Napoleon in Italy

THE ROAD TO GLORY--F. Britten Austin --Stokes ($2.50).

On March 26, 1796, General Napoleon, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Italy, with a dubious reputation to maintain, arrived in Nice to take charge of his demoralized and mutinous troops. The 26-year-old officer was oppressed by great worries. His army was unfed, undisciplined, dissipating every victory by pillaging. His staff was jealous and unreliable. The suspicious Directory in Paris hampered his activities. He was outnumbered by the Austrians and the Piedmontese. Moreover, his bride of 17 days, a onetime aristocrat, did not answer his letters. In less than four months Napoleon had virtually driven the Austrians from Italy, defeated superior forces, been hailed as a liberator, transformed his army from gangs of plunderers to skilled, enthusiastic fighting units, won the esteem of rivals, conducted one of the most significant military exploits in history.

Last fortnight, Frederick Britten Austin, an oldtime romancer, added to the 40,000-odd books that have been written about Napoleon a volume, ''a novel and not a history," dealing with the four critical months of the First Italian Campaign. Since its details are historically accurate, and since the author's characterization of Napoleon as an individual is monotonous, The Road to Glory is most interesting in its accounts of battles, of strategy and the arts of war. When Mr. Austin's Napoleon plans a flank or breaks all the rules by storming a bridge, he seems a real character. When he soliloquizes about his dreams of conquest or his love for his wife, he becomes an awkward myth of history. But, as Mr. Austin says of The Road to Glory, "I defy any person to discover all the faults I know positively to exist in it."

The climax of the book is the scene of the crossing of the Adda, when the French troops, made heroic by two months of victory, audaciously rushed a bridge under direct fire. Thereafter Napoleon's progress had about as much dramatic conflict as the passage of a knife through butter. During the earlier battles in the vicinity of Montelegino he had perfected his tactics, staking everything on a swift and varied attack, compensating for the numerical weakness of his troops by rapid concentrations and fast marches, counting heavily on the timidity of enemy generals for the success of his plans.

The only real victory of his enemies was the result of an Austrian order incorrectly dated. The methodical Austrian commander, thus instructed to arrive at Montelegino the day after the battle, and the day after he was needed, followed his bungled orders to the letter. Napoleon had already taken the stronghold. The main Austrian army had retreated. At this point the small Austrian detachment, running 24 hours behind schedule, marched in quietly, as astonished as the French, who fled in disorder. That was a maneuver so unexpected that even Napoleon could not have conceived it. It suggested that in warfare a beautiful piece of stupidity, if accurately timed, could be even more effective than a dozen strokes of genius.

The Author. In his 50 years Frederick Britten Austin has written some 20 blood & thunder volumes, most of them characterized by grandiose imaginative conceptions. Thus The Red Flag dealt with the progress of revolution through the ages while his interminable A Saga of the Sword described in terms of romance the development of war from prehistoric times. Born in London, he attended the Grocers' Company School and Hackney Downs, enlisted in the British Army in 1914, was demobilized in 1919 with the rank of captain. His first literary success came during the War. when he wrote a story about the first attack of the tanks as seen by a German artillery commander. It sounded so authentic that the censor would not pass it, believing it a captured document.

Married, father of two boys and two girls, Author Austin now lives on the Avenue Franco-Rasse in Paris, lists his preference in life as a full bank account, likes to travel, collect books.

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