on the heights, that he soon 
 abandoned it ; and, re-forming his columns under the 
 fire of the enemy's guns, desperately led them to 
 assault the heights themselves. The perfect order 
 and remarkable daring of this attack are highly 
 eulogized by the French, who received it with a 
 tremendous fire of round and grape ; through which 
 the Russians had already reached the slope of the 
 plateau, and were pushing up, regardless of additional 
 volleys of musquetry that now assailed them ; when 
 Gardanne's people, sallying from Novi on their left 
 flank and rear, opened their fire at a stone's throw 
 distance, and caused hesitation, then a halt, and 
 finally irremediable disorder in their columns, which 
 bodily fell back, and re-formed at some distance on 
 the plain, under cover of their cavalry. 
 
 Suwarow was now entering the field at the head 
 of Derfelden's men, when some one rode up, exclaim- 
 ing, " the Russians are beaten." " Are they all 
 dead?" asked Suwarow. "Not all," replied the 
 speaker. " Then they are not yet beaten," rejoined 
 the Marshal. All were ordered to attack again, both 
 to the right and left of Novi ; Melas to march on the 
 extreme French right and its rear, and troops from 
 Spinetti and Tortona to hurry up as a reserve. 
 Kray was, ere long, once more upon the enemy's 
 position in front and flank ; but, after all his efforts, 
 
 I
 
 114 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 was again repulsed. He, however, fell back fighting, 
 and cut to pieces two battalions that pursued him, 
 capturing General Partonneau, who led them on. 
 
 For two hours the Russians continued to reiterate 
 their attacks on Novi and the central heights, from 
 which incessant showers of grape and musquetry 
 plunged into their columns. Those attacking to the 
 French right of Novi, were assailed by a sally from the 
 town on their right flank, as well as by sustained attacks 
 upon their left from Watrin's division, as its brigades 
 successively took part in the battle, on their arrival 
 from Betoli ; and, after a strenuous resistance, they 
 were eventually forced to give way. Their comrades 
 on the other side of Novi, under Suwarow's more 
 immediate observation, stood, or moved onward, in 
 abortive attacks below the CoUinetta, where Moreau 
 and his strongest batteries were posted; suffering 
 dreadfully under the concentric fire which poured 
 from the natural rampart before them, and from the 
 walls of Novi on their flank. Whole regiments fell 
 without a thought of flight ; if others gave way, it 
 was but to re-form to advance again: but all was 
 unavailing. The carnage was dreadful ; Suwarow 
 frantically crying out, " Am I to be beaten at the 
 end of my career?" tried to force his way to the 
 head of the grenadiers, but his Aides-de-camp seized 
 his bridle (the Staff having positive orders he should
 
 BATTLE OF NOVI. 115 
 
 not unnecessarily expose himself), and the Allies fell 
 back. The ardour of the French enorao-ed them in 
 a pursuit, which their Generals vainly endeavoured 
 to restrain, till the Russians turned fiercely upon 
 them ; when, apprehension for Moreau, whose horse 
 was shot, induced them to halt and resume their 
 ground upon the heights. 
 
 There was a lull along- the line ; the gatherins: of 
 another storm. Orders were sent from the farm of 
 San Marciano, where Suwarow had posted himself, 
 to Melas, to take ground to his right, and attack 
 Novi in front, while the Russians and Kray should 
 again attempt the plateau; but Melas having already 
 detached a column against Dombrowsky, and a bri- 
 gade to turn the heights near Sarravalle, had but 
 two brigades upon the field. With these he marched 
 to the right rear of Novi. Watrin's troops, already 
 wearied by their march and fighting, were recalled 
 in haste from the plain to counteract this movement ; 
 and passing hurriedly over the difficult and broken 
 ground that intervened, they arrived breathless and 
 dispirited, to see Melas's columns at once advancing 
 on their flank and rear. They offered but a faint 
 and most inadequate resistance to the Austrian 
 brigades, which had gained the plateau with little 
 loss ; Calvin's Cisalpine troops, who occupied its slope, 
 having, both officers and men, behaved disgracefully..
 
 116 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 St. Cyr finding it impossible to check the flight of 
 Calvin's and Watrin's people, rode back to La Bois- 
 siere's division behind Novi, and speaking a few 
 words to the 106th demi-brigade, led them headlong 
 against the Austrian troops, now masters of the 
 receding isthmus of table ground and the road to 
 Gavi ; and nobly did these gallant men fulfil the task 
 before them, dashing like heroes through the superior 
 Austrian force, and capturing General Lusignan and 
 the two guns which were already sweeping the pla- 
 teau. 
 
 This brilliant effort saved the French right wing 
 from total destruction. Its fugitives escaped along 
 the Gavi road — followed shortly by the troops from 
 behind Novi; and before the astonished Austrians 
 had recovered their self-possession, the glorious 106th, 
 with their trophies — aided by the cavalry, where the 
 ground admitted of its action — were seen slowly re- 
 tiring and covering the rescued right wing, till it 
 halted beyond the Riafib and Tassarolo, scarce a 
 league from the field of battle. Not so, however, 
 with the left. While Melas was engaged as stated, 
 the Russians were pressing hard on Novi, and Kray, 
 in his tenth attack, was battling up the slope ; the 
 French, on the plateau, having to show front to 
 north, east, and west, to cover their only line of 
 retreat by Pasturana. Suwarow sent repeated orders
 
 RETREAT OF THE FRENCH. 117 
 
 to all the Generals, and the purport of all and each 
 was " forward, forward." 
 
 Melas and Bagration entered Novi on opposite 
 sides nearly at the moment Kray's corps formed 
 across the plateau. Shout after shout rose from the 
 troops, as gradually the enemy was borne back on 
 every side, stimulating higher and higher, at each 
 succeeding burst, their furious zeal, and the rivalry 
 of their comrades, till the fire of the allied musquetry 
 had almost ceased, and the roar of cannon only 
 broke above the loud hurrahs that marked their 
 onward course. The French fought desperately to 
 cover the passage of their guns through Pasturana, 
 till an intelligent officer led some Hungarian light 
 troops round to the rear of the village, and firing on 
 the leading horses of the train, in a moment blocked 
 up the road, when the confusion and slaughter be- 
 came frightful.* Lemoine's division was driven 
 
 * " I always add my hollo," said the yeoman, " when I see a 
 good shot or a gallant blow ;" and one cannot suppress a kindred 
 feeling to that of the imaginary Locksley, in the idle pleasure 
 of recording, however perishably, the names of junior officers 
 who, with their limited means, have done good service. Major 
 Kies commanded these Hungarians, and until his success pro- 
 duced the result it did, the loss of the French was trifling com- 
 pared to that of the Allies. Dumas says, " La bataille eut ete 
 presque sans resultats si I'artillerie et les divisions qui formaient 
 I'arrierfe garde eussent peu s'ecouler par Pasturana;" and
 
 118 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 headlong down the great ravine by the Russians 
 — Grouchy's was routed by the Austrians. One 
 brigade only of the left wing (Grandjean's) had 
 marched unbroken off the field. General Colli 
 fought, wliile it was possible, in the streets of Novi, 
 and then cut his way to Grouchy and Perignon at 
 Pasturana. Here he fell mortally wounded, and 
 Grouchy charging desperately, first with a standard 
 in his hand, then with his helmet on his sabre — to 
 encourage his men to make head against the enemy 
 — sank under six, and Perignon under seven sabre 
 wounds : all three falling into the hands of the enemy. 
 Such was the devotion of these gallant men ! 
 
 The battle was over at nine o'clock. Suwarow 
 called it the fiercest and most obstinate he had seen, 
 and "fury" and "enthusiasm" were the terms used 
 in the despatches to describe the ardour of the troops. 
 Upwards of 16,000 killed and wounded lay upon the 
 plain and plateau, and 3,000 prisoners (including 
 four Generals), with thirty-nine guns, were the 
 profits of this stubborn conflict. Suwarow's de- 
 spatch terminates thus : — "I conclude with the 
 solemn assurance, uttered by a heart brimful of joy- 
 ful feelings, that from the General to the private of 
 
 " I'epouvantable boucherie " are the terms used by other French 
 writers to convey the effect of this (if even a soldier may be 
 excused the epithet) happy movement.
 
 REMARKS ON THE BATTLE. 119 
 
 the Imperial Army, all have shown a bravery at 
 which I wonder, but which I cannot describe. I 
 thank God for having; commanded so o-lorious an 
 army, and with deep gratitude to it, I unite my 
 voice to the testimony which General Melas gives in 
 favour of the noble men whose conduct he is able to 
 particularize." 
 
 No pursuit was undertaken ; though such was the 
 condition of the French army, that on the 17th (two 
 days after the battle) Moreau wrote to St. Cyr that 
 Colli had arrived at Campo Freddo, and that he 
 trusted Perignon had resumed his original position — 
 both these Generals being at the time in the hands 
 of the enemy, and the Commander-in-Chief knowing 
 nothing of them, or of the dispersed remainder of 
 their troops. Some idle firing, in which both sides 
 claimed the advantage, took place on the 16th, be- 
 tween the French right and the Austrians, who had 
 pushed back Dombrowsky ; after which both armies 
 and their respective outposts resumed the positions 
 held by them before Joubert's advance. 
 
 There are few battles the perusal 
 
 Obsen'ations. 
 
 of which will not make the coldest 
 critic something of a partisan ; but Novi is not 
 one of these, for it is doubtful in the impres- 
 sion it leaves, whether our sympathies are most 
 deeply interested for the heroism that conquered,
 
 120 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 or for that which was vanquished. Novi did 
 no credit to any quahty of Suwarow's, but his 
 indomitable perseverance. Adopting most fully his 
 opinion of the necessity of fighting (for who would 
 allow 40,000 men to strengthen a position like that 
 of Novi, within a march of a place besieged, when 
 another hostile army was daily expected to co- 
 operate with it?), it is impossible to understand the 
 motive of his decision, that Kray^s attack should be 
 carried on for four hours utterly without support. 
 Looking at the Novi position as one peculiarly lend- 
 ing itself on both sides to a flank attack, many 
 might have considered, under the circumstances that 
 existed, an operation against its right, with the appui 
 of Serravalle on the outer flank of the attacking; 
 army, to be a juster movement than that adopted 
 by Suwarow ; but it is, nevertheless, certain that 
 the one sanctioned by him, as explained in Melas's 
 report, viz., — the attack by Kray, embracing the 
 left wing of the enemy in flank and rear, to push it 
 past (i. e. behind) Novi on Serravalle, turning it, 
 as the ground rendered practicable, from Gavi, was 
 an operation which, if duly supported by a timely 
 co-operation by Bagration against the right of the 
 enemy's left wing, must, as admitted by the enemy, 
 have been attended Avith triumphant and profitable 
 results. Kray's operation, however, either from the
 
 HIS DISPOSITIONS CRITICIZED. 121 
 
 original misdirection of his columns, or from the 
 consequences of his repulse, soon assumed the cha- 
 racter of an attack on the front, rather than the 
 flank of the enemy's left wing ; so that when Bagra- 
 tion came upon the field, the occupation of the 
 ground by the Austrians obliged him to lead on 
 Novi instead of well to the French left of it, and 
 originated the bull-dog like assaults on Novi and 
 the formidable plateau on either side of it : in which, 
 to use Suwarow's own words, his "soldiers ex- 
 hausted by heat and thirst, in fa.ce of a position by 
 nature strong as a fortress, preferred destruction to 
 retreat; and exhibiting a superhuman perseverance, 
 in their blind and desperate courage, stormed through 
 a hail of missiles, and disregarding every obstacle, 
 rushed on inevitable death." This frightful struo;o;le, 
 as he justly styles it, never would have taken place, 
 had the troops been so disposed and directed as to 
 support each other when necessary ; and it was un- 
 questionably the bounden duty of Suwarow, that, on 
 ground overlooked on every inch of its whole extent 
 by the enemy, the troops should have been so placed, 
 and so instructed. 
 
 Suwarow had every advantage that circumstances 
 can give to an attacking General : superior numbers ; 
 excellent troops ; time to make his dispositions ; and 
 perfect knowledge of his enemy's ground. And yet
 
 122 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 he was saved apparently from an ignominious defeat 
 solely by the almost miraculous success of two weak 
 brigades, which showed such hesitation and irresolu- 
 tion in their advance, that it is said the merest 
 appearance of vigour would have checked them ; but 
 before which — such is war ! — three full brigades of 
 French soldiers fled like a mob, scarce offering re- 
 sistance. 
 
 We learn, however, from his unconquerable 
 perseverance, what a determined will may do to 
 palliate the consequences of a vicious combina- 
 tion ; for though we dare not say it would of itself 
 have conquered, we know it occupied the enemy 
 so entirely as to enable Melas's weak force to 
 carry out successfully his judicious and decisive 
 movement. Never was a battle more strangely 
 planned or more heroically fought than that of 
 Novi ! * 
 
 * On coming down to breakfast at the " Black Eagle," we 
 encountered our first memorial of the battle in the mark of a 
 musket-shot under the cornice of the room, with the date in- 
 scribed below it — " 15th Agosto 1799." The guide provided 
 for us was a respectable-looking lame old soldier, who said he 
 had served at Austerlitz and Eylau, and had been twice 
 wounded, but who, though recommended to us as " parfaite- 
 ment instruit," I soon found knew next to nothing of Novi ; and 
 it pained me to find in his conversation an obtrusive exhibition 
 of shallow infidelity, so that when I set out for Pasturana, I
 
 A VISIT TO NOVI. 123 
 
 was not sorry to avail myself of his lameness as an excuse for 
 dispensing with his further services. 
 
 The road, from the Gavi gate of Novi to this village, diago- 
 nally crosses the French position. The day was glorious, and 
 showed me all I came to see most famously. The walk is chiefly 
 along the edge of the great ravine or valley which backs in the 
 position, except immediately behind the town and castle of Novi. 
 Pasturana is most picturesquely placed with its castelletto on the 
 right of the steep road and defile which goes down to the 
 Riasco, and a precipitous bank upon its left. It is very pretty, 
 but a deadly thing to look at, as the only passage of a routed 
 army. When I drank to Major Kies in the Riasco water, I did 
 not forget Grouchy and Perignon and Colli. I looked up, and 
 thought of Lemoine's division. Good heavens ! — could a bone 
 in their bodies have come down unbroken ? No wonder the 
 Frenchmen write of " I'epouvantable boucherie ;" — it could be 
 no less with earnest men under furious excitement on such 
 ground as this. How beautiful, peaceful, and sunshiny it all lay 
 before me ! I had walked up to a height, between the village 
 and the next ravine, towards Bassaluzzo, where a religious 
 mission had yesterday put up a gigantic crucifix, and as I was 
 intently peopling the ground before me with Bellegarde's and 
 Richepanse's battling horsemen, a man came suddenly round the 
 bushes and disturbed me ; it was a priest — one of the mission 
 from Genoa. I bowed to him, and he to me. A half-expended 
 soldier and a youthful priest exchanging courtesies on a whilome 
 battle-field, where all else was stillness, cheerful sunshine, 
 dappled light and shadows, and an universal beauty that quite 
 stirred the heart, formed a picture somewhat different from that 
 I was endeavouring to conjure up. God grant that past and 
 present may long contmue to offer such contrasts ! As I was
 
 124 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 singing my way back, I came bolt upon an old peasant, who 
 stared for a moment, and then broke into a shout of " Allegre, 
 allegre ! " 
 
 Altogether, I think a day may be well passed at Novi. — 
 Extract from a Journal.
 
 MOREAU AT GENOA. 125 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Suwarow ordered After this victory, SO completely did 
 
 to Switzerland, r^ j ^.v, t;> i. i. 
 
 (jrenoa and the r rench army appear at 
 the mercy of Suwarow, that Moreau prepared to 
 evacuate the city, and had even embarked his artil- 
 lery, awaiting the farther orders of the Directory ; 
 while Klenau, reinforcing himself with all the troops 
 and peasants he could collect from Tuscany, had 
 advanced within a march of Genoa, in the hope of 
 carrying it by surprise or force. But Klenau was 
 repulsed, and Suwarow temporarily diverted from 
 Moreau by the movement of Championnet and 
 Lecourbe, who respectively threatened Piedmont 
 from the maritime Alps and the St. Gothard ; the 
 latter having carried all the Archduke Charles's 
 posts in the Reussthal and pushed back Haddik's 
 advance with serious discomfiture. Forces were
 
 126 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 marched against them, and head-quarters fixed cen- 
 tricallj at Asti on the 20th August. 
 
 From this place Suwarow reiterated his desire 
 to be recalled ; and whoever peruses the puerile 
 despatches which reached him in shoals, under the 
 signature of the Emperor Francis, incessantly pre- 
 scribing; measures which Su"svarow's successes had 
 thrown completely hors de ligne — ordering away 
 Generals and strong bodies of troops, and then ap- 
 prizing Suwarow that he (the Emperor) had done 
 so, and positively forbidding the execution of the 
 measures requisite to secure the Italian conquests — 
 will readily sympathise with the indignant bitterness 
 with which he declares, " I can serve here no longer. 
 The orders hourly arriving from the council of war 
 make me ill. At a thousand wersts from the scene of 
 action, they will direct operations, in total ignorance 
 of what is going on. Here is a new order from 
 the council. You will judge from it whether I can 
 stay here any longer. Lay it before his Majesty, 
 and solicit my recall the moment the Genoese ope- 
 rations are over. I am weak and can write no 
 more." 
 
 To Rostopchin he writes, " You will see from 
 my despatch that the Austrian system for the pro- 
 tection of the gates of Vienna has upset every- 
 thing here. I literally know nothing of what is
 
 ORDEEED TO SWITZERLAND. 127 
 
 doing. Everything is regulated by the council of 
 war. I cannot tell you how exhausted I am. I am 
 altogether a superfluous member of this army, and 
 simply the executor of Dietrichstein's orders. I try 
 to bear up against it like a man, but I must find a 
 refuge from it, whether in a cottage or a coffin." 
 
 Tortona having capitulated on the 22nd (to sur- 
 render in twenty days if not relieved) and Le- 
 courbe having retired up the St. Gothard, the 
 army was once again assembled at Asti for the 
 advance on Genoa, when Suwarow's further pro- 
 ceedings in Italy were abruptly put a stop to by an 
 order he received from Vienna to march with his 
 Russians to take the command in Switzerland. The 
 Emperor Paul had entered on this war with the 
 old-fashioned disinterestedness of a Preux Chevalier, 
 to restore dethroned kings and desecrated religion ; 
 but the cabinet of Vienna preferred to consider the 
 conquests of the French in Italy as "fails ac- 
 complis," which had annihilated all pre-existing 
 claims. Suwarow had been desired by Paul to 
 invite the king of Sardinia to Turin, to replace him 
 on his throne, and to maintain him there; and 
 Suwarow's letter of the 4th August to the Emperor 
 Francis, reporting the expected arrival of his Sar- 
 dinian Majesty, was crossed en route, by one of the 
 day previous from Francis to him, saying that he
 
 128 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 had persuaded Paul of the disadvantages attendant 
 on the king's immediate return to Piedmont, and 
 desiring Suwarow to arrest everything in progress 
 for this measure till he should hear further. This 
 was a state of things that could not last, and the 
 Austrian cabinet terminated it by hurriedly carrying 
 out an arrangement which had been some time in 
 deliberation, and despatching the Russians and their 
 leader to a country which offered more to overcome 
 and less to discuss than the almost subjugated Italy.* 
 
 * One of the most plausible of the several false and shallow 
 pretexts set forth by the Austrian cabinet in favour of this 
 measure, was the rivalry and jealousy said to exist between the 
 Russian and Austrian troops ; but this, as regarded the Italian 
 army, was utterly groundless. Rivalry and emulation there 
 were, as it was natural and beneficial there should be, but no- 
 where in Italy, from first to last, do we see one instance of such 
 rivalry exhibiting itself to the detriment of the public service. 
 Deprecating, as Suwarow did, a system like that of Austria, 
 which paralyzed a Commander by the interference of the council 
 of war with his subordinates, he fully and cordially appreciated 
 the individual merits of its officers. Of Melas, he always speaks 
 as a worthy, honourable, good, and gallant man. Of Kray the 
 same ; adding, " he would be the best successor to me you could 
 find." Wuckassovich, Klenau, Kain, Alcaini, &c., he mentions 
 as men he highly values. Of Chastelar and Zach, we read in 
 his correspondence, " My good-natured, giddy-pated weather- 
 cock — the brave Chastelar— has gone and got hmiself foolishly 
 wounded at Alexandria, and they have sent me Zach — good,
 
 NEW PLAN OF CAMPAIGN, 129 
 
 According to this new plan, Melas, with his 
 Austrians, was to act in Italy ; Suwarow with his 
 countrymen, Conde's corps, some Bavarians and 
 newly embodied Swiss, in Switzerland ; supported 
 on his right by a German army styled the " Inter- 
 mediate :" which, under the Duke of Wurtemberg, 
 was to take post about Stockach or Donauschingen, 
 
 quiet, and learned, but a true project-smith and security man. 
 God grant Chastelar his health ! " Indeed, the only instance in 
 ■which he expresses dissatisfaction with an Austrian officer is 
 when he says of Bellegarde's gratuitous reverse at San Juliano, 
 "The wise Bellegarde is one of the system-mongers. At the 
 outset of the war he favoured the enemy with 10,000 of his 
 men, and to-day in my necessity he has played away 2,000 for 
 me." Of the Austrian troops he never writes but in the most 
 cordial tenris. " The Germans always do their duty, and fight 
 well with me," he says, "why should it be otherwise elsewhere?" 
 And with respect to any estrangement between them and his 
 own people, he triumphantly scoffs at the bare idea of such a 
 state of things; emphatically and justly declaring " there can 
 be no disunion in the united army while I retain my senses. I 
 laugh at the jabber of the system-mongers, who just hit the 
 mean between your fool and rogue ! " And when all was over 
 on the 20th October, we find him writing : " Throughout the 
 late campaign in Italy it was impossible a better understanding 
 could exist between our troops and the Allies. This was in the 
 order of things, and as w'as natural. Zeal on both sides gave 
 the hand to assist, and in all things made up for every 
 deficiency." 
 
 K
 
 130 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 and communicate with the Royal Imperial army 
 under the Archduke Charles on the Rhine; which 
 again was to give its hand to the Duke of York, 
 who, with a combined force of British and Russians, 
 was expected speedily to liberate Holland and the 
 Netherlands. 
 
 On the 28th August, Suwarow acknowledged the 
 receipt of the order to march to Switzerland, de- 
 claring himself ready to move the moment Tortona 
 should surrender ; but at the same time he strongly 
 urged on the Emperor the propriety of not re- 
 moving the Russians from Italy, until Coni should 
 have been taken, and the enemy driven from 
 Liguria, Nice, and Savoy ; which he says might be 
 effected in two months : and so strong did he 
 consider the representation made by him on this 
 subject, that in notifying to the Archduke and 
 Korsakow vthe order he had received, he tells them 
 he has no expectation of being with them before the 
 expiration of the period mentioned. 
 
 But he little knew the men he had to deal with. 
 To his astonishment, on the very day after he had 
 thus written, he learned that the Archduke was pre- 
 paring to leave Switzerland ; when he thus addressed 
 him : " I have received the extraordinary news that 
 your Highness considers it your duty to leave the 
 Russian troops alone in Switzerland, so speedily,
 
 AUSTRIANS LEAVE SWITZERLAND. 131 
 
 that you have already commenced your march 
 towards Suabla. The inevitably disastrous conse- 
 quences of this measure for Germany and Italy, 
 must be evident to so experienced a General as 
 your Highness. I am persuaded your zeal for the 
 pubhc good will prevent the precipitate execution 
 of an order so detrimental to our objects, and so 
 much increasing the difficulty of attaining them. 
 Confident in your penetration and right intention, 
 I cannot but feel at ease in this respect, and I 
 feel sure of hearing the ao;reeable news of the 
 fresh victories for which Switzerland will be in- 
 debted to your Highness before you leave that 
 country." 
 
 Long, however, before this letter 
 
 Archduke Charles 
 
 leaves Switzer- reached the Archduke, he had already 
 land. 
 
 marched, and on the 29th August, had 
 
 reported to Suwarow, not only that he had done so, 
 but that he had gone, utterly disregarding the posi- 
 tive orders of his government to recover the line of 
 the St. Gothard, lost to the Allies by the defeat of 
 his left wing on the 15th August; thus adding to 
 Suwarow's difficulties by leaving the nearest line by 
 which his march could be effected, in the hands of 
 the enemy. This movement of the Archduke ne- 
 cessarily precipitated measures, every consideration 
 giving way to the urgent necessity of reinforcing
 
 132 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 the Inadequate body now left exposed to attack in 
 Switzerland. 
 
 Suwarow's prophetic comment on the prospect 
 before him was thus briefly penned on the back of 
 his instructions : " 1st. We want troops, clothing, 
 and supplies of every kind. 2nd. We shall have to 
 fight often on difficult bad ground, lose men, and be 
 weak when we arrive. 3rd. Massena need not wait 
 for us to beat us ; let him throw himself on Korsakow 
 who is close to him, then on Conde, and that will 
 do." But Suwarow's energy seemed more excited 
 by the additional difficulties thus heaped upon him ; 
 and believing, as he did, on the 3rd September, that 
 onl}^ 1 1,000 of his troops would accompany him into 
 Switzerland (Eehbinder's division being then under 
 orders for Malta), he reported himself prepared to 
 move, the moment Tortona's surrender should leave 
 him free to do so. 
 
 At the end of August, after the Arch- 
 
 Position of Allies 
 
 and French in duke and his army of 35,000 men had 
 Switzerland. 
 
 marched for Germany, the Limmat, 
 
 the Linth, and the lakes of Zurich and Wallenstadt, 
 
 separated the French and the Allies in Switzerland. 
 
 Korsakow with 25,000 Russians held Zurich and 
 
 both banks of the Limmat, opposed to Massena and 
 
 37,000 French, upon Mount Albis. Hotze, with 
 
 22,000 Austrians or Swiss occupied the long line
 
 POSITION OF THE BELLIGERENTS. 133 
 
 from Rapperschwyl, on the lake of Zurich by 
 Wesen and Wallenstadt, to Dissentis in the Rhein- 
 thal,* and was opposed to Soult, who had an equal 
 number of men partly massed on the left of the 
 Linth, and the remainder occupying the valley of 
 the Reuss and the St. Gothard. On the 5th Sep- 
 tember, Suwarow informed the allied Generals in 
 Switzerland that he purposed joining them by 
 the St. Gothard, and after effecting their junction, 
 marching by the shores of the Lucerne lake, to 
 CQ-operate in a general attack on the enemy, so as 
 to unite their victorious forces on the lower Reuss 
 and Aar. He called their attention to the left, 
 saying, " I expect, before all else, the co-operation 
 and junction of Linken with me in the way he 
 thinks best, as on this junction all subsequent 
 success depends ;" recommending, if necessary, this 
 officer's strong reinforcement, and requiring infor- 
 mation from him and Hotze as to the spot where 
 they could most speedily and safely connect their 
 forces ; concluding by requesting that the troops 
 might be daily exercised in attacks by column with 
 the sabre and bayonet. 
 
 On the 8th, he took leave of the Austrian army of 
 
 * Thai, signifying valley, when joined to the name of 
 a river, designates the valley through which such river 
 runs.
 
 134 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Italy. " No words," he said, " can ex- 
 
 Suwarow takes 
 
 leave of the press the satisfaction I have experienced 
 Austrian army. 
 
 in commanding so brave and well dis- 
 ciplined an army, nor the grief I feel at parting from. 
 it. The impression made on me by the steady intre- 
 pidity of the Austrians cannot be effaced. Let 
 them be assured I shall never forget the love, — the 
 blind confidence they showed me ; to which I owe 
 the palm of victory." Further movements of 
 Moreau and Championnet caused his troops, which 
 had already marched, to return to Alexandria ; but 
 after a solemn religious ceremony, and distribution 
 of honours to the officers and soldiery, he, himself, 
 receiving the Czar's portrait and the title of Prince 
 Italisky, on the 1 1th of Sept. (the citadel of Tortona 
 surrendering on that day) the effective remnant of 
 near 40,000 marched on Taverne, which was head- 
 quarters on the 15th. 
 
 Here, contrary to the assurances he 
 Detention of 
 
 Russians at had received, neither mules nor pro- 
 Taveme. 
 
 visions had arrived, and having made 
 
 forced marches to this point, he had to remain till the 
 21st. In explaining his position to Paul, he says : 
 *'Lord Mulgrave assures me that the English ministry 
 had no idea of your Imperial forces entering Switzer- 
 land until the Archduke should have freed it from the 
 enemy, and that Thugut had solemnly assured them
 
 DETENTION AT TAVERNE. 135 
 
 that the Archduke would not leave Switzerland, and 
 that he would write again to his Highness ; but, in 
 the mean time, while they write, the Prince is allowed 
 to effect his movement. On leaving the army on 
 the 11th, I demanded from Melas the full number of 
 mules required for my march ; but he only gave me 
 those required for the mountain guns, declaring all 
 the others would be ready at Bellinzona. By forced 
 marches we came to Taverne (ten versts from 
 Bellinzona), and find no single mule arrived; and 
 here have we been five days idle. This inactivity 
 is a great advantage to the enemy, who can adopt 
 measures that may seriously endanger us. In this 
 desperate position I saw nothing for it but to dis- 
 mount our Cossacks and use their horses instead of 
 mules — an expedient which, to our great consolation, 
 was suggested by Prince Constantine. Four hun- 
 dred mules have since arrived, and with these we 
 shall commence our march." 
 
 General Melas subsequently stated in his expla- 
 nation, dated Savigliano 22 nd, that 1,344 mules had 
 been despatched by Pavia, to arrive at Bellinzona 
 on the 11th, but that the Austrian Commissary, 
 Buprecht, had stopped them at Pavia to load them 
 with oats; and as an additional illustration of the 
 strange way of doing business in this department of 
 the Austrian army, the mules, which eventually
 
 136 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 arrived, 650 in all, were only hired to go to Bellin- 
 zona, where a fresh agreement had to be made with 
 their capitani. Finally, however, these and the 
 Cossack horses being laden with ammunition and 
 provisions for six days (the soldiers each carrying 
 four days bread), and the field guns (except the 
 mountain two-pounders) sent round by the Splugen, 
 the Russians were enabled to resume their march, 
 for the conduct of which the following instructions 
 were issued : — " The mountain paths are in general 
 so narrow that an unloaded horse can scarcely turn 
 on them — much less a laden mule. The columns 
 must be so formed as to obviate tliis difficulty. The 
 guns and what belongs to them must never be either 
 at the head or the rear of columns, as in the one 
 case they would impede the march, and in the other 
 not be easily got at when wanted. Our object being 
 to do all possible damage to the enemy, nothing can 
 be worse for us than anything leading to hesitation 
 or falling back. Each of the two infantry divisions 
 wiU form a separate column, unless the whole army 
 move upon a single path. The division column is 
 to be thus formed : where the ground allows them 
 to act, twenty-five Cossacks, then twenty armed 
 pioneers, followed by a battalion of J'agers or Gre- 
 nadiers, with one gun and its appurtenances. Then 
 three battalions and a gun — two battalions and a
 
 ORDEE OF MARCH. 137 
 
 gun — and four battalions with two guns, similarly- 
 apportioned, followed by ten mules, with spare flints 
 and ammunition. After the divisions, the Cossack 
 horses and mules with provisions, followed by the 
 baggage, under the protection of a battalion and 
 100 Cossacks. When the guides say we are ap- 
 proaching a defile, the leading Cossacks will fall 
 back and Jagers be pushed on ; the divisions to 
 close up with intervals of 200 paces between them. 
 To take a hill occupied by the enemy, a detachment 
 proportioned to its extent, must extend and ascend 
 it — the remainder following at 100 paces distance. 
 At turns in the mountain where the enemy's fire 
 does not tell, the men will take breath, and then go 
 on afresh. Should the light troops be checked by 
 the obstinate resistance of the enemy, and not be 
 able to get on, the column must then, without firing, 
 and with the greatest impetuosity, dash forward on 
 the hill and attack it with the bayonet. If the 
 enemy is at all shaken, he will not wait for this 
 attack, but easily give way. No hill can be carried 
 by firing only, as scarcely any damage can be done 
 to the enemy on it ; the shot either not reaching, or 
 going over him, while his fire from above is far more 
 effective — so that the utmost exertions must be per- 
 severed in, to gain the summit of the hills as rapidly 
 as possible, that we may not remain exposed to fire.
 
 138 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 No hill need ever be attacked in front, if its flank 
 can be got at. Whenever the enemy shall have 
 neglected to occupy the highest points of ground, 
 these must be seized as soon as possible, and be 
 attacked from above with fire and bayonet." 
 
 In the more particular disposition for the attack 
 on the St. Gothard and Reussthal, we read, *' In 
 the attack on the enemy's right, we come on a force 
 of 20,000 men, to which we can oppose more than 
 35,000," which clearly shows the extent of Austrian 
 co-operation on which he calculated, his own force 
 barely amounting to 20,000 : and his final letter to 
 Korsakow and Hotze from Bellinzona, on the 23rd, 
 says, " You will see from the inclosed plan and dis- 
 position how I mean to cross the St. Gothard, and 
 to attack in the Reussthal. You will co-operate 
 simultaneously with me, freeing the small cantons 
 and overcoming our first obstacles. But how and 
 when ? All this must be left to your own arrange- 
 ment for best meeting the local diflficulties and the 
 opposition of the enemy. All I can say to you is, 
 that no difficulty is to be considered insuperable — 
 no opposition too formidable — but that everything 
 must be done, even at extraordinary sacrifices, to 
 effect the grand result at which we conjointly aim. 
 "We must shrink from nothing, and we may be sure 
 that, with determination and active energy, all we
 
 THE ST. GOTHARD. 139 
 
 have to do will be done. Every delay strengthens 
 the enemy and adds to obstacles which the mere 
 difficulties of movement and provisioning the troops 
 hourly make more formidable. I trust, therefore, 
 that every corps will punctually do whatever is pre- 
 scribed for it, at the time laid down. For all our 
 sujfferings and hardships, the blessings of the liberated 
 countries, the favour of our illustrious Monarch, and 
 the praises of the world, will amply reward us." 
 Route by the On the small plateau of the St. Go- 
 thard, seven thousand feet above the 
 sea, are several small lakes, two of which are the 
 sources of the Ticino and the Reuss. The road 
 from Bellinzona to Altorf ascends the valleys and 
 chasms by which the former of these streams 
 rushes down from the mountain, and descends 
 those by which the Reuss pours downwards on the 
 northern side; but in 1799, this was a mere mule 
 road, of which the traveller still recognises frequent 
 remains, especially near the summit of the pass. Ten 
 thousand French, under Lecourbe — a name immor- 
 talized in mountain warfare — occupied this line, 
 which offers many points where a few brave men 
 might check an army. In the two leagues from 
 Airolo to the summit, it ascends 3,000 feet, crossing 
 the Ticino at the Ponte Tremolo ; above which the 
 long defile, scarce broad enough for the narrow road.
 
 140 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 is closed in by sheets of rock, till it opens on an 
 amphitheatre of rugged and precipitous ground, 
 lending itself to a deadly concentric fire upon its 
 narrow issue; and in the steep descent of eight 
 leagues to Amsteg, down the Krachenthal or Crash- 
 ing valley, the roadway is in many places cut into 
 the walls of rock, below which roar and rush along 
 the cataract and torrent of the Reuss. Across these 
 tlie road passes several times — at the Devil's Bridge 
 by an arch of 70 feet span, and at the Monk's Leap 
 by one of 90. Such obstacles, and so defended, 
 might be deemed insurmountable to direct attack; 
 but they may be turned by paths crossing the moun- 
 tains, which rise with their glaciers between the 
 Rhine and the Reuss, ascending the lateral valleys 
 that supply torrents to the former river, and descend- 
 ing with those which contribute to the latter. 
 
 For this purpose. General Rosenberg, with 6,000 
 men, had marched from Taverne by Bellinzona and 
 the Val di Blegno, on the 19th, to pass the Luk- 
 mainier and Oberalp, and descend to the Urseren- 
 thal, turning the St. Gothard ; while General Auffen- 
 berg, with four battalions, was to leave the Rhein- 
 thal at Dissentis, to cross Mount Crispalt by the 
 hunter's path, and come down on Amsteg by the 
 Maderanerthal, in rear of the Monk's Leap bridge 
 and other obstacles. Generals Linken and Jellachich
 
 ATTACK OF THE ST. GOTHAED. 141 
 
 were expected to unite 9^000 men of Hotze's force in 
 the Glaris valley, to pass Mount Braghel, and, enter- 
 ing the Muottathal, to eiFectuate their junction with 
 Suwarow towards Schwytz; while Hotze himself, 
 occupying Einsiedeln, should connect his operations 
 with theirs by the Haken Pass, or Rothenthurm, and 
 with Korsakof's from the Zurich side ; all to be pre- 
 pared for a general attack upon the enemy, with 
 their combined forces, on the 26th September. 
 Attack of tlie Suwarow, leaving Taverne on the 
 21st, made successive marches to 
 Bellinzona, Giornico and Faido ; and on the morn- 
 ing of the 24th, approached Airolo, at the foot 
 of the St. Gothard, where Gudin, with three or four 
 French battalions, was ready to receive him. His 
 main body moved direct on Airolo by the mule road, 
 while Colonel Strauch, with a detachment, threatened 
 the enemy's right flank ; and Schweikowski's division, 
 with Bagration's advance guard, leaving Faido at 
 three in the morning, had divided their force, after 
 passing at some distance the enemy's left ; one por- 
 tion remaining to turn Airolo and its immediate 
 defences, and the remainder proceeding by a long 
 and most difficult detour to scale the glaciered moun- 
 tains, and descending from them on the plateau of 
 St. Gothard, to take all the other obstacles of the 
 ascent in reverse.
 
 142 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 It is reported that when the Russian main column 
 reached the Stalvedro defile, where the mighty St. 
 Gothard is first fully seen towering with its eternal 
 snows into the clouds, it simultaneously halted and 
 ordered arms, while a complaining murmur passed 
 from man to man. At the words, " Come, boys, 
 march on — the enemy's close by at Airolo," they 
 shouldered and marched on, and shortly after en- 
 countering Gudin's advance, pushed forward with a 
 steady courage ; which, seconded by the flank attacks 
 of Strauch's and Bagration's people, soon won them 
 Airolo. Above the village, however, their progress 
 was much slower. The enemy from the higher 
 ground availed themselves of all its advantages, and 
 often swept the successive ascents they had to win 
 with a fire that told fatally upon them ; they were 
 raw and untrained at this kind of fighting, while 
 their enemies were masters in its art ; on many spots 
 it was impossible to act with the bayonet ; three of 
 their commanding officers were successively shot 
 down ; perhaps the impression of the St. Gothard 
 had damped their morale : at all events in one part 
 of the ascent the whole attacking line fell back. 
 Suwarow was furious — he threw himself from his 
 horse into a ditch, and called on them to bury him 
 on the spot where his children had disgraced them- 
 selves. " I am no longer their father ! " he ex-
 
 ATTACK OF THE ST. GOTHARD. 143 
 
 claimed. They rallied — returned under the fire, 
 and, impelled by rage and shame, desperately won 
 their way inch by inch up the grand and steep Val 
 Tremola to its formidable debouche on the plateau ; 
 where vainly striving to climb where unencumbered 
 men could scarcely hold their footing, they were 
 exposed to the terrible concentric fire of the enemy, 
 whom the ground effectually covered; till the ap- 
 pearance of Schwaikowsky's men descending to the 
 plateau from the higher peaks and ridges, led to the 
 enemy's immediate and hasty retreat. Shouting 
 with delight, the infuriated Russians raced after 
 them with fire and bayonet over the plateau, and 
 down the whole descent to the village of Hospital 
 in the Urseren valley; where the French turned 
 towards E.ealp and the Furca, and the Russians, as 
 dark night had now set in, established their bivouack. 
 On the plateau of the St. Gothard, just where the 
 steep descent on the Italian side begins, the words 
 *' Suvarof Victor," rudely cut in a mass of rock near 
 a zigzag of the old road, still form a simple but 
 eloquent appeal to those who there look down upon 
 the most formidable scene of this day's noble struggle. 
 But with the earnest and heroic men here met in 
 arms, the close of day in no degree ensured the close 
 of battle ; and as Suwarow rode down in the night 
 to join his men at Hospital, loud and sustained
 
 144 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN". 
 
 firing reached his ears, both from the direction of his 
 front and to his right. His gallant enemy Lecourbe, 
 having left detachments on the Oberalp and at the 
 Devil's-bridge, had posted himself with 6,000 men 
 in the Urseren valley between Hospital and An- 
 dermatt; having his reserve at the latter village, 
 whence it could support his force, or that on the 
 Oberalp, as required. Night had scarcely set in, 
 when, almost simultaneously, he saw in his front 
 the rapid play of fire down the road from the St. 
 Gothard, from Suwarow's and Gudin's men, followed 
 by heavy discharges first above and then through 
 Andermatt, and onward in his rear towards the 
 Umerloch and Devil's-bridge. The latter came from 
 Rosenberg's force; which, after a succession of ac- 
 tions during the day, in front of and along the 
 Oberalp lake, had pushed the party opposed to them 
 near to Andermatt, and then apparently held back 
 for an hour or more till they should see signs of 
 Suwarow's people approaching Hospital, which the 
 ground they held enabled them to do. The moment 
 their flashes appeared, they fell on so vigorously that, 
 routing their immediate antagonist, and Lecourbe's 
 reserve alike, they carried all before them in pele 
 mele confusion to the Devil's-bridge ; which, after 
 such resistance as enabled the mass of fugitives to 
 escape, was hurriedly blown up.
 
 lecourbe's boldness. 145 
 
 Lecourbe's position thus seemed desperate. Shut 
 in between the mountain and glacier of St. Anna on 
 the one side, and on the other the rapid Reuss, with 
 not even space between them to deploy his men — 
 the bridge over which lay the only road of his re- 
 treat destroyed — and 6,000 enemies not two miles 
 away between it and him in rear ; while Suwarow, 
 with 12,000 in his front at Hospital, not half a mile 
 distant, barred him from the Furca path ; he had 
 nothing in his favour but the darkness, and his own 
 o-lorious decision : and — true soldier that he was ! — he 
 required no more. His troops were ordered rapidly 
 to ford the Reuss, while the whole of his artillery 
 opened a sustained fire on the Russians, closely 
 bivouacked about Hospital ; and when his men were 
 over, he without a moment's hesitation, threw all his 
 guns into the stream, and with his whole force 
 mounted the vast ridge of rock that rises between 
 the valleys of Urseren and Goschenen, and, descend- 
 ing to the latter in the morning, reached the road 
 behind the Devil's-bridge, and proceeded by it to- 
 wards Wasen. Early on the 25th, Suwarow joined 
 Rosenberg at Andermatt ; where, though some pro- 
 visions were captured, want was already so severely 
 felt that it is said the men greedily devoured all the 
 soap and hides they could discover. 
 
 As soon as the troops were formed, the attack on 
 
 L
 
 146 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 the Devil's-bridge beffan. Just above 
 
 Attack on the ° ^ 
 
 Devil's-bridge, and close beside the excavated tunnel of 
 
 &c. 
 
 the Urnerloch, the Reuss drops as it 
 
 were out of the Urseren valley, and dashes downward 
 in a magnificent fall of three hundred feet, through a 
 chasm of the rocks which rise like walls on either 
 side of the thundering torrent, across which the 
 bridge affords the only passage. Its arch being 
 sprung, as already stated, and the rock on the 
 French side forming a perfect wall, from which fire 
 and stones could be showered on every inch of the 
 ground between the Urnerloch and fall, nothing 
 could be hoped for from a direct attack. In fact, 
 till the bridge should be restored it was simply im- 
 possible for any human being to cross the torrent at 
 this point. 
 
 A detachment of two hundred volunteers, under 
 Major Trewogiin, had consequently been ordered to 
 ford the Reuss near Andermatt, and to scale the rocks 
 so as to descend from above on the defenders ; but their 
 progress was too slow for Suwarow's impatience at 
 this moment, when so much depended on his timely 
 junction with his allies, and his noble soldiers were 
 allowed to debouche from the Urnerloch, and to 
 dash down upon the broken bridge and yawning 
 chasm. Their leading files were naturally swept 
 away at once by the enemy's fire ; but the column
 
 ATTACK ON THE DEVIL'S BKIDGE. 147 
 
 pressing forward, the steep slope between the cavern 
 and the bridge soon became, and long continued, 
 crowded with men, who rapidly sank down or dis- 
 appeared, and were renewed as they feU under the 
 fire that poured on them, or were forced into the 
 abyss beneath. In vain was the word passed that 
 tlie passage was impracticable ; the voices were lost 
 amid the musquetry and the roar of the cataract, and 
 great numbers of first rate soldiers perished there 
 miserably, before order could be restored. At length 
 the mass was drawn back, and a steady fire was 
 opened across the chasm, from the rocks by the 
 Urnerloch and to its right, so as to occupy the enemy 
 until the descent of the flanking party from the crags 
 above on their rear and rio-ht flank obliged them to 
 retire precipitately. Beams and planks were imme- 
 diately ren across the broken arch, lashed together 
 with cords and sashes, and over this frail path (from 
 which some, confused by the whirl of water, or 
 blinded by the spray swept up in violent gusts, 
 fell into the Heuss), the advance passed rapidly, and 
 pushed on by Wasen as far as the Monks Leap-bridge, 
 where they found the arch sprung, and went hard 
 to work to repair it. Before this was effected the 
 main body had arrived, and the moment the passage 
 was practicable, all moved over and marched on 
 through the night, until the sight of bivouack fires on
 
 148 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 the height and in the valley about Amsteg, induced 
 them to halt for daylight. 
 
 On the 26th, the moment objects could be dis- 
 tinguished, shouts of welcome broke forth alike from 
 the soldiers on the height, and the column which 
 hurried on to greet their comrades ; who at once were 
 recognised to be AufFenberg's battalions. This good 
 officer and his men — Austrians all — had done their 
 duty nobly.* Reaching the Maderanerthal, after 
 their toilsome march late on the 24th, they had 
 
 * Can any soldier traverse these glorious scenes without 
 envying these gallant men ! Dumas well describes how vividly 
 the "gaudia certaminis" must have been heightened among 
 them : " La guerre de montagnes est (si I'ou veut nous passer 
 cette expression) la partie poetique de I'art de la guerre. Les 
 forces physiques y sont continuellement exercees, et les forces 
 morales n'y sont pas moins exaltees. Si I'air qu'on respire dans 
 ces hautes regions rafFermit les nerfs, donne au corps plus 
 d'agilite, les idees sont aussi plus nettes, I'esprit est plus fecond 
 en ressources, le courage est toujours audacieux, les mouvemens 
 sont prompts, les actions decisives, tout est vif, brilliant, et rapide ; 
 aussi voit-on d'ordinaire ceux qui ont fait la guerre dans les 
 montagnes fort epris de leur metier parcequ'ils y ont trouve — 
 helas ! comme les chasseurs, avec de grands dangers des jouis- 
 sances plus vives : et peut-etre que les parfums de I'Asie 
 brulant devant le char de triomphe du vainqueur de Darius, lui 
 causferent moins de joie que n'en crut avoir le General Lecourbe, 
 lorsqu'il rencontra sur les bords des precipices de la Reuss les 
 colonnes qui avaient franchi les glaces du Saint Gothard."
 
 LECOUEBE WINS THE DEVIL'S BRIDGE. 149 
 
 halted some hours at the strong ground by the Ezli 
 fall; and, descending on Amsteg at day break next 
 morning, had suddenly fallen on the enemy occupy- 
 ing it, and driven him down the valley. Reinforced 
 from Altorf, he returned 2,000 strong, and made 
 every exertion to recover the bridge over the Kers- 
 tenen torrent, on which Lecourbe depended for his 
 retreat : but utterly in vain ; Auffenberg repulsing 
 him and ao;ain drivino; him back towards Altorf. 
 Scarcely, however, was this done when Lecourbe's 
 6,000 men came pouring down the road from Wasen ; 
 and, facing about to meet them, Auffenberg long 
 maintained the strong and rugged ground, command- 
 ing in front and rear the important point he had 
 seized with glorious pertinacity. 
 
 But Lecourbe, with a superiority of three to one, 
 was a man not to be denied, when the fate of his 
 column rested on the winning of the bridge. While 
 the greater portion of his force maintained an inces- 
 santly superior fire upon the Austrians, pressing 
 them up the lower falls and ledges of the Breiten- 
 stoch, he himself, at the head of a selected column, 
 went right upon the bridge and w^on and held it. 
 Auffenberg retired fighting, up the height that 
 overlooked it, and maintaining the strong gorge of 
 the Maderanerthal ; from which Lecourbe vainly 
 endeavoured to dislodge him, till apprehensive of
 
 150 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 the appearance of Suwarow in his own rear, he, as 
 soon as the bridge which lie had fired had burned 
 sufficiently, continued his retreat on Altorf. The 
 instant the Russians had joined their comrades, their 
 united advance passed along the still burning beams 
 of the Kerstenen bridge and pushed on for Altorf; 
 which, after repulsing parties of the enemy near 
 Erstfeld, at the Schachen bridge by Burglen, and 
 at Attinghausen, they entered at noon. Lecourbe's 
 force had crossed the E,euss and occupied the ground 
 on its left by Seedorf, of which they held the bridge ; 
 Suwarow's main body bivouacked by the Schachen 
 bridge ; Rosenberg and Auffenberg occupying Altorf; 
 but the rear of the column of march, retarded by the 
 various obstacles, was still at some distance, covered 
 by detachments posted at the lateral vallies, and 
 Strauch's Austrians, who had remained on the St. 
 Gothard."^ 
 March from Al- The French having naturall}' secured 
 
 torf to Mutten. n ,1 i . j.i t i i 
 
 all the boats on the Liucerne lake, 
 Suwarow's only mode of reaching Schwyz was by 
 
 * The old landlord of the " Eagle," at Altorf, came with 
 Suwarow from Italy as one of his guides ; and though the poor 
 old gentleman is now so aged as to remember but confusedly 
 what he saw so long ago, he has two very amusing pictures of 
 the actions in the Muttenthal, done by himself soon after the 
 events, which he willingly shows his guests.
 
 MARCH FROM ALTORF. 151 
 
 the Senner's or Cattle-people's path over the Kinzig- 
 kulm, the steep and lofty ridge which runs between 
 the Schachen and Muttenthal; and early on the 27th, 
 Bagration's advance led the way along the path 
 which to this day is pointed out with interest by the 
 people as " the Russians road." The difficulties and 
 sufferings of this march far exceeded those of any as 
 yet made by the main body of the army. The ascent 
 is continuous and very stiiF for near 5,000 feet, and 
 parts of the descent are as rugged as they well can be 
 to be passable. For much of the way the men had 
 to move in single file, dragging themselves and their 
 animals along the rude and often undistinguishable 
 paths over crags and boggy ground ; and here and 
 there by precipices dangerous to an animal, and not 
 pleasant even to men accustomed to these mountain 
 tracks. But worst of all (and indeed, throughout this 
 wondrous operation, this was the most serious, pain- 
 ful, and insuperable of aU the difficulties encountered), 
 the troops, as well as their mules and horses, v/ere 
 weak for want of proper sustenance. And to this 
 sad fact, far more than to any real difficulty in this 
 march, (which is in truth simply a stiflf mountain 
 walk of six or at most seven hours,) must it be 
 ascribed that so many of the men and beasts sank 
 down and died in the course of it, as to give rise to 
 the romantic legend of the peasants, mentioned by
 
 152 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 M. Simond, that the birds of prey grew dainty, and 
 fed their young ones only with the eyes of the corpses. 
 It is said that none of the corps took less than twelve 
 or fourteen hours to do this march. 
 
 At about a mile from Mutten, which is there 
 completely screened from view by the woods and 
 rocks which almost wall in the valley, a path goes 
 left and descends below the village ; and by this. Bag- 
 ration detached a party to intercept the enemy's 
 retreat on Schwyz, and then descending with his 
 main body, fell suddenly and unexpectedly on the 
 surprised companies stationed in the valley, and 
 killed or captured every man of them. While the 
 head of the army was thus employed, and Suwarow 
 with its centre following Bagration, the rear was 
 sharply attacked at Altorf by Lecourbe ; but Rosen- 
 berg successfully repulsed him and drove him back 
 over the Seedorf bridge. Early, however, on the 
 morning of the 23th, the indefatigable Lecourbe 
 again fell on the Russian rear-guard, as the long 
 line of baggage passed up the Schachenthal under 
 its protection ; and when this had gained suffi- 
 cient way, Rosenberg once more by a gallant dash 
 pushed back his persevering enemies, and then 
 slowly following the train, which wound upwards 
 from the valley to the ridge of the Kinzigkulm, 
 covered it so long as the enemy continued a strag-
 
 HIS DAUNTLESS BEARING. 153 
 
 gling pursuit; and afterwards, passing It at the 
 Seenalp pastures, descended on Mutten which he 
 entered late at nio^ht. 
 
 Here, on the previous day, Suwarow 
 
 Suwarow hears 
 
 of Korsakow's hadlearnt that Massena, anticipating his 
 
 defeat. 
 
 intentions, had on the 25th September, 
 attacked Korsakow and the AlHes, completely beaten 
 them, and driven them from the Linth and Limmat 
 to the Rhine. He thus found himself In a chasm of 
 the Alps, the mountains he had passed, behind him ; 
 Mount Braghel to his right, the My then chain in front, 
 and the lake and Schwyz upon his left, all occupied 
 by a victorious enemy ; his friends routed, and his 
 army wearied, wasted, and starving : their shoes cut 
 from their feet ; their provisions exhausted, and their 
 ammunition almost expended. But we see no change 
 in the davmtless bearing of the brave old man. He 
 wrote to Korsakow and the other Generals, " Your 
 heads shall answer it if you fall back another step. 
 I am coming to remedy your blunders. I shall show 
 no favour, so stand like walls." 
 
 To cut his way to them, by Schwyz, through the 
 heart of the French army, was his first idea ; but the 
 uncertainty of their position rather tlian the hazard of 
 the measure, inducing him to relinquish It. He resolved 
 to force Mount Braghel and the Klonthel, and march 
 on Grlaris ; whence roads branch off to Wasen and
 
 154 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Wallenstadt, by which he hoped to communicate with 
 the left of the beaten army. His troops halted on the 
 29th, except AuiFenberg's brigade, which marched on 
 that day to secure Mount Braghel and advance 
 towards Glaris. Beyond a doubt the men much 
 needed rest; but it seems evident, in the gaiety 
 affected by Suwarow, and in the ostentatious exhibi- 
 tion of his baggage and his military orders, which 
 were all unpacked and paraded to be aired, that 
 he was pleased with the opportunity this necessity 
 afforded of showing how coolly he encountered the 
 calamities that beset him. 
 
 On the 30th, he reported his position and inten- 
 tions to the Emperor Francis; stating that on the 
 29th, he had received from General Linken the 
 disagreeable news of the defeat the army had sus- 
 tained at Zurich, in consequence of which the opera- 
 tions for the general attack on this side would have 
 to be given up, and that as he had heard that Linken 
 had been checked at Glaris he had despatched 
 Auffenberg to join him. He concludes, " the more 
 distressing all this is, the more shall I exert myself 
 to keep the enemy from any further attempts, and 
 to unite myself with the Imperial troops." 
 
 Marches on I^ pursuance of this object, leaving 
 
 Rosenberg with his division at Mutten 
 
 to protect his rear and the passage of the baggage.
 
 HE MARCHES ON GLAEIS. 155 
 
 he, with the main body, on the 30th joined AufFen- 
 berg; who, after carrying:; Mount Braghel, had 
 been checked in the Klonthal. The enemy now 
 reinforced, and under the command of General 
 Molitor, occupied the lower end of the valley in 
 front of its lake ; the narrow path along which, 
 in their rear, ran for full two miles between 
 steep heights on one side and deep water on the 
 other, and was not only obstructed by abattis 
 and rude traverses, but at its lower end for a good 
 half-mile was completely swept by the French 
 artillery, from as pretty a small defensive position 
 as eye could look on. General Molitor on being 
 summoned to surrender, replied that he had defeated 
 General Jellachich on the 26th and 27th, and Gene- 
 ral Linken on the 28th and 29th, and in his turn 
 recommended the Russians to lay down their arms, 
 as Massena at Schwyz closed up the Muttenthal 
 behind them.* 
 
 * The defence of the Linthal, by Molitor, is amongst the 
 most perfect studies with which the annals of war present us. 
 Another not less admirable is Lecourbe's attack on the St. 
 Gothard, on the 15th August. It is impossible to suppress a 
 thrill of honest pride in recollecting that our national glories 
 have been won from these heroic men ; and it is no unimportant 
 corollary to such recollections, to bear in mind that our national 
 independence and honour has to be defended against their 
 like.
 
 156 SUWAKOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Dispositions to fall on the enemy in front and on 
 his right flank, having been made, Suwarow told the 
 men the enemy had desired them to surrender, and 
 pointing first to the Archduke Constantino who rode 
 beside him, and then to the hostile ranks, gave the 
 word for battle, when all pressed onward with a 
 general shout. The flank attack was so ardent as 
 to cause almost immediate confusion, and in spite of 
 all Molitor's exertions, after a brave resistance, the 
 French were beaten back, and so borne into and 
 along the pathway by the lake, that both its strong 
 defences aiid the admirable ground beyond, were 
 passed by the Russians intermingled with them ; nor 
 was the struggle and pursuit down the valley of the 
 Lontech arrested till darkness precluded further 
 movement on such uncertain ground. As it was, 
 one sharp turn where the road forms a step or ledge 
 between the Weggis mountain, and the deep chasm 
 of the Lontech, is still pointed out as the spot 
 where a number of both parties, in the dusk of the 
 evening, went headlong over the precipice and were 
 dashed to pieces, — the appalling screams of those 
 upon the brink being lost amid the savage shout of 
 the pursuers, who in a few seconds lay silently 
 beside them. 
 
 Action at Nafels With the morning of the 1st of 
 October, the action recommenced, and
 
 ACTION AT NAFELS AND MOLLIS. 157 
 
 after defending their ground bravely to Nets- 
 thal — the bridge beyond which over the Linth 
 they burnt, " not without difficulty," as Molitor re- 
 ports, " the Russians mixing with them and fighting 
 only with the bayonet" — the French fell back on the 
 villages of Mollis and Nafels; where they enjoyed no 
 longer respite from attack than till the Russians had 
 replaced the Netsthal bridge by a temporary one 
 on trestles. But Gazan's (late Soult's) division 
 joined them in these villages, from "Wasen, and 
 turned the scale of numbers in their favour. 
 
 The chief object of the Allies in their renewed 
 attack was to possess themselves of Mollis, from 
 which the path mounts the Kerenzenberg to Wal- 
 lenstadt; and more especially the bridge over the 
 Linth beyond it, leading to Nafels and Wasen. But 
 the strength of this post, comprising a long defile 
 and village, closed in between the mountains and the 
 river, and completely overlooked and commanded by 
 the strong height beyond it — under the retired right 
 flank of which stands the bridge, open alike to their 
 fire and to every support that could be sent from 
 the other side the Linth, and maintained not only 
 by Molitor's good soldiers, but by the reinforcements 
 and guns which continued to arrive throughout the 
 day from Wasen — completely baffled the desperate 
 attacks of Bagration's weak force ; and, after pene-
 
 158 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 trating on either side the river to Nafels and Mollis, 
 (to the latter, and even to Its bridge, It Is asserted, six 
 several times) the Russians were withdrawn at ten 
 at night, and took post at Netsthal; Suwarow and 
 head-qnarters being at Glarls. 
 
 Actions in the While the leading column of the 
 
 Muttenthal. id • i j i, -i 
 
 Kussian army had been thus en- 
 gaged, on the 30th September and 1st October, 
 Its rear division under Rosenberg, at Mutten, had 
 signalized each of these days by separate defeats of 
 the enemy led on by Massena In person. After a 
 reconnolssance up the Schachenthal on the 29th, this 
 General, having returned to Brunnen by the lake, 
 moved with some thousands of Mortler's division 
 up the Muttenthal on the 30th, and at two p.m. 
 attacked the Russian outposts ; which gradually fell 
 back on two Jager battalions, whose resistance had 
 already seriously engaged the enemy ; when three 
 fresh battalions breaking through the line of fire, 
 came fiercely on with the bayonet, supported by 
 a general hurrah of the Cossacks, who charged 
 through the Muttenbach on the scattered Infantry. 
 The French gave way, and were closely followed 
 halfway to Schwyz, losing a gun and several hundred 
 men ; of whom many were dashed into the Mutten- 
 bach chasm, which for some distance yawns beside 
 the road In the narrowest part of the wild and beau-
 
 ACTION AT MUTTEN. 159 
 
 tiful defile through which they fled. At night the 
 Russians were led back to Mutten : except Velesky's 
 regiment, which remained in observation down the 
 valley. 
 
 It may easily be conceived that Massena exerted 
 all his influence to excite his men to obliterate the 
 disgrace of this discomfiture ; and next morning 
 they advanced with reinforced numbers, amounting 
 to near 10,000 men and a strong force of artillery, 
 with the intent to do so. At eleven in the morning 
 they opened their fire on Velesky's men, who fell 
 back in order, and with slight resistance ; till on 
 nearing Mutten they filed off" to either flank, and 
 displayed a line of three battalions, stretching across 
 the narrow valley just below the village, where a 
 jutting rock and the Muttenbach beneath it secured 
 their right flank, with a second line of five battalions 
 in their rear. 
 
 The 1st October was the Emperor Paul's birth- 
 day ; and nobly did his soldiers illustrate it, by one of 
 the most splendid, rapid, and decisive exhibitions of 
 their simple battle tactics, which history records. 
 Regardless alike of the superior numbers of the enemy 
 and the fire of their artillery, at the word of their 
 worthy General, they dashed on headlong, with their 
 bayonets at the charge, and by this simple effort 
 overthrew at once all order in the enemy's masses ;
 
 160 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 and, driving them into a flying mob, pursued them 
 unremittingly, without affording them time to re- 
 cover themselves, down the whole course of the 
 Mutten valley and defile, over the Steinernebriicke 
 and its awful chasm, and up and down the height of 
 Schonenbach, even to the farther side of Schwyz 
 and Brunnen, a distance of full ten English miles. 
 From 1,000 to 1,500 prisoners, with five cannon, 
 were the trophies of this distinguished feat of arms. 
 Great numbers of the French were killed and 
 wounded, and hurried on and pitched into the 
 Muttenbach chasm ; and so completely had they 
 dispersed themselves, in their dismay, up the difficult 
 heights which shut in the valley, that those who 
 came straggling down to Schwyz for two or three 
 days after the action, are described as having 
 escaped " "par des sentiers et des votes impossibles ! " 
 When the victorious Russians, after their long and 
 ardent pursuit, once more resumed their ground at 
 Mutten, Massena, in despair of doing anything with 
 them on this ground, blew up the Steinernebriicke, 
 to keep them in the valley ; and, leaving two demi- 
 brigades to observe them, moved the remainder of 
 his force by Einsiedeln to Wasen, and the entrance 
 to the Linthal : and this (^par parenthese) was good 
 sound strategy ; for even had he beaten Rosenberg 
 out of the Muttenthal, he would have forced him
 
 SCARCITY OF FOOD AT GLAEIS. 161 
 
 back upon Suwarow, and thus united their forces; 
 whereas could he have pushed Suwarow back from 
 Glaris before their junction, Rosenberg and his men 
 would have been isolated and surrounded on every 
 side."^ At Glaris, Suwarow had found some pro- 
 visions, but so scanty was the supply, that his men 
 were seen raking the very dungheaps, to discover 
 anything eatable. 
 
 * Count M. Dumas (Precis des Eveneraens Militaires) says : 
 " Suwarow was marching on Schwyz when attacked by Massena 
 on the 4th October, but being repulsed, he turned on Molitor 
 at Glaris." The date is probably a misprint, but the statement 
 is utterly erroneous ; and we find Suwarow, so soon after the 
 event as the 21st November, replying in the Augsburg Gazette 
 to Massena 's report, and distinctly stating that "it was well 
 known 3,000 Russians had completely defeated 10,000 picked 
 men, at the head of whom Massena had rashly attacked them 
 in the Muttenthal, and that the Republicans lost their cannon." 
 It is certain that the advance of his army was engaged in the 
 Klonthal, and beyond Glaris, on the 29th and 30th September 
 and 1st October ; and we cannot suppose even Suwarow so 
 desperate, had he resolved to debouche into the midst of a 
 victorious army by Schwyz, as to seek to do so with the rear- 
 guard only of his force. From the moment Auffenberg 
 marched on the Braghel, all idea of moving by Schwyz was 
 given up, and Rosenberg was at Mutten (when attacked by 
 Massena) to protect the passage of the baggage ; which, during 
 the whole period of his stay there, continued to pass on to 
 Glaris by the Braghel. 
 
 M
 
 162 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 March to th "^^^ strength of the pass of Mollis — • 
 
 Rheinthal by the knowledo;e that the enemy was in 
 the Sernfthal. '^ -^ 
 
 great force at Wasen, and the absolute 
 
 uncertainty whether they or the Austrians were at 
 Wallenstadt, added to the utter exhaustion of his 
 ammunition, determined Suwarow to effect his move- 
 ment to the Rheinthal by the Sernfthal and Panix. 
 His sick, wounded, and baggage commenced their 
 march on the afternoon of the 4th Oct., on which 
 day Rosenberg's division arrived at Glaris from 
 Mutten, and on the 5th the fighting men left Glaris. 
 The rear of the army was harassed bj^ the French, 
 whom Bagration vigorously repulsed with the bayo- 
 net at Schwanden. They, however, continued their 
 pursuit as far as Matt ; where, finding the Russians 
 steadily in position and themselves much inconve- 
 nienced by a heavy fall of snow, which seamed 
 inclined to last, they relinquished any further pur- 
 suit, and returned to Glaris. This snow was a 
 dreadful ag-o-ravation of the difficulties the Russians 
 had to encounter and endure in the march before 
 them, over a most rugged Alpine pass of 7,500 feet 
 in height, and they continued to drop along its 
 whole extent in melancholy numbers. Famine and 
 fatigue had quite exhausted them ; though perhaps 
 the presence of their enemies might have stimulated 
 many to active exertion, who sank down despairingly
 
 HE REACHES THE RHEINTHAIi. 163 
 
 to die along the toilsome paths of the Jatzalp and 
 Rinkenkopf. Their light guns and those they had 
 captured were buried ; most of the beasts of burthen 
 had died, or were abandoned; crowds of sick and 
 wounded gave themselves up amid the driving snows 
 that beat in their faces and accumulated round them ; 
 and it was the 10th October, before the last of the 
 lame, maimed, and spectral relics of this army of 
 heroes descended in the Rheinthal. 
 
 Suwarow and the advance entered Panix late ou 
 the 6th. On reaching Ilantz on the 7th, he met 
 General Linken, one of those whose conduct had so 
 increased his difficulties. " General Linken," he 
 said, in his abrupt manner, " how many Frenchmen 
 have your fellows spitted on their bayonets ? Mine 
 have had six a piece." The General promptly re- 
 plying, " My men do their best, sir ; and they do 
 well:" Suwarow, pleased with his answer, held out 
 his hand. The actual loss of the Russians was little 
 more than 3,000 men, but the condition and destitu- 
 tion of the army was indescribable. Still the most 
 worn and suffering soldier had his pride of heart and 
 sense of duty to reconcile him to the present, and to 
 brighten the prospects of the future. But not so the 
 wretched inhabitants of the valleys through which 
 this " living cloud of war" had held its coui'se : they 
 were utterly undone ; for though discipline had been
 
 164 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 observed (and the Russian is a kindly being) the 
 urgent necessities of the army had actually extorted 
 everything consumable, just at the beginning of the 
 winter, and the population of whole villages had to 
 descend from their native valleys to commence a 
 life of beggary or exile. 
 
 Thus terminated the march by the St. Gothard — 
 a memorable example of soldierly exertion, intrepi- 
 dity, and endurance ; the glories of which will live 
 in prominent and singular brilliancy, as the sole re- 
 lief to the shameful disorrace and ruin resultins; from 
 the combination of which it was a part. Mons. 
 Thiers concludes his relation of these events thus — 
 " Ce barbare, pretendu invincible, se retirait convert de 
 cojifusion et plein de rage ;^ while the very opposite 
 sentiment " Je donnerais toutes mes campagnes pour 
 celle de la Suisse du Marechal Suwarou^'^ has been 
 given by another French historian as the eulogium 
 of Moreau and Massena upon them.
 
 DEFEAT OF KORSAKOW. 165 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Previous events SuwAROW was now made fully ac- 
 in Switzerland. • j. i --i .i „ i? j.1 „ 
 
 quainted with the occurrences oi the 
 25th September. Korsakow having posted 10,000 
 men in detached bodies on the right of the Limmat, 
 at and below Zurich, and 14,000 on its left bank, 
 within the arc formed by it and the lake, had been 
 attacked by Massena; who passed 15,000 men across 
 the river at Dietiken, beat the detachments, and 
 seized the Schaffhausen and AVinterthur roads, while 
 the remainder of his army defeated the Russian 
 main body. During the night, after losing 6,000 
 men, the whole Russian force was united in Zurich — 
 the French commanding every road leading from 
 it, but that to Rapperschwyl, Uznach, Wasen, &c. 
 If determined to win or die, Korsakow could have 
 thrown his collected force on one or other divisions 
 of his enemy's army. If to unite with the Austrians
 
 166 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 and Suwarow, lie might have left a garrison in 
 Zurich, and effected this object by marching early 
 in the night along an open road. He remained, 
 however, stationary till morning, and then led his 
 men to cut their way through Massena's victorious 
 troops, to march on Bulach and Schaffhausen : his 
 infantry in front, then his cavalry, and lastly, his 
 baggage and artillery. His brave infantry forced 
 their way through all opposition with no very great 
 loss : in fact, so long as they fought they were con- 
 quering ; the cavalry naturally suffered more, and 
 all the guns and materials fell into the hands of the 
 enemy. But if every soldier he commanded had 
 been cut to pieces, it would not have been more 
 immediately injurious to the cause he served than 
 was his choice of direction in his retreat.* He 
 went north. 
 
 * Had he fallen back on Rapperschwyl, the road to which 
 Avas open to him, he might have rallied to his army Petrasch 
 and Jellachich ; and, if unable to maintain himself at Wasen 
 and the mouth of the Linthal, have fallen back on the Rhine at 
 Lucienberg and Maienfeld ; or, at the very worst, have been 
 driven to the river towards Feldkirch, against which position 
 Massena had already spilt the best blood of the army in vain, 
 and whence he might have communicated or co-operated with 
 Suwarow by Wallenstadt and the Kerengen. Every principle 
 of military combination, of brother soldierhood, and common- 
 sense, every right feeling of the officer and man, alike indicated
 
 MAECH TO LINDAU. 167 
 
 Soult easily defeated Hotze's force, their leader 
 falling at the beginning of the action, and General 
 Petrasch, who succeeded him, led his beaten people 
 utterly unpursued due east, as far as Rheineck ; while 
 Generals Linken and Jellachich allowed themselves 
 to be driven from the Linthal by a single brigade, 
 numberino; scarce a third of their united force. All 
 were disgracefully defeated, and all retreated eccen- 
 trically, and from Suwarow, whom they knew was 
 advancing into the midst of the enemy's army, in 
 undoubting confidence of their zealous co-operation. 
 Had they deliberately conspired for his ruin, no one 
 of them could have done more than he did to 
 effect it. 
 
 Wearied as Suwarow's men must have 
 
 March by Coire 
 
 and Feklkirch been on reaching Ilantz on the 7th, their 
 to Linclau. 
 
 earnest chief, knowing it was still in the 
 
 Rapperschwyl as the line of his retreat from Zurich. Soult's 
 troops were no sufficient obstacles to deter him : they did not 
 enter Rapperschwyl till the 26th, and then not in force. He 
 might have gained six or eight hours' march on Massena ; and 
 the brave men he sacrificed (who, by every version, fought, 
 while they were allowed to do so, with perfect desperation) would 
 doubtless have done the rest for him. But he seemed entirely 
 divested of all self-possession. He compromised one gallant 
 army by his blind presumption, and another by his eagerness to 
 escape its consequences.
 
 168 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 enemy's power to interrupt his junction with Petrasch 
 and KorsakoWj by seizing uponMaienfeld, marched all 
 his effective men on the 8th to Coire, and joining 
 Jellachich occupied Maienfeld. On the 11th the 
 Russians marched to Balzers, and on the 12th to 
 Feldkirch. Here Suwarow, having united himself 
 to the wreck of the Austrian left of the allied army 
 of Switzerland, informed the Archduke Charles 
 (who with his army had arrived at Stockach) that 
 he proposed to march against the enemy on the 
 17th by Alstetten, on St. Gall and Winterthur; 
 that Korsakow was to pass the Rhine by Stein, and 
 join him by Pfyn and Frauenfeld, and Conde to do 
 so from Constance, by Bischofszell and Wyl ; pray- 
 ing the Archduke to support the latter, and to 
 co-operate personally, in case of the movement, in 
 such way and degree as he thought fit. Receiving 
 no immediate answer to his proposition from the 
 Archduke, and hearing from those around him that 
 he showed no signs of preparing for co-operation, 
 Suwarow on the I4th resolved to march his own 
 force round the Constance lake to join with Kor- 
 sakow's. He communicated this his decision to the 
 Archduke, on receiving from his Highness, not a 
 promise to support him as required, but a critique 
 on his projected operation, with his Highness's cor- 
 rection thereof, substituting the movement of Kor-
 
 HIS OPERATIONS END. 169 
 
 sakow to join Suwarow by Stockach, and the back 
 of the lake of Constance. 
 
 Soured by his reverse (the first great cause of 
 which he knew to be the Archduke's march to 
 Germany), and irritated at the unseemly interference 
 of this young and methodical General in his plans, 
 he became convinced that it was hopeless to think of 
 operations based on co-operation between them ; and 
 to use his own expression, "having lost all hope in 
 the Archduke," he on reaching Lindau on the 16th, 
 declared that his men were so exhausted, and so 
 destitute of shoes, ammunition, and other neces- 
 saries, that for the present they were incapable of 
 pursuing active operations, and insisted on placing 
 them in quarters of refreshment : and here virtually 
 ended Suwarow's participation in the events of the 
 campaign. 
 
 It should be strongly borne in mind that the 
 general operation of the union of the army from 
 Italy with that in Switzerland, was not a plan of 
 Suwarow's, but peremptorily ordered by the Vienna 
 cabinet in despite of his remonstrance ; and that its 
 security mainly depended on the maintenance of 
 things in statu, quo in Switzerland until it should 
 have been effected. It is evident that the de- 
 parture of so large a force of Austrians under 
 the Archduke Charles from Switzerland, before the
 
 170 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 arrival there of the Russians from Italj (contrary to 
 the pledges of the Austrian cabinet to the courts of 
 Russia and England, and in disregard of Suwarow's 
 strong remonstrance), left the safety of Korsakow's 
 army dependent on the gross improbability that 
 Massena would stand still with his superior army, for 
 a month, before an unknown General and inferior 
 force, stretched out from Dissentis in the Rheinthal to 
 the confluence of the Aar and Rhine, to await his 
 destruction in the junction of the best troops and 
 most dreaded leader of the Coalition. Korsakow 
 owed the respite he enjoyed after the Archduke's 
 departure, to the fame of the army he so thought- 
 lessly abandoned. The French minister of War had 
 written to Massena "to sustain and if necessary 
 excite the emulation of corps. In action against 
 the Russians," he says, " take the most deeply 
 weighed precautions ; strike in masses, and have 
 reserves to restore the battle when required. It is 
 essential that in your first action against them you 
 gain the advantage, so as to give the necessary con- 
 fidence to our troops and to lower the pride of these 
 semi-barbarians ." 
 
 Anxiety to assemble and perfect all his means, 
 delayed Massena till he heard Conde and Bavarian 
 reinforcements were near SchafFhausen, when he 
 fixed his attack for the 26th, and on Suwarow's
 
 HIS LAST OPERATION EXAMINED. 171 
 
 approach advanced it to the 25th. It was masterly 
 in itself, and the misconduct of the Allied Generals 
 made it decisive. Suvvarow's previous arrival could 
 alone have prevented the catastrophe, and that it 
 Avas not so prevented would have been, perhaps, 
 attributable to his choice of route ; were it not that 
 the delay in the supply of mules by the Austrian 
 commissariat, which irremediably sacrificed five days, 
 would have rendered it impossible for Suwarow to 
 have joined Korsakow, even by the unoccupied Splu- 
 gen or Bernardine road, so as to have anticipated 
 Massena's attack upon him. Still, as this delay was 
 accidental and unforeseen, Suwarow must be con- 
 sidered fairly amenable to the valid objections that 
 may be adduced against his preference of the hazar- 
 dous road by the St. Gothard to the open and easier 
 one by the Splugen, in an operation whose realization 
 depended more on time than anything else. By the 
 St. Gothard he proposed to join Plotze, who com- 
 manded the left of the allied army in Switzerland, 
 at Einsiedeln, by the Splugen ; he would have joined 
 him at Wasen, and the number of mai'ches required 
 to place him at Bellinzona in the first case, would 
 have taken him to Riva at the head of the lake of 
 Como in the other. The distances and difficulties 
 from each of these points to their respective goals 
 are as follows : —
 
 172 
 
 SUWAKOWS LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 By the St. Gothard. 
 From Bellinzoiia to Airolo . 10 leagues— slight ascent. 
 
 OCCUPIED IN FOECE BY THE ENEMY. 
 
 . 2 leagues — steep ascent. 
 
 . 10 leagues — descent and level. 
 
 Airolo to Summit 
 Summit to Altorf 
 Altorf to Mutten 
 
 Mutten to Schwyz . 
 Schvvyz to Einsiedeln 
 
 7 leagues— very stiff ascent 
 and descent. 
 
 3 leagues— level. 
 
 3 leagues — very stiff ascent 
 by Haken, or 4 leagues by 
 Rothenthurm. 
 
 35 leagues. 
 
 By the Splugen. 
 
 From Riva to Cbiavenna . 
 „ Cbiavenna to Summit 
 „ Summit to Coire 
 „ Coire to Wallenstadt 
 „ Wallenstadt to Wasen 
 
 3 leagues — level road. 
 
 6 leagues — ascent. 
 
 13 leagues — descent and level. 
 
 8 leagues — level road. 
 
 5 leagues — billy marcb by 
 Kerenzen, or 4 leagues 
 by lake. 
 
 35 leagues. 
 
 By the St, Gothard from Altorf to Mutten, there 
 was no road ; and on this line are the three ascents of 
 the St. Gothard, the Kinzighulm, and the Haken. 
 The Splugen road was all good ; the ascent of the 
 mountain graduated for a long distance, and as the 
 Allies held the lake of Wallenstadt, it is probable 
 that the infantry alone would have had to cross the
 
 HIS LAST OPERATION EXAMINED. 173 
 
 i{!erenzen hill. By the St. Gothard, the army would 
 have to carry its provisions for every inch of the 
 way : by the Splugen, only for the one or two days 
 passed between the two large towns of Chiavenna 
 and Coire. 
 
 As is shown, the St. Gothard line was held by the 
 enemy from Airolo. None but friends were on, or 
 near the Splugen. The junction at Einsiedeln not 
 only required an uninterrupted series of successes on 
 Suwarow's side, but the carrying of the strong posi- 
 tion of the Etzch by Hotze, who was nervously dis- 
 trustful of the power of the force he commanded to 
 maintain even its defensive position on the Linth; 
 and it was evident that the moment Suwarow reached 
 Airolo, or probably Faido, intelligence of the event 
 would naturally be sent to Massena, so as to enable 
 him to attempt his worst on Hotze or Korsakow before 
 the junction. The junction at Wasen required only 
 that things should remain in statu quo ; and Hotze's 
 position there so far co-operated towards this result, 
 that, interposing himself as he did between the enemy 
 and what would have been the line of Suwarow's 
 approach, it is more than probable Massena would 
 have been kept in perfect ignorance of it. As the 
 point of departure for an enemy advancing by the 
 western side of the Zurich lake to turn Mount Albis, 
 and push a force occupying it into the angles formed
 
 174 SUWAROWS LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 by the confluence of the Limmat, Reuss, and Aar, 
 the sole difference between Einsiedeln and Wasen 
 is, that the former is three leagues of strong ground, 
 the latter six of open, from Richterschwyl, where 
 their respective roads converge. As regards the 
 possibility of previous reverse to the Allies in Swit- 
 zerland, such as happened, the army moving on 
 Einsiedeln is compromised, and at best has to fight 
 its way from among its enemies ; while a force 
 moving on Wasen by the Splugen, would, in its daily 
 marches, rally to itself all that had fled to or near to 
 the Rheinthal: which, as results turned out, would 
 have included the entire Austrian force in Switzer- 
 land. 
 
 No admirer of Suwarow will doubt for a moment 
 but that, had he taken the Splugen road, and had 
 things happened precisely as they did, he would have 
 been able to restore them by falling on Massena's 
 scattered left, with the force (near 40,000 men), he 
 would have had in hand on reaching Wallenstadt. 
 But he chose what we must suppose he considered a 
 more brilliant task, and thus risked the fate of Swit- 
 zerland, the spell of his own invincibility, and the 
 existence of his noble army, on a most desperate and 
 unnecessary chance. Our admiration of the manner 
 in which he discharged his share of its duties, in no 
 decree extenuates the error of his choice. His first
 
 AUSTRIAN POLICY. 175 
 
 duty was to secure the safety of the common cause, 
 by those means which involved least chance of failure ; 
 and, while the Archduke Charles unquestionably 
 created the dangers which threatened it, it is no less 
 palpable that Suwarow, in striving to avert them, 
 allowed himself to be allured from the easiest and 
 quickest way of doing it. 
 
 The Russian officer with whose relation Jomini 
 presents us, disapproves both of the St. Gothard and 
 the Splugen ; pronouncing that Suwarow should have 
 crossed the Great St. Bernard, and entered the Pays 
 de Vaud, forty leagues in rear of the French army. 
 He seems to have Marengo in his head : but Suwarow 
 had not numbers to justify the movement. The 
 weakness of their respective corps made union the 
 first object of the Allies ; and any combination was 
 proportionally bad or good as it left their separated 
 bodies an hour more or less exposed to attack by 
 their superior enemy. Provided Suwarow left him 
 time to annihilate Korsakow, it mattered little to 
 Massena where he entered Switzerland with 18,000 
 men. Three to one are sufficient odds, even against 
 the Russians and " their father." 
 Suwarow's dis- The political baseness of Austria — 
 
 satisfaction with , •r>,,-n iii*'i 
 
 the Archduke made manifest to iLiurope by the Articles 
 
 of the Peace of Campo Formio, wherein 
 
 she consented to accept the territories of Venice, her
 
 176 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Italian ally, as the price of lier betrayal of her Ger- 
 man countrymen and supporters — and now consis- 
 tently followed up by her present intention of appro- 
 priating to herself the Italian conquests, which Paul 
 desired to restore to their legitimate owners; had 
 created in Suwarow's mind a deep distrust towards 
 her leading men ; while the methodical slowness and 
 inefficiency of the Archduke Charles's military pro- 
 ceedings, associated with his Highness's very illjudged 
 and indelicate habit of suggestive correspondence, ex- 
 hibited a deficiency of perfect cordiality and earnest- 
 ness (to Suwarow's single-mindedness almost equiva- 
 lent to honesty) of purpose, which ill prepared either 
 party to act as co-operative restorers of the calami- 
 tous condition of affairs in Switzerland. The Aus- 
 trian Prince was known to undervalue what he con- 
 sidered the barbarian energy of the Russian leader, as 
 unscientific ; and Suwarow too openly scoffed at his 
 Highness's pedantic estimation of rules and methods 
 of war, which had so often led to disaster and defeat ; 
 and which, in truth, were far more opposite to just 
 principles than his own death-or victory system. 
 The reverse in Switzerland, involving at once the 
 defeat of Korsakow and the pusillanimous retreats of 
 the Austrian Generals, aggravated their misunder- 
 standing, by furnishing matter of mutual recrimina- 
 tion.
 
 MUTUAL EECRIMINATION. 177 
 
 Still, though the Archduke strongly felt (and in 
 his later writings has since displayed) much of the 
 professional and patriotic prejudice which estranged 
 the Allies, he showed himself at this period most 
 anxious to re-establish matters on a friendly footing : 
 but in vain. His unfortunate reply to Suwarow's 
 proposal to advance on the enemy from Feldkirch, 
 combining at once a pretension to correct the old 
 General's military views, and a postponement, if not 
 evasion, of the operation he contemplated, filled to 
 overflowing the cup of bitterness which Austria had 
 mixed for him. Giving up all hope of restoring 
 matters, Suwarow found at once indulgence and 
 justification in aggravating the incidents of the cruel 
 retrospect, to which he wholly turned. He spoke 
 incessantly of the pledges given him, by the infraction 
 of which his army had been baffled and exposed to 
 ruin. 
 
 He saw in Austria a faithless ally — in her Prince 
 a treacherous rival. After witnessing the bravery 
 and skill of the Austrian officers in Italy, he could 
 see nothing but disloyalty and design in the defi- 
 ciencies of those in Switzerland ; and we can scarcely 
 wonder, when the fortuitous concurrence of cir- 
 cumstances was such as to mislead dispassionate 
 contemporaries, that Suwarow regarded this in the 
 light of a systematic conspiracy to defraud him of
 
 178 SUWAKOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 his glory.* He pertinaciously declined an inter- 
 view with the Archduke; and, at length, when an 
 oflScer of the Prince's Staff, Count Colloredo, waited 
 on him at Lindau with some proposition of a de- 
 fensive nature, the bitterness of his feelings broke 
 out in his reply, " Tell my lord the Prince," he 
 said, " that I know nothing of the defensive ; I 
 can only attack. I shall advance when it seems 
 good to me to do so ; and when I do, I shall not 
 stop in Switzerland. I shall go, according to my 
 orders, into Tranche Comte. Tell him, that at 
 Vienna I am at his feet, but that here I am at least 
 
 * Even at the present day we read the following passage in 
 the pages of one of the honestest, if not the most correct, of 
 French historians, Mons. Capefigue : — " Mais qui pent expliquer 
 rinaction de I'Archiduc Charles laissant battre les Russes, 
 tandis que deux de ses divisions pouvaient retablir I'egalite, la 
 balance des forces, et donner la victoire aux Allies ? C'est que, il 
 faut bien le dire, le Cabinet de Vienne etait fort aise de voir les 
 idees, les plans de la cour Russe, et les forces Russes en dehors 
 de toute action, politique et militaire : on s'en etait servi pour 
 assurer I'evacuation de I'ltalie par les Fran9ais, pour gagnerles 
 batailles ; mais maintenant qu'on voulait negocier, I'influence de 
 Paul etait de trop. On ne faisait pas ecraser les forces de 
 Suwarow, mais on les laissait exposees aux corps de Massena ; 
 et Ton vit plus d'un sourire sous les tentes Autrichiennes, a 
 I'aspect de ces lecons donnees par Massena au presomptueux 
 Korsakow."
 
 HE COMPLAINS OF THE AUSTRIANS. 179 
 
 his equal. He is a Field-Marshal, so am I ; he serves 
 a great Emperor, so do I ; he commands an army, so 
 do I ; he is young, and I am old. I have acquired 
 experience by successive victories; and I receive 
 neither counsel nor advice from any one: I trust 
 alone in God and my sword." Pressed alike by the 
 English and Austrian Envoys to become more trac- 
 table, he answered, " I left Italy sooner than I ought, 
 in conformity to a plan which I adopted in confidence 
 on others, not from my own conviction. I arrange 
 my march into Switzerland — I send my route — I 
 pass the St. Gothard, and all the obstacles that pre- 
 sent themselves — I arrive, at the appointed day, on 
 the spot where we were to unite — and all fail me at 
 once. Instead of finding an army in good order in 
 an advantageous position, I find no army at all. The 
 position of Zurich, which should have been defended 
 by 60,000 Austrians, had been left to 20,000 Rus- 
 sians, and they allowed to want provisions. Hotze 
 lets himself be surprised. Korsakow causes himself 
 to be beaten. The French are masters of Switzer- 
 land : and I find myself alone, with my troops with- 
 out artillery, provisions, or ammunition, obliged to 
 retire into the Grisons to join a routed army. No- 
 thing has been done that was promised me. An old 
 soldier like me may be taken in once, but he would 
 be too "Teat a fool to be so twice. I cannot asrain
 
 180 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 enter into a plan of operations from which I see no 
 advantage. I have sent a courier to St. Petersburgh. 
 I shall rest my army ; and I shall do nothing without 
 the orders of my Sovereign." 
 
 To this outbreak succeeded an active but totally 
 resultless correspondence between the two leaders; in 
 which Suwarow, having, on the 22 nd, stated that his 
 Highness's march out of Switzerland had put every- 
 thing there into confusion, the Archduke replied, 
 " The departure of the troops out of Switzerland to 
 Germany was in conformity to my destination, and 
 could not create the least embarrassment there. The 
 corps of 20,000 men, under Hotze, continued to hold 
 its position in one part of Switzerland; and in the 
 other, the relief of the Royal Imperial troops was 
 effected by the Im.perial Russian forces, under 
 General Korsakow, in a position offering every mili- 
 tary advantage, as agreed upon by that General on 
 the 28th August. The peculiar embarrassments, 
 however, occurred at a later period; particularly on 
 the 25th September. Eye-witnesses have but one 
 voice, or those who understand war but one opinion, 
 on the subject ; and in the French papers there is an 
 enumeration of the enemy's forces at the period, 
 which puts the matter beyond all question." 
 
 The special pleading of this document, in which the 
 Archduke glances so cavalierly over the grand point
 
 HIS ADVICE TO THE ARCHDUKE. 181 
 
 of the amount of force left bj him in Switzerland 
 — on which aU Europe then, and his own opinion 
 since, have pronounced him faulty — was little calcu- 
 lated to smooth Suwarow's ruiHed temper: neither 
 were his vague professions of a willingness to adopt 
 the offensive, unaccompanied by any specific plan or 
 declaration as to the degree to which his army 
 should co-operate ; his total silence on the subject of 
 the ammunition and supplies which Suwarow re- 
 quired from him; or his almost insulting proposal 
 that Suwarow would undertake the defence of his 
 flank from Bassadingen to Petershausen with 10,000 
 men, while he attended to one of those exao;o;e- 
 rated alarms from the middle Rhine, to which 
 in this campaign he so repeatedly attached undue 
 importance. Suwarow, however, did leave a portion 
 of his forces under Rosenberg for a stated time near 
 Bregentz, and on quitting Lindau with the remainder 
 thus worded his adieu to his Highness. "I march 
 to-morrow to winter quarters between the Lech and 
 lUer. The hereditary states must be defended as 
 disinterested conquests ought to have been ; i. e., 
 by acquiring the love of the people, by acting with 
 justice ; not by surrendering the Netherlands, nor by 
 sacrificing two fine Italian armies. An old soldier 
 who has been near sixty years under arms, tells your 
 Highness this : a soldier who has led the armies of
 
 182 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Joseph 11. and Francis II. to victory, and placed 
 Gallicia under the Austrian sceptre : a soldier who 
 neither acts according to Demosthenic chatterings, 
 nor to please Acamedicians, who only confuse sound 
 thought: nor for the senate of Hannibal! I am not 
 a man of jealousies, demonstrations, countermarches, 
 or the like : instead of such childishness, I trust to 
 coup d'ceil, quickness, and energy. Although inval- 
 uable time for the liberation of Switzerland has been 
 lost, it may yet be made up for. Let your Royal 
 Highness prepare with your whole army, exclusive 
 of its detachments, for a speedy, energetic, and short 
 winter campaign ; make me acquainted with your 
 plan, that we may understand each other ; and I am 
 ready, as soon as the roads are in a fit condition, to 
 co-operate with the whole of my army with your 
 Highness, so that we may go body and soul together. 
 . . . . In your letter you have used the word 
 'retreat' in reference to my movement. I must 
 protest against this, and declare that in the whole 
 course of my life I have had no more acquaintance 
 with this word than with those of * defensive war :' 
 two words which at the opening of this present cam- 
 paign have cost in the Tyrol alone 10,000 men ; a 
 loss as great as what Italy cost us. I go solely to 
 rest my people in winter quarters, to preserve them 
 for the service of the two allied Emperors, and to
 
 SUWAEOW'S CONVERSATION. 183 
 
 put them as quickly as possible in a condition to assist 
 your Imperial Highness in the liberation of Switzer- 
 land ; and, if Providence aid us, to pursue the libera- 
 tion of the French kingdom from their oppressors." 
 
 A letter from Lindau, written the day after the 
 Archduke's officer had been with him, after describing 
 Suwarow's half-shut eyes, single boot, embraces and 
 benediction, gives the following account of the odd 
 jumble of his conversation. " Some time ago," the 
 Marshal observed, " We only talked of victories and 
 conquests ; there is no more of that j ust now : 
 unforeseen circumstances have made us change our 
 tone ; but it will come again, take my word for it. 
 You will return to England, and see his Royal High- 
 ness the Count d' Artois ; tell him our passage of the 
 Alps equalled, if it did not surpass, that of Hannibal." 
 Then, turning to one of his Aides-de-camp, he said, 
 " Tell the gentleman of our campaign, that he may 
 give the details to his Royal Highness." Then he con- 
 tinued to the company ; " the Romans said, that one 
 ought to boast in public : it excites the emulation of 
 the listeners." After he had dined and asked some 
 questions on affairs in Holland, with which he 
 showed himself well acquainted, he proceeded : " The 
 English are fine fellows : they are a great people, and 
 approach nearer than any others to angels." He 
 compared Ossian to Homer, and remarked that
 
 184 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 though the Romans called themselves the conquerors 
 of the world, the Scotch had always successfully 
 resisted them. He joked about roast beef, and after 
 pressing Colonel Clinton to hurry the ale he had 
 ordered for him, he turned the conversation on Rous- 
 seau : one of his Generals observing he had written 
 some excellent works ; " Look at that illumine," he 
 said, " get out, you illumine ! Get out, you and 
 your Rousseau ! " speaking with judgment on the 
 harm done to religion by Voltaire, Jean Jacques, 
 and Raynal. The General availing himself of a 
 pause to say he meant Jean Baptiste Rousseau, not 
 Jean Jaques, Suwarow replied, "Well, you may 
 stay, as that's the case." He spoke of his battles in 
 Italy. " Caesar said," he continued, " one should 
 never parley with barbarians: they who call them- 
 selves our friends are often worse. What's the use 
 of talking, writing, or communicating? When two 
 men are friends, whether Russian, French, English, 
 or German, this (putting his hand on his heart) 
 speaks and directs both to the same end. Like 
 Caesar, I make no partial plans. I look at things as 
 a whole ; for a whirlwind of events always changes 
 plans that have been arranged." 
 
 He mentioned that an Adjutant (who was present) 
 had fallen, without being hurt, down a precipice, 
 saying, " Do you know who saved him ? It was
 
 HIS MILITARY CHARACTER. 185 
 
 the devil — he's a freemason." After further con- 
 versation, he turned to the image of St. Nicholas, 
 returned thanks, gave his blessing to the company, 
 and retired to rest awhile, in the old cloak, which, at 
 Lindau as elsewhere, was the bed of the Generalis- 
 gimo of the Russians. This title Suwarow had recently 
 received from his Sovereign, with an order that the 
 same military honours should be paid him as to the 
 Emperor, even when that Monarch should be present; 
 and that he should be henceforth regarded as the 
 greatest General of any age, people, or country. 
 " This would be much for another," Paul said, on 
 issuing this order ; " but it is little for Suwarow — 
 he is more an angel than man I " 
 
 It need not be here repeated that 
 
 Of Suwarow's 
 
 military it is in no manner our object to 
 
 character. 
 
 assume for Suwarow the pride of 
 place among martial heroes to which the Czar here 
 elevates him. We hold him to be only a first rate 
 General of a secondary class : still, so long as first- 
 class leaders shall be rare in war, the fate of na- 
 tions may be confidently entrusted to such men as 
 Suwarow and his soldiers. Their achievements in 
 this campaign taxed the ingenuity of hostile histo- 
 rians to find terms in which to characterise them. 
 *' Le heros de la Russie,''^ say the authors of ' Les Vic- 
 tories, Conquetes, et Revers du Fran^ais,' " s^etoit cree
 
 186 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 unsysteme de guerre propre a de concerter par sa hizarrerie 
 les combinaisnns savantes des tacticiens les plus exptri- 
 mentes.''^ But the Generals who compiled that work 
 knew well that it is not the oddity of a system that 
 gains success in war, but numbers, courage, combi- 
 nations, and rapidity ; and to the superior employ- 
 ment of one or other of these essentials, is due 
 the praise thus ungenerously withheld from the 
 military qualities of Suwarow. 
 
 The experienced tacticians of Austria, complained 
 in terms not very dissimilar, of the odd and un- 
 accommodating system adopted by Buonaparte, in 
 his first Italian campaign. The Archduke Charles 
 has lent his sanction to the depreciation of Suwarow ; 
 pronouncing him a man who would probably have 
 done nothing without a superior force. It is no 
 mean merit to have done what he did with one. 
 We see the Archduke himself taking ten weeks 
 to advance from Stockach to Zurich, and then mo- 
 tionless for ten more in Switzerland ; and eventually 
 losing most important ground before he left it, with 
 a proportlonably stronger force available for attack 
 than that with which the Russian leader baffled 
 Moreau, Macdonald, and Joubert. We do not 
 claim for Suwarow the highest qualities of his art, 
 but he had first-rate courage, activity, and decision : 
 he could carry on his troops with an enthusiasm
 
 THE CZAR QUITS THE COALITION. 187 
 
 seldom equalled, and he fought desperately for vic- 
 tory. Defeat was unknown to him. He led the 
 banners of Austria to a rapid succession of triumphs, 
 to which its annals find no parallel ; and he threw a 
 glory over his march through Switzerland, which 
 extorted the envy of his generous antagonists. 
 This is something ; and while the strategist sees in 
 part of Suwarow's career an absence of the highest 
 military qualifications, the soldier will feel proud to 
 know what valour and energy can do ; and, if he be 
 wise, will seek those sources of knowledge which, had 
 they been familiar to Suwarow, would have crowned 
 his name with truer and more enduring glory. 
 
 At the end of October, Suwarow's 
 The Czar Paul 
 
 quits the head-quarters were at Augsburg, 
 
 CoaUtion. 
 
 whence his army broke up on the 23rd 
 Nov. for Bohemia, where it was halted for final orders. 
 The Emperor Paul had long suspected — when the re- 
 presentations of his son Constantino, of Suwarow, and 
 above all, the evidence of unmistakeable facts con- 
 vinced him — how opposite to the spirit of the coali- 
 tion had been the policy and the proceedings of 
 Austria. She had seized on Italy for herself; and 
 now, in addition, he found one of his own brave 
 armies sacrificed, by measures utterly at variance 
 with the assurances she had given him.* 
 
 * Immediately the news of the Archduke Charles's move-
 
 188 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 In consequence, on the 22nd Oct., Paul had thus 
 addressed the Emperor Francis. "Your Majesty 
 must already be aware of the consequence of the 
 
 ment to Germany reached Paul, he indignantly and cate- 
 gorically demanded of the Austrian Minister at his court 
 (Coblentz), " On what grounds was the Archduke's army so 
 quickly to leave Switzerland, &c. ?" He was momentarily paci- 
 fied by the following precise explanation-, to every word of 
 which, events had already, a fortnight before it was written, 
 practically given the lie : — " Baron Thugut has assured me that 
 the Archduke Charles was to come to an understanding with the 
 Commander-in-Chief of the Russian forces concerning the most 
 proper ways and means of their march, so that the positions 
 hitherto occupied by the armies of his Imperial Majesty should 
 be one after another occupied by them, and thus the Austrian 
 troops be relieved." According to this, the Austrians were 
 not otherwise to relinquish their positions than as successively 
 relieved in them by the Russians as they advanced. 
 
 In the Baron's despatch of the 22nd August, it is said, " that 
 the relief is to commence by the substitution of Russians on 
 the left of the line ;" and, in the same despatch, it is parti- 
 cularly expressed that the Archduke, in giving up these posi- 
 tions to the Russian troops, will occupy the remaining portion 
 of the line till the arrival of the last Russian troops; and for the 
 removal of every difliculty in regard to the Russian artillery 
 and cavalry not then arrived, that Austrian artillery and 
 cavalry shall be left till they came. 
 
 According to this, his Imperial Highness sees himself bound 
 to remain with his army in Switzerland until the position of the 
 Russian army there be fully secured. With respect to the un-
 
 Paul's letter to francis. 189 
 
 removal of your army under the Archduke Charles 
 out of Switzerland, effected in defiance of all the 
 motives for which it had remained there, to secure 
 the union of the army of Prince Italisky with 
 General Korsakow. Seeing my troops deserted and 
 
 fortunate events of the 15th August (the loss of the St. Gothard 
 by the Archduke's left wing), it is also said, " that his Imperial 
 Majesty has given irrevocable orders to the Archduke Charles 
 to employ all his forces to remedy this misfortune. After this, 
 can it be supposed that the Austrian troops have left Switzer- 
 land in presence of the enemy, and before the relief by the 
 Russian troops shall have been completely effected ? In addi- 
 tion to this, the "Intermediate Army is always to act in abso- 
 lute co-operation with Field-Marshal Suwarow." So writes the 
 diplomatist on the 13th September, whereas the Archduke 
 Charles first communicates to Suwarow on the 29th August 
 that he is about to leave Switzerland ; and days before his 
 letter has reached its destination, he is with his army, already in 
 Germany ! The sensation excited by this measure was not con- 
 fined to Suwarow's army and the court of St. Petersburgh. 
 We find Woronzoff writing from London : — " The conduct of 
 the council of war, with respect to the army of the Archduke 
 Charles, has been heard here with astonishment. After this 
 army had been kept in perfect inactivity for three months, thus 
 giving time to Massena to obtain all the reinforcements he could 
 desire, it has been suddenly removed out of Switzerland — which 
 it might have liberated, had it chosen to do so — leaving a small 
 force of Russians at the mercy of the enemy, who outnumber 
 them threefold ! "
 
 190 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 delivered over to the enemy in this manner, and my 
 views and the welfare of Europe sacrificed to a 
 selfish policy, and having full cause for the indigna- 
 tion I feel at the conduct of your ministry (the 
 motives of which I do not care to know), I declare 
 to your Majesty, with the same sincerity which led 
 me to hasten to your assistance and to further the 
 progress of your arms, that I from this day forth 
 give up the common cause, in order that I may not 
 lend myself to the triumph of a wicked one. I 
 remain with the esteem due to you, &c., Paul." 
 
 It was in vain the Austrian court attempted to 
 pacify him, sending one of the Archdukes to St. 
 Petersburgh, and doing all that could be done by 
 words to reconcile him to the past: he was in- 
 exorable ; demanding, as preliminaries to any resto- 
 ration of their good understanding, that all the 
 Austrian Generals who commanded in Switzerland 
 at the time of the battle of Zurich should be 
 brought to trial, that the Republic of Venice should 
 be restored, and the King of Sardinia re-established 
 in his dominions. 
 
 Such terms were considered inadmissible by the 
 Thugut cabinet ; the second coalition was irrevo- 
 cably dissolved, and Austria kept Italy till the 
 following year; when Marengo, and subsequently 
 Hohenlinden, inculcated, somewhat more convincingly
 
 HE DEPAKTS FOR RUSSIA. 191 
 
 than Paul had done, the wisdom of an honest policy. 
 " Thus (in Suwarow's words) did the mountain pro- 
 duce its mouse." Instead of this, he asserts, "had the 
 King of Sardinia been placed on his throne when 
 the people were excited by our good conduct, an 
 auxiliary army could have been raised as if by 
 magic ; and with the innumerable supplies of Turin, 
 we might have been in Lyons by November, and at 
 Paris with the new year. Liberation was our game, 
 and justice — not Indemnification ! That plays the 
 game of the atheists, and serves them to drive you 
 back again. Cassar said, * I have done nothing till I 
 have done all.' When you feel you hold the fate of 
 France in your hands, seek and settle your indemni- 
 fication in Paris. Just now your conquests are any- 
 thino; but secured. But then Political Wisdom I It 
 was 'political wisdom' that gave away the Nether- 
 lands, and accepted Venice from Buonaparte for 
 Lombardy. * Political wisdom' is now even still more 
 generous. It places Turin at Cagliari ! Naples at 
 Palermo ! Won't it be wonderful some fine day to 
 find Vienna at Presburg ? Alas ! alas ! I am not 
 the man, I find, to reconstruct the ruined fane of 
 Themis!" 
 
 Suwarow sets On the 2 1st of January 1800, 
 
 Suwarow's army was ordered to return 
 
 to Russia; the Field-Marshal preceding them with
 
 192 SUWAEOW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 a small suite, by Cracow and Wilna. At the former 
 city he was attacked with illness, and subsequently 
 
 lay many weeks ill at Kobrin; where 
 
 His illness. '' *' 
 
 Paul sent his own physician to attend 
 him : writing, " I pray to God to preserve my hero 
 Suwarow. On reaching the capital you will expe- 
 rience the gratitude of your Emperor ; which, how- 
 ever, can never equal the good services you have 
 done for me and for the empire." On leaving Wilna, 
 Suwarow grew still worse, and was forced to remain 
 some days in a peasant's hut near the road. Here 
 he was heard more than once to exclaim, " Ah ! I 
 am become too old !" Still he struggled on, encouraged 
 by the flattering reception prepared for him at St. 
 Petersburgh ; where Paul had arranged a triumphal 
 military ceremony, which was to usher the old hero 
 to the apartments allotted to him in the Imperial 
 winter palace : which cheering promise was, however, 
 to be cruelly disappointed. 
 
 Is publicly cen- I* appeared that Paul had directed 
 bure y an . ^j^^^ ^^ Generalissimo should appoint 
 a General of the day by roster, and that Su- 
 warow had appointed, or allowed, Bagration (in 
 whom he had most confidence,) to act perma- 
 nently, or nearly so, as General of the day. 
 Suwarow 's enemies had represented the injustice of 
 this in so strong a light to Paul, that the unfor-
 
 HE ARRIVES AT ST. PETERSBURGH. 193 
 
 tunate man at once took the extreme step (without 
 any communication whatever with Suwarow), of 
 having It proclaimed at the head of every regiment 
 in his service, that the Generalissimo, Prince Ita- 
 lisky, having failed to comply with the Imperial 
 commands, had merited severe censure. 
 Reaches St. Suwarow's strength of body and 
 
 uio • mind had of late been rapidly fail- 
 ing, and when he received intelligence of this 
 event at Riga, the unexpected blow struck home, 
 and aggravated all his ailments ; he nevertheless con- 
 tinued his journey, and on the 2nd May, having 
 purposely waited for nightfall, passed the barrier of 
 St. Petersburgh at ten o'clock, and received in the 
 " present" of the guard there, the last military 
 honour of his life. Instead of to the Imperial 
 Palace, he was carried to his nephew's hotel ; where 
 he lay down, never again to quit his bed-room. 
 Here a few friends only ventured to visit him in 
 secret. The loss of his son was added to his other 
 sufferings ; and so rapidly was he sinking under his 
 various miseries, that the extraordinary Paul re- 
 lented, so far as to permit his friends to visit him, 
 and to send a chamberlain to inquire after his 
 health. Suwarow's eccentricity exhibited its last 
 glimpse in receiving this person, whom Paul had 
 ennobled when a menial servant, and in obstinately 
 
 o
 
 194 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 persisting in not recognising the badge of honour, — 
 the blue ribband with which he was decorated, — but 
 continuing to ask him what could have induced him 
 to wear such a very fine waistcoat, interrupting him 
 momentarily by exclaiming, " a blue waistcoat ! why 
 does the man wear a blue one ?" 
 
 But he received the young Archdukes very 
 differently. To them he feelingly lamented what 
 seemed to him the decline of the Empire, and 
 regretted that his life had reached into such times. 
 On the 17th May he received the sacrament, and 
 next day an officer came to him from the Emperor, 
 to signify that his Majesty was graciously prepared 
 to grant any request the Generalissimo might wish 
 to ask. One may well say with the poet, " Oh, 
 cruel irony ! this comes too late ; and only mocks 
 whom it was meant to honour." The message, 
 however, seemed to summon Suwarow back to life : 
 collecting the strength he had left, he raised himself 
 on his couch and proceeded to enumerate one by one 
 all the favours and honours he had received from 
 the Empress Catherine. " I was nothing but a 
 soldier full of zeal ;" he said, " but she felt the will I 
 had to serve her. I owe her more than life, for she 
 gave me the means of glorifying myself. Tell her 
 son that I accept his Imperial promise. You see 
 this portrait of the Empress — it has never left me —
 
 HIS DEATH. 195 
 
 the favour I ask is that it may be buried with me 
 in my tomb, and remain for ever fastened on my 
 heart." With these words his strength gave Avay, 
 and he sank back, grasping the memorial that was so 
 dear to him. 
 
 At midniojht on the 18th he died, and 
 
 His death. *= 
 
 the Emperor Paul had the coolness to 
 exclaim, on hearing of it, " The hero has paid his 
 tribute to Nature — his disobedience only pained me 
 because it sullied his laurels ! " 
 
 Suwarow was buried with military honours, vari- 
 ously characterized as those of a Major-General, or of 
 a member of the Imperial family ; but the courtiers 
 saw it was not their business to attend the funeral, 
 and the diplomatic body imitated their prudence. It 
 is, however, to the honour of our country as well as 
 of the individual, that the minister of Great Britain, 
 Lord Whitworth, paid this illustrious man the 
 homage of his respect, and saw his remains con- 
 signed to their last resting place. 
 
 When Suwarow, in passing through Moravia, 
 visited the tomb of the brave Field-Marshal Lau- 
 dohn, and read the long and pompous Latin in- 
 scription on it, he turned round and said : " No, 
 when I die, don't give me a long postscript like this : 
 say only, here lies Suwarow." And in compliance 
 with his wish, a plain tablet of bronze bearing these
 
 196 SUWAROW'S LAST CAMPAIGN. 
 
 •words, and having a lamp above it, was erected in 
 the church of St. Alexander Newsky ; and continued, 
 until after the death of the unfortunate Paul, the 
 only memorial of Russia's most distinguished cham- 
 pion.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the archduke 
 
 CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 
 
 In taking leave of (what he styles) the memoirs of 
 the Archduke Charles, at the 62nd page of the Vth 
 volume of his History of Europe, Mr. Alison eulogises 
 their Illustrious author in these words : " Luminous, 
 sagacious, disinterested, severe in judging of himself, 
 indulgent in criticising others ; liberal of praise to 
 all but his own great achievements ; profoundly 
 skilled in the military art, and gifted with no com- 
 mon powers of narrative and description, his work 
 is a model of candid and able military disquisition. 
 On a fact stated by the Archduke, whether favour- 
 able or adverse to his reputation, or a criticism made 
 by him on others, the most perfect reliance may be 
 placed." 
 
 I can by no means concur with Mr. Alison in 
 resrardlngr the Archduke as " disinterested :" at least
 
 198 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 in so much of his literary labour as has reference to 
 the campaign of 1799 ; as I think it easy to trace an 
 attempt, in his relation of that period, to palliate to 
 his contemporaries and posterity the absence of those 
 qualities in himself as a leader of armies, which 
 tended so materially to nullify the talents and 
 bravery he unquestionably possessed ; and which, ex- 
 cluding him from the grandest scenes of European 
 glory, reduced him in 1813 to employ his leisure as 
 a strategical casuist, in place of shining as the com- 
 manding genius of that eventful military period. 
 And thinking, as 1 do, that any one forming his 
 opinion of the Archduke from this eulogy of Mr. 
 Alison's, and then proceeding to form his opinion of 
 Suwarow by what the Archduke has written of him, 
 would come to very erroneous conclusions respecting 
 the Russian hero ; I desire to substantiate here the 
 simple and altogether incontrovertible fact, that, as 
 regards Suwarow, his Highness is neither ** indul- 
 gent in criticising," nor " liberal of praise : " and 
 further (putting liberality and indulgence out of the 
 question), to cite one or two important instances, 
 wherein I think the criticisms he has deliberately 
 laid before the public, so long after the events they 
 canvass, are by no means deserving of " the perfect 
 reliance" which Mr. Alison enjoins us to place on 
 them.
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 199 
 
 The extent to wliich the Archduke is " liberal of 
 praise" towards Suwarow, may be first disposed of; 
 as the sentence, " Suwarow's prompt and determined 
 resolution to march from the Upper Po towards the 
 Trebbia decided for the moment the fate of Upper 
 Italy," constitutes the "first — the last — the only" 
 passage of the "campaign of 1799," implying in 
 any manner the approval of its author of any one 
 of his Russian co-adjutor's proceedings. And as on 
 the march to the Trebbia is expended all the praise 
 the Archduke can afford to Suwarow, so on his com- 
 ment on the succeeding battle rests the whole claim 
 he may have, in Suwarow's case, to the epithet "in- 
 dulgent" in criticising ; his Highness having therein 
 considerately adduced an excuse for Suwarow's 
 clumsy way of doing his work, which no other 
 human being had ever thought of, or, indeed, con- 
 sidered requisite. The "indulgent" criticism on the 
 battle of the Trebbia runs thus : " Attacks repeated 
 separately by the different arms composing the two 
 lines, without connection — without art — without any 
 object but that of killing each other, cost much blood, 
 and led to no other result at the end of the second day 
 but the greatest disorder and the disorganization of 
 
 both armies The battle itself — which was 
 
 nothing but a general m6lee, without plan and without 
 mancEuvres — may find its excuse in the difficulty of
 
 200 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 handling troops on such broken ground ; and probably 
 Suwarow preferred opposing the enemy with a sti'ong 
 line equal to his own to risking any movements 
 before him with his Russians, who, though very 
 brave, could not manoeuvre like the Frenchmen." 
 
 To those who have read how the French were 
 formed at a rio-ht anfjle to the Po, on which their 
 right rested ; and that Suwarow's order of attack for 
 both days was in direct echellon from his right — thus 
 to throw the enemy on the river and from his ex- 
 pected support, at the same time threatening his line 
 of direct retreat; and that, moreover, on the first 
 day, this able design was successfully carried out 
 by the Russian portion of the army, which advanced 
 to and passed the night at Settimo, in rear of the 
 original French position, — it must be hard to conceive 
 how "indulgent" criticism can characterize this battle 
 as a " general melee, without plan," and conjecture an 
 excuse for its being so, as little borne out by the 
 events of the battle (in which the Russian troops 
 manoeuvred extensively and well) as is the deprecia- 
 tory assumption it affects to palliate. It is also 
 strange to have perused Mr. Alison's description of 
 the battle, including " Suwarow's judicious plan of 
 attack — the immense advantages of the position," 
 won by the Russian right, &c., with the crowning 
 eulogium on it, " as one of the most splendid feats
 
 AECHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 201 
 
 which the history of war affords," and then to find it 
 is with him one must canvass the Archduke's claims 
 to the epithets of " liberal of praise, and indulgent in 
 criticising." 
 
 Having; thus exhausted the instances in which the 
 Archduke's criticisms on Suwarow can by any inter- 
 pretation be deemed to incline to the liberal or indul- 
 gent, I would now show, that, putting out of con- 
 sideration the quality or degree of his censures on 
 the acknowledged errors of Suwarow — as the procras- 
 tinated advance on Turin, the want of ensemble in the 
 attacks on Novi, and the choice of the St. Gothard 
 route to Switzerland — there is a querulous, ungene- 
 rous, disparaging, and unjust tone prominently appa- 
 rent throughout the general tenor of his comments 
 on Suwarow ; of which a brief summary of the pass- 
 ages and silences on which this view is founded, may 
 enable the reader to judge. 
 
 The Archduke's first mention of Suwarow as 
 taking the command of his army at Valeggio, is 
 accompanied by a remark, that "here several days 
 were lost in regulating the new order of things," while 
 the date of Suwarow's arrival (the 17th April) is 
 omitted, for it would have contradicted the assertion ; 
 as the context goes on to state, that the united Aus- 
 trians and Russians advanced on the 19th to the 
 Chiesa. The French historian, Dumas, represents,
 
 202 ON ME. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 on the contrary, that Suwarow arrived in the centre 
 of Lombardy " more rapidly than any one could have 
 thought it possible" ; and we know that he entered 
 Milan on the tenth day after the junction of the 
 Russians with the Austrlans at Valeggio. 
 
 On the passage of the Adda, successful in all and 
 each of its various and difficult details — including the 
 surprise of posts, the fixing a pontoon bridge at a 
 point supposed too difficult to justify the attempt, 
 and that held by the enemy ; as well as the direct 
 attacks, piercing and separating the French line into 
 isolated portions, and involving the capture of one of 
 its strongest divisions, and the loss of a third of its 
 force ; and the admirable nature and completeness of 
 ^vhich, as a military operation, Dumas aptly illus- 
 trates, by contrasting it with the entire and signal 
 failure of a similar attempt, made at precisely the 
 same points, by the great Prince Eugene — on this 
 noble feat of arms, the Archduke Charles can affi)rd 
 no single word of comment, either liberal or indul- 
 gent ! 
 
 Tschubarof's or Rosenberg's affiiir at Basignano, 
 the Archduke represents as Suwarow's deliberate 
 act ; writing, that " he ordered the Russians to pass 
 the Po," &c., whereas his Highness knew full well 
 that the Russians had been ordered to pass the Po 
 because the enemy were said to have quitted it, and
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC, 203 
 
 that Suwarow had despatched positive orders to for- 
 bid the movement. 
 
 The Archduke's opinions on the action of the 
 Trebbia have been given, but we cannot rightly esti- 
 mate the tone of his criticism on Suwarow as a Gene- 
 ral, without noticino; that he is altoo;ether silent on 
 the most serious diminution of the means on which 
 he calculated, through General Kray's declining to 
 join him with his army, and by the idle squander- 
 ing of the forces under KJenau and Hohenzollern, 
 previous to his arrival. In like manner, when 
 the Archduke repeatedly represents that Suwarow 
 undertook too many sieges, and scattered his forces 
 too widely, in no one instance does he in the 
 slio-htest degree allude to the indisrnant remon- 
 strances of the brave old man against the self- 
 seeking politicians of Vienna, who insisted on these 
 measures ; and it was not from the " indulgent " 
 Archduke's pages that Mr. Alison quoted the bitter 
 lano;uao;e of an officer of the Russian staff: " The 
 cursed cabinet of Vienna seeks only to retard our 
 advance. It insists that our great Suwarow shall 
 divide his army, and direct it at once to several 
 points. It is to waste its time and strength in the 
 siege of fortresses, which would fall of themselves if 
 the French army was destroyed." 
 
 After describing the descent of Joubert's army on
 
 204 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 Novi, the Archduke remarks : " Suwarow remained a 
 quiet spectator of all these movements — allowed the 
 enemy to pass the mountains ; concentrate his forces 
 and take up a strong position, without offering him 
 the slightest opposition ; the allied advance every- 
 where falling back. Up to the 13th it was deter- 
 mined to receive the enemy on. the plain. All at 
 once the Marshal changed his mind, and ordered the 
 attack upon him with 4,500 men, leaving 18,000 
 idle at Spinetti, Tortona, and Vighizzolo." These 
 insinuations are easily met by the simple statement 
 that, Joubert's intention being to relieve the citadel 
 of Tortona, then besieged by the Allies, Suwarow, as 
 explained in his orders and despatches, desired to 
 fight him on the plain between that city and Novi, 
 where his numerous cavalry would tell; which one 
 would have supposed, accordant to the Archduke's 
 axiom, that " in action, commanding ground gives a 
 decisive advantage : " such advantage would have 
 been needlessly given to Joubert, had Suwarow 
 foolishly walked up the hills to encounter him. 
 Suwarow's change of purpose turned altogether on 
 that of his enemy ; who (finding that, contrary to his 
 expectation, Kray's force had joined the Marshal), 
 held fast to his position, from which he had resolved 
 to retreat on the following day. Suwarow finding 
 him motionless, felt that he would either fall back
 
 AKCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 205 
 
 or entrench his position on the Novi plateau, and, 
 therefore, at once determined to attack him. The 
 force that remained inactive was that which watched 
 Tortona. 
 
 The comments on Suwarow's operations in Italy 
 wind up with a comparison between the respective 
 doings of the Marshal and Moreau, in which there is 
 nothing objectionable or unjust, except the conjecture 
 that " without superior means Suwarow would have 
 probably done nothing great," followed by the cold 
 blooded and ungenerous implication that "in Swit- 
 zerland we shall see him in a different situation ; 
 forced to open the route by the St. Gothard, the 
 advantage of superior numbers was no longer his." 
 And what was the result of this difference in his 
 situation, over which his Highness seems to chuckle ? 
 Did not Suwarow with his inferior means open for 
 himself the route by the St. Gothard? Was not 
 everything in Switzerland assigned to Suwarow, 
 done as gloriously and successfully as men could do 
 it ? That the general combination failed, was due to 
 the misconduct of Korsakow, Petrarch, Jellachich, and 
 Linken, if they were strong enough for the duties 
 allotted to them ; to the Archduke Charles or the 
 Austrian cabinet, if they were not so. Wherever 
 the ignominy of this failure should fall, no spot of it 
 can touch the glory of Suwarow. The measure was
 
 206 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 ordered by the Austrian cabinet. Suwarow had no 
 word in it but a choice between two routes. He 
 chose the boldest, and therein he erred ; but erring 
 in his choice, he nobly made it good, and reached his 
 goal to find all lost. Had he taken the less dan- 
 gerous line, the results would have been in every 
 respect the same ; save the loss of his own gallant 
 men, who died in this thankless cause. If this 
 has as yet seemed doubtful to the readers of this 
 sketch, it is hoped it may be made apparent in what 
 follows. 
 
 Ushering in his relation of the St. Gothard march, 
 by preliminary reflections on certain military quali- 
 ties, the Archduke concludes them thus : " Too 
 great rashness is pardonable under certain circum- 
 stances, but slowness, irresolution, and constant 
 change of purpose, deserve to be severely punished ; 
 for in war it is often better to adopt a defective mea- 
 sure than to take none, or than to choose a better 
 one too late. The loss of time is irreparable, and no- 
 thing is so fatal as inaction." All which, though 
 we most potently believe, we hold it not meet to 
 have it set down as a text to be illustrated by 
 Suwarow's proceedings : but so it is. And now to 
 test its application. 
 
 On the aflfair at Airolo, after having stated that 
 Schweikowski had been detached with eight batta-
 
 AECHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 207 
 
 lions to turn the French position, he writes, " The 
 blind courao;e of the Russians and the ignorance of 
 their chief in mountain warfare, cost much blood. 
 Suwarow knew no other way of overcoming obstacles 
 but by open force, and all day long he was paying 
 dearly for the slight advantages he gained : at length 
 towards evening, Schweikowski, after having clam- 
 bered over precipices and lost much time in the long 
 circuits he had to make, appeared above the St. 
 Gothard, and obliged the Frenchmen to retreat." 
 This is only remarkable as declaring that Suwarow 
 had no way of acting but by direct attack ; having 
 previously stated that he had taken the precaution of 
 detaching a sufficient force to turn the position, and 
 showing eventually that it was so turned : and that 
 only later than might have been wished, because the 
 outflanking force had lost time. As Mr. Incledon 
 observed, on his quotation from Holy Writ, of "a 
 man standing on a moat, and knocking another man's 
 eye out with a beam," " the passage is nothing — the 
 application 's everything." 
 
 The disparaging tone of the criticism is kept up by 
 the allusion to Suwarow's " delay" at Hospital, where 
 he arrived at midnight, and which he left at daybreak ; 
 by the mention that the Russians were encamped there 
 *' negligemment,^'' they having also arrived in the dark 
 and left it before it was light; by the objection to a
 
 208 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 noncontinuance of the operations against Lecourbe 
 beyond Seedorf, when Suwarow's prime object was 
 to join his Austrian allies in the opposite direction ; 
 and by the unexpected presentiment before us of 
 Suwarow " an amazed creature," as Sir Christopher 
 Hatton says, or *' stupefaif as the Archduke pictures 
 him at Mutten. 
 
 The difficulties of the march to that villao;e from 
 Altorf, confessedly made manifest the error of 
 Suwarow's choice of route. Few men would have 
 vanquished them as he did : but still there he was, 
 in spite of obstacles, upon his ground; and had his 
 allies been there as he was, the contemplated junc- 
 tion would have been effected. Finding none of his 
 promised co-operators there, and hearing of their 
 reverses, he moved to Glaris, thirty miles to the east- 
 ward, to look for them and to enable them to join 
 him. And here the Archduke denounces him as not 
 only flagrantly blameable himself, but, wonderful to 
 say, as the cause of that disgraceful supineness in 
 others, of which he complained so loudly. " Suwarow 
 found provisions at Glaris, and halted in this new 
 position during the 2nd, 3rd, and the 4th October 
 (his movement commenced on the 4th), undecided 
 on the plan to be adopted. His natural rashness 
 when obstacles were to be overcome forsook him on 
 this occasion, and he wavered at a time when his
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 209 
 
 usual resolution might have saved him, and where 
 nothing could be more hazardous than to halt in a 
 defile, of which the enemy occupied all the outlets, 
 except the paths which led to the Grisons by the 
 vailley of the higher Rhine. A rapid march from 
 Grlaris towards the lake of Wallenstadt, abandoning 
 Ms stragglers and baggage animals, would have given 
 Suwarow a better road for his retreat, and the 
 shortest communication with the Rhine ; while Rosen- 
 berg's division might have checked the enemy in the 
 Muttenthal, as long as the operation required it. In 
 case of a reverse, he might eventually have fallen 
 back by Elm and the valley of the Sernst." Rosen- 
 berg at Mutten protected Suwarow's left flank, and 
 still kept open to him the debouche on Schwyz, in 
 the event of any sufficient Austrian force turning up 
 at Glaris, and enabling liim to resume the offensive 
 on that side. 
 
 On the day Smvarow left Mutten, Rosenberg 
 was attacked there by Massena; and again with an 
 increased force on the 1st October. On both occa- 
 sions, he signally defeated the French, pursuing them 
 on the second day beyond Schwyz ; which, by the 
 Braghel, is 30 long mountain miles from Glaris. Now 
 as Rosenberg joined Suwarow on the 4th, taking into 
 consideration the march of his troops and the time 
 for the messenger to carry him the order to move, 
 
 p
 
 210 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 it seems probable that Suwarow's determination, on 
 finding neither Austrians nor certain news of them 
 at Glaris, must have been come to on the 2nd, the 
 day after he arrived there. 
 
 Great as may be the Archduke's authority on a 
 point of war, I do not fear to say that for Suwarow 
 to have marched immediately on Walleustadt, leaving 
 Rosenberg at Mutten, would have been probably to 
 sacrifice — certainly to compromise — that division. 
 No decision of Suwarow's made at Glaris could by 
 any human possibility have brought Rosenberg there 
 before the 3rd ; on which day Gazan's and Mortier's 
 divisions of the French army were added to the 
 force under Molitor, which had already, in spite of 
 the brave Bagration's best exertions, held the main 
 entrance to the Linth valley and the path to Wal- 
 leustadt by Mollis (and Kerenzen), against the Rus- 
 sians. So that to have marched on Walleustadt before 
 the 4th, involved the carrying of a position which 
 apparently baffled all they could do to win it with the 
 sacrifice of their sick, wounded, baggage, &c. — the 
 abandonment of Rosenberg's division in a defile of 
 which every outlet would have been held by the enemy ; 
 and to have attempted it on that day would have re- 
 quired the defeat of the force which had hitherto main- 
 tained the line, reinforced by two fresh divisions. 
 And for what object all this desperation? — to win
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 211 
 
 (with certain loss, and the abandonment of baggage, 
 wounded, sick, and stragglers ; and, moreover, a good 
 risk of complete annihilation) a line of retreat some 
 miles shorter than one perfectly open : for it must 
 be borne in mind that the snow which caused the 
 suffering of the Russians in the Sernfthal fell as they 
 moved through it, and that the expeditious General 
 Linken had traversed it twice without complaint a 
 few short days before them. Surely if Suwarow be 
 justly blameable for choosing the hazardous and 
 occupied line of the St. Gothard in preference to the 
 safe and open one of the Splugen, and if, as the 
 Archduke writes, one of the two most indispensible 
 conditions of any military operation be " the safety 
 and the greatest security from interruption of a re- 
 treat," he must have been right in choosing that by 
 Elm and the Sernfthal to the Rhine, rather than 
 that by Mollis and the Kerenzen. Both are moun- 
 tain paths — the one certainly better and some miles 
 shorter than the other : but a short saving of distance 
 and a day or two of time had now ceased to be 
 objects ; while the longer line, besides dispensing with 
 the sacrifice of blood and the critical risks of defeat, 
 possessed the grand advantage of saving the strag- 
 glers and the material, which moved the day before 
 the troops, and were covered by the fighting 
 men.
 
 212 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 The march by Mollis would have been a repetition 
 of Korsakow's march from Zurich— a desperate fight, 
 whose success was to be a flight of the strong, and 
 assured destruction or captivity to all the weak or 
 wounded. Surely the Archduke is pitifully weak in 
 striving to give currency to this strange delusion ! 
 Nor does it seem possible (as asserted by the Arch- 
 duke) for a force once fairly and unsuccessfully 
 engaged on the Kerenzen line to recover that by 
 the Linth and Sernfthal. There are two paths 
 from Glaris to Wallenstadt — the best by Mollis, and 
 another by Enneda, which comes into the former by 
 a bifurcation both at Kerenzen and Murg;. To have 
 marched by Mollis, he must have first beaten the 
 French army ; and then, if checked beyond it, have 
 returned to beat them there again, before he could 
 go back to Glaris. To have tried to evade it by 
 taking the Enneda path, he must have quitted Glaris ; 
 which, occupied by the French, debarred all return 
 to the Linth and Sernjthal except by again defeating 
 them. 
 
 The criticism proceeds : " The supposition that the 
 French, after their successes in the north of Swit- 
 zerland, would have concentrated their chief force 
 about the lake of Wallenstadt, was the only apparent 
 reason which could hinder the Marshal from attempt- 
 ing to force his way ; but this reason had nothing in
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 213 
 
 it (n'etoit cCaucun poidsiy This must strike any one 
 as a curious dogma, and is certainly a fire-eating 
 style of reasoning, anything but habitual to the 
 Archduke : indeed, he is nowhere either in theory 
 or practice, in any degree the desperado he appears 
 in this extraordinary comment. He goes on valiantly : 
 ** What remains to be done, when every outlet is 
 closed (here his Highness forgets that they were not 
 all closed ; that chosen by Suwarow being perfectly 
 open,) but to force that one which offers most advan- 
 tages; especially when the losses risked by such a 
 resolution are not greater than those we bring on 
 ourselves by passing in the month of October over 
 glaciers and impracticable mountains to avoid en- 
 countering the enemy." I dare not trust myself to 
 characterize this paragraph. A good October is as 
 favourable a month as any for passing the Alps (^Le 
 mois de Septcmhre et plus souvent encore celui d Octobre 
 sont souvent lesplus beaux de Vannte — Ebel: 9'"* Section). 
 Linken's force had passed the mountains by Elm, 
 while Suwarow was between Mutten and Glaris, and 
 parties of Mortier's division passed precisely the 
 same line, to drive the Austrains from the Col du 
 Kimkels, on the 31st of this very October, more than 
 three weeks after Smvarow. The Russians were at 
 Matt when it began to snow ; and this chance event, 
 with the accidents it occasioned, are blazoned forth
 
 214 ON MR. ALISON'S OPINION OF THE 
 
 as fixed objections to a route which, but for them, 
 need not have cost a man. Even judging thus un- 
 fairly by accidentally unfortunate results, it seems 
 fanciful in a military critic to parallel the casualties 
 from two stiff days march, with those that must have 
 resulted from a mad attack upon, and a retreat 
 through, the enemy's forces.* 
 
 The text goes on to say: "We must also bear 
 in mind that the ground below Glaris was better 
 adapted to the Russian mode of fighting than the 
 gorges of the valleys; and the co-operation of the 
 Austrians, who certainly could not remain idle when 
 
 * The admirers of Suwarow, equally with his solitary depre- 
 dator, have luxuriated in amplifying the difficulties of this 
 march — the former in sympathy with, the latter in detraction 
 of Suwarow. It was, doubtless, a rough and trying finish to 
 this glorious struggle ; but not so difficult but that the leading 
 column and head-quarters did the whole distance from Elm to 
 Panix within the one day, 6th October. And it is a curious fact, 
 as honourable to the Russian troops as consolatory to those who 
 sympathize with gallant men, that these noble fellows kept so 
 well up and together throughout the whole of thi« grand opera- 
 tion, that their total loss in killed, wounded, and missing, from 
 first to last— from Airolo on the 24th September, to Panix on the 
 8th October — fighting almost every day, was less in number than 
 that of the prisoners alone taken from General Petrasch (whose 
 force was about half the strength of Suwarow's) in his one 
 day's scrambling affair of the 25 th September.
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 215 
 
 they should hear of the approach of their allies, ought 
 it not at least to have been reckoned on as some- 
 thing?" How could Suwarow calculate on Austrian 
 co-operation ? He was at Glaris, thirty miles on 
 their side of the ground on which they were pledged 
 to join him ; and, though not one French soldier in- 
 tervened between him and Generals Jellachich and 
 Linken, he heard nothing from them and nothing of 
 them, but that they had vanished. Let the Arch- 
 duke himself describe the nature of their co-opera- 
 tion even at this eleventh hour : " In fact Jellachich 
 advanced to Sargans on the first report of the arrival 
 of Suwarow in the Glaris valley, and had Wallen- 
 stadt occupied ; supposing that the Russians would 
 debouche that way. He also sent a detachment to 
 Kerenzen, who met some troops just arrived there 
 of Mortier's division, who fell back upon the Linth. 
 But when Jellachich received no further intelligence 
 he abandoned the passes by the Wallenstadt lake ; 
 and the French, on the 3rd October, took possession 
 of Mulhorn, Kerenzen, and Murg. Petrasch, whom 
 the Archduke had repeatedly ordered to take part in 
 Suwarow's operation, collected his troops on the 4th 
 October between Fl'asch and Maienfeld, and held 
 himself ready to support Jellachich ; but the in- 
 decision of the Russian General paralysed all these 
 movements and produced general inactivity."
 
 216 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 If this assertion be not a sin, then are envy, 
 hatred, and all uncharitableness cardinal virtues ! 
 Why, these Generals had been paralysed before 
 Suwarow came into the Glaris valley. Suwarow 
 was not to come to them upon the Rhine, but they 
 to him, beside the Lucerne Lake or in the Linth- 
 thal. Only sift this slander. The Austrians were 
 to have combined all their means and all their efforts 
 to facilitate and support Suwarow's march. " I look 
 before everything (he writes) for the junction of 
 these troops — that once effected, I consider that the 
 Russian troops from Italy, without a fear of check, 
 may push on by both banks of the Lucerne Lake." 
 Here was he at Glaris, thirty miles to the east of 
 the Lucerne Lake : and where were his supporters ? 
 Linken at Ilantz, Jellachich at Sargans, and Petrasch 
 between Flasch and Maienfeld — the three last named 
 places, as travellers will remember, near to Ragatz, 
 and all upon the Rhine. From these points Petrasch 
 and Linken never moved a soldier ; but Jellachich 
 (hearing that Suwarow was at Glaris on the 2nd or 
 3rd of October), pushed a party to Kerenzen, but no 
 further, because he got no news : which sounds odd, 
 when the French and Russians were fighting at 
 Mollis, only four English miles away. But could he 
 not have sent an officer to look into the Glaris 
 valley, and to have seen the Russians ? For nothing
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 217 
 
 earthly prevented it being done. No ! he (having 
 heard that Suwarow was at Glaris) with his brother 
 Generals stood coolly by the Rhine, when under 
 orders to join and support the Russians ; and it is the 
 Commander who says he issued them these orders, 
 and who details these doings, that has the conscience 
 to print that Suwarow's indecision paralysed these 
 faineans, and produced their inactivity ! Elsewhere 
 indeed, the Archduke allows that Petrasch fled too 
 far; that Linken should not have abandoned the 
 valley of the Linth ; and that Jellachich was simi- 
 larly to blame : but he would extenuate their culpa- 
 bility by asserting that Korsakow's retreat rendered 
 necessary {entraina) that of Petrasch and those of 
 the other Generals ; which is simply, and by his own 
 showing, not the fact : Petrasch having fled to 
 Lichtensteig on the night of the 25th, and Korsakow 
 not having retreated tiU the afternoon of the follow- 
 ing day from Zurich ; to hold which was the object 
 of his morning battle. It is a simple matter-of-fact 
 that had these officers halted, respectively (for not 
 one of them was pursued : the few French companies 
 that beat Jellachich having to turn from him to beat 
 Linken, and from him to fight with Auffenberg), 
 Petrasch at the Wildhaus, Jellachich at Kerenzen, 
 and Linken at Schwanden, they could one and all 
 have joined Suwarow at Glaris ; and thus, by nearly
 
 218 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 doubling his force, have enabled him to hold the 
 Linth, and, perhaps, as he had hoped, " to remedy 
 their blunders." But the Archduke shows that the 
 chief commander, Petrasch, in his dismay, entirely 
 lost sight of Suwarow and all consideration for him ; 
 and that, under the impulse or pretence of his false 
 theoretical notions, he fled to secure the passes into 
 the Vorarlberg; which, common sense would have 
 told him, no one thought of threatening. 
 
 The Archduke accuses Suwarow, to palliate the 
 conduct of these officers ; while the Emperor Paul, 
 with greater justice, refused all further co-operation 
 of his troops unless they were one and all brought 
 before a military tribunal. It is for the Archduke 
 to reconcile his declaration that Suwarow's army 
 " would have been totally destroyed, if the French, 
 profiting by their advantages, had sent some weak 
 detachments in pursuit of it," with the statement of 
 his text that " it was closely pursued (talonnee vive- 
 menf) as far as Matt, where it stood its ground. The 
 French here made a fresh attack in the evening, but 
 having failed, returned to Glaris." Doubtless, the 
 snow which fell here, was at least as disagreeable to 
 the French as to the Russians. 
 
 It appears to the writer of this paper that the fore- 
 going passages sufficiently establish his position that, 
 as regards Suwarow, the Archduke Charles is neither
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 219 
 
 ** liberal of praise" nor " indulgent in criticising," and 
 that several of his criticisms upon that leader do not 
 deserve that " perfect reliance should be placed upon 
 them."* 
 
 * It may help to illustrate the Archduke's bias in judging of 
 his Russian co-adjutors, to give his reason for abandoning the 
 tete-du-pont of Busingen, with the circumstances that led to it ; 
 set off, as the relation is, with aspersions which, be it to his credit 
 or discredit, he never indulges in but when he speaks of Rus- 
 sian officers. General Korsakow's only ascertained merit w^as 
 that of determined courage. At Zurich, he was everyw^here in 
 person where the fight raged hottest, and Mr. Alison justly 
 says of the disastrous finale of the battle : — " In these desperate 
 circumstances, Korsakow evinced a resolution as deserving of 
 admiration as his former presumptuous conduct had been de- 
 serving of censure." What follows will show that his misfor- 
 tunes had not taken the fight out of him. Having beaten 
 General Menard on the preceding day, Korsakow, on the 7th 
 October, debouched, with ten battalions and twenty-two squa- 
 drons, from the works at Busingen, and advanced through the 
 forest, uncertain what he should attempt ; for his own desire not 
 to do anything was contending in him with his just dread of 
 responsibility in case he should do nothing to aid Suvvarow. 
 This dubious movement was therefore styled a reconnaissance. 
 Every man who undertakes a task unwillingly, is anxious to 
 make it as short as possible. * * * "pjig Russian Infantry 
 threw itself upon the enemy with such impetuosity that it drove 
 him with considerable loss as far as Andelfingen. Here Mas- 
 sena, at the head of the Grenadiers of his reserve, restored 
 order, snatched the victory from the Russians, and forced them
 
 220 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 The Archduke thus comments on the rage excited 
 among the Russians by the events thus cursorily 
 glanced over, in a dignified if not altogether dispas- 
 
 to fall back through the Scharen-wood, and to re-enter the 
 works. The French remained in the wood till seven in the 
 evening, and then attacked the fort. Two successive attacks 
 were repulsed with great bravery. Massena fell back upon 
 Triillikon, and the Russians took possession of the wood." 
 This looks like honest fighting at the least ; but the Archduke 
 having heard of the retreat of two Russian battalions under 
 Woinow, from Diesenhofen, and of the Austrians and Conde's 
 corps from Constance, " afflicted at these events, and fearing 
 that the bridge at Busingen might also be taken by the enemy," 
 ordered Korsakow to abandon the strong tfete-du-pont (which 
 he had already twice so gallantly and successfully defended) 
 and to withdraw the bridge. The untowardness of this measure 
 is fully admitted. " The abandonment of the tete-du-pont at 
 Busingen, by the Allies, was a too hasty step, as by it they de- 
 prived themselves of one great means of resuming the offensive." 
 And again, — " In the posture of affairs at this period, the t&te- 
 du-pont at Busingen might have been of great use ; for the sea- 
 son was too advanced, and Massena had not force sufficient to 
 have directed any serious operation against it." 
 
 And now for " your most exquisite reason !" " The tete-du- 
 pont was abandoned because the Archduke — far from distrust- 
 ing the steadiness of the Russian soldiers — did not feel confident 
 that Korsakow was seriously determined to hold it. The re- 
 iterated assurances of this General did not inspire the same 
 trust as did the tried valour of his troops." The Archduke 
 adds, but in no way answers the natural question, " but what
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 221 
 
 eionate spirit. "It requires a lofty mind and a noble 
 frankness to admit one's faults at the cost of one's 
 self-love ; and yet this is the first step towards their 
 
 motive, then, prevented the Prince from putting Austrians into 
 a work which only required 2,500 men to defend it ?" His 
 ffighness seems to have had " no sentiment." The mere pic- 
 ture of the unfortunate and brave Korsakow entreating and 
 begging to be allowed to hold the post, with the dread of Suwa- 
 row's early arrival to back up his own undoubted pluck in doing 
 so, seems enough to have touched the heart of a Rhadaman- 
 thus. But not only does the Archduke make the unhappy man 
 the scapegoat of a total loss of head on his own part, leading 
 him to an act of which he is forced to avow the pre-eminent 
 folly, but he does it on a plea as absolutely ridiculous and un- 
 called for as the measure he would palliate. I once heard a 
 staff officer bitterly exclaim to some surly soldiers who dis- 
 pleased him : — " D— n you ! you can do nothing like Christian 
 men but fight ! " but the Archduke, in his affliction, seems to 
 have been bereft of the discrimination which remained to this 
 man in his anger. It seems to me that Korsakow shows credi- 
 tably here. His anxiety to do something for his chief, even 
 though ignorant of what he had to encounter ; his gallant de- 
 fence of the work ; his reiterated requests to be allowed to hold 
 it, are essentially soldierlike facts and feelings, which no specious 
 insinuations have a right to qualify. I cannot say I think so 
 much of the Archduke's, nor do I much honour his highly- 
 lauded admission of his own errors ; for many of them it would 
 be impossible to deny, and others are attempted to be palliated 
 by slandering other people. He is very far from the style of 
 great men I admire. One of his theoretic rules is curiously
 
 222 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 correction, for the conviction of our past faults must 
 often be attended with future benefit. But ignorant 
 and presumptuous men, possessing neither the pene- 
 
 applicable to this case of Busingen. " It is a folly to abandon 
 an influential post before an enemy is in a condition to take it, 
 and merely because he may, perhaps, hereafter be enabled to do 
 so," — which nobody can deny. 
 
 In speaking generally of the Russians, the Archduke, after a 
 depreciatory comment on their military qualifications and ac- 
 quirements, in which he admits they had a high reputation for 
 courage and discipline, concludes — " Both soldiers and officers 
 were equally blinded by presumption." Adding, " This was 
 not that noble confidence in their own means which elevates 
 courage and leads to great deeds ; on the contrary, it was an 
 indication of a moral weakness which would lead one to look 
 for a fatal dejection as the sequel of the first reverse which 
 might befall them." Now we would simply ask, what the 
 Archduke can mean by this ? If it be that this was the 
 tone of his opinion in 1799, why, he was mistaken ; but if he 
 means to assert at the time he wrote, that this was then, pre- 
 viously or since, the temper and the failing of the Russian 
 army, we fearlessly pronounce that never was there uttered a 
 more baseless aspersion. Presumptuous in the Archduke's eyes 
 they may have been. Brave men are not always as considerate 
 in their language as they might be. General Grumbkow, writ- 
 ing to Marlborough from the camp of Charles XII. says, — 
 " The Swedes in general are modest, but do not scruple to de- 
 clare themselves invincible, when the King is at their head." 
 It is not unlikely that the Russians of 1799 indulged in philo- 
 logical impertinences, as offensive to the sensitiveness they galled,
 
 AECHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 223 
 
 tratlon requisite to perceive their errors, nor the 
 courage to admit them, look for the source of their 
 failures in extraneous causes out of their control. 
 
 as that we quote must have been to the Russians themselves, 
 till they had nobly refuted its presumption at Pultowa. But 
 allowing all said on this head, where are we to find authority 
 for the consequence the Archduke draws from it ? When the 
 Archduke wrote, no continental army in Europe could boast a 
 century of such unsullied and sustained blazon on its military 
 escutcheon as that of Russia ; and he who would estimate its 
 merits highest, must examine the sequel of that misfortune 
 which the Archduke tells us was to paralyze her. Glorious as 
 have been the victories she has won, it is in the dread ordeal of 
 reverse — in the stern array that checked and sobered down the 
 buoj'ant courage of their enemies, stimulated by all the facti- 
 tiQus excitement of success, after such disastrous days as those of 
 Zorndorf, Zurich, Eylau, Friedland, Borodino, Dresden, &c. — 
 that we see the real nobleness and soldierly distinction of the 
 Russian army. Where, let me ask, in its history, can be pointed 
 out its thousands and tens of thousands surrendering without a 
 blow, after reverse, and even before it, as has too often hap- 
 pened to that of Austria ? When has a single battle crushed 
 its military spirit, and prostrated its country, as that of Jena 
 did Prussia ? Or what historian can say of it, as a fellow-soldier 
 says of that of France :—" People will naturally ask, whence it 
 proceeds, that an army glorified by a thousand triumphs, should 
 see panic fears so often repeated in it?" On the contrary, if 
 there be any one chaiacteristic of a Russian army more essen- 
 tially peculiar to it than another, as compared with its rivals in 
 renown, it is the capability of enduring reverse without being
 
 224 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 They commonly fix on treachery, because it Is an 
 accusation at once the easiest to make and the 
 hardest to investigate. Thus we see, especially 
 in national wars, that numbers of these coarse and 
 vulgar men always more ready than others to con- 
 ceive unworthy suspicions, are particularly given to 
 attribute their reverses to this cause. Suwarow, 
 blinded by his victories on the shores of the Black 
 Sea, on the Vistula, and the Po, believed himself 
 invincible ; he required a pretext to palliate his 
 defeats. According to him. It was neither faulty 
 dispositions In his operations, nor the errors of Kor- 
 
 demoralized by it. We do not, in our admiration of them, go 
 the length of Mr. Alison, who declares, that when the iron 
 bands of Russia came into the field, it was seen " how little all 
 the advantages of skill and experience avail, when opposed to 
 the indomitable courage and heroic valour of northern states ! "' 
 holding that at Zurich, Austerlitz, Friedland, &c., skill and ex- 
 perience decidedly baffled and triumphed over all that this in- 
 domitable courage and heroic valour could oppose to them ; but 
 it certainly shakes one's confidence in Mr. Alison, to read that 
 while such is his opinion, he bids us place reliance on all the 
 dicta of the Archduke Charles. If I am to pin my faith on this 
 point to the opinion of an historian less partial than I may be, 
 I confess I would give up Mr. Alison's decision for that of 
 Capefigue, of whom Mr. Alison speaks so highly ; and who, 
 distinctly asserting that " dans la campagne de Suwarow, I'Archi- 
 duc Charles avait pris en haine I'armee Russa," presents this 
 as his Higlmess's reason for not having served at Austerlitz.
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 225 
 
 sakow that had caused them, but the treachery of 
 the Austrians. The opinion of the General-in-Chief 
 was taken up by the greater portion of his army, 
 which eagerly availed itself of the means to clear 
 itself from a fancied stain, and to preserve unsullied 
 the glory of its arms. They affected to regard as 
 traitors those whose cause they had defended, at the 
 cost of too much precious blood ; and thus the dis- 
 trustful coldness of the Russians soon degenerated 
 into a marked hatred of the Austrians." 
 Sad work this ! 
 
 "But och ! mankind are unco weak, 
 And rarely to be trusted ; 
 When self the wavering balance holds, 
 'Tis rarely right adjusted." 
 
 And while one regrets that Suwarow's rage at the 
 moment should have led him to characterize the mis- 
 taken measures and inefficient co-operation of the 
 Austrians as deliberate treachery, it excites surprise 
 that twenty years after these events the Archduke 
 should write of Suwarow's " defeats," where he met 
 no single check except at Mollis ; and should imply 
 that Suwarow's " faulty dispositions" had any share 
 in the unfortunate result of the great Swiss combi- 
 nation, when he fulfilled in all respects every iota of 
 that combination depending upon him. 
 
 People in England differed as to the merits of Sir
 
 226 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 John Moore's retreat on Corunna, but his bitterest 
 asperser never dreamt of showing such extraordinary 
 sagacity as to ascribe the defeat of the Spanish 
 armies, which he came to help and found annihilated, 
 to his defective combinations. The grand error of 
 the combination, as commanded by the Austrian 
 Cabinet, was inherent in, and inseparable from. Itself; 
 and this elsewhere we find in the Archduke's words : 
 — " Suwarow's movement, by whatever route he 
 marched, had one inevitable fault, which it was out 
 of his power to correct. The impulse and direction 
 of the whole enterprise was to proceed from the 
 extremity of the left wing : that is to say, from the 
 side most distant from the true point of attack; 
 while Massena already possessed the advantage of 
 having superior forces at the centre." What ren- 
 dered this error fatal, was the defeat of all the 
 troops left to oppose these superior forces. The 
 faults of Korsakow, mentioned by the Archduke, 
 and the faults of others not mentioned by his High- 
 ness, had much to do with this ; but most of all the 
 important fact unattended to by him, that the main 
 body under Korsakow was left by the Archduke by 
 no means strong enough for the duty entrusted to it ; 
 and it was at once the magnitude and the apparent 
 indefensibility of this error, that irritated the Rus- 
 sians to the frantic vituperation which led the Arch-
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 227 
 
 duke to pronounce them very vulgar fellows. In all 
 the relations of mankind with each other, " exclu- 
 siveness, or the tendency to depreciate that which 
 does not at once conform to our own taste and 
 feelings, is a fertile source of error and of mischief;" 
 and in recapitulating such facts as we are allowed 
 to know of this unhappy mistake, we must bear in 
 mind that the characters of Suwarow and the Arch- 
 duke were scarcely more entire antitheses to each 
 other, than were the military opinions and methods 
 of war of the Russian and Austrian armies. Their 
 respective systems may be not unaptly characterized 
 as the "go-a-head" and the conservative. In this 
 campaign of 1799, the Archduke's achievements 
 showed tame and commonplace, and " paled their 
 ineffectual fires," beside the dazzling flashes of 
 Suwarow's glory. The latter having conquered 
 Italy, was now apparently coming to conquer Swit- 
 zerland, in which the Archduke's formal modes of 
 war had made so little progress. 
 
 The Russians are represented to us as boastful 
 and presumptuous ; and it seems as though the 
 Archduke rather sympathized, and not unnaturally, 
 with Mrs. Quickly's disgust at swaggerers, than 
 with Napoleon's more utilitarian feeling as regarded 
 the boasting Poles, when he said, " Let them boast — 
 and woe be to them if they don't make good their
 
 228 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 words." Certain it is that no stronger evidence is 
 requisite than that of the Archduke's book to show 
 that he was not likely to take to the Russians 
 kindly ; and accordingly it is recorded that in less 
 than a fortnight after they had joined him, so 
 serious had become the want of a good understand- 
 ing between him and Korsakow, that operations 
 actually entered on were abruptly and detrimentally 
 suspended, and the recovery of the ground by which 
 they should have co-operated with Suwarow alto- 
 gether abandoned: the Archduke left Switzerland, 
 as he relates, in utter despair of re-establishing that 
 harmony which, we humbly think, ought to have 
 found its best substitute in his own full power of 
 command. He declares that, considering the state of 
 things, " he thought it best to conform to the orders 
 of his Court, and to leave to Fate what henceforth 
 no longer depended upon him." 
 
 This is not ferociously expressed, like the venom 
 of some foreign ally of ours (Count Solms, I believe 
 he was called) who in one of King William the 
 III.'s battles, held back his help, saying, " Let 's 
 see how these English bull-dogs will get out of it ;" 
 but there is certainly marvellously little in it of 
 the genius that " rides on the whirlwind and directs 
 the storm :" its plain English being, that, as the 
 Archduke would not conciliate, and would not
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 229 
 
 command, he decided it best to follow instructions 
 which would hold him irresponsible ; though they, to 
 his certain knowledge, seriously perilled the fortunes 
 of the whole allied cause. His anticipations of disaster 
 are prominently made manifest : " The Prince (he 
 writes), nevertheless, desirous that Korsakow should 
 not be exposed to inevitable defeat (a une defaite 
 trop certaine), and to aid him in making an honour- 
 able defence till the arrival of Suwarow, left General 
 Hotze in Switzerland with thirty battalions and 
 thirty -four squadrons." He speaks of the defeat of 
 the Russians as " too probable, looking to the 
 relative weakness of their army ;" and he posted the 
 corps of Nauendorf upon the Rhine, to cover his 
 rear, " in case the Russians were obliged to give 
 way." " The number of the Russians did not replace 
 that of the Austrians (he again observes) between 
 Zurich and the Rhine ;" and he speaks of Suwarow's 
 arrival as destined " to re-establish an equilibrium 
 between the respective forces." His own conduct, 
 he admits before he went away, exhibited " an in- 
 decision unusual to him ;" adding the sad corollary 
 thereto, " that when the will of a commander is not 
 decided, that of his subordinates always wavers ;" and 
 illustrating the truth by representing Hotze as becom- 
 ing nervous and shaken, and adopting false measures, 
 from apprehension of the superior force before him.
 
 230 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 The very day before the Archduke marched away 
 from Zurich, the Austrians on the left of the army 
 were driven entirely from the Linth ; and on that 
 very night Massena attempted to cross the Limmat, to 
 attack the united armies in all their strength, before 
 one single Austrian soldier had moved off. Surely 
 these demonstrations of the strength and confidence 
 of the hostile army should have made a General-in- 
 Chief — still more " a prince of all the land" who led 
 the war in question — pause, ere he withdrew thirty 
 battalions and forty-two squadrons from a point thus 
 threatened, under any considerations ; trebly so under 
 the circumstances that actually obtained. That the 
 removal of this force to Germany at the moment was 
 not required, is past all question ;* and we cannot 
 
 * In truth, when in Germany, the Archduke seems literally 
 not to have known what to do with them. He says, — "The 
 Archduke, who did not attach very great importance to the 
 fortress of Philipsburg, nor believe the corps that invested it 
 of any great strength, had intended, on leaving Switzerland, 
 merely to send a detachment sufficient to relieve that place, and 
 to have remained himself, in the first instance, at the most 
 essential point — the sources of the Danube. But being soon 
 satisfied of the weakness of the enemy on the Upper Rhine, 
 and receiving constantly exaggerated reports of their strength 
 on the Middle Rhine, the Prince changed his mind, left 14,000 
 men between the Renel Valley and Waldshut, a reserve of 
 10,000 between Waldshut and Villengen (these independent of
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 231 
 
 suppose that, if the Archduke had a discretionary 
 power to leave thirty battalions, he might not have 
 left as many more as he deemed requisite, till Suwa- 
 
 Nauendorf's corps of 5,400), and disposed of the remainder, so 
 that thirty battalions and seventy-six squadrons should be col- 
 lected on the r2th, between Pforzheim and Vayhingen. As soon 
 as the French heard of the approach of such a force, of which 
 the cavalry spread itself on all sides, they resolved to retreat. 
 On the 10th they abandoned Weingarten," &c. The Archduke 
 arriving at the scene of action, and finding no enemy to fight 
 withal, then, and then only, determined to turn his vast force 
 upon the demi-brigade and regiment of cavalry which held 
 Manheim, and the two battalions and as many squadrons at 
 Neckeran, On the 18th September he captured these hosts, 
 and. then had nothing to do but to walk about the old-fashioned 
 garden at Schwetzingen ; and we hear no more of his Highness 
 or his army till he orders Korsakow to abandon Busingeu, and 
 twenty-seven battalions, with forty-six squadrons of the force 
 he had idly paraded about Germany during this eventful month, 
 came back to Vayhingen between the 1st and 7th October. The 
 misdirection of these troops formed the most palpable of the 
 concurring causes that curiously conspired to swamp the grand 
 Swiss combination. To say nothing of the rest, had half the 
 men idly posted with their left at Waldshut (ten leagues only 
 from Zurich), while the game of life or death to the allied cause 
 was being played in Switzerland, been added to the forces there, 
 all might have gone well. There is, indeed, a sad probability 
 in one of the Archduke's conjectures, why the French sat down 
 before Philipsburg, " a place altogether without influence on 
 the operations. Perhaps," he says, "they imagined that the
 
 232 ON MR. ALISON S OPINION OP THE 
 
 row's arrival. That " the Court of Vienna com- 
 manded the secret and prompt execution of its wishes 
 without remonstrance/' is usually made the plea of 
 all the Archduke did or omitted to do at this period ; 
 but his own theory teaches us that "the General of 
 an army, having the confidence of his government, 
 should not allow himself to be discouraged by the 
 imperfection of the plans forced upon him, and by 
 the inconveniences they bring with them. On the 
 contrary, it is his duty to carry them out in such a 
 way as to prevent their disastrous consequences, and 
 to use all his exertions to rectify their errors, though 
 others may be answerable for them." And indeed, 
 looking to facts, we find him so little controlled by 
 these orders, that, weeks after he had received them, 
 and subsequent to the junction of Korsakow, we find 
 him so largely a free agent as to be engaged in an 
 
 Austrians might relinquish more important enterprises to pre- 
 vent a loss which would be a slar on the glory of their arms." 
 But if a trap was thus laid, the Archduke cannot be said to have 
 fallen — he walked — into it. So little could Philipsburg attract 
 him, when his wishes did not point that way, that after Stockach 
 he turned from the basin of the Danube towards Switzerland, at 
 the very moment Bernadotte sat down before it. Philipsburg 
 was scarcely used as a plea. The Archduke was out of temper 
 wnth the times, and gratified himself by doing what he liked 
 with his own, without any very extensive consideration of how 
 the rest of the world might be affected by it.
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 233 
 
 operation, the effect of which, if successful, would 
 have been to have carried his whole army so deep 
 into the forbidden Switzerland, as to have placed it 
 between the lakes of Neufchatel and Geneva. Of 
 course, I allude to the passage of the Aar which was 
 attempted on the 16th August, and failed.* When 
 
 * The incidents of this failure are curiously interesting and 
 instructive to military readers. Two bridges were to have been 
 fixed, the one above the other, below Gross Dettingen, where 
 the river forms a bend to the east or Austrian side ; the high 
 ground of which completely commands the plain on the opposite 
 side, on which the village of Klein Dettingen was held by two 
 French (or rather Swiss) companies. The only French troops 
 near the scene of the operation were 2,000 between Baden and 
 Bernau on the Rhine; 1,500 at Laufenberg, eight miles to the 
 west ; and 600 at Lenzburg, fourteen miles to the south ; while 
 the main army was on the Uetli, more than twenty miles away. 
 "The march of the troops to the place of assembly was so well 
 arranged, that the different corps, concealed by the inequalities 
 of the ground, arrived at nightfall without being perceived by 
 the enemy, and formed in columns according to their several 
 destinations (50,000 men with 10,000 others directly co-operat- 
 ing on tiie Rhine and Limmat, besides 8,000 in Zurich, and the 
 forces on the Linth). The vigilance of the advanced posts 
 prevented the enemy having the slightest suspicion of the 
 project ; but the enterprise failed through the dispositions for 
 the passage of the river. Those charged with the fixing of the 
 bridges had neglected to obtain the requisite knowledge of the 
 locale, contenting themselves with simply ascertaining the
 
 234 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 the violation of the Vienna instructions, elsewhere 
 regarded as so peremptory, is thus cavalierly dis- 
 posed of: "His success might have been accepted 
 
 breadth of the stream. They had provided boats enough for 
 two bridges, but none to meet unforeseen contingencies. The 
 ground above the intended point of passage did not admit of 
 the assembling and working of the pontoons ; the steep path 
 near Gross Dettingen rendered their descent to the river's side 
 very difficult ; the bank was not low enough ; they found 
 neither firm ground to work upon, nor easy slope to launch the 
 boats, and direct them towards the landing-place ; and as they 
 had limited themselves to the number necessary for the bridges, 
 there were none disposable to carry over troops. The rapidity 
 of the current threatened to carry down the boats far below the 
 landing-places ; it would have then been necessary to drag them 
 up against the stream, which required much time and labour, 
 and the completion of the bridge would have been delayed. 
 The Archduke, who, to keep the project unsuspected, had not 
 reconnoitred the ground himself, and who only arrived on the 
 spot during the night of the 16th, reckoned so confidently on 
 the command of the right bank, that he expected to clear the 
 left one by the effect of his artillery; and the work was begun 
 without having, in the first instance, thrown over any troops to 
 the opposite shore. The Austrians having established batteries 
 on the heights of Gross Dettingen, commenced their work two 
 hours after midnight. Directly the French at Klein Dettingen 
 perceived the unusual stir, they opened a smart fire on the spot 
 whence the noise came, and an Austrian battalion posted at 
 Gross Dettingen, returned it in volleys of musquetry. The 
 artillery then opened, and the village of Klein Dettingen was
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 235 
 
 as an excuse for his not having followed to the 
 letter the instructions he had received. Perhaps 
 they would not have held him back or turned him 
 
 soon in flames. The French, however, would not quit it, but 
 continued to fire on their enemy ; whom a thick fog concealed 
 from them even after day broke. Notwithstanding this circum- 
 stance, so favourable to the Austrians, their work did not get 
 on. The anchors would not hold on the rocky bottom, and they 
 had no means of remedying this. They were not even supplied 
 with cables to secure the boats ; some of them leaked, others 
 dragged — in a word, there was an unpardonable neglect and 
 shameful disorder in all the preparations of this department of 
 the army ; and it was only after great exertions that, at nine 
 o'clock in the morning, they had succeeded in making fast 
 thirteen boats at the upper, and still fewer at the lower bridge. 
 The fog having then cleared away, the fire of the French 
 became so deadly that all the pontoniers employed were succes- 
 sively killed or wounded. In the mean time, the artillery fire 
 had awoke the French quartered between Bruck and Sekingen. 
 All hurried to the direction of the fire, and Generals Ney and 
 Hendlet assembled men enough to occupy the woods and heights 
 which border the plain of Klein Dettingen and the neighbour- 
 hood of Botzstein. The Archduke's attempt had failed, and 
 the cannonade, now become useless, ended by an agreement 
 allowing the Austrians to take their pontoons from the water 
 without hindrance. 
 
 The Archduke proceeds, after detailing what should be the 
 custom of war in like cases, to pronounce that the only reproach 
 connected therewith which the General-in-Chief has to urge 
 against himself in similar instances of failure, is, " the men
 
 236 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 aside from the object to which he was rapidly 
 advancing ; and if even they had subsequently made 
 him leave Switzerland, and give up the scene of his 
 
 employed were not the men he took them for ;" adding, that 
 " the General of an army, occupied with great conceptions, and 
 giving his attention to the whole vast extent of the theatre of 
 war, cannot and ought not to enter into the petty details of the 
 service." Different Generals take different views on this im- 
 portant point ; but surely a General on the spot, who sanctions 
 by his presence such procedures as the beginning to lay a pon- 
 toon bridge over a river 1 80 feet wide, defended by only two 
 companies, before the pontoons had carried over 500 men to 
 capture or disperse them, so that the work might begin from 
 both sides at once ; and, this being neglected, allows artillery to 
 blaze away in the dark, with the mad hope of dispersing a few 
 tirailleurs, and the certain effect of bringing rapidly to the spot 
 every Frenchman within hearing, may be not illiberally sus- 
 pected of having mistaken something more than the capabilities 
 of his officers. I do not think any soldier would have believed 
 such wondrous oversights on the part of so renowned an officer, 
 but on his own authority. And equally wonderful are the 
 deficiencies of the pontoon department, for Austria had been 
 warring incessantly (except for one year) since 1792 ! But 
 when the anchors would not bite, pontoniers, army, staff, and 
 all seemed " au bout de leur science," and ynth night and fog 
 to aid them, with their enemy's^ troops placed as if to insure 
 the success of their enterprise, the Prince and his host had to 
 retire ; owing their discomfiture to two companies of infantry. 
 The Prince praises them, as he ought : but for their gallantry, 
 he would have had no single extraneous excuse for his failure.
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 237 
 
 exploits to the Russians, they would have owed to 
 the Archduke the expulsion of the enemy." Seeing 
 how little these Vienna orders hampered the Arch- 
 duke, in what he wished to do with the whole of his 
 force, it is impossible to suppose tkey could have tied 
 up his discretion as regards the temporary distribu- 
 tion of a part of it. 
 
 It was in this view, therefore, that the Russians 
 ascribed to the Archduke the sacrifice of Korsakow's 
 force, by his unnecessary removal of so large a mass 
 
 " Two French companies," he says, " stopped 50,000 men, and 
 this handful of brave men deserve the highest praise. Neither 
 the shower of balls and musquetry, which the Austrians poured 
 upon them, nor the firing of the village, could shake their 
 intrepidity ; but, taking advantage of the cover which the ruins 
 of the houses gave them, they stood firm amid the conflagra- 
 tion. " ' Brave, by Heaven ! they 'II go to heaven for it, your 
 honour,' says Trim. ' They will,' said my Uncle Toby." If 
 there is one thing I love to come upon in military history more 
 than aught else it affords, it is these instances which show what 
 a few steady men, under a captain or subaltern worthy of them, 
 may do when they resolve to do their utmost. Blessed fellows, 
 who facing a host, a hundredth part of which, rightly used, 
 could crush them at an effort, feel " how little they can do — and 
 yet do that." It is the poetry of duty. The actual realization 
 of the ideal in what is noblest in man. The artist may give us 
 form and grace which no human archetype can match, but 
 vainly must the poet labour who would fancy acts more lofty 
 in their quality than those of absolute devotion to a duty.
 
 238 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 of the Austrlans to Germany previous to the junc- 
 tion ; and at the time of these events they believed 
 that the same authority which had compromised 
 Korsakow, must have prescribed the inexplicable 
 conduct of the Austrian Generals left to aid him ; 
 contrasting, as it did, with the zeal and gallantry of 
 Kray, Auffenberg, and other Austrian Generals who 
 had warred by their side in Italy. Their aspersions 
 are indefensible ; but that the grounds of their com- 
 plaint were solid and just, is thus admitted by the 
 Archduke : — 
 
 * An impartial judge, looking at the circumstances 
 without prejudice, and considering only the course 
 most fitted to have attained great ends, will reproach 
 the Archduke for having preferred the relief of 
 Philipsburg to a more important object ; for having 
 left Switzerland before the arrival of Suwarow, or, 
 at any rate, before serious danger threatened his 
 communications in the valley of the Danube ; for 
 not having remained personally in Switzerland, so 
 as to reconcile and regulate, by his authority, the 
 peculiar views of Hotze and Korsakow ; and for not 
 having left there as many troops as would have 
 equalled the enemy's forces : especially as the opera- 
 tions of the French were not so serious as to require 
 more than 40,000 men to be opposed to them. This, 
 however, one could scarcely know at the moment.
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 239 
 
 A less severe observer will see in the embarrassing 
 position of the Archduke, and in his faults, a new 
 proof of the dangers incurred when Cabinets, far from 
 the theatre of events, give, during the course of a 
 campaign, precise orders on the direction of opera- 
 tions, instead of pointing out to their Commanders 
 general views by which they are to be guided. But 
 this same observer cannot refrain from blaming the 
 Archduke's indecision, when, sending Hotze to Rap- 
 perschwyl on the 17th August, he did not by a 
 determined will, and by positive orders, oblige the 
 Austrian and Russian Generals to proceed with 
 vigour, and without reply, in carrying out the opera- 
 tions to the left of the lake of Zurich ; which it is 
 possible might have re-established matters." 
 
 This candid admission, seen by itself, would silence 
 further depreciatory comment on the Archduke ; but, 
 coming as it does after so much said and implied to 
 decry Suwarow, and to throw on him the blame of 
 this very failure, it rather disturbs than disarms 
 the feeling previously excited. 
 
 Advocating the conviction that Suwarow, with all 
 his oddities, affords a grand example of the power 
 of that earnestness and devotion, inherent and ca- 
 pable of beneficial development in large masses of 
 the great human family, we find additional satisfac- 
 tion in this belief from the opportunity now afforded
 
 240 ON ME. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 of contrasting, not so much his sayings (though these 
 may well bear scrutiny) as his doings — his decision 
 and energy communicated to all around him, his 
 untiring self-employment, his aid to operations un- 
 dertaken in opposition to his views, his cordial con- 
 ciliation or efficient command of the allied troops 
 employed under him, his whole conduct as a chief 
 of armies, in short — with the parallel proceedings of 
 the accomplished General, who, in his writings, exerts 
 the cultivated powers of his mind and the influence 
 of his position to dim a great contemporary's reputa- 
 tion. Suwarow may, in the opinion of many, have 
 deserved the epithets of " coarse and vulgar;" but 
 superior qualities for national service, unacknow- 
 ledged in this Archduke's work, are as unquestion- 
 ably the just attributes of Suwarow, as are the 
 strongly developed military deficiencies and personal 
 weaknesses made manifest in it — the failings of the 
 Archduke Charles ; who brought the jealous and ner- 
 vous sensibilities of a court-bred prince into the rugged 
 game of war (where the sterling qualities of Nature's 
 noblemen alone make weight) as well as to his la- 
 bours as an author, in which their unwholesome bias 
 has led to omissions and palliative relations amount- 
 ing to constructive falsehood ; and he really looks 
 little, with all his theory and acquirements, beside the 
 rough old hero, who dwarfed him by his propinquity.
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 241 
 
 If he did not feel and writhe under the conscious- 
 ness of this, from first to last, in 1799, the tone of 
 his work has very much misled me. Whatever be 
 the cause, the Vienna booksellers declare the book 
 to be now (1846) completely out of favour with his 
 Highness, who would gladly circumscribe its further 
 circulation. But it has unfortunately become his- 
 tory, and the Archduke's better after-thought (like 
 many others apparently in his eventful life) has come 
 too late. 
 
 It seems to me that writers on military science 
 are too apt (unconsciously perhaps) to glide into the 
 currier's error of " nothing like leather;" and in their 
 appreciation of the science they inculcate, to tend 
 by their doctrine to cramp and depreciate the 
 glorious qualities of military energy and daring: 
 much as the engineers of the olden time were accus- 
 tomed to do by their continuous lines of fortifica- 
 tion, which often gave a weak support, while they 
 paralyzed the action which, but for their restraint, 
 might have led to victory. The tone and tenor of 
 the Archduke Charles's work on the campaign of 
 1799 renders it, in my humble opinion, largely 
 amenable to this impeachment, when shewing, as it 
 does in an able (though I think uncandid) military 
 disquisition, what Moreau and Napoleon had already 
 sufficiently and practically proved, viz., that the
 
 242 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 valley of the Danube was the true line of attack on 
 Austria: it exhibits its author so engrossingly im- 
 pressed with the importance of the adoption of a true 
 line of military operation, as to allow himself to be 
 misled, in its exemplification, to an apparent under- 
 estimate of a still more important essential in war, 
 viz., that moral force, without which the strategic 
 talent of a Commander becomes inefficient and re- 
 sultless. If the game of war were played like that 
 of chess, we doubt not the Archduke's theory would 
 teach a man to checkmate his adversary, provided 
 always he were allowed to be as long about it as 
 suited his convenience ; but unluckily for skill, the 
 rough players at war are allowed to sweep the table 
 and seize the stakes if they can ; and there is nothing 
 in its rules to secure a General, who shall be as care- 
 ful as the Archduke would have him to keep the 
 key of the theatre of war in his hands, from seeing 
 the door kicked open in spite of him, and the said 
 theatre in the hands of his antagonist. General 
 Mack in 1805, and the Archduke in 1809, were in 
 possession of the key ; but " they couldna baud it." 
 
 Paradoxical as it may seem, I think it dangerous 
 to illustrate the principles of strategy by a detailed 
 history of a period of actual war. To judge of the 
 strategical correctness of a given operation by test- 
 ing its application to established axioms, is a sound
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 243 
 
 and Instructive process, by which you will see whe- 
 ther it was or was not according to strategic rule ; 
 but to relate the operations of a campaign, applying 
 to each and all of them strategic principles as gauges 
 of their excellence, would in many cases be as 
 childish a procedure, as to bring forward the pace 
 stick and plummet of the drill sergeant, as the 
 standards by which you must condemn the length- 
 ened strides and rapid dash with which devotedness 
 would rush to victory. The science of strategy is 
 matter of demonstration, and its best Illustration is a 
 diagram. Its deductions are invariable and immu- 
 table as regards a given theatre of war, whose lines 
 of least resistance will always be the same, whatever 
 may be the various qualities of the armies or the 
 personal attributes of the Commanders engaged in 
 it. Strategic science Is to the game of war what 
 *' Matthews" is to the game of whist ; but, unfor- 
 tunately for the science, the pre-established value of 
 the cards in hand. In the game of war, alters as the 
 game goes on ; and when the ten will no longer beat 
 the nine, results become necessarily uncertain. 
 
 The Archduke admits this fully. " The majority 
 of all the powers which constitute the material force 
 of armies, does not in all cases insure success in war 
 to him who wields them. An antagonist who knows 
 the art of employing them, and giving to them a more
 
 244 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 forcible action, will often vanquish it. Herein lies 
 the secret of moral force ; and as in war this moral 
 force, whether exhibited by a Commander or his 
 troops, constitutes a power that very commonly 
 baffles calculation, the chief who knows he wields 
 it is often justified and to be lauded for disregarding 
 rules and precautions, which prudence and science 
 would alike wisely prescribe, where that equality 
 existed on which must rest the deductions of demon- 
 strative science." 
 
 But the object of a writer on military strategy 
 being to show that the principles of the science are 
 truths, and to inculcate an adherence to them, in 
 doing this, seldom gives due consideration or weight 
 to those circumstances which, changing the value of 
 the premises or data of a problem, render these 
 rules inapplicable to it. Such circumstances find 
 little favour in his sight — they seem to him im- 
 pertinent anomalies : he is apt to under-estimate 
 their weight, and not unfrequently to give them 
 ugly epithets. And thus we find the value of moral 
 force, which no man had better oj)portunities of 
 estimating than the Archduke Charles, though ad- 
 mitted as a power in war, so often questioned for 
 its successes, and so believed for its excesses ; and 
 those possessing most of it so little applauded for 
 it, that the impression left on the mind is, that in
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 245 
 
 the Archduke's opinion it is a very doubtful and 
 dangerous quality to depend on. Now, this in a 
 military history, seems the most detrimental of all 
 possible biases ; and, as I think, most peculiarly so 
 in a history addressed to the Austrian army : whose 
 defects, as depicted even by the Archduke himself, 
 seem those especially originating in a want of the very 
 quality he gives the weight of his authority to depre- 
 ciate. Not but that the Archduke fully admits that 
 " a decided resolution is in general the first quality of 
 the soldier, and the distinguished characteristic of his 
 calling," but this cold assertion of a truth is far from 
 the impressive enforcements of it which his subject 
 called for. It is in shewing where this first of 
 qualities has been most gloriously exhibited, and 
 where it has been proved to have been most pal- 
 pably wanting, that men are made to feel its value, 
 and to receive into their minds impressions that may 
 influence their future character. Acknowledging a 
 power in moral force, the Archduke damns it with 
 faint praise ; and admitting its success, laboriously 
 points out where its proceedings were theoretically 
 wrong, without emphatically shewing how much 
 more so was the want of energy that caused it to be 
 successful. 
 
 By way of instance, his Highness shews at length 
 how Lecourbe sinned against rule in his glorious
 
 246 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 advance on Zernetz ; and then concludes : " Lecourbe 
 allowed himself to be carried away by his intrepidity 
 and the violence of his character ; preferring to force 
 his way, and not caring for the blood of his soldiers 
 when he thought the shedding; it would give him 
 success, he trusted blindly to the superiority deriv- 
 able from acting on the offensive, and taking the 
 initiative in his operations : and indeed," adds his 
 Highness, " nowhere are such means more decisive 
 than in mountain warfare." Surely in this Le- 
 courbe was right. He knew and felt the power of 
 moral force ; he wielded and used it to success. But 
 it would have been folly to have lost time or oppor- 
 tunity in acting by rule, or not acting at all, when 
 the quality of the opposition he anticipated could be 
 braved as he braved it. The glaring deficiency pro- 
 minent in this operation, was the want of moral force 
 on the Austrian side. On this Lecourbe calculated, 
 and calculated riglitly. He did not think his anta- 
 gonists had it in them to break in on his long line, 
 down the Inn, by the difficult lateral valleys that 
 gave access to it: but the thing was possible, and, 
 therefore, the strategical teacher has a right to shake 
 his head at him. Again, when Dessolles succeeds at 
 Taufers against more than twice his force of Aus- 
 trians, the Archduke's comment simply acquaints us, 
 " that he dared not have done as he did, had he had
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 247 
 
 an enterprising enemy before him ; and that nothing 
 but the disposition of the ground, the well-known 
 character of an antagonist, and of his mode of acting 
 in war, could justify expeditions of the kind." Granted 
 fully : but as these all did justify the case in point, 
 what more was requisite ? 
 
 And here let it not be supposed I idly cavil at 
 the Archduke: his strategical arguments are amply 
 borne out by the subsequent nullification of the 
 effects of these brilliant successes, through the results 
 of operations in other quarters ; and he is, of course, in 
 every respect right to show in how much certain opera- 
 tions were hazardous : but what seems to me deficient 
 in his teaching, is the absence it exhibits of all due 
 appreciation, stimulation, and upholding to highest 
 honour and emulation, of that executive energy and 
 daring, which gave success to measures that, theoreti- 
 cally speaking, did not deserve it. No soldier who 
 knows his business can undervalue the great in- 
 fluence of science or of methods of war: where 
 moral force and numbers are equal, these insure 
 success ; but no science, nor any methods of war, can 
 in the long run compensate for a great inferiority of 
 moral force ; and it is a source of mystification and 
 error so to illustrate the advantages of these, as to 
 set aside the prominent advocacy and inculcation of 
 the higher and more important truth, on a due un-
 
 248 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 derstanding and appreciation of which the security 
 and honour of nations can alone be based with 
 confidence. 
 
 Long after Attila had scoffed at " the degenerate 
 Romans, whose deep and compact order of battle 
 betrayed their fears," we find in the tactics of Leo 
 and Constantine Porphyrogenitus a return to a 
 sounder system of formation, approaching closely to 
 that which Gustavus Adolphus subsequently adopted : 
 but it was all in vain, because, as the historian remarks, 
 '" neither authority nor art could frame the important 
 constituents of these formations — the soldier !" Nor 
 justly can it be urged that, because the Archduke's 
 work is most professedly a scientific one, we are, 
 therefore, solely to look to it for scientific teaching. 
 Had the purport of the work been thus exclusive, 
 my objections to it would not have been excited. 
 But while judging of events by their concordance 
 with, or disregard of, the principles of science, his 
 Highness has spoken exclusively of moral force; 
 though always coldly, and often depreciatingly. Of 
 all the French Generals, he most frequently blames 
 Lecourbe, at once the boldest and most successful 
 of them. We have seen how little praise he can afford 
 to the matchless daring and perseverance of Suwarow. 
 He cannot deny the superior bravery of the Russian 
 troops, but he detracts from it by insinuations.
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 249 
 
 And SO far does his Highness carry this tendency 
 to throw the drawback of his indifference over 
 success obtained by moral force, that he systema- 
 tically avoids any distinct or distinguishing comment 
 on those feats of his own officers which are glorified 
 by the quality he delights not to honour. AufFen- 
 berg, at Amsteg ; Major Etwas, at Schwyz ; and 
 Klenau, near Genoa, showed an energy in diffi- 
 culties that ennobles them in the eyes of others ; but 
 they find no eulogist in their unimpassioned chief. 
 " Springs of action of that temper (he says, speaking 
 of the constituents of moral force) sometimes even 
 balance a superiority of numbers, but they cannot 
 hold out against it, because will alone is powerless 
 when means are wanting to it." Why, so is science, 
 and so is all else in war ; but moral force will often 
 triumph over numbers and science, whereas mere 
 science, or numbers without it, is the veriest broken 
 reed that ever calculators leant on. Again he writes, 
 — " Small armies possessed of great moral force have 
 vanquished colossal masses, whilst hordes of barba- 
 rians have beaten the best disciplined armies on earth, 
 by the mere superiority of their physical powers ;" to 
 which latter phrase we demur to subscribe, believing 
 that without a superiority of moral force in the 
 said barbarians, this latter contingency would never 
 happen. The mobs of Russians that baffled all
 
 250 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 Frederick's science at Kiinersdorf, and the Cir- 
 cassians who now annually baffle their descendants, 
 do not do this, as it appears to me, by superior 
 physical strength, but by the superiority of their 
 moral force. They hold on longer and steadier to 
 the simple and sublime motto, " malo mori quam 
 fudari^'' than their antagonists. And to do this is 
 the first and grandest of all military qualities, and 
 should be upheld by every military teacher as such. 
 
 A demonstration that success obtained by moral 
 force in disregard of strategical principles is wrong, 
 as tested by the principles that are true and im- 
 mutable, and only defensible as a lucky result worked 
 out by a power always accidental, assuredly leads to 
 the conclusion, that as a man may be wrong in his 
 conjectures of the degree of moral force he wields, 
 he would be safest and wisest in guiding himself 
 by the principles which are sound in themselves and 
 eternal in their application ; and this, we think, 
 must inevitably lead, in minds of dubious temper, to 
 the adoption of vague ideas of a supposed knowledge, 
 which may too often prove their excuse for choosing 
 a safe rather than a perilous alternative — as, for 
 instance in the case of Petrasch when he fled from 
 the support of Suwarow, because he was so learned 
 in strategy as to suppose the fate of Austria rested 
 on his occupation of the Vorarlberg passes.
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 251 
 
 No army in Europe has suiFered so much from 
 blots of this nature as that of Austria, and we fear 
 the Archduke's teaching has no tendency to diminish 
 thera. A military history should inculcate, with a 
 trumpet's tone, those qualities that constitute the 
 highest power of armies ; and he who so advocates 
 any of the accessory helps in war, as to leave it 
 dubious whether an adherence to them may not be 
 more incumbent on the soldier than his adhesion to 
 this first great duty, will do an injury to the cause 
 he advocates which all the theory he may teach 
 will never remedy. History is philosophy teaching 
 by example. Alexander slept with Homer under 
 his pillow. What English soldier does not feel 
 convinced, on reading Napier's history or Mitchell's 
 essays, that he could have done the deeds they nar- 
 rate, and would be ready to do them if called upon ? 
 
 But who could by any possibility imagine a man 
 animated to any nobler course than his self-seeking 
 instincts would suggest, by any excitement he would 
 owe to a history such as that of the Archduke ? What 
 has been wanting in the Austrian army, for which 
 the Archduke writes, is energy. Their system based 
 on ideal knowledge of war, which over-estimating its 
 material and scientific agencies has overlooked what 
 may be done by energy and devotedness, has given 
 to their operations so conservative a character, — such
 
 252 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 a habit of looking backward rather than onward, 
 and a promptness to abandon all effort the moment 
 that chances seem to preponderate against them — as 
 often to paralyze, and almost always to impair, their 
 power as an army. See what Napoleon says of the 
 Austrians — " No people on earth are less active or 
 dangerous as regards military aifairs than they are." 
 What is his most contemptuous censure of soldiers of 
 his own : — " Les miserables ! lis se laissent battre meme 
 par des Autrichiens.'''' Foy declares — " It was sufficient 
 for the acquittal of their conscience that the wings 
 were turned, or merely passed; their battalions, 
 drawn up so laboriously in right lines, immediately 
 took to their heels. Our foot soldiers of three feet 
 high brought in the giants of Germany and Croatia 
 by hundreds." 
 
 In the Archduke's pages we read of " their slow- 
 ness, which could never avail itself of advantages, 
 though backed by numerical superiority ; " " their 
 exaggerated fear of being turned, which terrified 
 them, and often led to the greatest calamities ;" and 
 in the following passage we have a picture in little 
 of all Ave would have understood on this particular 
 point : " During our latter wars, the incapacity of 
 commanders on either side has produced eflects on 
 the German and the French diametrically opposite to 
 each other. It made the former hesitating — the lat-
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 253 
 
 ter rasli. The French, excited by revolutionary 
 enthusiasm, sought to trample on obstacles, and when 
 they saw a danger to brave, sought for victory as 
 the result: this was the impulse they followed 
 when they had no more certain guide. The Ger- 
 mans, trained to passive subordination, slaves of 
 discipline and fixed rules, restrained by responsibi- 
 lities, fell into the paralysis of irresolution when 
 circumstances became embarrassing," Surely, to 
 such an army, a work of the temper of the Arch- 
 duke's is a fatal legacy ! 
 
 Inculcate true principles of strategy among them, 
 in the name of Heaven I but do not let it be so done 
 as to blind them to what is a thousand times more 
 requisite to them as an army. The great and 
 palpable defect of the Austrian army, when the Arch- 
 duke wrote, was want of energy in those who led 
 them. When the French officers had to speak of 
 one of them who was bold and daring, it was as 
 an exception to the rule — " il navait rien du caractere 
 mtticuleux des Autrichiens ; il ttait, comme on dif, franc 
 du collier, ses attaques ttoient poussees au fond.^'' To an 
 army of this character, a work like the Archduke's is 
 rather calculated to perpetuate its formal mediocrity 
 than to elevate its tone and lend glory to its future. 
 Give every man in it all the science the Archduke 
 ever had, with the deficiencies of energy and decision
 
 254 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 that were associated with it, and they would be no 
 whit more capable of warring with the French, on an 
 equal footing, than they have been. Teaching such 
 as the Archduke's, is like the generalship that mis- 
 takes or prefers a secondary to a primary object — its 
 success even may be nullified by the influence of 
 what it has disregarded. An army without high 
 tone and energy is like a locomotive bereft or short 
 of steam. The engine under its full impulsive 
 power may occasionally run off the line — blow up or 
 come to other mischief; but without it, or with a 
 supply that only works it inefficiently, its " being's 
 end and aim" are nullified, and it stands a great com- 
 bination of artificial construction and admirable skill, 
 got up at an enormous expense, to tantalize and 
 provoke those interested in it by its failures and 
 shortcomings. See the picture the Archduke gives 
 us of the commonplace man in action. " Seldom does 
 the same man conjoin such perspicacity in his views 
 and firmness in his resolutions, that, at the decisive 
 moment, he will not be shaken by doubt ; even should 
 no indirect motive of his own suggest them." Take 
 a single instance, out of the thousand parallel cases 
 the history of the Austrian army furnishes, of an 
 officer believing that, according to his military ideas, 
 it was time for him to surrender, from St. Cyr's 
 account of the affiiir of Castelfranco, — " Nous avians a
 
 ARCHDUKE CHAELES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 255 
 
 peine assez (Thommes pour se saiser des chevaux month 
 par la cavalerie ennemie. Le vieil officier qui com- 
 mandait le regiment de Cuirassiers de V Archiduc Fer- 
 dinand remit son epee, les larmes aux yeux, et non sans 
 heaucoup d^ hesitation. * Je crois, Monsieur le General,^ 
 disoit il, 'je crois que vous rietes pas fort. ' " What 
 this poor old fellow wanted was something sure — 
 something- borne in upon his mind like the Moslem 
 impulse, ''Paradise is before you — hell and the devil 
 in your rear,' " — something by which he should know 
 that it was good to fight till he could fight no longer ; 
 and surely to the army, of which very probably he 
 was a very worthy member, it cannot be good for 
 their greatest chief to shew no sympathetic thrill 
 while detailing gallant deeds — to studiously refrain 
 from eulogy where brave men rise above the average 
 of their fellows, as well as from branding the shame- 
 less, and almost palliating pusillanimity and fatuity 
 by the faintness of his objections to them. Jomini 
 in his scientific treatise on great military operations 
 does not do this ; but he, too, affords an evidence of 
 the difficulty to the human mind of justly judging 
 of all the various points of war, when strongly biassed 
 by those scientific formula, whose general application 
 must rest on the assumption that men, like similar 
 lines in a demonstration, are equal quantities. With 
 the staring fact before him of the superiority of his
 
 256 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 own fellow-soldiers in moral force to many of the 
 armies they had to contend with, he is driven, in the 
 illustration of his universal principles, to assume that 
 all warring civilized nations are so nearly equal in 
 warlike attributes, that similar formations must be 
 advisable under similar circumstances alike for all 
 peoples ; and in recommending his columns of attack 
 for actual battle, he dismisses the result of the ten 
 campaigns in which the English have invariably 
 beaten these columns by their lines, with the foolish 
 sneer that it was the fault of those who allowed 
 themselves to be beaten by such a method of war 
 that they did so. Whereas nothing can be more 
 palpable, that to fight in line against columns gives 
 more fire — suffers less loss from hostile projectiles — 
 and, above all, affords a powerful disposable reserve 
 (on which he admits that success mainly depends) 
 wherever numbers are equal. 
 
 A hundred years ago. Marshal Saxe told the 
 French Infantry that they were not adequate to act 
 in line on open ground against a brave enemy who 
 did not fear to charge ; and though we do not kuoAV 
 why he thought so, we know that facts have borne 
 him out in his opinion. And therein we see the justi- 
 fication of their adoption of the barbarous and blood- 
 wasting action by columns, in a time of war when 
 greatest damage is done by forcible and far-reaching
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 257 
 
 projectiles. But surely this is no reason for its 
 adoption by those who can dispense with so extra- 
 vagant and irrational a formation. Looking, then, to 
 the cause of this delusion on the part of Jomini, 
 we can alone ascribe it to that natural bias in favour 
 of his own gallant brother-soldiers which would 
 not allow him to acknowledge any inferiority in 
 them, such as could only be accounted for by ad- 
 mitting a superiority in others. In like manner, 
 we believe the Archduke Charles is led to screen 
 the deficiencies of the army he loved, by shirking 
 and mystifying the effects of the qualities in which 
 they are apparently deficient, and dwelling as of 
 most importance on the secondary talent in which 
 he, if not they, may be pronounced superior. In 
 this mistaken preference of so high an authority 
 in the Austrian army, we imagine we see some 
 elucidation of the otherwise unaccountable fact, that, 
 with perhaps the most variably adapted military 
 population on earth — strong in numbers and good- 
 will — Austria has never, during the course of 
 modern history, carried to a successful tei'mination 
 any war in which she has combated single-handed ; 
 nor has ever allied herself with other powers without 
 having excited an universal and detrimental impres- 
 sion of her slowness and want of energy. 
 
 " II faut que le General ne donne pas mains de soin 
 
 S
 
 258 ON MR. Alison's opinion of the 
 
 au moral de son armee. A quoi servirait en effet que 
 cinquante mille hommes fussent mis en hataille devant 
 vingt mille, sHls manquent de Vimpulsion necessaire 
 pour enlever et culbuter rennemi ? Ce nest pas 
 seulement du soldat dont il sagit, c^est plus par- 
 ticulierement encore de ceux qui doivent le condnire" — is 
 the crownino; teaching of Jomini's admirable scien- 
 tific treatise. 
 
 " Yes, doubtless," says the gallant Foy, with the 
 painful but honourable justice towards those who 
 crushed the cause he served — " doubtless the instinc- 
 tive determination which even when it errs is better 
 than skilful hesitation — the strength of mind that 
 no danger can appal — the tenacity which carries off 
 the prey by sticking to it to the last — these are 
 rare and sublime qualities." And these rare and 
 sublime qualities, as it appears to me, are either 
 not regarded as such by the Archduke Charles 
 (judging from the text and tone of his campaign of 
 1799), or he has been betrayed into refraining from 
 their prominent inculcation, either by the conscious- 
 ness that they were by no means brilliantly exhi- 
 bited by himself or his army during that period, or 
 by a protracted and rankling estrangement from the 
 Russian army, whose conduct formed so noble and 
 incessant a display of them. If the first, would it 
 not rather militate against him as a chief of armies —
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES AS A MILITARY CRITIC. 259 
 
 if the second, as an indulgent and liberal military- 
 writer to whose statements and opinions implicit 
 reliance must be given ? His work I think an able 
 disquisition on strategy, but a military history defi- 
 cient in important essentials ; and most especially 
 ill-adapted to improve the army for whose particular 
 instruction it was written.
 
 260 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON's 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A FEW OBJECTIONS TO CERTAIN MILITARY STATE- 
 MENTS AND OPINIONS IN MR. ALISON'S HISTORY. 
 
 Having thus endeavoured to throw my feather 
 weight into the scale against the assumed liberality 
 and infallibility of the Archduke's judgment as re- 
 gards Suwarow, I think it right, before laying down 
 my pen, to notice a few points of Mr. Alison's rela- 
 tion of the events of 1799, wherein I presume to 
 think he has written without due care and considera- 
 tion. I have read no more of his work than the 
 narration of the events of that period ; and though I 
 have found in what I have perused many large views 
 of strategy, military parallels, and causes and effects, 
 from which I heartily and entirely dissent, I shall 
 leave untouched these more intellectual topics, and 
 restrict my observations to such simpler matters-of- 
 fact as it may not seem presumptuous in me to 
 canvass.
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 261 
 
 Most men think unfavourably of the Archduke 
 Charles's generalship, when, after gaining the battle 
 of Stockach, he allowed Jourdan's beaten and di- 
 vided army to retire unmolested. Monsieur Thiers 
 says — " The Austrians, exhausted by this long battle, 
 dared not pursue us. If the Archduke, profiting by 
 his advantages, had actively followed the beaten 
 army, he might have thrown it into complete dis- 
 order, and perhaps even destroyed it." Marshal 
 Gouvion St. Cyr (who commanded a division at 
 Stockach) remarks — " Nevertheless, the Archduke 
 did not profit by the advantage this event had given 
 him ; he was afraid to follow the force he had beaten, 
 and stopped the movement of his army." 
 
 It would be interesting to know the cause of this, 
 and it was looked for from the frankness of his 
 character in the work he has published ; but there 
 we only find, that, " satisfied with having decided the 
 victory, the Prince did not advance into the plain. 
 When a General believes he has gained a victory, it 
 is his business to profit by it." Mr. Alison, more 
 condescending than the Archduke, thus explains at 
 the 334th page of his sixth volume, the reason of 
 his Highness's inaction : — " With superior forces and 
 20,000 cavalry in admirable order, the Austrians had 
 now an opportunity of overwhelming the French 
 army in the course of its retreat to the Rhine, such
 
 262 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 as never again occurred to thein till the battle of 
 Leipzic. The Archduke clearly perceived that 
 there was the important point of the campaign ; and 
 had he been the unfettered master of his actions 
 he would in all probability have constrained the 
 enemy's army to a retreat as disastrous as that from 
 Wurtzburg in 1796. But the Aulic Council for- 
 bade him to advance towards the Rhine till Switzer- 
 land was cleared of the enemy. He was compelled, 
 in consequence, to put his army into cantonment 
 between Engen and Wahlwies, while the Repub- 
 licans leisurely effected their retreat through the 
 Black Forest. Here Mr. Alison pronounces that 
 the instructions of the Aulic Council as to opera- 
 tions on the Rhine compelled the Archduke to put 
 his army into cantonment after Stockach, and thus 
 to allow the Repubhcans to retreat leisurely ; where- 
 as the truth is, that the Archduke, gaining the battle 
 on the 25th of March, did not put his army into 
 cantonment till the 6th April, when the retreat 
 of the Republicans was completed. It is for his 
 supineness during the intermediate period that men 
 hold him faulty, and ask his reasons. The Aulic 
 Council had ordered him to advance from the Lech 
 to meet the French near the sources of the Danube. 
 He met them, fought them, and beat them ; sepa- 
 rating their force so completely, that while one
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 2G3 
 
 portion retreated to the west, the other retreated to 
 the north, and only effected its reunion with the 
 main army by forced marches, on the third night 
 after the battle. Friends and foes alike ask why 
 did not the Archduke profit by this opportunity of 
 destroying one or other of these bodies ; and Mr. 
 Alison acquaints us that, by some preposterous in- 
 genuity, it was discovered that the orders of the 
 Aulic Council regarding operations on the Rhine 
 forbade it. But the Archduke by no means sup- 
 ports him in this extraordinary view. His High- 
 ness's relation shows palpably, and in spite of mere 
 verbiage, that what was wanting in him on this 
 occasion was that energy and decision which the 
 Aulic Council had as little power to take from 
 as to give him. In Suwarow's words, " He didn't 
 half will ! " St. Cyr's quotation, that, " satisfied 
 with having decided the victory, the Prince did not 
 advance into the plain," shows him, on the battle- 
 field, a General of the class of Sir Harry Burrard 
 at Vimiera ; and the following day (the 26th) we 
 read, that, " looking at Switzerland as the point 
 of most importance, and strongly persuaded that 
 Jourdan would not halt on this side of the BlacA: 
 Forest, he thought it sufficient to follow him with a 
 mere advanced guard." But, lo ! Jourdan did halt 
 on this side of the Black Forest, and then (on the
 
 264 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 28th) the Archduke determined " to suspend every 
 thing, till he should have driven him into the valley 
 of the Rhine ;" and on the 29th and 30th he was 
 reconcentrating his army on the Stockach ground, 
 and uniting it to Sztarray's corps for this purpose. 
 With these forces he was at Donauschingen on the 
 3rd April, and beyond this entrusted the pursuit to 
 Sztarray. 
 
 It is these shilly-shally proceedings, Avith a glorious 
 opportunity before him, which derogate from the 
 Archduke's character as a General ; and nothing but 
 mystification or delusion can seek to represent them 
 as any way affected by the subsequent cantoning of 
 the army on the 6th April. To coincide with Mr. 
 Alison's view, we must suppose the Archduke fet- 
 tered by the Aulic paralysis on the 2oth, 26th, 27th, 
 and 28th March, and forced from it on the 29th, 
 30th, and 31st, and that the French army owed its 
 safety on all these days to the cantoning of the army 
 on the 6th of the following month. It is possible that 
 Mr. Alison may have been misled by a paragraph in 
 the Archduke's work, inserted (rather Jesuitically as 
 it seems) between the relation of the events of the 
 27th and 29th March. It runs : " At this epoch un- 
 fortunate events checked the progress of operations. 
 The Archduke was attacked with sudden illness — 
 the court of Vienna was disinclined to successes
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 265 
 
 which should appear to expose the Tyrol, by re- 
 moving the army from the supposed theatre of war. 
 These contrarieties paralyzed the activity of the 
 Archduke, and favoured the retreat of the French. 
 The Austrians neglected the opportunity of falling 
 on the divided forces of the enemy, putting him out 
 of condition to hold the field," &c. But a military 
 critic should have borne in mind that it was on the 
 26th and 27th of March, while the French army was 
 divided and demoralized by its defeat, that the Arch- 
 duke had the game in his hands ; and that the feelings 
 of the Vienna Cabinet in no way prevented his 
 Highness subsequently following the French army 
 leisurely, and lukewarmly doing them no injury, just 
 as far as a vigorous pursuit of them at the proper 
 moment would have led him. Nor did the illness of 
 the Archduke occur so as to prevent his pursuit of 
 Jourdan; but nearly a fortnight subsequent to the 
 arrival of that General's army in France. It is this 
 fact, and the too comprehensive term of epoch used 
 by the Archduke, which gives a character of deceit 
 to the passage introduced in his context. In fine, I 
 meet Mr. Alison's declaration with the observation, 
 that the Republicans did not effect their retreat 
 leisurely because the Archduke cantoned his army 
 on the 6th April, but because he did not use his 
 army energetically before he so cantoned it ; as, on
 
 266 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 the day he did so, they had actually crossed the 
 Rhine. I deny that the Aulic Council prevented a 
 pursuit of the French ; for the French were pur- 
 sued, and only escaped severe loss because they were 
 pursued (in the Archduke's own words) ** faible- 
 ment," which prevented the Austrians profiting by the 
 hurried retreat of the French centre, and lost them the 
 opportunity of inflicting a severe loss upon the enemy. 
 The Archduke's fetters were of his own making; : 
 and the Aulic Council have enough to answer for, 
 without fathering the effects of that timid and dila- 
 tory system of war, of which Mr. Alison's beau ideal 
 of a chief is at once the greatest example and advocate. 
 Mr. Alison, continuing to represent the Aulic 
 Council as the scapegoat for all the Archduke's short- 
 comings as a General, proceeds at page 346 of his 
 sixth volume, under the head of " Operations in 
 Germany " after Stockach, and with the date of the 
 13th April, to say, — '* In vain the Archduke urged 
 the Aulic Council not to lose the precious moment : 
 they desired not to endanger the advantages which 
 they had already gained — enjoined him to confine 
 his operations to clearing the right bank of the 
 Danube by detached parties." Now, we cannot 
 understand here how the Aulic Council could have 
 issued these instructions, seeing that, at the period 
 mentioned, there was not a single Frenchman on the
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 267 
 
 right bank of the Danube ; but supposing, as we do, 
 that Mr. Alison has here spoken of the Danube 
 when he must mean the Rhine, we no less demur to 
 accept his conclusion, that the Aulic Council are 
 chargeable as the impediment to the Archduke's 
 proceedings at this moment; when we read in the 
 Archduke's own words, — " The Archduke had fixed 
 on the 10th April to commence his operations on 
 Zurich, with which Hotze was to combine, by ad- 
 vancing from the Vorarlberg by St. Gall ; but at the 
 moment when the troops were about to move, the 
 Inspector-General of provisions declared it impossi- 
 ble to furnish the requisite supplies. This obstacle, 
 nevertheless, could not have proved insurmountable 
 in so fertile a land as Suabia, if other circumstances 
 had not stopped the Austrian army in the course of 
 their success. The illness of the Archduke Charles 
 forced him to give over the command of the army, 
 for some time, to General Wallis ; during which, con- 
 siderable reinforcements of French troops arriving in 
 Alsace, and about Mayence and Manheim, caused 
 doubts as to their destination," &c. 
 
 Surely the Aulic Council should not be held re- 
 sponsible for the deficiencies of the Archduke's Com- 
 missary-General, or the state of his Highness's 
 health, which are thus plainly stated by the best 
 possible authority to have cost "the precious mo-
 
 268 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 ment," for which he has declared the Council re- 
 sponsible. Mr. Alison's context after the quotation, 
 given at the beginning of this paragraph, goes on to 
 say : — " After several engagements, the French were 
 
 finally expelled from the German side 
 
 Massena found himself, by these disasters, under the 
 necessity of changing entirely the disposition of his 
 army. Turned, on the one flank by the Imperialists, 
 on the lake of Constance, and on the other by the 
 advance of Kray beyond the Adige, he was com- 
 pelled to retire into the central part of Switzerland." 
 Now, of the engagements and disasters to which 
 Mr. Alison refers, we have the following account 
 from the Archduke Charles : — " The Austrians al- 
 lowed the whole month of April to glide away in 
 blameable inaction. Their advance jxuards alone 
 amused themselves by driving the enemy on the 
 13th from SchafFhausen — the 14th from Peters- 
 hausen — the 17th from Eglisau, and clearing the 
 right bank of the Rhine." These dates are days 
 of April, on the 6th of which month Kray had 
 finally passed the Adige ; but so far from Massena 
 being compelled to retire into the central part 
 of Switzerland by these operations, we find Mr. 
 Alison, in the next page, describing the position of 
 his army with its right in the Tyrol and the rest 
 along the Rhine, from the Orisons to Basle ; and
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 269 
 
 further, that its posts were not withdrawn from the 
 left bank of that river till the 20th May, and then 
 not on account of the operations alluded to by 
 Mr. Alison, but in consequence of its right being 
 turned by Hotze and Bellegarde falling on it from 
 the Tyrol, and the Archduke crossing the river in 
 co-operation with them : but this was late in May, 
 and circumstances were vastly changed in these 
 five weeks. Massena bore himself nobly under his 
 difficulties when they beset him ; but he would have 
 been a fool, or worse, to have fallen back to the 
 centre of Switzerland, at the period and for the 
 reasons adduced by Mr. Alison. 
 
 After having thus stated that Massena was com- 
 pelled to retire into the centre of Switzerland by 
 the Archduke's successes in Germany and Kray's 
 passing the Adige, Mr. Alison, in the 363rd page 
 of his sixth volume, contradicts himself, by admit- 
 ting that it was through the successes of Bellegarde 
 and Hotze that the right wing of Massena was 
 forced to retire from the Tyrol and the Grisons; 
 adding, as a consequence of these movements, that 
 "the Imperialists were interposed in a salient angle 
 between the Republican armies, the one thrown 
 back on the line of the Po, the other on that of 
 the Aar. Moreau succeeded Scherer in the com- 
 mand of the army of Italy at this momentous crisis
 
 270 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 .... and after a vain attempt to maintain the line 
 of the Oglio, the troops retired towards Milan. . . . 
 Moreau finding himself, &c. &c., resolved to retire 
 towards the mountains of Genoa, in order to facili- 
 tate his junction with Macdonald ;" and, at greater 
 length than we can afford, Mr. Alison goes on to 
 show Moreau making his arrangements for the 
 defence of the Adda. The wording of this passage 
 would represent Moreau's assumption of the com- 
 mand in Italy as subsequent to, or simultaneous with, 
 Bellegarde's successes in the Grisons, whereas it was 
 three weeks anterior to them ; and by the time they 
 were effected, Moreau, so far from making an attempt 
 to hold the line of the Oglio, was in the Maritime 
 Alps, near Mondovi and Coni. 
 
 But the important error here maintained is, that 
 Moreau commanded the French on the Oglio, and 
 planned the reprehensible dispositions for defending 
 the Adda ; whereas Mr, Alison's authority, the Arch- 
 duke Charles, would have told him that General 
 Scherer did all this — giving over the command to 
 Moreau on the 25th April, the day on which Suwa- 
 row's army reached the Adda to attack Lecco on the 
 morrow. Monsieur Thiers goes still further, saying 
 that Scherer, " having altogether lost his wits, occu- 
 pied the line of the Adda in the most unfortunate 
 manner; and that on the 27th April, in the evening.
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 271 
 
 at the very moment that the line was forced, he 
 handed over the command of the array to Moreau." 
 Scherer's dispositions for defending the Adda, fol- 
 lowed immediately as they were by Moreau's for 
 the defence of the Po and Tanaro, one would have 
 thought sufficient to manifest to Mr. Alison, and to 
 have called for inculcation on his readers, that dif- 
 ference in the two men which was already evident 
 to Kray before these operations, when he said, — 
 '" Si leiir general est Scherer, je le battrai ; si c'est 
 Moreau, nous nous battrons.^* 
 
 At page 366, Mr. Alison, as already mentioned, 
 states that Suwarow "for above a week gave himself 
 up to festivities at Milan," and again, at the 70th page 
 of his seventh volume, he repeats that " Suwarow, 
 by an undue delay of eight days at Milan, missed 
 the opportunity of destroying the French army" — 
 whereas, entering Milan, as he did, on the 29th 
 April, we find his letters and despatches dated from 
 Lodi on the 1st May; and we also read, in the 
 Archduke's work, that "the allies, 44,000 strong, 
 left Milan on the 1st May, and Suwarow moved on 
 Pavia." Mr. Alison, on the contrary, describes 
 him, after this imaginary week's festivities, " at 
 length, wearied with triumphal honours, setting out 
 for Alexandria ;" to which he did not go at all during 
 this period of the campaign. In the following page.
 
 272 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON's 
 
 Mr. Alison, having brought Suwarow to Tortona, 
 says, that, " to divert his enemy's attention, he ex- 
 tended his right from Nov! to Seravalle and Gavi, 
 threatening thereby his communications with Genoa 
 and France ; but that this was a mere feint, intended 
 to mask his real design, which was to cross the Po, 
 turn his left, and force him to a general and decisive 
 action." To which we would respectfully observe, 
 that if his object was to divert the enemy by extend- 
 ing his right from Novi to Serravalle, he would 
 very probably have succeeded; as, to have done 
 so, he must have forced his army to the right about, 
 or countermarched it, presenting its back to the 
 astonished enemy. But supposing, as we do here, a 
 mistake of right for left, and that the movement In 
 question would have threatened Moreau's communi- 
 cation with Genoa, what, in the name of strategy ! 
 could it have to do with his communications with 
 France, which were carried on by the Mont Cenis 
 and the Col de Tende? Nor can we subscribe 
 to Mr. Alison's concluding observation in this pas- 
 sage, as it is most distinctly made manifest by 
 Suwarow's orders and letters, that, from the time he 
 turned towards INIoreau at San Salvadore, his object 
 was to attack or turn his right ; for which purpose 
 he ordered Rosenberg to pass over from the left bank 
 of the Po and join him; and that when he found this
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 273 
 
 too difficult, or inexpedient, he gave up the idea of 
 attacking him at all, and crossed the Po with his 
 main body ; not to force him to a battle, but to march 
 on Turin, and to leave Moreau, for the time, to 
 his own devices ; no part of his main army moving 
 towards Moreau till the 2nd June, a fortnight after 
 he crossed the Po to move on Turin. 
 
 In the following page (367), we find Mr. Alison 
 writing, that, after the affair of Basignano or 
 Mugarone, on the 12th May, " the Allied army 
 was concentrated anew in the entrenched camp of 
 Garofalo. At the same instant that this was passing 
 in one quarter, Suwarow raised his camp at San 
 Juhano, with the design of crossing the Po, near 
 Casa Tenia, and marching upon Sesia. The attempt 
 was not attended with decisive success : a warm 
 action ensued between the division of Victor and 
 the Russian advanced guard, 9,000 strong, under 
 Generals Bagration and Lusignan ; victory was long 
 doubtful, and although the French were at length 
 forced to retreat, under shelter of the cannon of 
 Alexandria, the demonstration led to no serious 
 impression at the time on the position of the 
 Republican General. Tired with the unsatisfactory 
 nature of these mana3uvres, Suwarow resolved to 
 march with the bulk of his forces on Turin." This 
 is really the most curious piece of history, of its 
 
 T
 
 274 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON*S 
 
 length, that ever was written. It represents, if I 
 understand it aright, that the troops at Garofalo and 
 San Juliano were two distinct bodies, the former of 
 which remained in its entrenched camp, while the 
 latter broke up to march upon a place called Sesia : 
 with some intention, that, though not decisively 
 successful, led to an action, the result of which, 
 though the. French were driven back, produced no 
 impression at the time on Moreau's position ; and 
 that Suwarow, apparently baffled, then resolved to 
 march on Turin. Whereas the real facts are, that 
 the troops at Garofalo and San Juliano (the latter 
 being an outpost of the former) were alike connected 
 portions of Suwarow's main army, which broke 
 up on the 16th May (not with the remotest idea 
 of disturbing Moreau — in fact, to march away from 
 before him), under distinct and published orders to 
 march on Turin, passing the intermediate river Sesia 
 en route; and that as their rear-guard (not their ad- 
 vanced-guard — which was already crossing the Po), 
 under Lusignan and Bagration, was preparing at 
 San Juliano to obey this order, it was attacked by 
 Moreau, who advanced from San Salvadore, crossing 
 the Tanaro and Bormida rivers, to make a strong 
 reconnoissance in this direction. The repulse of 
 Moreau, so far from leading to no serious impression 
 on his position at the time, led him to break up his
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 275 
 
 camp the very next day, sending Victor with his 
 infantry to Genoa, and abandoning it himself on the 
 following morning with the rest of his army, by 
 forced marches, on Asti and Moncaglieri ; while 
 Suwarow dehberately proceeded with his march on 
 the Sesia and Turin (an identical operation — not 
 two distinct ones, as described by Mr. Alison), which 
 was in progress before, and in a degree interrupted 
 {i. e., by the detention of the troops while beating 
 the enemy) by the demonstration made by Moreau 
 (not by Suwarow), and not in the remotest degree 
 originated, as Mr. Alison states, in Suwarow's dis- 
 satisfaction at the victory which had punished his 
 enemy's accidental interference with its proceedings. 
 At page 374 Mr. Alison says, " It was agreed 
 that Macdonald should cross the Apennines and 
 advance towards Tortona, his right resting on the 
 mountains — his left, on the right bank of the Po." 
 Here Mr. Alison by right means left, and by left 
 means right, or we very much mistake his tactical 
 notions; and at the succeeding 386th page, when he 
 writes, that " Suwarow ordered up great part of the 
 garrison of Mantua to reinforce his army," it would 
 puzzle any one, aware that the said garrison were all 
 French, and enemies to Suwarow, if the frequency 
 of lapses of this kind in Mr. Alison's history had 
 not pretty well broken in the reader to the habit of
 
 276 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF ME. ALISON'S 
 
 interpreting Mr. Alison's small errors of haste, by 
 believing them to involve a meaning as opposite as 
 possible to that they stand for. 
 
 Again, a few lines only before the last quotation 
 alluded to, Mr. Alison, to establish a comparison 
 between Napoleon operating against Wurmser and 
 Suwarow, at the Trebbia, makes the very extraor- 
 dinary assertion, that " the Russian General, though 
 at the head of an army considerably inferior to that 
 of his adversaries, was superior everywhere at the 
 decisive point. The citadel of Turin, with its im- 
 mense magazines, was captured by an army of only 
 40,000 men, in presence of two whose united force 
 exceeded 50,000." Now, putting Kray's forces out 
 of the calculation, and with every inclination to 
 say aU that can fairly be urged in glorification of 
 Suwarow, we have only to open Mr. Alison's own 
 account of the respective numbers of these armies, 
 to show the emptiness of this gratuitous affirma- 
 tion. Allowing Moreau and Macdonald to have had 
 50,000 men, we find opposed to them, and besieging 
 Turin the following array : — Suwarow at Garofalo 
 36,000 (page 377); 6,000 under Ott, who joined 
 Suwarow at the Tidone (page 375) ; five battalions 
 and six squadrons, say 4,000 men, who joined in 
 the Trebbia (page 380), making a force of 46,000 
 under Suwarow, while Bellegarde's force oj^posed to
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 277 
 
 Moreau, Mr. Alison calls four brigades (page 384), 
 and the Archduke numbers at 8,000 men, besides 
 Wuckassovich's brigade ; to which must be added 
 the troops under Kaim besieging the citadel of 
 Turin, which neither Mr. Alison nor the Archduke 
 give in numbers, but which the journal of the siege 
 given by the Chief Engineer, Harting, states to 
 have been 7,415 men. Here are more than 60,000 
 shown to have composed Suwarow's operating force, 
 instead of 40,000, as above stated ; and what makes 
 this hasty", dashing disregard of calculation pro- 
 voking in this history is, that, shaking one's con- 
 fidence in Mr. Alison's statement as it does, it 
 obliges one to stop to investigate the details of 
 any and all of his assertions that are not self- 
 demonstrative. 
 
 At the 11th page of his seventh volume (from 
 which volume our subsequent quotations from his 
 work will henceforth be taken), he states that after the 
 surrender of Alexandria, Suwarow, under the date 
 of the 2nd August, '* drew his forces round Coni, and 
 commenced the siege of Tortona." Here we are led 
 to conjecture that in his haste Mr. Alison has written 
 Coni for Novi — and if we are wrong in this suppo- 
 sition, we know not what he can mean, Coni being 
 far away in the Col de Tende, quite out of any con- 
 nection with Tortona : besides that in the same page
 
 278 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OP MR. ALISON'S 
 
 he himself contradicts the statements here objected to, 
 writing, that " the Allies could only muster 45,000 
 men in front of Tortona: General Kaim being at 
 Cherasco with 12,000 to observe the army of the 
 Alps ; Klenau in Tuscany with 7,000 combatants ; 
 and the remainder of their great army occupied in 
 keeping up the communications between their widely 
 scattered forces." 
 
 After giving Suwarow's simple battle-order at 
 Novi, — " Kray and Bellegarde will attack the left, the 
 Russians the centre, and Melas the right," — in his 
 18th page, he in the following one acquaints us, that 
 " Suwarow's design was to force back the right of 
 the French by means of the corps of Kray, while 
 Bagration had orders to turn their left ;" proceeding 
 to illustrate this direct contradiction of Suwarow's 
 design, by describing Kray's attack upon the left of 
 the French army. 
 
 In speaking of the crowning and crushing error of 
 the campaign of 1799, — viz., the departure of the 
 Archduke Charles, with the great body of the Austrian 
 army from Switzerland, before Suwarow's arrival in 
 that country, — Mr. Alison, at his 27th page, pro- 
 nounces that at the critical moment of Hotze's defeat 
 at N'aefels (30th August), the Archduke, yielding 
 to the pressing commands of the Aulic Council, was 
 compelled to abandon the army with the great body of
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 279 
 
 his troops, leaving the united force of Korsakow and 
 Hotze, 56,000 strong, scattered over a line forty- 
 miles in length, to sustain the weight of Massena, who 
 could bring 65,000 to bear upon the decisive point 
 around the ramparts of Zurich." From this asser- 
 tion we need scarcely say we entirely dissent. In 
 the foregoing sketch, we have already given Lord 
 Mulgrave's declaration (page 134) and Cobentzel's 
 detailed explanation to the Emperor Paul (page 188), 
 of the views of the Austrian Cabinet, that the Arch- 
 duke should remain in Switzerland till Suwarow 
 should arrive there ; and as further proof, we add the 
 following extract from the Emperor Francis's letter 
 to Suwarow, dated the 27th August : — " I have 
 charged ray brother, the Archduke Charles, to throw 
 back the enemy, and replace the former state of 
 things {i. e., to recover the line of the St. Gothard, 
 lost by the left of his army on the 16th August), 
 since these unfortunate events would entail the 
 worst consequences, and might cost the loss of all 
 our advantages in Switzerland." Surely this decla- 
 ration, written from Vienna on the 27th August, is 
 utterly incompatible with the transmission of any 
 previous orders sent from thence, which could compel 
 the Archduke Charles to quit that country with his 
 army, as he did on the 29th, 30th, and 31st of the 
 same month.
 
 280 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 We apprehend that Mr. Alison has misled himself 
 in this matter by the apparent authority of the quo- 
 tation which he gives in his 20th page from the Arch- 
 duke's work, to the effect that " the Court of Vienna 
 ordered the immediate execution of its will, without 
 further objections;" but if Mr. Alison will carefully 
 examine the Archduke's history, he will see that in 
 discussing the general plan agreed upon, the Arch- 
 duke dissented from it in tolo, considered his ultimate 
 destination to the Lower Rhine as faulty, showing 
 how preferable it would be for his whole army, united 
 to all the Russians, to act in Switzerland ; and after 
 commenting on the folly of statesmen far from the 
 scene of war deciding on military operations, records 
 the failure of his reasoning in the words, " la Cour 
 de Vienne ordonne le secret, et la prompte execution de 
 ses volurdes sans aucune ohjection,^^ i. e. the Cabinet 
 adhered to the general plan, the most prominent 
 and important feature of which we have seen to be 
 the maintenance of things in statu quo in Switzer- 
 land by the Archduke, till Suwarow should arrive 
 there. 
 
 The decision of the Vienna Cabinet had reached 
 the Archduke before Massena's attack upon his 
 left or the arrival of Korsakow (82nd page, Cam- 
 pagne de 1799) ; but so far from compelling him 
 to quit Switzerland post haste, we find him, as
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 281 
 
 soon as Korsakow had arrived, engaged, with his 
 whole army, in his abortive attempt to pass the Aar 
 on the 16th August : the success of which would 
 have led him on Berne and Geneva; and after that 
 failure on the 21st commencing an operation on his 
 left, to recover the ground it had lost on the 16th. 
 But the force he sent under Hotze was insufficient 
 for its purpose, and when Korsakow, with his whole 
 army had moved on the 25th to co-operate with 
 Hotze, the Archduke and he squabbled about the 
 removal of six Austrian battalions, which the Arch- 
 duke withdrew from the scene of action; the re- 
 sult of this wretched puerility was, that the Arch- 
 duke, disgusted and unable to command either him- 
 self or Korsakow, incontinently took himself off 
 abruptly to the theatre of war, for which he had 
 been told he was ultimately destined. His own de- 
 scription of his motives runs thus : — " Time was 
 being uselessly lost — the enemy was receiving rein- 
 forcements every day, and Germany was more and 
 more threatened. It was idle to expect the re-esta- 
 blishment of that harmony which, even under most 
 favourable auspices, seldom lasts long between allied 
 armies, and which alone could form one powerful 
 mass of the forces scattered in Germany and Swit- 
 zerland. Under these considerations, the Archduke 
 thought it best to follow the orders of his Court, a nd
 
 282 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 to abandon to chance what henceforth would noi 
 depend on him." 
 
 We look upon the Archduke's proceeding at this 
 moment as one of the most flagrant and reckless 
 ebullitions of a little mind that history anywhere 
 exhibits. He had a general instruction to move to 
 Germany, when the security of Switzerland would 
 allow him so to do ; and showing clearly by his 
 operations from the 16th to the 25th of August that 
 he knew it was his duty not to quit it till he had at 
 least done what he was ordered to do, he abruptly 
 left it at the end of August ; though, on the 30th of 
 that month, Massena made a general movement 
 against the whole line of the combined Austrian 
 and Russian armies, signally defeating a portion 
 of the former. Seeing thus unquestionably that 
 Massena was so strong as to court a conflict with 
 their whole united force, the Archduke chose this 
 moment to remove from it thirty battalions and forty- 
 two squadrons, with the object of assembling more 
 than 70,000 men in Germany, where 12,000 French 
 had crossed the Rhine ! Mr. Alison says, he was 
 compelled to do this by pressing orders from the Aulic 
 Council, quoting in his margin the 129th, 135th, 
 and 139th pages from the Archduke's work, as 
 authorities for the statement ; which we here deli- 
 berately assert to be in no manner borne out
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 283 
 
 by these or any other pages of the Archduke's 
 history. 
 
 We take this opportunity to assert, that, however 
 detrimental the general effect of the interference of 
 the Aulic Council at Vienna may have been on the 
 operations of 1799, the only leader of the Allies who 
 (we suppose through the influence of his rank as 
 brother of the Emperor) took upon himself to set 
 them at nought, was the Archduke Charles. We 
 find his Highness stating (page 24, first volume), — 
 " It directed him to await the arrival of the Russians, 
 though they could not be on the Rhine till July, 
 before he entered Switzerland from Suabia ; " but we 
 know he entered Switzerland on the 22nd May. He 
 himself declares how cavalierly he disregarded their 
 orders when he attempted the great operation of the 
 Aar. " The probable result of the projected enter- 
 prise (he says) offered a brilliant prospect. Its success 
 might have obtained his pardon for not having fol- 
 lowed to the letter the instructions he had received. 
 Probably, they would not have stopped him or 
 turned him from the object to which he was rapidly 
 advancing." All we read of authority distinctly 
 states, that the Archduke was ordered to remain in 
 Switzerland, or to leave it secure till Suwarow's 
 arrival; and we have seen how he disobeyed that 
 order, while in the case of the relief of Haddick's
 
 284 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 corps, which he was directed to effect early in the 
 campaign, he doggedly refused compliance from first 
 to last, in direct defiance of orders from the Council 
 and the Emperor, and of the reiterated, though 
 politely worded, remonstrances of Suwarow. His 
 Highness's version of this act is curiously cool. 
 Acknowledging that these troops were "to be re- 
 placed by detachments taken from Northern Switzer- 
 land," he proceeds, " the Archduke represented the 
 danger of removing troops from the key of the 
 theatre of war, by detaching them to the south, and 
 the ordered relief did not take place ; so that the 
 Russian General was obliged to employ an equal 
 number of troops to those he had called to him to 
 cover his flank," &c. 
 
 As a contrast to Mr. Alison's beau-ideal of a 
 General, we produce Suwarow's letter to the Arch- 
 duke of the 30th June, on this subject : — " Supposing 
 that the order of his Imperial Majesty for the relief 
 of Haddick's corps by that of Hotze would have been 
 immediately executed, I withdrew Haddick and a 
 part of his troops to my army, ordering the remain- 
 der to follow when relieved. As, however, your 
 Imperial Highness has informed me that the enemy 
 has been reinforced in Switzerland, I have ordered 
 Haddick to resume his position ; at the same time 
 observing to your Highness that I make this arrange-
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 285 
 
 ment, trusting that, under more favourable circum- 
 stances, your Imperial Highness's orders will be 
 given for an immediate fulfilment of the desire of 
 the illustrious Emperor. But nothing of the sort 
 happened, and Suvvarow had to grumble at the loss of 
 15,000 men to the end of the campaign. 
 
 Suwarow not being the Emperor's brother, but 
 simply a good soldier, dared not imitate this stylish 
 way of illustrating the military duty of obedience, 
 but did great things in spite of all the hampering of 
 the Aulic Council. As the Archduke depreciatingly 
 remarks, in speaking of a childish dissemination of 
 the Italian forces, " Suwarow sen tint scrupuleuse- 
 ment a ses instructions J' This I call a real soldier, 
 that no beau-ideal of Mr. Alison's standard can ever 
 match. As an additional illustration of this view, we 
 would call attention to the Archduke's plea for his 
 conduct, of the difficulty to him of preserving har- 
 mony with his Allies ; and to his further comment on 
 this peculiar, and to him insurmountable, obstacle to 
 success, which Mr. Alison, at his 68th page, dignifies 
 with the epithet "profound." We, on the contrary, 
 deem them shallow in the extreme, and refer for their 
 practical refutation to the uninterrupted harmony 
 and unity of action displayed by the Austrian and 
 Russian forces under Suwarow, from their junction 
 at Valeggio till they separated at Alexandria. The
 
 286 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF ME. ALISON S 
 
 difficulties which crushed the Archduke to a nullity 
 in the nine days from the 16th to the 25th August, 
 were for months neutralised by the commanding 
 genius of Suwarow ; or rather converted to a means 
 of unvarying and resplendent triumphs. Entrusted 
 with precisely similar materials, the latter produced 
 the fusion which spoke the master in his art; the 
 former the confusion which betrayed the bungler. If 
 a man cannot drive a spirited team, he has no busi- 
 ness on the coach-box. 
 
 Mr. Alison proceeds, in his 28th page, to inform 
 us, that " the arrival of the Archduke was soon 
 attended with important effects on the Upper 
 Rhine. The French had crossed that river at 
 Manheim with 12,000 men, and driving General 
 Miiller, who commanded the Imperialists, before 
 them, laid siege to Philipsburg." The important 
 effects alluded to, were the retreat of these 12,000 
 men, on learning that the Archduke had honoured 
 them by assembling full 70,000 to deal with them, 
 and the subsequent capture of Manheim ; which the 
 Archduke acknowledges to have been an after 
 thought, when he found there was nothing else to 
 do with his enormous force ; somewhat naively con- 
 fessing, that when he left Switzerland, it was with 
 no immediate object but that of remaining idle for 
 some time about the sources of the Danube. But
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 287 
 
 we have alluded to this passage, to remark that 
 what Mr. Alison calls the Upper Rhine, is what, 
 in military parlance, is usually styled the Middle 
 Rhine; and that his description of the French 
 driving General Miiller, who commanded the Im- 
 perialists, before them, is slightly at variance with 
 the account of the Archduke and other military 
 historians: they represent that General as having 
 been the commander of the French, who drove, and 
 not of the Imperialists who were driven, on this 
 occasion. But Miiller looks like a German name, 
 and Mr. Alison will write hastily. 
 
 At page 30, Mr. Alison pronounces Massena to 
 be " the first General then in Europe," which seems 
 somewhat at variance with his classification, at the 
 subsequent 69th page, of Suwarow and the Arch- 
 duke as two of the " four commanders who in the 
 age of the French Revolution have risen to the 
 highest eminence." The other two being Welling- 
 ton and Napoleon. 
 
 In narrating the St. Gothard movement, Mr. 
 Alison (page 35) describes Suwarow as arriving at 
 Airolo on the 21st, and not attacking it till two days 
 after. This delay, if avoidable, would have been 
 faulty ; but Suwarow's letters and reports, as well as 
 the Archduke's relation, show that it never occurred ; 
 but that, leaving Taverne on the 21st, he marched
 
 288 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OP MR. ALISON'S 
 
 every day, falling on Airolo the very moment lie 
 reached it. 
 
 Mr. Alison altogether nullifies Lecourbe's splen- 
 did extrication of himself, when enclosed between 
 Suwarow at Hospital and Rosenberg at Andermatt, 
 on the night of the 24th September, by stating 
 (page 36) that he broke down the Devil's Bridge, 
 and this, too, subsequently to his throwing his artil- 
 lery into the Reuss and retiring down the valley of 
 Schollenen ; whereas it was the blowing up of the 
 Devil's Bridge by the fugitives driven back by Ro- 
 senberg, which compromised Lecourbe, by destroy- 
 ing the only apparent means of retreat for him, from 
 the Urseren Valley ; and it was his glorious deci- 
 sion on hearing this confounding event, which forms 
 one of the most brilliant traits of his unequalled fame 
 as an Alpine General. If Lecourbe had had the 
 breaking down of the bridge, it would have been 
 surprising he did not take his artillery over it before 
 he destroyed it. 
 
 "We find in the next page (37) Mr. Alison speak- 
 ing of the route of the Allies " lying through the 
 horrible defile of the Schachenthal, in which even 
 the audacious Lecourbe had not ventured to engage 
 his troops, however long habituated to mountain 
 warfare ;" respecting which epithet of " horrible" I 
 may observe, that a lady, who had ridden beside me
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 28 & 
 
 througli the whole length of the Schachenthal with- 
 put once dismounting, having asked me what Mr. 
 Alison could mean by calling it " horrible," I could 
 only answer that " I reaUy did not know." As a 
 soldier, I must venture to observe that Lecourbe 
 did engage his troops in it — as why he should not, I 
 cannot, for the soul of me, imagine, — so soon as it was 
 his duty to do so ; but that, at the time of which Mr. 
 Alison speaks, he showed his skill as a General by 
 preferring to hold the post of Seedorf : which Mr. 
 Alison might have learned from his great authority, 
 the Archduke, " gave him a threatening air, and was 
 a post from which he could disturb all Suwarow's 
 movements." 
 
 In describing the Russian march out of the 
 Schachenthal and over the Kinziculm, Mr. Alison 
 says, — " No words can do justice to the difficulties 
 experienced in this terrible march, or the heroism 
 of the brave men engaged in it." This, with the 
 rest of his description, I hold to be extravagant 
 exaggeration : the march was, as I have endeavoured 
 to describe it at page 151, a stiff mountain walk of 
 six or seven hours, undertaken at the best season of 
 the year, and without an enemy on the line. Here 
 and there it is difficult, for a horse unaccustomed to 
 mountain paths, but to talk of it as terrible, or of 
 the heroism of the men who took this walk, is simple 
 
 u
 
 290 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 twaddle. The pastures above Mutten, to within a 
 short hour's walk of the village, belong to the Uri 
 or Schachenthal people; and every man, woman, 
 child, goat, or cow, that has to do with them, pass 
 and repass the whole distance incessantly, during 
 the summer. The morning I walked it, I passed at 
 least a dozen men and women heavily laden with 
 cheese, &c., going or returning over the culm ; and 
 certainly neither they nor I seemed to fancy that 
 our heroism was at all taxed, in dealins: either with 
 the ups or downs of the pastures, or of the rugged 
 bits that intervene between them. As a difficult or 
 trying march, it is mere child's play to the marches of 
 Lecourbe's people over the glaciers of the Grimsel, 
 or those above Martinsbriick, or twenty others made 
 in these campaigns by detachments of either army. 
 
 The last objection I have to urge to Mr. 
 Alison's views on the operations we have canvassed, 
 is that, at his 38th page, he extenuates the conduct 
 of the Austrian General Linken, by describing the 
 situation of the French General Molitor as all but 
 desperate ; and adding (page 38), " by a little more 
 vigour on the part of the Russians, it might have 
 been rendered so." Putting out of consideration the 
 fact that it was no part of the combined plan that 
 the Russians should have appeared at all in the 
 quarter in question, Mr. Alison himself stating
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 291 
 
 (page 37) that Linken was to have joined them at 
 Mutten, we would ask how, by any additional 
 vigour, the Russians — arriving after this terrible 
 march, as Mr. Alison calls it, at Mutten on the 28th, 
 and moving next day to the Klonthal (a stiffish 
 march) where they were momentarily checked — 
 could have rendered Molitor's situation more des- 
 perate; when Linken had allowed himself to be 
 driven, or rather had fallen back without being pur- 
 sued, to the baths of Wichlen, at the further end of 
 the Sernfthal ? 
 
 Mr. Alison is quite singular in this strange view ; 
 as even the Archduke Charles clearly points out 
 where the fault really lay : in the first instance, in 
 the attacks of Jellachich and Linken not beinor 
 simultaneous; and, secondly, in the latter General 
 quitting the scene of action unnecessarily. "An 
 officer entrusted with a co-operative movement should 
 never, unless forced to do so by superior numbers, 
 either pass from the oflfensive to the defensive, or 
 withdraw from the operation of which he is a part; so 
 long as there is a doubt on his mind with regard 
 to the abandonment of the enterprise." The simple 
 fact that Molitor turned from pursuing him, was proof 
 positive that either the Russians or Jellachich were 
 finding him work to do. The want of vigour in these 
 operations was an Austrian, not a Russian deficiency. 
 
 In the foregoing notices, I have endeavoured to
 
 292 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 justify my apparent presumption in rejecting the 
 authority of so celebrated a writer as Mr. Alison ; 
 whom I cannot but consider careless and hasty, alike 
 in the formation of his opinions and his statements 
 of facts ; and I the more lament the very extensive 
 exhibition of these deficiencies in his work (numerous 
 instances of which have been flagrantly exposed in 
 the pages of the United Service Magazine), because 
 I honour him for the ability, and the healthy tone of 
 sentiment and feeling often apparent in its pages. 
 
 I need not repeat here that I dissent, in extenso, 
 from Mr. Alison's extreme eulogies on the perfect 
 character and consummate Generalship of the Arch- 
 duke Charles. That he was a good man, I believe : 
 though I think the authority adduced by Mr. Alison 
 to establish the fact — viz., that of Napoleon — the very 
 Avorst in Europe that could be brought in favour of 
 it ; because when, as Mr. Alison informs us, "jealousy 
 towards every one who had either essentially injured 
 or rivalled his reputation, and a total disregard of 
 truth when recounting their operations, are two of 
 his defects," I am inclined to think his good word is 
 as likely to be biassed as his bad one ; and 1 read in 
 other historians that the Archduke lowered himself, 
 and injured his country, by the slavish admiration 
 with which he regarded and flattered Napoleon. I 
 also believe he had great gifts as a leader : but I do 
 not think with Mr. Alison, that his campaign of
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 293 
 
 1796 was equal to Napoleon's ; that his retreat in 
 
 1797 was so able as to procure for his country a 
 more advantageous peace than she would have had 
 without it ; that, but for the Aulic Council, he would 
 have achieved the subversion of the French Republic 
 in 1799 ; or that, but for the neglect of the Archduke 
 John, he would have crushed Napoleon at Wagram, 
 as decisively as Wellington and Bllicher did at 
 Waterloo. These are INIr. Alison's declarations, from 
 which I dissent. What follows, are opinions on the 
 Archduke Charles, in which I concur. 
 
 In 1796, "le jeune Archiduc dut au vue du plan 
 Fran9ois, une belle pensee qu'il executa avec pru- 
 dence: mais, comme Moreau, il manqua de cette 
 ardeur, de cette audace, qui pouvoit rendre la faute 
 du governement Frangois mortelle pour ses armees. 
 Congoit on ce qui serait arrive si d'un cote ou de 
 I'autre, s'etait trouve le genie impetueux qui venait 
 de detruire trois armees au dela des Alpes ! Cette 
 campagne valut en Europe une grande reputation 
 au jeune Archiduc." — Thiers, 
 
 In 1797, the Archduke was driven, by an unin- 
 terrupted succession of defeats, from the Tagliamento 
 to beyond Klagenfiirth in the short space of three 
 weeks ; and I look in vain to the pages of every 
 historian within raj reach, for any proof of the par- 
 ticular ability assumed for this operation by Mr. 
 Alison, Colonel Mitchell says of the Archduke at
 
 294 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 this period, — " The youth, rank, bravery, and success 
 of this Prince disposed the troops to place the 
 greatest confidence in him; and had he combined 
 popular qualities, and a just insight into character, 
 with the talents and acquirements he certainly pos- 
 sessed, he might very possibly have acted a splendid 
 part in the history of his time. But along with 
 abilities, there was evidently some want of decision 
 or power of acting, as well as an absence of the 
 manners which gain the soldier's heart." Mr. Alison's 
 slashing declaration, that, but for the Aulic Council, 
 the Archduke would have subverted France in 1799, 
 is a bold inference from a series of operations perhaps 
 the lamest, most bungling, and least marked with 
 the display of military qualities, that were ever per- 
 petrated by a constantly superior force under a 
 General of note ; concluding precisely on the ground 
 on which they commenced, viz., between the Danube 
 and the Lake of Constance. I cannot better convey 
 my idea of its value than by paraphrasing Gibbon's 
 query,—" But who will answer for Abu taleb?" 
 
 The Archduke, in 1809, after his defeats at Abons- 
 berg and Echmiihl, had a glorious chance afforded 
 him by the breaking of Napoleon's bridges on the 
 Danube, leaving only a portion of his army at Aspern 
 and Essling ; but he had not energy to seize the 
 advantages thus literally placed before him. Read 
 Massena's opinion : " Je ne congois rien a la conduite
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 295 
 
 de I'Archiduc Charles : on disait que ce Prince avait 
 des talents militaires; mais a defaut de talents, il 
 suffisait de I'experience qu'il a du acquerir en faisant 
 la guerre, pour lui faire un grand succes dans la 
 bataille d'liier." The same opinion is thus expressed 
 by the historian Capefigue : " Si I'Archiduc Charles 
 n'avait pas eu cette timidite de toute sa vie militaire, 
 il cut accule I'armee sur le Danube. II recula encore 
 une fois devant sa destinee, le nom de I'Empereur 
 lui inspirait trop d'enthousiasme militaire — il avait 
 le respect de I'eleve pour le maitre. Le Prince 
 manqua done de vigueur ! " 
 
 The same want of vigour which cramped the 
 Archduke's success at Aspern, was Napoleon's en- 
 couragement to the daring measure of occupying 
 Lobau till his reinforcements should join him. 
 " L'Archiduc Charles," he says, " est toujours hesi- 
 tant devant moi : les Autrichiens ont un g-rand 
 respect pour la capacite et la superiorite des troupes 
 Frangaises. Si ce prestige s'evanouit, que restera-t- 
 il?" This conjecture was so borne out by the sub- 
 sequent inactivity of the Archduke, that ^'I'immo- 
 bilite inexplicable de I'Archiduc," and "torpor or 
 stupefaction appears to have fallen upon him," are 
 the similar expressions of historians, the most opposite 
 in their national and natural biases. Leaving Mr. 
 Alison's dictum as to the result of Wagram in the 
 event of what did not happen, we quote from Cape-
 
 296 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF MR. ALISON'S 
 
 figue its real sequel : " Le Prince Charles reprochait 
 a I'Archiduc Jean de n'etre arrive que tardiraent 
 sur le champ de bataille, et il avait raison : Jean a 
 son tour reprochait a son aine de n'avoir pas profite 
 d'Essling, et de la premiere journee de Wagram. La 
 modestie extreme du Prince Charles lui faisoit croire 
 que nul ne pouvoit disputer la victoire a Napoleon : 
 il n'avait pas foi en soi-meme, et son inquietude 
 des suites de cette guerre devint telle, qu^il donna sa 
 demission en pleine compagne, decouragement qui 
 n'a pas d'exemple!" unless we see something very 
 much of the same character in his abrupt departure 
 from Switzerland because the game did not play as 
 he would have it. 
 
 Briefly, to me the character of the Archduke, as 
 displayed by Capefigue, looks far more like truth 
 than that so positively and saliently dashed off by 
 Mr. Alison. " L'Archiduc," that able writer says, 
 " avait fait de serieuses etudes ; il appartenait encore 
 a la vieille strategic, prudente et timide ; pour ne 
 rien hazarder il perdait souvent les chances de la for- 
 tune et de la victoire. Sa loyaute extreme admirait, 
 avec une candeur digne d'eloges, les qualites mili- 
 taires de I'Empereur Fran^ais : cette admiration 
 poussee a un degre trop exalte ne convenait pas dans 
 une guerre ou il fallait plus combattre I'ennemi, 
 que s'enthousiasmer pour son chef. L'Archiduc 
 Charles comme toutes les superiorit^s avait des
 
 MILITAET STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 297 
 
 exigences, des systemes, et il voulalt 6tre le maitre 
 des operations d'une campagne. II n'avoit rien de 
 cette force morale qui sauve les empires ; il ne savait 
 prendre aucune de ses resolutions qui donnent a une 
 cause une grande energie : brave de sa personne, 
 tacticien distingue, il savait conduire une armee, la 
 faire vaincre quelquefois; mais son esprit etoit 
 pusillanime et incapable d'une resolution bardie ; 
 de la, toutes ces dissensions nees parmi generaux 
 Autrichiens et les Arcbiducs meme. Ce fut un 
 singulier caractere que celui de I'Arcbiduc Cbarles : 
 bon patriote Autricbien, avec cela timide, faisant la 
 guerre pour obtenir la paix : dispose &, tout ceder : 
 admiration du genie de Napoleon, se posant devant 
 lui avec une modestie si re^ignee qu'il compro- 
 mettait souvent la destinee d'une campagne par de 
 fausses demarcbes. Les deux bommes les plus nui- 
 sibles a la grandeur militaire de I'Autriche furent 
 I'Arcbiduc Cbarles et le Prnice Jean de Licbsten- 
 tein, tous deux avec de beaux talents mais sans 
 caractere politique." 
 
 I need not say tbat, adopting as I do tbis opinion 
 of tbe Arcbduke Cbarles, I cannot acquiesce in Mr. 
 Alison's view, tbat tbe Arcbduke " was tbe General of 
 all otbers, in tbose days of glory, wbo approacbed 
 nearest to tbe standard of ideal perfection," nor look 
 on bim for a moment as a leader to be considered 
 under tbe same category as Napoleon or Wellington.
 
 298 OBJECTIONS TO SOME OF ME. ALISON's 
 
 " The qualifications whicli a consummate general 
 should possess," says Bismark, " may be divided into 
 two branches, one of which can be acquired, but the 
 other must be innate : that is, into the scientific 
 part, or that which can be mathematically con- 
 structed; and into the philosophical part, or that 
 which depends upon the sound judgment of a well- 
 regulated understanding. The difference is as great 
 as that between knowledge of a thing, and ability to 
 carry it into execution ; but the possession of one 
 only of these qualities falls short of the ideal, and 
 both united in common are indispensable to form the 
 perfect General/' 
 
 The sympathies of my feelings and judgment 
 alike incline me to be partial to Suwarow ; and yet I 
 see in him a General of a secondary class, because 
 decision and energy, and the power of exciting the 
 average qualities of a mass of men to absolute devo- 
 tion, will not, without correct strategical ideas and 
 due considerate foresight, establish him as a perfect 
 leader. Still less do I think that aU the Archduke's 
 knowledge of strategy, and far-looking considera- 
 tion — shackled, as it was, by the want of decision 
 and energy, which so often made him listless with 
 world-winning opportunities before him, and by the 
 poverty of mind which could neither conciliate nor 
 command the powers entrusted to his guidance — 
 can entitle him to the rank of a first-rate leader.
 
 MILITARY STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS. 299 
 
 Suwarow, with all his failings, was never defeated ; 
 and once only baffled, through the acknowledged 
 failure of others' co-operation. The Archduke's first 
 campaign was his only successful one, and military 
 critics largely ascribe the causes of the ill success 
 of more than one of his others to his want of true 
 military qualities. 
 
 His most palpable deficiency was the want of that 
 "barbarian energy" he disliked in the Russians- 
 Whether he really undervalued it, or felt like Saxe, 
 (though he would not admit, like him) that the quality 
 conspicuous in others was unattainable by himself or 
 his people, I know not ; but the result is certain : 
 that, whereas the Russians bore up nobly through 
 good and ill fortune, so as eventually to fight their 
 way to Paris ; the Archduke's opinions, personal and 
 professional, banished him from the theatre of war 
 when war became most glorious, and gave him only 
 the fame of a " great arithmetician," while Europe 
 was lost and won almost within his hearing of the 
 melee. He indulged a too susceptible sensitiveness, 
 at the cost of a chance of becoming one of the fore- 
 most names of history. 
 
 A few days since, on looking at a very clever 
 novel by Mr. G. H. Lewes, I found, in better words 
 than I am master of, a perfect exposition of the ab- 
 stract ideas on which I ground my decided prefer- 
 ence of Suwarow over the Archduke. " Strength
 
 300 A FEW OBJECTIONS, ETC. 
 
 of Will," tliis gentleman writes, " is the quality most 
 needing cultivation in mankind. Will is the central 
 force which gives strength and greatness to cha- 
 racter. We over-estimate the value of talent, because 
 it dazzles us ; and we are apt to underrate the im- 
 portance of Will, because its works are less shining. 
 Talent gracefully adorns life, but it is Will which 
 carries us victoriously through the struggle. Intel- 
 lect is the torch which lights us on our way ; Will, the 
 strong arm which rough-hews the path for us. The 
 clever weak man sees all the obstacles on his path : 
 the very torch he carries, being brighter than that 
 of most men, enables him perhaps to see that the 
 path before him may be directest, the best, yet it 
 also enables him to see the crooked turnings by 
 which he may, as he fancies, reach the goal without 
 encountering diflficulties. If, indeed. Intellect were 
 a sun Instead of a torch — If it irradiated every 
 corner and crevice — then would man see how, in spite 
 of every obstacle, the direct path was the only safe 
 one, and he would cut his way through by manful 
 labour. But, constituted as we are. It Is the clever, 
 weak men who stumble most — the stronor men who 
 are most virtuous and happy. In this world there 
 cannot be virtue without strong will. The weak 
 ' know the right, and yet the wrong pursue.' " 
 
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