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Updated: May 28, 2025
The blockade of Genoa had been kept up all this time; while Suchet resolutely maintained the last line of defence on the old frontier of France. On the 22nd of May Melas made a desperate effort to force the passage of the Var, but failed; and immediately afterwards received his first intelligence of the movements of Buonaparte, and the defeat of his own detachment at the bridge of Chiusilla.
Nevertheless, each large fraction of an army having a defined aim would have its own strategic front determined by the features of the country and the positions occupied by the large bodies of the enemy. Thus, Suchet in Catalonia and Massena in Portugal each had a strategic front, while the front of some other corps of the army was not clearly defined.
Unable to force the passage of the Bormida by a victory, they were placed without any opportunity of retreat between the army of Suchet and that of the first consul. On the 15th, they obtained permission to fall behind Mantua, on condition of restoring all the places of Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Legations; and the victory of Marengo thus secured possession of all Italy.
Notwithstanding the discipline which Marechal Suchet had introduced into his army corps, he was unable to prevent a short period of trouble and disorder at the taking of Tarragona. According to certain fair-minded military men, this intoxication of victory bore a striking resemblance to pillage, though the marechal promptly suppressed it.
Napoleon, hearing at Dresden of the battle of Vitoria, and instantly fathoming its momentous import, despatched Soult, as "lieutenant of the emperor," to assume command of all the French armies at Bayonne and on the Spanish frontier, still amounting nominally to 114,000 men, besides 66,000 under Suchet in Catalonia.
He then talked to Caulaincourt with the insight that always illumined his judgments. Marie Louise ought to have Tuscany, he said: Parma would not befit her dignity. Besides, if she had to traverse other States to come to him, would she ever do so? He next talked of his Marshals. Masséna's were the greatest exploits: but Suchet had shown himself the wisest both in war and administration.
Bernard, he left 18,000 men to oppose Suchet on the Var, and hurried back with the remainder to Turin. At the Piedmontese capital he heard that he had to deal with the First Consul; but not until the last day of May did he know that Moncey was forcing the St. Gotthard and threatening Milan.
Napoleon hesitated to consent to it; the English alone appeared to him to be formidable, and he had been wishing to concentrate all his forces against them: Marshal Massena was not, however, ready to enter on the campaign. King Joseph received the authorization to advance upon Andalusia; he ordered, at the same time, Marshals Ney and Suchet to lay siege to Ciudad Rodrigo and Valencia.
But how much more complicated and disconcerting were the problems set to Don Luis Perenna himself! Not to mention the denunciation in the anonymous article, there had been, in the short space of forty-eight hours, no fewer than four separate attempts to kill him: by the iron curtain, by poison, by the shooting on the Boulevard Suchet, and by the deliberately prepared motor accident.
Ferdinand was to enter Spain; Suchet, then playing a losing game in Catalonia, was quietly to withdraw his columns through the Pyrenees, while Wellington would have his base of operations cut from under him, and thenceforth be a negligeable quantity. These pleasing fancies all rested on the acceptance of the new treaty by the Spanish Regency and Cortès.
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