to be undertaken, until the offensive operations against General Kray should have fully succeeded, and disabled him to keep the field; that in the mean time it would be necessary to take great care to avoid weakening the right wing of the army of the Rhine; but on the contrary to support it, by advancing to the spring of the higher vallies, to the opening of the Engadine and the Vorarlberg, a part of the army of reserve, which would there be equally well posted for the purposes of closing the entrance of Switzerland on the side of the Tyrol, in case General Kray should attempt to make a diversion there, or of falling back on the new line of operations of General Melas in Lombardy, and thereby the more effectually covering that of the French army of the Rhine, acting in the valley of the Danube. Bonaparte, on the contrary, was intent only on reconquering Italy and his former trophies: he had, indeed, supplied the army of Moreau, in the first instance, with all the disposable resources, and those which were most necessary to place it, as quickly as possible, in an effective state: whilst he was collecting with difficulty, from great distances, the personnel, the matériel, and a great number of horses necessary for his own expedition; but he regarded this great army of the Rhine as a mass intended only to paralyze the principal forces of Austria, after the first movements should have broken off all concert between the Imperial army of Germany and that of Italy. It was sufficient, therefore, for the First Consul, that Switzerland should be well guarded, and the chain of the Alps rendered impenetrable. Moreau was to remain in observation, and to detach all his right wing to reinforce the army of reserve in the plains of Lombardy; in order that Napoleon alone might strike the grand blows, on the theatre in which it was his object to gain the most brilliant victories."

1

General Moreau never commanded in Flanders or Holland; he served in the campaigns of 1794 and 1795, under Generals Pichegru and Jourdan, like Souham, Taponier, Michaud, &c. he acted as a general in chief, fo the first time, in the month of May 1796, when he took the command of the army of the Rhine; in July he passed that river. Napoleon was then master of all Italy.

The campaign in Germany, in 1796, did little honour either to the military talents of those who planned it, or of the general who principally directed it, and who commanded the main army. 1st, He passed to the right bank of the Danube and of the Lech, after the battle of Neresheim on the 11th of August; whereas, by advancing his line upon the Altmuhl by the left bank of the Danube, he might have united his forces in three marches with the army of the Sambre and Meuse, which was upon the Rednitz, and by this movement he would have decided the campaign. 2dly, He remained inactive during six weeks of August and September, in Bavaria, whilst the Archduke defeated the army of the Sambre and Meuse, and drove it beyond the Rhine. 3dly, He suffered Kehl to be besieged for several

months by an inferior army, within sight of his own, and he suffered it to be taken.

In the campaign of 1799, he at at first served in Italy under Scherer, as a general of division he there shewed equal bravery and talent at the head of one or two divisions; but when raised to the chief command of the same army, at the end of April, by the recall of Scherer, he continually made mistakes, and shewed no more knowledge of the great art of war than he had evinced in the campaign of 1796. 1st, He allowed himself to be defeated at Cassano by Suwarrow; he there lost the greater part of his artillery, and suffered Serrurier's division to be surrounded and taken. 2dly, He made his retreat by the Ticino, whereas he ought to have retreated by the right bank of the Po, by the bridge of Placenza, in order to join the army of Naples, commnaded by Macdonald,

march towards the Po.

which was on its Had this junction

been effected, he would have conquered Italy. 3dly, From the Ticino he retreated upon Turin, leaving Suwarrow at liberty to march upon Genoa, and to cut him off entirely from the army of Naples. This mistake he discovered in time, and returned with all speed by the right bank of the Po to Alessandria; but

some days afterwards he made the same mistake, by marching upon Coni, and wholly abandoning the army of Naples, and the heights of Genoa. 4thly, Whilst he was marching westward, Macdonald with the army of Naples arrived on the Spezzia: instead of effecting his junction with this general, at Genoa, behind the Apennines, and then debouching united, by the Bocchetta, to compel the enemy to raise the siege of Mantua, Moreau ordered Macdonald to pass the Apennines, and to enter the vale of the Po, to effect his junction on Tortona. The result was what might have been expected: the army of Naples had to sustain, unassisted, all the efforts of the enemy, in the fields of Trebbia ;-and then Italy was actually lost.

In 1799, Moreau enjoyed no credit whatever, either in the army or with the nation; his conduct in Fructidor 1797 had disgraced him with

all parties. He had withheld in his own possession the papers found in the waggon taken from Klinglin, which proved the correspondence of Pichegru with the Duke d'Enghien and the Austrians, as well as the plots of the intestine factions; whilst Pichegru, under cover of the reputation which he had acquired in Holland, was exerting a great influence over the legislature.

Moreau violated his oath, and his duty towards his government, by withholding such important papers, on which the safety of the Republic might have depended. If his friendship for Pichegru led him into this culpable compromise, he ought not to have communicated these papers at a time when a knowledge of their contents could no longer be serviceable to the state; for, after the transactions of the 18th of Fructidor, that party was defeated, and Pichegru was in chains. The proclamation of Moreau to the army, and his letter to Barthelemy, were a mortal blow, which deprived Piehegru and his unfortunate companions of public compassion-the only consolation which remains for the wretched.

Moreau had no system, either in politics or war: he was an excellent soldier, personally brave, and capable of manoeuvring a small army on a field of battle effectually; but absolutely ignorant of the higher branches of tactics. Had he engaged in any intrigues to bring about an 18th of Brumaire, he would have miscarried, He would only have effected the ruin of himself and his adherents. When, in the month of September 1799, the Legislative Body gave a dinner to Napoleon, a great number of deputies declined attending, because Moreau was to