way to the Lahn, where for the last time in the history of these wars, there was an irregular widespread battle. But Hoche, in this his last campaign, displayed the brilliant energy of his first, and delivered the “series of incessant blows” that Carnot had urged upon Jourdan the year before. Werneck was driven with ever-increasing losses from the lower Lahn to Wetzlar and Giessen. Thence, pressed hard by the French left wing under Championnet, he retired on the Nidda, only to find that Hoche’s right had swung completely roundLeoben. him. Nothing but the news of the armistice of Leoben saved him from envelopment and surrender. This general armistice was signed by Bonaparte, on his own authority and to the intense chagrin of the Directory and of Hoche, on the 18th of April, and was the basis of the peace of Campo Formio.
Napoleon in Egypt
Within the scope of this article, yet far more important from its political and personal than from its general military interest, comes the expedition of Napoleon to Egypt and its sequel (see also Egypt: History; Napoleon, &c.). A very brief summary must here suffice. Napoleon left Toulon on the 19th of May 1798, at the same time as his army (40,000 strong in 400 transports) embarked secretly at various ports. Nelson’s fleet was completely evaded, and, capturing Malta en route, the armada reached the coast of Egypt on the 1st of July. The republicans stormed Alexandria on the 2nd. Between Embabeh and Gizeh, on the left bank of the Nile, 60,000 Mamelukes were defeated and scattered on the 21st (battle of the Pyramids), the French for the most part marching and fighting in the chequer of infantry squares that afterwards became the classical formation for desert warfare. While his lieutenants pursued the more important groups of the enemy, Napoleon entered Cairo in triumph, and proceeded to organize Egypt as a French protectorate. Meantime Nelson, though too late to head off the expedition, had annihilated the squadron of Admiral Brueys. This blow severed the army from the home country, and destroyed all hope of reinforcements. But to eject the French already in Egypt, military invasion of that country was necessary. The first attempts at this were made in September by the Turks as overlords of Egypt. Napoleon—after suppressing a revolt in Cairo—marched into Syria to meet them, and captured El Arish and Jaffa (at the latter place the prisoners, whom he could afford neither to feed, to release, nor to guard, were shot by his order). But he was brought to a standstill (March 17-May 20) before the half-defensible fortifications of Acre, held by a Turkish garrison and animated by the leadership of Sir W. Sidney Smith (q.v.). In May, though meantime a Turkish relieving army had been severely beaten in the battle of Mount Tabor (April 16, 1799), Napoleon gave up his enterprise, and returned to Egypt, where he won a last victory in annihilating at Aboukir, with 6000 of his own men, a Turkish army 18,000 strong that had landed there (July 25, 1799). With this crowning tactical success to set against the Syrian reverses, he handed over the command to Kléber and returned to France (August 22) to ride the storm in a new coup d’état, the “18th Brumaire.” Kléber, attacked by the English and Turks, concluded the convention of El Arish (January 27, 1800), whereby he secured free transport for the army back to France. But this convention was disavowed by the British government, and Kléber prepared to hold his ground. On the 20th of March 1800 he thoroughly defeated the Turkish army at Heliopolis and recovered Cairo, and French influence was once more in the ascendant in Egypt, when its director was murdered by a fanatic on the 14th of June, the day of Marengo. Kléber’s successor, the incompetent Menou, fell an easy victim to the British expeditionary force under Sir Ralph Abercromby in 1801. The British forced their way ashore at Aboukir on the 8th of March. On the 21st, Abercromby won a decisive battle, and himself fell in the hour of victory (see Alexandria: Battle of 1801). His successor, General Hely Hutchinson, slowly followed up this advantage, and received the surrender of Cairo in July and of Alexandria in August, the débris of the French army being given free passage back to France. Meantime a mixed force of British and native troops from India, under Sir David Baird, had landed at Kosseir and marched across the desert to Cairo.
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 to meet the storm. Four armies, numbering only 160,000, were set on foot, in Holland (Brune, 24,000); on the Upper Rhine (Jourdan, 46,000); in Switzerland, which had been militarily occupied in 1798 (Masséna, 30,000); and in upper Italy (Schérer, 60,000). In addition there was Championnet’s army, now commanded by Macdonald, in southern Italy. All these forces the Directory ordered, in January and February 1799, to assume the offensive.
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. The archduke had won these preliminary successes with seven-eighths of his army acting as one concentrated mass. Stokach.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 Masséna. 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.[1]
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 1000 in the strong position of the Luziensteig near Mayenfeld. Masséna’sMasséna in Switzerland. 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 Zürich side descended upon Disentis and captured its defenders. In three days, thanks to Masséna’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 Masséna 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 and Landeck, probably as a sort of strategic reserve to the archduke. The rest, with the assistance of the Tirolese themselves, were to ward off irruptions from Italy. Here the French offensive was entrusted to two columns, one from Masséna’s command under Lecourbe, the other from the Army of Italy under Dessolle. Simultaneously with Masséna, Lecourbe marched from Bellinzona with 10,000 men, by the San Bernadino pass into the Splügen valley, and thence over the Julier pass into the upper Engadine. A small Austrian force under Major-General Loudon attacked him near Zernetz, but was after three days of rapid manœuvres and bold tactics driven back to Martinsbrück, with considerable losses, especially in prisoners. But ere long the country people flew to arms, and Lecourbe found himself between two fires, the levies occupying Zernetz and Loudon’s regulars Martinsbrück. But though he had only some 5000 of his original force left, he was not disconcerted, and, by driving back the levies into the high valleys whence they had come, and constantly threatening Loudon,
- ↑ 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’être is unsupported by contemporary evidence.
