With blind confidence Suwarrow marched down upon the plains of Lombardy, dreaming that in those fertile realms nothing awaited him but an easy triumph over those who had been guilty of the crime of abolishing despotism.  The French had heard appalling rumors of the prowess and ferocity of these warriors of the North, and awaited the shock with no little solicitude.[27] The two armies met on the banks of the Adda, which flows into the northern part of the Lake of Como.  Suwarrow led sixty thousand Russians and Austrians.  The French general, Moreau, to oppose them, had the wreck of an army, consisting of twenty-five thousand men, disheartened by defeat.  On the 17th of April, 1799, the first Russian regiment appeared in sight of the bridge of Lecco.  The French, indignant at the interference of the Russians in a quarrel with which they had no concern, dashed upon them with their bayonets, and repulsed them with great carnage.  But the hosts of Russia and Austria came pouring on in such overwhelming numbers, that Moreau, with his forces reduced to twenty thousand men, was compelled to retreat before an army which could concentrate ninety thousand troops in line of battle.  Pressed by the enemy, he retreated through Milan to Turin.  Suwarrow tarried in Milan to enjoy a triumph accorded to him by the priests and the nobles, the creatures of Austria.

[Footnote 27:  “Suwarrow was a genuine barbarian, fortunately incapable of calculating the employment of his forces, otherwise the republic might perhaps have succumbed.  His army was like himself.  It had a bravery that was extraordinary and bordered on fanaticism, but no instruction.  It was expert only at the use of the bayonet.  Suwarrow, extremely insolent to the allies, gave Russian officers to the Austrians to teach them the use of the bayonet.  Fortunately his brutal energy, after doing a great deal of mischief, had to encounter the energy of skill and calculation, and was foiled by the latter.”—­Thiers’ History French Revolution, vol. iv., p. 346.]

Moreau entrenched himself at Alexandria, awaiting the arrival of General Macdonald with reinforcements.  Suwarrow approached with an army now exceeding one hundred thousand men.  Again Moreau was compelled to retreat, pursued by Suwarrow, and took refuge on the crest of the Apennines, in the vicinity of Genoa.  By immense exertions he had assembled forty thousand men.  Suwarrow came thundering upon him with sixty thousand.  The French army was formed in a semicircle on the slopes of the Monte Rotundo, about twenty miles north of Genoa.  The Austro-Russian army spread over the whole plain below.  At five o’clock in the morning of the 15th of August, 1799, the fierce battle of Novi commenced.  Suwarrow, a fierce fighter, but totally unacquainted with the science of strategy, in characteristic words gave the order of battle.  “Kray,” said he, “will attack the left—­the Russians the center—­Melas the right.”  To the soldiers he said, “God wills, the emperor orders, Suwarrow commands, that to-morrow the enemy be conquered.”  Dressed in his usual costume, in his shirt down to the waist, he led his troops into battle.  Enormous slaughter ensued; numbers prevailing against science, and the French, driven out of Italy, took refuge along the ridges of the Apennines.