SOME SITES OF BATTLE. 
587 
Napoleon was surprised to start with. He was unprepared for an 
attack. He never thought the Austrians, cut off from the lower Po but 
holding Genoa, would turn on him. He calculated on their moving south¬ 
wards, and had sent off Desaix to seek them out. But be was wrong. 
Old Melas had a good deal of the Bliicher in him, and his troops were 
full of fight. To shirk an engagement when the odds were fairly even 
was not his way. The Austrians came out from Alessandria, over the 
Bormida, and went for Lannes and Victor with a will, while the First 
Consul was still asleep in his quarters miles away. Gradually superior 
numbers told. The French retreated fighting. Marengo was lost._ 
And Napoleon was fortunate in arriving before the retreat became a 
rout, and in having at the first alarm summoned Desaix back to his 
support at San Giuliano. The sight of him nerved the soldiers to fresh 
efforts, for they believed in him. His presence on the field staved off 
panic. Playing a losing game, the Frenchman is seldom at his best; 
but under Napoleon when still in full possession of his faculties, the 
volatile enthusiastic soldiery could be as undismayed and dogged in 
retreat as they ever were gay and dashing when victorious. So 
Napoleon fell back steadily and fighting, hoping for Desaix. And 
Melas, weary but triumphant, thinking the battle won, rode off back to 
Alessandria, leaving Zach to carry on and keep the French upon the 
move. 
Napoleon's indomitable pluck did not desert him. Although his 
generals all declared the day was lost, he stuck to it that he would win, 
and kept his troops in line of battle, which the very open terrain ad¬ 
mitted of. Zach came on, his advanced brigades keeping to the 
Marengo—San Giuliano road. At last Desaix arrived, riding on ahead 
of his division to meet his chief. Asked for his opinion, he gave it 
without hesitation. The battle, indeed, was lost, he said, but the day 
was yet young; there was still time to win another ere the sun went 
down. Aud he formed his leading battalions right across the road in 
a slight depression which one barely notices. 
Napoleon meanwhile rode along the lines more to the left, calm 
and confident as the soldiers did not fail to note. “ That will do," he 
called to them, “ we've gone back far enough. You know I always 
sleep upon the battle-field." But though Zach was taken somewhat 
aback by finding Desaix drawn up in his path, he hurried to attack 
him, and a desperate fight ensued. Desaix was one of the first to fall. 
For some time the issue hung in the balance; the Austrians, flushed 
with their success, came on with much enthusiasm ; the French, some¬ 
what inferior in force, held their ground stubbornly. Gradually, how¬ 
ever, Zach began to gain the mastery, and it seemed as if the second 
battle like the first would end in French defeat, when of a sudden 
there occurred incomparably the most dramatic tactical incident in the 
history of modern war. 
From the left, from behind some vineyards—the same may be as 
those which still exist some little distance from the road—a mass of 
cavalry swept down upon the Austrians, totally unprepared for such an 
onset. It was a matter, not of minutes, but of seconds. Kellermann 
had with him only 600 sabres, the strength of an ordinary modern 
cavalry corps. But they were right among Zach's troops before an 
