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204 NAPOLEON [1800- of Moreau. harmless, for the Coalition was scarcely likely to accept peace when they had the military advantage. Indeed they could not consistently do so, since they had gone to war on the ground that peace with the Directory had appeared in 1798 to be less endurable than war, and the accession of Bonaparte could not but seem to them likely to make matters worse. In thinking thus they were substantially right, as the sequel proved, but they did not sufficiently understand that Bonaparte was not now the "champion of Jacobinism," as Pitt called him, but had become its enemy and destroyer. When England and Austria refused his overtures, Bonaparte had the good fortune of getting precisely what he wanted, viz., war, in precisely the way he wished, that is, as apparently forced His upon him. This war is peculiar in the circumstance that jealousy throughout its course Bonaparte has a military rival with whom he is afraid to break, and who keeps pace with him in achievements Moreau. To Moreau the success of Brumaire had been mainly due, and he had perhaps thought that the new constitution, as it did not seem to contemplate the First Consul commanding an army, had removed Bonaparte from the path of his ambition. He now held the command of the principal army, that of the Rhine, in which post Bonaparte could not venture to supersede him. The problem for Bonaparte throughout the war was to prevent Moreau, and in a less degree Masse na, who was now in command of the army of Italy, from eclipsing his own military reputation. Russia had now retired from the Coalition, so that, as in 1796, Austria and England were the only belligerents. Italy had been almost entirely lost, and Masse na, at the head of the army of Italy, opposed to General Melas, was almost where Bonaparte had been before his Italian campaign began. But France had retained the control of Switzerland, and Moreau with more than 100,000 men arranged along the Rhine from the Lake of Constance to Alsace stood opposed to Kray, whose headquarters were at Donaueschingen. It seemed that the campaign would be conducted by Moreau and Masse na receiving instructions from Bonaparte at Paris. That the decisive campaign would have been in Bavaria seems so evident that the military writer Biilow conjectures that the French were afraid of alarming Europe by a too decisive victory, which would have brought them at once to the walls of Vienna, and that they therefore transferred the campaign to Italy. But where would Bonaparte have been had Moreau won Hohenlinden in the spring of 1800 while he remained ingloriously at Paris 1 While therefore in writing to Moreau he carefully adopts the language of one who, much to his own regret, has become a mere civilian, he plans the campaign so that both Moreau and Masse na are confined to the task of holding the enemy in play while an army of reserve descends from one of the Alpine passes into Italy. This army of reserve, which was so carefully concealed that few people believed in its existence, is to be commanded, he writes, by some general " to be named by the consuls " ; a little later Berthier is nominated. As late as the end of March he told Miot that he did not mean to leave Paris. Moreau is also to detach 25,000 men under Lecourbe, who are to join Berthier in Italy ; in this way security was taken that Moreau should not be too successful. On April 24 the campaign in Germany began by the passage of the Rhine at a number of points at once. Up to May 10 Moreau is the hero of the war. He is victorious at Engen, at Mcisskirchen, and forces Kray to retire to Ulm. But on May 9 Bonaparte is at Geneva, and it appears at once that he is commander, and Berthier only his chief of the staff. At the same time Carnot in person is sent with unusual formality to demand from Moreau the detachment of troops. The campaign of Marengo was astonishingly short. On Cam- May 1 1 Bonaparte left Geneva, and he is in Paris again P^S- before the end of June. Since the beginning of April Maren g Masse na had been struggling vainly against the superior forces of Melas; since the 21st he had been shut up in Genoa, where Austria and England could co-operate in the !ge. In Italy the affairs of France looked darker than ever, when Bonaparte threw himself on the rear of Melas by passing the Great St Bernard between May 15 and 20. Other divisions passed the Little St Bernard and the Mont Cenis, while the detachment from Moreau s army (under Moncey, not Lecourbe) descended the St Gotthard. It seems that the Austrians had absolutely refused to believe, what nevertheless was openly discussed in the Paris journals, that Bonaparte intended to cross the Alps. Bonaparte had another surprise in store for them. Though Genoa was now suffering all the horrors of famine, he made no attempt to relieve it, but turned to the left, entered Milan, and took possession of the whole line of the Ticino and the Po. Meanwhile Genoa capitulated to General Ott. Melas was now at Alessandria, where Bonaparte sought him on the 13th. On the 14th Melas marched out, crossed the Bormida, and arrived at Marengo. The victory here Avon by Bonaparte, though in its consequences more decisive than any other, and marking in a certain sense the culmina tion of his career, yet was due almost entirely to accident. A sudden charge of cavalry by Kellermann changed a great Austrian victory into a decisive Austrian defeat. On the next day Melas (having, as it seems, quite lost his head) signed a convention by which Austria sacrificed almost all North Italy, restoring something like the posi tion of Campo Formio. " Had he fought another battle," says Marmont, " he would certainly have beaten us." Bonaparte returns to Paris, victorious at once over Austria and over Moreau and Masse na. He did not, however, succeed in tearing from Moreau the honour of concluding the war. Marengo did not lead to peace ; this was won, where naturally it could only be won, in Bavaria by Moreau s victory of Hohenlinden (December 3d), a victory perhaps greater than any of which at that time Bonaparte could boast. Never was Bonaparte more recklessly audacious, never was he more completely and undeservedly successful, than in this campaign. Brumaire had given him a very uncer tain position. Sieyes and the republicans were on the watch for him on the one side ; Moreau seemed on the point of eclipsing him on the other. His family felt their critical position: "had he fallen at Marengo," writes Lucien, " we should have been all proscribed." Perhaps nothing but a stroke so rapid and startling as that of Marengo could have saved him from these difficulties. But this did more, and developed the empire out of the consulate. His appeal for peace after Brumaire had not been purely insincere, though he wanted victory before peace. He proposes to Rouget de PIsle to write "a battle hymn which shall express the idea that with great nations peace comes after victory." After Marengo he devotes himself to giving peace to the world ; he did this by three great acts, so that in 1802 for the first time for ten years under the new Augustus " no war or battle sound was heard the world around." These three acts are the treaty of Lune"ville, February 1801, the Concordat, July 1801, the treaty of Amiens, March 1802. It is worth noticing that the negotiator of all of them is his brother Joseph, as if he especially desired to connect his family name with the pacification of the world. 1. The treaty of Luneville gave peace to the Continent. Treaty It is to be observed that here Bonaparte shows himself f Lun ^ at least less rapacious than the Directory. He surrenders Vl e