ABSTRACT

Seven days before his marriage with Josephine (2 March 1796), Napoleon was nominated commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy. He was only 27. He was given a limited objective-to contain the Austrians in Italy-while the main thrust of the campaign was to be carried out by Hoche in Germany. Legend has it that Napoleon went about transforming the Army of Italy, which was demoralised and lacking in matériel and discipline, into an outstanding fighting force, making Italy the main theatre of operations. This is true up to a point. As the following documents show, his troops were far less heroic than the image of the grenadiers portrayed in official propaganda and were largely motivated by plunder. Bonaparte’s famous appeal supposedly launched on 27 March 1796 (‘Soldiers, you are naked and badly nourished’), was an invitation to pillage and loot, but is probably apocryphal. More interesting from a political point of view is the proclamation of 7 Floréal which Bonaparte made before attacking the Austrians with only 30,000 troops. Bonaparte appealed to their sense of honour and glory to perform ever greater feats. At the same time, however, he attempted to reassure the Italian civilian population by pointing out how severely he would deal with looters. The French army had been looting indiscriminately and Bonaparte’s orders two days previously to try and stem the pillage (Order of the Day, 24 April 1796) had proved ineffective.