The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot

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When I was some five hundred paces from the pond, I ordered the
peasant to be released, who ran off as fast as his legs could
carry him; then, sabre in hand, and having forbidden my comrades
to utter any war-cry, I advanced at full gallop on the enemy
Hussars, who did not see us until a moment before we arrived at
the pond. The pond's banks were too high for the horses to climb
out, and there was only one practicable way in, which was the one
that served as the village drinking place. It is true that this
was a wide area, but there were more than a hundred horsemen
crowded together there, all with their bridles in their hands and
their carbines slung, so unconcerned that some of them were
singing. You may imagine their surprise!

I attacked them immediately with carbine fire, which killed
several, wounded many and knocked out a lot of their horses. The
confusion was total! Nevertheless, their captain, rallying some
men who were nearest to the outlet, tried to force a passage to
get out of the water, and opened fire on us, which although not
sustained, wounded two of my men; they then engaged us, but
Pertelay having killed the captain with a blow from his sabre,
the rest crowded back into the pond. To escape from the carbine
fire, many tried to reach the other bank; several lost their
footing and a good number of men and horses were floundering in
the water. Those who reached the other side found that their
horses could not clamber up the steep edge and so they abandoned
them, and pulling themselves up by the aid of trees growing along
the bank, they fled in disorder into the countryside.

The twelve men of the picket-guard came running at the sound of
firing. We attacked them with the sabre and they also took to
flight. However there remained about thirty men still in the
pond, afraid to try to escape because we occupied the only way
out. They shouted to us that they were surrendering; I accepted
this and as they came to the bank, made them throw down their
arms. Most of these men and horses were wounded, but as I wished
to have some trophy from our victory, I chose seventeen horses
and riders who were fit, and placing them in the middle of the
detachment,I abandoned the rest and went off at the gallop, going
round the village, as before.

It was just as well that I made a rapid retreat, for as I had
foreseen, the fugitives had run to warn the nearby troops who had
already been alerted by the sound of gunfire, and within half an
hour there were five hundred horsemen on the banks of the little
pond and some thousands of infantrymen close behind them. We,
however, were two leagues away, our wounded having been able to
sustain a full gallop. We stopped for a short time on top of a
hill to bandage their wounds, and we laughed to see in the
distance several enemy columns following our trail, since we knew
that they had no hope of catching us, because in their fear of
falling into an ambush they were feeling their way forward very
slowly. Being now out of danger, I gave Pertelay two of the
best-mounted troopers and sent him off post-haste to inform
general Seras of the success of our mission; then marshalling the
detachment into good order, with our prisoners in the centre and
well guarded, I set off at a slow trot down the road to the inn.

It would be impossible for me to describe the joy of my
companions and the praises which they heaped on me during this
journey. It could be summed up in these words, which in their
minds was the highest commendation, "You are truly worthy to
serve in Bercheny's Hussars, the finest regiment in the world."

Meanwhile, what had been happening at Santo-Giacomo during my
absence? After several hours of waiting, General Seras, impatient
for news, saw some smoke on the horizon; his aide-de-camp put his
ear to a drum placed on the ground, a common expedient in
wartime, and heard the distant sound of gunfire. General Seras
was uneasy, and having no doubt that the cavalry detachment was
at grips with the enemy, he took a regiment of infantry with him
as far as the inn. When he arrived there, he saw, under the
cart-shelter, a Hussar's horse tied up to the rail; it was
Sergeant Canon's. The inn-keeper appeared and was questioned. He
replied that the sergeant of Hussars had gone no further than the
inn, and had been, for several hours, in the dining room. The
General went in, and what did he find but Sergeant Canon asleep
by the fireside with, in front of him, an enormous ham, two empty
bottles and a coffee cup! The wretched sergeant was woken up; he
attempted once more to make the excuse of a sudden indisposition,
but the accusing remains of the formidable meal which he had just
eaten, gave the lie to his claims of illness, so General Seras
was very short with him. The General's anger was increasing at
the thought that a detachment of fifty cavalrymen handed over to
the command of a young soldier had probably been wiped out by the
enemy, when Pertelay and the two troopers who were with him
arrived at the gallop to announce our victory and the approaching
arrival of seventeen prisoners. As General Seras, in spite of
this happy outcome, continued to berate Sergeant Canon, Pertelay
said to him, in his bluff outspoken way, "Don't scold him, mon
General, he's such a coward that if he'd been in charge we
wouldn't have succeeded!" A remark which did nothing to improve
the awkward position of Sgt. Canon, who was now placed under
arrest.

I arrived in the midst of these goings-on. General Seras broke
poor Sgt. Canon, and made him take off his chevrons in front of a
regiment of infantry and fifty Hussars. Then, coming to me, whose
name he did not know, he said, "You have carried out successfully
a mission which would normally be given only to an officer. I am
sorry that the powers of a divisional commander do not allow me
to promote you to sous-lieutenant, only the commander-in-chief
can do that, and I shall ask him to, do so, but in the meantime I
promote you to sergeant." He thereupon ordered his aide-de-camp
to announce this in front of the detachment. In order to carry
out this formality, the aide-de-camp had to ask my name, and it
was only then that General Seras learned that I was the son of
his comrade, General Marbot. I was very pleased about this,
because it demonstrated to my father that favouritism had nothing
to do with my promotion.

Chap. 10.

The information which General Seras obtained from the prisoners
having decided him to push forward, he ordered his division to
come down from the heights of Mont Santa-Giacomo, and to encamp
that evening near to the inn. The prisoners were sent to Finale,
and as for the horses they belonged by rights to the Hussars.
They were all of good quality, but, according to the custom of
the time, which was aimed at favouring poorly mounted officers,
captured horses were always sold for five louis. This was a fixed
price and was paid in cash. As soon as the camp was established
the sale began. General Seras, the officers of his staff, the
colonels and battalion commanders of the regiments in his
division soon took up our seventeen horses, which produced the
sum of 85 louis. This was handed over to my detachment, who, not
having had any pay for six months, were delighted with this
windfall, for which they gave me the credit.

I had some money, so I did not pocket my share from the sale of
the horses, but to celebrate my promotion, I bought from the
inn-keeper two sheep, an enormous cheese and a load of wine, with
which my detachment had a feast. This was one of the happiest
days of my life.

General Seras, in his report to General Championet included a
most flattering reference to my conduct, and said the same sort
of thing to my father; so when, several days later, I brought the
detachment back to Savona, my father welcomed me with the
greatest show of affection. I was highly delighted; I rejoined
the camp where all the regiment was united; my detachment had
arrived there before me and had told of what we had done, giving
me always the leading part in our success, so I was heartily
welcomed by the officers and soldiers and also by my new
comrades, the non-commissioned officers, who handed me my
sergeant's stripes.

It was on this day that I met the younger Pertelay for the first
time, he had come back from Genoa, where he had been stationed
for some months. I became friendly with this excellent man, and
regretted not having had him as my mentor at the beginning of my
career, for he gave me much good advice, which steadied me up and
made me break away from the wild men of the clique.

The commander-in-chief, Championet, intended to carry out some
operations in the interior of Piedmont, but having very little in
the way of cavalry, he ordered my father to send him the 1st
Hussars, who could no longer stay at Madon, in any case, because
of the shortage of fodder. I parted from my father with much
regret and left with the regiment.

We went along the Corniche as far as Albenga. We crossed the
Apennines, in spite of the snow, and entered the fertile plains
of Piedmont. The commander-in-chief fought a number of actions in
the area round Fossano, Novi and Mondovi, some of which were
successful and others not.

In one of these actions I had the opportunity of seeing
Brigadier-general Macard, a soldier of fortune whom the
revolutionary upheavals had carried almost straight from the rank
of trumpet-major to that of general! He was a good example of a
type of officer created by luck and their personal courage who,
although displaying much bravery before the enemy, were
nevertheless incapable of occupying effectively a senior position
because of their lack of education.

This extraordinary character, a veritable colossus, was well
known for one peculiarity. When about to lead his troops in a
charge against the enemy, it was his custom to shout "Let's go!
I'll put on my animal dress." Then he took off his uniform, his
jacket and shirt and retained only his plumed hat, his leather
breeches and his big boots! Thus, naked to the waist, he
displayed a torso almost as hairy as that of a bear, which gave
him a very strange appearance indeed. Once in his animal dress,
as he called it, General Macard, sabre in hand, hurled himself at
the enemy horsemen, swearing like a pagan; but it so happened
that he rarely reached any of them, for at the unexpected and
terrible sight of this kind of giant, half naked and covered in
hair rushing toward them uttering the most fearsome yells the
enemy often fled in all directions, not knowing if they had to
deal with a man or some extraordinary wild beast.

General Macord was entirely ignorant, which sometimes amused the
more educated officers under his command. One day one of them
came to ask permission to go into a neighbouring town to order a
pair of boots. "Parbleu!" said the general, "This has come at
just the right time; since you are going to the bootmaker, sit
down and take the measurements of my boots and order a new pair
for me." The officer, much surprised, said that he could not take
the measurements as he had no idea how to do this, having never
been a boot-maker. "What!" exclaimed the general loudly, "I see
you sometimes spend whole days sketching and drawing lines
opposite the mountains and when I ask what you are doing, you say
you are measuring the mountains. How is it that you can measure
objects which are more than a league away, and yet you cannot
measure a pair of boots which are under your nose? Come on, take
the measurements quickly and no more nonsense." The officer
assured him that this was impossible. The general insisted;
swore; got angry; and it was only with great difficulty that
other officers, attracted by the noise, were able to put an end
to this ridiculous scene. The general could never understand how
a man who could measure mountains could not measure a pair of
men's boots.

You should not think, as a result of this anecdote, that all the
general officers in the army of Italy were like the good general
Macord. Far from that, they contained in their number many men
distinguished by their education and manners; but at this time
there were still some senior officers who were completely out of
place in the higher ranks of the army. They were being weeded out
little by little.

The 1st Hussars took part in all the battles fought at this time
in Piedmont, and suffered many losses in encounters with the
Austrian heavy cavalry. After some marching and countermarching,
and a series of almost daily minor engagements, General
Championet, having concentrated the centre and left of his army
between Coni and Mondovi, attacked, at the end of December,
several divisions of the enemy army.

The encounter took place on a plain dotted with small hills and
clumps of trees. The 1st Hussars, attached to General Beaumont's
brigade, were positioned on the extreme right of the French army.
As the number of officers and men who make up a squadron is laid
down in the regulations, our regiment, having suffered casualties
in the previous affairs, instead of putting four squadrons into
the line could put only three; but having done this, there were
some thirty men left over, of which five were sergeants. I was
one of this number, as were both the Pertelays. We were formed
into two sections and Pertelay the younger was put in command.
General Beaumont merely instructed him to scout on the right
flank of the army, and act as the situation seemed to require. We
then left the regiment and went to explore the countryside.

In the meanwhile, a fierce battle commenced between the two
armies, and an hour later, when we were returning to our own
lines without having spotted anything on the flank, young
Pertelay saw, opposite us, and consequently on the extreme left
of the enemy line, a battery of eight guns whose fire was raking
the French ranks. Very unwisely, this Austrian battery, in order
to have a better field of fire, had advanced onto a small hillock
some seven or eight hundred paces in front of the infantry
division to which it belonged. The commander of this artillery
believed that he was quite safe because the position he occupied
dominated the whole French line, and he thought that if any
troops set out to attack him, he would see them and would have
time to regain the safety of the Austrian lines. He had not
considered that a little clump of trees, close to where he was,
could conceal a party of French troops, and had thought no more
about it. But young Pertelay resolved to lead his men there, and
from there to fall upon the Austrian battery.

Pertelay, knowing that on the battlefield no one takes much
notice of a single horseman, explained his plan to us, which was
for us to go individually, making a detour by a sunken road, to
arrive one by one behind the wood on the left of the enemy
battery, and from there to make a sudden assault on it, without
the fear of cannon-balls, because we would be approaching from
the side. We would capture the guns and take them to the French
lines. The first part of this plan was executed without the
Austrian gunners noticing; we reached the back of the little
wood, where we re-formed the sections. Pertelay put himself at
our head. We went through the wood, and sabre in hand, threw
ourselves on the enemy battery at the moment when it was
directing a murderous fire on our troops. We sabred some of the
gunners, but the rest hid under their ammunition wagons, where
our sabres could not reach them. As instructed by Pertelay, we
did not kill or wound the men on the limbers, but forced them at
sword point to make their horses pull the guns toward the French
lines. This order was obeyed in respect of six guns whose riders
had remained on horseback, but the riders for the two other guns
had dismounted, and although some of the Hussars took the horses
by the bridle, they refused to move.

The enemy infantry were running to the aid of their battery;
minutes seemed like hours to us; so young Pertelay, satisfied to
have captured six guns, ordered us to leave the others and to
head, with our booty, at the gallop, for the French lines.

This was a prudent measure, but it proved fatal to our leader,
for hardly had we begun our retreat, when the gunners and their
officers emerged from their hiding places under the wagons,
loaded the two guns which we had not taken with grape-shot and
discharged a hail of bullets into our backs.

You can well imagine that thirty horsemen and six artillery
pieces, each drawn by six horses and ridden by three transport
riders, all proceeding in a state of disorder, presented a target
which the grape-shot could hardly miss. We had two sergeants and
several Hussars killed or wounded, as well as two of the
transport riders. Some of the horses were also put out of action,
so that most of the teams were so disorganised that they could
not move. Pertelay, keeping perfectly cool, ordered the traces
of the dead or injured horses to be cut and Hussars to take the
place of the dead transport riders, and we continued quickly on
our way. However, the commander of the Austrian battery made use
of the few minutes we had taken to do this to direct a second
volley of grape-shot at us, which caused further casualties, but
we were so resolved not to abandon the six guns which we had
captured that we repaired the damage as well as we could, and
kept on the move. We were already in touch with the French lines
and out of the range of grape-shot, when the enemy artillery
officer changed projectiles and fired two cannon-balls at us, one
of which shattered the back of poor young Pertelay.

However, our attack on the Austrian battery and its outcome had
been seen by the French generals who moved the line forward. The
enemy drew back, which allowed the remnants of the 1st Hussars to
revisit the area where our unfortunate comrades had fallen.
Almost a third of the detachment were killed or wounded. There
were five sergeants at the beginning of the action; three had
perished; there remained only Pertelay the elder and myself. The
poor fellow was wounded but suffered almost more mentally, for he
adored his brother, whom we all bitterly regretted. While we were
paying him our last respects and picking up the wounded, General
Championet arrived with General Suchet, his chief-of-staff. The
commander-in-chief had witnessed the actions of the platoon. He
gathered us round the six guns which we had just captured, and
after praising the courage with which we had rid the French army
of a battery which was causing them the most grievous losses, he
added that to reward us for having saved the lives of so many of
our comrades, and contributed to the day's success, he intended
to use the power which a recent decree of the First Consul had
given him to award "Armes d'honneur" and that he would award
three sabres of honour and one promotion to sous-lieutenant to
the detachment, who should decide amongst themselves who the
recipients should be. We then regretted even more keenly the loss
of young Pertelay, who would have made such a fine officer.

The elder Pertelay, a corporal and a Hussar were awarded the
sabres of honour, which, three years later gave the right to the
Cross of the Legion of Honour. It remained to be decided which of
us would be sous-lieutenant. All my comrades put my name forward,
and the commander-in-chief, recalling that General Seras had
written to him about my conduct at Santa-Giacomo, designated me
sous-lieutenant...! I had been a sergeant for only a month! I
have to admit, however, that during the capture of the guns, I
had done no more than the rest of my companions; but as I have
already said, these good Alsatians did not feel that they had the
qualities to take command and become officers. They were
unanimous in choosing me, and General Championet, as well as
noting the favourable comments of General Seras, was perhaps also
glad to be able to please my father.

My father, however, was less than pleased with what he considered
to be my over-rapid promotion, and he wrote to me instructing me
to refuse it. I would have obeyed; but my father had written in
the same strain to General Suchet, the chief-of-staff, and this
latter had replied that the commander-in-chief would be very put
out to find that one of his divisional generals had taken it upon
himself to disapprove of a promotion which he had made. My father
then authorised me to accept, and I was gazetted sous-Lieutenant
in December 1799.

I was one of the last officers promoted by General Championet,
who, not being able to remain in Piedmont in the face of superior
forces, was compelled to re-cross the Apennines and lead his army
back to Liguria. He was greatly distressed to see his force
breaking down, because he was not given enough supplies to
support it, and he died two weeks after he had made me an
officer. My father, who was now the most senior divisional
general, was made provisional commander-in-chief of the army of
Italy, whose headquarters were at Nice. He therefore went there
and immediately sent back to Provence the few remaining cavalry,
as there was no longer any fodder in Liguria. So the 1st Hussars
went back to France, but my father kept me behind to become his
aide-de-camp.

While we were at Nice, my father received an order from the war
ministry to go and take command of the advance guard of the army
of the Rhine, where his chief-of-staff Col. Menard would join
him. We were very pleased at this, since want of supplies had
reduced the army of Italy to such a state of disorder that it
seemed impossible that it could be kept in Liguria. My father was
not sorry to be leaving an army which was disintegrating, and was
likely to be pushed back across the Var and into France. He
prepared to move as soon as General Massena, who had been
nominated to replace him, had arrived. He sent M. Gault, his
aide-de-camp, to Paris to buy maps and make various preparations
for our operations on the Rhine. But fate had decreed otherwise,
and my unfortunate father's grave was destined to be in Italy.

When Massena arrived he found no more than the shadow of an army:
the soldiers, without pay and almost without clothing and
footwear, existing on a quarter of the normal ration, were dying
of malnutrition as well as an epidemic of disease, the result of
the intolerable privations which they were suffering. The
hospitals were full but had no medicines. Some groups of
soldiers, and even whole regiments, were daily abandoning their
posts and heading for the bridge across the Var, where they
forced a passage to get into France and spread themselves over
Provence, although saying that they were willing to return if
they were given food! The generals were unable to remedy this
appalling state of affairs. They became, daily more discouraged,
and all were requesting leave or retiring on the grounds of
ill-health. Massena had expected that he would be joined in Italy
by several of the generals who had helped him to defeat the
Russians in Switzerland, among them, Soult, Oudinot and Gazan,
but none of them had yet arrived, and it was essential to do
something about the serious situation.

Massena, who was born in La Turbie, a village in the little
principality of Monaco, was one of the most crafty Italians that
ever existed. He did not know my father, but he decided on their
first meeting that he was a big-hearted man who loved his
country, and, to persuade him to stay, he played on these
sensitive areas, his generosity and his patriotism, suggesting to
him how much nobler it would be for him to continue to serve in
the unhappy army of Italy rather than go to the Rhine. He said
that he would take the responsibility for the failure to carry
out the orders given to my father by the government if he would
agree to stay. My father, beguiled by these speeches and not
wishing to leave the new commander in a mess, consented to remain
with him. He did not doubt that his chief-of-staff, Col. Menard,
his friend, would also give up the idea of going to the Rhine;
but this was not to be. Menard stuck to the order he had been
given, although he was assured that it would be cancelled if he
wished. My father felt very badly about this desertion. Menard
hurried off to Paris, where he took the job of chief-of-staff to
general Lefebvre.

My father went to Genoa, where he took command of the three
divisions which composed the right wing of the army. Despite all
the shortages, the winter carnival was quite gay in the town, the
Italians being so pleasure-loving! We were lodged in the
Centurione Palace, where we spent the end of the winter
1799-1800. My father had left Spire at Nice with the greater part
of his baggage. He now took on Col. Sacleux as his
chief-of-staff, an admirable man, a good soldier, with a very
pleasant personality, if somewhat solemn and serious-minded. He
had as his secretary a young man by the name of Colindo, the son
of a banker, Signor Trepano of Parma, whom he had picked up after
a series of adventures too long to relate here, who became my
very good friend.