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The spirit of the times, and of those with whom his lot was cast, must be looked to as some palliation for the savage conflicts in which he was engaged. That they had not hardened his heart against all tender emotions is surprising. Pierre Alexis Wasiltowitch, Count Suwarrow, was born in 1730, in Moscow, according to his biographer, of a Swedish family.
What Napoleon called "two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage" is rare. It requires great enthusiasm or great discipline to be proof against a surprise. It is said that Suwarrow, even in peace, always slept fully armed, boots and all. "When I was lazy," he said, "and wanted to enjoy a comfortable sleep, I usually took off one spur."
All the reverses of the previous campaign were, as they took care to signify, the result of unpardonable cowardice among the Austrians, whose spirit had been quite broken by the wars in Italy: but they were the countrymen of the same Suwarrow who had beaten the French out of all Buonaparte's Lombard conquests, and the first general battle would show what sort of enemies the Russians were.
He at once sent orders to Suwarrow, who was at Galatz, to come and take the town. The obedient warrior, who seemed to be always at somebody's beck and call, quickly appeared and surveyed the situation.
Banished by his rival, he ran to meet death in battle, and returned with glory." Another pleasant little jest was that perpetrated by Suwarrow, who, after the bloody battle of Tourtourskaya, announced the result to his mistress in an epigram of two doggerel lines.
When all was ready, orders were given: the column marched forward at midnight. At that moment a courier rode up at full speed with dispatches from Potemkin. Suwarrow was no sooner apprised of his arrival than he guessed with his usual quickness the nature of the dispatches, and he determined not to receive them till the fate of the enterprise was decided.
The French had heard appalling rumors of the prowess and ferocity of these warriors of the North, and awaited the shock with no little solicitude. The two armies met on the banks of the Adda, which flows into the northern part of the Lake of Como. Suwarrow led sixty thousand Russians and Austrians.
Renewal of the war between Austria and France. The Russian emperor sends an army in aid of Austria, under Suwarrow. The French are repeatedly defeated in Italy. Bonaparte returns from Egypt and makes himself First Consul of France. Massena wins the battle of Zurich. The Russian emperor makes peace with France. Bonaparte passes the Alps and defeats the Austrians at Marengo.
We cannot describe the whole course of events. Other victories were won in Italy, but finally Suwarrow was weakened by the jealousy of the Austrians, who withdrew their troops, and subsequently was obliged to go to the relief of his fellow-commander, Korsakof, who, with twenty thousand men, had imprudently allowed himself to be hemmed in by a French army at Zurich.
Bernard, and assumed the chief command of the army in Italy, which recently had suffered so many disastrous defeats from Suwarrow and the Archduke Charles. At Marengo, on the 14th of June, Bonaparte obtained a brilliant triumph. Soon after, at Hohenlinden, Moreau also defeated the Austrians.
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