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Updated: June 2, 2025
"I have known you for twenty years by the name of Bourrienne. Sign as you still are named, and see what the advocates with their laws will do." On the 20th of April, as Bonaparte was returning to Italy, he was obliged to stop on an island of the Tagliamento, while a torrent passed by, which had been occasioned by a violent storm. A courier appeared on the right bank of the river.
He at first fell back on the Tagliamento, and successively on the Adige. On reaching that river the army of Italy was considerably diminished, in spite of all Eugene's care of his troops. About the end of November Eugene learned that a Neapolitan corps was advancing upon Upper Italy, part taking the direction of Rome, and part that of Ancona.
Bonaparte, with his old celerity, reached the banks of the Tagliamento opposite the Austrian position on March sixteenth, long before he was expected. His troops had marched all night, but almost immediately they made a feint as if to force a crossing in the face of their enemy.
Then the rain came down, and no believer in Jupiter Pluvius as a German god could maintain that that river had been turned into a roaring torrent in the interests of the German pursuit. The Tagliamento could, however, be easily turned from the north, and the Italian retreat continued across the Livenza and the Piave where Cadorna stood on 10 November.
The news reached him on his return from Leoben to Italy, when he was detained for a few hours by a sudden flood of the River Tagliamento.
At last we turned the last corner and came in sight of the Tagliamento. The bridge was still intact. Italian Generals were rushing to and fro, gesticulating, giving orders. General Pettiti sent a special orderly to ask me if mine were the last British guns. I told him yes. Our tractor broke down three times on the bridge itself. But at last we were over.
Bonaparte had passed the Tagliamento, and entered Germany, when insurrections broke out in the Venetian States; these insurrections were, therefore, opposed to Bonaparte's project; surely, then, he could not favour them.
It was soon seen, however, that the Tagliamento line could not be successfully held against the enemy and a further retirement was carried out, Southward through the mountainous country to a shorter line along the Piave River East of Venice and Northwesterly to the Trentino boundary.
If we look, only at the immediate object, the means were well chosen and justified by the result, for the Archduke was so inferior in numbers that he only made a show of resistance on the Tagliamento, and when he saw his adversary so strong and resolute, yielded ground, and left open the passages, of the Norican Alps. Now to what use could Buonaparte turn this fortunate event?
That the system of Benningsen might, according to circumstances, be as good for the offensive as for the defensive, since it was successfully used by Napoleon at the passage of the Tagliamento.
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