[Footnote 10: Here Skekuly forced the German clubbists, with the lash, to cut down the tree of liberty.]
[Footnote 11: Forster wrote from Paris, "Suspicion hangs over every foreigner, and the essential distinctions which ought to be made in this respect are of no avail." Thus did nature, by whom nations are eternally separated, avenge herself on the fools who had dreamed of universal equality.]
[Footnote 12: Cloots had incessantly preached war, threatened all the kings of the earth with destruction, and, in his vanity, had even set a price upon the head of the Prussian monarch. His object was the union of the whole of mankind, the abolition of nationality. The French were to receive a new name, that of "Universel." He preached in the convention: "I have struggled during the whole of my existence against the powers of heaven and earth. There is but one God, Nature, and but one sovereign, mankind, the people, united by reason in one universal republic. Religion is the last obstacle, but the time has arrived for its destruction. J'occupe la tribune de l'univers. Je le repète, le genre humain est Dieu, lePeuple Dieu. Quiconque a la débilité de croire en Dieu ne sauroit avoir la sagacité de connaitre le genre humain, le souverain unique," etc.—Moniteur of1793, No. 120. He also subscribed himself the "personal enemy of Je«us of Nazareth."]
[Footnote 13: Whose nephew, the celebrated traveller, Rengger, was, with Bonpland, so long imprisoned in Paraguay.]
[Footnote 14: He had been already imprisoned and was ordered to the guillotine, but not being able to find his boots quickly enough, his execution was put off until the morrow. During the night, Robespierre fell, and his life was saved. He continued to reside at Paris, where he never quitted his apartment, cherished his beard, and associated solely with ecclesiastics.]
[Footnote 15: After an interview with his wife, Theresa (daughter to the great philologist, Heyne of Grottingen), on the French frontier, he returned to Paris and killed himself by drinking aquafortis. Vide Crome's Autobiography. Theresa entered into association with Huber, the journalist, whom she shortly afterward married. She gained great celebrity by her numerous romances.]
[Footnote 16: The popular work "Huergelmer" relates, among other things, the conduct of the Margrave of Baden toward Lauchsenring, his private physician, whom he, on account of the liberality of his opinions, delivered over to the Austrian general, who sentenced him to the bastinado.]
[Footnote 17: Schnelter says: "The first great conspiracy was formed in the vicinity of the throne, A.D. 1793. The chief conspirator was Hebenstreit, the commandant, who held, by his office, the keys to the arsenal, and had every place of importance in his power. His fellow conspirators were Prandstätter, the magistrate and poet, who, by his superior talents, led the whole of the magistracy, and possessed great influence in the metropolis, Professor Riedl, who possessed the confidence of the court, which he frequented for the purpose of instructing some of the principal personages, and Häckel, the merchant, who had the management of its pecuniary affairs. The rest of the conspirators belonged to every class of society and were spread throughout every province of the empire. The plan consisted in the establishment of a democratic constitution, the first step to which appears to have been an attempt against the life of the imperial family. The signal for insurrection was to be given by firing the immense wood-yards. The hearts of the people were to be gained by the destruction of the government accounts. The discovery was made through a conspiracy formed in Denmark. The chief conspirator was seized and sent to the gallows. The rest were exiled to Munkatch, where several of them had succumbed to the severity of their treatment and of the climate when their release was effected by Bonaparte by the peace of Campo Formio, which gave rise to the supposition that the Hebenstreit conspiracy was connected with the French republicans and Jacobins. The second conspiracy was laid in Hungary, by the bishop and abbot, Josephus Ignatius Martinowits, a man whom the emperors Joseph, Leopold, and Francis had, on account of his talent and energy, loaded with favors. The plan was anactionalis conspiratio, for the purpose of contriving an attempt against the sacred person of his Majesty the king, the destruction of the power of the privileged classes in Hungary, the subversion of the administration, and the establishment of a democracy. The means for the execution of this project were furnished by two secret societies." Huergelmer relates: "A certain Dr. Plank somewhat thoughtlessly ridiculed the institution of the jubilee; in order to convince him of its utility, he was sent as a recruit to the Italian army, an act that was highly praised by the newspapers." On the 22d of July, 1795, a Baron von Riedel was placed in the pillory at Vienna for some political crime, and was afterward consigned to the oblivion of a dungeon; the same fate, some days later, befell Brand-Btetter, Fellesneck, Billeck, Ruschitiski (Ephemeridae of 1796). A Baron Taufner was hanged at Vienna as a traitor to his country (E. of 1796).]
[Footnote 18: "The increase of crime occasioned by the artifices of the police, who thereby gained their livelihood, rendered an especial statute, prohibitory of such measures, necessary in the new legislature. Even the passing stranger perceived the disastrous effect of their intrigues upon the open, honest character and the social habits of the Viennese. The police began gradually to be considered as a necessary part of the machine of government, a counterbalance to or a remedy for the faults committed by other branches of the administration. Large sums, the want of which was heavily felt in the national education and in the army, were expended on this arsenal of poisoned weapons."—Hormayr's Pocket-Book, 1832. Thugut is described as a diminutive, hunchbacked old man, with a face resembling the mask of a fawn and with an almost satanic expression.]
CCXLVIII. Loss of the Left Bank of the Rhine
The object of the Prussian king was either to extend his conquests westward or, at all events, to prevent the advance of Austria. The war with France claimed his utmost attention, and, in order to guard his rear, he again attempted to convert Poland into a bulwark against Russia.
His ambassador, Lucchesini, drove Stackelberg, the Russian envoy, out of Warsaw, and promised mountains of gold to the Poles, who dissolved the perpetual council associated by Russia with the sovereign, freed themselves from the Russian guarantee; aided by Prussia, compelled the Russian troops to evacuate the country; devised a constitution, which they laid before the cabinets of London and Berlin; concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia on the 29th of March, 1790, and, on the 3d of May, 1791, carried into effect the new constitution ratified by England and Prussia, and approved of by the emperor Leopold. During the conference, held at Pilnitz, the indivisibility of Poland was expressly mentioned. The constitution was monarchical. Poland was, for the future, to be a hereditary instead of an elective monarchy, and, on the death of Poniatowsky, the crown was to fall to Saxony. The modification of the peasants' dues and the power conceded to the serf of making a private agreement with his lord also gave the monarchy a support against the aristocracy.
Catherine of Russia, however, no sooner beheld Prussia and Austria engaged in a war with France, than she commenced her operations against Poland, declared the new Polish constitution French and Jacobinical, notwithstanding its abolition of theliberum vetoand its extension of the prerogatives of the crown, and, taking advantage of the king's absence from Prussia, speedily regained possession of the country. What was Frederick William's policy in this dilemma? He was strongly advised to make peace with France, to throw himself at the head of the whole of his forces into Poland, and to set a limit to the insolence of the autocrat; but—he feared, should he abandon the Rhine, the extension of the power of Austria in that quarter, and— calculating that Catherine, in order to retain his friendship, would cede to him a portion of her booty,[1] unhesitatingly broke the faith he had just plighted with the Poles, suddenly took up Catherine's tone, declared the constitution he had so lately ratified Jacobinical, and despatched a force under Mollendorf into Poland in order to secure possession of his stipulated prey. By the second partition of Poland, which took place as rapidly, as violently, and, on account of the assurances of the Prussian monarch, far more unexpectedly than the first, Russia received the whole of Lithuania, Podolia, and the Ukraine, and Prussia, Thorn and Dantzig, besides Southern Prussia (Posen and Calisch). Austria, at that time fully occupied with France, had no participation in this robbery, which was, as it were, committed behind her back.
Affairs had worn a remarkably worse aspect since the campaign of 1792. The French had armed themselves with all the terrors of offended nationalism and of unbounded, intoxicating liberty. All the enemies of the Revolution within the French territory were mercilessly exterminated, and hundreds of thousands were sacrificed by the guillotine, a machine invented for the purpose of accelerating the mode of execution. The king was beheaded in this manner in the January of 1793, and the queen shared a similar fate in the ensuing October.[2] While Robespierre directed the executions, Carnot undertook to make preparations for war, and, in the very midst of this immense fermentation, calmly converted France into an enormous camp, and more than a million Frenchmen, as if summoned by magic from the clod, were placed under arms.
The sovereigns of Europe also prepared for war, and, A.D. 1793, formed the first great coalition, at whose head stood England, intent upon the destruction of the French navy. The English, aided by a large portion of the French population devoted to the ancient monarchy, attacked France by sea, and made a simultaneous descent on the northern and southern coasts. The Spanish and Portuguese troops crossed the Pyrenees; the Italian princes invaded the Alpine boundary; Austria, Prussia, Holland, and the German empire threatened the Rhenish frontier, while Sweden and Russia stood frowning in the background. The whole of Christian Europe took up arms against France, and enormous armies hovered, like vultures, around their prey.
The duke of Coburg commanded the main body of the Austrians in the Netherlands, where he was at first merely opposed by the old French army, whose general, Dumouriez, after unsuccessfully grasping at the supreme power, entered into a secret agreement with the coalition, allowed himself to be defeated at Aldenhovenl[3] and Neerwinden, and finally deserted to the Austrians. At this moment, when the French army was dispirited by defeat and without a leader, Coburg, who had been reinforced by the English and Dutch under the duke of York, might, by a hasty advance, have taken Paris by surprise, but both the English and Austrian generals solely owed the command, for which they were totally unfit, to their high birth, and Colonel Mack, the most prominent character among the officers of the staff, was a mere theoretician, who could cleverly enough conduct a campaign—upon paper. Clairfait, the Austrian general, beat the disbanded French army under Dampiere at Famars, but temporized instead of following up his victory. Coburg, in the hope of the triumph of the moderate party, the Girondins, published an extremely mild and peaceable proclamation, which, on the fall of the Gironde, was instantly succeeded by one of a more threatening character, which his want of energy and decision in action merely rendered ridiculous. No vigorous attack was made, nor was even a vigorous defence calculated upon, not one of the frontier forts in the Netherlands, demolished by Joseph II., having been rebuilt. The coalition foolishly trusted that the French would be annihilated by their inward convulsions, while they were in reality seizing the opportunity granted by the tardiness of their foes to levy raw recruits and exercise them in arms. The principal error, however, lay in the system of conquest pursued by both Austria and England. Conde, Valenciennes, and all towns within the French territory taken by Coburg, were compelled to take a formal oath of allegiance to Austria, and England made, as the condition of her aid, that of the Austrians for the conquest of Dunkirk. The siege of this place, which was merely of importance to England in a mercantile point of view, retained the armies of Coburg and York, and the French were consequently enabled, in the meantime, to concentrate their scattered forces and to act on the offensive. Ere long, Houchard and Jourdan pushed forward with their wild masses, which, at first undisciplined and unsteady, were merely able to screen themselves from the rapid and sustained fire of the British by acting as tirailleurs (a mode of warfare successfully practiced by the North Americans against the serried ranks of the English), became gradually bolder, and finally, by their numerical strength and republican fury, gained a complete triumph. Houchard, in this manner, defeated the English at Hondscoten (September 8th), and Jourdan drove the Austrians off the field at Wattignies on the 16th of October, the day on which the French queen was beheaded. Coburg, although the Austrians had maintained their ground on every other point, resolved to retreat, notwithstanding the urgent remonstrances of the youthful archduke, Charles, who had greatly distinguished himself. During the retreat, an unimportant victory was gained at Menin by Beaulieu, the imperial general.[4] His colleague, Wurmser, nevertheless maintained with extreme difficulty the line extending from Basel to Luxemburg, which formed the Prussian outposts. A French troop under Delange advanced as far as Aix-la-Chapelle, where they crowned the statue of Charlemagne with a bonnet rouge.
Mayence was, during the first six months of this year, besieged by the main body of the Prussian army under the command of Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick. The Austrians, when on their way past Mayence to Valenciennes with a quantity of heavy artillery destined for the reduction of the latter place (which they afterward compelled to do homage to the emperor), refusing the request of the king of Prussia for its useen passantfor the reduction of Mayence, greatly displeased that monarch, who clearly perceived the common intention of England and Austria to conquer the north of France to the exclusion of Prussia, and consequently revenged himself by privately partitioning Poland with Russia, and refusing his assistance to General Wurmser in the Vosges country. The dissensions between the allies again rendered their successes null. The Prussians, after the conquest of Mayence, A.D. 1793, advanced and beat the fresh masses led against them by Moreau at Pirmasens, but Frederick William, disgusted with Austria and secretly far from disinclined to peace with France, quitted the army (which he maintained in the field, merely from motives of honor, but allowed to remain in a state of inactivity), in order to visit his newly acquired territory in Poland.
The gallant old Wurmser was a native of Alsace, where he had some property, and fought meritoriously for the German cause, while so many of his countrymen at that time ranged themselves on the side of the French.[5] His position on the celebrated Weissenburg line was, owing to the non-assistance of the Prussians, replete with danger, and he consequently endeavored to supply his want of strength by striking his opponents with terror. His Croats, the notoriousRothmantler, are charged with the commission of fearful deeds of cruelty. Owing to his system of paying a piece of gold for every Frenchman's head, they would rush, when no legitimate enemy could be encountered, into the first large village at hand, knock at the windows and strike off the heads of the inhabitants as they peeped out. The petty principalities on the German side of the Rhine also complained of the treatment they received from the Austrians. But how could it be otherwise? The empire slothfully cast the whole burden of the war upon Austria. Many of the princes were terror-stricken by the French, while others meditated an alliance with that power, like that formerly concluded between them and Louis XIV. against the empire. Bavaria alone was, but with great difficulty, induced to furnish a contingent. The weak imperial free towns met with most unceremonious treatment at the hands of Austria. They were deprived of their artillery and treated with the utmost contempt. It often happened that the aristocratic magistracy, as, for instance, at Ulm, sided with the soldiery against the citizens. The slothful bishops and abbots of the empire were, on the other hand, treated with the utmost respect by the Catholic soldiery. The infringement of the law of nations by the arrest of Semonville, the French ambassador to Constantinople, and of Maret, the French ambassador to Naples, and the seizure of their papers on neutral ground, in the Valtelline, by Austria, created a far greater sensation.
The duke of Brunswick, who had received no orders to retreat, was compelled,bongre-malgre, to hazard another engagement with the French, who rushed to the attack. He was once more victorious, at Kaiserslautern, over Hoche, whose untrained masses were unable to withstand the superior discipline of the Prussian troops. Wurmser took advantage of the moment when success seemed to restore the good humor of the allies to coalesce with the Prussians, dragging the unwilling Bavarians in his train. This junction, however, merely had the effect of disclosing the jealousy rankling on every side. The greatest military blunders were committed and each blamed the other. Landau ought to and might have been rescued from the French, but this step was procrastinated until the convention had charged Generals Hoche and Pichegru, "Landau or death." These two generals brought a fresh and numerous army into the field, and, in the very first engagements, at Worth and Froschweiler, the Bavarians ran away and the Austrians and Prussians were signally defeated. The retreat of Wurmser, in high displeasure, across the Rhine afforded a welcome pretext to the duke of Brunswick to follow his example and even to resign the command of the army to Mollendorf. In this shameful manner was the left bank of the Rhine lost to Germany.
In the spring of the ensuing year, 1794, the emperor Francis II. visited the Netherlands in person, with the intent of pushing straight upon Paris. This project, practicable enough during the preceding campaign, was, however, now utterly out of the question, the more so on account of the retreat of the Prussians. The French observed on this occasion with well-merited scorn: "The allies are ever an idea, a year and an army behindhand." The Austrians, nevertheless, attacked the whole French line in March and were at first victorious on every side, at Catillon, where Kray and Wernek distinguished themselves, and at Landrecis, where the Archduke Charles made a brilliant charge at the head of the cavalry. Landrecis was taken. But this was all. Clairfait, whose example might have animated the inactive duke of York, being left unsupported by the British, was attacked singly at Courtray by Pichegru and forced to yield to superior numbers. Coburg fought an extremely bloody but indecisive battle at Doornik (Tournay), where Pichegru ever opposed fresh masses to the Austrian artillery. Twenty thousand dead strewed the field. The youthful emperor, discouraged by the coldness displayed by the Dutch, whom he had expected to riseen massein his cause, returned to Vienna. His departure and the inactivity of the British commander completely dispirited the Austrian troops, and on the 26th of June, 1794,[6] the duke of Coburg was defeated at Fleurus by Jourdan, the general of the republic. This success was immediately followed by that of Pichegru, not far from Breda, over the inefficient English general,[7] who consequently evacuated the Netherlands, which were instantly overrun by the pillaging French. And thus had the German powers, notwithstanding their well-disciplined armies and their great plans, not only forfeited their military honor, but also drawn the enemy, and, in his train, anarchy with its concomitant horrors, into the empire. The Austrians had rendered themselves universally unpopular by their arbitrary measures, and each province remained stupidly indifferent to the threatened pillage of its neighbor by the victorious French. Jourdan but slowly tracked the retreating forces of Coburg, whom he again beat at Sprimont, where he drove him from the Maese, and at Aldenhoven, where he drove him from the Roer. Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, capitulated at Maestricht, with ten thousand men, to Kleber; and the Austrians, with the exception of a small corps under the Count von Erbach, stationed at Düsseldorf, completely abandoned the Lower Rhine.
The disasters suffered by the Austrians seem at that time to have flattered the ambition of the Prussians, for Mollendorf suddenly recrossed the Rhine and gained an advantage at Kaiserslautern, but was, in July, 1794, again repulsed at Trippstadt, notwithstanding which he once more crossed the Rhine in September, and a battle was won by the Prince von Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen at Fischbach, but, on the junction of Jourdan with Hoche, who had until then singly opposed him, Mollendorf again, and for the last time, retreated across the Rhine. The whole of the left bank of the Rhine, Luxemburg and Mayence alone excepted, were now in the hands of the French. Resius, the Hessian general, abandoned the Rheinfels with the whole garrison, without striking a blow in its defence. He was, in reward, condemned to perpetual imprisonment.[8] Jourdan converted the fortress into a ruined heap. The whole of the fortifications on the Rhine were yielded for the sake of saving Mannheim from bombardment.
In the Austrian Netherlands, the old government had already been abolished, and the whole country been transformed into a Belgian republic by Dumouriez. The reform of all the ancient evils, so vainly attempted but a few years before by the noble-spirited emperor, Joseph II., was successfully executed by this insolent Frenchman, who also abolished with them all that was good in the ancient system. The city deputies, it is true, made an energetic but futile resistance.[9] After the flight of Dumouriez, fresh depredations were, with every fresh success, committed by the French. Liege was reduced to the most deplorable state of desolation, the cathedral and thirty splendid churches were levelled with the ground by the ancient enemies of the bishop. Treves was also mercilessly sacked and converted into a French fortress.
[Footnote 1: Prussia chiefly coveted the possession of Dantzig, which the Poles refused to give or the English to grant to him, and which he could only seize by the aid of Russia.]
[Footnote 2: After having been long retained in prison, ill fed and ill clothed, after supporting, with unbending dignity, the unmanly insults of the republican mob before whose tribunal she was dragged. The young dauphin expired under the ill-treatment he received from his guardian, a shoemaker. His sister, the present Duchess d'Angouleme, was spared.]
[Footnote 3: Where the peasantry, infuriated at the depredations of the French, cast the wounded and the dead indiscriminately into a trench.—Benzenberg's Letters.]
[Footnote 4: The Hanoverian general, Hammerstein, and his adjutantScharnhorst, who afterward became so noted, made a gallant defence.When the city became no longer tenable, they boldly sallied forth atthe head of the garrison and escaped.]
[Footnote 5: Rewbel, one of the five directors of the great French republic, and several of the most celebrated French generals, Germany's unwearied foes, were natives of Alsace, as, for instance, the gallant Westermann, one of the first leaders of the republican armies; the intrepid Kellermann, the soldiers' father; the immortal Kleber, generalissimo of the French forces in Egypt, who fell by the dagger of a fanatical Mussulman; and the undaunted Rapp, the hero of Dantzig. The lion-hearted Ney, justly designated by the French as the bravest of the brave, was a native of Lorraine. These were, one and all, men of tried metal, but whose German names induce the demand, "Why did they fight for France?" Wurmser belonged to the same old Strasburg family which had given birth to Wurmser, the celebrated court-painter of the emperor, Charles IV. ]
[Footnote 6: The Austrian generals Beaulieu, Quosdanowich, and the Archduke Charles, who, at that period, laid the foundation to his future fame, had pushed victoriously forward and taken Fleurus, when the ill-tuned orders, as they are deemed, of the generalissimo Coburg compelled them to retreat. Quosdanowich dashed his sabre furiously on the ground and exclaimed, "The army is betrayed, the victory is ours, and yet we must resign it. Adieu, thou glorious land, thou garden of Europe, the house of Austria bids thee eternally adieu!" The French had, before and during the action, made use of a balloon for the purpose of watching the movements of the enemy.]
[Footnote 7: The worst spirit prevailed among the British troops; the officers were wealthy young men, who had purchased their posts and were, in the highest degree, licentious. Vide Dietfurth's Hessian Campaigns.]
[Footnote 8: Peter Hammer, in his "Description of the Imperial Army," published, A.D. 1796, at Cologne, graphically depictures the sad state of the empire. The imperial troops consisted of the dregs of the populace, so variously arranged as to justify the remark of Colonel Sandberg of Baden that the only thing wanting was their regular equipment as jack-puddings. A monastery furnished two men; a petty barony, the ensign; a city, the captain. The arms of each man differed in calibre. No patriotic spirit animated these defenders of the empire. An anonymous author remarks: "For love of one's country to be felt, there must, first of all, be a country; but Germany is split into petty useless monarchies, chiefly characterized by their oppression of their subjects, by pride, slavery, and unutterable weakness. Formerly, when Germany was attacked, each of her sons made ready for battle, her princes were patriotic and brave. Now, may Heaven have pity on the land; the princes, the counts, and nobles march hence and leave their country to its fate. The Margrave of Baden—I do not speak of the prince bishop of Spires and of other spiritual lords whose profession forbids their laying hand to sword—the Landgrave of Darmstadt and other nobles fled on the mere report of an intended visit from the French, by which they plainly intimated that they merely held sovereign rule for the purpose of being fattened by their subjects in time of peace. Danger no sooner appears than the miserable subject is left to his own resources.Germany is divided into too many petty states.How can an elector of the Pfalz, or indeed any of the still lesser nobility, protect the country? Unity, moreover, is utterly wanting. The Bavarian regards the Hessian as a stranger, not as his countryman. Each petty territory has a different tariff, administration, and laws. The subject of one petty state cannot travel half a mile into a neighboring one without leaving behind him great part of his property. The bishop of Spires strictly forbids his subjects to intermarry with those of any other state. And patriotism is expected to result from these measures! The subject of a despot, whose revenues exceed those of his neighbors by a few thousand florins, looks down with contempt on the slave of a poorer prince. Hence the boundless hatred between the German courts and their petty brethren, hence the malicious joy caused by the mishaps of a neighboring dynasty." Hence the wretchedness of the troops. "With the exception of the troops belonging to the circle there were none to defend the frontiers of the empire. Grandes battues, balls, operas, and mistresses, swallowed up the revenue, not a farthing remained for the erection of fortresses, the want of which was so deeply felt for the defence of the frontiers."]
[Footnote 9: "How can France, with her solemn assurances of liberty, arbitrarily interfere with the government of a country already possessing a representative elected by the people? How can she proclaim us as a free nation, and, at the same moment, deprive us of our liberty? Will she establish a new mythology of nations, and divide the different peoples on the face of the earth, according to their strength, into nations and demi-nations?"—Protest of the Provisional Council of the City of Brussels. The President, Theodore Dotrenge."Every free nation gives to itself laws, does not receive them from another."—Protest of the City of Antwerp, President of the Council, Van Dun."You confiscate alike public and private property. That have even our former tyrants never ventured to do when declaring us rebels, and you say that you bring to us liberty."—Protest of the Hennegau.The most copious account of the revolutionizing of the Netherlands is contained in Rau's History of the Germans in France, and of the French in Germany. Frankfort on the Maine, 1794 and 1795.]
CCXLIX. The Defection of Prussia—The Archduke Charles
Frederick William's advisers, who imagined the violation of every principle of justice and truth an indubitable proof of instinctive and consummate prudence, unwittingly played a high and hazardous game. Their diplomatic absurdity, which weighed the fate of nations against a dinner, found a confusion of all the solid principles on which states rest as stimulating as the piquant ragouts of the great Ude. Lucchesini, under his almost intolerable airs of sapience, as artfully veiled his incapacity in the cabinet as Ferdinand of Brunswick did his in the field, and to this may be ascribed the measures which but momentarily and seemingly aggrandized Prussia and prepared her deeper fall. Each petty advantage gained by Prussia but served to raise against her some powerful foe, and finally, when placed by her policy at enmity with every sovereign of Europe, she was induced to trust to the shallow friendship of the French republic.
The Poles, taken unawares by the second partition of their country, speedily recovered from their surprise and collected all their strength for an energetic opposition. Kosciuszko, who had, together with Lafayette, fought in North America in the cause of liberty, armed his countrymen with scythes, put every Russian who fell into his hands to death, and attempted the restoration of ancient Poland. How easily might not Prussia, backed by the enthusiasm of the patriotic Poles, have repelled the Russian colossus, already threatening Europe! But the Berlin diplomatists had yet to learn the homely truth, that "honesty is the best policy." They aided in the aggrandizement of Russia, drew down a nation's curse upon their heads for the sake of an addition to the territory of Prussia, the maintenance of which cost more than its revenue, and violated the Divine commands during a period of storm and convulsion, when the aid of Heaven was indeed required. The ministers of Frederick William II. were externally religious, but those of Frederick William I., by whom the Polish question had been so justly decided, were so in reality.
The king led his troops in person into Poland. In June, 1794, he defeated Kosciuszko's scythemen at Szczekociny, but met with such strenuous opposition in his attack upon Warsaw as to be compelled to retire in September.[1] On the retreat of the Prussian troops, the Russians, who had purposely awaited their departure in order to secure the triumph for themselves, invaded the country in great force under their bold general, Suwarow, who defeated Kosciuszko, took him prisoner, and besieged Warsaw, which he carried by storm. On this occasion, termed by Reichardt "a peaceful and merciful entry of the clement victor," eighteen thousand of the inhabitants of every age and sex were cruelly put to the sword. The result of this success was the third partition or utter annihilation of Poland. Russia took possession of the whole of Lithuania and Volhynia, as far as the Riemen and the Bug; Prussia, of the whole country west of the Riemen, including Warsaw; Austria, of the whole country south of the Bug, A.D. 1795. An army of German officials, who earned for themselves not the best of reputations, settled in the Prussian division: they were ignorant of the language of the country, and enriched themselves by tyranny and oppression. Von Treibenfeld, the counsellor to the forest-board, one of Bischofswerder's friends, bestowed a number of confiscated lands upon his adherents.
The ancient Polish feof of Courland was, in consequence of the annihilation of Poland, incorporated with the Russian empire, Peter, the last duke, the son of Biron, being compelled to abdicate, A.D. 1795.
Pichegru invaded Holland late in the autumn of 1794. The duke of York had already returned to England. A line of defence was, nevertheless, taken up by the British under Wallmoden, by the Dutch under their hereditary stadtholder, William V. of Orange, and by an Austrian corps under Alvinzi; the Dutch were, however, panic-struck, and negotiated a separate treaty with Pichegru,[2] who, at that moment, solely aimed at separating the Dutch from their allies; but when, in December, all the rivers and canals were suddenly frozen, and nature no longer threw insurmountable obstacles in his path, regardless of the negotiations then pending in Paris, he unexpectedly took up arms, marched across the icebound waters, and carried Holland by storm. With him marched the anti-Orangemen, the exiled Dutch patriots, under General Daendels and Admiral de Winter, with the pretended view of restoring ancient republican liberty to Holland and of expelling the tyrannical Orange dynasty.
The British (and some Hessian troops) were defeated at Thiel on the Waal; Alvinzi met with a similar fate at Pondern, and was compelled to retreat into Westphalia. Some English ships, which lay frozen up in the harbor, were captured by the French hussars. A most manly resistance was made; but no aid was sent from any quarter. Prussia, who so shortly before had ranged herself on the side of the stadtholder against the people, was now an indifferent spectator. William V. was compelled to flee to England. Holland was transformed into a Batavian republic. Hahn, Hoof, etc., were the first furious Jacobins by whom everything was there formed upon the French model. The Dutch were compelled to cede Maestricht, Venloo, and Vliessingen; to pay a hundred millions to France, and, moreover, to allow their country to be plundered, to be stripped of all the splendid works of art, pictures, etc. (as was also the case in the Netherlands and on the Rhine), and even of the valuable museum of natural curiosities collected by them with such assiduity in every quarter of the globe. These depredations were succeeded by a more systematic mode of plunder. Holland was mercilessly drained of her enormous wealth. All the gold and silver bullion was first of all collected; this was followed by the imposition of an income-tax of six per cent, which was afterward repeated, and was succeeded by an income-tax on a sliding scale from three to thirty per cent. The British, at the same time, destroyed the Dutch fleet in the Texel commanded by de Winter, in order to prevent its capture by the French, and seized all the Dutch colonies, Java alone excepted. The flag of Holland had vanished from the seas.
In August, 1794, the reign of terror in France reached its close. The moderate party which came into power gave hopes of a general peace, and Frederick William II without loss of time negotiated a separate treaty, suddenly abandoned the monarchical cause which he had formerly so zealously upheld, and offered his friendship to the revolutionary nation, against which he had so lately hurled a violent manifesto. The French, with equal inconsistency on their part, abandoned the popular cause, and, after having murdered their own sovereign and threatened every European throne with destruction, accepted the alliance of a foreign king. Both parties, notwithstanding the contrariety of their principles and their mutual animosity, were conciliated by their political interest. The French, solely bent upon conquest, cared not for the liberty of other nations; Prussia, intent upon self- aggrandizement, was indifferent to the fate of her brother sovereigns. Peace was concluded between France and Prussia at Basel, April 5, 1795. By a secret article of this treaty, Prussia confirmed the French republic in the possession of the whole of the left bank of the Rhine, while France in return richly indemnified Prussia at the expense of the petty German states. This peace, notwithstanding its manifest disadvantages, was also acceded to by Austria, which, on this occasion, received the unfortunate daughter of Louis XVI. in exchange for Semonville and Maret, the captive ambassadors of the republic, and the members of the Convention seized by Dumouriez. Hanover[3] and Hesse-Cassel participated in the treaty and were included within the line of demarcation, which France, on her side, bound herself not to transgress.
The countries lying beyond this line of demarcation, the Netherlands, Holland, and Pfalz-Juliers, were now abandoned to France, and Austria, kept in check on the Upper Rhine, was powerless in their defence. In this manner fell Luxemburg and Düsseldorf. All the Lower Rhenish provinces were systematically plundered by the French under pretext of establishing liberty and equality.[4] The Batavian republic was permitted to subsist, but dependent upon France; Belgium was annexed to France, A.D. 1795.
On the retreat of the Prussians, Mannheim was surrendered without a blow by the electoral minister, Oberndorf, to the French. Wurmser arrived too late to the relief of the city. Quosdanowich, his lieutenant-general, nevertheless, succeeded in saving Heidelberg by sheltering himself behind a great abatis at Handschuchsheion, whence he repulsed the enemy, who were afterward almost entirely cut to pieces by General Klenau, whom he sent in pursuit with the light cavalry. General Boros led another Austrian corps across Nassau to Ehrenbreitstein, at that time besieged by the French under their youthful general, Marceau, who instantly retired. Wurmser no sooner arrived in person than, attacking the French before Mannheim, he completely put them to the rout and took General Oudinot prisoner. Clairfait, at the same time, advanced unperceived upon Mayence, and unexpectedly attacking the besieging French force, carried off one hundred and thirty-eight pieces of heavy artillery. Pichegru, who had been called from Holland to take the command on the Upper Rhine, was driven back to the Vosges. Jourdan advanced to his aid from the Lower Rhine, but his vanguard under Marceau was defeated at Kreuznach and again at Meissenheim. Mannheim also capitulated to the Austrians. The winter was now far advanced; both sides were weary of the campaign, and an armistice was concluded. Austria, notwithstanding her late success, was, owing to the desertion of Prussia, in a critical position. The imperial troops also refused to act. The princes of Southern Germany longed for peace. Even Spain followed the example of Prussia and concluded a treaty with the French republic.
The consequent dissolution of the coalition between the German powers had at least the effect of preventing the formation of a coalition of nations against them by the French. Had the alliance between the sovereigns continued, the French would, from political motives, have used their utmost endeavors to revolutionize Germany; this project was rendered needless by the treaty of Basel, which broke up the coalition and confirmed France in the undisturbed possession of her liberties; and thus it happened that Prussia unwittingly aided the monarchical cause by involuntarily preventing the promulgation of the revolutionary principles of France.
Austria remained unshaken, and refused either to betray the monarchical cause by the recognition of a revolutionary democratical government, or to cede the frontiers of the empire to the youthful and insolent generals of the republic. Conscious of the righteousness of the cause she upheld, she intrepidly stood her ground and ventured her single strength in the mighty contest, which the campaign of 1796 was to decide. The Austrian forces in Germany were commanded by the emperor's brother, the Archduke Charles; those in Italy, by Beaulieu. The French, on the other hand, sent Jourdan to the Lower Rhine, Moreau to the Upper Rhine, Bonaparte to Italy, and commenced the attack on every point with their wonted impetuosity.
The Austrians had again extended their lines as far as the Lower Rhine. A corps under Prince Ferdinand of Würtemberg was stationed in the Bergland, in the narrow corner still left between the Rhine and the Prussian line of demarcation. Marceau forced him to retire as far as Altenkirchen, but the Archduke Charles hastening to his assistance encountered Jourdan's entire force on the Lahn near Kloster Altenberg, and, after a short contest, compelled it to give way. A great part of the Austrian army of the Rhine under Wurmser having been, meanwhile, drawn off and sent into Italy, the archduke was compelled to turn hastily from Jourdan against Moreau, who had just despatched General Ferino across the Lake of Constance, while he advanced upon Strasburg. A small Swabian corps under Colonel Raglowich made an extraordinary defence in Kehl (the first instance of extreme bravery given by the imperial troops at that time), but was forced to yield to numbers. The Austrian general, Sztarray, was, notwithstanding the gallantry displayed on the occasion, also repulsed at Sasbach; the Wurtemberg battalion was also driven from the steep pass of the Kniebes,[5] across which Moreau penetrated through the Black Forest into the heart of Swabia, and had already reached Freudenstadt, when the Austrian general, Latour, marched up the Murg. He was, however, also repulsed. The Archduke Charles now arrived in person in the country around Pforzheim (on the skirts of the Black Forest), and sent forward his columns to attack the French in the mountains, but in vain; the French were victorious at Rothensol and at Wildbad. The archduke retired behind the Neckar to Cannstadt; his rearguard was pursued through the city of Stuttgard by the vanguard of the French. After a short cannonade, the archduke also abandoned his position at Cannstadt. The whole of the Swabian circle submitted to the French. Wurtemberg was now compelled to make a formal cession of Mumpelgard, which had been for some time garrisoned by the French,[6] and, moreover, to pay a contribution of four million livres; Baden was also mulcted two millions, the other states of the Swabian circle twelve millions, the clergy seven millions, altogether twenty-five million livres, without reckoning the enormous requisition of provisions, horses, clothes, etc. The archduke, in the meantime, deprived the troops belonging to the Swabian circle of their arms at Biberach, on account of the peace concluded by their princes with the French, and retired behind the Danube by Donauwoerth. Ferino had, meanwhile, also advanced from Huningen into the Breisgau and to the Lake of Constance, had beaten the small corps under General Frõhlick at Herbolsheim and the remnant of the French emigrants under Oonde at Mindelheim,[7] and joined Moreau in pursuit of the archduke. His troops committed great havoc wherever they appeared.[8]
Jourdan had also again pushed forward. The archduke had merely been able to oppose to him on the Lower Rhine thirty thousand men under the Count von Wartensleben, who, owing to Jourdan's numerical superiority, had been repulsed across both the Lahn and Maine. Jourdan took Frankfort by bombardment and imposed upon that city a contribution of six millions. The Franconian circle also submitted and paid sixteen millions, without reckoning the requisition of natural productions and the merciless pillage.[9]
The Archduke Charles, too weak singly to encounter the armies of Moreau and Jourdan, had, meanwhile, boldly resolved to keep his opponents as long as possible separate, and, on the first favorable opportunity, to attack one with the whole of his forces, while he kept the other at bay with a small division of his army. In pursuance of this plan, he sent Wartensleben against Jourdan, and, meanwhile, drew Moreau after him into Bavaria, where, leaving General Latour with a small corps to keep him in check at Rain on the Lech, he recrossed the Danube at Ingolstadt with the flower of his army and hastily advanced against Jourdan, who was thus taken unawares. At Teiningen, he surprised the French avant-garde under Bernadotte, which he compelled to retire. At Amberg, he encountered Jourdan, whom he completely routed, A.D. 1796. The French retreated through the city, on the other side of which they formed an immense square against the imperial cavalry under Wernek; it was broken on the third charge, and a terrible slaughter took place, three thousand of the French being killed and one thousand taken prisoner. The peasantry had already flown to arms, and assisted in cutting down the fugitives. Jourdan again made a stand at Wurzburg, where Wernek stormed his batteries at the head of his grenadiers and a complete rout ensued, September 3. The French lost six thousand dead and two thousand prisoners. The peasantry roseen masse, and hunted down the fugitives.[10] On the Upper Rhone, Dr. Röder placed himself at the head of the peasantry, but, encountering a superior French corps at Mellrichstadt, was defeated and killed. The French suffered most in the Spessart, called by them, on that account, La petite Vendee. The peasantry were here headed by an aged forester named Philip Witt, and, protected by their forests, exterminated numbers of the flying foe. The imperial troops were also unremitting in their pursuit, again defeated Bernadotte at Aschaffenburg and chased Jourdan through Nassau across the Rhine. Marceau, who had vainly besieged Mayence, again made stand at Allerheim, where he was defeated and killed.[11]
Moreau, completely deceived by the archduke, had, meanwhile, remained in Bavaria. After defeating General Latour at Lechhausen, instead of setting off in pursuit of the archduke and to Jourdan's aid, he was, as the archduke had foreseen, attracted by the prospect of gaining a rich booty, in an opposite direction, toward Munich. Bavaria submitted to the French, paid ten millions, and ceded twenty of the most valuable pictures belonging to the Dusseldorf and Munich galleries. The news of Jourdan's defeat now compelled Moreau to beat a rapid retreat in order to avoid being cut off by the victorious archduke. Latour set off vigorously in pursuit, came up with him at Ulm and again at Ravensberg, but was both times repulsed, owing to his numerical inferiority. A similar fate awaited the still smaller imperial corps led against the French by Nauendorf at Rothweil and by Petrosch at Villingen, and Moreau led the main body of his army in safety through the deep narrow gorges of the Hollenthal in the Black Forest to Freiburg in the Breisgau, where he came upon the archduke, who, amid the acclamations of the armed peasantry (by whom the retreating French[12] were, as in the Spessart, continually harassed in their passage through the Black Forest), had hurried, but too late, to his encounter. Moreau had already sent two divisions of his army, under Ferino and Desaix, across the Rhine at Huningen and Breisach, and covered their retreat with the third by taking up a strong position at Schliesgen, not far from Freiburg, whence, after braving a first attack, he escaped during the night to Huningen. This retreat, in which he had saved his army with comparatively little loss, excited general admiration, but in Italy there was a young man who scornfully exclaimed, "It was, after all, merely a retreat!"
[Footnote 1: The following trait proves the complete stagnation of chivalric feeling in the army. Szekuli, colonel of the Prussian hussars, condemned several patriotic ladies, belonging to the highest Polish families at Znawrazlaw, to be placed beneath the gallows, in momentary expectation of death, until it, at length, pleased him to grant a reprieve, couched in the most offensive and indecent terms.]
[Footnote 2: A most disgraceful treaty. William's enemies, the fugitive patriots, had promised the French, in return for their aid, sixty million florins of the spoil of their country. William, upon this, promised to pay to France a subsidy of eighty millions, in order to guarantee the security of his frontier, but was instantly outbid by the base and self-denominated patriots, who offered to France a hundred million florins in order to induce her to invade their country.]
[Footnote 3: Von Berlepsch, the councillor of administration, proposed to the Calemberg diet to declare their neutrality in defiance of England, and, in case of necessity, to place "the Calemberg Nation" under the protection of France.—Havemomn.]
[Footnote 4: "Wherever these locusts appear, everything, men, cattle, food, property, etc., is carried off. These thieves seize everything convertible into money. Nothing is safe from them. At Cologne, they filled a church with coffee and sugar. At Aix-la-Chapelle, they carried off the finest pictures of Rubens and Van Dyck, the pillars from the altar, and the marble-slab from the tomb of Charlemagne, all of which they sold to some Dutch Jews."—Posselt's Annals of 1796. At Cologne, the nuns were instantly emancipated from their vows, and one of the youngest and most beautiful afterward gained great notoriety as a barmaid at an inn. This scandalous story is related by Klebe in his Travels on the Rhine. In Bonn, Gleich, a man who had formerly been a priest, placed himself at the head of the French rabble and planted trees of liberty. He also gave to the world a decade, as he termed his publication.—Müller,History of Bonn. "The French proclaimed war against the palaces and peace to the huts, but no hut was too mean to escape the rapacity of these birds of prey. The first-fruits of liberty was the pillage of every corner."—Schwaben's History of Siegburg. The brothers Boisserée'e afterward collected a good many of the church pictures, at that period carried away from Cologne and more particularly from the Lower Rhine. They now adorn Munich and form the best collection of old German paintings now existing.]
[Footnote 5: "Had Würtemberg possessed but six thousand well-organized troops, the position on the Roszbuhl might have been maintained, and the country have been saved. The millions since paid by Würtemberg, and which she may still have to pay, would have been spared."—Appendix to the History of the Campaign of 1796.]
[Footnote 6: The duke, Charles, had, in 1791, visited Paris, donned the national cockade, and bribed Mirabeau with a large sum of money to induce the French government to purchase Mümpelgard from him. The French, however, were quite as well aware as the duke that they would ere long possess it gratis.]
[Footnote 7: Moreau generously allowed all his prisoners, who, as ex-nobles, were destined to the guillotine, to escape.]
[Footnote 8: Armbruster's "Register of French Crime" contains as follows: "Here and there, in the neighboring towns, there were certainly symptoms of an extremely favorable disposition toward the French, which would ill deserve a place in the annals of German patriotism and of German good sense. This disposition was fortunately far from general. The appearance of the French in their real character, and the barbarous excesses and heavy contributions by which they rendered the people sensible of their presence, speedily effected their conversion." The French, it is true, neither murdered the inhabitants nor burned the villages as they had during the previous century in the Pfalz, but they pillaged the country to a greater extent, shamefully abused the women, and desecrated the churches. Their license and the art with which they extorted the last penny from the wretched people surpassed all belief. "Not satisfied with robbing the churches, they especially gloried in giving utterance to the most fearful blasphemies, in destroying and profaning the altars, in overthrowing the statues of saints, in treading the host beneath their feet or casting it to dogs.—At the village of Berg in Weingarten, they set up in the holy of holies the image of the devil, which they had taken from the representation of the temptation of the Saviour in the wilderness. In the village of Boos, they roasted a crucifix before a fire."—Vide Hurter's Memorabilia, concerning the French allies in Swabia, who attempted to found an Alemannic Republic. Schaffhausen, 1840. Moreau reduced them to silence by declaring, "I have no need of a revolution to the rear of my army."]
[Footnote 9: Notwithstanding Jourdan's proclamation, promising protection to all private property, Würzburg, Schweinfurt, Bamberg, etc., were completely pillaged. The young girls fled in hundreds to the woods. The churches were shamelessly desecrated. When mercy in God's name was demanded, the plunderers replied, "God! we are God!" They would dance at night-time around a bowl of burning brandy, whose blue flames they called their être suprème.—The French in Franconia, by Count Soden.]
[Footnote 10: "They deemed the assassination of a foreigner a meritorious work."—Ephemeridae of 1797."The peasantry, roused to fury by the disorderly and cruel French, whose excesses exceeded all belief, did not even extend mercy to the wounded; and the French, with equal barbarity, set whole villages on fire."—Appendix to the Campaign of 1796].
[Footnote 11: When scarcely in his twenty-seventh year. He was one of the most distinguished heroes of the Revolution, and as remarkable for his generosity to his weaker foes as for his moral and chivalric principles. The Archduke Charles sent his private physicians to attend upon him, and, on the occasion of his burial, fired a salvo simultaneously with that of the French stationed on the opposite bank of the Rhine.—Mussinan.]
[Footnote 12: The peasants of the Artenau and the Kinzigthal were commanded by a wealthy farmer, named John Baader. Besides several French generals, Hausmann, the commissary of the government, who accompanied Moreau's army, was taken prisoner.—Mussinan, History of the French War of 1796etc. A decree, published on the 18th of September by Frederick Eugene, Duke of Würtemberg, in which he prohibited his subjects from taking part in the pursuit of the French, is worthy of remark.]
CCL. Bonaparte
This youth was Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of a lawyer in the island of Corsica, a man of military genius, who, when a mere lieutenant, had raised the siege of Toulon, had afterward served the Directory by dispersing the old Jacobins with his artillery in the streets of Paris, and had been intrusted with the command of the army in Italy. Talents, that under a monarchy would have been doomed to obscurity, were, under the French republic, called into notice, and men of decided genius could, amid the general competition, alone attain to power or retain the reins of government.
Bonaparte was the first to take the field. In the April of 1796, he pushed across the Alps and attacked the Austrians. Beaulieu, a good general, but too old for service (he was then seventy-two, Napoleon but twenty-seven), had incautiously extended his lines too far, in order to preserve a communication with the English fleet in the Mediterranean. Bonaparte defeated his scattered forces at Montenotte and Millesimo, between the 10th and 15th of April, and, turning sharply upon the equally scattered Sardinian force, beat it in several engagements, the principal of which took place at Mondovi, between the 19th and 22d of April. An armistice was concluded with Sardinia, and Beaulieu, who vainly attempted to defend the Po, was defeated on the 7th and 8th of May, at Fombio. The bridge over the Adda at Lodi, three hundred paces in length, extremely narrow and to all appearance impregnable, defended by his lieutenant Sebottendorf, was carried by storm, and, on the 15th of May, Bonaparte entered Milan. Beaulieu took up a position behind the Mincio, notwithstanding which, Bonaparte carried the again ill-defended bridge at Borghetto by storm. While in this part of the country, he narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by a party of skirmishers, and was compelled to fly half-naked, with but one foot booted, from his night quarters at St. Georgio.
Beaulieu now withdrew into the Tyrol. Sardinia made peace, and terms were offered by the pope and by Naples. Leghorn was garrisoned with French troops; all the English goods lying in this harbor, to the value of twelve million pounds, were confiscated. The strongly fortified city of Mantua, defended by the Austrians under their gallant leader, Canto d'Irles, was besieged by Bonaparte. A fresh body of Austrian troops under Wurmser crossed the mountains to their relief; but Wurmser, instead of advancing with his whole force, incautiously pressed forward with thirty-two thousand men through the valley of the Adige, while Quosdanowich led eighteen thousand along the western shore of the Lake of Garda. Bonaparte instantly perceived his advantage, and, attacking the latter, defeated him on the 3d of August, at Lonato. Wurmser had entered Mantua unopposed on the 1st, but, setting out in search of the enemy, was unexpectedly attacked, on the 5th of August, by the whole of Bonaparte's forces at Castiglione, and compelled, like Quosdanowich, to seek shelter in the Tyrol. This senseless mode of attack had been planned by Weirotter, a colonel belonging to the general staff. Wurmser now received reinforcements, and Laner, the general of the engineers, was intrusted with the projection of a better plan. He again weakened the army by dividing his forces. In the beginning of September, Davidowich penetrated with twenty thousand men through the valley of the Adige and was defeated at Roveredo, and Wurmser, who had, meanwhile, advanced with an army of twenty-six thousand men through the valley of the Brenta, met with a similar fate at Bassano. He, nevertheless, escaped the pursuit of the victorious French by making a circuit, and threw himself by a forced march into Mantua, where he was, however, unable to make a lengthy resistance, the city being over-populated and provisions scarce. A fresh army of twenty-eight thousand men, under Alvinzi, sent to his relief[1] through the valley of the Brenta, was attacked in a strong position at Arcole, on the river Alpon. Two dams protected the bank and a narrow bridge, which was, on the 15th of November, vainly stormed by the French, although General Augereau and Bonaparte, with the colors in his hand, led the attack. On the following day, Alvinzi foolishly crossed the bridge and took up an exposed position, in which he was beaten, and, on the third day, he retreated. Davidowich, meanwhile, again advanced from the Tyrol and gained an advantage at Rivoli, but was also forced to retreat before Bonaparte. Wurmser, when too late, made a sally, which was, consequently, useless. The campaign was, nevertheless, for the fifth time, renewed. Alvinzi collected reinforcements and again pushed forward into the valley of the Adige, but speedily lost courage and suffered a fearful defeat, in which twenty thousand of his men were taken prisoners, on the 14th and 15th of January, A.D. 1797, at Rivoli. Provera, on whom he had relied for assistance from Padua, was cut off and taken prisoner with his entire corps. Wurmser capitulated at Mantua with twenty-one thousand men.
The spring of 1797 had scarcely commenced when Bonaparte was already pushing across the Alps toward Vienna. Hoche, at the same time, again attacked the Lower and Moreau the Upper Rhine. Bonaparte, the nearest and most dangerous foe, was opposed by the archduke, whose army, composed of the remains of Alvinzi's disbanded and discouraged troops, called forth the observation from Bonaparte, "Hitherto I have defeated armies without generals, now I am about to attack a general without an army!" A battle took place at Tarvis, amid the highest mountains, whence it was afterward known as "the battle above the clouds." The archduke, with a handful of Hungarian hussars, valiantly defended the pass against sixteen thousand French under Massena, nor turned to fly until eight only of his men remained. Generals Bayalich and Ocskay, instead of supporting him, had yielded. The archduke again collected five thousand men around him at Glogau and opposed the advance of the immensely superior French force until two hundred and fifty of his men alone remained. The conqueror of Italy rapidly advanced through Styria upon Vienna. Another French corps under Joubert had penetrated into the Tyrol, but had been so vigorously assailed at Spinges by the brave peasantry[2] as to be forced to retire upon Bonaparte's main body, with which he came up at Villach, after losing between six and eight thousand men during his retreat through the Pusterthal. The rashness with which Bonaparte, leaving the Alps to his rear and regardless of his distance from France, penetrated into the enemy's country, had placed him in a position affording every facility for the Austrians, by a bold and vigorous stroke, to cut him off and take him prisoner. They had garrisoned Trieste and Fiume on the Adriatic and formed an alliance with the republic of Venice, at that time well supplied with men, arms, and gold. A great insurrection of the peasantry, infuriated by the pillage of the French troops, had broken out at Bergamo. The gallant Tyrolese, headed by Count Lehrbach, and the Hungarians, had risen en masse. The victorious troops of the Archduke Charles were en route from the Rhine, and Mack had armed the Viennese and the inhabitants of the thickly-populated neighborhood of the metropolis. Bonaparte was lost should the archduke's plan of operations meet with the approbation of the Viennese cabinet, and, perfectly aware of the fact, he made proposals of peace under pretence of sparing unnecessary bloodshed. The imperial court, stupefied by the late discomfiture in Italy, instead of regarding the proposals of the wily Frenchman as a confession of embarrassment, and of assailing him with redoubled vigor, acceded to them, and, on the 18th of April, Count Cobenzl, Thugut's successor, concluded the preliminaries of peace at Leoben, by which the French, besides being liberated from their dangerous position, were recognized as victors. The negotiations of peace were continued at the chateau of Campo Formio, where the Austrians somewhat regained courage, and Count Cobenzl[3] even ventured to refuse some of the articles proposed. Bonaparte, irritated by opposition, dashed a valuable cup, the gift of the Russian empress, violently to the ground, exclaiming, "You wish for war? Well! you shall have it, and your monarchy shall be shattered like that cup." The armistice was not interrupted. Hostilities were even suspended on the Rhine. The archduke had, before quitting that river, gained thetétes de pontof Strasburg (Kehl) and of Huningen, besides completely clearing the right bank of the Rhine of the enemy. The whole of these advantages were again lost on his recall to take the field against Napoleon. The Saxon troops, which had, up to this period, steadily sided with Austria, were recalled by the elector. Swabia, Franconia, and Bavaria were intent upon making peace with France. Baron von Fahnenberg, the imperial envoy at Ratisbon, bitterly reproached the Protestant estates for their evident inclination to follow the example of Prussia by siding with the French and betraying their fatherland to their common foe, but, on applying more particularly for aid to the spiritual princes, who were exposed to the greatest danger, he found them equally lukewarm. Each and all refused to furnish troops or to pay a war tax. The imperial troops were, consequently, compelled to enforce their maintenance, and naturally became the objects of popular hatred. In this wretched manner was the empire defended! The petty imperial corps on the Rhine were, meanwhile, compelled to retreat before an enemy vastly their superior in number. Wernek, attempting with merely twenty-two thousand men to obstruct the advance of an army of sixty-five thousand French under Hoche, was defeated at Neuwied and deprived of his command.[4] Sztarray, who charged seven times at the head of his men, was also beaten by Moreau at Kehl and Diersheim. At this conjuncture, the armistice of Leoben was published.
A peace, based on the terms proposed at Leoben, was formally concluded at Campo Formio, October 17, 1797. The triumph of the French republic was confirmed, and ancient Europe received a new form. The object for which the sovereigns of France had for centuries vainly striven was won by the monarchless nation; France gained the preponderance in Europe. Italy and the whole of the left bank of the Rhine were abandoned to her arbitrary rule, and this fearful loss, far from acting as a warning to Germany and promoting her unity, merely increased her internal dissensions and offered to the French republic an opportunity for intervention, of which it took advantage for purposes of gain and pillage.
The principal object of the policy of Bonaparte and of the French Directory, at that period, was, by rousing the ancient feelings of enmity between Austria and Prussia, to eternalize the disunion between those two monarchies. Bonaparte, after effectuating the peace by means of terror, loaded Austria with flattery. He flattered her religious feelings by the moderation of his conduct in Italy toward the pope, notwithstanding the disapprobation manifested by the genuine French republicans, and her interests by the offer of Venice in compensation for the loss of the Netherlands, and, making a slight side-movement against that once powerful and still wealthy republic, reduced it at the first blow, nay, by mere threats, to submission; so deeply was the ancient aristocracy here also fallen. The cession of Venice to the emperor was displeasing to the French republicans. They were, however, pacified by the delivery of Lafayette, who had been still detained a prisoner in Austria after the treaty of Basel. Napoleon said in vindication of his policy, "I have merely lent Venice to the emperor, he will not keep her long." He, moreover, gratified Austria by the extension of her western frontier, so long the object of her ambition, by the possession of the archbishopric of Salzburg and of a part of Bavaria with the town of Wasserburg.[5] The sole object of these concessions was provisionally to dispose Austria in favor of France,[6] and to render Prussia's ancient jealousy of Austria implacable.[7] Hence the secret articles of peace by which France and Austria bound themselves not to grant any compensation to Prussia. Prussia was on her part, however, resolved not to be the loser, and, in the summer of 1797, took forcible possession of the imperial free town of Nuremberg, notwithstanding her declaration made just three years previously through Count Soden to the Franconian circle, "that the king had never harbored the design of seeking a compensation at the expense of the empire, whose constitution had ever been sacred in his eyes!" and to the empire, "He deemed it beneath his dignity to refute the reports concerning Prussia's schemes of aggrandizement, oppression, and secularization." Prussia also extended her possessions in Franconia[8] and Westphalia, and Hesse-Cassel imitated her example by the seizure of a part of Schaumburg-Lippe. The diet energetically remonstrated, but in vain. Pamphlets spoke of the Prussian reunion- chambers opened by Hardenberg in Franconia. An attempt was, however, made to console the circle of Franconia by depicturing the far worse sufferings of that of Swabia under the imperial contributions. The petty Estates of the empire stumbled, under these circumstances, upon the unfortunate idea "that the intercession of the Russian court should be requested for the maintenance of the integrity of the German empire and for that of her constitution"; the intercession of the Russian court, which had so lately annihilated Poland!
Shortly after this, A.D. 1797, Frederick William II., who had, on his accession to the throne, found seventy-two millions of dollars in the treasury, expired, leaving twenty-eight millions of debts. His son, Frederick William III., placed the Countess Lichtenau under arrest, banished Wollner, and abolished the unpopular monopoly in tobacco, but retained his father's ministers and continued the alliance, so pregnant with mischief, with France.—This monarch, well-meaning and destined to the severest trials, educated by a peevish valetudinarian and ignorant of affairs, was first taught by bitter experience the utter incapacity of the men at that time at the head of the government, and after, as will be seen, completely reforming the court, the government, and the army, surrounded himself with men, who gloriously delivered Prussia and Germany from all the miseries and avenged all the disgrace, which it is the historian's sad office to record.
Austria, as Prussia had already done by the treaty of Basel, also sacrificed, by the peace of Campo Formio, the whole of the left bank of the Rhine and abandoned it to France, the loss thereby suffered by the Estates of the empire being indemnified by the secularization of the ecclesiastical property in the interior of Germany and by the prospect of the seizure of the imperial free towns. Mayence was ceded without a blow to France. Holland was forgotten. The English, under pretext of opposing France, destroyed, A.D. 1797, the last Dutch fleet, in the Texel, though not without a heroic and determined resistance on the part of the admirals de Winter and Reintjes, both of whom were severely wounded, and the latter died in captivity in England. Holland was formed into a Batavian, Genoa into a Ligurian, Milan with the Valtelline (from which the Grisons was severed) into a Cisalpine, republic. Intrigues were, moreover, set on foot for the formation of a Roman and Neapolitan republic in Italy and of a Rhenish and Swabian one in Germany, all of which were to be subordinate to the mother republic in France. The proclamation of a still-born Cisrhenish republic (it not having as yet been constituted when it was swallowed up in the great French republic), in the masterless Lower Rhenish provinces in the territory of Treves, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Cologne, under the influence of the French Jacobins and soldiery, was, however, all that could at first be done openly.
The hauteur with which Bonaparte, backed by his devoted soldiery, had treated the republicans, and the contempt manifested by him toward the citizens, had not failed to rouse the jealous suspicions of the Directory, the envy of the less successful generals, and the hatred of the old friends of liberty, by whom he was already designated as a tyrant. The republican party was still possessed of considerable power, and the majority of the French troops under Moreau, Jourdan, Bernadotte, etc., were still ready to shed their blood in the cause of liberty. Bonaparte, compelled to veil his ambitious projects, judged it more politic, after sowing the seed of discord at Campo Formio, to withdraw a while, in order to await the ripening of the plot and to return to reap the result. He, accordingly, went meantime, A.D. 1798, with a small but well-picked army to Egypt, for the ostensible purpose of opening a route overland to India, the sea-passage having been closed against France by the British, but, in reality, for the purpose of awaiting there a turn in continental affairs, and, moreover, by his victories over the Turks in the ancient land of fable to add to the wonder it was ever his object to inspire. On his way thither he seized the island of Malta and compelled Baron Hompesch, the grand-master of the order of the Knights of Malta, to resign his dignity, the fortress being betrayed into his hands by the French knights.
At Rastadt, near Baden, where the compensation mentioned in the treaty of Campo Formio was to be taken into consideration, the terrified Estates of the empire assembled for the purpose of suing the French ambassadors for the lenity they had not met with at the hands of Austria and Prussia.—The events that took place at Rastadt are of a description little calculated to flatter the patriotic feelings of the German historian. The soul of the congress was Charles Maurice Talleyrand-Perigord, at one time a bishop, at the present period minister of the French republic. His colloquy with the German ambassadors resembled that of the fox with the geese, and he attuned their discords with truly diabolical art. While holding Austria and Prussia apart, instigating them one against the other, flattering both with the friendship of the republic and with the prospect of a rich booty by the secularization of the ecclesiastical lands, he encouraged some of the petty states with the hope of aggrandizement by an alliance with France,[9] and, with cruel contempt, allowed others a while to gasp for life before consigning them to destruction. The petty princes, moreover, who had been deprived of their territory on the other side of the Rhine, demanded lands on this side in compensation; all the petty princes on this side consequently trembled lest they should be called upon to make compensation, and each endeavored, by bribing the members of the congress, Talleyrand in particular, to render himself an exception. The French minister was bribed not by gold alone; a considerable number of ladies gained great notoriety by their liaison with the insolent republican, from whom they received nothing, the object for which they sued being sold by him sometimes even two or three times. Momus, a satirical production of this period, relates numerous instances of crime and folly that are perfectly incredible. The avarice manifested by the French throughout the whole of the negotiations was only surpassed by the brutality of their language and behavior. Roberjot, Bonnier, and Jean de Bry, the dregs of the French nation, treated the whole of the German empire on this occasionen canaille, and, while picking the pockets of the Germans, were studiously coarse and brutal; still the trifling opposition they encountered, and the total want of spirit in the representatives of the great German empire, whom it must, in fact, have struck them as ridiculous to see thus humbled at their feet, forms an ample excuse for their demeanor.
Gustavus Adolphus IV., who mounted the throne of Sweden in 1796, distinguished himself at that time among the Estates of the empire, when Duke of Pomerania and Prince of Rugen, by his solemn protest against the depredations committed by France, and by his summons to every member of the German empire to take the field against their common foe. Hesse-Cassel was also remarkable for the warlike demeanor and decidedly anti-Gallic feeling of her population; and Wurtemberg, for being the first of the German states that gave the example of making concessions more in accordance with the spirit of the times. By the abolition of ancient abuses alone could the princes meet the threats used on every occasion by the French at Rastadt to revolutionize the people unless their demands were fully complied with. In Wurtemberg, the duke, Charles, had been succeeded, A.D. 1793, by his brother, Louis Eugène, who banished license from his court, but, a foe to enlightenment, closed the Charles college, placed monks around his person, was extremely bigoted, and a zealous but impotent friend to France. He expired, A.D. 1795, and was succeeded by the third brother, Frederick Eugène, who had been during his youth a canon at Salzburg, but afterward became a general in the Prussian service, married a princess of Brandenburg, and educated his children in the Protestant faith in order to assimilate the religion of the reigning family with that of the people. His mild government terminated in 1797. Frederick, his talented son and successor, mainly frustrated the projected establishment of a Swabian republic, which was strongly supported by the French, by his treatment of the provincial Estates, the modification of the rights of chase, etc., on which occasion he took the following oath: "I repeat the solemn vow, ever to hold the constitution of this country sacred and to make the weal of my subjects the aim of my life." He nevertheless appears, by the magnificent fetes, masquerades, and pastoral festivals given by him, as if in a time of the deepest peace, at Hohenheim, to have trusted more to his connection with England, by his marriage with the princess royal, Matilda,[10] with Russia, and with Austria (the emperor Paul, Catherine's successor, having married the princess Maria of Wurtemberg, and the emperor Francis II., her sister Elisabeth), than to the constitution, which he afterward annihilated.