Napoleon's Marshals
- -
- 100%
- +
The year 1812 was a disastrous one for the French arms all over Europe. The Emperor attempted to direct the Spanish War from Paris. In his desire to secure all Southern Spain, he stripped Marmont's army to reinforce Suchet in his conquest of Valencia. Accordingly in January the Marshal was powerless to stop Wellington's dash at Ciudad Rodrigo, and was unable later to make a sufficient demonstration in Portugal to relieve the pressure on Badajoz; so both the fortresses fell, and the Duke of Ragusa was blamed for the Emperor's mistake. He was thereafter called upon to try to stem the victorious advance of the English into Spain. Short of men, of horses, and of supplies, he did wonders. Thanks to his strenuous efforts, supplies were massed at Salamanca, good food and careful nursing emptied the hospitals and filled the ranks, and the cavalry was supplied with remounts by dismounting the "field officers" of the infantry. The month of July saw an interesting duel round Salamanca between Marmont and Wellington. The two armies were very nearly equal in numbers, the French having forty-seven thousand men and the English forty-four thousand. The French had the advantage of a broad base with lines of retreat either on Burgos or Madrid. The English had to cover their single line of communication, which ran through Ciudad Rodrigo. The French had the further advantage that their infantry marched better than the English. Owing to these causes their commander was so far able to outgeneral his adversary that by July 22nd he was actually threatening the English line of retreat. But a tactical mistake threw away all these strategic advantages. In his eagerness he allowed his leading division to get too extended, forgetting that he was performing the dangerous operation of a flank march. Wellington waited till he saw his opportunity and then threw himself on the weak French centre and cut the French army in half, thus proving his famous dictum that the great general is not he who makes fewest mistakes, but he who can best take advantage of the mistakes of his enemy. Marmont saw his error as soon as the English attack began, but a wound from a cannon ball disabled him at the very commencement of the action. This injury to his arm was so serious that he had to throw up his command and return to France, and for the whole of the next year he had to wear his arm in a sling.
Napoleon, furious with the Marshal for his ill-success, most unjustly blamed him for not waiting for reinforcements: these actually arrived two days after the battle. Joseph, however, had told him distinctly that he was not going to send him any help, and if it had not been for his tactical blunders, Marmont would undoubtedly have caused Wellington to fall back on Portugal. But in 1812 the exigencies of war demanded that France should send forth every soldier, and accordingly in March the Duke of Ragusa was gazetted to the command of the sixth corps, which was forming in the valley of the Maine. On taking up this command he found that his corps was mainly composed of sailors drafted from the useless ships, and of recruits, while his artillery had no horses and his cavalry did not exist. With these raw troops he had to undergo some difficult experiences at Lützen and Bautzen, but, as the campaign progressed, he moulded them into shape, and his divisions did good service in the fighting in Silesia and round Dresden. At the rout after the battle of Leipzig, Marmont, like most of the higher officers of the army, thought more of his personal safety than of his honour, and allowed himself to be escorted from the field by his staff officers.
But in the campaign of 1814 he made amends for all his former blunders, and his fighting record stands high indeed. At Saint-Dizier, La Rothière, Arcis-sur-Aube, Nogent, Sézanne, and Champaubert, he held his own or defeated the enemy with inferior numbers in every case. Once only at Laon did he allow himself to be surprised. When the end came it was Marmont who, at Joseph's command, had to hand over Paris to the Allies. Thereafter he was faced with a terrible problem. His army was sick of fighting, officers and men demanded peace. He had to decide whether his duty to Napoleon was the same as his duty to France. Unfortunately he acted hurriedly, and, without informing the Emperor, entered into negotiations with the enemy. The result was far-reaching, for his conduct showed Alexander that the army was sick of war and would no longer fight for Napoleon. It thus cut away the ground of the Commissioners who were trying, by trading on the prestige of the Emperor and the fear of his name, to persuade the Czar to accept Napoleon's abdication on behalf of his son, the King of Rome. The Marshal's enemies put down his action to ill-will against the Emperor for withholding for so long the marshalate and for his treatment after Salamanca. But Marmont asserted that it was patriotism which dictated his action, and further maintained that Napoleon himself ought to have approved of his action, quoting a conversation held in 1813. "If the enemy invaded France," said the Emperor, "and seized the heights of Montmartre, you would naturally believe that the safety of your country would command you to leave me, and if you did so you would be a good Frenchman, a brave man, a conscientious man, but not a man of honour."
The defection of the Duke of Ragusa came as a bitter blow to Napoleon. "That Marmont should do such a thing," cried the fallen Emperor, "a man with whom I have shared my bread, whom I drew out of obscurity! Ungrateful villain, he will be more unhappy than I." The prophecy was true. The Duke of Ragusa stuck to the Bourbons and refused to join Napoleon during the Hundred Days, going to Ghent as chief of the military household of the exiled King. He returned with Louis to Paris, and was made major-general of the Royal Guard and a peer of France, in which capacity he sat as one of the judges who condemned Ney to death. But men looked askance at him, and from 1817 he lived in retirement, occupying his leisure in experimental farming, with great injury to his purse, for his elaborate scheme of housing his sheep in three-storied barns and clothing them in coats made of skin was most unprofitable. Retirement was a bitter blow to the keen soldier, but the Bourbon monarchs clearly understood that the deserter of Napoleon and the judge of Marshal Ney could never be popular with the army.
Still, when in July, 1830, discontent was seething, Charles X. remembered his sterling qualities and summoned him to Paris as governor of the city. It was an unfortunate nomination, for the Marshal's unpopularity weakened the bonds of discipline, whilst his eagerness to show his loyalty caused him to adopt such measures as the King ordered, irrespective of their military worth. In vain he warned the King that this was not a revolt but a revolution; the counsels of Polignac were all powerful. The Marshal's political suggestions were unheeded and his military plans overridden. The mass of the troops of the line, kept for long hours without food in the streets, mutinied and went over to the populace, while those who remained loyal, and the royal guards, instead of being concentrated and protected by batteries of artillery, were frittered away in useless expeditions into outlying parts of the city. After two days' fighting the royalists had to evacuate the city. Thus it fell to the lot of the Marshal once more to hand over Paris to the foes of those to whom his allegiance was due.
The Duke of Ragusa accompanied Charles to Cherbourg and quitted France in August, 1830, never to return. The remainder of his life was spent in foreign countries. He made Vienna his headquarters, and from there took journeys to Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and Italy. Deeply interested in science and history, he devoted his leisure to writing his Memoirs, to works on military science, philanthropy, and travel. Thus occupied, though an exile from his country, he lived a busy, active, and on the whole useful life till death overtook him at Vienna in 1852.
Marshal Marmont has been called one of Napoleon's failures, but this criticism is one-sided and unjust. True it is that his name is intimately connected with the failure in Spain and with the fall of the Empire, but to judge his career by these two instances and to neglect his other work, is to generalise from an insufficient and casual basis. The Duke of Ragusa owed his marshalate, like many others, to his intimacy with Napoleon, but unlike several of the Marshals he really earned his bâton. His great powers of organisation, so unstintedly given to the re-armament of France and Italy, and his work of regeneration in Dalmatia, together with his military operations in Styria, Spain, and during the campaign of 1814, mark him out as a soldier of great capabilities. Organisation was his strong point, but he also possessed great physical bravery and many of the qualities of a commander. His love for his profession was great, and not only had he graduated under Napoleon's eye, but much of his time was spent in studying his calling from a scientific and historical point of view. As a strategist he probably stood as high as any of his fellow Marshals, and his operations in Dalmatia, Spain, and France deserve the careful study of all students of military history. But he failed as a tactician. Salamanca and Laon prove not only that he made mistakes and had not the faculty of retrieving his errors, but above all he lacked the capacity of seizing on the mistakes of his enemy. In 1811 at El Bodin he had Wellington at his mercy, but he hesitated to strike, for he could not believe his great opponent could make the glaring error of leaving his divisions unsupported. Again and again during his career he showed that lack of resolution which was responsible for his last catastrophe in Paris, where he allowed his own judgment to be overruled by King Charles's personal desires. In a word, he had the gift of a great quartermaster-general rather than of a commander-in-chief. As a man the Marshal's character is an interesting study. In youth the thirst for personal glory and ambition were the dominant traits, and what stability he had he drew from his proud sense of honour, which refused to allow him to take plunder or bribes. But responsibility developed many latent qualities. The desire to keep his troops efficient led him to pay especial care to their physical well-being, and from doing this as a duty he learned to do it as a labour of love. As time went on, desire for personal glory became merged in keen delight in the glory of France, and hence grew up a patriotism which rightly or wrongly led to the scenes of 1814 and 1830. Misfortune also had its share in the enlarging of his character. His unhappy marriage, his bitterness at the withholding of the marshalate, his unpopularity after 1814, led him to remember his father's warning that success is not everything, and turned his attention to the development of those scientific and literary abilities to which he had always shown strong leanings. Hence, though the blight of his marriage and his unpopularity, arising from his desertion of Napoleon, embittered him and caused his Memoirs to teem with cutting descriptions of his contemporaries and former friends, his old age, though spent in exile, was soothed by congenial work which proved "that to the eye of a general he united the accomplishments of a scholar and the heart of a philanthropist."
XI
LOUIS GABRIEL SUCHET, MARSHAL, DUKE OF ALBUFERA
Louis Gabriel Suchet, the son of a silk manufacturer, was born at Lyons on March 2, 1770. His father had acquired a certain eminence by his discoveries in his profession, and had occupied a prominent place in the municipality of Lyons. Louis Gabriel, who received a sound education at the College of Isle Barbe, early showed that he inherited his father's gifts of organisation and research. In 1792 he entered a corps of volunteer cavalry. His education and ability soon brought him to the front, and after two years' service he became lieutenant-colonel of the eighteenth demi-brigade, in which capacity he took part in the siege of Toulon. There he had the double good fortune to make prisoner General O'Hara, the English governor of the fortress, and to gain the friendship of Bonaparte. Suchet and his brother accompanied the future Emperor on many a pleasant picnic, and the three were well known among a certain class of Marseilles society. But this was but a passing phase, and soon the thirst for glory called the young soldier to sterner things. The campaigns of 1794-5 in the Maritime Alps, the battle of Loano, and the fierce fights in 1796 at Lodi, Rivoli, Arcola, and Castiglione proved Colonel Suchet's undaunted courage and ability as a regimental commander. In 1797, for his brilliant conduct at Neumarkt, in Styria, Bonaparte gazetted him general of brigade. In his new capacity Suchet proved that he could not only carry out orders but act in semi-independence as a column commander, and as a reward for his success in Switzerland under General Brune he had the honour of carrying twenty-three captured stands of colours to the Directory. At Brune's request he was sent back to Switzerland to act as chief of his staff. Suchet had to a great extent those qualities which go to make an ideal staff officer. He had a cheery smile and word for everybody, and his tall upright figure and genial face inspired confidence in officers and men alike; as a regimental commander and a general of brigade he had a sound knowledge of the working of small and large corps, and his early experience as a cavalry officer and his intimate acquaintance with the officers of the artillery stood him in good stead. He had a natural aptitude for drafting orders, and his tact and energy commended him to all with whom he served, but above all he had the secret of inspiring those around him with his own vehemence and enthusiasm. Brune, Joubert, Masséna, and Moreau all proved his worth, and Moreau only expressed the opinion of the others when he said to a friend, "Your general is one of the best staff officers in all the armies of France." As general of division Suchet acted as chief of the staff to Joubert in Italy in 1799. Later in the year he commanded one of the divisions of the Army of the Alps under Masséna, and fought against the celebrated Suvaroff. But when Joubert was hurriedly despatched to Italy he at once demanded to have Suchet as chief of the staff. On Joubert's death at the battle of Novi, Suchet served Masséna in a similar capacity; the latter was so delighted with him that he wanted to carry him off to the Army of the Rhine. But in that disastrous year men of ability could not be spared, and Bernadotte, as Minister of War, retained him in Italy to aid the new commander-in-chief "with his clear insight as the public weal demands." When Masséna took command of the Army of Italy in March, he detached Suchet to cover France on the line of the Var, while he, with the rest of the army, threw himself into Genoa. The commander-in-chief had absolute confidence in his lieutenant; he had tried him again and again in the Swiss campaign, and when Suchet had by a marvellous march escaped the tangles of the Russians, his only comment had been "I was quite sure he would bring me back his brigade." The young general acted once again up to his reputation, and evinced those resources in difficulty, and that resolution in adversity, which so marked his career. With a mere handful of troops, by his energy and tactical ability he stemmed the flood of the Austrian invasion on the Var, and when Napoleon debouched through the St. Bernard Pass on the enemy's rear, by a masterly return to the initiative he drove the Austrians before him, and by capturing seven thousand prisoners he materially lightened the First Consul's difficulties in the Marengo campaign. Carnot, the War Minister, wrote to him in eulogistic terms: "The whole Republic had its eyes fixed on the new Thermopylæ. Your bravery was as great and more successful than that of the Spartans." But in spite of this feat of arms and the unselfish way he disengaged Dupont from his difficulties at the crossing of the Mincio, in the campaign which followed Marengo, Suchet found himself neglected and passed over when the Emperor distributed his new honours and rewards. In spite of his former friendship and the remembrance of many a pleasant day spent together in earlier years, Napoleon could not forgive his stern unbending republicanism. He knew his force of character too well to think he could influence his opinions by mere honours, and he determined to see if he could conquer him by neglect. After holding the office of inspector-general of infantry, Suchet found himself in 1803 sent to the camp of Boulogne as a mere divisional commander in Soult's army corps. In the same capacity he loyally served under Lannes in the Austrian campaign of 1805, and distinguished himself at Ulm and Austerlitz, where his division had the good fortune to break the Russian centre. In the following year at Saalfeld and Jena he added to his reputation, and the Emperor did him the honour of bivouacking in the middle of his division on the eve of the battle of Jena. Pultusk and Eylau bore witness to his bravery and address on the battlefield, and Napoleon began to relent. For his share of the victory of Austerlitz the Emperor had created him Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honour and presented him with twenty thousand francs; in August, 1807, he gave him the temporary command of the fifth corps; a few months later he gazetted him Chevalier of the Iron Crown, and in March, 1808, made him a Count of the Empire. In 1807 Suchet married one of the Clarys, a relative of Joseph Bonaparte's wife, and thus to a certain extent bound himself to the Napoleonic dynasty. Still it was only as a divisional commander of the fifth corps under Lannes that in 1808 he entered Spain, the scene of his glory. But when the war brought to light the poor quality of many of the Marshals, and the approaching conflict with Austria caused him to withdraw his best lieutenants to the Danube, Napoleon bethought him of his new relative and former comrade. After the siege of Saragossa he gave him the command of the third corps, now known as the Army of Aragon. Suchet's hour of probation had at last arrived. He had so far shown himself an excellent interpreter of the ideas of others, a man of energy and resource in carrying out orders; it remained to be seen whether he could rise to the height of thinking and acting for himself in the plain of higher strategy.
The situation the new general was called on to meet might have depressed a weaker man. The third corps or Army of Aragon had been severely shaken by the long, stubborn siege of Saragossa. Many of its best officers and men were dead or invalided to France; the ranks were full of raw recruits who had not yet felt the bit of discipline. There were no magazines, the men's pay was months in arrear, the morale of the troops was bad; but the General was told that he must expect no reinforcements and that his army must live off the province of Aragon. To increase his difficulties further he was informed that, while lending an obedient ear to all commands from Madrid, he was really to obey orders which came from the major-general in Paris. Meanwhile, all around him Aragon and even Saragossa were seething with discontent, and Spanish forces, elated by partial success, were springing up on all sides. It was thus situated that Suchet had his first experience of commanding in war, and of showing that success depends on achieving the object desired with the means at hand. Luckily for his reputation he fulfilled Napoleon's dictum that "a general should above all be cool-headed in order to estimate things at their value: he must not be moved by good or bad news. The sensations which he daily receives must be so classed in his mind that each should occupy its appropriate place." Accordingly he at once grasped the vital points of the problem, and strove to restore the morale of the troops so that he might be in a position to meet and overcome the organised forces which were moving against him. His first step was to hold a review of his new command, and then he proceeded to visit his troops in their quarters and to get into personal touch with the officers and men by watching them at their company and battalion drills, encouraging them and supervising the interior economy of the various regiments and brigades. His reputation and his personal magnetism soon began to effect a complete change in his army. But unfortunately the enemy, fighting in their own country, where every inhabitant was a spy on their side, knew as well as the general himself the exact state of the French morale, the position of every unit, and the strength of each company and squadron. So accurate was their information that on one occasion, when a battalion was despatched on a reconnaissance to occupy a small town, and the officer commanding demanded a thousand rations for his men and a hundred for his horse, the Alcalde at once replied, "I know that I must furnish rations for your troops, but I will only supply seven hundred and eighty for the men and sixty for the horses," as he knew beforehand the exact number of men and horses in the column.
The Spanish General Blake, with this wonderful intelligence organisation at his command, called together his troops, and took the initiative against the new French commander by advancing towards Saragossa. Suchet, recognising the importance of utilising to the full the élan which the French soldier always derives from the sense of attacking, advanced to meet him near Alcaniz, but Blake easily beat off the French attack. So demoralised was the Army of Aragon that on the following night, when a drummer cried out that he saw the Spanish cavalry advancing, an entire infantry regiment threw down their arms before this phantom charge. The offender was brought at once before a drumhead court martial and shot, but with troops in such a condition the French commander very wisely slowly fell back the next day towards Saragossa. The situation was extremely critical: a hurried retreat would have roused all Aragon to the attack; fortunately the morale of the Spanish troops was also none too good, and Blake waited for reinforcements before advancing. Meanwhile Suchet spent every hour reorganising his army, visiting with speedy punishment all slackness, encouraging where possible by praise, everywhere showing a cheerfulness and confidence he was far from feeling. Every day the troops were drilled or attended musketry practice; the ordinary routine of peace was carried out in every detail, and the civil and military life of Saragossa showed no signs of the greatness of this crisis. Meanwhile care and attention soon showed their effect, and when three weeks later the enemy appeared at Maria before Saragossa, Suchet had under his command a force full of zealous desire to wipe out its late disgrace and absolutely confident in its general. Fortunately the Spanish commander, by attempting a wide encircling movement, weakened his numerical superiority, and Suchet, as usual assuming the offensive, broke the Spanish centre with his cavalry, hurled his infantry into the gap, and amid a terrific thunder-shower drove the Spanish from the field. The battle before Saragossa saved Aragon for the French, but it did not satisfy their commander, who knew that "to move swiftly, strike vigorously, and secure all the fruits of victory is the secret of successful war"; accordingly with his now elated troops he pursued the enemy and attacked them at Belchite. The Spanish morale was completely broken; a chance shot at the commencement of the engagement blew up an ammunition wagon, and thereon the whole army turned and bolted; for the rest of the war, no regular resistance existed in Aragon.
The battles of Saragossa and Belchite marked the commencement of a fresh stage in the conquest of Eastern Spain. From this time onwards Aragon became the base from which was organised the conquest of Catalonia and Valencia. It was in pursuance of this scheme that Suchet's next task was the organisation of the civil government of the ancient kingdom of Aragon. Fortunately for the commander-in-chief the old local patriotism burnt strong in the hearts of the Aragonese; jealous of the Castilians, they placed their love of Aragon far above their love of Spain. Suchet, an ardent student of human nature, was quick to appreciate how to turn to his use this provincialism. Loud in his praises of their stubborn resistance to the French arms, he approached the nobles and former civil servants and prayed them to lend him their help in restoring the former glories of the ancient kingdom of Aragon. Meanwhile the people of the towns and villages were propitiated by a stern justice and a new fiscal system, which, while it drew more from their pockets, was less aggravating and inquisitorial than the former method, which exacted a tax on the sale and purchase of every individual article. Meanwhile the needs of the French army created a market for both agricultural produce and for manufactured articles, and hence both the urban and rural populations, while paying heavier taxes, made greater profits than formerly. Such was the ability with which Aragon was administered that a province, which even in its most prosperous days had never contributed more than four million francs to the Spanish treasury, was able to produce an income of eight million francs for the pay of the troops alone, without counting the cost of military operations, and at the same time to maintain its own civil servants, while works of public utility were commenced in Saragossa and elsewhere.