The War of the Second Coalition

THE WAR OF THE SECOND COALITION In the autumn of 1798, while Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition was in progress, and the Directory was endeavouring at home to reduce the importance and the predominance of the army and its leaders, the Powers of Europe once more allied themselves, not now against the principles of the Republic, but against the Treaty of Campo Formio. Russia, Austria, England, Turkey, Portugal, Naples and the pope formed the Second Coalition. The war began with an advance into the Roman States by a worthless and ill behaved Neapolitan army (commanded, much against his. will, by Mack), which the French troops under Championnet destroyed with ease. Championnet then revolutionized Naples. After this unimportant prelude the curtain rose on a general European war. The Directory, which now had at its command neither numbers nor enthusiasm, prepared as best it could to meet the storm. Four armies, numbering only 16o,000, were set on foot, in Holland (Brune, 24,00o) ; on the Upper Rhine (Jourdan, 46,000) ; in Switzerland, which had been occupied in 1798 (Massena, 30,000) ; and in Upper Italy (Scherer, 6o,000). In addition there was Championnet's army, now commanded by Macdonald, in southern Italy. All these forces the Directory ordered, in Jan. and Feb. to assume the offensive.

in the Constance and Schaffhausen region, had only 40,000 men against the Archduke Charles's 8o,000, and was soon brought to a standstill and driven back on Stokach. The archduke had won these preliminary successes with seven-eighths of his army acting as one concentrated mass. But as he had only encountered a portion of Jourdan's army, he became uneasy as to his flanks, checked his bold advance, and ordered a reconnaissance in force. This practically extended his army while Jourdan was closing his, and thus the French began the battle of Stokach (March 25) in superior numbers, and it was not until late in the day that the archduke brought up sufficient strength (6o,000) to win a victory. This was a battle of the "strategic" type, a wide spread straggling combat in which each side took 15 hours to in flict a loss of 12% on the other, and which ended in Jourdan accepting defeat and drawing off, unpursued by the magnificent Austrian cavalry, though they counted five times as many sabres as the French.

The French secondary army in Switzerland was in the hands of the bold and active Massena. The forces of both sides in the Alpine region were, from a military point of view, mere flank guards to the main armies on the Rhine and the Adige. But un rest, amounting to civil war, among the Swiss and Grison peoples tempted both Governments to give these flank guards considerable strength.

Massena in Switzerland.

The Austrians in the Vorarlberg and Grisons were under Hotze, who had 13,000 men at Bregenz, and 7,000 commanded by Auffenberg around Chur, with, between them, 5,00o men at Feldkirch and a post of l,000 in the strong position of the Luziensteig near Mayenfeld. Massena's available force was about 20,000, and he used almost the whole of it against Auffenberg. The Rhine was crossed by his principal column near Mayenfeld, and the Luziensteig stormed (March 6), while a second column from the Zurich side descended upon Disentis and captured its defenders. In three days Auffenberg's division was broken up, Oudinot meanwhile holding off Hotze by a hard-fought combat at Feldkirch (March 7). But a second attack on Feld kirch made on the 23rd by Massena was repulsed and the advance of his left wing came to a standstill. Behind Auffenberg and Hotze was Bellegarde in Tirol with some 47,000 men. Most of these were stationed north of Innsbruck and Landeck, probably as a sort of strategic reserve to the archduke. The rest, with the assist ance of the Tirolese themselves, were to ward off irruptions from Italy. Here the French offensive was entrusted to two columns, one from Massena's command under Lecourbe, the other from the Army of Italy under Dessolle. Simultaneously with Massena, Lecourbe marched from Bellinzona with io,000 men, by the San Bernardino pass into the SplUgen valley, and thence over the Julier pass into the upper Engadine. A small Austrian force under Loudon attacked him near Zernetz, but was after three days of rapid manoeuvres and bold tactics driven back to Martinsbriick, with considerable losses. But ere long the country people flew to arms, and Lecourbe found himself between two fires, the levies occupying Zernetz and Loudon's regulars Martinsbrbck. But though he had only some 5,000 of his original force left, he was not disconcerted, and by driving back the levies into the high valleys whence they had come, and constantly threatening Lou don, he was able to maintain himself and to wait for Dessolles. The latter, moving up the Valtelline, fought his way to the Stelvio pass, but beyond it the defile of Tauffers (south-west of Glurns), was entrenched by Loudon, who thus occupied a position midway between the two French columns, while his irregulars beset all the passes and ways giving access to the Vintschgau and the lower Engadine. In this situation the French should have been destroyed in detail. But as usual their speed and dash gave them the advan tage in every manoeuvre and at every point of contact.

Operations in Tirol.

On the 25th Lecourbe and Dessolles attacked Loudon at Nauders in the Engadine and Tauffers in the Vintschgau respectively. At Nauders the French passed round the flanks of the defence by scrambling along the high mountain crests adjacent, while at Tauffers, the assailants, only 4,500 strong, descended into a deep ravine, debouched unnoticed in the Aus trians' rear, and captured 6,000 men and 16 guns. The Austrian leader with a couple of companies made his way through Glurns to Nauders, and there, finding himself headed off by Lecourbe, he took to the mountains. His corps, like Auffenberg's, was anni hilated. This ended the French general offensive. Jourdan had been defeated by the archduke and forced or induced to retire over the Rhine. Massena was at a standstill before the strong position of Feldkirch, and the Austrians of Hotze were still massed at Bregenz, but the Grisons were revolutionized, two strong bodies of Austrians numbering in all about 20,000 men had been de stroyed, and Lecourbe and Dessolles had advanced far into Tirol. A pause followed. The Austrians in the mountains needed time to concentrate and to recover from their astonishment. The arch duke fell ill, and the Vienna war council forbade his army to ad vance lest Tirol should be "uncovered," though Bellegarde and Hotze still disposed of numbers equal to those of Massena and Lecourbe. Massena succeeded Jourdan in general command on the French side and promptly collected all available forces of both armies in the hilly non-Alpine country between Basle, Zurich and Schaffhausen, thereby directly barring the roads into France (Berne-Neuchatel-Pontarlier and Basle-Besancon) which the Aus trians appeared to desire to conquer. The protection of Alsace and the Vosges was left to the fortresses. There was no sug gestion, it would appear, that the Rhine between Basle and Schaff hausen was a flank position sufficient of itself to bar Alsace to the enemy.

It is now time to turn to events in Italy, where the Coalition intended its principal effort. At the beginning of March the French had 8o,000 men in Upper Italy and some 35,000 in the heart of the Peninsula, the latter engaged chiefly in supporting newly f ounded republics. Of the former, 53,000 formed the field army on the Mincio under Scherer. The Austrians, commanded by Kray, numbered in all 84,000, but detachments reduced this figure to 67,00o, of whom, moreover, 15,00o had not yet arrived when operations began. They were to be joined by a Russian contingent under the celebrated Suvorov, who was to command the whole on arrival, and whose extraordinary personality gives the cam paign its special interest. Kray himself was a resolute soldier, and when the French, obeying the general order to advance, crossed the Adige, he defeated them in a severely fought battle at Mag nano near Verona (March 5) . The war, however, was undertaken not to annihilate, but to evict the French, and, probably under orders from Vienna, Kray allowed the beaten enemy to depart.

Suvorov.--Suvorov

appeared with 17,00o Russians on April 4. His first step was to set Russian officers to teach the Austrian troops—whose feelings can be imagined—how to attack with the bayonet, his next to order the whole army forward. The Allies broke camp on April 17, 18 and 19, and on the loth, after a forced march of close on 3om., they passed the Chiese. Brescia had a French garrison, but Suvorov soon cowed it into surrender by threats of a massacre, which no one doubted that he would carry into execution. At the same time, dissatisfied with the marching of the Austrian infantry, he sent the following characteristic re proof to their commander : "The march was in the service of the Kaiser. Fair weather is for my lady's chamber, for dandies, for sluggards. He who dares to cavil against his high duty is, as an egoist, instantly to vacate his command. Whoever is in bad health can stay behind. The so-called reasoners do no army any good. . . ." One day later, under this unrelenting pressure, the advanced posts of the Allies reached Cremona and the main body the Oglio. The pace became slower in the following days, as many bridges had to be made, and meanwhile Moreau, Scherer's suc cessor, prepared with a mere 20,000 men to defend the Adda. On the 26th he was attacked all along the line. The moral supremacy had passed over to the Allies. Melas, under Suvorov's stern orders, flung his battalions, regardless of losses, against the strong position of Cassano. The story of 1796 repeated itself with the roles reversed. The passage was carried, and the French rearguard under Serurier was surrounded and captured by an inferior corps of Austrians. The Austrians (the Russians at Lecco were hardly engaged) lost 6,000 men, but they took 7,000 prisoners, and in all Moreau's little army lost half its numbers and retreated in many disconnected bodies to the Ticino, and thence to Alessandria.

Everywhere the Italians turned against the French, mindful of the exactions of their commissaries. The strange Cossack cavalry that western Europe had never yet seen entered Milan on April 29, I I days after passing the Mincio, and next day the city received with enthusiasm the old field-marshal, whose exploits against the Turks had long invested him with a halo of romance and legend. Here, for the moment, Suvorov's offensive culminated. He desired to pass into Switzerland and to unite his own, the archduke's, Hotze's and Bellegarde's armies in one powerful mass. But the emperor would not permit the execution of this scheme until all the fortresses held by the enemy in Upper Italy should have been captured. In any case, Macdonald's army in southern Italy, cut off from France by the rapidity of Suvorov's onslaught, and now returning with all speed to join Moreau by force or evasion, had still to be dealt with.

Suvorov's mobile army, originally 90,00o strong, had now dwindled, by reason of losses and detachments to sieges, to half that number, and serious differences arose between the Vienna Government and himself. If he offended the pride of the Austrian army, he was at least respected as a leader who gave it victories; but in Vienna he was regarded as a madman who had to be kept within bounds. But at last, when he was becoming thoroughly ex asperated by this treatment, Macdonald came within striking dis tance and the active campaign recommenced. In the second week of June, Moreau, who had retired into the Apennines about Gavi, advanced with the intention of drawing upon himself troops that would otherwise have been employed against Macdonald. He suc ceeded, for Suvorov with his usual rapidity collected 40,000 men at Alessandria, only to learn that Macdonald with 3 5,00o men was coming up on the Parma road. When this news arrived, Mac donald had already engaged an Austrian detachment at Modena and driven it back, and Suvorov found himself between Moreau and Macdonald with barely enough men under his hand to enable him to play the game of "interior lines." But at the crisis the rough energetic warrior who despised "raisonneurs," displayed generalship of the first order, and taking in hand all his scattered detachments, he manoeuvred them in the Napoleonic fashion.

The Trebbia.

On the 14th Macdonald was calculated to be between Modena, Reggio and Carpi, but his destination was un certain. Would he continue to hug the Apennines to join Moreau, or would he strike out northwards against Kray, who with 20,000 men was besieging Mantua? From Alessandria it is four marches to Piacenza and nine to Mantua, while from Reggio these places are four and two marches respectively. Piacenza, therefore, was the crucial point if Macdonald continued westward, while in the other case nothing could save Kray but the energetic conduct of Hohenzollern's detachment, which was posted near Reggio. This, however, was soon forced over the Po, and Ott, advancing from Cremona to join it, found himself sharply pressed in turn. The field-marshal had hoped that Ott and Hohenzollern together would be able to win him time to assemble at Parma, where he could bring on a battle whichever way the French took. But on receipt of Ott's report he was convinced that Macdonald had chosen the western route and ordering Ott to delay the French as long as possible by stubborn rearguard actions and to put a garrison into Piacenza under a general who was to hold out "on peril of his life and honour," he collected what forces were ready to move and hurried towards Piacenza, the rest being left to watch Moreau. He arrived just in time. When after three forced marches the main body (only 26,000 strong) reached Castel San Giovanni, Ott had been driven out of Piacenza, but the two joined forces safely. Both Suvorov and Macdonald spent the 17th in closing up and deploying for battle. The respective forces were Allies, barely 25,000, French, 35,00o. Suvorov believed the enemy to be only 26,00o strong, and chiefly raw Italian regiments, but his tempera ment would not have allowed him to stand still even had he known his inferiority. He had already issued one of his peculiar battle orders, which began with the words : "The hostile army will be taken prisoners" and continued with directions to the Cossacks to spare the surrendered enemy. But Macdonald was too full of energy, and believed still that he could annihilate Ott before Suvorov's arrival. Thus the battle of the Trebbia ( Tune 17-1 n) was fought by both sides in the spirit of the offensive. It was one of the most severe struggles in the Republican wars, and it ended in Macdonald's retreat with a loss of 15,00o men—probably 6,000 in the battle and 9,00o killed and prisoners when and after the equilibrium was broken—for Suvorov, unlike other generals, had the necessary surplus of energy, after all the demands made upon him by a great battle, to order and to direct an effective pursuit. The Allies lost about 6,000. Macdonald retreated to Modena, harassed by the peasantry, and finally recrossed the Apennines and made his way to Genoa. The battle of the Trebbia is one of the most clearly defined examples in military history of the result of moral force—it was a matter not merely of energetic leading on the battlefield, but far more of educating the troops beforehand to meet the strain, of.ingraining in the soldier the determination to win at all costs.

To return now to the Alpine region, where the French offensive had culminated at the end of March. Their defeated left was be hind the Rhine in the northern part of Switzerland, the half-victo rious centre athwart the Rhine between Mayenfeld and Chur, and their wholly victorious right far within Tirol between Glurns, Nau ders and Landeck. But neither the centre nor the right could maintain itself. The forward impulse given by Suvorov spread along the whole Austrian front from left to right. Dessolles' col umn (now under Loison) was forced back to Chiavenna. Belle garde drove Lecourbe from position to position towards the Rhine during April. There Lecourbe added to the remnant of his expedi tionary column the outlying bodies of Massena's right wing, but even so he had only 8,000 men against Bellegarde's 17,000, and he was now exposed to the attack of Hotze's 25,00o as well. The Luziensteig fell to Hotze and Chur to Bellegarde, but the defenders managed to escape from the converging Austrian columns into the valley of the Reuss. Having thus reconquered all the lost ground and forced the French into the interior of Switzerland, Bellegarde and Hotze parted company, the former marching with the greater part of his forces to join Suvorov, the latter moving to his right to reinforce the archduke. Only a chain of posts was left in the Rhine valley between Disentis and Feldkirch. The archduke's operations now recommenced.

Charles and Hotze stood, about May 15, at opposite ends of the lake of Constance. The two together numbered about 88,000 men, but both had sent away numerous detachments to the flanks, and the main bodies dwindled to 35,000 for the archduke, and 20,000 for Hotze. Massena, with 45,000 men in all, retired slowly from the Rhine to the Thur. Pressed by the combined forces he con tinued to yield ground until at last he halted in the position he had prepared for defence at Zurich. He had only 25,000 men in hand, owing to detachments, to cover his right and his left. These 25,000 occupied an entrenched position 5m. in length, against which the Austrians, detaching as usual many posts to protect their flanks and rear, deployed only 42,000 men, of whom 8,000 were sent on a wide turning movement and 8,000 held in reserve 4m. in rear of the battlefield. Thus the frontal attack was made with forces not much greater than those of the defence and it failed accordingly (June 4). But Massena, fearing perhaps to strain the loyalty of the Swiss to their French-made constitution by exposing their town to assault and sack, retired on the 5th to the valley of the Aar between Baden and Lucerne. The archduke did not seek to press Massena, and for two months operations were at a standstill.

Dottingen.

Ere mid-August, Lecourbe, who formed a loose right wing of the French army in the Reuss valley, was reinforced to a strength of 25,00o men, and pounced upon the extended left wing of the enemy, which had stretched itself, to keep pace with Suvorov, as far westward as the St. Gothard. The movement be gan on the 14th, and in two days the Austrians were driven back from the St. Gothard and the Furka to the line of the Linth, with the loss of 8,000 men and many guns. At the same time an attempt to take advantage of Massena's momentary weakness by forcing the Aar at Dottingen near its mouth failed completely (Aug. 16-17). This was the end of the archduke's campaign in Switzer land. Though he would have preferred to continue it, the Vienna Government desired him to return to Germany. An Anglo-Russian expedition was about to land in Holland,' and the French were assembling fresh forces on the Rhine, and, with the double object of preventing an invasion of South Germany and of inducing the French to augment their forces in Alsace at the expense of those in Holland, the archduke left affairs in Switzerland to Hotze and a fresh Russian force under Korsakov, and marched away to the Black Forest. His new campaign never rose above the level of a war of posts and manoeuvres about Mannheim and Philippsburg.

Suvorov's last exploit in Italy coincided in time, but in no other respect, with the skirmish at Dottingen. Returning swiftly from the battlefield of the Trebbia, he began to drive back Moreau to the Riviera. At this point Joubert succeeded to the command on the French side, and against the advice of his generals, gave battle. Equally against the advice of his own subordinates, Suvorov ac cepted it, and won his last great victory at Novi on Aug. 13, Jou bert being killed, and only a third of his army making good its retreat. This was followed by another rapid march against a new French "Army of the Alps" which had entered Italy by way of the Mt. Cenis. But immediately after this he left all further oper ations in Italy to Melas, and himself, with the Russians and an Austrian corps, marched away for the St. Gothard to combine operations against Massena with Hotze and Korsakov. It was with a heavy heart that he left the scene of his battles, in which the force of his personality had carried the old-fashioned "linear" armies for the last time to complete victory. He had himself urged an advance into France, but the Vienna Government had been un willing, for their interest was concentrated on Italy. The Tsar Paul I., annoyed with the Austrians, ordered Suvorov to bring back the Russian army, through Switzerland and thence to South Germany. The archduke had already left Switzerland, and was committed to a resultless warfare in the high mountains, with an army which was a mere detachment and in the hope of co-oper ating with two other detachments far away on the other side of Switzerland.

In loyalty to the formal order of his sovereign Suvorov pre pared to carry out his instructions. Massena's command (7 7,000 men) was distributed, at the beginning of September, along an enormous S, from the Simplon through the St. Gothard and Glarus, and along the Linth, the Ziiricher See and the Limmat to Basle. Opposite the lower point of this S, Suvorov (28,000 men) was about to advance. Hotze's corps (25,00o Austrians), extend ing from Utznach by Chur to Disentis, formed a thin line roughly parallel to the lower curve of the S, Korsakov's Russians (30,000) were opposite the centre at Zurich, while Nauendorff with a small Austrian corps at Waldshut faced the extreme upper point. Thus the only completely safe way in which Suvorov could reach the Zurich region was by skirting the lower curve of the S, under protection of Hotze. But this detour would be long and painful, and the ardent old man preferred to cross the mountains once for all at the St. Gothard, and to follow the valley of the Reuss to Altdorf and Schwyz—i.e., to strike vertically up ward to the centre of the Sand to force his way through the French cordon to ZUrich; and if events, so far as concerned his own corps, belied his optimism, they at any rate justified his choice of the shortest route. For, aware of the danger gather ing in his rear, Massena gathered up all his forces within reach towards his centre, leaving Lecourbe to defend the St. Gothard and the Reuss valley and Soult on the Linth. On Sept. 24 he forced the passage of the Limmat at Dietikon. On the 25th, in the second battle of Zurich, he completely routed Korsakov, who lost 8,000 killed and wounded, large numbers of prisoners and 10o guns. All along the line the Allies fell back, one corps after another, at the moment when Suvorov was approaching the foot of the St. Gothard.

Suvorov in the Alps.

On the 21st his headquarters were at Bellinzona, where he made the final preparations. Expecting to be four days en route bef ore he could reach the nearest friendly magazine, . he took his supply trains with him, which inevitably augmented the difficulties of the expedition. On the 24th Airolo 'For this expedition, which was repulsed by Brune in the battle of Castricum, see Fortescue's History of the British Army, vol. iv., and Sachot's Brune en Hollande.

was taken, but when the far greater task of storming the pass presented itself before them, even the stolid Russians were terri fied, and only the passionate protests of the old man, who re proached his "children" with deserting their father in his ex tremity, induced them to face the danger. At last after 12 hours' fighting the summit was reached. The same evening Suvorov pushed on to Hospenthal, while a flanking column from Disentis made its way towards Amsteg over the Crispalt. Lecourbe was threatened in rear and pressed in front, and his engineers, to hold off the Disentis column, had broken the Devil's bridge. Discover ing this, he left the road, threw his guns into the river and made his way by fords and water-meadows to Goschenen, where by a furious attack he cleared the Disentis troops off his line of re treat. His rearguard meantime held the ruined Devil's bridge. This point and the tunnel leading to it, called the Urner Loch, the Russians attempted to force, with the most terrible losses, battalion after battalion crowding into the tunnel and pushing the foremost ranks into the chasm left by the broken bridge. But at last a ford was discovered and the bridge, cleared by a turn ing movement, was repaired. More broken bridges lay beyond, but at last Suvorov joined the Disentis column near Goschenen. When Altdorf was reached, however, Suvorov found not only Lecourbe in a threatening position, but an entire absence of boats on the Lake of the Four Cantons. It was impossible (in those days the Axenstrasse did not exist) to take an army along the precipitous eastern shore; and thus, passing through one trial after another, each more severe than the last, the Russians, men and horses and pack animals in an interminable single file, ventured on the path leading over the Kinzig pass into the Muotta Thal. The passage lasted three days, the leading troops losing men and horses over the precipices, the rearguard from the fire of the enemy, now in pursuit. And at last, on arrival in the Muotta Thal, Suvorov received definite information that Kor sakov's army was no longer in existence. Yet even so it was long before he could make up his mind to retreat, and the pursuers gathered on all sides. Fighting, sometimes severe, and never altogether ceasing, went on day after day as the Allied column, now reduced to 15,000 men, struggled on over one pass after another, but at last it reached Ilanz on the Vorder Rhine (Oct. 8). The Archduke Charles meanwhile had, on hearing of the disaster of ZUrich, brought over a corps from the Neckar, and for some time negotiations were made for a fresh combined operation against Massena. But these came to nothing, for the archduke and Suvorov could not agree, either as to their own relations or as to the plan to be pursued. Practically, Suvorov's retreat from Altdorf to Ilanz closed the campaign. It was his last active service, and formed a gloomy but grand climax to the career of the greatest soldier who ever wore the Russian uniform.