Friedrich Engels

["Das Volk" Nr. 12 vom 23. Juli 1859]

The Secret General has hastily ordered his Guard to Paris to make his triumphal entry at their head and then to let his victorious troops defile before him on the Place du Carrousel. In the meantime, let us once more review the principal events of the war, in order to illuminate the actual merit of the ape Napoleon.

On 19 April Count Buol committed the childish imprudence of informing the English envoy <Lord Augustus Loftus> that on the 23rd he would present the Piedmontese with a three-day deadline, but that, after its expiry, he would commence the war and order the march in. Buol knew, to be sure, that Malmesbury was no Palmerston, but he forgot that the time of the general election was just approaching, that the bigoted Tories, from fear of being denounced as “Austrians”, became in fact Bonapartists against their will. On the 20th the English government hastily apprised Mr Bonaparte of this communication, and
the concentration of French troops at once began
and the order was given for the formation of the fourth battalions of men on furlough. On the 23rd the Austrians actually deliver the ultimatum – on the eve of most English elections. Derby and Malmesbury hasten to declare this act a “crime”, against which they protest most energetically. Bonaparte has his troops cross the Piedmontese border before the ultimatum has run out; on 26 April the French enter Savoy and Genoa. The Austrians, however, delayed by the protests and threats of the Tory government, allow a further two days, and instead of marching into Piedmont on the 27th do not do so until the 29th.

Thus the Secret General had a full nine days’ knowledge of their intention before the Austrians marched in, and through the treachery of the English Ministry contrived to be on the spot three days before them. But the Secret General had allies not only in the English Ministry, but also in the Austrian army command. Everybody expected, and with justice, that Heß would take supreme command of the Italian army. Instead, Gyulay, who in 1848 and 1849 was nowhere before the enemy, retained the command – a totally incapable head, this Gyulay, without sense and energy. Heß is of bourgeois origin and averse to the reactionary and Jesuitical aristocratic clique that forms Franz Joseph’s camarilla. The Grünne-Thun-Bach triumvirate egged on the weak Franz Joseph, who together with Grünne had worked out a weird operational plan bitterly criticised by Heß, against the old strategist; thus the high-aristocratic blockhead Gyulay remained commanding general, and his operational plan – invasion of Piedmont – was adopted. Heß had advised strict defensive and avoidance of any battle as far as the Mincio. The Austrian army, held up moreover by torrential rains, did not appear on the Po and Sesia until around 3 or 4 May, and then it was naturally too late to venture a coup de main on Turin or one of the Piedmontese fortresses. The French were concentrated in strength on the upper Po; this gave the incapable Gyulay a welcome pretext for inaction. In order duly to document his perplexity, he had the forcible reconnaissance of Montebello undertaken. The fight thereby brought on was honourably fought by thirteen Austrian battalions against sixteen French, until the second and third divisions of Baraguay d’Hilliers’s corps appeared on the battlefield, whereupon the Austrians, having achieved their purpose, withdrew. But since no further action on the part of the Austrians followed upon this reconnaissance, it shows that the whole expedition might just as well have been omitted.

The Secret General had meanwhile had to wait for his war matériel and his cavalry, and probably passed the time in study of his beloved Bülow. Completely informed as to the disposition and strength of the Austrians, the French could easily draft an attack plan. In general there are only three ways of attacking: either straight at the front, to break through the centre, or by turning the right or the left wing. The Secret General resolved to turn the enemy’s right wing. After they had, unhindered, foraged out the whole country between Sesia and Dora Baltea, the Austrians stood

on a long line from Biella to Pavia. On 21 May the Piedmontese attack the Sesia line and for several days wage minor engagements between Casale and Vercelli, while Garibaldi with his Alpine rifles, stealing close past Lake Maggiore, raises the Varesotto in insurrection and pushes forward as far as the Como region and Brianza. Gyulay persists in his dissipation and even sends one of his six army corps (the ninth) to the southern bank of the Po. By 29 May the preparations are at last so far advanced that the attack can begin. The engagements of Palestro and Vinzaglio, in which the greater part of the Piedmontese army was engaged against part of the seventh army corps (Zobel), opened the road to Novara for the Allies, which Gyulay evacuated without resistance. At once the Piedmontese, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th French corps and the Guard were directed there; the 1st corps followed. The turning of the Austrian right wing was complete, the direct road to Milan was open.

But this also put the armies into precisely the position in which Radetzky won the victory of Novara in 1849. In long columns and on few parallel roads, the Allies rolled towards the Ticino. The march could only proceed slowly. Gyulay had five army corps at hand, even after deduction of the dissipated ninth corps. As soon as the attack of the Piedmontese assumed a serious character, and it did so on 29 and 30 May, Gyulay had to concentrate his troops. The point at which this happened was fairly indifferent; you do not march past 140,000 to 150,000 men in a concentrated position; moreover, what mattered was not to defend passively, but to deliver the enemy a well-timed blow. If Gyulay had concentrated between Mortara, Garlasco and Vigevano on 31 May and 1 June, he could, on the one hand, have fallen into the flank of the turning of his right wing at Novara itself, cut the enemy’s marching columns in two, pressed a part of them with their backs against the Alps and got the road to Turin into his hands. On the other hand, if the enemy crossed the Po below Pavia, he could still have arrived in time to block his way to Milan.

A beginning of concentration was actually made. But before it had been completely carried out, Gyulay became confused by the occupation of Novara. The enemy stood nearer to Milan than he did! True enough, but that was exactly what was desirable; now the moment for the well-timed blow had arrived; the enemy had to fight under the most unfavourable

conditions. But Gyulay, however brave he may have been personally, was morally cowardly. Instead of advancing quickly, he went back, so as to bring his army round the enemy in an arc by forced marches and again to bar his direct road to Milan at Magenta. The troops are set in motion on 2 June, and the headquarters moved to Rosate in Lombardy. Feldzeugmeister Heß arrived there at half-past five in the morning on 3 June. He took Gyulay to task for the unpardonable mistake and at once had all troops halted, since he still considered it possible to carry out the blow in the direction of Novara. Two whole army corps, the second and seventh, were already on Lombard soil, having marched from Vigevano on Abbiategrasso. The third corps had received the order to halt precisely on the bridge at Vigevano; it marched back and took up position on the Piedmontese bank. The eighth went via Bereguardo, the fifth via Pavia. The ninth was still far off and completely out of range.

When Heß had accurately informed himself of the dislocation of the troops, he found that it was too late to count on success in the direction of Novara; now only the direction of Magenta remained. At ten in the morning the orders went out to the columns to continue their march on Magenta.

On this interference by Heß and the loss of 4
1
/
2
hours through the halting of the columns, Gyulay places the blame for the lost battle of Magenta. How unfounded this pretext is, is shown by the following: The bridge at Vigevano is ten English miles from Magenta – a short day’s march. The second and the seventh corps
were
already in
Lombardy
when the order to halt came. They could therefore have at most 7–8 miles on average to march. Nevertheless, only one division of the seventh corps reached Corbetta, and 3 brigades of the second corps reached Magenta. The second division of the seventh corps got no further on the 3rd than Castelletto near Abbiategrasso; and the third corps, which received the order to move off from the bridge at Vigevano at 11 o’clock in the morning at the latest, and thus still had a very good portion of the day before it, does not seem even to have covered the five to six English miles to Abbiategrasso, since on the following day it was only able to come into action towards 4 o’clock in the afternoon at Robecco (3 miles from Abbiategrasso). Here, therefore, there was obviously a congestion of the columns on the roads which slowed down the march in consequence of bad arrangements. If a corps needs 24 hours and more to cover 8–10 miles

then 4–5 hours more truly do not tip the scales. The eighth corps, directed via Bereguardo and Binasco, had to make such a detour that even by making use of the 4
1
/
2
lost hours it could not appear in time on the battlefield. The fifth corps, which advanced from Pavia in two
real forced marches
, still intervened in the battle with one brigade in the evening of 4 June. What it lost in time it gained in intensity of movement. The attempt to shift the fragmentation of the army onto Heß, therefore, collapses completely.

The strategic introduction to the victory of Magenta thus consists, firstly, in a positive mistake committed by Louis Bonaparte himself, in that he carried out a flank march within reach of the enemy, and, secondly, in a mistake on the part of Gyulay, who, instead of falling upon the long marching columns in concentrated fashion, completely fragmented his army by a countermarch and retreat, wretchedly laid out into the bargain, and led his troops into battle tired and starved. This was the first phase of the war. On the second, in the next number.

["Das Volk" Nr. 3 vom 30. Juli 1859]

We left our real secret Napoleon on the battlefield of Magenta. Gyulay had done him the greatest favour a general can do for his opponent; he had brought up his forces so split up that at every moment of the battle he was in the most decided numerical inferiority, and even by evening did not have his troops properly in hand. The first and second corps fell back on Milan, the eighth came from Binasco, the fifth from Abbiategrasso, the ninth was promenaded far down the Po. Here was a situation for a general; here it was a matter of thrusting into the isolated Austrian columns with the many fresh troops that arrived during the night, in order to win a real victory and force entire detachments with flags and artillery to lay down their arms! That is how the vulgar Napoleon acted at Montenotte and Millesimo, at Abensberg and Regensburg. Not so the “higher” Napoleon. He stands far above such crude empiricism. He knows from his Bülow that the eccentric retreat is the most advantageous. He therefore fully appreciated Gyulay’s masterly retreat dispositions, and instead of thrusting in, he telegraphed to Paris: The army is resting and reorganising. He was, after all,

certain that the world would not be so impolite as ever to describe his bungling exercise at Magenta as anything other than a “great victory”!

Friend Gyulay, who had once before, with so much success, tried the manoeuvre of marching in an arc around the enemy, friend Gyulay tried this experiment again, and this time on a large scale. He first had his army march south-east to the Po, then in three columns along three parallel roads up the Po as far as Piadena on the Oglio, then north again to Castiglione. He certainly did not hurry himself. The route he had to march to Castiglione was about 120 English miles, i.e., 10 very easy or 8 good days’ marches. On the 14th, at the latest on the 15th, he could therefore have been in position at Castiglione; but it was not until the 19th that a considerable part of the army found itself on the heights south of Lake Garda. Meanwhile, confidence begets confidence. If the Austrians marched slowly, the higher Napoleon proved that in this, too, he was their superior. The vulgar Napoleon would have had nothing more pressing to do than to push his troops forward in forced marches by the shorter, direct route to Castiglione, which is barely 100 English miles, in order to arrive before the Austrians in the position south of Lake Garda and on the Mincio, and if possible to fall again on the flank of the Austrian marching columns. Not so the improved Napoleon. “Always slowly forward” is his motto. From the 5th to the 22nd he needs to concentrate his troops on the Chiese. Seventeen days for 100 miles, or two short hours a day!

Such are the colossal exertions that the French columns had to endure, and which inspired the English newspaper correspondents with such admiration for the endurance and indestructible cheerfulness of the piou-pious (infantrymen). Only once was an attempt at a rearguard action made. It was a matter of driving an Austrian division (Berger) out of Melegnano. One brigade held the town, the other was already behind the Lambro to cover the retreat of the first, and hardly got into the fight at all. Here our secret general proved that, when it came to the point, he also knew Napoleonic strategy: masses on the decisive point! Accordingly, against this one brigade he sent two whole army corps, or ten brigades; attacked by six brigades, the Austrian brigade (Roden) held out for three to four hours and only withdrew, after losing more than a third of its strength,

unpursued across the Lambro; the presence of the second brigade (Boér) was enough to hold up the colossal French superiority. One sees: on the French side the war was conducted with the utmost politeness.

At Castiglione another hero enters the stage: Franz Joseph of Austria. Two worthy opponents! The one has had it spread about everywhere that he is the greatest slyboots of all time; the other delights in passing himself off as chivalrous. The one cannot help being the greatest commander of his century, because he has the calling to travesty the original Napoleon — has he not taken the latter’s genuine drinking cup and other relics with him into the field?; the other must bind victory to his banners, because he is the born “supreme warlord” of his army. The epigone economy, which sprawls in the intervals between the revolutions of the nineteenth century, could not have been more fittingly represented on the battlefield.

Franz Joseph opens his career as supreme general by first letting his troops occupy the position south of Lake Garda, only to draw them immediately behind the Mincio; hardly has he got them behind the Mincio, when he sends them forward again for the offensive. Such a manoeuvre must have surprised even an improved Napoleon, and his bulletin is polite enough to admit this openly. Since on the same day he was just marching his army towards the Mincio, a collision of the two armies occurred — the Battle of Solferino. We refrain from going into the details of this battle once again, as we have already done so in a
previous number of this paper;
all the more as the official Austrian report is intentionally kept most confused in order to cover up the curious blunders of the hereditary warlord. But this much emerges with certainty: that the loss of the battle is principally the fault of Franz Joseph and his camarilla. Firstly, Hess was deliberately and systematically kept in the background. Secondly, Franz Joseph thrust himself into Hess’s place. Thirdly, a mass of incapable persons, and even individuals of doubtful bravery, were retained in important commands through the influence of the camarilla. From all these circumstances, even apart from the original plan, there arose such confusion on the day of battle that there was no question whatever of commanding, of interlocking movements, of order and consistency in the manoeuvres. In the centre, especially,

there seems to have reigned bottomless confusion. The three army corps that stood there (1st, 5th and 7th) executed such contradictory and disconnected movements, and always lost contact with one another at the decisive moment, while otherwise getting in each other’s way, that only this, but this with certainty, emerges from the Austrian report: here the battle was lost less through numerical weakness than through disgracefully bad leadership. No corps ever supported another at the right time; reserves were everywhere, except where they were needed; and thus Solferino, San Cassiano, Cavriana fell one after the other, whereas all three together, stubbornly and skilfully defended, would have formed an impregnable position. As it was, Solferino, the decisive point, was given up for lost as early as two o’clock, and with it the battle; Solferino fell by a concentric attack, which could only have been foiled by offensive thrusts, but these were precisely what was lacking; and after Solferino the other villages likewise fell by concentric attacks, against which inadequate passive defence was opposed. Fresh troops were nevertheless still available, for the Austrian casualty lists prove that, out of 25 line regiments engaged, eight (Rossbach, Archduke Joseph, Hartmann, Mecklenburg, Hess, Grüber, Wernhardt, Wimpffen), i.e. two-thirds, lost fewer than 200 men per regiment, i.e. were
only insignificantly
engaged! Three of these, as well as the Gradiscan border regiment, lost fewer than 100 men per regiment, and of the Jäger the majority of battalions (five) lost fewer than 70 men per battalion. Since the right wing (Benedek, Eighth Corps) had to engage all its troops seriously against great numerical superiority, all these only lightly engaged regiments and battalions fall upon the centre and the left wing, and a good part of them must have stood in the centre. This proves how wretched the leadership was here. The matter is, incidentally, very easily explained: here was Franz Joseph in person with his state camarilla, here everything had to go haywire without a plan. The 13 batteries of the reserve artillery did not fire a shot! On the left wing, a similar absence of leadership seems to have prevailed. Here it was especially the cavalry which, commanded by old women, did not get into action. Wherever an Austrian cavalry regiment showed itself, the French cavalry turned about, but out of eight regiments only a single hussar regiment properly attacked, and two dragoon regiments and one uhlan regiment to some extent; the Prussian Hussars lost 110, the two dragoon regiments together 96 men; the loss of the Sicily Uhlans

is not known, the remaining four regiments lost together only 23 men! The artillery lost in all only 180 men.

These figures prove more than anything else the uncertainty and irresolution with which the Austrian generals, from the emperor down to the corps commanders, led their troops against the enemy. Add to this the numerical superiority and the moral elan which the French owed to their previous successes, and one understands how the Austrians could not win. A single corps chief, Benedek, would not be intimidated; he had the right wing all to himself, and Franz Joseph had no time to meddle. The result was that he soundly thrashed the Piedmontese, despite their twofold numerical superiority.

The higher Napoleon was no longer such a novice in the conduct of war as Franz Joseph. He had already won his spurs at Magenta and knew from experience how he was to behave on the battlefield. He left it to old Vaillant to calculate the length of front to be occupied, from which the distribution of the individual corps then resulted automatically, and then he left it to the corps chiefs to work their way further forward, for he could be fairly easy in his mind about their ability to handle their corps. He himself betook himself to those points at which he was bound to show to best advantage in the Paris “Illustration” of the following Saturday, and from there issued very melodramatic, but also very pointless, detailed orders.

["Das Volk" No. 14, 6 August 1859]

At the academy in Düsseldorf, some time ago, there was a Russian painter who was later banished to Siberia for lack of talent and laziness. The poor devil was an ardent admirer of his Emperor Nicholas and used to recount with enthusiasm: ‘Emperor very great! Emperor can do everything! Emperor can also paint. But Emperor have no time for painting; Emperor buy landscapes and then paint soldiers into them. Emperor very great! God is great, but Emperor is still young!’

The higher Napoleon shares with Nicholas the view that landscapes exist only for soldiers to be painted into them. But since he does not even have the time to paint in the soldiers, he contents himself with sitting for the picture. Il pose. (He strikes a pose.) Magenta, Solferino and all Italy are merely the staffage, merely the pretext for bringing his interesting figure, on this occasion in a melodramatic attitude, once again into the “Illustration” and the “Illustrated London News”. Since this can be done with a certain amount of money, he has also succeeded in doing so. He told the Milanese:

“If there are people who do not understand their century” (the century of advertisement and humbug) “I am not one of them.”

The old Napoleon was great, and the improved Napoleon is no longer young!

This latter insight, that he is no longer young, has also given him the idea that it might well be time to make peace. He had now got as far as one can get with mere *succès d’estime* (successes of esteem). “In four engagements and two battles,” with a loss of over 50,000 men in the engagements alone, not counting the sick, he had conquered the foreland up to the Austrian fortresses – the territory which Austria itself, by its fortification works, had declared to all the world that it would never seriously defend against superior force, and which this time, only to harass Marshal Heß, was nonetheless defended. The *via sacra* (sacred road; here: road of victory), upon which the higher Napoleon had led his army with such classical pomade and with such dubious successes, was suddenly boarded up. Beyond lay the promised land, which not the present “Army of Italy,” but perhaps only its grandsons – and perhaps not even they – would see. Rivoli and Arcole were not on the programme. Verona and Mantua were about to have a say, and the only fortress into whose interior the higher Napoleon has so far made an entry with a military retinue is the castle of Ham – and he was glad enough when he could withdraw again without military honours. The sensational effects had, in any event, turned out *pauvre* (miserable) enough: he had had *grandes batailles* (great battles), but not even the telegraph wire believed his *grandes victoires* (great victories). A war of entrenched camps, against old Heß, a war with varying successes and diminishing chances, a war that required serious work, a
real
war, that was no war for the Napoleon of the Porte Saint-Martin and of Astley’s Amphitheatre. There was also the fact that one step further would have provoked a war on the Rhine as well, and that complications would have arisen which would have put an immediate end to the heroic grimaces and melodramatic *poses plastiques* (plastic poses). But the higher Napoleon does not bother with such things – he made peace and ate his programme.

When the war began, our higher Napoleon at once invoked the Italian campaigns of the vulgar Napoleon, the *via sacra* of Montenotte, Dego, Millesimo, Montebello, Marengo, Lodi, Castiglione, Rivoli and Arcole. Let us now compare the copy with the original.

The vulgar Napoleon took over command of 30,000 half-starved, barefoot and ragged soldiers at a time when France, with disordered finances, unable to raise loans, had to maintain not only two armies on the Alps, but also two armies in Germany. He had Sardinia and the other Italian states not for him, but against him. The army facing him was superior to his own in numbers and organization. Nevertheless, he attacked, defeated Austrians and Piedmontese in six rapidly successive blows, in each of which he managed to have numerical superiority on his side, forced Piedmont to make peace, crossed the Po, forced the passage of the Adda at Lodi and besieged Mantua. He defeated the first Austrian relief army at Lonato and Castiglione and, when it advanced a second time, forced it by bold manoeuvres to throw itself into Mantua. The second relief army he held up at Arcole and kept it in check for two months, until it, reinforced, again moved forward, only to be defeated at Rivoli. Thereupon he compelled Mantua to surrender and the South Italian princes to make peace, and pressed forward across the Julian Alps to the foot of the Semmering, where he conquered peace.

So much for the vulgar Napoleon. And what of the higher? He finds a better and stronger army than France ever had, and a financial situation which at least allows him to raise the costs of the war easily through loans. He has six months’ time to prepare for his campaign in the deepest peace. He has Sardinia with strong fortresses and a numerous, excellent army on his side; Rome he occupies; Central Italy is only waiting for a signal from him to rise and join him. His base of operations is not on the Maritime Alps, but on the middle Po, at Alessandria and Casale. Where his predecessor had mule tracks, he has railways. And what does he do? He throws five strong army corps into Italy, so strong that, together with the Sardinians, he is always considerably superior in numbers to the Austrians, so superior that he can even give the sixth corps to his cousin’s tourist army for a military ramble. Despite all the railways, he needs a full month to concentrate his troops. Finally, he advances. The incapacity of Gyulay makes him a present of the undecided battle of Magenta, which is turned into a victory by the accidental strategic relations of the two armies after the battle – relations for which the higher Napoleon is entirely innocent and Gyulay alone is to blame. In return, he lets the Austrians escape instead of pursuing them. At Solferino, Franz Joseph almost forces him to win; nevertheless, the result is scarcely better than at Magenta. Now a situation is preparing in which the vulgar Napoleon would first have unfolded his resources; the war shifts to an area where there is something more real to do and assumes dimensions in which a grandiose ambition finds its reckoning. At the point where the *via sacra* of the vulgar Napoleon only begins, only opens up a grand perspective, at that point –
the higher Napoleon begs for peace!