decided preponderance in the field. The whole of Colli's forces, as well as the Sardinian troops that confronted the French army of the Alps, were taken out of the balance on one side, while the whole of this last-mentioned army was thrown into the scale on the other: the loss of Lombardy seemed thus inevitable. That a young and ambitious general should feel elated by these important advantages need not surprise us; but it may be doubted how far a man of knowledge, genius, and quick powers of perception and calculation, could be so far blinded by the victories gained as Napoleon was on this occasion. As the modesty of his report to the Directory has been praised, we have given an extract from the document, not merely to shew the credit due to his biographers, but to exhibit his powers of judgment by the light of his own statement. On the 28th April he thus writes to the Directory:

"If you do not come to an arrangement with the king of Sardinia, I shall march upon Turin. In the meantime I march against Beaulieu; I oblige him to recross the Po; I pass the river immediately after him; I take possession of all Lombardy, and in less than a month I expect to be on the mountains of the Tyrol, to join the army of the Rhine, and to carry the war into Bavaria.

"Order 15,000 men of the army of the Alps to join me, this will give me a force of 45,000 men, and it is possible that I may send a part of it against Rome."

Napoleon here shews himself perfectly ignorant of the obstacles he was certain to encounter, and which, notwithstanding the most extraordinary and unexampled career of victory and good fortune, retarded his appearance in Germany for a year instead of a month. Even the Directory, though not distinguished for any great ability, treated this extravagant flight of fancy with the slight it deserved; nor did Napoleon himself again revert to it. His zealous recommendation of the officers who had fought under him was in far better taste than this announcement of future exploits.

Beaulieu having, after the armistice of Cherasco, no fortresses that gave him any hold in the northwestern portions of Italy, formed the

bold resolution of surprising Tortona, Alessandria, and Valenza, by means of his cavalry. He obtained possession of the last-named place, but gave it up again, as it was useless without the other two, against which the attempt had failed. It is a question, whether, with his diminished and dispirited army, the Austrian general should not, at once, have fallen back behind the Mincio, instead of disputing the ground, step by step, against the advancing French. Decisive success seemed no longer within his reach, and every reverse, however trifling, was sure to augment the moral force of the invaders, and to fan the spirit of republicanism which their appearance had excited in Italy. By giving up a country he could not defend, he preserved his army, fell back on reinforcements and tenable positions, and obliged the French to leave, at least, some troops to guard the country through which they advanced, and watch the southern states of Italy, who might always become formidable so long as the Austrians remained unbroken. Beaulieu chose the bolder and more soldierlike resolution; and though it certainly appears to have been a wrong one, we are loth to blame any display of gallant spirit, the absence of which was so often fatal to the allied cause. It may also be a question, how far an Austrian general could then venture to abandon an Austrian province, though certain of its being no longer defensible.

If Napoleon's letter above quoted evinces no profound judgment or power of calculation, it shews at least a restless spirit of enterprise, which, at the head of brave troops, is always formidable in war. The self-exaggeration which distinguished him during his whole career, had been awakened by his first victories, and naturally hurried him from one undertaking to another; every fresh effort deriving additional strength from the success of the one by which it had been preceded. Beaulieu had retired behind the Po; and it was now resolved to force the passage of the river, and to effect the conquest of Lombardy.

Owing to the great number of failures, it has almost become an axiom in war, that the passage of a

river having a long assailable course, can seldom be opposed with success; the attacking party having generally the choice of the place at which they intend to cross, and being in most cases able to steal a march on their adversaries, and effect their object on some unguarded point, before the defenders can assemble in sufficient strength for effectual resistance. These vague modes of treating military questions can, however, prove nothing, and the passage of a river must, like every other operation of war, depend upon localities, the strength and the conduct of the contending parties. A river of the magnitude of the Po, though flowing in an open country and accessible on all points, offers a barrier that should have been successfully defended by an army of 25,000 Austrians against 30,000 French. Scattered detachments along the banks of the stream are liable to be destroyed in detail, and all who know anything of war know how uncertain it is to bring detached bodies together at the moment when they are wanted. It is only by having a central position, or positions, as much as possible within reach of the points liable to attack,

that success can be anticipated, and in a country like Lombardy, an army receiving fair intelligence from the opposite bank, should at least be able to watch sixty miles of stream. Supposing the assailants to have gained thirty miles from the central position of the defenders, and twenty say, from the nearest wing; and then to give evidence, by their force and proceedings, that they are in earnest ; fourteen hours should bring at least a third, and twenty hours, two thirds of the defending army to the point assailed. We are, by this calculation, giving cavalry patroles four hours for conveying intelligence the distance of only twenty miles, though in such cases full speed should be used; we allow two hours for assembling and getting the troops under arms, and eight hours for the march of the nearest corps, the others following in succession. And in fourteen hours no great number of troops will have effected the passage of a river like the Po, which, among European streams, must be looked upon as one of first-rate magnitude.

Let us now see how Beaulieu and Napoleon managed their operations. The French army extended from

extended themselves towards Castoggio, thus pointing already towards their right. On the 6th Napoleon set out with 3000 grenadiers, 1500 cavalry, and twenty-six pieces of artillery, and by a forced march reached Piacenza on the following day. He immediately began to throw his troops across by means of boats collected along the banks of the river; two squadrons of Austrian hussars found on the opposite side were soon obliged to retire. The rest of the French army followed this advanced guard with great rapidity; but as they had no pontoons, and as the means of passage were limited, it required the whole of the 7th, 8th, and 9th of May before the troops had crossed the stream.

The Austrian general had not been deceived by the idle tale of the intended passage at Valenza, and no sooner learned that the French had extended their right towards Casteggio than he despatched General Liptai with eight battalions and eight squadrons to Belgiojosa, with directions to proceed still further to the left, as circumstances might require, while he himself moved in the same direction. He did so indeed, but not with an army, for on the 6th he detached four battalions and two squadrons to Buffalona, near Milan, where they could be of no possible service; and on the 7th, he left six battalions and six squadrons more at Pavia, while he himself reached Belgiojosa with nine battalions and twelve squadrons. On the eve of battle his troops were thus dispersed over forty miles of country.

The two squadrons of hussars the French had fallen in with in crossing the river were the advanced guard of General Liptai's division, which was following. The adverse parties encountered at Guarda Miglia about four miles from the landing place: in sharp and continued combat the Austrians drove the invaders back to the water's edge. Their commander fearing, however, to fall upon greatly superior numbers during the night, retired to Fombio, and there took post, in order to await the arrival of more troops. This was a great error, for if his eight battalions and eight squadrons really amounted to 5000 men, as the Austrian returns

assert, he must have been a match for the French who had crossed the river, and should certainly have followed up his blow.

At one o'clock on the afternoon of the 8th, Napoleon attacked Fombio with about 10 or 12,000 men, and after a sharp action drove the defenders from their post, with the loss of 600 in killed and wounded; the vanquished retired behind the Adda. And where was Beaulieu while this decisive action was in progress? He had arrived at Belgiojosa, twenty miles from the scene of combat, on the evening of the 7th, and could easily therefore have reached Fombio by one o'clock on the 8th; but it was only in the forenoon, and while the troops were cooking their dinners, that he received the tidings of the action of the previous day, so that he only commenced his march at the very time when he should already have been on the ground. His arrangements, however, are too curious to be passed over unnoticed. He very properly directed his march on Orio and Aspedaletto; but not to be outflanked, as the official reports say, and to be certain of falling in with Liptai's division, he again divided his small corps in the following unheard-of manner. One battalion took the road to Seune, another to Somaglio, two marched on Fombio, two others, accompanied by four squadrons to Cordogno, so that the main body of the Austrian army, which arrived at Aspedaletto under the field-marshal's own command consisted of three battalions and eight squadrons! Since wars have been carried on, there is probably no example of an army having been thus splintered down to absolute inefficiency by the exertions of its own chieftain. As Liptai was not fallen in with, it was soon perceived that nine battalions scattered over the country as here described could effect nothing; the whole were, therefore, withdrawn next day behind the Adda. A gallant blow that General Schubert struck during the night at Cordogno led to nothing. With his two battalions and four squadrons he surprised and defeated the division of La Harpe, and took six guns from them, the commander being killed in the action;

but a partial advantage of this kind could not retrieve the errors already committed. On the 5th of May, we find General Beaulieu preparing to defend the passage of the Po, with twenty-seven battalions and twentyeight squadrons, which he had in hand at Valegio. With this force he might easily, but for his extraordinary disposition to detach entire corps, and the strange circumstance of his not receiving information of the action of the 7th, have been at Fombio on the morning of the 8th; and the chances are that such a force would not only have defeated the 10,000 or 12,000 men with which Napoleon attacked Liptai, but that such a victory would have turned the fate of the campaign; instead of this, the decisive action is fought by eight battalions and eight squadrons.

Were we to judge the passage of the Po by the French as a mere military measure, it would certainly be exposed to considerable censure; for, though all operations of war are attended with risk and danger, it is only in proportion to the pressure of necessity, that they should be undertaken when the chances of defeat out-balance those of success. On the present occasion there was no immediate necessity of forcing the passage of the river; 17,000 men of the army of the Alps were already on the march to join Napoleon; and their arrival would have rendered the operation comparatively easy: while, as we have seen, the causes that prevented Beaulieu from being present with a sufficient force to drive back the republicans on the first morning after their passage, were of a nature peculiar to himself, and not such as can be fairly calculated upon in war. Napoleon acted here as on every subsequent occasion of his life; he placed every thing upon the hazard of the die, and those who may question the great military qualities ascribed to him are forced to allow that he was a bold player and long remained a successful gambler.

But here we have an important question to ask of the admirers of his military genius. Why did not the French general cross the Po at Cremona instead of Piacenza? The former place is only a few miles lower down the stream than the

latter; the breadth of the river is the same; but by effecting the passage at Cremona the French would have turned the Adda and cut off the Austrians from the direct road to Mantua, advantages of the highest consequence. Had any particular obstacles rendered the passage more difficult at the latter than at the former place, Napoleon would have mentioned them in his memoirs ; but he takes no notice of the subject, from which it is probable that he was anxious to prevent attention from being drawn to the great military oversight.

The

The victor remained at Piacenza on the 9th, and while his cavalry and artillery were passing the river, took the opportunity of imposing a contribution of two millions of francs on the Grand Duke of Parma, forcing him at the same time to surrender twenty of his finest pictures. Seven million francs and twenty pictures were soon afterwards demanded of Hercules III. duke of Modena. Both princes were at peace with France: fear had prevented them from joining the allies, and they had now to pay for their pusillanimity. practice of seizing works of art, as trophies of war, had been usual with the Romans, during their long career of plunder and aggression. In the middle ages the same system was occasionally resorted to, and the Venetians, when lords of the Archipelago, carried away the last spoils of unhappy Greece. As late even as the Thirty Years' War, Maximilian of Bavaria sent the celebrated Heidelberg library to Rome, as a present to the Pope; while the Swedes, not to be behind their enemies, enriched the libraries and galleries of Upsola and Stockholm at the expense of the Catholic princes of Germany. In latter times the practice had, however, been altogether discontinued. Frederick II. though a real lover of the arts, respected the gallery of Dresden; and the Austrian and Russian commanders, who during the same war took possession of Berlin, did not remove any of the treasures of art which it contained. The French republicans acted a different, if not a nobler part. The government, composed of men without character, were sufficiently conscious that they had little