Marengo and Hohenlinden

MARENGO AND HOHENLINDEN The disasters of 1799 sealed the fate of the Directory, and placed Bonaparte, who returned from Egypt with the prestige of a recent victory, in his natural place as civil and military head of France. In the course of the campaign the field strength of the French had been gradually augmented, and in spite of losses now numbered 227,000 at the front. These were divided into the army of Batavia, Brune (25,00o), the army of the Rhine, Moreau (146,00o), the army of Italy, Massena (56,00o), and, in addition, there were some 1oo,000 in garrisons and depots in France. Most of these field armies were in a miserable condition owing to the losses and fatigues of the last campaign. The treasury was empty and credit exhausted, and worse still—for spirit and en thusiasm, as in 1794, would have remedied material deficiencies— the conscripts obtained under Jourdan's law of 1798 came to their regiments most unwillingly. Most of them, indeed, deserted on their way to join the colours. A large draft sent to the Army of Italy arrived with 310 men instead of 10,250, and after a few such experiences, the First Consul decided that the untrained men were to be assembled in the fortresses of the interior and afterwards sent to the active battalions in numerous small drafts, which they could more easily assimilate. Besides accomplishing the immense task of reorganizing existing forces, he created new ones, including the Consular Guard, and carried out at this mo ment of crisis two such far-reaching reforms as the replacement of the civilian drivers of the artillery by soldiers, and of the hired teams by horses belonging to the State, and the permanent grouping of divisions in army corps.

The Army of Reserve.

As early as Jan. 25, i 800, the First Consul provided for the assembly of all available forces in the interior in an "Army of Reserve." He reserved to himself the command of this army,' which gradually came into being as the pacification of Vendee and the return of some of Brune's troops from -Holland set free the necessary nucleus troops. The con scription law was stringently reinforced, and impassioned calls were made for volunteers (the latter, be it said, did not produce 500 useful men). The district of Dijon, partly as being central with respect to the Rhine and Italian armies, partly as being convenient for supply purposes, was selected as the zone of as sembly. As for the process of assembling it, we can scarcely imagine one which required more accurate and detailed staff work —correspondence with the district commanders, with the ad jutant-generals of the various armies, and orders to the civil authorities on the lines of march, to the troops themselves and to the arsenals and magazines. No one but Bonaparte, even aided by a Berthier, could have achieved so great a task in six weeks, and the great captain, himself doing the work that nowadays is apportioned amongst a crowd of administrative staff officers, still found time to administer France's affairs at home and abroad, and to think out a general plan of campaign that embraced Moreau's, Massena's and his own armies.

The Army of the Rhine, by far the strongest and best equipped, lay on the upper Rhine. The small and worn-out Army of Italy was watching the Alps and the Apennines from Mt. Blanc to Genoa. Between them Switzerland, secured by the victory of Zurich, offered a starting-point for a turning movement on either side—this year the advantage of the flank position was recognized and acted upon. The Army of Reserve was assembling around Dijon, within Zoom. of either theatre of war. The general plan was that the Army of Reserve should march through Switzer land to close on the right wing of the Army of the Rhine. Thus supported to whatever degree might prove to be necessary, Moreau was to force the passage of the Rhine about Schaffhausen, to push back the Austrians rapidly beyond the Lech, and then, if they took the offensive in turn, to hold them in check for io or 12 days. During this period of guaranteed freedom the de cisive movement was to be made—a swoop along an immense arc on to the rear of the Austrians who had penned Massena into the north-west corner of Italy. The Army of Reserve, augmented by one large corps of the Army of the Rhine, was to descend by the Spliigen (alternatively by the St. Gothard and even by Tirol) into the plains of Lombardy. Magazines were to be established at Zurich and Lucerne (not at Chur, lest the plan should become obvious from the beginning), and all likely routes reconnoitred in advance. The Army of Italy was at first to main tain a strict defensive, and then to fix the Austrians until the entry of the reserve army into Italy was assured.

But Moreau was tardy in moving, and at the beginning of April the enemy took the offensive against Massena. On the 8th Melas's right wing dislodged the French from the Mt. Cenis, and most of the troops that had then reached Dijon were shifted southward to be ready for emergencies. By the 25th Berthier reported that Massena was seriously attacked and that he might have to be supported by the shortest route, i.e., the more westerly passes. Bonaparte's resolution was already taken. He waited no longer for Moreau (who, indeed, so far from volunteering assistance, actually demanded it for himself). Convinced from the paucity of news that Massena's army was closely pressed and probably severed from France, and feeling also that the Austrians were deeply committed to their struggle with the Army of Italy, he told Berthier to march with 40.000 men at once by way of the St. Bernard unless otherwise advised. Berthier protested that he 'He afterwards appointed Berthier to command the Army of Reserve, but himself accompanied it and directed it, using Berthier as chief of staff.

had only 25,000 effectives, and the equipment and armament were still far from complete—as indeed they remained to the end —but the troops marched, though their very means of existence were precarious from the time of leaving Geneva to the time of reaching Milan, for nothing could extort supplies and money from the sullen Swiss.

Bonaparte's Plan of Campaign.

At the beginning of May the First Consul learned of the serious plight of the Army of Italy. Massena with his right wing was shut up in Genoa, Suchet with the left wing driven back to the Var. Meanwhile Moreau had won a preliminary victory at Stokach, and the Army of Reserve had begun its movement to Geneva. With these data the plan of campaign took a clear shape at last—Massena to re sist as long as possible; Suchet to resume the offensive, if he could do so, towards Turin ; the Army of Reserve to pass the Alps and to debouch into Piedmont by Aosta and Ivrea; the Army of the Rhine to send a strong force into Italy by the St. Gothard. Bona parte left Paris on May 6. Gradually, and with immense efforts, Berthier's leading troops were passed over the snow-clad St. Bernard, drawing their artillery on sledges, on the i 5th and suc ceeding days. Driving away small posts of the Austrian army, the advance guard entered Aosta on the i 6th—and the alarm was given. Melas, committed as he was to his Riviera campaign, began to look to his right rear, but he was far from suspecting the seriousness of his opponent's purpose. Infinitely more danger ous for the French than the small detachment that Melas opposed to them, or even the actual crossing of the pass, was the unex pected stopping power of the little fort of Bard. The advanced guard of the French appeared before it on the 19th, and after three wasted days the infantry managed to find a difficult moun tain by-way and to pass round the obstacle. Ivrea was occupied on the 23rd, and Bonaparte hoped to assemble the whole army there by the 27th. But except for a few guns that with infinite precautions were smuggled one by one through the streets of Bard, the whole of the artillery, as well as a detachment to be siege the fort, had to be left behind. Bard surrendered on June 2, having delayed the infantry of the French army for four days and the artillery for a fortnight.

The military situation in the last week of May, as it presented itself to Bonaparte, at Ivrea, was this. The Army of Italy under Massena was closely besieged in Genoa, where provisions were running short and the population hostile. But Massena was no ordinary general, and Bonaparte knew that while Massena lived the garrison would resist to the last extremity. Suchet was de fending Nice and the Var by vigorous minor operations. The Army of Reserve, the centre of which had reached at Ivrea the edge of the Italian plains, consisted of four weak army corps under Victor, Duhesme, Lannes and Murat. There were still to be added to this small army of 34,000 effectives, Turreau's di vision, which had passed over the Mt. Cenis and was aproaching Turin, Moncey's corps of the Army of the Rhine, which had at last been extorted from Moreau and was due to pass the St. Gothard before the end of May, Chabran's division left to be siege Bard, and a small force under Bethencourt, which was to cross the Simplon and to descend by Arona (this place proved in the event a second Bard and immobilized Bethencourt until after the decisive battle). Thus it was only the simplest part of Bona parte's task to concentrate half his army at Ivrea, and he had yet to bring in the rest. The problem was to reconcile the necessity for time which he wanted to ensure the maximum force being brought over the Alps, with the necessity for haste, in view of the impending fall of Genoa. As early as May 14 he had in formed Moncey that from Ivrea the Army of Reserve would move on Milan. On May 25 he ordered Lannes (advanced guard) to push out on the Turin road, "in order to deceive the enemy and to obtain news of Turreau," and Duhesme's and Murat's corps to proceed along the Milan road.

The March to Milan.

Very few of Bonaparte's acts of generalship have been more criticized than this resolution to march on Milan, which abandoned Genoa to its fate and gave Melas a week's leisure to assemble his scattered forces. But to hasten to Genoa would, in Bonaparte's eyes, have been playing the enemy's game, for they would have concentrated at Alessandria, facing west "in their natural position." The course which he took gave his army the enemy's depots at Milan, of which it unquestionably stood in sore need, and the reinforcement of Moncey's 15,000 men from the Rhine, while at the same time Moncey's route offered an "assured line of retreat" by the Simplon and the St. Gothard. Above all, it provided him with a "natural position" across Melas's rear--that strategic barrage which seems to have been, the initial objective of most of his manoeuvres against the enemy's rear. For such a position, offering natural obstacles, afforded him a secure pivot from which to prepare a warm em brace for the enemy, whose natural tendency, when cut off from their line of retreat and supply, was to turn and flow back, often in driblets, towards him. Once possessed of Milan, Bonaparte says, he could have engaged Melas with a light heart and with confidence in the greatest possible results of a victory, whether the Austrians sought to force their way back to the east by the right or the left bank of the Po. Thus, we are justified in assum ing that his object was not the relief of Genoa, but the most thorough defeat of Melas's field army, to which end, putting all sentiment aside, he treated the hard-pressed Massena as a "contain ing force" to keep Melas occupied during the strategical deploy ment of the Army of Reserve. In the beginning he had told Massena that he would "disengage" him, even if he had to go as far east as Trent to find a way into Italy. From the first, then, no direct relief was intended, and when, on hearing bad news from the Riviera, he altered his route to the more westerly passes, it was because he felt that Massena's containing power was almost exhausted, and that the passage and reassembly of the reserve army must be brought about in the minimum time and by the shortest way. It was a pis aller forced upon him by Moreau's delay and Massena's extremity, and from the moment at which he arrived at Milan he did, as a fact, abandon it alto gether in favour of the St. Gothard.

Bonaparte's immediate purpose, then, was to reassemble the Army of Reserve in a secure zone of manoeuvre about Milan. This was carried out in the first days of June. Lannes at Chivasso stood ready to ward off a flank attack until the main army had filed past on the Vercelli road, then leaving a small force to com bine with Turreau (whose column had not been able to advance into the plain) in demonstrations towards Turin, he moved off, still acting as right flank guard to the army, in the direction of Pavia. On the morning of June 2 Murat occupied Milan, and in the evening the headquarters entered the great city, the Austrian detachment under Vukassovich (the flying right wing of Melas's general cordon system in Piedmont) retiring to the Adda. Duhesme's corps forced that river at Lodi, and pressed on with orders to organize Crema and if possible Orzinovi as temporary fortresses. Lannes reached Pavia, where, as at Milan, immense stores of food, equipment and warlike stores were seized. Bona parte was now safe in his "natural" position and barred one of the two main lines of retreat open to the Austrians. But his ambitions went farther, and he intended to cross the Po and to establish himself on the other likewise, thus establishing across the plain a complete barrage between Melas and Mantua. Here his end outranged his means, as we shall see. But he gave himself every chance that rapidity could afford him, and the moment that a "zone of manoeuvre" had been secured between the Ticino and the Oglio, he pushed on his main body—or rather what was left after the protective system had been provided for—to the Po.

The Movements of Me4as.

At this point the action of the enemy began to make itself felt. Melas had not gained the suc cesses that he had expected in Piedmont and on the Riviera, thanks to Massena's obstinacy and to Suchet's brilliant defence of the Var. These operations had led him very far afield, and the protection of his over-long line of communications had caused him to weaken his large army by throwing off many detachments to watch the Alpine valleys on his right rear. He was further handicapped by the necessity of supporting Ott before Genoa and Elsnitz on the Var, and hearing of Lannes' bold advance on Chi vasso and of the presence of a French column with artillery (Tur reau) west of Turin, he assumed that the latter represented the main body of the Army of Reserve—in so far indeed as he believed in the existence of that army at all. Next, when Lannes moved away towards Pavia, Melas thought for a moment that fate had delivered his enemy into his hands, and began to collect such troops as were at hand at Turin with a view to cutting off the retreat of the French on Ivrea while Vukassovich held them in front. It was only when news came of Moncey's arrival in Italy and of Vukassovich's fighting retreat on Brescia that the magni tude and purpose of the French column that had penetrated by Ivrea became evident. Melas promptly decided to give up his western enterprises, and to concentrate at Alessandria, prepara tory to breaking his way through the network of small columns— as the disseminated Army of Reserve still appeared to be—which threatened to bar his retreat. But orders circulated so slowly that he had to wait in Turin till June 8 for Elsnitz, whose retreat was, moreover, sharply followed up and made exceedingly costly by the enterprising Suchet. Ott, too, in spite of orders to give up the siege of Genoa at once and to march with all speed to hold the Alessandria-Piacenza road, waited two days to secure the prize, and agreed (June 4) to allow Massena's army to go free and to join Suchet. And lastly, the cavalry of O'Reilly, sent on ahead from Alessandria to the Stradella defile, reached that point only to encounter the French. The barrage was complete, and it re mained for Melas to break it with the mass that he was assem bling, with all these misfortunes and delays, about Alessandria. His chances of doing so were anything but desperate.

On June 5 Murat had moved on Piacenza, and stormed the bridge-head there. Duhesme pushed out on Crema and Orzinovi and also towards Pizzighetone. Moncey's leading regiments ap proached Milan, and Berthier thereupon sent on Victor's corps to support Murat and Lannes. Meantime the half-abandoned line of operations, Ivrea-Vercelli, was briskly attacked by the Aus trians, who had still detachments on the side of Turin. On the 6th Lannes from Pavia, crossing the Po, encountered and de feated O'Reilly, and barred the Alessandria-Parma main road. Opposite Piacenza, Murat had to spend the day in gathering material for his passage, as the pontoon bridge had been cut by the retreating garrison of the bridge-head. Meantime the last divisions of the Army of Reserve (two of Moncey's excepted) were hurried towards Lannes' point of passage, as Murat had not yet secured Piacenza. On the 7th, while Duhesme continued to push back Vukassovich and seized Cremona, Murat at last cap tured Piacenza, finding there immense magazines. Meantime the army, division by division, passed over slowly, owing to a sudden flood, near Belgiojoso, and Lannes' advanced guard was ordered to open communication with Murat along the main road Stra della-Piacenza. "Moments are precious," said the First Consul. He was aware that Elsnitz was retreating before Suchet, that Melas had left Turin for Alessandria, and that heavy forces of the enemy were at or east of Tortona. He knew, too, that Murat had been engaged with certain regiments recently before Genoa and (wrongly) assumed O'Reilly's column to have come from the same quarter. Whether this • meant the deliverance or the sur render of Genoa he did not yet know, but it was certain that Massena's pinning action was over, and that Melas was gathering up his forces to recover his communications. Hence Bonaparte's great object was concentration. "Twenty thousand men at Stra della," in his own words, was the goal of his efforts, and with the accomplishment of this purpose the campaign enters on a new phase.

Bonaparte's Dispositions.

The army now being disseminated between the Alps, the Apennines, the Ticino and the Chiese, it was of vital importance to connect up the various parts into a well-balanced system. Duhesme was still absent at Cremona. Lechi was far away in the Brescia country, Bethencourt detained at Arona. Moncey with about 15,000 men had to cover an area of 4om. square around Milan, which constituted the original zone of manoeuvre, and if Melas chose to break through the flimsy cordon of outposts on this side (the risk of which was the motive for detaching Moncey at all) instead of at the Stradella, it would take Moncey two days to concentrate his force on any battlefield within the area named, and even then he would be outnumbered by two to one. As for the main body at the Stradella, its position was wisely chosen, for the ground was too cramped for the de ployment of the superior force that Melas might bring up, but the strategy that set before itself as an object 20,000 men at the decisive point out of 50,00o available was, to say the least, hazard ous. In truth, here, in contrast to his later campaigns, he had not the material to cement his strategic barrage. It is, however, clear from a letter to Carnot that Bonaparte counted greatly upon the union of Massena and Suchet, with i 8,000 men, to press Melas against the Army of Reserve. Another questionable feature was the order to Lannes to send forward his advanced guard, and to attack whatever enemy he met with on the road to Voghera. Bonaparte, in fact, calculated that Melas could not assemble 20,000 men at Alessandria before June 12. Acting on this order Lannes f ought the battle of Montebello on the 9th. This was a very severe running fight, in which the French drove the Aus trians from several successive positions, and it culminated in a savage fight at close quarters about Montebello itself. The singu lar feature of the battle is the disproportion between the losses on either side—French, 500 out of 12,000 engaged; Austrians, 2,100 killed and wounded and 2,100 prisoners out of 14,00o. These figures are most conclusive evidence of the intensity of the French military spirit in those days, and also give a likely explana tion of Bonaparte's apparent rashness in pushing Lannes forward. If, without endangering the bait, he could draw Melas towards the Stradella, he could thereby curtail the undue extent of his strategic barrage.

Meanwhile, Bonaparte had issued orders for the main body to stand fast, and for the detachments to take up their definitive covering positions. Duhesme's corps was directed, from its eastern foray, to Piacenza, to join the main body. Moncey was to pro vide for the defence of the Ticino line, Lechi to form a "flying camp" in the region of Orzinovi-Brescia and Cremona, and an other mixed brigade was to control the Austrians in Pizzighetone and in the citadel of Piacenza. On the other side of the Po, between Piacenza and Montebello, was the main body (Lannes, Murat and part of Victor's and Duhesme's corps), and a flank guard was stationed near Pavia, with orders to keep on the right of the army as it advanced (this is the first hint of an intention to go westward) and to fall back fighting should Melas come on by the left bank.

For a new idea, and doubt, had begun to form in his mind. Still believing that Melas would attack him on the Stradella side, and hastening his preparations to meet this, he began to allow for the contingency of Melas giving up his attempt to re-establish his normal line of communication, and retiring instead on Genoa, which was now in his hands and could be provisioned and re inforced by sea. On the loth Bonaparte ordered reserve ammuni tion to be sent from Pavia, giving Serravalle, which is south of Novi, as its probable destination. Such reports as were available indicated no important movements whatever which happened to be true, but could hardly appear so to the French headquarters. On the nth, th, though he thereby forfeited the reinforcements coming up from Duhesme's corps at Cremona, Bonaparte ordered the main body to advance to the Scrivia. Lapoype's division (the right flank guard) was called to the south bank of the Po, and the zone around Milan was stripped so bare of troops that there was no escort for the prisoners taken at Montebello. The crisis was at hand, and influenced by the reports collected by Lapoype as to the quietude of the Austrians towards Valenza and Casale, Bonaparte and Berthier strained every nerve to bring up more men to the Voghera side in the hope of preventing the prey from slipping away to Genoa.

But Moncey, Duhesme, Lechi and Chabran were at a distance —and these represented almost exactly half of Berthier's com mand (30,000 out of 58,000), and even the concentration of 28,000 men on the Scrivia had only been obtained by practically giving up the "barrage" on the left bank of the Po. Even now (the 12th) the enemy showed nothing but a rearguard, and the old questions reappeared in a new and acute form. Was Melas still in Alessandria? Was he marching on Valenza and Casale to cross the Po, or to Acqui against Suchet, or to Genoa to base him self on the British fleet? As to the first, why had he given up his chances of fighting on one of the few cavalry battlegrounds in north Italy—the plain of Marengo—as he could not stay in Alessandria for any definite time? The second question had been answered in the negative by Lapoype, but his latest informa tion was 36 hours old. As for the other questions, no answer whatever was forthcoming, and the only course open was to post pone decisive measures and to send forward the cavalry, sup ported by infantry, to gain infor mation.

Marengo.

On the 13th, there fore, Murat, Lannes and Victor advanced into the plain of Mar engo, traversed it without diffi culty and carrying the villages held by the Austrian rearguard, established themselves for the night within a mile of the for tress. But meanwhile Bonaparte had taken a step that was fraught with the gravest consequences. He had, as we know, no intention of forcing on a decision until his reconnaissance produced the in formation on which to base it, and he had therefore kept back three divisions under Desaix at Pontecurone. But as the day wore on without incident, he began to fear that the reconnaissance would be profitless, and unwilling to give Melas any further start, he sent out these divisions right and left to find and to hold the enemy, whichever way the latter had gone. At noon Desaix with one division was despatched southward to Rivalta to head off Melas from Genoa, and at 9 A. M. on the i4th, on the strength of a report, false as it turned out, that the Austrian rearguard had broken the bridges of the Bormida, Lapoype was sent back over the Po to hold the Austrians should they be advancing from Valenza towards the Ticino. Thus there remained in hand only 23,00o men when at last in the forenoon of the 14th the whole of Melas's army, 45,000 strong, moved out of Alessandria, not southward nor northward, but due west into the plain of Marengo (q.v.). The extraordinary battle that followed is described else where. The outline of it is simple enough. The Austrians advanced slowly and in the face of the most resolute opposition, until their attack had gathered weight, and at last they were carrying all before them, when Desaix returned from beyond Rivalta and initiated a series of counterstrokes. These were brilliantly successful, and gave the French not only local victory but the supreme self-confidence that, coupled with their strategic position, enabled them to extort next day from Melas an agree ment to evacuate all Lombardy as far as the Mincio. And though in this way the chief prize, Melas's army, escaped after all, Marengo was the birthday of the First Empire.

One more blow, however, was required before the Second Coalition collapsed, and it was delivered by Moreau. We have seen that he had crossed the upper Rhine and defeated Kray at Stokach. This was followed by other partial victories, and Kray then retired to Ulm, where he reassembled his forces, hitherto scattered in a long weak line from the Neckar to Schaffhausen. Moreau continued his advance, extending his forces up to and over the Danube below Ulm, and winning several combats of which the most important was that of Hochstadt, fought on the famous battlegrounds of i 703 and 1704, and memorable for the death of La Tour d'Auvergne, the "First Grenadier of France" (June 19). Finding himself in danger of envelopment, Kray now retired, swiftly and skilfully, across the front of the advancing French, and reached Ingolstadt in safety. Thence he retreated over the Inn, Moreau following him to the edge of that river, and an armistice put an end for the moment to further opera tions.

This not resulting in a treaty of peace, the war was resumed both in Italy and in Germany. The Army of Reserve and the Army of Italy, after being fused into one, under Massena's com mand, were divided again into a fighting army under Brune, who opposed the Austrians (Bellegarde) on the Mincio, and a political army under Murat, which re-established French influence in the peninsula. The former, extending on a wide front as usual, won a few strategical successes without tactical victory, the only inci dents of which worth recording are the gallant fight of Dupont's division, which had become isolated during a manoeuvre, at Pozzolo on the Mincio (Dec. 25) and the descent of a corps under Macdonald from the Grisons by way of the Splugen, an achieve ment far surpassing Bonaparte's and even Suvorov's exploits, in that it was made after the winter snows had set in.

Hohenlinden.

In Germany the war for a moment reached the sublime. Kray had been displaced in command by the young archduke John, who ordered the denunciation of the armistice and a general advance. His plan, or that of his advisers, was to cross the lower Inn, out of reach of Moreau's principal mass, and then to swing round the French flank until a complete chain was drawn across their rear. But during the development of the manoeuvre, Moreau also moved, and by rapid marching made good the time he had lost in concentrating his over-dispersed forces. The weather was appalling, snow and rain succeeding one another until the roads were almost impassable. On Dec. 2 the Austrians were brought to a standstill, but the inherent mobility of the Revolutionary armies enabled them to surmount all diffi culties, and thanks to the respite afforded him by the archduke's halt, Moreau was able to see clearly into the enemy's plans and dispositions. On Dec. 3, while the Austrians in many disconnected columns were struggling through the dark and muddy forest paths about Hohenlinden, Moreau struck the decisive blow. While Ney and Grouchy held fast the head of the Austrian main column at Hohenlinden, Richepanse's corps was directed on its left flank. In the forest Richepanse unexpectedly met a subsidiary Austrian column which actually cut his column in two. But profiting by the momentary confusion he drew off that part of his forces which had passed beyond the point of contact and continued his march, striking the flank of the archduke's main column, most of which had not succeeded in deploying opposite Ney, at the village of Mattempost. First the baggage train and then the artillery park fell into his hands, and lastly he reached the rear of the troops engaged opposite Hohenlinden, whereupon the Austrian main body practically dissolved. The rear of Richepanse's corps, after disengaging itself from the Austrian column it had met in the earlier part of the day, arrived at Mattempost in time to head off thousands of fugitives who had escaped from the carnage at Hohenlinden. The other columns of the unfortunate army were first checked and then driven back by the French divisions they met, which, moving more swiftly and fighting better in the broken ground and the woods, were able to combine two brigades against one wherever a fight developed. On this disastrous day the Aus trians lost 20,000 men, 12,000 of them being prisoners, and 90 guns.

Marengo and Hohenlinden decided the war of the Second Coalition as Rivoli had decided that of the first, and the Revo lutionary Wars came to an end with the armistice of, Steyer (Dec. 25, 1800) and the treaty of Luneville (Feb. 9, 18o1). But only the first act of the great drama was accomplished. After a short respite Europe entered upon the Napoleonic Wars.

The sweeping aims of the French Revolutionary government, to obtain for France her so-called natural limits—the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Ocean—quickly provoked a coalition of many European Powers pledged to resist it. Of these powers, England proved the most implacable; and it became the object of the Revolutionary, and still more of the Napoleonic, govern ment to reduce her to submission. The intensity of the struggle produced a series of naval campaigns extending over most of the world. In the earlier years of the war France was hampered by the excessively democratic spirit which spread amongst her fleets. Her crews were often mutinous, and some of her most competent admirals were guillotined, their places being filled by men hastily promoted from very junior ranks—for example, Villaret-Joyeuse was promoted straight from lieutenant to ad miral. Such drawbacks mattered less in 1792 when operations were confined to giving some assistance to troops operating against Austria in north Italy, and to reducing Naples ; but when the First Coalition was completed by the entry of England in Feb., and Spain in March 1793, the naval weakness of the French be came manifest. This was seen in the operations in the Channel, where they were unable to maintain an effective force for some time. It is true that Lord Howe, commanding the British Channel fleet, did not attempt to blockade Brest throughout this connection, the many calls on the British navy for commerce and colonial protection over the whole world must be remem bered—and that this freedom enabled Villaret to cover the safe arrival of a large convoy bringing corn from America in But he himself—more important than the convoy—was caught by Howe in the process, and severely defeated at the Battle of the Glorious 1st of June, losing seven ships. This defeat effectually completed the disorganization of the French, and their engage ments in the Channel for the next two years, such as those with Cornwallis and Lord Bridport in 1795, only served to emphasize this ineffectiveness. None the less, French successes on land added to the already heavy British commitments at sea. Having over run Holland in 1794, the French compelled her to go to war with England in Jan. 1795; and England was thereafter forced to main tain a separate North Sea fleet to guard against invasion from the Texel.

In the meantime operations had been proceeding in various colonial waters and in the Mediterranean. In the former the British had, as early as 1793, seized various French stations in the East Indies, including Pondicherry. In 1793-94 they also achieved some success in the West Indies, capturing Tobago, French San Domingo, Martinique and Guadeloupe, though the last-named was retaken by the Terrorist, Victor Hugues. Later in the war St. Lucia and other islands were also taken. In Admiral Elphinstone, afterwards Lord Keith, began operations against the colonial possessions of the unfortunate Dutch, and took from them the Cape of Good Hope and their station at Malacca. The importance of these operations lay not only in the captures made, but in the destruction of French sea-borne com merce that they involved.

Lord Hood was given the British command in the Mediter ranean and, with 21 ships, directed his energies to the reduction of Toulon, in which he was joined by Spanish and Neapolitan squadrons. The extreme dissension between the Jacobins and Girondists helped him to secure the surrender of the city and its great arsenal ; but after the Jacobin triumph, lack of troops forced him to relinquish his hold. Over 3o French ships, including 13 of the line, were destroyed before the withdrawal; but, owing to the lukewarm support of the Spanish, a sufficient number were left intact to form, later, the nucleus of a Mediterranean fleet. Sev eral thousands of the inhabitants were also taken off to escape the ferocious vengeance which was wreaked by the victorious Jacobins on their less fortunate countrymen left behind. From 1794-96 the British were mainly occupied in reducing Corsica and trying to help the Austrians in north Italy. Hood's successor, Hotham, failed to deal effectively with the Toulon squadron, though he was twice in action with it in 1795; on each occasion the French escaped serious damage, losing only three ships. Fortune, in the shape of the wind, assisted them ; but Nelson held the opinion that Hotham's lack of energy did so too. Jervis, afterwards Lord St. Vincent, relieved Hotham at the end of i795, and imparted a live lier spirit to the fleet ; but in the following year Spain, who had made peace in 1795, re-entered the war on the French side. This gave England another long piece of coast-line to watch and forced her temporarily to withdraw from the Mediterranean.

From 1796 onwards French movements at sea became some what more purposeful ; and in December they tried to strike at England by the time-honoured method of invading Ireland ; but, though the expedition was allowed to sail from Brest, and some of the ships reached Bantry Bay, bad weather caused its failure, and the fleet returned in fragments to Brest. The year 1797 saw England standing alone against France and further embarrassed by the great naval mutinies at Spithead and the Nore, in which the sailors expressed their dissatisfaction with a state of affairs now admitted to have been disgraceful. None the less the gloom was relieved by the light of two great victories at sea, as a result of which Pitt was enabled to reopen negotiations for the forma tion of another coalition. In Feb. Jervis with 15 sail of the line encountered 27 Spaniards off Cape St. Vincent and, relying on Spanish inefficiency to counteract their advantage in numbers, attacked them and took f our prizes. In Oct., Admiral Duncan in command of the North Sea fleet of 16 ships caught the Dutch at sea off Camperdown, also 16 strong. They tried to lure him on to the shoals, but he accepted the risk, chased them and piercing their line in two places took nine prizes.

In 1798, another, and slightly more successful, attempt was made to invade Ireland. General Humbert with i,ioo troops was actually landed; but, after some initial success, was compelled to surrender, while other forces were captured before they landed. But the most important movements were in the Mediterranean. Austria was willing to join a second coalition, but insisted on mak ing the re-entry of the British into the Mediterranean a condition. Jervis, therefore, was ordered either to re-enter the Mediterranean himself, or, if he felt it necessary to continue the blockade of Cadiz, to detach a force thither. He replied that Nelson had already been detached to inquire into the nature of reported activities in Toulon, and he reinforced him with ten ships. The reported ac tivities were the preparations for Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, the origin of which lay chiefly in his desire to keep himself in the public eye. The force succeeded in sailing from Toulon, covered by a fleet of 13 battleships commanded by Admiral Brueys, and in reaching Alexandria, where Napoleon was landed; but Nelson, discovering their whereabouts after a long search, came upon Brueys anchored in Aboukir Bay and destroyed his entire fleet with the exception of two battleships and two frigates, all of which were accounted for later. This placed Napoleon in a most awkward position. He advanced some distance, but was repulsed before Acre by Commodore Sir Sydney Smith, who had landed with Napoleon's own guns, taken at sea. The French tried to relieve his position, and Admiral Bruix succeeded in bringing the Brest fleet to the Mediterranean ; but he did not venture far to the East and ultimately returned to Brest without having been brought to action. Napoleon came home as a fugitive, leav ing his army to the mercy of the British, who followed up their victory at the Nile, and made further successes possible, by the capture of Minorca (1798) and Malta (1800) . Some measure of success was also achieved in the autumn of '799 by a combined Russian and British expedition, which proposed to attack the French army of occupation in Holland : Admiral Mitchell forced the entrance to the Texel and obtained the surrender of the Dutch fleet—the Dutch sailors showing little inclination to fight on be half of their French conquerors, From the military standpoint, however, the affair was not so successful.

By this time Napoleon had become First Consul, and was re sponsible for the formation of the Armed Neutrality of the North ern Powers which brought about the last great expedition of the war. The Scandinavian Powers, Russia and Prussia pledged them selves to resist the right of search of the British, who were depend ent for the very existence of their fleet on supplies of timber and hemp from the Baltic. The Neutrality had to be broken, and in March 18o1, a fleet of 18 ships under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nel son as second-in-command, sailed to the Baltic for the purpose. It was decided that an attempt should first be made to detach Denmark from her allies, peaceably or forcibly. Peaceable meth ods failing, it became necessary to attack the Danish fleet that was anchored along the sea-front of Copenhagen, protected by shoals. Parker thought approach to it impossible ; but Nelson with 12 ships solved the problem, smashed the Danish fleet, and the Armed Neutrality with it. By this time peace was near. The English people were sick of the war, while Napoleon needed a truce for the consolidation of his position and the preparation of new schemes. Consequently the Peace of Amiens ended the Revolu tionary War in 1802, a peace that was to be the truce Napoleon intended, rather than anything more lasting.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

W. James, Naval History (1837) ; Capt. Chevalier, Bibliography.—W. James, Naval History (1837) ; Capt. Chevalier, Histoire de la Marine f rancaise sous la premiere Republique (1886) ; Admiral Mahan, Influence of Sea-Power upon the French Revolution and Empire (1892) ; Admiral T. S. Jackson, Logs of the Great Sea Fights (Navy Records' Society, 1899) ; Capt. Desbriere, Projets et Tentatives de Debarquements aux Iles Britanniques (1900) ; Geoffrey Callender, Sea-Kings of Britain (191I) ; C. Gill, Naval Mutinies of z797 (1913) ; Sir Julian Corbett and Sir Herbert Richmond, Spencer Papers (Navy Records' Society 1913-24) ; Holland Rose, Lord Hood and the Defence of Toulon (1922) ; W. G. Perrin, Keith Papers (Navy Records' Society, 1927). (G.A.R.C; J.G.B.)