The Corsican; A Diary of Napoleon's Life in His Own Words (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 1797 January 3d, Milan: (To General Berthier.) Give General Lannes orders to start for the 19th demi-brigade in two hours, to take command. All the officers must march with their companies, and not in postchaises; they must look like a demi- brigade of the army of Italy, and not like a demi-brigade of the King of Persia. I will cashier any officer who travels by stage and is not with his company. 6th. The more I study, in my leisure moments, the hopeless defects in the army service, the more I am convinced something must be done quickly. Everything is bought and sold. The army consumes five times as much as is necessary. The leading actresses of Italy are kept by the employes of the French army; extravagance, immorality, and graft have reached their limit. There is only one remedy, ? a judicial body that can sentence any army administrator to be shot. Marshal Berwick hanged his commissary because his army was short of food; and we, we are often short. It is not that I am weak; I have employes arrested every day, but nobody backs me up. 12th, Roverbella: Orders for the reserve cavalry to march to-night to Legnago, and for General Massena to be ready to move to-night so as to check the enemy's possible plan of crossing the Adige. General Joubert, who has 10,000 men with him, is undisturbed; in any case, even if he were beaten while we are at Legnago, we should still have time. 13th, 9 A. u., Verona: (To General Joubert, at Rivoli.) Let me know as soon as you can if the enemy in front of you number more than 9000 men. It is very important I should be able to judge whether it is a minor movement, meant to deceive us. The enemy show about 6000 men in the direction of Verona. 3 P.M.: The enemy's movement is unmasked; his forces are moving on Rivoli. Night...