The Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot Part 5

It would be impossible for me to describe the joy of my companions and the praises which they heaped on me during this journey. It could be summed up in these words, which in their minds was the highest commendation, "You are truly worthy to serve in Bercheny's Hussars, the finest regiment in the world."

Meanwhile, what had been happening at Santo-Giacomo during my absence? After several hours of waiting, General Seras, impatient for news, saw some smoke on the horizon; his aide-de-camp put his ear to a drum placed on the ground, a common expedient in wartime, and heard the distant sound of gunfire. General Seras was uneasy, and having no doubt that the cavalry detachment was at grips with the enemy, he took a regiment of infantry with him as far as the inn. When he arrived there, he saw, under the cart-shelter, a Hussar's horse tied up to the rail; it was Sergeant Canon's. The inn-keeper appeared and was questioned. He replied that the sergeant of Hussars had gone no further than the inn, and had been, for several hours, in the dining room. The General went in, and what did he find but Sergeant Canon asleep by the fireside with, in front of him, an enormous ham, two empty bottles and a coffee cup! The wretched sergeant was woken up; he attempted once more to make the excuse of a sudden indisposition, but the accusing remains of the formidable meal which he had just eaten, gave the lie to his claims of illness, so General Seras was very short with him. The General's anger was increasing at the thought that a detachment of fifty cavalrymen handed over to the command of a young soldier had probably been wiped out by the enemy, when Pertelay and the two troopers who were with him arrived at the gallop to announce our victory and the approaching arrival of seventeen prisoners. As General Seras, in spite of this happy outcome, continued to berate Sergeant Canon, Pertelay said to him, in his bluff outspoken way, "Don't scold him, mon General, he's such a coward that if he'd been in charge we wouldn't have succeeded!" A remark which did nothing to improve the awkward position of Sgt. Canon, who was now placed under arrest.

I arrived in the midst of these goings-on. General Seras broke poor Sgt. Canon, and made him take off his chevrons in front of a regiment of infantry and fifty Hussars. Then, coming to me, whose name he did not know, he said, "You have carried out successfully a mission which would normally be given only to an officer. I am sorry that the powers of a divisional commander do not allow me to promote you to sous-lieutenant, only the commander-in-chief can do that, and I shall ask him to, do so, but in the meantime I promote you to sergeant." He thereupon ordered his aide-de-camp to announce this in front of the detachment. In order to carry out this formality, the aide-de-camp had to ask my name, and it was only then that General Seras learned that I was the son of his comrade, General Marbot. I was very pleased about this, because it demonstrated to my father that favouritism had nothing to do with my promotion.

Chap. 10.

The information which General Seras obtained from the prisoners having decided him to push forward, he ordered his division to come down from the heights of Mont Santa-Giacomo, and to encamp that evening near to the inn. The prisoners were sent to Finale, and as for the horses they belonged by rights to the Hussars. They were all of good quality, but, according to the custom of the time, which was aimed at favouring poorly mounted officers, captured horses were always sold for five louis. This was a fixed price and was paid in cash. As soon as the camp was established the sale began. General Seras, the officers of his staff, the colonels and battalion commanders of the regiments in his division soon took up our seventeen horses, which produced the sum of 85 louis. This was handed over to my detachment, who, not having had any pay for six months, were delighted with this windfall, for which they gave me the credit.

I had some money, so I did not pocket my share from the sale of the horses, but to celebrate my promotion, I bought from the inn-keeper two sheep, an enormous cheese and a load of wine, with which my detachment had a feast. This was one of the happiest days of my life.

General Seras, in his report to General Championet included a most flattering reference to my conduct, and said the same sort of thing to my father; so when, several days later, I brought the detachment back to Savona, my father welcomed me with the greatest show of affection. I was highly delighted; I rejoined the camp where all the regiment was united; my detachment had arrived there before me and had told of what we had done, giving me always the leading part in our success, so I was heartily welcomed by the officers and soldiers and also by my new comrades, the non-commissioned officers, who handed me my sergeant's stripes.

It was on this day that I met the younger Pertelay for the first time, he had come back from Genoa, where he had been stationed for some months. I became friendly with this excellent man, and regretted not having had him as my mentor at the beginning of my career, for he gave me much good advice, which steadied me up and made me break away from the wild men of the clique.

The commander-in-chief, Championet, intended to carry out some operations in the interior of Piedmont, but having very little in the way of cavalry, he ordered my father to send him the 1st Hussars, who could no longer stay at Madon, in any case, because of the shortage of fodder. I parted from my father with much regret and left with the regiment.

We went along the Corniche as far as Albenga. We crossed the Apennines, in spite of the snow, and entered the fertile plains of Piedmont. The commander-in-chief fought a number of actions in the area round Fossano, Novi and Mondovi, some of which were successful and others not.

In one of these actions I had the opportunity of seeing Brigadier-general Macard, a soldier of fortune whom the revolutionary upheavals had carried almost straight from the rank of trumpet-major to that of general! He was a good example of a type of officer created by luck and their personal courage who, although displaying much bravery before the enemy, were nevertheless incapable of occupying effectively a senior position because of their lack of education.

This extraordinary character, a veritable colossus, was well known for one peculiarity. When about to lead his troops in a charge against the enemy, it was his custom to shout "Let's go! I'll put on my animal dress." Then he took off his uniform, his jacket and shirt and retained only his plumed hat, his leather breeches and his big boots! Thus, naked to the waist, he displayed a torso almost as hairy as that of a bear, which gave him a very strange appearance indeed.

Once in his animal dress, as he called it, General Macard, sabre in hand, hurled himself at the enemy hors.e.m.e.n, swearing like a pagan; but it so happened that he rarely reached any of them, for at the unexpected and terrible sight of this kind of giant, half naked and covered in hair rushing toward them uttering the most fearsome yells the enemy often fled in all directions, not knowing if they had to deal with a man or some extraordinary wild beast.

General Macord was entirely ignorant, which sometimes amused the more educated officers under his command. One day one of them came to ask permission to go into a neighbouring town to order a pair of boots. "Parbleu!" said the general, "This has come at just the right time; since you are going to the bootmaker, sit down and take the measurements of my boots and order a new pair for me." The officer, much surprised, said that he could not take the measurements as he had no idea how to do this, having never been a boot-maker.

"What!" exclaimed the general loudly, "I see you sometimes spend whole days sketching and drawing lines opposite the mountains and when I ask what you are doing, you say you are measuring the mountains. How is it that you can measure objects which are more than a league away, and yet you cannot measure a pair of boots which are under your nose? Come on, take the measurements quickly and no more nonsense." The officer a.s.sured him that this was impossible. The general insisted; swore; got angry; and it was only with great difficulty that other officers, attracted by the noise, were able to put an end to this ridiculous scene. The general could never understand how a man who could measure mountains could not measure a pair of men's boots.

You should not think, as a result of this anecdote, that all the general officers in the army of Italy were like the good general Macord. Far from that, they contained in their number many men distinguished by their education and manners; but at this time there were still some senior officers who were completely out of place in the higher ranks of the army. They were being weeded out little by little.

The 1st Hussars took part in all the battles fought at this time in Piedmont, and suffered many losses in encounters with the Austrian heavy cavalry. After some marching and countermarching, and a series of almost daily minor engagements, General Championet, having concentrated the centre and left of his army between Coni and Mondovi, attacked, at the end of December, several divisions of the enemy army.

The encounter took place on a plain dotted with small hills and clumps of trees. The 1st Hussars, attached to General Beaumont's brigade, were positioned on the extreme right of the French army. As the number of officers and men who make up a squadron is laid down in the regulations, our regiment, having suffered casualties in the previous affairs, instead of putting four squadrons into the line could put only three; but having done this, there were some thirty men left over, of which five were sergeants. I was one of this number, as were both the Pertelays. We were formed into two sections and Pertelay the younger was put in command. General Beaumont merely instructed him to scout on the right flank of the army, and act as the situation seemed to require. We then left the regiment and went to explore the countryside.

In the meanwhile, a fierce battle commenced between the two armies, and an hour later, when we were returning to our own lines without having spotted anything on the flank, young Pertelay saw, opposite us, and consequently on the extreme left of the enemy line, a battery of eight guns whose fire was raking the French ranks.

Very unwisely, this Austrian battery, in order to have a better field of fire, had advanced onto a small hillock some seven or eight hundred paces in front of the infantry division to which it belonged.

The commander of this artillery believed that he was quite safe because the position he occupied dominated the whole French line, and he thought that if any troops set out to attack him, he would see them and would have time to regain the safety of the Austrian lines.

He had not considered that a little clump of trees, close to where he was, could conceal a party of French troops, and had thought no more about it. But young Pertelay resolved to lead his men there, and from there to fall upon the Austrian battery.

Pertelay, knowing that on the battlefield no one takes much notice of a single horseman, explained his plan to us, which was for us to go individually, a detour by a sunken road, to arrive one by one behind the wood on the left of the enemy battery, and from there to make a sudden a.s.sault on it, without the fear of cannon-b.a.l.l.s, because we would be approaching from the side. We would capture the guns and take them to the French lines. The first part of this plan was executed without the Austrian gunners noticing; we reached the back of the little wood, where we re-formed the sections. Pertelay put himself at our head. We went through the wood, and sabre in hand, threw ourselves on the enemy battery at the moment when it was directing a murderous fire on our troops. We sabred some of the gunners, but the rest hid under their ammunition wagons, where our sabres could not reach them. As instructed by Pertelay, we did not kill or wound the men on the limbers, but forced them at sword point to make their horses pull the guns toward the French lines. This order was obeyed in respect of six guns whose riders had remained on horseback, but the riders for the two other guns had dismounted, and although some of the Hussars took the horses by the bridle, they refused to move.

The enemy infantry were running to the aid of their battery; minutes seemed like hours to us; so young Pertelay, satisfied to have captured six guns, ordered us to leave the others and to head, with our booty, at the gallop, for the French lines.

This was a prudent measure, but it proved fatal to our leader, for hardly had we begun our retreat, when the gunners and their officers emerged from their hiding places under the wagons, loaded the two guns which we had not taken with grape-shot and discharged a hail of bullets into our backs.

You can well imagine that thirty hors.e.m.e.n and six artillery pieces, each drawn by six horses and ridden by three transport riders, all proceeding in a state of disorder, presented a target which the grape-shot could hardly miss. We had two sergeants and several Hussars killed or wounded, as well as two of the transport riders. Some of the horses were also put out of action, so that most of the teams were so disorganised that they could not move.

Pertelay, keeping perfectly cool, ordered the traces of the dead or injured horses to be cut and Hussars to take the place of the dead transport riders, and we continued quickly on our way. However, the commander of the Austrian battery made use of the few minutes we had taken to do this to direct a second volley of grape-shot at us, which caused further casualties, but we were so resolved not to abandon the six guns which we had captured that we repaired the damage as well as we could, and kept on the move. We were already in touch with the French lines and out of the range of grape-shot, when the enemy artillery officer changed projectiles and fired two cannon-b.a.l.l.s at us, one of which shattered the back of poor young Pertelay.

However, our attack on the Austrian battery and its outcome had been seen by the French generals who moved the line forward. The enemy drew back, which allowed the remnants of the 1st Hussars to revisit the area where our unfortunate comrades had fallen. Almost a third of the detachment were killed or wounded. There were five sergeants at the beginning of the action; three had perished; there remained only Pertelay the elder and myself. The poor fellow was wounded but suffered almost more mentally, for he adored his brother, whom we all bitterly regretted. While we were paying him our last respects and picking up the wounded, General Championet arrived with General Suchet, his chief-of-staff. The commander-in-chief had witnessed the actions of the platoon. He gathered us round the six guns which we had just captured, and after praising the courage with which we had rid the French army of a battery which was causing them the most grievous losses, he added that to reward us for having saved the lives of so many of our comrades, and contributed to the day's success, he intended to use the power which a recent decree of the First Consul had given him to award "Armes d'honneur" and that he would award three sabres of honour and one promotion to sous-lieutenant to the detachment, who should decide amongst themselves who the recipients should be. We then regretted even more keenly the loss of young Pertelay, who would have made such a fine officer.

The elder Pertelay, a corporal and a Hussar were awarded the sabres of honour, which, three years later gave the right to the Cross of the Legion of Honour. It remained to be decided which of us would be sous-lieutenant. All my comrades put my name forward, and the commander-in-chief, recalling that General Seras had written to him about my conduct at Santa-Giacomo, designated me sous-lieutenant...! I had been a sergeant for only a month! I have to admit, however, that during the capture of the guns, I had done no more than the rest of my companions; but as I have already said, these good Alsatians did not feel that they had the qualities to take command and become officers. They were unanimous in choosing me, and General Championet, as well as noting the favourable comments of General Seras, was perhaps also glad to be able to please my father.

My father, however, was less than pleased with what he considered to be my over-rapid promotion, and he wrote to me instructing me to refuse it. I would have obeyed; but my father had written in the same strain to General Suchet, the chief-of-staff, and this latter had replied that the commander-in-chief would be very put out to find that one of his divisional generals had taken it upon himself to disapprove of a promotion which he had made. My father then authorised me to accept, and I was gazetted sous-Lieutenant in December 1799.

I was one of the last officers promoted by General Championet, who, not being able to remain in Piedmont in the face of superior forces, was compelled to re-cross the Apennines and lead his army back to Liguria. He was greatly distressed to see his force breaking down, because he was not given enough supplies to support it, and he died two weeks after he had made me an officer. My father, who was now the most senior divisional general, was made provisional commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, whose headquarters were at Nice. He therefore went there and immediately sent back to Provence the few remaining cavalry, as there was no longer any fodder in Liguria. So the 1st Hussars went back to France, but my father kept me behind to become his aide-de-camp.

While we were at Nice, my father received an order from the war ministry to go and take command of the advance guard of the army of the Rhine, where his chief-of-staff Col. Menard would join him. We were very pleased at this, since want of supplies had reduced the army of Italy to such a state of disorder that it seemed impossible that it could be kept in Liguria. My father was not sorry to be leaving an army which was disintegrating, and was likely to be pushed back across the Var and into France. He prepared to move as soon as General Ma.s.sena, who had been nominated to replace him, had arrived. He sent M. Gault, his aide-de-camp, to Paris to buy maps and make various preparations for our operations on the Rhine. But fate had decreed otherwise, and my unfortunate father's grave was destined to be in Italy.

When Ma.s.sena arrived he found no more than the shadow of an army: the soldiers, without pay and almost without clothing and footwear, existing on a quarter of the normal ration, were dying of malnutrition as well as an epidemic of disease, the result of the intolerable privations which they were suffering. The hospitals were full but had no medicines. Some groups of soldiers, and even whole regiments, were daily abandoning their posts and heading for the bridge across the Var, where they forced a pa.s.sage to get into France and spread themselves over Provence, although saying that they were willing to return if they were given food! The generals were unable to remedy this appalling state of affairs. They became, daily more discouraged, and all were requesting leave or retiring on the grounds of ill-health. Ma.s.sena had expected that he would be joined in Italy by several of the generals who had helped him to defeat the Russians in Switzerland, among them, Soult, Oudinot and Gazan, but none of them had yet arrived, and it was essential to do something about the serious situation.

Ma.s.sena, who was born in La Turbie, a village in the little princ.i.p.ality of Monaco, was one of the most crafty Italians that ever existed. He did not know my father, but he decided on their first meeting that he was a big-hearted man who loved his country, and, to persuade him to stay, he played on these sensitive areas, his generosity and his patriotism, suggesting to him how much n.o.bler it would be for him to continue to serve in the unhappy army of Italy rather than go to the Rhine. He said that he would take the responsibility for the failure to carry out the orders given to my father by the government if he would agree to stay. My father, beguiled by these speeches and not wishing to leave the new commander in a mess, consented to remain with him. He did not doubt that his chief-of-staff, Col. Menard, his friend, would also give up the idea of going to the Rhine; but this was not to be. Menard stuck to the order he had been given, although he was a.s.sured that it would be cancelled if he wished. My father felt very badly about this desertion. Menard hurried off to Paris, where he took the job of chief-of-staff to general Lefebvre.

My father went to Genoa, where he took command of the three divisions which composed the right wing of the army. Despite all the shortages, the winter carnival was quite gay in the town, the Italians being so pleasure-loving! We were lodged in the Centurione Palace, where we spent the end of the winter 1799-1800. My father had left Spire at Nice with the greater part of his baggage. He now took on Col. Sacleux as his chief-of-staff, an admirable man, a good soldier, with a very pleasant personality, if somewhat solemn and serious-minded. He had as his secretary a young man by the name of Colindo, the son of a banker, Signor Trepano of Parma, whom he had picked up after a series of adventures too long to relate here, who became my very good friend.

Early in the spring of 1800, my father was told that General Ma.s.sena intended to give the command of the right wing to General Soult, who had just arrived, and was much my father's junior, and he was ordered to go back to Savona and head his old division, the third. My father obeyed, though his pride was hurt by this new posting.

Chap. 11.

A serious situation was developing in Italy. Ma.s.sena had received some reinforcements; he had established a little order in his army, and the campaign of 1800, which led to the memorable siege of Genoa and the battle of Marengo, was about to begin.

The snows which covered the mountains separating the two armies having melted, the Austrians attacked us, and their first efforts were directed upon my father's division, the third, stationed at the right of the French line, which they wished to separate from the centre and the left by driving them back from Savona to Genoa.

As soon as hostilities commenced, my father and Col. Sacleux sent all the non-combatants to Genoa; Colindo was among them. As for me, I was thoroughly enjoying myself, exhilarated as I was by the sight of marching troops, the noisy movements of artillery and the excitement of a young soldier at the prospect of action. I was far from suspecting that this war would become so terrible and would cost me so dear.

My father's division, fiercely attacked by greatly superior forces, defended for two days positions at Cadibone and Montenotte, but eventually, seeing themselves on the point of being outflanked, they had to retire to Voltri, and from there to Genoa, where they shut themselves in, together with the two other divisions of the right wing.

I had heard all the well-informed generals deploring the circ.u.mstances which forced our separation from the centre and the left, but I had at that time so little understanding of the principles of warfare that I took no notice. I understood well enough that we had been defeated, but as I personally had overcome, before Montenotte, an officer of Burco's Hussars, and takingaking the plume from his shako, had fastened it proudly to the head-band of my bridle, it seemed to me that I was like a knight of the middle-ages returning laden with the spoils of the infidel.

My childish vanity was soon crushed by a dreadful event. During the retreat, and at a moment when my father was giving me an order to take, he was. .h.i.t by a bullet in the left leg, which had been wounded once before, in the army of the Pyrenees. The injury was serious, and my father would have fallen from his horse if he had not leaned on me. I took him out of the battle area. His wound was dressed. I shed tears as I saw his blood flow, but he tried to calm me, saying that a soldier should have more courage. My father was carried to the Centurione Palace in Genoa, where he had lived during the preceding winter. Our three divisions having entered Genoa, the Austrians blockaded it by land, and the English by sea.

I can hardly bring myself to describe the sufferings of the garrison and the population of Genoa during the two months for which this siege lasted. Famine, fighting and an epidemic of typhus did immense damage. The garrison lost ten thousand men out of sixteen thousand, and there were collected from the streets, every day, seven or eight hundred of the bodies of the inhabitants, of every age, s.e.x, and condition, which were taken behind the church of Carignan to an immense pit filled with quick-lime. The number of victims rose to more than thirty thousand.

For you to understand just how badly the lack of food was felt by the inhabitants, I should explain that the ancient rulers of Genoa, in order to control the populace, had from time immemorial exercised a monopoly over grain, flour and bread, which was operated by a vast establishment protected by cannons and guarded by soldiers, so that when the Doge or the Senate wished to prevent or put down a revolt, they closed the state ovens and reduced the people to starvation.

Although by this time the const.i.tution of Genoa had been greatly modified and the aristocracy now had very little influence, there was not, however a single private bakery, and the old system of making bread in the public ovens was still in operation. Now, these public bakeries, which normally provided for a population of a hundred and twenty thousand souls, were closed for forty-five days out of the sixty for which the siege lasted. Neither rich nor poor could buy bread. The little in the way of dried vegetables and rice which was in the shops had been bought up at the beginning of the siege at greatly inflated prices. The troops alone were given a small ration of a quarter of a pound of horse flesh and a quarter of a pound of what was called bread. This was a horrible mixture of various flours, bran, starch, chalk, linseed, oatmeal, rancid nuts and other evil substances. General Thibauld in his diary of the siege described as "Turf mixed with oil."

For forty five days neither bread nor meat was on sale to the public.

The richest were able (at the start the siege only,) to buy some dried cod, figs and some other dried goods such as sugar. There was never any shortage of wine, oil and salt, but what use are they without solid food? All the dogs and cats in the town were eaten. A rat could fetch a high price! In the end the starvation became so appalling that when the French troops made a sortie, the inhabitants would follow them in a crowd out of the gates, and rich and poor, women, children and the old would start collecting gra.s.s, nettles, and leaves, which they would then cook with some salt. The Genoese government mowed the gra.s.s which grew on the ramparts, which was then cooked in the public squares and distributed to the wretched invalids, who had not the strength to go and find for themselves and prepare this crude dish. Even the soldiers cooked nettles and all sorts of herbage with their horse flesh. The richest and most distinguished families in the town envied them this meat, disgusting as it was, for the shortage of fodder had made nearly all the horses sick and even the flesh of those dying of disease was distributed.

During the latter part of the siege, the desperation of the people was something to fear. There were cries that, as in 1756 their fathers had ma.s.sacred an Austrian army, they should now try to get rid of the French army in the same way; and that it was better to die fighting than to starve to death, after watching their wives and children perish. These threats of revolt were made more serious by the fact that if they were carried out, the English by sea and the Austrians by land would have rushed to join their efforts to those of the insurgents, and would have overwhelmed us.

Amid such dangers and calamities of all sorts, Ma.s.sena remained immovable and calm, and to prevent any attempt at an uprising, he issued a proclamation that French troops had orders to open fire on any gathering of more than four people. Regiments camped in the squares and the princ.i.p.al streets. The avenues were occupied by cannon loaded with grape-shot. It being impossible for them to come together, the Genoese were unable to revolt.

It may seem surprising that Ma.s.sena was so determined to hold on to a place where he could not feed the inhabitants and could scarcely maintain his own troops; but Genoa was, at that time, of great importance. Our army had been cut in two. The centre and the left wing had retired behind the Var. As long as Ma.s.sena occupied Genoa, he kept part of the Austrian army occupied in besieging him and prevented them from employing all their forces against Provence.

Ma.s.sena knew also that the First Consul was a.s.sembling at Dijon, Lyon, and Geneva, an army of reserve, with which he proposed to cross the Alps by the St. Bernard pa.s.s, to enter Italy and to surprise the Austrians by falling on their rear while they were directing their efforts at taking Genoa. We therefore had the greatest interest in holding the town for as long as possible. These were the orders of the First Consul, and were subsequently justified by events.

To return to the siege. When he heard that my father had been brought to Genoa, Colindo Trepano hurried to his bedside, and it was there that we met once more. He helped me most tenderly to care for my father, for which I am even more beholden to him because, in the midst of these calamities my father had no one about him. All his staff officers had been ordered to go and attend the commander-in-chief; soon rations were refused to our servants, who were forced to go and take up a musket and line up with the combatants to have a right to the miserable ration which was distributed to the soldiers. No exception was made, apart from a young valet, named Oudin, and a young stable-lad, who looked after the horses; but Oudin deserted us as soon as he knew that my father had typhus.

My father fell ill with this dreadful disease, and at a time when he was in the greatest need of care, there was no one with him except me, Colindo and the stable lad Bastide. We did our best to follow the doctor's instructions, we hardly slept, being endlessly busy ma.s.saging my father with camphorated oil and changing his bedclothes and linen.