Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 19, Dec 1851. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
different divisions of the army vied with each other in their endeavor to perform feats of the most romantic valor, and in the display of the most perfect contempt of life. In every fortress, at every mountain pass, upon every rapid stream, the Austrians made a stand to arrest the march of the conqueror. But with the footsteps of a giant, Napoleon crowded upon them, pouring an incessant storm of destruction upon their fugitive ranks. He drove the Austrians to the foot of the mountains. He pursued them up the steep acclivities. He charged the tempests of wind and smothering snow with the sound of the trumpet, and his troops exulted in waging war with combined man and the elements. Soon both pursuers and pursued stood upon the summit of the Carnic Alps. They were in the region of almost perpetual snow. The vast glaciers, which seemed memorials of eternity, spread bleak and cold around them. The clouds floated beneath their feet. The eagle wheeled and screamed as he soared over the sombre firs and pines far below on the mountain sides. Here the Austrians made a desperate stand. On the storm-washed crags of granite, behind fields of ice and drifts of snow which the French cavalry could not traverse, they sought to intrench themselves against their tireless pursuer. To retreat down the long and narrow defiles of the mountains, with the French in hot pursuit behind, hurling upon them every missile of destruction, bullets, and balls, and craggy fragments of the cliffs, was a calamity to be avoided at every hazard. Upon the summit of Mount Tarwis, the battle, decisive of this fearful question, was to be fought. It was an appropriate arena for the fell deeds of war. Wintry winds swept the bleak and icy eminence, and a clear, cold, cloudless sky canopied the two armies as, with fiend-like ferocity, they hurled themselves upon each other. The thunder of artillery reverberated above the clouds. The shout of onset and the shrieks of the wounded were heard upon eminences which even the wing of the eagle had rarely attained. Squadrons of cavalry fell upon fields of ice, and men and horses were precipitated into fathomless depths below. The snow drifts of Mount Tarwis were soon crimsoned with blood, and the warm current from human hearts congealed with the eternal glacier, and there, embalmed in ice, it long and mournfully testified of man's inhumanity to man.
The Archduke Charles, having exhausted his last reserve, was compelled to retreat. Many of the soldiers threw away their arms, and escaped over the crags of the mountains; thousands were taken prisoners; multitudes were left dead upon the ice, and half-buried in the drifts of snow. But Charles, brave and energetic, still kept the mass of his army together, and with great skill conducted his precipitate retreat. With merciless vigor the French troops pursued, pouring down upon the retreating masses a perfect storm of bullets, and rolling over the precipitous sides of the mountains huge rocks, which swept away whole companies at once. The bleeding, breathless fugitives at last arrived in the valley below. Napoleon followed close in their rear. The Alps were now passed. The French were in Austria. They heard a new language. The scenery, the houses, the customs of the inhabitants, all testified that they were no longer in Italy. They had with unparalleled audacity entered the very heart of the Austrian empire, and with unflinching resolution were marching upon the capital of twenty millions of people, behind whose ramparts, strengthened by the labor of ages, Maria Theresa had bidden defiance to the invading Turks.
Twenty days had now passed since the opening of the campaign, and the Austrians were already driven over the Alps, and having lost a fourth of their numbers in the various conflicts which had occurred, dispirited by disaster, were retreating to intrench themselves for a final struggle within the walls of Vienna. Napoleon, with 45,000 men, flushed with victory, was rapidly descending the fertile steams which flow into the Danube.
Under these triumphant circumstances Napoleon showed his humanity, and his earnest desire for peace, in dictating the following most noble letter, so characteristic of his strong and glowing intellect. It was addressed to his illustrious adversary, the Archduke Charles.
"General-in-chief. Brave soldiers, while they make war, desire peace. Has not this war already continued six years? Have we not slain enough of our fellow-men? Have we not inflicted a sufficiency of woes upon suffering humanity? It demands repose upon all sides. Europe, which took up arms against the French Republic, has laid them aside. Your nation alone remains hostile, and blood is about to flow more copiously than ever. This sixth campaign has commenced with sinister omens. Whatever may be its issue, many thousand men, on the one side and the other, must perish. And after all we must come to an accommodation, for every thing has an end, not even excepting the passion of hatred. You, general, who by birth approach so near the throne, and are above all the little passions which too often influence ministers and governments, are you resolved to deserve the title of benefactor of humanity, and of the real saviour of Austria. Do not imagine that I deny the possibility of saving Austria by the force of arms. But even in such an event your country will not be the less ravaged. As for myself, if the overture which I have the honor to make, shall be the means of saving a single life, I shall be more proud of the civic crown which I shall be conscious of having deserved, than of all the melancholy glory which military success can confer."
To these magnanimous overtures the Archduke replied: "In the duty assigned to me there is no power either to scrutinize the causes or to terminate the duration of the war, I am not invested with any authority in that respect, and therefore can not enter into any negotiation for peace."
In this most interesting correspondence, Napoleon, the plebeian general, speaks with the dignity and the authority of a sovereign; with a natural, unaffected tone of command, as if accustomed from infancy to homage and empire. The brother of the king is compelled to look upward to the pinnacle upon which transcendent abilities have placed his antagonist. The conquering Napoleon pleads for peace; but Austria hates republican liberty even more than war. Upon the rejection of these proposals the thunders of Napoleon's artillery were again heard, and over the hills and through the valleys, onward he rushed with his impetuous troops, allowing his foe no repose. At every mountain gorge, at every rapid river, the Austrians stood, and were slain. Each walled town was the scene of a sanguinary conflict, and the Austrians were often driven in the wildest confusion pell-mell with the victors through the streets. At last they approached another mountain range called the Stipian Alps. Here, at the frightful gorge of Neumarkt, a defile so gloomy and terrific that even the peaceful tourist can not pass through it unawed, Charles again made a desperate effort to arrest his pursuers. It was of no avail. Blood flowed in torrents, thousands were slain. The Austrians, encumbered with baggage-wagons and artillery, choked the narrow passages, and a scene of indescribable horror ensued. The French cavalry made most destructive charges upon the dense masses. Cannon balls plowed their way through the confused ranks, and the Austrian rear and the French van struggled, hand to hand, in the blood-red gorge. But the Austrians were swept along like withered leaves before the mountain gales. Napoleon was now at Leoben. From the eminences around the city, with the telescope, the distant spires of Vienna could be discerned. Here the victorious general halted for a day, to collect his scattered forces. Charles hurried along the great road to the capital, with the fragments of his army, striving to concentrate all the strength of the empire within those venerable and hitherto impregnable fortifications.
All was consternation in Vienna. The king, dukes, nobles, fled like deer before approaching hounds, seeking refuge in the distant wilds of Hungary. The Danube was covered with boats conveying the riches of the city and the terrified families out of the reach of danger. Among the illustrious fugitives was Maria Louisa, then a child but six years of age, flying from that dreaded Napoleon whose bride she afterward became. All the military resources of Austria were immediately called into requisition; the fortifications were repaired; the militia organized and drilled; and in the extremity of mortification and despair all the energies of the empire were roused for final resistance. Charles, to gain time, sent a flag of truce requesting a suspension of arms for twenty-four hours. Napoleon, too wary to be caught in a trap which he had recently sprung upon his foes, replied that moments were precious, and that they might fight and negotiate at the same time. Napoleon also issued to the Austrian people one of his glowing proclamations which was scattered all over the region he had overrun. He assured the people that he was their friend, that he was fighting not for conquest but for peace; that the Austrian government, bribed by British gold, was waging an unjust war against France: that the people of Austria should find in him a protector, who would respect their religion and defend them in all their rights. His deeds were in accordance with his words. The French soldiers, inspired by the example of their beloved chief, treated the unarmed Austrians as friends, and nothing was taken from them without