The Companions of Jehu - Alexandre Dumas (best biographies to read txt) 📗

a battalion in the open with orders to die there rather than retreat, then, while that battalion drew the enemy’s fire, he formed his cavalry in column, came round the flank of the battalion, fell upon three thousand Austrians advancing to the charge, repulsed them, threw them into disorder, and, all wounded as he was by a splintered ball, forced them back behind their own lines. After that he took up a position to the right of the battalion, which had not retreated a step.

But during this time Gardannes’ division, which had been struggling with the enemy from early morning, was driven back upon Marengo, followed by the first Austrian line, which forced Chamberlhac’s division to retreat in like manner. There an aide-de-camp sent by Bonaparte ordered the two divisions to rally and retake Marengo at any cost.

General Victor reformed them, put himself at their head, forced his way through the streets, which the Austrians had not had time to barricade, retook the village, lost it again, took it a third time, and then, overwhelmed by numbers, lost it for the third time.

It was then eleven o’clock. Desaix, overtaken by Bonaparte’s aide-de-camp, ought at that hour to be on his way to the battle.

Meanwhile, Lannes with his two divisions came to the help of his struggling comrades. This reinforcement enabled Gardannes and Chamberlhac to reform their lines parallel to the enemy, who had now debouched, through Marengo, to the right and also to the left of the village.

The Austrians were on the point of overwhelming the French.

Lannes, forming his centre with the divisions rallied by Victor, deployed with his two least exhausted divisions for the purpose of opposing them to the Austrian wings. The two corps—the one excited by the prospect of victory, the other refreshed by a long rest—flung themselves with fury into the fight, which was now renewed along the whole line.

After struggling an hour, hand to hand, bayonet to bayonet, General Kaim’s corps fell back; General Champeaux, at the head of the first and eighth regiments of dragoons, charged upon him, increasing his disorder. General Watrin, with the sixth light infantry and the twenty-second and fortieth of the line, started in pursuit and drove him nearly a thousand rods beyond the rivulet. But this movement separated the French from their own corps; the centre divisions were endangered by the victory on the right, and Generals Watrin and Champeaux were forced to fall back to the lines they had left uncovered.

At the same time Kellermann was doing on the left wing what Champeaux and Watrin had done on the right. Two cavalry charges made an opening through the enemy’s line; but behind that first line was a second. Not daring to go further forward, because of superior numbers, Kellermann lost the fruits of that momentary victory.

It was now noon. The French army, which undulated like a flaming serpent along a front of some three miles, was broken in the centre. The centre, retreating, abandoned the wings. The wings were therefore forced to follow the retrograde movement. Kellermann to the left, Watrin to the right, had given their men the order to fall back. The retreat was made in squares, under the fire of eighty pieces of artillery which preceded the main body of the Austrian army. The French ranks shrank visibly; men were borne to the ambulances by men who did not return.

One division retreated through a field of ripe wheat; a shell burst and fired the straw, and two or three thousand men were caught in the midst of a terrible conflagration; cartridge-boxes exploded, and fearful disorder reigned in the ranks.

It was then that Bonaparte sent forward the Consular guard.

Up they went at a charge, deployed in line of battle, and stopped the enemy’s advance. Meantime the mounted grenadiers dashed forward at a gallop and overthrew the Austrian cavalry.

Meanwhile the division which had escaped from the conflagration received fresh cartridges and reformed in line. But this movement had no other result than to prevent the retreat from becoming a rout.

It was two o’clock.

Bonaparte watched the battle, sitting on the bank of a ditch beside the highroad to Alessandria. He was alone. His left arm was slipped through his horse’s bridle; with the other he flicked the pebbles in the road with the tip of his riding-whip. Cannon-balls were plowing the earth about him. He seemed indifferent to this great drama on which hung all his hopes. Never had he played so desperate a game—six years of victory against the crown of France!

Suddenly he roused from his revery. Amid the dreadful roar of cannon and musketry his ear caught the hoof-beats of a galloping horse. He raised his head. A rider, dashing along at full speed, his horse covered with white froth, came from the direction of Novi. When he was within fifty feet, Bonaparte gave one cry:

“Roland!”

The latter dashed on, crying: “Desaix! Desaix! Desaix!”

Bonaparte opened his arms; Roland sprang from his horse, and flung himself upon the First Consul’s neck.

There was a double joy for Bonaparte in this arrival—that of again seeing a plan whom he knew would be devoted to him unto death, and because of the news he brought.

“And Desaix?” he questioned.

“Is within three miles; one of your aides met him retracing his steps toward the cannon.”

“Then,” said Bonaparte, “he may yet come in time.”

“How? In time?”

“Look!”

Roland glanced at the battlefield and grasped the situation in an instant.

During the few moments that had elapsed while they were conversing, matters had gone from bad to worse. The first Austrian column, the one which had marched on Castel-Ceriolo and had not yet been engaged, was about to fall on the right of the French army. If it broke the line the retreat would be flight—Desaix would come too late.

“Take my last two regiments of grenadiers,” said Bonaparte. “Rally the Consular guard, and carry it with you to the extreme right—you understand? in a square, Roland!—and stop that column like a stone redoubt.”

There was not an instant to lose. Roland sprang upon his horse, took the two regiments of grenadiers, rallied the Consular guard, and dashed to the right. When he was within fifty feet of General Elsnitz’s column, he called out: “In square! The First Consul is looking at us!”

The square formed. Each man seemed to take root in his place.

General Elsnitz, instead of continuing his way in the movement to support Generals Melas and Kaim—instead of despising the nine hundred men who present no cause for fear in the rear of a victorious army—General Elsnitz paused and turned upon them with fury.

Those nine hundred men were indeed the stone redoubt that General Bonaparte had ordered them to be. Artillery, musketry, bayonets, all were turned upon them, but they yielded not an inch.

Bonaparte was watching them with admiration, when, turning in the direction of Novi, he caught the gleam of Desaix’s bayonets. Standing on a knoll raised above the plain, he could see what was invisible to the enemy.

He signed to a group of officers who were near him, awaiting orders; behind stood orderlies holding their horses. The officers advanced. Bonaparte pointed to the forest of bayonets, now glistening in the sunlight, and said to one of the officers: “Gallop to those bayonets and tell them to hasten. As for Desaix, tell him I am waiting for him here.”

The officer galloped off. Bonaparte again turned his eyes to the battlefield. The retreat continued; but Roland and his nine hundred had stopped General Elsnitz and his column. The stone redoubt was transformed into a volcano; it was belching fire from all four sides. Then Bonaparte, addressing three officers, cried out: “One of you to the centre; the other two to the wings! Say everywhere that the reserves are at hand, and that we resume the offensive.”

The three officers departed like arrows shot from a bow, their ways parting in direct lines to their different destinations. Bonaparte watched them for a few moments, and when he turned round he saw a rider in a general’s uniform approaching.

It was Desaix—Desaix, whom he had left in Egypt, and who that very morning had said, laughing: “The bullets of Europe don’t recognize me; some ill-luck is surely impending over me.”

One grasp of the hand was all that these two friends needed to reveal their hearts.

Then Bonaparte stretched out his arm toward the battlefield.

A single glance told more than all the words in the world.

Twenty thousand men had gone into the fight that morning, and now scarcely more than ten thousand were left within a radius of six miles—only nine thousand infantry, one thousand cavalry, and ten cannon still in condition for use. One quarter of the army was either dead or wounded, another quarter was employed in removing the wounded; for the First Consul would not suffer them to be abandoned. All of these forces, save and excepting Roland and his nine hundred men, were retreating.

The vast space between the Bormida and the ground over which the army was now retreating was covered with the dead bodies of men and horses, dismounted cannon and shattered ammunition wagons. Here and there rose columns of flame and smoke from the burning fields of grain.

Desaix took in these details at a glance.

“What do you think of the battle?” asked Bonaparte.

“I think that this one is lost,” answered Desaix; “but as it is only three o’clock in the afternoon, we have time to gain another.”

“Only,” said a voice, “we need cannon!”

This voice belonged to Marmont, commanding the artillery.

“True, Marmont; but where are we to get them?”

“I have five pieces still intact from the battlefield; we left five more at Scrivia, which are just coming up.”

“And the eight pieces I have with me,” said Desaix.

“Eighteen pieces!” said Marmont; “that is all I need.” An aide-de-camp was sent to hasten the arrival of Desaix’s guns. His troops were advancing rapidly, and were scarcely half a mile from the field of battle. Their line of approach seemed formed for the purpose at hand; on the left of the road was a gigantic perpendicular hedge protected by a bank. The infantry was made to file in a narrow line along it, and it even hid the cavalry from view.

During this time Marmont had collected his guns and stationed them in battery on the right front of the army. Suddenly they burst forth, vomiting a deluge of grapeshot and canister upon the Austrians. For an instant the enemy wavered.

Bonaparte profited by that instant of hesitation to send forward the whole front of the French army.

“Comrades!” he cried, “we have made steps enough backward; remember, it is my custom to sleep on the battlefield!”

At the same moment, and as if in reply to Marmont’s cannonade, volleys of musketry burst forth to the left, taking the Austrians in flank. It was Desaix and his division, come down upon them at short range and enfilading the enemy with the fire of his guns.

The whole army knew that this was the reserve, and that it behooved them to aid this reserve by a supreme effort.

“Forward!” rang from right to left. The drums beat the charge. The Austrians, who had not seen the reserves, and were marching with their guns on their shoulders, as if at parade, felt that something strange was happening within the French lines; they struggled to retain the victory they now felt to be slipping from their grasp.

But everywhere the French army had resumed the offensive. On all sides the ominous roll of the charge and the victorious Marseillaise were heard above the din. Marmont’s battery belched fire; Kellermann dashed forward with his cuirassiers and cut his way through both lines of the enemy.