PRINCE CHARLES OF LORRAINE PASSES THE RHINE.
He had taken such precautions for the defence of Alsace, which was guarded by considerable armies under the command of Coigny and Seckendorf, that he thought he had nothing to fear from the Austrians in that quarter; besides, he had received secret assurances that the king of Prussia would declare for the emperor; so that he resolved to pursue his conquests in the Netherlands. But all his measures were defeated by the activity of prince Charles of Lorraine, and his officers, who found means to pass the Rhine, and oblige the French and Bavarian generals to retire to Lampertheim, that they might cover Strasburgh. The Austrians made themselves masters of Haguenau and Saverne; they secured the passes of Lorraine; and laid all the country of Lower Alsace under contribution. The king of France was no sooner apprized of the prince’s having passed the Rhine and penetrated into this province, than he sent off a detachment of thirty thousand men from his army in Flanders, to reinforce that under the mareschal de Coigny; and he himself began his journey from the Rhine, that he might in person check the progress of the enemy; but this design was anticipated by a severe distemper that overtook him at Mentz in Lorraine. The physicians despaired of his life. The queen, with her children, and all the princes of the blood, hastened from Versailles to pay the last duties to their dying sovereign, who, as a true penitent, dismissed his concubines, and began to prepare himself for death; yet the strength of his constitution triumphed over the fever, and his recovery was celebrated all over his dominions with uncommon marks of joy and affection.
In the meantime the schemes of the Austrian general were frustrated by the king of Prussia, who, in the month of August, entered the electorate of Saxony at the head of a numerous army. There he declared, in a public manifesto, that his aims were only to re-establish the peace of the empire, and to support the dignity of its head. He assured the inhabitants that they might depend upon his protection, in case they should remain quiet; but threatened them with fire and sword should they presume to oppose his arms. In a rescript, addressed to his ministers at foreign courts, he accused the queen of Hungary of obstinacy, in refusing to acknowledge the emperor, and restore his hereditary dominions; he said, he had engaged in the league of Franckfort, to hinder the head of the empire from being oppressed; that he had no intention to violate the peace of Breslau, or enter as a principal into this war; he affirmed, that his design was to act as auxiliary to the emperor, and establish the quiet of Germany. He penetrated into Bohemia, and undertook the siege of Prague, the governor of which surrendered himself and his garrison prisoners of war on the sixteenth day of September. He afterwards reduced Tabor, Bodweis, and Teyn, and in a word subdued the greatest part of the kingdom; the Austrian forces in that country being in no condition to stop his progress. Nevertheless, he was soon obliged to relinquish his conquests. Prince Charles of Lorraine was recalled from Alsace, and repassed the Rhine in the face of the French army, commanded by the mareschals de Coigny, Noailles, and Belleisle. Then he marched to the Danube, laid the Upper Palatine under contribution, and entering Bohemia, joined the troops under Bathiani at Merotiz. The king of Poland elector of Saxony, at this juncture declared in favour of her Hungarian majesty. A convention for the mutual guarantee of their dominions, had been signed between those two powers in December; and now prince Charles of Lorraine was reinforced by twenty thousand Saxon troops, under the conduct of the duke of Saxe-Wessenfels. The combined army was superior to that of his Prussian majesty, whom they resolved to engage. But he retired before them, and having evacuated all the places he had garrisoned in Bohemia, retreated with precipitation into Silesia. There his troops were put into winter-quarters; and he himself returned to Berlin, extremely mortified at the issue of the campaign.
CAMPAIGN IN BAVARIA AND FLANDERS.
During these transactions, count Seckendorf marched into Bavaria at the head of a strong army, drove the Austrians out of that electorate, and the emperor regained possession of Munich, his capital, on the twenty-second day of October. In August the French army passed the Rhine at Fort-Louis, and invested the strong and important city of Fribourg, defended by general Demnitz, at the head of nine thousand veterans. The king of France arrived in the camp on the eleventh day of October; and the siege was carried on with uncommon vigour. The Austrian governor made incredible efforts in the defence of the place, which he maintained until it was reduced to a heap of ruins, and one-half of the garrison destroyed. At length, however, they were obliged to surrender themselves prisoners of war, after the trenches had been open five-and-forty days, during which they had killed above fifteen thousand of the besiegers. With this conquest the French king closed the campaign, and his army was cantoned along the Rhine, under the inspection of the count de Maillebois. By the detachments drawn from the French army in Flanders, count Saxe had found himself considerably weaker than the confederates; he threw up strong intrenchments behind the Lys, where he remained on the defensive, until he was reinforced by count d’Clermont, who commanded a separate body on the side of Newport. The allies, to the number of seventy thousand, passed the Schelde, and advanced towards Helchin; but the enemy being so advantageously posted, that they could not attack him with any prospect of advantage, they filed on in sight of Tournay; and on the eighth day of August encamped in the plains of Lisle, in hope of drawing count Saxe from the situation in which he was so strongly fortified. Here they foraged for several days, and laid the open country under contribution; however, they made no attempt on the place itself, which in all probability would have fallen into their hands had they invested it at their first approach; for then there was no other garrison but two or three battalions of militia; but count Saxe soon threw in a considerable reinforcement. The allies were unprovided with a train of battering cannon; and their commanders would not deviate from the usual form of war. Besides, they were divided in their opinions, and despised one another. General Wade, who commanded the English and Hanoverians, was a vain weak man, without confidence, weight, or authority; and the Austrian general, the duke d’Aremberg, was a proud rapacious glutton, devoid of talents and sentiment. After having remained for some time in sight of Lisle, and made a general forage without molestation, they retired to their former camp on the Schelde, from whence they soon marched into winter-quarters. Count Saxe at length quitted his lines; and by way of retaliation, sent out detachments to ravage the Low-countries, to the very gates of Ghent and Bruges. The conduct of the allied generals was severely censured in England, ridiculed in France, not only in private conversation, but also on their public theatres, where it became the subject of farces and pantomimes.
The campaign in Italy produced divers vicissitudes of fortune. The king of Naples having assembled an army, joined count Gages, and published a manifesto in vindication of his conduct, which was a direct violation of the neutrality he had promised to observe. He maintained, that his moderation had been undervalued by the courts of London and Vienna; that his frontiers were threatened with the calamities of war; and that the queen of Hungary made no secret of her intention to invade his dominions. This charge was not without foundation. The emissaries of the house of Austria endeavoured to excite a rebellion in Naples, which prince Lobkowitz had orders to favour by an invasion. This general was encamped at Monte Rotundo, in the neighbourhood of Rome, when, in the month of June, the confederates advanced to Velletri. While the two armies remained in sight of each other, prince Lobkowitz detached a strong body of forces, under count Soro and general Gorani, who made an irruption into the province of Abruzzo, and took the city of Aquilla, where they distributed a manifesto, in which the queen of Hungary exhorted the Neapolitans to shake off the Spanish yoke, and submit again to the house of Austria. This step, however, produced little or no effect; and the Austrian detachment retired at the approach of the duke of Vieuville, with a superior number of forces. In August, count Brown, at the head of an Austrian detachment, surprised Velletri in the night; and the king of the Two Sicilies, with the duke of Modena, were in the utmost danger of being taken. They escaped by a postern with great difficulty, and repaired to the quarters of count Gages, who performed the part of a great general on this occasion. He rallied the fugitives, dispelled the panic and confusion which had begun to prevail in his camp, and made a disposition for cutting off the retreat of the Austrians. Count Brown, finding himself in danger of being surrounded, thought proper to secure his retreat, which he effected with great art and gallantry, carrying off a prodigious booty. Three thousand Spaniards are said to have fallen in this action; and eight hundred men were taken, with some standards and colours. Count Mariani, a Neapolitan general, was among the prisoners. The Austrians lost about six hundred men; and general Novati fell into the hands of the enemy; but the exploit produced no consequence of importance. The heats of Autumn proved so fatal to the Austrians, who were not accustomed to the climate, that prince Lobkowitz saw his army mouldering away, without any possibility of its being recruited; besides, the country was so drained that he could no longer procure subsistence. Impelled by these considerations, he meditated a retreat. On the eleventh day of November, he decamped from Faiola, marched under the walls of Rome, passed the Tiber at Ponte Mole, formerly known by the name of Pons Milvius, which he had just time to break down behind him, when the vanguard of the Spaniards and Neapolitans appeared. Part of his rear-guard, however, was taken, with count Soro who commanded it, at Nocero; and his army suffered greatly by desertion. Nevertheless, he continued his retreat with equal skill and expedition, passed the mountains of Gubio, and by the way of Viterbo reached the Bolognese. The pope was altogether passive. In the beginning of the campaign he had caressed Lobkowitz; and now he received the king of the Two Sicilies with marks of the warmest affection. That prince having visited the chief curiosities of Rome, returned to Naples, leaving part of his troops under the command of count Gages.