Chapter XVI: Part 16

For victory, he relied chiefly upon a system of tactics hitherto unpractised in war, or at least upon any considerable or uniform scale. As war becomes a profession, and a subject of deep study, it is gradually discovered that the principles of tactics depend upon mathematical and arithmetical science; and that the commander will be victorious who can assemble the greatest number of forces upon the same point at the same moment, notwithstanding an inferiority of numbers to the enemy when the general force is computed on both sides.

No man ever possessed in a greater degree than Bonaparte the power of calculation and combination necessary for directing such decisive manoeuvres. It constituted indeed his secret--as it was for some time called--and that secret consisted in an imagination fertile in expedients which would never have occurred to others; clearness and precision in forming his plans; a mode of directing with certainty the separate moving columns which were to execute them, by arranging so that each division should arrive on the destined position at the exact time when their service was necessary; and above all, in the knowledge which enabled such a master-spirit to choose the most fitting subordinate implements, to attach them to his person, and by explaining to them so much of his plan as it was necessary each should execute, to secure the exertion of their utmost ability in carrying it into effect.

Thus, not only were his manoeuvres, however daring, executed with a precision which warlike operations had not attained before his time; but they were also performed with a celerity which gave them almost the effect of surprise. Napoleon was like lightning in the eyes of his enemies; and when repeated experience had taught them to expect this portentous rapidity of movement, it sometimes induced his opponents to wait in a dubious and hesitating posture for attacks, which, with less apprehension of their antagonist, they would have thought it more prudent to frustrate and to anticipate.

The forces which Bonaparte had under his command were between fifty and sixty thousand good troops, having, many of them, been brought from the Spanish campaign in consequence of the peace with that country; but very indifferently provided with clothing, and suffering from the hardships they had endured in those mountains, barren and cold regions. The cavalry, in particular, were in very poor order; but the nature of their new field of action not admitting of their being much employed, rendered this of less consequence. The misery of the French army, until these Alpine campaigns were victoriously closed by the armistice of Cherasco, could, according to Bonaparte's authority, scarce bear description. The officers for several years had received no more than eight livres a month (twenty-pence sterling a week) in name of pay, and staff-officers had not among them a single horse. Berthier preserved, as a curiosity, an order dated on the day of the victory of Albenga, which munificently conferred a gratuity of three louis d'ors upon every general of division. Among the generals to whom this donation was rendered acceptable by their wants were, or might have been, many whose names became afterward the praise and dread of war. Augereau, Massena, Serrurier, Joubert, Lannes, and Murat, all generals of the first consideration, served under Bonaparte in the Italian campaign.

The plan of crossing the Alps and marching into Italy suited in every respect the ambitious and self-confident character of the General to whom it was now intrusted. It gave him a separate and independent authority, and the power of acting on his own judgment and responsibility; for his countryman Salicetti, the deputy who accompanied him as commissioner of the Government, was not probably much disposed to intrude his opinions. He had been Bonaparte's patron, and was still his friend. The young General's mind was made up to the alternative of conquest or ruin, as may be judged from his words to a friend at taking leave of him. "In three months," he said, "I will be either at Milan or at Paris;" intimating at once his desperate resolution to succeed, and his sense that the disappointment of all his prospects must be the consequence of a failure.

With the same view of animating his followers to ambitious hopes, he addressed the Army of Italy to the following purpose: "Soldiers, you are hungry and naked; the Republic owes you much, but she has not the means to acquit herself of her debts. The patience with which you support your hardships among these barren rocks is admirable, but it cannot procure you glory. I am come to lead you into the most fertile plains that the sun beholds: rich provinces, opulent towns; all shall be at your disposal. Soldiers, with such a prospect before you, can you fail in courage and constancy?" This was showing the deer to the hound when the leash is about to be slipped.

The Austro-Sardinian army, to which Bonaparte was opposed, was commanded by Beaulieu, an Austrian general of great experience and some talent, but no less than seventy-five years old; accustomed all his life to the ancient rules of tactics, and unlikely to suspect, anticipate, or frustrate those plans formed by a genius so fertile as that of Napoleon.

Bonaparte's plan for entering Italy differed from that of former conquerors and invaders, who had approached that fine country by penetrating or surmounting at some point or other her Alpine barriers. This inventive warrior resolved to attain the same object by turning round the southern extremity of the Alpine range, keeping as close as possible to the shores of the Mediterranean, and passing through the Genoese territory by the narrow pass called the Boccheta, leading around the extremity of the mountains, and betwixt these and the sea. Thus he proposed to penetrate into Italy by the lowest level which the surface of the country presented, which must be of course where the range of the Alps unites with that of the Apennines. The point of junction where these two immense ranges of mountains touch upon each other is at the heights of Mount St. Jacques, above Genoa, where the Alps, running northwestward, ascend to Mont Blanc, their highest peak, and the Appenines, running to the southeast, gradually elevate themselves to Monte Velino, the tallest mountain of the range.

To attain this object of turning the Alps in the manner proposed, it was necessary that Bonaparte should totally change the situation of his army; those occupying a defensive line, running north and south, being to assume an offensive position, extending east and west. Speaking of an army as of a battalion, he was to form into column upon the right of the line which he had hitherto occupied. This was an extremely delicate operation to be undertaken in presence of an active enemy, his superior in numbers; nor was he permitted to execute it uninterrupted.

No sooner did Beaulieu learn that the French General was concentrating his forces, and about to change his position, than he hastened to preserve Genoa, without possession of which, or at least of the adjacent territory, Bonaparte's scheme of advance could scarce have been accomplished. The Austrian divided his army into three bodies. Colli, at the head of a Sardinian division, he stationed on the extreme right at Ceva; his centre division, under D'Argenteau, having its head at Sasiello, had directions to march on a mountain called Monte Notte, with two villages of the same name, near to which was a strong position at a place called Montelegino, which the French had occupied in order to cover their flank during their march toward the east.

At the head of his left wing, Beaulieu himself moved from Novi upon Voltri, a small town nine miles west of Genoa, for the protection of that ancient city, whose independence and neutrality were like to be held in little reverence. Thus it appears, that while the French were endeavoring to penetrate into Italy by an advance from Sardinia by the way of Genoa, their line of march was threatened by three armies of Austro-Sardinians, descending from the skirts of the Alps, and menacing to attack their flank. But, though a skilful disposition, Beaulieu's had, from the very mountainous character of the country, the great disadvantage of wanting connection between the three separate divisions; neither, if needful, could they be easily united on any point desired, while the lower line, on which the French moved, permitted constant communication and cooperation.

On April 10, 1796, D'Argenteau, with the central division of the Austro-Sardinian army, descended upon Monte Notte, while Beaulieu on the left attacked the van of the French army, which had come as far as Voltri. General Cervoni, commanding the French division which sustained the attack of Beaulieu, was compelled to fall back on the main body of his countrymen; and had the assault of D'Argenteau been equally animated, or equally successful, the fame of Bonaparte might have been stifled in its birth. But Colonel Rampon, a French officer, who commanded the redoubts near Montelegino, stopped the progress of D'Argenteau by the most determined resistance. At the head of not more than fifteen hundred men, whom he inspired with his own courage, and caused to swear to maintain their post or die there, he continued to defend the redoubts, during the whole of the 11th, until D'Argenteau, whose conduct was afterward greatly blamed for not making more determined efforts to carry them, drew off his forces for the evening, intending to renew the attack next morning.

But on the morning of the 12th, the Austrian General found himself surrounded with enemies. Cervoni, who retreated before Beaulieu, had united himself with La Harpe, and both advancing northward during the night of the 11th, established themselves in the rear of the redoubts of Montelegino, which Rampon had so gallantly defended. This was not all. The divisions of Augereau and Massena had marched, by different routes, on the flank and on the rear of D'Argenteau's column; so that next morning, instead of renewing his attack on the redoubts, the Austrian General was obliged to extricate himself by a disastrous retreat, leaving behind him colors and cannon, a thousand slain, and two thousand prisoners.

Such was the Battle of Monte Notte, the first of Bonaparte's victories; eminently displaying the truth and mathematical certainty of combination, which enabled him on many more memorable occasions, even when his forces were inferior in numbers, and apparently disunited in position, suddenly to concentrate them and defeat his enemy, by overpowering him on the very point where he thought himself strongest. He had accumulated a superior force on the Austrian centre, and destroyed it, while Colli, on the right, and Beaulieu himself, on the left, each at the head of numerous forces, did not even hear of the action till it was fought and won. In consequence of the success at Monte Notte, and the close pursuit of the defeated Austrians, the French obtained possession of Cairo, which placed them on that side of the Alps which slopes toward Lombardy, and where the streams from these mountains run to join the Po.

Beaulieu had advanced to Voltri, while the French withdrew to unite themselves in the attack upon D'Argenteau. He had now to retreat northward with all haste to Dego, in the valley of the river Bormida, in order to resume communication with the right wing of his army, consisting chiefly of Sardinians, from which he was now nearly separated by the defeat of the centre. General Colli, by a corresponding movement on the left, occupied Millesimo, a small town about nine miles from Dego, with which he resumed and maintained communication by a brigade stationed on the heights of Biastro. From the strength of this position, though his forces were scarce sufficiently concentrated, Beaulieu hoped to maintain his ground till he should receive supplies from Lombardy, and recover the consequences of the defeat at Monte Notte. But the antagonist whom he had in front had no purpose of permitting him such respite.

Determined upon a general attack on all points of the Austrian position, the French army advanced in three bodies upon a space of four leagues in extent. Augereau, at the head of the division which had not fought at Monte Notte, advanced on the left against Millesimo; the centre, under Massena, directed themselves upon Dego, by the vale of the Bormida; the right wing, commanded by La Harpe, manoeuvred on the right of all, for the purpose of turning Beaulieu's left flank. Augereau was the first who came in contact with the enemy. He attacked General Colli, April 13th. His troops, emulous of the honor acquired by their companions, behaved with great bravery, rushed upon the outposts of the Sardinian army at Millesimo, forced and retained possession of the gorge by which it was defended, and thus separated from the Sardinian army a body of about two thousand men, under the Austrian General Provera, who occupied a detached eminence called Cossaria, which covered the extreme left of General Colli's position. But the Austrian showed the most obstinate courage. Although surrounded by the enemy, he threw himself into the ruinous castle of Cossaria, which crowned the eminence, and showed a disposition to maintain the place to the last; the rather that, as he could see from the turrets of his stronghold the Sardinian troops, from whom he had been separated, preparing to fight on the ensuing day, he might reasonably hope to be disengaged.

Bonaparte in person came up; and seeing the necessity of dislodging the enemy from his strong post, ordered three successive attacks to be made on the castle. Joubert, at the head of one of the attacking columns, had actually, with six or seven others, made his way into the outworks, when he was struck down by a wound in the head. General Banal and Adjutant-General Quenin fell, each at the head of the column which he commanded; and Bonaparte was compelled to leave the obstinate Provera in possession of the castle for the night. The morning of the 14th brought a different scene. Contenting himself with blockading the castle of Cossaria, Bonaparte now gave battle to General Colli, who made every effort to relieve it. These attempts were all in vain. He was defeated and cut off from Beaulieu; he retired as well as he could upon Ceva, leaving to his fate the brave General Provera, who was compelled to surrender at discretion.

On the same day, Massena, with the centre, attacked the heights of Biastro, being the point of communication betwixt Beaulieu and Colli, while La Harpe, having crossed the Bormida, where the stream came up to the soldiers' middle, attacked in front and in flank the village of Dego, where the Austrian Commander-in-Chief was stationed. The first attack was completely successful--the heights of Biastro were carried, and the Piedmontese routed. The assault of Dego was not less so, although after a harder struggle. Beaulieu was compelled to retreat, and was entirely separated from the Sardinians, who had hitherto acted in combination with him. The defenders of Italy now retreated in different directions, Colli moving westward toward Ceva, while Beaulieu, closely pursued through a difficult country, retired upon D'Aqui.

Even the morning after the victory, it was nearly wrested out of the hands of the conquerors. A fresh division of Austrians, who had evacuated Voltri later than the others, and were approaching to form a junction with their General, found the enemy in possession of Beaulieu's position. They arrived at Dego like men who had been led astray, and were no doubt surprised at finding it in the hands of the French. Yet they did not hesitate to assume the offensive, and by a brisk attack drove out the enemy, and replaced the Austrian eagles in the village. Great alarm was occasioned by this sudden apparition; for no one among the French could conceive the meaning of an alarm beginning on the opposite quarter to that on which the enemy had retreated, and without its being announced from the outposts toward D'Aqui.

Bonaparte hastily marched on the village. The Austrians repelled two attacks; at the third, General Lanusse, afterward killed in Egypt, put his hat upon the point of his sword, and advancing to the charge penetrated into the place. Lannes also, afterward Duke of Montebello, distinguished himself on the same occasion by courage and military skill, and was recommended by Bonaparte to the Directory for promotion. In this Battle of Dego, more commonly called of Millesimo, the Austro-Sardinian army lost five or six thousand men, thirty pieces of cannon, with a great quantity of baggage. Besides, the Austrians were divided from the Sardinians; and the two generals began to show not only that their forces were disunited, but that they themselves were acting upon separate motives; the Sardinians desiring to protect Turin, whereas the movements of Beaulieu seemed still directed to prevent the French from entering the Milanese territory.

Leaving a sufficient force on the Bormida to keep in check Beaulieu, Bonaparte now turned his strength against Colli, who, overpowered, and without hopes of succor, abandoned his line of defence near Ceva, and retreated to the line of the Tanaro.

Napoleon in the mean time fixed his head-quarters at Ceva, and enjoyed from the heights of Montezemoto the splendid view of the fertile fields of Piedmont, stretching in boundless perspective beneath his feet, watered by the Po, the Tanaro, and a thousand other streams which descended from the Alps. Before the eyes of the delighted army of victors lay this rich expanse like a promised land; behind them was the wilderness they had passed--not indeed a desert of barren sand, similar to that in which the Israelites wandered, but a huge tract of rocks and inaccessible mountains, crested with ice and snow, seeming by nature designed as the barrier and rampart of the blessed regions, which stretched eastward beneath them. We can sympathize with the self-congratulation of the General who had surmounted such tremendous obstacles in a way so unusual. He said to the officers around him, as they gazed upon this magnificent scene, "Hannibal took the Alps by storm. We have succeeded as well by turning their flank."

The dispirited army of Colli was attacked at Mondovi during his retreat by two corps of Bonaparte's army from two different points, commanded by Massena and Serrurier. The last General the Sardinian repulsed with loss; but when he found Massena, in the mean time, was turning the left of his line, and that he was thus pressed on both flanks, his situation became almost desperate. The cavalry of the Piedmontese made an effort to renew the combat. For a time they overpowered and drove back those of the French; and General Stengel, who commanded the latter, was slain in attempting to get them into order. But the desperate valor of Murat, unrivalled perhaps in the heady charge of cavalry combat, renewed the fortune of the field; and the horse, as well as the infantry of Colli's army, were compelled to a disastrous retreat. The defeat was decisive; and the Sardinians, after the loss of the best of their troops, their cannon, baggage, and appointments, and being now totally divided from their Austrian allies, and liable to be overpowered by the united forces of the French army, had no longer hopes of effectually covering Turin. Bonaparte, pursuing his victory, took possession of Cherasco, within ten leagues of the Piedmontese capital.

Thus Fortune, in the course of a campaign of scarce a month, placed her favorite in full possession of the desired road to Italy, by command of the mountain-passes, which had been invaded and conquered with so much military skill. He had gained three battles over forces far superior to his own; inflicted on the enemy a loss of twenty-five thousand men in killed, wounded, and prisoners; taken eighty pieces of cannon, and twenty-one stands of colors; reduced to inaction the Austrian army; almost annihilated that of Sardinia; and stood in full communication with France upon the eastern side of the Alps, with Italy lying open before him, as if to invite his invasion. But it was not even with such laurels, and with facilities which now presented themselves for the accomplishment of new and more important victories upon a larger scale, and with more magnificent results, that the career of Bonaparte's earliest campaign was to be closed. The head of the royal house of Savoy, if not one of the most powerful, still one of the most distinguished in Europe, was to have the melancholy experience, that he had encountered with the "Man of Destiny," as he was afterward proudly called, who, for a time, had power, in the emphatic phrase of Scripture, "to bind kings with chains, and nobles with fetters of iron."

The shattered relics of the Sardinian army had fallen back, or rather fled, to within two leagues of Turin, without hope of being again able to make an effectual stand. The sovereign of Sardinia, Savoy, and Piedmont had no means of preserving his capital, nay, his existence on the Continent, excepting by an almost total submission to the will of the victor. Let it be remembered, that Victor Amadeus III was the descendant of a race of heroes, who, from the peculiar situation of their territories, as constituting a neutral ground of great strength betwixt France and the Italian possessions of Austria, had often been called on to play a part in the general affairs of Europe, of importance far superior to that which their condition as a second-rate power could otherwise have demanded. In general, they had compensated their inferiority of force by an ability and gallantry which did them the highest credit, both as generals and as politicians; and now Piedmont was at the feet, in her turn, of an enemy weaker in numbers than her own. Besides the reflections on the past fame of his country, the present humiliating situation of the King was rendered more mortifying by the state of his family connections.

Victor Amadeus was the father-in-law of "Monsieur" (by right Louis XVIII), and of the Comte d'Artois, the reigning King of France. He had received his sons-in-law at his court at Turin, had afforded them an opportunity of assembling around them their forces, consisting of the emigrant _noblesse_, and had strained all the power he possessed, and in many instances successfully, to withstand both the artifices and the arms of the French Republicans. And now, so born, so connected, and with such principles, he was condemned to sue for peace on any terms which might be dictated, from a general of France aged twenty-six years, who, a few months before, was desirous of an appointment in the artillery service of the Grand Seignior!

An armistice was requested by the King of Sardinia under these afflicting circumstances, but could only be purchased by placing two of his strongest fortresses--those keys of the Alps, of which his ancestors had long been the keepers--Coni and Tortona, in the hands of the French, and thus acknowledging that he surrendered at discretion. The armistice was agreed on at Cherasco, but commissioners were sent by the King to Paris, to arrange with the Directory the final terms of peace. These were such as victors give to the vanquished.

Besides the fortresses already surrendered, the King of Sardinia was to place in the hands of the French five others of the first importance. The road from France to Italy was to be at all times open to the French armies; and indeed the King, by surrender of the places mentioned, had lost the power of interrupting their progress. He was to break off every species of alliance and connection with the combined powers at war with France, and become bound not to entertain at his court, or in his service, any French emigrants whatsoever, or any of their connections; nor was an exception even made in favor of his own two daughters. In short, the surrender was absolute. Victor Amadeus exhibited the utmost reluctance to subscribe this treaty, and did not long survive it. His son succeeded in name to the kingdom of Piedmont; but the fortresses and passes which had rendered him a prince of some importance were, excepting Turin and one or two of minor consequence, all surrendered into the hands of the French.

Viewing this treaty with Sardinia as the close of the Piedmontese campaign, we pause to consider the character which Bonaparte displayed at that period. The talents as a general which he had exhibited were of the very first order. There was no disconnection in his objects, they were all attained by the very means he proposed, and the success was improved to the utmost. A different conduct usually characterizes those who stumble unexpectedly on victory, either by good-fortune or by the valor of their troops. When the favorable opportunity occurs to such leaders, they are nearly as much embarrassed by it as by a defeat. But Bonaparte, who had foreseen the result of each operation by his sagacity, stood also prepared to make the most of the advantages which might be derived from it.

His style in addressing the Convention was, at this period, more modest and simple, and therefore more impressive, than the figurative and bombastic style which he afterward used in his bulletins. His self-opinion, perhaps, was not risen so high as to permit him to use the sesquipedalian words and violent metaphors, to which he afterward seems to have given a preference. We may remark also, that the young victor was honorably anxious to secure for such officers as distinguished themselves the preferment which their services entitled them to. He urges the promotion of his brethren-in-arms in almost every one of his despatches--a conduct not only just and generous, but also highly politic. Were his recommendations successful, their General had the gratitude due for the benefit; were they overlooked, thanks equally belonged to him for his good wishes, and the resentment for the slight attached itself to the Government who did not give effect to them.

OVERTHROW OF THE MAMELUKES

THE BATTLE OF THE NILE

A.D. 1798

CHARLES KNIGHT

Napoleon's Italian victories forced even Austria to seek
peace and acquiesce in the extension of the French Republic
to the Rhine and over a considerable part of Italy. The
Continent was for a moment at peace, only England remaining
in open hostility to France. A great invasion was planned to
subdue the island kingdom, but Britain felt secure in the
power of her ships which had repeatedly defeated those of
France, Spain, and Holland.

The French Government, which had gradually gathered a strong
fleet on the Mediterranean, now at Bonaparte's urgency
undertook what has often been regarded as the rather
visionary attempt of conquering Egypt, perhaps expecting to
extend French power over all Asia and so destroy British
trade, the source of Britain's wealth. Egypt was nominally
subject to Turkey, but was really ruled by the Mamelukes, an
aristocracy of soldiers who had held the land for centuries.

Nelson, the English admiral, despatched to discover and
defeat the French fleet, is England's greatest naval hero.
He had already won renown as second in command in an
important victory over the Spaniards off Cape St. Vincent.
The Battle of the Nile was the first of his three most
celebrated achievements, the others being the defeat of the
Danes at Copenhagen[46] and then the final destruction of
the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar.

Bonaparte with great difficulty persuaded the Directory to postpone their scheme for the invasion of the British Islands, and to permit him to embark an army for Egypt, the possession of which country, he maintained, would open to France the commerce of the East, and prepare the way for the conquest of India. Having subdued Egypt, he would return before another winter to plant the tricolor on the Tower of London. In April, Bonaparte was appointed general-in-chief of the Army of the East. The secret had been well kept.

The French fleet under Admiral Brueys was in the harbor of Toulon, ready to sail upon its secret destination. Something different from the invasion of England was in contemplation; for on board the admiral's ship, L'Orient, were a hundred literary men and artists, mathematicians and naturalists, who were certainly not required to enlighten the French upon the native productions or the antiquities of the British Isles. Bonaparte arrived at Toulon on May 9th, and issued one of his grandiloquent proclamations to his troops. The armament consisted of thirteen ships of the line, many frigates and corvettes, and four hundred transports. The army, which it was to carry to some unknown shore, consisted of forty thousand men. On May 19th this formidable expedition left the great French harbor of the Mediterranean.

On the day when Bonaparte arrived at Toulon, Nelson had sailed from Gibraltar, with three seventy-fours, four frigates, and a sloop, to watch the movements of the enemy. Since the most daring of British naval commanders had fought in the Battle of St. Vincent, he had lost an arm in an unsuccessful attack upon the island of Teneriffe. For some time his spirit was depressed, and he thought that a left-handed admiral could never again be useful. He had lost also his right eye, and was severely wounded in his body. But he had not lost that indomitable spirit which rose superior to wounds and weakness of constitution. He rested some time at home; and then, early in 1798, sailed in the Vanguard to join the fleet under Lord St. Vincent. The Admiralty had suggested, and Lord St. Vincent had previously determined, that a detachment of the squadron blockading the Spanish fleet should sail to the Mediterranean, under the command of Nelson. The seniors of the fleet were offended at this preference of a junior officer; and men of routine at home shrugged their shoulders, and feared, with the cold Lord Grenville, that Nelson "will do something _too_ desperate." He was not stinted in his means, being finally reenforced with ten of the best ships of St. Vincent's fleet.

The first operation of Bonaparte was the seizure of Malta. His fleet was in sight of the island on June 9th. He had other weapons than his cannon for the reduction of a place deemed impregnable. The Order of St. John of Jerusalem had held the real sovereignty of the island since 1530. These Knights of Malta, powerful at sea, had formed one of the bulwarks of Christendom against the Ottomans. They had gradually lost their warlike prowess as well at their religious austerity; and Malta, protected by its fortifications, became the seat of luxury for this last of the monastic military orders whose occupation was gone. Bonaparte had confiscated their property in Italy; and he had sent a skilful agent to the island to sow dissensions among the Knights, and thus to prepare the way for the fall of the community. There were many French knights among them, to whom the principal military commands had been intrusted by the grand master, a weak German.

Bonaparte, on June 9th, sent a demand to the grand master, that his whole fleet should be permitted to enter the great harbor for the purpose of taking in water. The reply was that, according to the rules of the Order, only two ships, or at most four, could be allowed to enter the port at one time. The answer was interpreted as equivalent to a declaration of hostility; and Bonaparte issued orders that the army should disembark the next morning on the coasts of the island wherever a landing could be effected. The island was taken almost without opposition; the French Knights declaring that they would not fight against their countrymen. On June 13th, the French were put in possession of La Valletta and the surrounding forts. Bonaparte made all sorts of promises of compensation to the recreant Knights, which the Directory were not very careful to keep. He landed to examine his prize, when General Caffarelli, who accompanied him, said, "We are very lucky that there was somebody in the place to open the doors for us."

Leaving a garrison to occupy the new possession, the French sailed away on the 20th, with all the gold and silver of the treasury, and all the plate of the churches and religious houses. "The essential point now," says Thiers, "was not to encounter the English fleet"; nevertheless, he adds, "nobody was afraid of the encounter." Nelson was at Naples on the day when Bonaparte quitted Malta. He immediately sailed. On the 22d, at night, the two fleets crossed each other's track unperceived, between Cape Mesurado and the mouth of the Adriatic. The frigates of the British fleet had been separated from the main body, and thus Nelson had no certain intelligence. His sagacity made him conjecture that the destination of the armament was Egypt. He made the most direct course to Alexandria, which he reached on the 28th. No enemy was there, and no tidings could be obtained of them. On the morning of July 1st, Admiral Brueys was off the same port, and learned that Nelson had sailed away in search of him. Bonaparte demanded that he should be landed at some distance from Alexandria, for preparations appeared for the defence of the ancient city. As he and several thousand troops who followed him reached the shore in boats, a vessel appeared in sight, and the cry went forth that it was an English sail. "Fortune," he exclaimed, "dost thou abandon me? Give me only five days!" A French frigate was the cause of the momentary alarm. Nelson had returned to Sicily.

The Sultan was at peace with France; a French minister was at Constantinople. Such trifling formalities in the laws of nations were little respected by the man who told his soldiers that "the genius of Liberty having rendered the Republic the arbiter of Europe, had assigned to her the same power over the seas and over the most distant nations." Four thousand of the French army were landed, and marched in three columns to the attack of Alexandria. It was quickly taken by assault. Bonaparte announced that he came neither to ravage the country nor to question the authority of the Grand Seignior, but to put down the domination of the Mamelukes, who tyrannized over the people by the authority of the beys. He proclaimed to the population of Egypt, in magnificent language that he caused to be translated into Arabic, that he came not to destroy their religion. We Frenchmen are true Mussulmans. Have not we destroyed the pope, who called upon Europe to make war upon Mussulmans? Have not we destroyed the Knights of Malta, because these madmen believed that God had called them to make war upon Mussulmans?

Leaving a garrison of three thousand men in Alexandria, the main army commenced its march to Cairo. Bonaparte was anxious to arrive there before the periodical inundation of the Nile. The fleet of Brueys remained at anchor in the road of Abukir. Bonaparte chose the shorter route to Cairo through the desert of Damanhour, leading thirty thousand men--to each of whom he had promised to grant seven acres of fertile land in the conquered territories--through plains of sand without a drop of water. They murmured, and almost mutinied, but they endured, and at length reached the banks of the Nile, at Rahmaniyeh, where a flotilla, laden with provisions, baggage, and artillery, awaited them. The Mamelukes, with Amurath Bey at their head, were around the French. The invaders had to fight with enemies who came upon them in detachments, gave a fierce assault, and then fled. As they approached the great Pyramids of Gizeh, they found an enemy more formidable than these scattered bands. Amurath Bey was encamped with twelve thousand Mamelukes and eight thousand mounted Bedouins, on the west bank of the Nile, and opposite Cairo.

The French looked upon the great entrepot, where the soldiers expected to find the gorgeous palaces and the rich bazaars of which some had read in Galland's _Arabian Nights_, whose tales they had recounted to their comrades on their dreary march under a burning sun. They had to sustain the attack of Amurath and his Mamelukes, who came upon them with the fury of a tempest. In the East, Bonaparte was ever in his altitudes; and he now pointed to the Pyramids, and exclaimed to his soldiers, "Forty centuries look down upon you." The chief attack of the Mamelukes was upon a square which Desaix commanded. In spite of the desperate courage of this formidable cavalry, the steadiness of the disciplined soldiery of the army of Italy repelled every assault; and after a tremendous loss Amurath Bey retreated toward Upper Egypt. His intrenched camp was forced, amid a fearful carnage. The conquerors had no difficulty in obtaining possession of Cairo.

Ibrahim Bey evacuated the city, which on July 25th Bonaparte entered. His policy now was to conciliate the people instead of oppressing them. He addressed himself to the principal sheiks, and obtained from them a declaration in favor of the French. It went forth with the same authority among the Mussulmans as a brief of the pope addressed to Roman Catholics. In the grand mosque a litany was sung to the glory of "the Favorite of Victory, who at the head of the valiant of the West has destroyed the infantry and the horse of the Mamelukes." A few weeks later "the Favorite of Victory" was seated in the grand mosque at the "Feast of the Prophets," sitting cross-legged as he repeated the words of the _Koran_, and edifying the sacred college by his piety.

From the beginning to the end of July, Mr. Pitt was waiting with anxious expectation for news from the Mediterranean. During this suspense he wrote to the Speaker that he "could not be quite sure of keeping any engagement he might make." It was not till September 26th that the English Government knew the actual result of the toils and disappointments to which Nelson had been subjected. When it was known in England that he had been to Egypt and had returned to Sicily, the journalists talked of naval mismanagement; and worn out captains who were hanging about the Admiralty asking for employment marvelled at the rashness of Lord St. Vincent in sending so young a commander upon so great an enterprise.

The Neapolitan Ministry, dreading to offend the French Directory, refused Nelson the supplies of provision and water which he required before he again started in pursuit of the fleet which "Caesar and his fortune bare at once." Sir William Hamilton was our minister at Naples; his wife was the favorite of the Queen of Naples, and one of the most attractive of the ladies of that luxurious court. Nelson had a slight acquaintance with Lady Hamilton; and upon his representations of the urgent necessity for victualling his fleet, secret instructions were given that he should be supplied with all he required. In 1805 Nelson requested Mr. Rose to urge upon Mr. Pitt the claims of Lady Hamilton upon the national gratitude, because "it was through her interposition, exclusively, he obtained provisions and water for the English ships at Syracuse, in the summer of 1798; by which he was enabled to return to Egypt in quest of the enemy's fleet; to which, therefore, the success of his brilliant action of the Nile was owing, as he must otherwise have gone down to Gibraltar to refit, and the enemy would have escaped."

On July 25th Nelson sailed from Syracuse. It was three days before he gained any intelligence of the French fleet, and he then learned that they had been seen about four weeks before, steering to the southeast from Candia. He was again convinced that their destination was Egypt; and he made all sail for Alexandria. On August 1st he beheld the tricolored flag flying upon its walls. His anxiety was at an end. For a week he had scarcely taken food or slept. The signal was made for the enemy's fleet; and he now ordered dinner to be served, and when his officers rose to prepare for battle he exclaimed that before the morrow his fate would be a peerage or Westminster Abbey.

The fleet of Admiral Brueys was at anchor in the bay Abukir. The transports and other small vessels were within the harbor. Bonaparte told O'Meara that he had sent an officer from Cairo with peremptory orders that Brueys should enter the harbor, but that the officer was killed by the Arabs on the way. Brueys had taken measures to ascertain the practicability of entering the harbor with his larger ships, and had found that the depth of water was insufficient. He was unwilling to sail away to Corfu--as Bonaparte affirmed that he had ordered him to do if to enter the harbor were impracticable--until he knew that the army was securely established at Cairo. The French Admiral moored his fleet in what he judged the best position; a position described by Nelson himself as "a strong line of battle for defending the entrance of the bay (of shoals), flanked by numerous gunboats, four frigates, and a battery of guns and mortars."

The French ships were placed "at a distance from each other of about a hundred sixty yards, with the van-ship close to a shoal in the northwest, and the whole of the line just outside a four-fathom sand-bank; so that an enemy, it was considered, could not turn either flank." Nelson, with the rapidity of genius, at once grasped this plan of attack. Where there was room for a French ship to swing, there was room for an English ship to anchor. He would place half his ships on the inner side of the French line, and half on the outer side. The number of ships in the two fleets was nearly equal, but four of the French were of larger size. At 3 P.M. the British squadron was approaching the bay, with a manifest intention of giving battle. Admiral Brueys had thought that the attack would be deferred to the next morning. Nelson had no intention of permitting the enemy to weigh anchor and get to sea in the darkness.

By six o'clock Nelson's line was formed, without any precise regard to the succession of the vessels according to established forms. The shoal at the western extremity of the bay was rounded by eleven of the British squadron. The Goliath led the way, and when her commander, Foley, reached the enemy's van, he steered between the outermost ship and the shoal. The Zealous--Captain Hood--instantly followed. At twenty minutes past six the two van-ships of the French opened their fire upon these vessels, but they were soon disabled. Four other British ships also took their stations inside the French line. Nelson, in the Vanguard, followed by five of his seventy-fours, anchored on the outer side of the enemy. Nine of the French fleet were thus placed between the two fires of eleven of the British ships. The Leander had not been engaged, having been occupied in the endeavor to assist the Culloden, which, coming up after dark, ran aground.

Before the sun went down the shore was crowded with the people of the country gazing upon this terrible conflict. When darkness fell, the flashes of the guns faintly indicated the positions of the contending fleets. Each British ship was ordered to carry four lanterns at her mizzen-peak, and these were lighted at seven o'clock. Each ship also went into action with the white ensign of St. George, of which the red cross in the centre rendered it easily distinguishable in the darkest night at sea. But there was another illumination, more awful than the flashes of two thousand cannon, which was that night to strike unwonted dismay into the bravest of the combatants of either nation. Five of the French ships had surrendered. The Vanguard had been engaged with the Spartiate and the Aquilon. Her loss was severe.

A splinter had struck Nelson on the head, cutting a large piece of the flesh and skin from the forehead, which fell over his remaining eye. He was carried down to the cockpit, and the effusion of blood being very great, his wound was held to be dangerous, if not mortal, by the anxious shipmates around him. He was carried where his men were also carried, without regard to rank, to be tended by the busy surgeons. These left their wounded to bestow their care on the first man of the fleet. "No," said Nelson, "I will take my turn with my brave fellows." Sidney, in the field of Zuetphen, taking the cup of water from his lips to give to the dying soldier, with the memorable words, "This man's necessity is more than mine," was a parallel example of heroism. The Admiral did wait his turn; and meanwhile, in the belief that his career was ended, called to his chaplain to deliver a last token of affection to his wife. The wound was found to be superficial. He was carried to his cabin, and left alone, amid the din of the battle.

Suddenly the cry was heard that L'Orient, the French flagship of one hundred twenty guns, was on fire. Nelson groped his way to the deck, to the astonishment of the crew, who heard their beloved commander giving his orders that the boats should be lowered to proceed to the help of the burning vessel. The Bellerophon had been overpowered by the weight of metal of L'Orient, and had lost her masts. The Swiftsure had also been engaged with this formidable vessel. Both had maintained an unremitting fire upon the French flagship. Admiral Brueys had fallen, and had died the death of a brave man on his deck. The ship was in flames; at ten o'clock she blew up, the conflagration having lasted for nearly an hour. When the explosion came, there was an awful silence. For ten minutes not a gun was fired on either side. The instinct of self-preservation, as well as the sudden awe on this sublime event, produced this pause in the battle.

Some of the French, endeavoring to get out of the vicinity of the burning wreck, had slipped their cables. The nearest of the English took every precaution to prevent the combustible materials doing them injury. The shock of the explosion shook the Alexander, Swiftsure, and Orion to their kelsons and materially injured them. None of the British ships, however, took fire. About seventy only of the crew of L'Orient were saved by the English boats. The battle was resumed by the French ship, the Franklin; and it went on, at intervals, till daybreak. The contest was sustained by four French line-of-battle ships, and four of the English. Finally, two of the French line-of-battle ships and two frigates escaped. Of thirteen sail of the line, nine were taken, two were burned. Of the British, about nine hundred men were killed and wounded. No accurate account was obtained of the French loss. The estimate which represented that loss at five thousand was evidently exaggerated. About three thousand French prisoners were sent on shore. Kleber, the French general, wrote to Napoleon, "The English have had the disinterestedness to restore everything to their prisoners."

After the victory of the Nile, Nelson returned to Naples. He required rest; and in the ease and luxury, the flattery and the honors which there awaited him, he forgot his quiet home, and after a time was involved in public acts which reflect discredit upon his previously spotless name. At Palermo, Lord Cochrane had opportunities of conversation with him. He says, "To one of his frequent injunctions, 'Never mind manoeuvres, always go at them,' I subsequently had reason to consider myself indebted for successful attacks under apparently difficult circumstances." Cochrane considered Nelson "an embodiment of dashing courage, which would not take much trouble to circumvent an enemy, but being confronted with one would regard victory so much a matter of course as hardly to deem the chance of defeat worth consideration." This opinion is borne out by a letter which Nelson wrote to his old friend, Admiral Locker, from Palermo: "It is you who always said, 'Lay a Frenchman close and you will beat him'; and my only merit in my profession is being a good scholar." Nelson was himself a master who made many good scholars.

M. Thiers, having described the great naval battle of Abukir with tolerable fairness, admits that it was the most disastrous that the French navy had yet experienced--one from which the most fatal military consequences might be apprehended. The news of the disaster caused a momentary despair in the French army. Bonaparte received the intelligence with calmness. "Well," he exclaimed, "we must die here; or go forth, great, as were the ancients." He wrote to Kleber, "We must do great things"; and Kleber replied, "Yes, we must do great things: I prepare my faculties." It would have been fortunate for the fame of Bonaparte, if he had abstained from doing some of "the great things" which he accomplished while he remained in the East.

The victory of Nelson formed the great subject of congratulation in the royal speech, when the session was opened on November 20th. "By this great and brilliant victory, an enterprise of which the injustice, perfidy, and extravagance had fixed the attention of the world, and was peculiarly directed against some of the most valuable interests of the British Empire, has, in the first instance, been turned to the confusion of its authors."

FOOTNOTES:

[46] The "Battle of the Baltic," April 2, 1801.--ED.

JENNER INTRODUCES VACCINATION

A.D. 1798

SIR THOMAS J. PETTIGREW

In the advance of medical science no more famous discovery
has been made than that of vaccination, that is, inoculation
with the modified virus of a disease, thereby causing a mild
form of it, in order to prevent a virulent attack. This
treatment has in recent years been applied by the use of
various serums and antitoxins against different diseases;
but, originally and specifically, vaccination, as now
understood, is inoculation with cowpox for the prevention of
smallpox.

Jenner's work in connection with the modern introduction of
this practice is fully described in the following pages. In
a more primitive manner inoculation against smallpox was
practised many centuries ago in India, China, and other
lands. The first modern accounts of it are said to have been
given by a Turkish physician in 1714. In England it was
first actually employed through the efforts of Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu, who (1716-1718) had observed it in
Constantinople, and there seen her son inoculated. The
practice soon spread through Western Europe and to North
America.

Jenner's discoveries and demonstrations as to the specific
value of the vaccine virus of cowpox, which led to the
modern methods of vaccination for prevention of smallpox,
proved of such efficacy and importance that the whole credit
for this service to medical science has been popularly given
to him. But among the intelligent it detracts nothing from
his just fame to make due acknowledgment of previous work
along similar lines.

There have always been some, since Jenner's time, and are
still considerable numbers of people in different countries,
strongly opposed to vaccination for smallpox, on the ground
of what they deem its unscientific and dangerous nature. But
the vast majority of medical practitioners, and of the world
at large, are convinced of its vital benefits, and in
several countries vaccination is made compulsory by the
State.

Edward Jenner was born on May 17, 1749. He was a native of Berkeley in Gloucestershire, England. His father was the vicar of this place, and his mother was descended from an ancient family in Berkshire. In early life Jenner was deprived of his father, and the direction of his education devolved upon an elder brother, the Rev. Stephen Jenner. He attained a respectable proficiency in the classics, and his taste for natural history manifested an early development; for, at the age of nine, he had made a collection of the nests of the dormouse, and he employed the hours usually devoted by boys to play, in searching for fossils in the neighborhood. "No childish play to him was pleasing."

Intended for the medical profession, Jenner was apprenticed to Daniel Ludlow, of Sodbury, near Bristol, to acquire a knowledge of surgery and pharmacy; and, after the period of his apprenticeship had expired in 1770, he went to London to complete his professional studies, and was a student at St. George's Hospital, and a resident, for two years, in the family of the celebrated John Hunter. The similarity of their tastes and spirit of research will render it a matter of no surprise that he should become a most favorite pupil. That this was the case in an eminent degree the correspondence which was maintained between the two great physiologists sufficiently proves. "There was in both a directness and plainness of conduct, an unquestionable desire of knowledge, and a congenial love of truth."