This ended the French general offensive. Jourdan had been defeated by the archduke and forced or induced to retire over the Rhine. Masséna was at a standstill before the strong position of Feldkirch, and the Austrians of Hotze were still massed at Bregenz, but the Grisons were revolutionized, two strong bodies of Austrians numbering in all about 20,000 men had been destroyed, and Lecourbe and Dessolles had advanced far into Tirol. A pause followed. The Austrians in the mountains needed time to concentrate and to recover from their astonishment. The archduke fell ill, and the Vienna war council forbade his army to advance lest Tirol should be “uncovered,” though Bellegarde and Hotze still disposed of numbers equal to those of Masséna and Lecourbe. Masséna succeeded Jourdan in general command on the French side and promptly collected all available forces of both armies in the hilly non-Alpine country between Basel, Zürich and Schaffhausen, thereby directly barring the roads into France (Berne-Neuchâtel-Pontarlier and Basel-Besançon) which the Austrians appeared to desire to conquer. The protection of Alsace and the Vosges was left to the fortresses. There was no suggestion, it would appear, that the Rhine between Basel and Schaffhausen was a flank position sufficient of itself to bar Alsace to the enemy.
It is now time to turn to events in Italy, where the Coalition intended to put forth its principal efforts. At the beginning of March the French had 80,000 men in Upper Italy and some 35,000 in the heart of the Peninsula, the latter engaged chiefly in supporting newly-founded republics. Of the former, 53,000 formed the field army on the Mincio under Schérer. The Austrians, commanded by Kray, numbered in all 84,000, but detachments reduced this figure to 67,000, of whom, moreover, 15,000 had not yet arrived when operations began. They were to be joined by a Russian contingent under the celebrated Suvárov, who was to command the whole on arrival, and whose extraordinary personality gives the campaign its special interest. Kray himself was a resolute soldier, and when the French, obeying the general order to advance, crossed the Adige, he defeated them in a severely fought battle at Magnano near Verona (March 5), the French losing 4000 killed and wounded and 4500 taken, out of 41,000. The Austrians lost some 3800 killed and wounded and 1500 prisoners, out of 46,000 engaged. The war, however, was undertaken not to annihilate, but to evict the French, and, probably under orders from Vienna, Kray allowed the beaten enemy to depart.
Suvárov appeared with 17,000 Russians on the 4th of April. His first step was to set Russian officers to teach the Austrian troops—whose feelings can be imagined—how to attack with the bayonet, his next to order the whole Suvárov. army forward. The Allies broke camp on the 17th, 18th and 19th of April, and on the 20th, after a forced march of close on 30 m., they passed the Chiese. Brescia had a French garrison, but Suvárov soon cowed it into surrender by threats of a massacre, which no one doubted that he would carry into execution. At the same time, dissatisfied with the marching of the Austrian infantry, he sent the following characteristic reproof to their commander: “The march was in the service of the Kaiser. Fair weather is for my lady’s chamber, for dandies, for sluggards. He who dares to cavil against his high duty (der Grosssprecher wider den hohen Dienst) is, as an egoist, instantly to vacate his command. Whoever is in bad health can stay behind. The so-called reasoners (raisonneurs) do no army any good....” One day later, under this unrelenting pressure, the advanced posts of the Allies reached Cremona and the main body the Oglio. The pace became slower in the following days, as many bridges had to be made, and meanwhile Moreau, Schérer’s successor, prepared with a mere 20,000 men to defend Lodi, Cassano and Lecco on the Adda. On the 26th the Russian hero attacked him all along the line. The moral supremacy had passed over to the Allies. Melas, under Suvárov’s stern orders, flung his battalions regardless of losses against the strong position of Cassano. The story of 1796 repeated itself with the rôles reversed. The passage was carried, and the French rearguard under Sérurier was surrounded and captured by an inferior corps of Austrians. The Austrians (the Russians at Lecco were hardly engaged) lost 6000 men, but they took 7000 prisoners, and in all Moreau’s little army lost half its numbers and retreated in many disconnected bodies to the Ticino, and thence to Alessandria. Everywhere the Italians turned against the French, mindful of the exactions of their commissaries. The strange Cossack cavalry that western Europe had never yet seen entered Milan on the 29th of April, eleven days after passing the Mincio, and next day the city received with enthusiasm the old field marshal, whose exploits against the Turks had long invested him with a halo of romance and legend. Here, for the moment, his offensive culminated. He desired to pass into Switzerland and to unite his own, the archduke’s, Hotze’s and Bellegarde’s armies in one powerful mass. But the emperor would not permit the execution of this scheme until all the fortresses held by the enemy in Upper Italy should have been captured. In any case, Macdonald’s army in southern Italy, cut off from France by the rapidity of Suvárov’s onslaught, and now returning with all speed to join Moreau by force or evasion, had still to be dealt with.
Suvárov’s mobile army, originally 90,000 strong, had now dwindled, by reason of losses and detachments for sieges, to half that number, and serious differences arose between the Vienna government and himself. If he offended the pride of the Austrian army, he was at least respected as a leader who gave it victories, but in Vienna he was regarded as a madman who had to be kept within bounds. But at last, when he was becoming thoroughly exasperated by this treatment, Macdonald came within striking distance and the active campaign recommenced. In the second week of June, Moreau, who had retired into the Apennines about Gavi, advanced with the intention of drawing upon himself troops that would otherwise have been employed against Macdonald. He succeeded, for Suvárov with his usual rapidity collected 40,000 men at Alessandria, only to learn that Macdonald with 35,000 men was coming up on the Parma road. When this news arrived, Macdonald had already engaged an Austrian detachment at Modena and driven it back, and Suvárov found himself between Moreau and Macdonald with barely enough men under his hand to enable him to play the game of “interior lines.” But at the crisis the rough energetic warrior who despised “raisonneurs,” displayed generalship of the first order, and taking in hand all his scattered detachments, he manœuvred them in the Napoleonic fashion.
On the 14th Macdonald was calculated to be between Modena, Reggio and Carpi, but his destination was uncertain. Would he continue to hug the Apennines to join Moreau, or would he strike out northwards against Kray, who The Trebbia. with 20,000 men was besieging Mantua? From Alessandria it is four marches to Piacenza and nine to Mantua, while from Reggio these places are four and two marches respectively. Piacenza, therefore, was the crucial point if Macdonald continued westward, while, in the other case, nothing could save Kray but the energetic conduct of Hohenzollern’s detachment, which was posted near Reggio. This latter, however, was soon forced over the Po, and Ott, advancing from Cremona to join it, found himself sharply pressed in turn. The field marshal had hoped that Ott and Hohenzollern together would be able to win him time to assemble at Parma, where he could bring on a battle whichever way the French took. But on receipt of Ott’s report he was convinced that Macdonald had chosen the western route, and ordering Ott to delay the French as long as possible by stubborn rearguard actions and to put a garrison into Piacenza under a general who was to hold out “on peril of his life and honour,” he collected what forces were ready to move and hurried towards Piacenza, the rest being left to watch Moreau. He arrived just in time. When after three forced marches the main body (only 26,000 strong) reached Castel San Giovanni, Ott had been driven out of Piacenza, but the two joined forces safely. Both Suvárov and Macdonald spent the 17th in closing up and deploying for battle. The respective forces were Allies 30,000, French 35,000. Suvárov believed the enemy to be only 26,000 strong, and chiefly raw Italian regiments, but his temperament would not have allowed him to stand still even had he known his inferiority. He had already issued one of his peculiar battle-orders, which began with the words, “The hostile army will be taken prisoners” and continued with directions to the Cossacks to spare the surrendered enemy. But Macdonald too was full of energy, and believed still that he could annihilate Ott before the field marshal’s arrival. Thus the battle of the Trebbia (June 17-19) was fought by both sides in the spirit of the offensive. It was one of the severest struggles in the Republican wars, and it ended in Macdonald’s retreat with a loss of 15,000 men—probably 6000 in the battle and 9000 killed and prisoners when and after the equilibrium was broken—for Suvárov, unlike other generals, had the necessary surplus of energy after all the demands made upon him by a great battle, to order and to direct an effective pursuit. The Allies lost about 7000. Macdonald retreated to Parma and Modena, harassed by the peasantry, and finally recrossed the Apennines and made his way to Genoa. The battle of the Trebbia is one of the most clearly-defined examples in military history of the result of moral force—it was a matter not merely of energetic leading on the battlefield, but far more of educating the troops beforehand to meet the strain, of ingraining in the soldier the determination to win at all costs. “It was not,” says Clausewitz, “a case of losing the key of the position, of turning a flank or breaking a centre, of a mistimed cavalry charge or a lost battery ... it is a pure trial of strength and expense of force, and victory is the sinking of the balance, if ever so slightly, in favour of one side. And we mean not merely physical, but even more moral forces.”
To return now to the Alpine region, where the French offensive had culminated at the end of March. Their defeated left was behind the Rhine in the northern part of Switzerland, the half-victorious centre athwart the Rhine between Mayenfeld and Chur, and their wholly victorious right far within Tirol between Glurns, Nauders and Landeck. But neither the centre nor the right could maintain itself. The forward impulse given by Suvárov spread along the whole Austrian front from left to right. Dessolles’ column (now under Loison) was forced back to Chiavenna. Bellegarde drove Lecourbe from position to position towards the Rhine during April. There Lecourbe added to the remnant of his expeditionary column the outlying bodies of Masséna’s right wing, but even so he had only 8000 men against Bellegarde’s 17,000, and he was now exposed to the attack of Hotze’s 25,000 as well. The Luziensteig fell to Hotze and Chur to Bellegarde, but the defenders managed to escape from the converging Austrian columns into the valley of the Reuss. Having thus reconquered all the lost ground and forced the French into the interior of Switzerland, Bellegarde and Hotze parted company, the former marching with the greater part of his forces to join Suvárov, the latter moving to his right to reinforce the archduke. Only a chain of posts was left in the Rhine Valley between Disentis and Feldkirch. The archduke’s operations now recommenced.
Charles and Hotze stood, about the 15th of May, at opposite ends of the lake of Constance. The two together numbered about 88,000 men, but both had sent away numerous detachments to the flanks, and the main bodies dwindled to 35,000 for the archduke and 20,000 for Hotze. Masséna, with 45,000 men in all, retired slowly from the Rhine to the Thur. The archduke crossed the Rhine at Stein, Hotze at Balzers, and each then cautiously felt his way towards the other. Their active opponent attempted to take advantage of their separation, and an irregular fight took place in the Thur valley (May 25), but Masséna, finding Hotze close on his right flank, retired without attempting to force a decision. On the 27th, having joined forces, the Austrians dislodged Masséna from his new position on the Töss without difficulty, and this process was repeated from time to time in the Action of Zürich. next few days, until at last Masséna halted in the position he had prepared for defence at Zürich. He had still but 25,000 of his 45,000 men in hand, for he maintained numerous small detachments on his right, behind the Zürcher See and the Wallen See, and on his left towards Basel. These 25,000 occupied an entrenched position 5 m. in length; against which the Austrians, detaching as usual many posts to protect their flanks and rear, deployed only 42,000 men, of whom 8000 were sent on a wide turning movement and 8000 held in reserve 4 m. in rear of the battlefield. Thus the frontal attack was made with forces not much greater than those of the defence and it failed accordingly (June 4). But Masséna, fearing perhaps to strain the loyalty of the Swiss to their French-made constitution by exposing their town to assault and sack, retired on the 5th.
He did not fall back far, for his outposts still bordered the Limmat and the Linth, while his main body stood in the valley of the Aar between Baden and Lucerne. The archduke pressed Masséna as little as he had pressed Jourdan after Stokach (though in this case he had less to gain by pursuit), and awaited the arrival of a second Russian army, 30,000 strong, under Korsákov, before resuming the advance, meantime throwing out covering detachments towards Basel, where Masséna had a division. Thus for two months operations, elsewhere than in Italy, were at a standstill, while Masséna drew in reinforcements and organized the fractions of his forces in Alsace as a skeleton army, and the Austrians distributed arms to the peasantry of South Germany.
In the end, under pressure from Paris, it was Masséna who resumed active movements. Towards the middle of August, Lecourbe, who formed a loose right wing of the French army in the Reuss valley, was reinforced to a strength of 25,000 men, and pounced upon the extended left wing of the enemy, which had stretched itself, to keep pace with Suvárov, as far westward as the St Gothard. The movement began on the 14th, and in two days the Austrians were driven back from the St Gothard and the Furka to the line of the Linth, with the loss of 8000 men and many guns. At the same time an attempt to take advantage of Masséna’s momentary weakness by forcing the Aar at Döttingen near its mouth failed completely (August 16-17). Only 200 men guarded the point of passage, but the Austrian engineers had neglected to make a proper examination of the river, and unlike the French, the Austrian generals had no authority to waste their expensive battalions in forcing the passage in boats. No one regarded this war as a struggle for existence, and no one but Suvárov possessed the iron strength of character to send thousands of men to death for the realization of a diplomatic success—for ordinary men, the object of the Coalition was to upset the treaty of Campo Formio. This was the end of the archduke’s campaign in Switzerland. Though he would have preferred to continue it, the Vienna government desired him to return to Germany. An Anglo-Russian expedition was about to land in Holland,[14] and the French were assembling fresh forces on the Rhine, and, with the double object of preventing an invasion of South Germany and of inducing the French to augment their forces in Alsace at the expense of those in Holland, the archduke left affairs in Switzerland to Hotze and Korsákov, and marched away with 35,000 men to join the detachment of Sztarray (20,000) that he had placed in the Black Forest before entering Switzerland. His new campaign never rose above the level of a war of posts and of manœuvres about Mannheim and Philippsburg. In the latter stage of it Lecourbe commanded the French and obtained a slight advantage.
Suvárov’s last exploit in Italy coincided in time, but in no other respect, with the skirmish at Döttingen. Returning swiftly from the battlefield of the Trebbia, he began to drive back Moreau to the Riviera. At this point Joubert succeeded to the command on the French side, and against the advice of his generals, gave battle. Equally against the advice of his own subordinates, the field marshal accepted it, and won his last great victory at Novi on the 13th of August, Joubert being killed. This was followed by another rapid march against a new French “Army of the Alps” (Championnet) which had entered Italy by way of the Mont Cenis. But immediately after this he left all further operations in Italy to Melas with 60,000 men and himself with the Russians and an Austrian corps marched away, via Varese, for the St Gothard to combine operations against Masséna with Hotze and Korsákov. It was with a heavy heart that he left the scene of his battles, in which the force of his personality had carried the old-fashioned “linear” armies for the last time to complete victory. In the early summer he had himself suggested, eagerly and almost angrily, the concentration of his own and the archduke’s armies in Switzerland with a view, not to conquering that country, but to forcing Jourdan and Masséna into a grand decisive battle. But, as we have seen, the Vienna government would not release him until the last Italian fortress had been reoccupied, and when finally he received the order that a little while before he had so ardently desired, it was too late. The archduke had already left Switzerland, and he was committed to a resultless warfare in the high mountains, with an army which was a mere detachment Suvárov ordered to Switzerland. and in the hope of co-operating with two other detachments far away on the other side of Switzerland. As for the reasons which led to the issue of such an order, it can only be said that the bad feeling known to exist between the Austrians and Russians induced England to recommend, as the first essential of further operations, the separate concentration of the troops of each nationality under their own generals. Still stranger was the reason which induced the tsar to give his consent. It was alleged that the Russians would be healthier in Switzerland than the men of the southern plains! From such premises as these the Allied diplomats evolved a new plan of campaign, by which the Anglo-Russians under the duke of York were to reconquer Holland and Belgium, the Archduke Charles to operate on the Middle Rhine, Suvárov in Switzerland and Melas in Piedmont—a plan destitute of every merit but that of simplicity.