For a moment the cares and concerns of leading an army were forgotten as Napoleon marvelled at the view afforded him from the top of the pass. To one side of the track the hospice of St Bernard squatted in the thick snow, and its monks stood at the entrance passing bread, cheese and wine into the hands of the soldiers as they tramped past, wrapped in coats and blankets, hands in gloves or bound with strips of cloth to save them from the cold, and frostbite. Napoleon watched as a company of the Consular Guard stood and ate their rations, stamping their feet and breathing plumes of steamy breath into the gloomy blue twilight.
Even though Napoleon was wrapped in a large fur coat he felt the sting of the icy air, and the perspiration that he had shed in the final climb up to the top of the pass now chilled his skin.
‘God, it’s cold,’ he muttered.
Junot turned to him. ‘Sir?’
‘I think we’d better get moving again, before it gets dark.’
‘Yes, sir. A lodge has been prepared for us a few miles down the path. We will eat and sleep there.’
Napoleon nodded. For the soldiers there would be no shelter. They would only rest when they reached the treeline, having marched for over two days in the numbing cold with no chance to sleep.
The staff officers moved on to the track and began the descent. Napoleon swapped greetings with the soldiers who made way for them as they passed. Despite their exhaustion he was pleased to see that they were still in high spirits and greeted him with the same rough informality the men had used when he took command of his first army. As night folded over the mountains they proceeded by the light of the braziers that had been set up at regular intervals. Soldiers clustered round each blaze, stretching out their hands to the flames until they were moved on by a sergeant or an officer. At last Napoleon and his small group of staff officers reached the lodge, a solid timber construction with a few small shuttered windows. It smelt musty, but a fire had been built up by the men sent ahead to prepare the shelter for Napoleon. A simple meal of onion soup steamed in a cauldron and the new arrivals fell on it hungrily.
As Napoleon sipped at the scalding brew he read through the reports from the leading division of the army, commanded by Lannes. The news was not good. Thirty miles further on, the valley became very narrow at the village of Bard. Above the village, on a rock, was a fortress with a strong garrison whose cannon covered the route into Italy. Lannes had taken the village without any difficulty, but the fortress was impregnable. Leaving a small force to cover the enemy, Lannes had taken his infantry on a winding track around the fortress and was moving on towards Ivrea. Lannes would be vulnerable without artillery and Napoleon felt his heart sink a little at this first obstacle to his plans.
Time was more important than ever. Shortly before leaving Geneva he had received news that the Austrians had attacked Masséna and divided the Army of Italy. While half the army was driven back towards the French border, the rest, along with Masséna, were under siege in the port city of Genoa, caught between the Austrian army and the Royal Navy. Even though Masséna was short of supplies, Napoleon had sent an order to hold on until the middle of June, long enough to divert the enemy’s attention away from the Army of Reserve closing on them from the Alps. It was a bad situation but Napoleon was reassured by the fact that Masséna was in command at Genoa. He could be counted on to fight for as long as possible.
However heroic Masséna might be, Napoleon reflected, everything depended on getting the Army of Reserve into position in the shortest possible time, and the delay at Bard might yet cost him dearly. He set his spoon down with a sharp rap on the table and stood up. ‘Junot, Bourrienne, come with me. We must keep going. The rest of you follow first thing in the morning.’>
He led the way outside, and explained briefly about the situation at Bard as they continued along the icy track, joining the dark string of soldiers trudging south.The night sky was clear and stars gleamed brilliantly in the velvet heavens as they marched as fast as they could. As soon as the ground became level and firm enough to ride a horse, Napoleon and the others commandeered some mounts from a cavalry regiment and rode on, passing Aosta before dawn and from there following the Dora Baltea river towards Bard where they arrived at the headquarters of General Berthier late in the afternoon.
Napoleon saw at once that Lannes had not exaggerated the problem presented by the fortress. It completely dominated the ravine through which the main route passed. Berthier pointed out a number of shattered wagons and cannon littering the track below the fortress, togther with the bodies of several horses and men.
‘We tried to get some artillery and supplies through to Lannes last night, sir. But they heard us, and rolled some burning faggots into the ravine and shot the column to pieces. The only other route past the fortress is up there, sir. The engineers have started work on widening the track, but it will take several days.’
Napleon followed the direction indicated by Berthier and saw a string of tiny figures picking their way along the side of a cliff. There was not even room for a horse, he realised. That meant that, with the exception of the infantry, the army was bottled up by this fortress and its garrison of no more than a few hundred.
‘Well, we must make an attempt to assault the fortress,’ Napoleon decided. ‘Tonight.’
‘We already tried a direct assault two days ago, sir. The only approach to the fort is up that road from the village. The road is covered by several guns and they cut our men down with grapeshot before they even got near the walls.’
‘Then we might have a better chance under the cover of darkness,’ Napoleon responded. ‘And while the enemy are distracted by the attack, we’ll try to send another column through the ravine. I admit it’s risky, but we have to get the guns through to Lannes.’
Berthier opened his mouth to protest, but he saw the familiar set expression in his superior’s face that indicated there would be no further discussion of the situation. Berthier turned to his staff with a sigh and gave orders for the attack.
Two hours after the sun had set behind the mountains and darkness has filled the valley, Napoleon and Berthier stood on a small spur of rock to watch the assault.An infantry battalion, with several ladders, was already picking its way up the road from the village. Each man was carrying only his musket and a cartridge pouch, although none of their weapons was loaded yet, in case some fool fired by accident and alerted the garrison. Down in the village, a column of supply wagons and a battery of limbered guns were ready to move forward the moment the attack began. Once night had fallen, engineers had crept down the road, smothering it with straw and dung to muffle the sound of the vehicles’ wheels, which had been wrapped in sacking.
A blazing wicker bundle suddenly flared up on the gatehouse of the fort and then it arced out across the road, landed in a shower of sparks and began to roll down the slope, illuminating the attackers as they dived aside to avoid being mown down by the flaming ball. At once the Austrian guns blasted a storm of grapeshot into the ranks of the French infantry racing towards the walls with their spindly-looking ladders. As Napoleon watched, scores of his men were struck down by the withering fire from the fortress and only a small party reached the outermost bastion and threw their ladder up against the wall. But they died to a man in the crossfire from the other squat towers that projected from the wall.