Chapter IX: More Paladins

WHEN the Marshalate was inaugurated, the first list afforded many opportunities for dissatisfaction, both among those included and those excluded.

Men like Macdonald and St. Cyr, of high reputation and undoubted talents, found themselves ignored for political reasons, while giants of the Republican armies like Masséna found that Napoleon’s family feeling had given comparatively unknown men like Murat seniority over them. Masséna’s curt reply to congratulations on his new appointment was “Yes, one of fourteen,” and it must indeed have been galling to him to have Bessières, Moncey and other nonentities raised to a rank equal to his own.

For in 1804 Masséna towered in achievement head and shoulders above all other French soldiers, with the exception of Napoleon. He was of Italian extraction (many people said Jewish-Italian, and hinted that Masséna was a euphonized version of Manasseh), and he had served fourteen years in Louis XVI.’s regiment of Italian mercenaries. Quitting the army, he had plunged into the various shady employments of the Côte d’Azur. Smuggling by land and by sea, coast trading, wine-dealing, fruit-selling, he tried his hand at them all, mainly successfully.

But with the revolution came his chance. In two years he was general of division, and he actually had under his orders at Toulon a certain Napoleon Bonaparte. For two campaigns Masséna was the life and soul of the army of the Riviera; Dumerbion, Schérer, and even Moreau turned to him for counsel. Then suddenly Barras sent Napoleon as commander-in-chief in 1796. It is perhaps the greatest tribute to Napoleon’s personality that as a young man of twenty-six he was able to compel obedience from a crowd of generals, many years his senior both in age and experience. Masséna yielded place to him grudgingly, but Napoleon found a golden salve for his injured amour-propre. The campaign of Italy laid the foundations of the enormous fortune which Masséna later built up. Every general pillaged and peculated right and left in those two memorable years. Napoleon himself was moderate; his fortune at the end of 1797 only amounted to about two hundred thousand pounds sterling; Masséna and Augereau acquired about half a million each.

But if they could steal, these men could also fight. Masséna was the supreme master of tactics, and it was his division which at that time was given the most difficult tasks. Battle followed battle, Montenotte, Mondovi, Lodi, Lonato, Castiglione, Mantua, Arcola, Rivoli, until at last Austria succumbed; and by that time, what with gold and glory, the generals of the army of Italy were Napoleon’s slaves.

Napoleon had served another purpose, too, in enriching Masséna, for his wealth kept him quiet while Napoleon was in Egypt. In 1798 the Directory made a curious blunder. Their army of Rome, maddened by the peculations of generals and commissaries, which left the men half starved and in rags, broke out into mutiny. The man who was sent to quell them was Masséna! The mutiny naturally redoubled in intensity, and Masséna was compelled to give up his command. But at once more congenial work was given him. Another coalition had declared war upon France, and the Archduke Charles in Germany and Suvaroff in Italy were gaining success after success. Masséna was sent to command in Switzerland, the last buttress of France. Upon him depended all the hopes of the Republic, and well he justified the Republic’s confidence. He clung on desperately, holding back immensely superior numbers. At last the Aulic Council at Vienna blundered more badly than usual, and Masséna grasped at the opportunity, as if it had been a moneybag. He flung himself upon Korsakoff at Zürich, and practically destroyed his army. Suvaroff, marching over the St. Gotthard, only escaped the same fate by a desperate march along the wildest paths of Switzerland. France was saved in the same hour as Napoleon seized the reins of the Government.

By varied cajolery Napoleon next prevailed upon Masséna to take command of the army of Italy, and to hold back the Austrian army while he himself organized the army of reserve. Napoleon had assured Masséna that the army of Italy was in good condition, and that supplies and reinforcements would be sent him in abundance, but as soon as Masséna arrived he found how little trust could be placed in the First Consul’s word. The men were starving and dispirited, and they were attacked by vastly superior forces. Somehow Masséna held them together, but he was forced back into Genoa and closely besieged. For the troops there was some sort of food, hair-powder and cocoa mainly, but for the inhabitants there was—_nothing_. For nine weeks Masséna held out. The troops died in hundreds by the sword, by disease, by starvation; the inhabitants died in thousands, and their bodies littered the streets. The Austrian prisoners who were taken starved to death in the hulks in the harbour. No wonder that Masséna said that after the siege he had not one hair left which was not white on his whole body.

At last surrender was necessary. Napoleon had promised him prompt relief, but the relief never came. Day by day Masséna had listened for the thunder of his guns in the near-by Apennines, but it had never reached his ears. The capitulation was signed, and the French marched out. But while Masséna had been clinging to Genoa, Napoleon’s army was swinging over the Alps. Ten days after the surrender of Genoa, Marengo gave Italy once more to the French.

To Masséna, covered with glory, Napoleon gave the command of the army of Italy on his own return to Paris; but the arrangement did not long endure. Within two months Masséna’s avarice had got the better of him, and he was removed from his command and placed upon half-pay on account of his sharp practice.

This retirement endured for four years, but in the Austerlitz campaign Masséna received the command-in-chief in Italy. If he accomplished little here, at least he prevented the enemy from achieving any success, and after Austerlitz and the treaty of Presburg he was sent to conquer Naples for Joseph Bonaparte. The campaign was a mere military promenade, but it ended, as did so many of Masséna’s commands, in his compulsory resignation on account of his illicit money-making. On this occasion Napoleon improved on his previous practice, and confiscated over a hundred thousand pounds which Masséna had accumulated in a Livornese bank.

Once again Napoleon summoned Masséna to his aid in 1807, and at Pultusk and Friedland Masséna divided the laurels with Lannes and Ney. But it was the Wagram campaign which brought him the greatest glory, as it did also to Davout. At Eckmühl Masséna performed the turning movement which gained the victory after Davout’s holding attack. At Essling it was Masséna who held the reeling French line together until darkness brought relief. At Wagram Masséna, crippled just before by a fall from his horse, led his corps in a coach drawn by white horses, the mark for all the enemy’s guns. Small wonder was it that the end of the campaign found Masséna both Duke of Rivoli and Prince of Essling, with a pension of twenty thousand pounds a year in addition to his pay, his perquisites and his enormous savings.

But this was the zenith of Masséna’s fame; it was to reach its nadir immediately afterwards. Masséna had lived hard all his life; he had spared himself no more than he had spared his men, and in addition he had at intervals indulged in unbridled debauchery. By 1810 Masséna was an old, worn-out, satiated man, although he was only fifty-five years of age. All he wished to do was to retire and live in peace, but Napoleon was at his wits’ end to find someone who could be trusted in Spain. Masséna found the command thrust upon him, and he was forced to accept. Then followed the blundering campaign of Torres Vedras. Blunders in the choice of route, blunders in the attack at Busaco, blunders at Torres Vedras, and finally, in 1811, the crowning blunder of Fuentes d’Onoro.

These blunders might have been foreseen; Masséna was old and feeble; he knew nothing of Spain; he took women with him on the campaign; his corps commanders were Ney, Junot and Reynier, all men of hot temper and inferior talent; while opposed to him was the inflexible Wellington with his incomparable English infantry.

In March, 1811, Masséna was removed from his command. He crept miserably away, to bury his shame in the retirement of the Marseilles command. From that time forward his one aim was to enjoy his riches in comfort; he made submission to the Bourbons, and then reverted to Napoleon in 1815; after Waterloo he went back to the Bourbons.

But though he retained his wealth and his rank, there was yet further trouble awaiting him. His treason in 1815 had not been sufficiently extensive in that age of treason for him to suffer any penalty, and Louis XVIII., like the most humane Mikado, determined to make the punishment fit the crime as far as possible by appointing him one of Ney’s judges. Masséna must have had a guilty conscience, and the horror of having to condemn his former colleague for the same crime as his own weighed heavily on him. At the same time the atrocious murder of his friend and fellow Marshal Brune during the White Terror at Avignon was a further blow. Tortured by remorse, hated by all parties alike, worn out with a life lived at high pressure, Masséna died in 1817 at the age of fifty-nine.

Masséna and Davout were the two foremost officers of Napoleon; the great contrast between them is due to the fact that one of them was guided by a strict sense of duty, the other merely by avarice.

There was another Marshal who is frequently considered to be at least the equal of these two, and the fact that he is so considered is peculiarly illustrative of his whole career, for Soult was for ever thrusting himself into the limelight and being elbowed out of it. Like many of the other Marshals, he rose from the ranks of the old regular army, and he first attained high rank by attracting Masséna’s attention. He was second-in-command to that Marshal during the siege of Genoa, until he was taken prisoner during a sortie. He received his Marshalate in 1804, at a time when he was commanding a corps of the army at Boulogne, and he continued in command during the historic march to the Danube. At Austerlitz he was in command of the centre, and all his life he considered that the battle was won mainly by himself. He ignored Davout’s splendid defence of the lake defiles, Murat’s wonderful handling of the cavalry reserve, Lannes’ management of the left, and Bernadotte’s assault of the centre; he, and he alone, he said, was responsible for Austerlitz. He was greatly disappointed when he was created Duke of Dalmatia in 1808; he claimed that the only fitting title for him was Duke of Austerlitz. Napoleon ignored his pleadings.

Soult fought at Jena, Eylau and Friedland, 1806-1807, and was then sent to Spain. To him was entrusted the pursuit of Sir John Moore to Corunna, and it cannot be denied that he failed in his mission. Moore was never seriously engaged throughout the retreat, and when finally Soult caught him up at Corunna he was easily beaten back, despite his superior numbers. But for all that Soult had the impertinence to claim a victory.

To him next was assigned the conquest of Portugal; all he conquered was the northern extremity; he was two months late in his arrival at Oporto, and once there he settled down and would not budge. The reason for this delay soon emerged. Soult was scheming for the crown of Portugal. But the plan evaporated promptly when Wellington unexpectedly passed the Douro, surprised Soult in his cantonments and bundled him out of Portugal, compelling him to abandon his guns, his train, his treasure, his sick—everything, in fact, except what was on his men’s backs.

Had Wellington ever suffered a similar reverse he would probably have received the same treatment as did Admiral Byng fifty years before, but Napoleon was lenient and retained Soult in command. The new task assigned to him was the conquest of Andalusia, and against the wretched Spanish armies he achieved some remarkable successes. Seville and Granada fell before him; and he quietly proceeded to establish himself firmly and make his fortune. He looted cathedrals and treasuries, and sent the proceeds home. He ignored the Government of Madrid, and conducted himself like an independent and absolute monarch. Cadiz defied him, and all the efforts of his subordinate, Victor, Duke of Belluno, could not gain the place for him.

Masséna, held up at Torres Vedras by Wellington, with his army starving and disorganized, appealed to Soult for help. It was grudgingly given—too late. By the time Soult was ready to move upon the Tagus Masséna had already fallen back, utterly ruined. Soult was eventually stirred to action by Beresford’s siege of Badajoz, but he met with an unexpected reverse at Albuera (which, characteristically, he claimed as a victory), and after that he was content to hold on to Andalusia until at last Wellington’s victory at Salamanca and capture of Madrid compelled him to abandon his conquests. So exasperated was Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain, by Soult’s independence that he demanded Soult’s recall, threatening abdication in the event of refusal. Napoleon complied, and during the beginning of 1813 Soult commanded the Guard in Germany, but after Vittoria he was sent back to try and keep the English out of France.

It was during this campaign of the Pyrenees that Soult’s talents were exhibited at their best, but even here he failed. His manœuvres, concentrations and determined counter-attacks are models of technical skill, but the fire, resolution and insight of greater generals are sadly lacking. He certainly delayed Wellington, and achieved a fair success considering the means at his disposal, but he was beaten back across the Pyrenees, back from Bayonne, from Orthez, and at last from Toulouse. Napoleon’s abdication found Soult’s army rapidly disintegrating, and it is certain that the Duke of Dalmatia could not have continued the struggle much longer.

In 1814 and 1815 Soult conducted himself as might have been expected of a self-seeker. He submitted to the Bourbons, but went over to Napoleon as soon as the Emperor was on the throne after the descent from Elba.

Napoleon appointed him chief of staff during the Waterloo campaign. The choice was unfortunate in the event, but it is difficult to see what other course the Emperor could have pursued. Of the five Marshals fit for service of whom Napoleon could dispose, Davout had to be left to hold down Paris, and Suchet had to guard the south. Ney was obviously useless for staff work, and Grouchy had neither the brains nor the prestige for a position of such vital responsibility. So Soult took charge of the staff, and the staff work was badly done. Blunders were committed even in the orders given for the crossing of the Sambre, and subsequently delay followed delay and error followed error in fatal sequence. Ney, d’Erlon and Grouchy were in turn misled by ambiguous orders. The responsibility for the failure of Waterloo is undoubtedly partly Soult’s.

Naturally enough, Soult was proscribed after the second Restoration, but after four years’ exile, he managed to ingratiate himself with the Bourbons, and climbed steadily back to power by the aid of hypocrisy and tuft-hunting. The July revolution brought him further power, and he was one of the main props of Louis Philippe’s authority. In fact the citizen king thought so much of him that he made Soult Marshal-General of France, thus placing him on a level with Saxe and Turenne. He lived to the venerable age of eighty-one, and died at last rich and honoured above all the other soldiers of France. His reputation grew steadily after the wars were over, partly on account of Napier’s liking for him, partly on account of the natural tendency displayed by the English to over-value a beaten antagonist, and partly on account of his own deft powers of self-advertisement. His career is a striking example of the success of cold, self-contained mediocrity.

There is only one other Marshal of Napoleon for whom any claims to greatness have been made, and that is Suchet, Duke of Albufera. One of the most interesting points about his career is that he had no military training whatever before the Revolution. As a young man of twenty-three years of age he enlisted; at twenty-five he was a colonel. He made friends with the young Bonaparte at the siege of Toulon, and later fought in the Italian campaign of 1796, gaining command of a brigade in 1797.

With the rank of general of division he served Masséna and Joubert, and while Masséna held Genoa in 1800 Suchet guarded the frontiers of France itself on the Var.

But for eight years longer Suchet had to be content with the rank of a mere divisional commander, leading a division of Lannes’ corps at Austerlitz, Jena and Friedland. At last the wholesale toppling of reputations in the Spanish war brought him his chance, and he received command of the army of Aragon. To say the least, at first his position was rather awkward. His army was composed of raw troops, shaken by the horrors of the siege of Saragossa; the Spaniards were in arms against him on all sides; he was compelled by the neglect of the Paris Government to live on the country; while to crown it all he was expected to obey not only the orders from Paris but also the frequently contradictory ones from Joseph at Madrid.

We must give Suchet credit for coming through the ordeal exceedingly well. After an “unfortunate incident” at Alcaniz, Suchet got his men well in hand, and, by victories at Maria and Belchite, he cleared Aragon of the enemy and proceeded to subdue Catalonia. His way was barred in every direction by fortresses, but, thanks partly to the folly of the Spaniards and partly to his own resolution and determination, he conquered the country inch by inch. Somewhat cynically, in his memoirs, he tells us that at the storming of Lerida he took care to drive as many women and children as possible into the citadel, and then by a vigorous bombardment he so daunted the garrison that they surrendered. To what total the casualties among the women and children amounted before the surrender he does not say.

Catalonia in his power, Suchet moved on to the reduction of Valencia. His previous campaigns repeated themselves. Battle followed siege, and siege followed battle, until at last Suchet ruled all Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia. Soult had already conquered Andalusia, so that all Spain might, by straining the truth a little, be said to be in the hands of the French. For his achievements Suchet received a Marshal’s bâton, the title of Duke of Albufera and half a million francs.

However, he was not fated to retain his conquests long. Wellington’s victory at Vittoria in 1813 brought about Suchet’s evacuation of Valencia, just as Salamanca had caused Soult to abandon Andalusia.

The same year an Anglo-Sicilian expedition under Murray landed in Catalonia, and once more set aflame the embers of the guerilla warfare. Suchet himself, in action against unwontedly disciplined enemies, met with a serious reverse at Castalla, but Murray was too much of a nincompoop to follow up his success. In the end Murray once more took ship, and Suchet still held Catalonia and most of Aragon. At this time he had a great opportunity to turn against Wellington, who had his hands full with Soult’s offensive in the Pyrenees, but he let the chance go. Immediately afterwards Lord William Bentinck, who had succeeded to Sir John Murray, kept him busy until the fall of the Empire. Soult’s and Napoleon’s demands had deprived Suchet of his best troops, and he did all that could be expected of him with the few men left to him.

In 1814 Suchet submitted to the Bourbons; in 1815 he betrayed them. During the Hundred Days he was ordered to secure the south-east with a few thousand men, and though unsuccessful, he accomplished much. After the Restoration the Bourbons refused to re-employ him.

Napoleon is credited with saying that Suchet was the best of his Marshals after Masséna’s decay, and also that with two men like Suchet he would have held Spain against all endeavours. If Napoleon really did say this (and O’Meara’s testimony is untrustworthy) Napoleon was wrong. The only time Suchet encountered English troops he was beaten; he was just as selfish and self-seeking as the other Marshals in Spain; he refused help whenever he could; and his success was due in a great part to the blunders of his opponents. Every French general and Marshal (Dupont excepted) succeeded against Spaniards; it was only against the English that they failed. Napoleon might just as well have said that Bessières was his best Marshal, because Bessières beat the Spaniards at Rio Seco while Masséna failed at Torres Vedras.

The one Marshal of Napoleon’s whose career is more interesting in its pre-Revolutionary stages than under Napoleon is Augereau, Duke of Castiglione. He was a gigantic, swaggering fellow with a nose rendered brilliant by alcohol, devil-may-care and reckless, the ideal soldier of fortune. For he was a soldier of fortune. As a young man in the army of Louis XVI. he had killed one of his own officers on parade, and fled from the country with the police at his heels. In exile, he wandered through the East, joined the Russian army, took part in the storming of Ismail under Suvaroff, and then deserted. Next he joined the Prussian army, and served in the Prussian Guard, but once more he deserted. Desertion from the Prussian army was a difficult matter, but Augereau achieved it by banding together all the malcontents and fighting his way to the frontier.

On the birth of the Dauphin (later the unhappy Louis XVII.) an amnesty was proclaimed in France, and Augereau took advantage of it to rejoin his old regiment, but once more tired of continuous service and got himself sent off to Naples as an instructor to the Neapolitan troops. From Naples he eloped with a Greek heiress to Lisbon, and in Lisbon he annoyed the Inquisition, so that he was put in prison.

But still his luck held. He escaped from the clutches of the Holy Office, and arrived with his wife in France just after the execution of Louis XVI. His varied military experience naturally obtained him high command in the Republican army; he fought in La Vendée and in the Pyrenees, and then found himself a divisional general under Napoleon in 1796. In this campaign his reckless courage won him fame; he was one of the heroes of the bridge of Lodi, and at Castiglione it was his dashing leadership which gained the day.

Augereau received the command of the army of the Rhine after Bonaparte’s departure for Egypt, but, suspected of intriguing for the supreme power, he was dismissed from his command, and, two years later, he saw the prize fall into Napoleon’s hands. Napoleon bought Augereau’s support with huge gifts of money and, in 1804, a Marshal’s bâton.

During the Austerlitz campaign Augereau was only entrusted with the minor operation of subduing Tyrol, but he fought well at Jena in 1806. At Eylau came disaster. His corps, sent forward against the Russians in the teeth of a blinding snowstorm, lost direction, and was torn to pieces by a furious cannonade. Three-quarters of his men died; he himself, already gravely ill, was badly wounded.

Napoleon was furious. Augereau was sent home in disgrace, and what remained of the 7th Corps was broken up and distributed round the rest of the army. This was practically the end of Augereau’s military life; he held command for a brief space during the war in Spain, but he failed again at Gerona and was superseded. By now he was well over fifty years of age, and dissipation had sapped his vitality. In 1814 and 1815 Augereau received commands of minor importance, his chief duty being the training of recruits, but his heart was not in his work. He lived long enough to betray Napoleon twice and the Bourbons once, and then died in 1816.

These brief biographies are sufficient to illustrate what kind of men the Marshals and their master were. With only a few exceptions they were all traitors, from Napoleon, plotting against the constitution he had sworn to uphold, to Ney, deserting his King. They were greedy, they were unscrupulous, they were selfish. Many of them were men of second-rate talent. Two attributes they had in common—extreme personal bravery and enormous experience in war. Soult is the only Marshal about whom we find any hints of cowardice (and there seems to be no foundation for these hints), while Suchet, Mortier and Brune were the only ones who had not served in the pre-Revolutionary army. None of the Marshals was a heaven-sent genius, and only one, Davout, combined loyalty and honesty with both military and administrative ability.

There is, of course, another side to the picture. If treachery can be excused at all, then there were good excuses for the treachery of every one of the guilty ones; if their talents appear mediocre to us now, it cannot be denied that they were nevertheless highly successful for a long period; if they were self-seeking, they were always ready, despite their riches and titles, to risk their lives in action at the head of their men.

The extravagant praise often meted out collectively to Napoleon’s subordinates is undeserved, but somehow one can hardly avoid coming to the conclusion that a nation might well consider itself fortunate could it muster a similar array of men in high places.