Book: History of Modern Europe 1792 1878

C >> C. A. Fyffe >> History of Modern Europe 1792 1878




[Ferdinand enters Rome, Nov. 29.]

The mass of the French troops, about twelve thousand in number, lay in the
neighbourhood of Ancona; Rome and the intermediate stations were held by
small detachments. Had Mack pushed forward towards the Upper Tiber, his
inroad, even if it failed to crush the separated wings of the French army,
must have forced them to retreat; but, instead of moving with all his
strength through Central Italy, Mack led the bulk of his army upon Rome,
where there was no French force capable of making a stand, and sent weak
isolated columns towards the east of the peninsula, where the French were
strong enough to make a good defence. On the approach of the Neapolitans to
Rome, Championnet, the French commander, evacuated the city, leaving a
garrison in the Castle of St. Angelo, and fell back on Civita Castellana,
thirty miles north of the capital. The King of Naples entered Rome on the
29th November. The restoration of religion was celebrated by the erection
of an immense cross in the place of the tree of liberty, by the immersion
of several Jews in the Tiber, by the execution of a number of compromised
persons whose pardon the King had promised, and by a threat to shoot one of
the sick French soldiers in the hospital for every shot fired by the guns
of St. Angelo. [69] Intelligence was despatched to the exiled Pontiff of
the discomfiture of his enemies. "By help of the divine grace," wrote King
Ferdinand, "and of the most miraculous St. Januarius, we have to-day with
our army entered the sacred city of Rome, so lately profaned by the
impious, who now fly terror-stricken at the sight of the Cross and of my
arms. Leave then, your Holiness, your too modest abode, and on the wings of
cherubim, like the virgin of Loreto, come and descend upon the Vatican, to
purify it by your sacred presence." A letter to the King of Piedmont, who
had already been exhorted by Ferdinand to encourage his peasants to
assassinate French soldiers, informed him that "the Neapolitans, guided by
General Mack, had sounded the hour of death to the French, and proclaimed
to Europe, from the summit of the Capitol, that the time of the Kings had
come."

[Mack defeated by Championnet, Dec. 6-13.]

The despatches to Piedmont fell into the hands of the enemy, and the usual
modes of locomotion would scarcely have brought Pope Pius to Rome in time
to witness the exit of his deliverer. Ferdinand's rhapsodies were cut short
by the news that his columns advancing into the centre and east of the
Papal States had all been beaten or captured. Mack, at the head of the main
army, now advanced to avenge the defeat upon the French at Civita
Castellana and Terni. But his dispositions were as unskilful as ever:
wherever his troops encountered the enemy they were put to the rout; and,
as he had neglected to fortify or secure a single position upon his line of
march, his defeat by a handful of French soldiers on the north of Rome
involved the loss of the country almost up to the gates of Naples. On the
first rumour of Mack's reverses the Republican party at Rome declared for
France. King Ferdinand fled; Championnet re-entered Rome, and, after a few
days' delay, advanced into Neapolitan territory. Here, however, he found
himself attacked by an enemy more formidable than the army which had been
organised to expel the French from Italy. The Neapolitan peasantry, who, in
soldiers' uniform and under the orders of Mack, could scarcely be brought
within sight of the French, fought with courage when an appeal to their
religious passions collected them in brigand-like bands under leaders of
their own. Divisions of Championnet's army sustained severe losses; they
succeeded, however, in effecting their junction upon the Volturno; and the
stronghold of Gaeta, being defended by regular soldiers and not by
brigands, surrendered to the French at the first summons.

[French enter Naples, Jan. 23, 1799.]

Mack was now concentrating his troops in an entrenched camp before Capua.
The whole country was rising against the invaders; and, in spite of lost
battles and abandoned fortresses, the Neapolitan Government if it had
possessed a spark of courage, might still have overthrown the French army,
which numbered only 18,000 men. But the panic and suspicion which the
Government had fostered among its subjects were now avenged upon itself.
The cry of treachery was raised on every side. The Court dreaded a
Republican rising; the priests and the populace accused the Court of
conspiracy with the French; Mack protested that the soldiers were resolved
to be beaten; the soldiers swore that they were betrayed by Mack. On the
night of the 21st of December, the Royal Family secretly went on board
Nelson's ship the _Vanguard_, and after a short interval they set sail
for Palermo, leaving the capital in charge of Prince Pignatelli, a courtier
whom no one was willing to obey. [70] Order was, however, maintained by a
civic guard enrolled by the Municipality, until it became known that Mack
and Pignatelli had concluded an armistice with the French, and surrendered
Capua and the neighbouring towns. Then the populace broke into wild uproar.
The prisons were thrown open; and with the arms taken from the arsenal the
lazzaroni formed themselves into a tumultuous army, along with thousands of
desperate men let loose from the gaols and the galleys. The priests,
hearing that negotiations for peace were opened, raised the cry of treason
anew; and, with the watchword of the Queen, "All the gentlemen are
Jacobins; only the people are faithful," they hounded on the mob to riot
and murder. On the morning of January 15th hordes of lazzaroni issued from
the gates to throw themselves upon the French, who were now about nine
miles from the city; others dragged the guns down from the forts to defend
the streets. The Republican party, however, and that considerable body
among the upper class which was made Republican by the chaos into which the
Court, with its allies, the priests, and the populace, had thrown Naples,
kept up communication with Championnet, and looked forward to the entrance
of the French as the only means of averting destruction and massacre. By a
stratagem carried out on the night of the 20th they gained possession of
the fort of St. Elmo, while the French were already engaged in a bloody
assault upon the suburbs. On the 23rd Championnet ordered the attack to be
renewed. The conspirators within St. Elmo hoisted the French flag and
turned their guns upon the populace; the fortress of the Carmine was
stormed by the French; and, before the last struggle for life and death
commenced in the centre of the city, the leaders of the lazzaroni listened
to words of friendship which Championnet addressed to them in their own
language, and, with the incoherence of a half-savage race, escorted his
soldiers with cries of joy to the Church of St. Januarius, which
Championnet promised to respect and protect.

[Parthenopean Republic.]

Championnet used his victory with a discretion and forbearance rare amongst
French conquerors. He humoured the superstition of the populace; he
encouraged the political hopes of the enlightened. A vehement revulsion of
feeling against the fugitive Court and in favour of Republican government
followed the creation of a National Council by the French general, and his
ironical homage to the patron saint. The Kingdom of Naples was converted
into the Parthenopean Republic. New laws, new institutions, discussed in a
representative assembly, excited hopes and interests unknown in Naples
before. But the inevitable incidents of a French occupation, extortion and
impoverishment, with all their bitter effects on the mind of the people,
were not long delayed. In every country district the priests were exciting
insurrection. The agents of the new Government, men with no experience in
public affairs, carried confusion wherever they went. Civil war broke out
in fifty different places; and the barbarity of native leaders of
insurrection, like Fra Diavolo, was only too well requited by the French
columns which traversed the districts in revolt.

[War with Austria and Russia, March, 1799.]

The time was ill chosen by the French Government for an extension of the
area of combat to southern Italy. Already the first division of the Russian
army, led by Suvaroff, had reached Moravia, and the Court of Vienna was
only awaiting its own moment for declaring war. So far were the
newly-established Governments in Rome and Naples from being able to assist
the French upon the Adige, that the French had to send troops to Rome and
Naples to support the new Governments. The force which the French could
place upon the frontier was inferior to that which two years of preparation
had given to Austria: the Russians, who were expected to arrive in Lombardy
in April, approached with the confidence of men who had given to the French
none of their recent triumphs. Nor among the leaders was personal
superiority any longer markedly on the side of the French, as in the war of
the First Coalition. Suvaroff and the Archduke Charles were a fair match
for any of the Republican generals, except Bonaparte, who was absent in
Egypt. The executive of France had deeply declined. Carnot was in exile;
the work of organisation which he had pursued with such energy and
disinterestedness flagged under his mediocre and corrupt successors.
Skilful generals and brave soldiers were never wanting to the Republic; but
no single controlling will, no storm of national passion, inspired the
Government with the force which it had possessed under the Convention, and
which returned to it under Napoleon.

A new character was given to the war now breaking out by the inclusion of
Switzerland in the area of combat. In the war of the First Coalition,
Switzerland had been neutral territory; but the events of 1798 had left the
French in possession of all Switzerland west of the Rhine, and an Austrian
force subsequently occupied the Grisons. The line separating the combatants
now ran without a break from Mainz to the Adriatic. The French armies were
in continuous communication with one another, and the movements of each
could be modified according to the requirements of the rest. On the other
hand, a disaster sustained at any one point of the line endangered every
other point; for no neutral territory intervened, as in 1796, to check a
lateral movement of the enemy, and to protect the communications of a
French army in Lombardy from a victorious Austrian force in southern
Germany. The importance of the Swiss passes in this relation was understood
and even overrated by the French Government; and an energy was thrown into
their mountain warfare which might have produced greater results upon the
plains.

[The Archduke Charles defeats Jourdan at Stockach, March, 25.]

Three armies formed the order of battle on either side. Jourdan held the
French command upon the Rhine; Massena in Switzerland; Scherer, the least
capable of the Republican generals, on the Adige. On the side of the
Allies, the Archduke Charles commanded in southern Germany; in Lombardy the
Austrians were led by Kray, pending the arrival of Suvaroff and his corps;
in Switzerland the command was given to Hotze, a Swiss officer who had
gained some distinction in foreign service. It was the design of the French
to push their centre under Massena through the mountains into the Tyrol,
and by a combined attack of the central and the southern army to destroy
the Austrians upon the upper Adige, while Jourdan, also in communication
with the centre, drove the Archduke down the Danube upon Vienna. Early in
March the campaign opened. Massena assailed the Austrian positions east of
the head-waters of the Rhine, and forced back the enemy into the heart of
the Orisons. Jourdan crossed the Rhine at Strasburg, and passed the Black
Forest with 40,000 men. His orders were to attack the Archduke Charles,
whatever the Archduke's superiority of force. The French and the Austrian
armies met at Stockach, near the head of the Lake of Constance (March 25).
Overwhelming numbers gave the Archduke a complete victory. Jourdan was not
only stopped in his advance, but forced to retreat beyond the Rhine.
Whatever might be the fortune of the armies of Switzerland and Italy, all
hope of an advance upon Vienna by the Danube was at an end.

[Murder of the French envoys at Rastadt, April 28.]

Freed from the invader's presence, the Austrians now spread themselves over
Baden, up to the gates of Rastadt, where, in spite of the war between
France and Austria, the envoys of the minor German States still continued
their conferences with the French agents. On the 28th of April the French
envoys, now three in number, were required by the Austrians to depart
within twenty-four hours. An escort, for which they applied, was refused.
Scarcely had their carriages passed through the city gates when they were
attacked by a squadron of Austrian hussars. Two of French envoys the French
envoys were murdered; the third left for dead. Whether this frightful
violation of international law was the mere outrage of a drunken soldiery,
as it was represented to be by the Austrian Government; whether it was to
any extent occasioned by superior civil orders, or connected with French
emigrants living in the neighbourhood, remains unknown. Investigations
begun by the Archduke Charles were stopped by the Cabinet, in order that a
more public inquiry might be held by the Diet. This inquiry, however, never
took place. In the year 1804 all papers relating to the Archduke's
investigation were removed by the Government from the military archives.
They have never since been discovered. [71]

[Battle of Magnano, April 5.]

The outburst of wrath with which the French people learnt the fate of their
envoys would have cost Austria dear if Austria had now been the losing
party in the war; but, for the present, everything seemed to turn against
the Republic. Jourdan had scarcely been overthrown in Germany before a
ruinous defeat at Magnano, on the Adige, drove back the army of Italy to
within a few miles of Milan; while Massena, deprived of the fruit of his
own victories by the disasters of his colleagues, had to abandon the
eastern half of Switzerland, and to retire upon the line of the river
Limnat, Lucerne, and the Gothard. Charles now moved from Germany into
Switzerland. Massena fixed his centre at Zuerich, and awaited the Archduke's
assault. For five weeks Charles remained inactive: at length, on the 4th of
June, he gave battle. After two days' struggle against greatly superior
forces, Massena was compelled to evacuate Zuerich. He retreated, however, no
farther than to the ridge of the Uetliberg, a few miles west of the city;
and here, fortifying his new position, he held obstinately on, while the
Austrians established themselves in the central passes of Switzerland, and
disaster after disaster seemed to be annihilating the French arms in Italy.

[Suvaroff's Campaign in Lombardy, April-June.]

Suvaroff, at the head of 17,000 Russians, had arrived in Lombardy in the
middle of April. His first battle was fought, and his first victory won, at
the passage of the Adda on the 25th of April. It was followed by the
surrender of Milan and the dissolution of the Cisalpine Republic. Moreau,
who now held the French command, fell back upon Alessandria, intending to
cover both Genoa and Turin; but a sudden movement of Suvaroff brought the
Russians into the Sardinian capital before it was even known to be in
jeopardy. The French general, cut off from the roads over the Alps, threw
himself upon the Apennines above Genoa, and waited for the army which had
occupied Naples, and which, under the command of Macdonald, was now
hurrying to his support, gathering with it on its march the troops that lay
scattered on the south of the Po. Macdonald moved swiftly through central
Italy, and crossed the Apennines above Pistoia in the beginning of June.
His arrival at Modena with 20,000 men threatened to turn the balance in
favour of the French. Suvaroff, aware of his danger, collected all the
troops within reach with the utmost despatch, and pushed eastwards to meet
Macdonald on the Trebbia. Moreau descended from the Apennines in the same
direction; but he had underrated the swiftness of the Russian general; and,
before he had advanced over half the distance, Macdonald was attacked by
Suvaroff on the Trebbia, and overthrown in three days of the most desperate
fighting that had been seen in the war (June 18). [72]

[Naples.]

All southern Italy now rose against the Governments established by the
French. Cardinal Ruffo, with a band of fanatical peasants, known as the
Army of the Faith, made himself master of Apulia and Calabria amid scenes
of savage cruelty, and appeared before Naples, where the lazzaroni were
ready to unite with the hordes of the Faithful in murder and pillage.
Confident of support within the city, and assisted by some English and
Russian vessels in the harbour, Ruffo attacked the suburbs of Naples on the
morning of the 13th of June. Massacre and outrage continued within and
without the city for five days. On the morning of the 19th, the Cardinal
proposed a suspension of arms. It was accepted by the Republicans, who were
in possession of the forts. Negotiations followed. On the 23rd conditions
of peace were signed by Ruffo on behalf of the King of Naples, and by the
representatives of Great Britain and of Russia in guarantee for their
faithful execution. It was agreed that the Republican garrison should march
out with the honours of war; that their persons and property should be
respected; that those who might prefer to leave the country should be
conveyed to Toulon on neutral vessels; and that all who remained at home
should be free from molestation.

[Reign of Terror.]

The garrison did not leave the forts that night. On the following morning,
while they were embarking on board the polaccas which were to take them to
Toulon, Nelson's fleet appeared in the Bay of Naples. Nelson declared that
in treating with rebels Cardinal Ruffo had disobeyed the King's orders, and
he pronounced the capitulation null and void. The polaccas, with the
Republicans crowded on board, were attached to the sterns of the English
ships, pending the arrival of King Ferdinand. On the 29th of June, Admiral
Caracciolo, who had taken office under the new Government, and on its fall
had attempted to escape in disguise, was brought a captive before Nelson.
Nelson ordered him to be tried by a Neapolitan court-martial, and, in spite
of his old age, his rank, and his long service to the State, caused him to
be hanged from a Neapolitan ship's yard-arm, and his body to be thrown into
the sea. Some days later, King Ferdinand arrived from Palermo, and Nelson
now handed over all his prisoners to the Bourbon authorities. A reign of
terror followed. Innumerable persons were thrown into prison.
Courts-martial, or commissions administering any law that pleased
themselves, sent the flower of the Neapolitan nation to the scaffold. Above
a hundred sentences of death were carried out in Naples itself:
confiscation, exile, and imprisonment struck down thousands of families. It
was peculiar to the Neapolitan proscriptions that a Government with the
names of religion and right incessantly upon its lips selected for
extermination both among men and women those who were most distinguished in
character, in science, and in letters, whilst it chose for promotion and
enrichment those who were known for deeds of savage violence. The part
borne by Nelson in this work of death has left a stain on his glory which
time cannot efface. [73]

[Austrian designs in Italy.]

[New plan of the War.]

It was on the advance of the Army of Naples under Macdonald that the French
rested their last hope of recovering Lombardy. The battle of the Trebbia
scattered this hope to the winds, and left it only too doubtful whether
France could be saved from invasion. Suvaroff himself was eager to fall
upon Moreau before Macdonald could rally from his defeat, and to drive him
westwards along the coast-road into France. It was a moment when the
fortune of the Republic hung in the scales. Had Suvaroff been permitted to
follow his own counsels, France would probably have seen the remnant of her
Italian armies totally destroyed, and the Russians advancing upon Lyons or
Marseilles. The Republic was saved, as it had been in 1793, by the
dissensions of its enemies. It was not only for the purpose of resisting
French aggression that Austria had renewed the war, but for the purpose of
extending its own dominion in Italy. These designs were concealed from
Russia; they were partially made known by Thugut to the British Ambassador,
under the most stringent obligation to secrecy. On the 17th of August,
1799, Lord Minto acquainted his Government with the intentions of the
Austrian Court. "The Emperor proposes to retain Piedmont, and to take all
that part of Savoy which is important in a military view. I have no doubt
of his intention to keep Nice also, if he gets it, which will make the Var
his boundary with France. The whole territory of the Genoese Republic seems
to be an object of serious speculation ... The Papal Legations will, I am
persuaded, be retained by the Emperor ... I am not yet master of the
designs on Tuscany." [74] This was the sense in which Austria understood
the phrase of defending the rights of Europe against French aggression. It
was not, however, for this that the Czar had sent his army from beyond the
Carpathians. Since the opening of the campaign Suvaroff had been in
perpetual conflict with the military Council of Vienna. [75] Suvaroff was
bent upon a ceaseless pursuit of the enemy; the Austrian Council insisted
upon the reduction of fortresses. What at first appeared as a mere
difference of military opinion appeared in its true political character
when the allied troops entered Piedmont. The Czar desired with his whole
soul to crush the men of the Revolution, and to restore the governments
which France had overthrown. As soon as his troops entered Turin, Suvaroff
proclaimed the restoration of the House of Savoy, and summoned all
Sardinian officers to fight for their King. He was interrupted by a letter
from Vienna requiring him to leave political affairs in the hands of the
Viennese Ministry. [76] The Russians had already done as much in Italy as
the Austrian Cabinet desired them to do, and the first wish of Thugut was
now to free himself from his troublesome ally. Suvaroff raged against the
Austrian Government in every despatch, and tendered his resignation. His
complaints inclined the Czar to accept a new military scheme, which was
supported by the English Government in the hope of terminating the
contention between Suvaroff and the Austrian Council. It was agreed at St.
Petersburg that, as soon as the French armies were destroyed, the reduction
of the Italian fortresses should be left exclusively to the Austrians; and
that Suvaroff, uniting with a new Russian army now not far distant, should
complete the conquest of Switzerland, and then invade France by the Jura,
supported on his right by the Archduke Charles. An attack was to be made at
the same time upon Holland by a combined British and Russian force.

If executed in its original form, this design would have thrown a
formidable army upon France at the side of Franche Comte, where it is least
protected by fortresses. But at the last moment an alteration in the plan
was made at Vienna. The prospect of an Anglo-Russian victory in Holland
again fixed the thoughts of the Austrian Minister upon Belgium, which had
been so lightly abandoned five years before, and which Thugut now hoped to
re-occupy and to barter for Bavaria or some other territory. "The Emperor,"
he wrote, "cannot turn a deaf ear to the appeal of his subjects. He cannot
consent that the Netherlands shall be disposed of without his own
concurrence." [77] The effect of this perverse and mischievous resolution
was that the Archduke Charles received orders to send the greater part of
his army from Switzerland to the Lower Rhine, and to leave only 25,000 men
to support the new Russian division which, under General Korsakoff, was
approaching from the north to meet Suvaroff. The Archduke, as soon as the
new instructions reached him, was filled with the presentiment of disaster,
and warned his Government that in the general displacement of forces an
opportunity would be given to Massena, who was still above Zuerich, to
strike a fatal blow. Every despatch that passed between Vienna and St.
Petersburg now increased the Czar's suspicion of Austria. The Pope and the
King of Naples were convinced that Thugut had the same design upon their
own territories which had been shown in his treatment of Piedmont. [78]
They appealed to the Czar for protection. The Czar proposed a European
Congress, at which the Powers might learn one another's real intentions.
The proposal was not accepted by Austria; but, while disclaiming all desire
to despoil the King of Sardinia, the Pope, or the King of Naples, Thugut
admitted that Austria claimed an improvement of its Italian frontier, in
other words, the annexation of a portion of Piedmont, and of the northern
part of the Roman States. The Czar replied that he had taken up arms in
order to check one aggressive Government, and that he should not permit
another to take its place.

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