Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
Do you need
volunteer, community service, work, military or court hours?
|
|
Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
|
|
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: TAV-THE |
|
|
THE WAR OF THE SECOND COALITION In the autumn of 1798, while Napoleon'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 tomeet the storm. Four armies, numbering only 16o,000, were set on foot, in Holland ( Brune
Jourdan, in the Constance and Schaffhausen region, had only 40,000 men against the archduke Charles's 80,000, and was soon brought to a standstill and driven back on Stokach. stotcach. 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 (60,000) to win a victory. This was a battle of the " strategic " type, a widespread straggling combat in which each side took fifteen hours to inflict a loss of 12% on the other, and which ended in Jourdan accepting defeat and drawing off, unpursued by the magnificent Austrian cavalry, though these 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 unrest, amounting to civil war, among the Swiss and Grison peoples tempted both governments to give these flank guards considerable strength.' The Austrians in the Vorarlberg and Grisons were under Hotze, who had 13,000 men at Bregenz, and 7000 commanded by Auffenberg around Chur, with, between them, 5000 men at Feldkirch and a post of I000 in the strong Massena to position of the Luziensteig nearMayenfeld. Massena's land. 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, thanks to Massena's energy and the ardent attacking spirit of his men, 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 Feldkirch made on the 23rd by Massena with 15,000 men 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
' The assumption by later critics (Clausewitz even included) that the " flank position " held by these forces relatively to the main armies in Italy and Germany was their raison d'Etre is unsupported by contemporary evidence. he was able to maintain himself and to wait for Dessolles. The latter, moving up the Valtelline, by now fought his way to the Stelvio pass, but beyond it the defile of Tauffers (S.W. 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 advantage in every manoeuvre and at every point of contact. On the 25th Lecourbe and Dessolles attacked Loudon at Nauders in the Engadine and Tauffers in the Vintschgau re-Lecourbe spectively. At Nauders the French passed round and the flanks of the defence by scrambling along the high Dessolles mountain crests adjacent, while at Tauffers the in Tirol. assailants, only 4500 strong, descended into a deep ravine, debouched unnoticed in the Austrians' rear, and captured 6000 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 annihilated. 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 destroyed, 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 archduke fell ill, and the Vienna war council forbade his army to advance 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 Basel, Zurich and Schaffhausen, thereby directly barring the roads into France (Berne-Neuchatel-Pontarlier and Basel-Besancon) which the Austrians appeared to desire to conquer. The protection of Alsace and the Vosges was left to the fortresses. There was no suggestion, it would appear, that the Rhine between Basel and Schaffhausen 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 to put forth its principal efforts. 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 sup-porting newly-founded 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 67,000, of whom, moreover, 15,000 had not yet arrived when operations began. They were to be joined by a Russian contingent under the celebrated Suvarov, who was to command the whole on arrival, and whose extraordinary personality gives the campaign its special interest
Suvarov appeared with 17,000 Russians on the 4th of April. His first step was to set Russian officers to teach the Austrian suvem, troopswhose feelings can be imaginedhow to attack with the bayonet, his next to order the whole army forward. The Allies broke camp on the 17th, 18th and loth of April, and on the loth, after a forced march of close on 3o m., they passed the Chiese. Brescia had a French garrison, but Suvarov 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 reproof to their commander
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 Suvarov's onslaught, and now returning with all speed to join Moreau by force or evasion, had still to be dealt with.Suvarov's mobile army, originally 90,000 strong, had now dwindled, by reason of losses and detachments for 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 exasperated by this treatment, Macdonald came within striking distance and the active campaign re-commenced. 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 succeeded, for Suvarov with his usual rapidity collected 40,000 men at Alessandria, only to learn that Macdonald with 35,000 men was coming up on the Parma road. When this news arrived, Macdonald had already engaged an Austrian detachment at Modena and driven it back, and Suvarov 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. On the 14th Macdonald was calculated to be between Modena, Reggio and Carpi, but his destination was uncertain. Would he continue to hug the Apennines to join Moreau, or The would he strike out northwards against Kray, who Trebbia. 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 latter, 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 Suvarov and Macdonald spent the 17th in closing up and deploying for battle. The respective forces were Allies 30,000, French 35,000. Suvarov believed the enemy to be only 26,000 strong, and chiefly raw Italian regiments, but his temperament 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 too was full of energy, and believed still that he could annihilate Ott before the field marshal's arrival. Thus the battle of the Trebbia (June 1719) was fought by both sides in the spirit of the offensive. It was one of the severest struggles in the Republican wars, and it ended in Macdonald's retreat with a loss of 15,000 menprobably 6000 in the battle and 9000 killed and prisoners when and after the equilibrium was brokenfor Suvarov, 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 7000. Macdonald retreated to Parma and 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 forceit 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. " It was not," says Clausewitz, " a case of losing the key of the position, of turning a flank or breaking a centre, of a mistimed cavalry charge or a lost battery . . . it is a pure trial of strength and expense of force, and victory is the sinking of the balance, if ever so slightly, in favour of one side. And we mean not merely physical, but even more moral forces." To return now to the Alpine region, where the French offensive had culminated at the end of March. Their defeated left was behind the Rhine in the northern part of Switzerland, the half-victorious centre athwart the Rhine between Mayenfeld and Chur, and their wholly victorious right far within Tirol between Glurns, Nauders and Landeck. But neither the centre nor the right could maintain itself. The forward impulse given by Suvarov spread along the whole Austrian front from left to right. Dessolles' column (now under Loison) was forced back to Chiavenna. Bellegarde drove Lecourbe from position to position towards the Rhine during April. There Lecourbe added to the remnant of his expeditionary column the outlying bodies of Massena's right wing, but even so he had only.8000 men against Bellegarde's 17,000, and he was now exposed to the attack of Hotze's 25,000 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 Suvarov, 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 the 15th of May, 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. The archduke crossed the Rhine at Stein, Hotze at Balzers, and each then cautiously felt his way towards the other. Their active opponent attempted to take advantage of their separation, and an irregular fight took place in the Thur valley (May 25), but Massena, finding Hotze close on his right flank, retired without attempting to force a decision. On the 27th, having joined forces, the Austrians dislodged Massena from his new position on the Toss without difficulty, and this process was repeated from time to time in the next few days, until at last Massena halted in the position he had prepared for defence at Zurich. He had still but 25,000 of his 45,000 men in hand, for he maintained numerous small detachments on his right, behind the Zurcher See and the Wallen See, and on his left towards Basel. These 25,000 occupied an entrenched position 5 M. in length; against which the Austrians, detaching as usual many posts to protect their flanks and rear, deployed only 42,000 men, of whom 8000 were sent on a wide turning movement
He did not fall back far, for his outposts still bordered the Limmat and the Linth, while his main body stood in the valley of the Aar between Baden and Lucerne. The archduke pressed Massena as little as he had pressed Jourdan after Stokach (though in this case he had less to gain by pursuit), and awaited the arrival of a second Russian army, 30,000 strong, under Korsakov, before resuming the advance, meantime throwing out covering detachments towards Basel, where Massena had a division. Thus for two months operations, elsewhere than in Italy, were at a standstill, while Massena drew in reinforcements and organized the fractions of his forces in Alsace as a skeleton army, and the Austrians distributed arms to the peasantry of South Germany. In the end, under pressure from Paris, it was Massena who resumed active movements. Towards the middle of August, Lecourbe, who formed a loose right wing of the French army in the Reuss valley, was reinforced to a strength of 25,000 men, and pounced upon the extended left wing of the enemy, which had stretched itself, to keep pace with Suvarov, as far westward as the St Gothard. The movement
' For this expedition, which was repulsed by Brune
Action of Zurich. 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 Korsakov, and marched away with 35,000 men to join the detachment of Sztarray (20,000) that he had placed in the Black Forest before entering Switzerland. His new campaign never rose above the level of a war of posts and of manceuvres about Mannheim and Philipps-burg. In the latter stage of it Lecourbe commanded the French and obtained a slight advantage. Suvarov'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, the field marshal accepted it, and won his last great victory at Novi on the 13th of August, Joubert being killed. This was followed by another rapid march against a new French " Army of the Alps " (Championnet) which had entered Italy by way of the Mont Cenis. But immediately after this he left all further operations in Italy to Melas with 6o,000 men and himself with the Russians and an Austrian corps marched away, via Varese, 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. In the early summer he had himself suggested, eagerly and almost angrily, the concentration of his own and the archduke's armies in Switzerland with a view, not to conquering that country, but to forcing Jourdan and Massena into a grand decisive battle. But, as we have seen, the Vienna government would not release him until the last Italian fortress had been reoccupied, and when finally he received the order that a little while before he had so ardently desired, it was too late. The archduke had already left Switzerland, and he was committed to a resultless warfare in the high mountains, with an army which was a mere detachment Suvdrov and in the hope of co-operating with two other detach-ordered to ments far away on the other side of Switzerland. As Switzer- for the reasons which led to the issue of such an order, ld' it can only be said that the bad feeling known to exist between the Austrians and Russians induced England to recommend, as the first essential of further operations, the separate concentration of the troops of each nationality under their own generals. Still stranger was the reason which induced the tsar to give his consent. It was alleged that the Russians would be healthier in Switzerland than the men of the southern plains! From such premises as these the Allied diplomats evolved a new plan of campaign, by which the Anglo-Russians under the duke of York
It is often said that it is the duty of a commander
Altdorf
routed Korsakov, who lost 8000 killed and wounded, large numbers of prisoners and loo guns. All along the line the Allies fell back, one corps after another, at the moment when Suvarov was approaching the foot of the St Gothard. On the 21st the field marshal's headquarters were at Bellinzona, where he made the final preparations. Expecting to be four days en route before he could reach the nearest friendly suv6rovl magazine, he took his trains with him, which inevitably the Alps. augmented the difficulties of the expedition. On the 24th Airolo was taken, but when the far greater task of storming the pass itself presented itself before them, even the stolid Russians were terrified, and only the passionate protests of the old man, who reproached his " children " with deserting their father in his extremity, induced them to face the danger. At last after twelve hours' fighting, the summit was reached. The same evening Suvarov 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. Discovering 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 retreat. 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 turning movement, was repaired. More broken bridges lay beyond, but at last Suvarov joined the Disentis column near Goschenen. When Altdorf
End of Article: THE WAR OF THE SECOND If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/TAV_THE/THE_WAR_OF_THE_SECOND.html"> THE WAR OF THE SECOND </a> |
|
|
(Previous) THE UNITED |
(Next) THE WORKS OF |
|
Sponsored Advertisements