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XX.

1797.

CHAP. tion with the forces of Austria. The French troops, in consequence, crossed the Apennines; and during the march Wurmser had an opportunity of returning the generous conduct of his adversary, by putting him on his guard against a conspiracy which had been framed against his life, and which was the means of causing it to be frustrated. The papal troops were routed on the banks of Senio like the other Italian armies, the infantry filed on the first onset, and Junot, after two hours' hard riding, found it impossible to make up with their cavalry. Ancona was speedily taken, with twelve hundred men, and one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, while a small column on the other side of the Apennines pushed as far as Foligno, and threatened Rome itself. Nothing remained to the Vatican but submission; 19th Feb. and peace was concluded at Tolentino, on the 19th February, on terms the most humiliating to the Holy See. The Pope engaged to close his ports against the Allies, to cede Avignon and the Venaisin to France; to abandon Bologna, Ferrara, and the whole of Romagna, to its allies in the Milanese; to admit a garrison of French troops into Ancona, till the conclusion of a general peace; and to pay a contribution of thirty millions of francs to the victorious Republic. Besides this, he was obliged to surrender a hundred of his principal works of art to the French commissioners; the trophies of ancient and modern genius were seized on with merciless rapacity; and in a short time the noblest specimens of the fine arts Jom. viii. which existed in the world, the Apollo Belvidere, 312, 313. the Laocoon, the Transfiguration of Raphael, the Madonna del Foligno, and the St Jerome of Domenichino, were placed on the banks of the Seine.'

Nap. iii. 425.

O'Mea. ii. 127.

This treaty was concluded by the French under

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the idea that it would eventually prove fatal to the CHAP. Holy See. Napoleon proposed to overturn at once the papal government :-" Can we not," said he, 1797. "unite Modena, Ferrara, and Romagna, and so form a powerful republic? May we not give Rome to the King of Spain, on condition that he recognizes the new republic? I will give peace to the Pope on condition that he gives us 3,000,000 of the treasure at Loretto, and pays the 15,000,000 which remain for the armistice. Rome cannot long exist deprived of its richest possessions; a revolution will speedily break out there."-On their side, the Directory wrote as follows to Napoleon: "Your habits of reflection, general, must have taught you, that the Roman Catholic religion is the irreconcilable enemy of the Republic. The Directory, therefore, invite you to do every thing in your power to destroy the papal government, without in any degree compromising the fate of your army-either by subjecting Rome to another power, or, what would be better still, by establishing in its interior such a government as may render the rule of the priests odious and contemptible, secure the grand object, that the Pope and the Corresp. cardinals shall lose all hope of remaining at Rome, and Napoleon, may be compelled to seek an asylum in some foreign ii. 349 and state, where they may be entirely stripped of tempo-iv. 181, ral power.

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Such was the campaign of 1796-glorious to the French arms, memorable in the history of the world. Retrospect Certainly on no former occasion had successes so great been achieved in so short a time, or powers so vast been vanquished by forces so inconsiderable. From maintaining a painful contest on the mountain ridges of their own frontier, from defending the Var and the Maritime Alps, the Republicans found them

CHAP. selves transported to the Tyrol and the Tagliamento, XX. threatening the hereditary states of Austria, and 1797. subduing the whole southern powers of Italy. An army which never mustered fifty thousand men in the field, though maintained by successive reinforcements nearly at that amount, had not only broken through the barrier of the Alps, subdued Piedmont, conquered Lombardy, humbled the whole Italian states, but defeated, and almost destroyed, four powerful armies which Austria raised to defend her possessions, and wrenched the keys of Mantua from her grasp, under the eyes of the greatest array of armed men she had ever sent into the field. Successes so immense, gained against forces so vast, and efforts so indefatigable, may almost be pronounced unparalleled in the annals of war.*

Losses

But although its victories in the field had been so brilliant, the internal situation of the Republic was with which in the highest degree discouraging; and it was more attended. than doubtful whether it could continue for any

it had been

length of time even so glorious a contest. Its condition is clearly depicted in a secret report, presented, by order of the Directory, on 20th December 1796, by General Clarke to Napoleon:-"The lassitude of war is experienced in all parts of the Republic. The people ardently desire peace; their murmurs are loud that it is not already concluded. The legislature desires it, commands it, no matter at what

* In his Confidential Despatch to the Directory of 28th December 1796, Napoleon states the force with which he commenced the campaign at thirty-eight thousand five hundred men, the subsequent reinforcements at twelve thousand six hundred, and the losses by death and incurable wounds at seven thousand. There can be no doubt that he enormously diminished his losses and reinforcements; for the Directory maintained he had received reinforcements to the amount of fifty-seven thousand men..-Corres. Conf. ii. 312.

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1797.

price; and its continued refusal to furnish to the CHAP. Directory the necessary funds to carry on the contest, is the best proof of that fact. The finances are ruined; agriculture in vain demands the arms which are required for cultivation. The war is become so universal, as to threaten to overturn the Republic; all parties, worn out with anxiety, desire the termination of the Revolution. Should our internal misery continue, the people, exhausted by suffering, having found none of the benefits which they expected, will establish a new order of things, which will in its turn' Report by generate fresh revolutions, and we shall undergo, for Corresp. twenty or thirty years, all the agonies consequent on such convulsions."1

Clarke.

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Nap. ii.

426.

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army.

Much of Napoleon's success was no doubt owing to the admirable character, unwearied energy, and Extraordiindomitable courage, of the troops which composed position of the French army. The world had never seen an the French array framed of such materials. The terrible whirlwind which had overthrown the fabric of society in France, the patriotic spirit which had brought its whole population into the field, the grinding misery which had forced all its activity into war, had formed an union of intelligence, skill, and ability, among the private soldiers, such as had never before been witnessed in modern warfare. The middling -even the higher ranks were to be seen with a musket on their shoulders; the great levies of 1793 had spared neither high nor low; the career of glory and ambition could be entered only through the portals of the bivouac. Hence it was that the spirit which animated them was so fervent, and their intelligence so remarkable, that the humblest grenadiers anticipated all the designs of their commanders, and knew of themselves, in every situation of danger and

CHAP. difficulty, what should be done. When Napoleon XX. spoke to them, in his proclamations, of Brutus, 1797. Scipio, and Tarquin, he was addressing men whose hearts thrilled at the recollections which these names awaken; and when he led them into action after a night-march of ten leagues, he commanded those who felt as thoroughly as himself the inestimable importance of time in war. With truth might Napoleon Th. viii. say, that his soldiers had surpassed the far-famed celerity of Cæsar's legions.'

522.

But much as was owing to the troops who obeyed, Great still more was to be ascribed to the general who comNapoleon. manded, in this memorable campaign. In this strugHis system gle is to be seen the commencement of the new sys

genius of

of war.

tem of tactics which Napoleon brought to such perfection; that of accumulating forces in a central situation, striking with the whole mass the detached wings of the enemy, separating them from each other, and compensating by rapidity of movement for inferiority of numbers. Most of his triumphs were achieved by the steady and skilful application of this principle; all, when he was inferior in numerical amount to his opponents. At Montenotte he broke into the centre of the Austro-Sardinian army, when it was executing a difficult movement through the mountains, separated the Piedmontese from the Imperialists, accumulated an overwhelming force against the latter at Dego, and routed the former when detached from their allies at Mondovi. When Wurmser approached Verona, with his army divided into parts separated from each other by a lake, Napoleon was on the brink of ruin; but he retrieved his affairs by sacrificing the siege of Mantua, and falling with superior numbers, first on Quasdanovich at Lonato, and then on Wurmser at Castiglione. When the

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