Worlds Best Histories - France, vol 7 | Page 6

insufficiency of the help of Austria; he was discontented with the English government, and ill-humoredly kept himself apart from the coalition. The resumption of hostilities was imminent, and the grand projects of the First Consul began to unroll themselves. Active preparations had been till then confined to the army of the Rhine under Moreau. The army of Liguria, placed under the command of Mass��na, with Genoa as a centre of operations, had received neither reinforcements nor munitions; its duty was to protect the passage of the Appenines against M��las, whilst Moreau attacked upon the Rhine the army of Suabia, commanded by Marshal Kray. The occupation of Switzerland by the French army impeded the movements of the allies, by compelling them to withdraw their two armies from each other; the First Consul meditated a movement which should give him all the advantages of this separation. Moreau in Germany, Mass��na in Italy, were ordered at any cost to keep the enemy in check. Bonaparte silently formed a third army, the corps of which he cleverly dispersed, distracting the attention of Europe by the camp of the army of reserve at Dijon. Already he was preparing the grand campaign which should raise his glory to its pinnacle, and establish his power upon victory. In his idea everything was to be sacrificed to the personal glory of his successes. He conceived a project of attack by crossing the Rhine. Moreau, modest and disinterested, accepted the general plan of the war, and subordinated his operations to those of the First Consul; in his military capacity independent and resolute, he persisted in passing the Rhine at his pleasure. Bonaparte was enraged. "Moreau would not seek to understand me," cried he. He yielded, however, to the observations of General Dessoles, and always clever in subjugating those of whom he had need, he wrote to Moreau to restore him liberty of action. "Dessoles will tell you that no one is more interested than myself in your personal glory and your good fortune. The English embark in force; what do they want? I am to-day a sort of manikin, who has lost his liberty and his good fortune. Greatness is fine but in prospective and in imagination. I envy you your luck; you go with the heroes to do fine deeds. I would willingly barter my consular purple against one of your brigadier's epaulettes" (16th March, 1800).
The army of Italy had been suffering for a long time with heroic courage; the well-known chief who took the command was more than any other suited to obtain from it the last efforts of devotion; it was the first to undergo the attack of the allied forces. The troops of Mass��na were still scattered when he was assailed by M��las. The fear of prematurely exhausting the insufficient resources of Genoa had prevented him from following the wise councils of Bonaparte, by massing his troops round that town. After a series of furious combats upon the upper Bormida, the French line found itself cut in two by the Austrians; General Suchet was obliged to fall back upon Nice, Mass��na re-entered Genoa. A new effort forced back General M��las beyond the Appenines. The attempt to rejoin the corps of General Suchet having failed, Mass��na saw himself constrained to shut himself up in Genoa, in the midst of a population divided in opinion, but whose confidence he had already known how to win. Resolved to occupy by resistance and by sorties all the forces of the allies, the general made preparations for sustaining the siege to the last extremity. All the provisions of the place were brought into the military magazines; the most severe order reigned in the distribution, but already scarcity was felt. The forces of Mass��na, exhausted by frequent fights, diminished every day; bread failed; and the heroic obstinacy of the general alone compelled the Austrians to keep a considerable corps d'arm��e before a famished town (5th May, 1800). M��las had in vain attempted to force the lines of Var, behind which General Suchet, too feeble to defend Nice, had cleverly entrenched himself.
Moreau delayed to commence the campaign; his material was insufficient; Alsace and Switzerland, exhausted of resources, could not furnish the means of transport required by his movement. The First Consul urged him. "Obtain a success as soon as possible, that you may be able by a diversion in some degree to expedite the operations in Italy," he wrote to him on April 24; "every day's delay is extremely disastrous to us." On April 26, Moreau passed the Rhine at Strasburg, at Brisach, and at Basle, thus deceiving General Kray, who defended the defiles of the Black Forest, whilst the different divisions of the French army reascended and repassed the Rhine, in order to cross it afresh without difficulty at Schaffhausen. The