and had destroyed a supenor enemy force piecemeal by rapidity of
movement.
Although 'Hannibal merely crossed the Alps, we turned their flanks' is
probably another St Helena accretion, there can be no doubting
Napoleon's genuine euphoria at the time. To the Directory he sent back
glowing letters with Joseph, who had been acting as his unofficial aide.
After the armistice of Cherasco on 28 April gave him control of the
mountain fortresses and the lines of communication into Lombardy, he
wrote: 'Tomorrow I shall march against Beaulieu, force him to cross the
Po, cross myself immediately after and seize the whole of Lombardy:
within a month I hope to be on the mountains of the Tyrol, in touch with
the Army of the Rhine, and to carry the war in concert into Bavaria.' To
his soldiers, ever mindful of propaganda advantages, he made a
proclamation (genuine, this time), which exaggerated his achievements in
typical manner: 'Soldiers! In fifteen days you have gained six victories,
taken twenty-one colours and 55 pieces of artillery, seized several
fortresses and conquered the richest parts of Piedmont. You have taken
15,000 prisoners and killed and wounded more than 1o,ooo.'
At this stage realism and propaganda still vied for supremacy. On 24
April he wrote to the Directory: 'The hungry soldiers are committing
excesses that make one blush to be human. The capture of Ceva and
Mondovi may give us the means to put this right, and I am going to make
some terrible examples. I will restore order or I will give up the command
of these brigands.' Yet to Barras personally he wrote on the previous day
a sycophantic letter boasting about the six battles he had already won and
the twenty-one captured enemy standards Joseph was bringing back to
Paris.
Napoleon's next task was to prevent the Austrians withdrawing to the
comparative safety of the far bank of the Po. The French armies
debouched from the mountains and entered the plains of Lombardy. The
Austrians dug in and waited for them on the left bank of the Po near
Pavia. Again employing the war of rapid movement, he took Serurier and
Massena on a sixty-mile route march which ended with their divisions
making a classic river crossing at Piacenza in sight of the enemy. The
hero of the hour, who crossed with 900 men and established a bridgehead
on the far bank, was Jean Lannes, a dashing twenty-six-year-old colonel
whom Napoleon had first noticed at Dego.
Napoleon now advanced on Milan, outflanking Beaulieu's main army.
Barring the route to Milan was a 12,000-strong Austrian army at Lodi, on
the river Adda. Trying to ford the swiftly-flowing river would be costly,
so Napoleon opted for an assault on the bridge at Lodi, heavily defended
marcin
(Marcin)
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