Berthier

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 15 September 1857


First published in The New American Cyclopaedia, Vol. II, 1858
Reproduced from The New American Cyclopaedia
Source : Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 18
Collection(s): New American Cyclopaedia

When writing the article "Berthier" Marx used information on his life and military activity contained in Engels' letter of September 11 or 12, 1857.

Berthier, Louis Alexandre, marshal of France, prince and duke of Neufchâtel and Valengin, prince of Wagram, born at Versailles, Nov. 20, 1753, murdered at Bamberg, June 1, 1815. He was educated as a soldier by his father,[1] the chief of the corps of topographical engineers under Louis XVI. From the topographical bureau of the king, he passed to active service, first as lieutenant in the general staff, and subsequently as a captain of dragoons. In the American war of independence[2] he served under Lafayette. In 1789, Louis XVI appointed him major-general of the national guard of Versailles, and on Oct. 5 and 6, 1789, as well as Feb. 19, 1791, he did good service to the royal family.[3] He perceived, however, that the revolution opened a field for military talents, and we find him, in turn, the chief of the general staff, under Lafayette, Luckner, and Custine. During the reign of terror he avoided suspicion by exhibiting zeal in the Vendean war. His personal bravery at the defence of Saumur, June 12, 1793, secured an honorable mention in the reports of the commissaries of the convention.[4] After the 9th Thermidor,[5] he was appointed chief of the general staff of Kellermann,[6] and by causing the French army to take up the lines of Borghetto, contributed to arrest the advance of the enemy. Thus his reputation as a chief of the general staff was established before Bonaparte singled him out for that post. During the campaign of l796-'7, he also proved himself a good general of division in the battles of Mondovi (April 22, 1796), Lodi (May 10, 1796), Codogno (May 9, 1796), and Rivoli (Jan. 14, 1797).[7]

Of a weak character, of a tenacious activity, of a herculean strength of constitution, which allowed him to work during 8 consecutive nights, of a stupendous memory for every thing respecting the details of military operations, such as movements of corps, number of forces, cantonments, chiefs; of a promptitude always to be relied upon, orderly and exact, well versed in the use of maps, with an acute appreciation of the peculiarities of the ground, schooled to report in simple and lucid terms on the most complicated military movements, sufficiently experienced and quick-sighted to know on the day of action where to deliver the orders received, and himself attending to their execution, the living telegraph of his chief on the field of battle, and his indefatigable writing machine at the desk, he was the paragon of a staff officer for a general who reserved to himself all the superior staff functions. Despite his remonstrances, Bonaparte placed him, in 1798, at the head of the army destined to occupy Rome, there to proclaim the republic, and to take the pope prisoner.[8] Equally unable to prevent the robberies committed at Rome by French generals, commissaries and purveyors, and to arrest the mutiny in the French ranks, he resigned his command to the hands of M asséna, and repaired to Milan, where he fell in love with the beautiful Madame Visconti; his eccentric and lasting passion for whom caused him during the expedition to Egypt[9] to be nicknamed the chief of the faction des amoureux[10] and cost him the best part of the 40,000,000 francs successively bestowed upon him by his imperial master.

After his return from Egypt, he seconded Bonaparte's intrigues on the 18th and 19th Brumaire,[11] and was appointed minister of war, a post he occupied till April 2, 1800. Acting again as chief of the general staff during the second Italian campaign, he contributed somewhat to the apparently false position in which Bonaparte had placed himself at Marengo, by crediting false reports as to the route and position of the Austrian army.[12] After the victory, having concluded an armistice with Gen. Melas, he was employed on several diplomatic errands, and then reinstated in the war ministry, which he held till the proclamation of the empire. He then became completely attached to the person of the emperor, whom, with the title of major-general of the grand army,[13] he accompanied as chief of the general staff during all his campaigns. Napoleon showered titles, dignities, emoluments, pensions, and donations upon him. May 19, 1804, he was created marshal of the empire, grand cordon of the legion of honor, grand huntsman of France. Oct. 17, 1805, he had the honor of stipulating with Mack the terms of the capitulation of Ulm.[14] From the Prussian campaign of 1806, he carried home the dignity of sovereign prince of Neufchâtel and Valengin. In 1808 he was ordered to marry the princess Elizabeth Maria of Bavaria Birkenfeld, the king of Bavaria's[15] niece, and was made viceconstable of France. In 1809, Napoleon placed him as general-inchief at the head of the grand army destined to operate from Bavaria against Austria. On April 6 he declared war, and on the 15th had already contrived to compromise the campaign. He divided the army into 3 parts, posting Davout with half of the French forces at Regensburg, Masséna with the other half at Augsburg, and between them, at Abensberg, the Bavarians, so that by quickly advancing, the archduke Charles might have vanquished these corps singly*. The slowness of the Austrians and the arrival of Napoleon saved the French army. In his more congenial functions, however, and under the eyes of his master, he rendered excellent service in this same campaign, and added to his long list of titles that of prince of Wagram.[16]

During the Russian campaign[17] he broke down even as chief of the general staff. After the conflagration of Moscow he proved unable even to interpret the orders of his master; but in spite of his urgent request to be allowed to return with Napoleon to France, the latter ordered him to stay with the army in Russia. The narrowness of his mind and his devotion to routine were now fully illustrated in the midst of the fearful odds against which the French had to struggle. True to his traditions, he gave to a battalion, sometimes to a company of the rear-guard, the same orders as if that rear-guard was still composed of 30,000 men; assigned posts to regiments and divisions which had long ceased to exist, and, to make up for his own want of activity, multiplied couriers and formulas. During the years 1813-T4 we find him again at his usual post.[18] After the deposition of Napoleon had been proclaimed by the senate,[19] Berthier, under false pretences, slunk away from his patron, sent in his own adhesion to the senate and the provisional government,[20] even before Napoleon's abdication, and proceeded, at the head of the marshals of the empire, to Compiègne, there to address Louis XVIII in the most servile language. On June 4, 1814, Louis XVIII created him peer of France, and captain of a company of the newly established royal guard. His principality of Neufchâtel he resigned to the king of Prussia[21] in exchange for a pension of 34,000 florins. On Napoleon's return from Elba, he followed Louis XVIII to Ghent. However, having fallen into disgrace with the king in consequence of the concealment of a letter received from Napoleon, he withdrew to Bamberg, where, June 1, 1815, he was killed by 6 men in masks, who threw him out of one of the windows of his father-in-law's[22] palace. His memoirs were published in Paris in 1826.[23]

  1. ↑ Jean Baptiste Berthier.— Ed.
  2. ↑ The American War of Independence (1775-83)—a revolutionary war fought by 13 British colonies in North America. As a result of their victory an independent state was formed, the United States of America. France fought on the side of the Americans.
  3. ↑ On October 5 and 6, 1789, during the French Revolution, the masses who had come to Versailles from Paris clashed with the King's guard and forced Louis XVI to return to Paris, thus thwarting a counter-revolutionary plot prepared by the Court against the Constituent Assembly. On February 19, 1791 Paris was the scene of popular unrest caused by an attempt of the King's female relatives to flee abroad.
  4. ↑ Vendée—a department in Western France; during the French Revolution of 1789-94 the centre of a royalist revolt raised in March 1793 in which the local peasant masses took part. In June 1793 the Vendeans besieged and captured the town of Saumur from the republican forces, but later sustained a number of defeats. The revolt was suppressed in 1795 but attempts to revive it were made in 1799 and later.
  5. ↑ The 9th Thermidor (July 27, 1794)—a coup d'état which led to the overthrow of the Jacobin revolutionary government.
  6. ↑ After the 9th Thermidor Kellermann commanded the Alpine and Italian armies of the French Republic which were to defend the southern borders, including the passes over the Alps, against Austrian and Piedmontese troops threatening invasion
  7. ↑ Marx lists a number of battles of the 1796-97 campaign in which the French army under General Bonaparte routed the allied Austrian and Piedmontese (Sardinian) armies in Northern Italy. At the battle of Mondovi Bonaparte's army defeated the Piedmontese troops, forcing the King of Piedmont to conclude a separate peace treaty with France. The Austrians' defeat at Lodi led to Bonaparte's capture of Milan. The battle of Rivoli (January 14-15, 1797), also won by Bonaparte, finally determined the outcome of the entire campaign in favour of France. The conclusion of a peace treaty between France and Austria in October 1797 completed the collapse of the first anti-French coalition (1792-97).
  8. ↑ Under the pretext of helping the Italian republicans, Bonaparte sought to establish French rule in Italy by setting up "daughter" republics. In March 1798 a Roman Republic was proclaimed, with the help of the French forces, and Pius VI fled. But in 1799, following the invasion of Italy by the armies of the second anti-French coalition, the Italian republics were abolished and the Pope's power restored in the Roman Papal States. With the restoration of French rule in Italy Napoleon incorporated the Papal States into the French Empire in 1809, having previously united part of their territory to the vassal Kingdom of Italy.
  9. ↑ See Note 5.
  10. ↑ Party of lovers.— Ed.
  11. ↑ The 18th and 19th Brumaire (November 9-10, 1799)—a coup d'état which led to the establishment of the military dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was proclaimed Emperor of the French in 1804.
  12. ↑ At the battle of Marengo (Northern Italy) on June 14, 1800 the army of Napoleon, who had received incorrect information on the disposition of the Austrian forces, was unexpectedly attacked by the Austrians who were nevertheless defeated. The French victory at Marengo and successful operations on the other fronts led to the collapse of the second anti-French coalition, formed at the end of 1798 by Britain, Austria, Russia, Spain, Naples and Turkey. As a result Napoleon's rule was consolidated.
  13. ↑ See Note 28.
  14. ↑ On October 17, 1805, during the war of the third European coalition (Britain, Austria, Russia and the Kingdom of Naples) against Napoleonic France, the Austrian army under General Mack, surrounded by the French near Ulm, was compelled to capitulate.
  15. ↑ Maximilian I Joseph.— Ed.
  16. ↑ Berthier was given the title of Prince of Wagram in honour of the victory of Napoleon's army over the Austrians at Wagram on July 5-6, 1809, during the war against the fifth coalition (Austria, Britain, Spain and Portugal). After this defeat the Austrians were forced to accept a harsh peace treaty with Napoleon in October 1809.
  17. ↑ Of 1812.— Ed.
  18. ↑ Chief of the General Staff.— Ed
  19. ↑ The Senate's decision of April 3, 1814 was made public the next day.— Ed.
  20. ↑ A reference to the provisional government under Talleyrand set up by the Senate in April 1814, after the defeat of Napoleon's army and the entry of the Allies into Paris. It promoted the restoration of the Bourbons.
  21. ↑ Frederick William III - Ed.
  22. ↑ Prince of Birkenfeld.— Ed.
  23. ↑ Mémoires du Maréchal Berthier.— Ed.