1795; meaning to invade the territories of the allies, take
Mayence, and enter Southern Germany, go down into Italy, and
reach the very heart of Spain. But Carnot, Lindet, and Prieur
were no longer on the Committee, and their successors were not
their equals; army discipline was relaxed; a vulgar
reactionist had replaced Carnot in the war department and was
working ruin. ... The attack in Spain was to begin with the
Lower Pyrenees, by the capture of Pampeluna and a march upon
Castile, but famine and fever decimated the army of the
Western Pyrenees, and General Moncey was forced to postpone
all serious action till the summer. At the other end of the
Pyrenees, the French and Spaniards were fighting aimlessly at
the entry to Catalonia. The war was at a standstill; but the
negotiations went on between the two countries. The king of
Spain, as in honor bound, made the liberation of his young
kinsman, the son of Louis XVI., a condition of peace. This the
Republic would not grant, but the prisoner's death (June 8,
1795) removed the obstacle. The counter-revolutionists accused
the Committees of poisoning the child styled by the royalist
party Louis XVII. This charge was false; the poor little
prisoner died of scrofula, developed by inaction, ennui, and
the sufferings of a pitiless imprisonment, increased by the
cruel treatment of his jailers, a cobbler named Simon and his
wife. A rumor was also spread that the child was not dead, but
had been taken away and an impostor substituted, who had died.
Only one of the royal family now remained in the Temple, Louis
XVI.'s daughter, afterwards the Duchesse d'Angoulême. Spain
interceded for her, and she was exchanged. ... Peace with
Spain was also hastened by French successes beyond the
Pyrenees; General Marceau, being reinforced, took Vittoria and
Bilboa, and pushed on to the Ebro. On the 22d of July,
Barthelémi, the able French diplomatist, signed a treaty of
peace with Spain at Basle, restoring her Biscayan and
Catalonian provinces, and accepting Spanish mediation in favor
of the king of Naples, Duke of Parma, king of Portugal, and
'the other Italian powers,' including, though not mentioning,
the Pope; and Spain yielded her share of San Domingo, which
put a brighter face on French affairs in America. ...
Guadeloupe, Santa Lucia, and St. Eustache were restored to the
French. ... Spain soon made overtures for an alliance with
France, wishing to put down the English desire to rule the
seas; and, before the new treaty was signed, the army of the
Eastern Pyrenees was sent to reinforce the armies of the Alps
and Italy, who had only held their positions in the Apennines
and on the Ligurian coast against the Austrians and
Piedmontese by sheer force of will; but in the autumn of 1795
the face of affairs was changed.
{1313}
Now that Prussia had left the coalition, war on the Rhine went
on between France and Austria, sustained by the South German
States; France had to complete her mastery of the left bank by
taking Mayence and Luxembourg; and Austria's aim was to
dispute them with her. The French government charged Marceau
to besiege Mayence during the winter of 1794-95, but did not
furnish him the necessary resources, and, France not holding
the right bank, Kléber could only partially invest the town,
and both his soldiers and those blockading Luxembourg suffered
greatly from cold and privation. Early in March, 1795,
Pichegru was put in command of the armies of the Rhine and
Moselle, and Jourdan was ordered to support him on the left
(the Lower Rhine) with the army of Sambre-et-Meuse. Austria
took no advantage of the feeble state of the French troops,
and Luxembourg, one of the strongest posts in Europe,
receiving no help, surrendered (June 24) with 800 cannon and
huge store of provisions. The French now had the upper hand,
Pichegru and Jourdan commanding 160,000 men on the Rhine. One
of these men was upright and brave, but the other had treason
in his soul; though everybody admired Pichegru, 'the conqueror
of Holland.' ... In August, 1795, an agent of the Prince of
Condé, who was then at Brisgau, in the Black Forest, with his
corps of emigrants, offered Pichegru, who was in Alsace, the
title of Marshal of France and Governor of Alsace, the royal
castle of Chambord, a million down, an annuity of 200,000
livres, and a house in Paris, in the 'king's' name, thus
flattering at once his vanity and his greed. ... He was
checked by no scruples; utterly devoid of moral sense, he
hoped to gain his army by money and wine, and had no
discussion with the Prince of Condé save as to the manner of
his treason." In the end, Pichegru was not able to make his
treason as effective as he had bargained to do; but he
succeeded in spoiling the campaign of 1795 on the Rhine.
Jourdan crossed the river and took Dusseldorf, with 168
cannon, on the 6th of September, expecting a simultaneous
movement on the part of Pichegru, to occupy the enemy in the
latter's front. But Pichegru, though he took Mannheim, on the
18th of September, threw a corps of 10,000 men into the hands
of the Austrians, by placing it where it could be easily
overwhelmed, and permitted his opponent, Wurmser, to send
reinforcements to Clairfait, who forced Jourdan, in October,
to retreat across the Rhine. "Pichegru's perfidy had thwarted
a campaign which must have been decisive, and Jourdan's
retreat was followed by the enemy's offensive return to the
left bank [retaking Mannheim and raising the siege of
Mayence], and by reverses which would have been fatal had they
coincided with the outburst of royalist and reactionary plots
and insurrections in the West, and in Paris itself; but they
had luckily been stifled some time since, and as the
Convention concluded its career, the direction of the war
returned to the hands which guided it so well in 1793 and
1794."
_H. Martin,
Popular History of France from the First Revolution,
chapter 24 (volume 1)._
"The peace with Spain ... enabled the government to detach the
whole Pyrenean army to the support of General Scherer, who had
succeeded Kellermann in the command of the army of Italy. On
the 23d of November, the French attacked the Austrians in
their position at Loano, and, after a conflict of two days,
the enemy's centre was forced by Massena and Augereau, and the
Imperialists fled with the loss of 7,000 men, 80 guns, and all
their stores. But the season was too far advanced to prosecute
this success, and the victors took up winter quarters on the
ground they had occupied. ... The capture of the Cape of Good
Hope (September 16) by the British under Sir James Craig, was
the only other important event of this year."
_Epitome of Alison's History of Europe,
sections 154 and 157
(chapter 18 of the complete work)._
ALSO IN:
_A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapter 13._
_E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
book. 1, chapters 19-20 (volume l)._
_A. de Beauchesne,
Louis XVII.: His Life, his Sufferings, his Death._
FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (October-December).
The Insurrection of the 13th Vendemiare, put down by
Napoleon Bonaparte.
Dissolution of the National Convention.
Organization of the government of the Directory.
Licentiousness of the time.
"The Parisians ... proclaimed their hostility to the
Convention and its designs. The National Guard, consisting of
armed citizens, almost unanimously sided with the enemies of
the Convention; and it was openly proposed to march to the
Tuilleries, and compel a change of measures by force of arms.
The Convention perceiving their unpopularity and danger, began
to look about them anxiously for the means of defence. There
were in and near Paris 5,000 regular troops, on whom they
thought they might rely, and who of course contemned the
National Guard as only half soldiers. They had besides some
hundreds of artillery men; and they now organised what they
called 'the Sacred Band,' a body of 1,500 ruffians, the most
part of them old and tried instruments of Robespierre. With
these means they prepared to arrange a plan of defence; and it
was obvious that they did not want materials, provided they
could find a skilful and determined head. The insurgent
sections placed themselves under the command of Danican, an
old general of no great skill or reputation. The Convention
opposed to him Menou; and he marched at the head of a column
into the section Le Pelletier to disarm the National Guard of
that district--one of the wealthiest of the capital. The
National Guard were found drawn up in readiness to receive him
at the end of the Rue Vivienne; and Menou, becoming alarmed,
and hampered by the presence of some of the' Representatives
of the People,' entered into a parley, and retired without
having struck a blow. The Convention judged that Menou was not
master of nerves for such a crisis; and consulted eagerly
about a successor to his command. Barras, one of their number,
had happened to be present at Toulon and to have appreciated
the character of Buonaparte. He had, probably, been applied to
by Napoleon in his recent pursuit of employment. Deliberating
with Tallien and Carnot, his colleagues, he suddenly said, 'I
have the man whom you want; it is a little Corsican officer,
who will not stand upon ceremony.' These words decided the
fate of Napoleon and of France. Buonaparte had been in the
Odeon Theatre when the affair of Le Pelletier occurred, had
run out, and witnessed the result. He now happened to be in
the gallery, and heard the discussion concerning the conduct
of Menou.
{1314}
He was presently sent for, and asked his opinion as to that
officer's retreat. He explained what had happened, and how the
evil might have been avoided, in a manner which gave
satisfaction. He was desired to assume the command, and
arranged his plan of defence as well as the circumstances
might permit; for it was already late at night, and the
decisive assault on the Tuilleries was expected to take place
next morning. Buonaparte stated that the failure of the march
of Menou had been chiefly owing to the presence of the
'Representatives of the People,' and refused to accept the
command unless he received it free from all such interference.
They yielded: Barras was named commander-in-chief; and
Buonaparte second, with the virtual control. His first care
was to despatch Murat, then a major of chasseurs, to Sablons,
five miles off, where fifty great guns were posted. The
Sectionaries sent a stronger detachment for these cannon
immediately afterwards; and Murat, who passed them in the
dark, would have gone in vain had he received his orders but a
few minutes later. On the 4th of October (called in the
revolutionary almanac the 13th Vendemiaire) the affray
accordingly occurred. Thirty thousand National Guards advanced
about two P. M., by different streets, to the siege of the
palace: but its defence was now in far other hands than those
of Louis XVI. Buonaparte, having planted artillery on all the
bridges, had effectually secured the command of the river, and
the safety of the Tuilleries on one side. He had placed cannon
also at all the crossings of the streets by which the National
Guard could advance towards the other front; and having posted
his battalions in the garden of the Tuilleries and Place du
Carousel, he awaited the attack. The insurgents had no cannon;
and they came along the narrow streets of Paris in close and
heavy columns. When one party reached the church of St. Roche,
in the Rue St. Honoré, they found a body of Buonaparte's
troops drawn up there, with two cannons. It is disputed on
which side the firing began; but in an instant the artillery
swept the streets and lanes, scattering grape-shot among the
National Guards, and producing such confusion that they were
compelled to give way. The first shot was a signal for all the
batteries which Buonaparte had established; the quays of the
Seine, opposite to the Tuilleries, were commanded by his guns
below the palace and on the bridges. In less than an hour the
action was over. The insurgents fled in all directions,
leaving the streets covered with dead and wounded; the troops
of the Convention marched into the various sections, disarmed
the terrified inhabitants, and before nightfall everything was
quiet. This eminent service secured the triumph of the
Conventionalists. ... Within five days from the Day of the
Sections Buonaparte was named second in command of the army of
the interior; and shortly afterwards, Barras finding his
duties as Director sufficient to occupy his time, gave up the
command-in-chief of the same army to his 'little Corsican
officer.'"
_J. G. Lockhart,
Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,
chapter 3._
The victory of the 13th Vendemiaire "enabled the Convention
immediately to devote its attention to the formation of the
Councils proposed by it, two-thirds of which were to consist
of its own members. The first third, which was freely elected,
had already been nominated by the Reactionary party. The
members of the Directory were chosen, and the deputies of the
Convention, believing that for their own interests the
regicides should be at the head of the Government, nominated
La Réveillère-Lepeaux, Sièyes, Rewbel, Le Tourneur, and
Barras. Sièyes refused to act, and Carnot was elected in his
place. Immediately after this, the Convention declared its
session at an end, after it had had three years of existence,
from the 21st September, 1792, to the 28th October, 1795 (4th
Brumaire, Year IV.). ... The Directors were all, with the
exception of Carnot, of moderate capacity, and concurred in
rendering their own position the more difficult. At this
period there was no element of order or good government in the
Republic; anarchy and uneasiness everywhere prevailed, famine
had become chronic, the troops were without clothes,
provisions or horses; the Convention had spent an immense
capital represented by assignats, and had sold almost half of
the Republican territory, belonging to the proscribed classes
...; the excessive degree of discredit to which paper money
had fallen, after the issue of thirty-eight thousand millions,
had destroyed all confidence and all legitimate commerce. ...
Such was the general poverty, that when the Directors entered
the palace which had been assigned to them as a dwelling, they
found no furniture there, and were compelled to borrow of the
porter a few straw chairs and a wooden table, on the latter of
which they drew up the decree by which they were appointed to
office. Their first care was to establish their power, and
they succeeded in doing this by frankly following at first the
rules laid down by the Constitution. In a short time industry
and commerce began to raise their heads, the supply of
provisions became tolerably abundant, and the clubs were
abandoned for the workshops and the fields. The Directory
exerted itself to revive agriculture, industry, and the arts,
re-established the public exhibitions, and founded primary,
central, and normal schools. ... This period was distinguished
by a great licentiousness in manners. The wealthy classes, who
had been so long forced into retirement by the Reign of
Terror, now gave themselves up to the pursuit of pleasure
without stint, and indulged in a course of unbridled luxury,
which was outwardly displayed in balls, festivities, rich
costumes and sumptuous equipages. Barras, who was a man of
pleasure, favoured this dangerous sign of the reaction, and
his palace soon became the rendezvous of the most frivolous
and corrupt society. In spite of this, however, the wealthy
classes were still the victims, under the government of the
Directory, of violent and spoliative measures."
_E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 2. pages 270-273._
{1315}
FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (April-October).
Triple attack on Austria.
Bonaparte's first campaign in Italy.
Submission of Sardinia.
Armistice with Naples and the Pope.
Pillage of art treasures.
Hostile designs upon Venice.
Expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy.
Failure of the campaign beyond the Rhine.
"With the opening of the year 1796 the leading interest of
European history passes to a new scene. ... The Directory was
now able ... to throw its whole force into the struggle with
Austria. By the advice of Bonaparte a threefold movement was
undertaken against Vienna, by way of Lombardy, by the valley
of the Danube, and by the valley of the Main. General Jourdan,
in command of the army that had conquered the Netherlands, was
ordered to enter Germany by Frankfort; Moreau, a Breton
law-student in 1792, now one of the most skilful soldiers in
Europe, crossed the Rhine at Strasburg; Bonaparte himself,
drawing his scanty supplies along the coast-road from Nice,
faced the allied forces of Austria and Sardinia upon the
slopes of the Maritime Apennines, forty miles to the west of
Genoa. ... Bonaparte entered Italy proclaiming himself the
restorer of Italian freedom, but with the deliberate purpose
of using Italy as a means of recruiting the exhausted treasury
of France. His correspondence with the Directory exposes with
brazen frankness this well·considered system of plunder and
deceit, in which the general and the Government were cordially
at one. ... The campaign of 1796 commenced in April, in the
mountains above the coast-road connecting Nice and Genoa. ...
Bonaparte ... for four days ... reiterated his attacks at
Montenotte and at Millesimo, until he had forced his own army
into a position in the centre of the Allies [Austrians and
Piedmontese]; then, leaving a small force to watch the
Austrians, he threw the mass of his troops upon the
Piedmontese, and drove them back to within thirty miles of
Turin. The terror-stricken Government, anticipating an
outbreak in the capital itself, accepted an armistice from
Bonaparte at Cherasco (April 28). ... The armistice, which was
soon followed by a treaty of peace between France and
Sardinia, ceding Savoy to the Republic, left him free to
follow the Austrians, untroubled by the existence of some of
the strongest fortresses of Europe behind him. In the
negotiations with Sardinia, Bonaparte demanded the surrender
of the town of Valenza, as necessary to secure his passage
over the river Po. Having thus artfully led the Austrian
Beaulieu to concentrate his forces at this point, he suddenly
moved eastward along the southern bank of the river, and
crossed at Piacenza, 50 miles below the spot where Beaulieu
was awaiting him. ... The Austrian general, taken in the rear,
had no alternative but to abandon Milan and all the country
west of it, and to fall back upon the line of the Adda.
Bonaparte followed, and on the 10th of May attacked the
Austrians at Lodi. He himself stormed the bridge of Lodi at
the head of his Grenadiers. The battle was so disastrous to
the Austrians that they could risk no second engagement, and
retired upon Mantua and the line of the Mincio. Bonaparte now
made his triumphal entry into Milan (May 15). ... In return
for the gift of liberty, the Milanese were invited to offer to
their deliverers 20,000,000 francs, and a selection from the
paintings in their churches and galleries. The Dukes of Parma
and Modena, in return for an armistice, were required to hand
over forty of their best pictures, and a sum of money
proportioned to their revenues. The Dukes and the townspeople
paid their contributions with a good grace: the peasantry of
Lombardy, whose cattle were seized in order to supply an army
that marched without any stores of its own, rose in arms, and
threw themselves into Pavia, after killing all the French
soldiers who fell in their way. The revolt was instantly
suppressed, and the town of Pavia given up to pillage. ...
Instead of crossing the Apennines, Bonaparte advanced against
the Austrian positions upon the Mincio. ... A battle was
fought and lost by the Austrians at Borghetto. ... Beaulieu's
strength was exhausted; he could meet the enemy no more in the
field, and led his army out of Italy into the Tyrol, leaving
Mantua to be invested by the French. The first care of the
conqueror was to make Venice pay for the crime of possessing
territory intervening between the eastern and western extremes
of the Austrian district. Bonaparte affected to believe that
the Venetians had permitted Beaulieu to occupy Peschiera
before he seized upon Brescia himself. ... 'I have purposely
devised this rupture,' he wrote to the Directory (June 7th),
'in case you should wish to obtain five or six millions of
francs from Venice. If you have more decided intentions, I
think it would be well to keep up the quarrel.' The intention
referred to was the disgraceful project of sacrificing Venice
to Austria in return for the cession of the Netherlands. ...
The Austrians were fairly driven out of Lombardy, and
Bonaparte was now free to deal with Southern Italy. He
advanced into the States of the Church, and expelled the Papal
Legate from Bologna. Ferdinand of Naples ... asked for a
suspension of hostilities against his own kingdom ... and
Bonaparte granted the king an armistice on easy terms. The
Pope, in order to gain a few months' truce, had to permit the
occupation of Ferrara, Ravenna, and Ancona, and to recognise
the necessities, the learning, the taste, and the virtue of
his conquerors by a gift of 20,000,000 francs, 500
manuscripts, 100 pictures, and the busts of Marcus and Lucius
Brutus. ... Tuscany had indeed made peace with the French
Republic a year before, but ... while Bonaparte paid a
respectful visit to the Grand Duke at Florence, Murat
descended upon Leghorn, and seized upon everything that was
not removed before his approach. Once established in Leghorn,
the French declined to quit it. Mantua was meanwhile invested,
and thither Bonaparte returned. Towards the end of July an
Austrian relieving army, nearly double the strength of
Bonaparte's, descended from the Tyrol. It was divided into
three corps: one, under Quasdanovich, advanced by the road on
the west of Lake Garda; the others, under Wurmser, the
commander-in-chief, by the roads between the lake and the
river Adige. ... Bonaparte ... instantly broke up the siege of
Mantua, and withdrew from every position east of the river. On
the 30th July, Quasdanovich was attacked and checked at
Lonato. ... Wurmser, unaware of his colleague's repulse,
entered Mantua in triumph, and then set out, expecting to
envelop Bonaparte between two fires. But the French were ready
for his approach. Wurmser was stopped and defeated at
Castiglione (Aug. 3), while the western Austrian divisions
were still held in check at Lonato. ... In five days the skill
of Bonaparte and the unsparing exertions of his soldiery had
more than retrieved all that appeared to have been lost. The
Austrians retired into the Tyrol, leaving 15,000 prisoners in
the hands of the enemy. Bonaparte now prepared to force his
way into Germany by the Adige, in fulfilment of the original
plan of the campaign. In the first days of September he again
routed the Austrians, and gained possession of Roveredo and
Trent.
{1316}
Wurmser hereupon attempted to shut the French up in the
mountains by a movement southwards; but, while he operated
with insufficient forces between the Brenta and the Adige,
with a view of cutting Bonaparte off from Italy, he was
himself [defeated at Bassano, September 8, and] cut off from
Germany, and only escaped capture by throwing himself into
Mantua with the shattered remnant of his army. The road into
Germany through the Tyrol now lay open; but in the midst of
his victories Bonaparte learnt that the northern armies of
Moreau and Jourdan, with which he had intended to co-operate
in an attack upon Vienna, were in full retreat. Moreau's
advance into the valley of the Danube had, during the months
of July and August, been attended with unbroken military and
political success. The Archduke Charles, who was entrusted
with the defence of the Empire," fell back before Moreau, in
order to unite his forces with those of Wartensleben, who
commanded an army which confronted Jourdan. "The design of the
Archduke succeeded in the end, but it opened Germany to the
French for six weeks, and revealed how worthless was the
military constitution of the Empire, and how little the
Germans had to expect from one another. ... At length the
retreating movement of the Austrians stopped [and the Archduke
fought an indecisive battle with Moreau at Neresheim, August
11]. Leaving 30,000 men on the Lech to disguise his motions
from Moreau, Charles turned suddenly northwards from Neuberg
on the 17th August, met Wartensleben at Amberg, and attacked
Jourdan ... with greatly superior numbers. Jourdan was
defeated [September 3, at Würtzburg] and driven back in
confusion towards the Rhine. The issue of the campaign was
decided before Moreau heard of his colleague's danger. It only
remained for him to save his own army by a skilful retreat,"
in the course of which he defeated the Austrian general Latour
at Biberach, October 2, and fought two indecisive battles with
the Archduke, at Emmendingen, October 19, and at Huningen on
the 24th.
_C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapters 14-15._
_General Jomini,
Life of Napoleon,
volume 1, chapter 2._
_E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
book 1, chapter 22 (volume 1)._
_C. Adams,
Great Campaigns, 1796-1870,
chapter 1._
FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (September).
Evacuation of Corsica by the English.
Its reoccupation by the French.