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These important posts were wrested from the Austrian vanguard; and this success was crowned on June 9th by General Lannes' brilliant victory at Montebello over a superior Austrian force marching from Genoa towards Piacenza, which he drove back towards Alessandria. Smaller bodies of French were meanwhile watching the course of the Ticino, and others seized the magazines of the enemy at Cremona.
Meanwhile, the Sardinian army, composed of sixty thousand men, awaited the arrival of the French forces on the right bank of the Po. On May 12th Napoleon III, already preceded into Italy by one hundred twenty thousand of his men, debarked at Genoa, and on the 14th was at Alessandria, where, near the mouth of the Tanaro, the allied armies met.
Strange to say, the Prince did not complain of his quarters, but, after we had for the second time refused his offer of an escort to Alessandria, became somewhat taciturn. We left him in the salle
He has at Alessandria his magazines, his hospitals, his artillery, his reserves. I quote this passage as showing how readily such stories of ready-made plans gain credence, until they come to be tested by Napoleon's correspondence. There we find no strategic soothsaying, but only a close watching of events as they develop day by day.
Asti, also, the first league town which lay in the path of the imperial army, was straightway made to capitulate. But, although the fall of these two cities induced many to abandon the cause of the league, the new fortress of Alessandria, situated as it was in the midst of a swampy plain and surrounded with massive earth walls, proved an effectual stumbling-block in the way of the avenger.
At the commencement of the following year , it was resolved, after much debate, at our court, that Philip V. should make a journey to Italy, and on Easter-day he set out. He went to Naples, Leghorn, Milan, and Alessandria. While at the first-named place a conspiracy which had been hatching against his life was discovered, and put down.
By 2 p.m. the battle seemed to be lost for the French; except on the north of their line they were in full retreat, and all but five of their cannon were silenced. Melas, oppressed by his weight of years, by the terrific heat, and by two slight wounds, retired to Alessandria, leaving his chief of the staff, Zach, to direct the pursuit.
You pretend here, with a stroke of the pen, to make the ramparts of Dantzic, Custrin, Glogau, Magdeburg, Wesel, Mentz, Antwerp, Alessandria, Mantua, in fine, all the strong places of Europe, sink before you, of which I did not obtain possession but by my victorious arms!
I will give an exact account of the force and the position of all the enemy's corps, and the names of their commanders. I can tell you the situation in which Alessandria now is. You know me I will not deceive you; but, I must carry back some report to my general. You need not care for giving me some true particulars which I can communicate to him."
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