whatever, that he was a superior military talent to Bonaparte and should
be commanding the Army of Italy. When Napoleon overawed him as he
had overawed Augereau and Massena, the sulky Bernadotte grumbled to
his cronies: 'Over there I saw a man of twenty-six or twenty-seven who
wants to appear fifty. It bodes no good for the Republic.' Napoleon
ordered Bernadotte to commence the offensive on ro March with the
vanguard off the right. The Gascon general crossed the Tagliamento and
Isonzo rivers but complained when he was sent to besiege the Austrian
fortress of Gradisca. His paranoia was well to the fore in this open lament
to his senior officers: 'I see it all. Bonaparte is jealous of me and wants to
disgrace me. I have no resource left but to blow my brains out. If I
blockade Gradisca I shall be blamed for not having stormed it. If I storm
it I shall be told I ought to have blockaded it.'
Napoleon's offensive was a great success. After taking meticulous
precautions against a possible Austrian attack, he sent Joubert through
the Brenner pass, and himself swept Archduke Charles aside at the
Tagliamento and took Klagenfurth on 29 March. Moreau was supposed
to be coordinating movements on the Rhine but did not stir. Napoleon
suspected that the Directory, fearful of the suspect loyalty of the Army of
Italy and its commander, had given secret instructions to Moreau not to
move a muscle. Realizing that he could not hope to take Vienna unaided,
Napoleon decided on a bluff. He advanced as far as Leoben, just seventy
five miles from Vienna, and then offered a truce. The Austrians agreed a
five-day cessation of hostilities while Napoleon, who was stalling, tried to
learn Moreau's intentions.
Confused and suspicious about the actions and motives of the
Directory, Napoleon then decided to take a further gamble. He actually
proposed a full set of peace terms and gave the Austrians until r 8 April to
accept. This was high-risk poker playing, for if the Austrians turned him
down and Moreau did not open his offensive, his bluff would be called
spectacularly. The peace terms were, however, very generous: Austria
was to cede Belgium to France, allow her to occupy the left bank of the
Rhine and the Ionian islands, and also recognize Bonaparte's new
Cisalpine Republic of Milan, Bologna and Modena; Austria would be
allowed to keep a foothold in Italy by retaining the territories of Istria,
Dalmatia and Frioul.
A day before the peace offer was due to expire, the Austrians conceded
defeat, heavily influenced by the urgings of their best general, Archduke
Charles. Preliminaries of peace were signed at Leoben on r8 April. To his
fury, Napoleon then learned that two days earlier Moreau had finally
crossed the Rhine. In composed mood he later wrote: 'I was playing
marcin
(Marcin)
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