CAMPAIGNS IN THE NETHERLANDS The year 1793 opened disastrously for the Republic. As a consequence of Jemappes and Valmy, France had taken the offen sive both in Belgium, which had been overrun by Dumouriez's army, and in the Rhine countries. But the execution of Louis XVI. raised up a host of new and determined enemies. England, Holland, Austria, Prussia, Spain and Sardinia promptly formed the First Coalition. England poured out money in profusion to pay and equip her Allies' land armies, and herself began the great struggle for the command of the sea (see Naval Operations, below) .
sessed real loyalty to the new order of things, and brilliant per sonal courage. At the darkest hour he seized the reins without orders and without reference to seniority, and began to reconstruct the force and the spirit of the shattered army by wise administra tion and dithyrambic proclamations.
France was, however, for a time defenceless, and the oppor tunity existed for the military promenade to Paris that the allied statesmen had imagined in 1792. But Coburg now ceased to be a purely Austrian commander, for one by one allied contin gents, with instructions that varied with the political aims of the various governments, began to arrive. Soon the idea of re storing order in France became little more than a pretext for a general intrigue amongst the confederate powers, each seeking to aggrandize itself at France's expense. Coburg's plan of campaign was limited to the objects acceptable to all the Allies alike. He aimed at the conquest of a first-class f ortress—Lille or Valen ciennes—his reason being largely that he might gain a depot as near as possible to the front to save the customarily exorbitant hire of transport for supplies. As for the other governments which Coburg served as best he could, the object of the war was material concessions, and it would be easy to negotiate for the cession of Dunkirk and Valenciennes when the British and Aus trian colours already waved there. The Allies, theref ore, instead of following up their advantage over the French field army and driving forward on the open Paris road, set their faces westward, intending to capture Valenciennes, Le Quesnoy, Dunkirk and Lille one after the other.
Dampierre meanwhile grew less confident as responsibility settled upon his shoulders. Quite unable to believe that Coburg would bury himself in a maze of rivers and fortresses when he could scatter the French army to the winds by a direct advance, he was disquieted and puzzled by the Austrian investment of Conde. And the result of skirmishes around Valenciennes gave him little confidence in the troops. But the representatives on mission bade him relieve Conde at all costs. On May i, Co burg's positions west of Quievrain were attacked. The French won some local successes by force of numbers and surprise, but the Allies recovered themselves, and drove the Republicans in disorder to their entrenchments. Dampierre's discouragement now became desperation, and, urged on by the representatives (who, be it said, had exposed their own lives freely enough in the ac tion), he attacked Clerfayt, who was covering the siege of Conde, on the 8th at Raismes. The troops fought far better in the woods and hamlets west of the Scheldt than they had done in the plains to the east. But in the heat of the action Dampierre risked and lost his life in leading a storming party, and his men retired sul lenly, though this time in good order, to Valenciennes. Another pause followed, Coburg awaiting the British contingent under the duke of York, and the Republicans endeavouring to assimilate the reinforcements of conscripts, who now arrived. Mutiny and denunciations augmented the confusion in the French camp. Plan of campaign there was none, save a resolution to stay at Valen ciennes in the hope of finding an opportunity of relieving Conde and to create diversions elsewhere. These came to nothing, and before they had even started, Coburg, resuming the offensive, had stormed the lines of Famars (May 24), whereupon the French army retired to Bouchain, leaving not only Conde, but also Val enciennes to resist as best they could. Here, surrounded by streams and marshes, the French generals thought that their troops were secure from the rush of the dreaded Austrian cavalry. Co burg refrained from a regular siege of Conde. He wished to gain possession of the fortress in a defensible state, intending to use it as his own depot later in the year. He therefore reduced it by famine. During the siege of Valenciennes the Allies appear to have been supplied from Mons.
Jean Nicolas Houchard, the next officer appointed to com mand, had been a heavy cavalry trooper in the Seven Years' War. His bravery, his stature, his bold and fierce manner, his want of education, seemed all to betoken the ideal sans-culotte general. But he was incapable of leading an army, and knowing this, care fully conformed to the advice of his staff-officers, Berthelmy and Gay-Vernon, the latter of whom, an exceptionally capable officer, had been Custine's chief of staff and was consequently under suspicion. At one moment, indeed, operations had to be suspended altogether because his papers were seized by the civil authorities, and amongst them were all the confidential memoranda and maps required for the business of headquarters. It was the darkest hour. The Vendeans, the people of Lyons, Marseille and Toulon, were in open and hitherto successful revolt. Valenciennes had fallen and Coburg's hussar parties pressed forward into the Somme valley. Again the Allies had the decision of the war in their own hands. Coburg, indeed, thought an advance on Paris hazardous. But, hazardous or not, it would have been attempted but for the English. The duke of York had definite orders from his government to capture Dunkirk—at present a nest of corsairs which interfered with the Channel trade, and in the future, it was hoped, a second Gibraltar—and the English and Hanoverians marched away to besiege the coast fortress. Thereupon the king of Prussia in turn called off his contingent for operations on the middle Rhine. Coburg, therefore, was brought to a complete standstill, and the scene of the decision was shifted to the district between Lille and the coast.
Thither came Carnot, the engineer officer who was in charge of military affairs in the Committee of Public Safety and who is known to history as the "Organizer of Victory." He went no further than to recommend an inroad into Flanders on the ground that no enemy would be encountered there. This, how ever, in the event developed into an operation of almost decisive importance, for at the moment of its inception the duke of York was already on the march. Fighting en route a severe but suc cessful action at Lincelles, to extricate the Dutch, the Anglo Hanoverians entered the district—densely intersected with canals and morasses—around Dunkirk and Bergues on August 21 and 22.
On the right, by way of Furnes, the British moved towards Dun kirk and invested the east front of the weak fortress, while on the left the Hanoverian field-marshal von Freytag moved via Poperinghe on Bergues. The French detachments were easily dispersed. Houchard was in despair at the bad conduct of his troops. But one young general, Jourdan, anticipating Houchard's orders, had already brought a strong force from Lille to Cassel, whence he incessantly harried Freytag's posts. Carnot encouraged the garrisons of Dunkirk and Bergues, and caused the sluices to be opened. The morale of the defenders rose rapidly. Houchard prepared to bring up every available man of the Army of the North, and only waited to make up his mind as to the direction in which his attack should be made. The Allies themselves rec ognized the extreme danger of their position. It was cut in half by the Great Morass, stretches of which extended even to Furnes. Neither Dunkirk nor Bergues could be completely invested owing to the inundations, and Freytag sent a message to King George III. to the effect that if Dunkirk did not surrender in a few days the expedition would be a complete failure.
As for the French, they could hardly believe their good for tune. Generals, staff officers and representatives on mission alike were eager for a swift and crushing offensive. " `Attack' and `attack in mass' became the shibboleth and the catch-phrase of the camps" (Chuquet), and fortresses and armies on other parts of the frontier were imperiously called upon to supply large drafts for the Army of the North. Gay-Vernon's strategical instinct found ex pression in a wide-ranging movement designed to secure the annihilation of the duke of York's forces. Beginning with an attack on the Dutch posts north and east of Lille, the army was then to press forward towards Furnes, the left wing holding Frey tag's left wing in check, and the right swinging inwards and across the line of retreat of both allied corps. On Aug. 28, consequently, the Dutch posts were attacked and driven away by the mobile forces at Lille, aided by parts of the main army from Arras. But even bef ore they had fired their last shot the Republicans dis persed to plunder and compromised their success. Houchard and Gay-Vernon began to fear that their army would not emerge suc cessfully from the supreme test they were about to impose on it, and from this moment the scheme of destroying the English be gan to give way to the simpler and safer idea of relieving Dun kirk. The place was so ill-equipped that after a few days' siege it was in extremis, and the political importance of its preservation led not merely the civilian representatives, but even Carnot, to implore Houchard to end the crisis at once. An army of 37,o00 men was left to watch Coburg and to secure Arras and Douai, and the rest, 5o,000 strong, assembled at Cassel. Everything was in Houchard's favour could he but overcome the indiscipline of his own army. The duke of York was more dangerous in appearance than in reality and Freytag's covering army extended in a line of disconnected posts from Bergues to Ypres.
Hondschoote was a psychological victory. Materially, it was no more than the crushing of an obstinate rearguard at enormous expense to the assailants, for the duke of York was able to with draw while there was still time. But it established the fact that the "New French" were determined to win, at any cost and by sheer weight and energy. It was long before they were able to meet equal numbers with confidence, and still longer bef ore they could freely oppose a small corps to a larger one. But the night mare of defeats and surrenders was dispelled. Having missed the opportunity of crushing the English, Houchard turned his atten tion to the Dutch posts about Menin, which he overwhelmed (Sept. 1 2-13) . After this engagement, won by immensely superior forces, Houchard pushed still further inland, but missed his tar get—the Austrian general, Beaulieu—while his own detachments suffered a series of pin-prick defeats. Houchard's offensive died away completely, and he halted at Gaverelle, half-way between Douai and Arras, a prey to conflicting rumours from which emerged the conclusion that Coburg was about to join the duke of York in a second siege of Dunkirk. In consequence he began to close on his left. But his conclusion was entirely wrong. The Allies were closing on their left inland to attack Maubeuge.
Houchard was now denounced and brought captive to Paris! Placed upon his trial, he offered a calm and reasoned defence of his conduct, but when the intolerable word "coward" was hurled at him by one of his judges he wept with rage, pointing to the scars of his many wounds, and then, his spirit broken, sank into a lethargic indifference, in which he remained to the end. He was guillotined on Nov. 16, 1793. After Houchard's arrest Jour dan accepted the command, though with many misgivings. The new levies, instead of filling up the depleted ranks of the line, were assembled in indisciplined and half-armed hordes at various frontier camps, under elected officers who had for the most part never undergone the least training. But an enthusiasm equal to that of Hondschoote, and similarly demanding a plain, urgent and recognizable objective, animated it, and although Jourdan and Carnot (who was with him) began to study the general strategic situation, the Committee brought them back to realities by order ing them to relieve Maubeuge at all costs.
To complete the story of '93, it remains to sketch, very briefly, the principal events on the eastern and southern frontiers of France. It was not merely on the Sambre and the Scheldt, nor against one army of heterogeneous allies that the Republic had to fight for life, but against Prussians and Hessians on the Rhine, Sardinians in the Alps, Spaniards in the Pyrenees, and also (one might say, indeed, above all) against Frenchmen in Vendee, Lyons, Marseilles and Toulon. On the Rhine the advance of a Prussian-Hessian army, 63,00o strong, rapidly drove back Custine from the Main into the valleys of the Saar and the Lauter. An Austrian corps under Wurmser soon afterwards invaded Alsace. Here, as on the northern frontier, there was a long period of trial and error, of denunciations and indiscipline, and of wholly trivial fighting, before the Republicans recovered themselves. But in the end the ragged enthusiasts found their true leader in Hoche, and, though defeated by Brunswick at Pirmasens and Kaisers lautern, they managed to develop almost their full strength against Wurmser in Alsace. On Dec. 26 the latter was driven by main force from the lines of Weissenburg, after which Hoche advanced into the Palatinate and delivered Landau, and Pichegru moved on to recapture Mainz, which had surrendered in July. On the Spanish frontier both sides indulged in a fruitless war of posts in broken ground. The Italian campaign of 1793, equally un profitable, will be referred to below. Far more serious than either was the insurrection of Vendee (q.v.) and the counter-revolution in the south of France, the principal incidents of which were the terrible sieges of Lyons and Toulon.
On that day Coburg himself entered Tournai and took up the general command. Orders were promptly issued for a general offensive. Clerfayt's corps was to force its way, on the 16th, across the Lys at Werwick and connect with the main army. The main army was to advance in four columns. The first three, under the duke of York, were to move off, at daylight on the 17th, to the line Mouscron-Tourcoing-Mouvaux. The fourth and fifth under Kinsky and the archduke Charles, were to defeat the French corps on the upper Marque, and then, leaving Lille on their left, to march rapidly forward to wards Werwick, thus completing the investing circle around Sou ham's and Moreau's isolated di visions. Picked volunteers to clear away the enemy's skirmish ers were to precede the heads of the columns. Then came at the head of the main body the artil lery with an infantry escort. All this might have been designed by the Japanese for the attack of some well-defined Russian posi tion in the war of 19o4. But in 1904 the Russians stood still, which was the last thing that the Revolutionary armies of would or could do. Souham, who commanded in the temporary absence of Pichegru, had formed his own plan. Finding himself with the major part of his forces be tween York and Clerfayt, he had decided to impose upon the former by means of a covering detachment, and to fall upon Clerfayt near Rousselaer with the bulk of his forces. But the appearance of fresh allied troops (Kinsky) on his right at once modified these arrangements. Divining Coburg's intentions from the arrival of the enemy near Pont-a-Marque and at Lannoy, he attempted a fresh concentration against the left flank of the columns on the move towards Tourcoing, which his weak centre (12,00o men at Tourcoing, Mouscron, Roubaix) was to stop by frontal defence. No role was as yet assigned to the principal mass (50,000 under Moreau) about Courtrai.
This second plan failed like the first, because the enemy's counter-will was not controlled—as Napoleon usually sought to ensure. All along the line Coburg's advance compelled the French to fight as they were without any redistribution. But the French were sufficiently elastic to adapt themselves readily to unforseen conditions, and at the end of the first day's operations, the "annihilation plan" of the Allies had already undergone a serious check. The archduke did not arrive at Orchies till dawn on the 17th, and had to halt there for rest and food. Thence, moving across country in fighting formation, he made his way no farther than Pont-a-Marque. Kinsky, after forcing the passage of the Marque at Bouvines, had made little headway in face of a French covering detachment. On the other flank, the right column (Han overians) under von dem Bussche, had been driven back from Mouscron. Only the duke of York and Otto had done their share in the centre, and they now stood at Mouvaux and Tourcoing respectively, isolated in the midst of the enemy's main body, with no hope of support from the other columns and no more than a chance of meeting Clerfayt, who had met an unexpected all-day check at Werwick. Coburg's entire force was, without deducting losses, no more than 53,000 for a front of 18m., and only half of the enemy's available 8o,000 men had as yet been engaged. Mat ters did not, of course, present themselves in this light at Sou ham's headquarters, where the generals met in an informal council. The outposts, reinforced though they were from the main group, had everywhere been driven in, and the subordinate leaders sent in the most despondent reports. "Councils of war never fight" is an old maxim, justified in 99 cases in Ioo. But this council de termined to do so, and with all possible vigour. The scheme was practically that which Coburg's first threat had produced and his first brusque advance had inhibited. Vandamme was to hold Clerfayt, the garrison of Lille and a few outlying corps to occupy the archduke and Kinsky, and in the centre, Moreau and Bon naud, with 40,000 effectives, were to attack the Tourcoing Mouvaux position in front and flank at dawn with all possible energy.
Battle of first shots were fired on the Lys, where Clerfayt's infantry had effected its crossing in the night. Vandamme's troops were, by the chance of a fatigue-enforced halt near Menin, massed on the flank of Clerfayt's subsequent line of advance. Vandamme used his advantage well. He attacked Clerfayt's columns as they moved on Lincelles with perhaps 12,000 men against 21,000. Clerfayt stopped at once, turned upon him and drove him towards Roncq and Menin. Still, fight ing, rallying and fighting again, Vandamme's regiments managed to spin out time and to commit Clerfayt deeper and deeper to a false direction till it was too late in the day to influence the battle elsewhere. Von dem Bussche's column at Dottignies, still shaken from the day before, did nothing, and actually retreated to the Scheldt. On the other flank, Kinsky and the archduke Charles practically remained inactive. There remained the two centre columns, Otto's and the duke of York's. The orders of the em peror to the duke were that he should advance to establish com munication with Clerfayt at Lincelles as a preliminary to a gen eral advance to crush the French Courtrai group, thereby iso lated. These airy schemes were destroyed at dawn on the 18th. One of Moreau's brigades carried Tourcoing at the first rush, another brigade swarmed round the duke of York's entrenchments at Mouvaux, while Bonnaud's mass from the side of Lille lapped round the flanks of the British posts at Roubaix and Lannoy. The duke had used up his reserves in assisting Otto, and by 8 A. M. the positions of Roubaix, Lannoy and Mouvaux were iso lated from each other. But the Allies fought magnificently, and by now the Republicans were in confusion, excited to the highest pitch and therefore extremely sensitive to waves of enthusiasm or panic. Otto was able to retire gradually, though with heavy losses, to Leer , before he could be cut off, and thither the English fell back, not without confusion, to join him.
With the retreat of the two sorely tried columns and the sus pension of Clerfayt's attack, the battle of Tourcoing ended. It was a victory of which the young French generals had reason to be proud. The main attack was vigorously conducted, and the two-to-one numerical superiority which the French possessed at the decisive point is the best testimony at once to Souham's generalship and to Vandamme's bravery. As for the Allies, those of them who took part in the battle at all, covered themselves with glory, but the inaction of two-thirds of Coburg's army was the bankruptcy declaration of the old strategical system. But Souham's victory, owing to his geographical position, had merely given him air. The Allies, except for the loss of some 5,500 men, were in no way worse off. The plan had failed, but the army as a whole had not been defeated, while the troops of the duke of York and Otto were far too well disciplined not to take their defeat as "all in the day's work." Souham was still on the Lys and midway between the two allied masses, able to strike each in turn or liable to be crushed between them in proportion as the op posing generals calculated time, space and endurance accurately. Souham, therefore, as early as the 19th, had left Bonnaud to hold the main body of the Allies on the side of Tournai, while he concentrated most of his forces towards Courtrai. This move had the desired effect, for Clerfayt retired without a contest, and on May 21 Souham issued his orders for an advance on Coburg's army, which, as he knew, had meantime been reinforced. Van damme alone was left to face Clerfayt, and this time with out posts far out so as to ensure his chief, not a few hours', but two or three days', freedom from interference.
Pichegru now returned and took up the supreme command, Souham remaining in charge of his own and Moreau's divisions. On the extreme right, from Pont-a-Tressin, only demonstrations were to be made ; the centre, between Baisieux and Estaimbourg, was to be the scene of the holding attack of Bonnaud's command, while Souham, in greater strength, delivered the decisive attack on the allied right by St. Leger and Warcoing. The battle opened in the early morning of the 22nd and was long and desperately contested. The demonstration on the French extreme right was soon recognized by the defenders to be negligible, and the allied left wing thereupon closed on the centre. There Bonnaud attacked with vigour, dislodging the Allies from Nechin. The defenders of Templeuve then fell back, and the attacking swarms—a dis solved line of battle—fringed the brook beyond Templeuve, on the other side of which was the Allies' main position, and even for a moment seized Blandain. Meanwhile the French at Nechin pressed on towards Ramegnies in concert with the main attack. Macdonald's and other brigades had forced the Espierre rivulet and driven von dem Bussche partly over the Scheldt, partly southward. The main front of the Allies was defined by the brook that flows between Templeuve and Blandain and empties into the Scheldt near Pont-a-Chin. Here, till close on nightfall, a fierce battle raged. Pichegru's main attack was still by his left, and Pont-a-Chin was taken and retaken by French, Austrians, British and Hanoverians in turn. Between Blandain and Pont-a Chin Bonnaud's troops more than once entered the line of de fence. But the attack was definitively broken off at nightfall and the Republicans withdrew slowly towards Lannoy and Leers. They had for the first time in a fiercely contested "soldier's battle" measured their strength, regiment for regiment, against the Allies, and failed, but by so narrow a margin that hencefor ward the Army of the North realized its own strength and solidity. The Moselle Army.—But the actual strategic decision was destined by a process of evolution to be given by Jourdan's Army of the Moselle, to which we turn. The Army of the Moselle had been ordered to assemble a striking force on its left wing, while maintaining its cordon in Lorraine, and with this striking force to operate towards Liege and Namur. Its first movement on Arlon, in April, was repulsed, but early in May the advance was resumed though the troops were ill-equipped and ill-fed, and requisitions had reduced the civil population to semi-starvation and sullen hostility. At this moment the general situation east of the Scheldt was as follows : The Allies' centre under Coburg had captured Landrecies and now (May 4) lay around that place, about 65,000 strong, while the left under Kaunitz (27,00o) was somewhat north of Maubeuge. Beyond these again were the de tachment of Beaulieu (8,000) near Arlon, and another, 9,000 strong, around Trier. On the side of the French, the Army of the Moselle (41,000 effectives) was in cordon between Saarge mund and Longwy ; the Army of the Ardennes (22,000) between Beaumont and Givet; of the Army of the North, the right wing (38,000) in the area Beaumont-Maubeuge and the centre (24, 000) about Guise. In the aggregate the Allied field armies num bered 139,00o men, those of the French 203,00o. Tactically the disproportion was sufficient to give the latter the victory, if, strategically, it could be made effective at a given time and place. But the French missed their opportunity, as Coburg had missed his in 1793. Pichegru's right was ordered to march on Mons, and his left to master the navigation of the Scheldt so as to reduce the Allies to wagon-drawn supplies, while Jourdan's task was to conquer the Liege or Namur country without unduly stripping the cordon on the Saar and the Moselle. Jourdan's orders and original purpose were to march through the Ardennes as rapidly as possible, living on what supplies he could pick up from the enemy or the inhabitants.
Charleroi, garrisoned by less than 3,00o men, was intimidated into surrender (25th) ; thus the object of the first operations was achieved. As to the next, neither Jourdan nor the representatives seem to have had anything further in view than the capture of more fortresses. But within 24 hours events had decided for them. Coburg had quickly abandoned his intention of closing on his right wing, and (after the usual difficulties with his Allies on that side) had withdrawn 12,000 Austrians from the centre of his cordon opposite Pichegru, and made forced marches to join the prince of Orange. On June 24 he had collected 52,00o men at various points round Charleroi, and on the 25th he set out to relieve the fortress, of whose surrender he did not know until in the midst of the battle next day.
On the allied left wing the fighting was closer and more severe than at any point. Beaulieu on the extreme left advanced upon Velaine and the woods to the south in several small groups of all arms. Here were the divisions of the Army of the Ardennes, markedly inferior in discipline and endurance to the rest, and only too mindful of their four previous reverses. For six hours, more or less, they resisted the oncoming Allies, but then, in spite of the example and the despairing appeals of their young general Mar ceau, they broke and fled, leaving Beaulieu free to combine with the archduke Charles, who carried Fleurus of ter obstinate fighting, and then pressed on towards Campinaire. Beaulieu took command of all the allied forces on this side about noon, and from then to 5 P.M. launched a series of terrible attacks on the French about Campinaire and Lambusart. The Austrians came on time after time over ground that was practically destitute of cover. Villages, farms and fields of corn caught fire. The French grew more and more excited—"No retreat today !" they called out to their leaders, and finally, clamouring to be led against the enemy, they had their wish. Lefebvre seized the psychological moment when the fourth attack of the Allies had failed, and (though he did not know it) the order to retreat had come from Coburg. The losses of the unit that delivered it were small, for the charge exactly responded to the moral conditions of the moment, but the pro portion of killed to wounded (S5 to 8i) is good evidence of the intensity of the momentary conflict. So ended the battle. Co burg had by now learned definitely that Charleroi had sur rendered, and while the issue of the battle was still doubtful—for though the prince of Orange was beaten, Beaulieu was in the full tide of success—he gave (towards 3 P.M.) the order for a gen eral retreat. This was delivered to the various commanders be tween four and five, and these, having their men in hand even in the heat of the engagement, were able to break off the battle with out undue confusion. The French were far too exhausted to pursue them (they had lost twice as many men as the Allies), and their leader had practically no formed body at hand to f ol low up the victory, thanks to the extraordinary dissemination of the army.
Tourcoing, Tournai and Fleurus represent the maximum result achievable under the earlier Revolutionary system of making war and show the men and their leaders at the highest point of combined steadiness and enthusiasm they ever reached—that is, as a "Sans-culotte" army. Fleurus was also the last great victory of the French, in point of time, prior to the advent of Bonaparte, and may therefore be considered as illustrating the general con ditions of warfare at one of the most important points in its development. The sequel of these battles can be told in a few words. The Austrian government had, it is said, long ago decided to evacuate the Netherlands, and Coburg retired over the Meuse, practically unpursued, while the duke of York's forces fell back in good order, though pursued by Pichegru through Flanders. The English contingent embarked for home, the rest retired through Holland into Hanoverian territory, leaving the Dutch troops to surrender to the victors. The last phase of the pursuit reflected glory on Pichegru, for it was conducted in midwinter through a country bare of supplies and densely intersected with dykes and meres. The crowning incident was the dramatic cap ture of the Dutch fleet, frozen in at the Texel, by a handful of hussars who rode over the ice and browbeat the crews of the well-armed battleships into surrender. It was many years before a prince of Orange ruled again in the United provinces, while the Austrian whitecoats never again mounted guard in Brussels.
The Rhine campaign of 1794, waged chiefly by the Prussians, was not of great importance. Mo11endorf won a victory at Kaiserslautern on May 23, but operations thereafter became spasmodic, and were soon complicated by Coburg's retreat over the Meuse. With this event the offensive of the Allies against the French Revolution came to an inglorious end. Poland now occupied the thoughts of European statesmen, and Austria began to draw her forces on to the east. England stopped the payment of subsidies and Prussia made the Peace of Basle on April 5, On the Spanish frontier the French were successful in almost every encounter, and Spain, too, made peace. Only the eternal enemies, France and Austria, were left face to face on the Rhine, and elsewhere of all the Allies, Sardinia alone (see below under ITALIAN CAMPAIGNS) continued the struggle in a half-hearted fashion. The operations of 1795 on the Rhine present no feature of the revolutionary wars that other and more interesting campaigns fail to show. Austria had two armies on foot under the general command of Clerfayt, one on the upper Rhine, the other south of the Main, while Mainz was held by an army of imperial contingents. The French, Jourdan on the lower, Pichegru on the upper, Rhine, had as usual superior numbers at their disposal. Jourdan combined a demonstrative frontal attack on Neuwied with an advance in force via Dusseldorf, reunited his wings beyond the river near Neuwied, and drove back the Austrians in a series of small engagements to the Main, while Pichegru passed at Mannheim and advanced towards the Neckar. But ere long both were beaten, Jourdan at Hochst and Pichegru at Mannheim, and the investment of Mainz had to be abandoned. This was followed by the invasion of the Palatinate by Clerfayt and the retreat of Jourdan to the Moselle. The position was further compromised by secret negotiations between Pichegru and the enemy for the restoration of the Bourbons. The medjtated treason came to light early in the following year, and the guilty commander disappeared into the obscure ranks of the royalist secret agents till finally brought to justice in 1804.