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
(Massena, 30,000); and in upper Italy (Scherer, 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.
Stokach.
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. 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 Massena. 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.[13]
Massena in Switzerland.
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. Massena's 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 Zurich side descended upon Disentis and captured its defenders.
In three days, thanks to Massena'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 Massena 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 Massena's command under Lecourbe, the other from the Army of Italy
under Dessolle. Simultaneously with Massena, Lecourbe marched from
Bellinzona with 10,000 men, by the San Bernadino pass into the Splugen
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 manoeuvres and bold tactics driven back to
Martinsbruck, 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
Martinsbruck. 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,
he was able to maintain himself and to wait for Dessolles. The latter,
moving up the Valtelline, by now fought his way to the Stelvio pass, but
beyond it the defile of Tauffers (S.W. of Glurns) was entrenched by
Loudon, who thus occupied a position midway between the two French
columns, while his irregulars beset all the passes and ways giving
access to the Vintschgau and the lower Engadine. In this situation the
French should have been destroyed in detail. But as usual their speed
and dash gave them the advantage in every manoeuvre and at every point
of contact.
Lecourbe and Dessolles in Tirol.
On the 25th Lecourbe and Dessolles attacked Loudon at Nauders in the
Engadine and Tauffers in the Vintschgau respectively. At Nauders the
French passed round the flanks of the defence by scrambling along the
high mountain crests adjacent, while at Tauffers the assailants, only
4500 strong, descended into a deep ravine, debouched unnoticed in the
Austrians' rear, and captured 6000 men and 16 guns. The Austrian leader
with a couple of companies made his way through Glurns to Nauders, and
there, finding himself headed off by Lecourbe, he took to the mountains.
His corps, like Auffenberg's, was annihilated.
This ended the French general offensive. Jourdan had been defeated by
the archduke and forced or induced to retire over the Rhine. Massena 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 Massena and Lecourbe. Massena 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, Zurich and Schaffhausen, thereby directly barring the roads into
France (Berne-Neuchatel-Pontarlier and Basel-Besancon) 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 Scherer. 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 Suvarov, 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.
Suvarov.
Suvarov 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 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 Suvarov
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, Scherer'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 Suvarov's stern orders, flung his battalions
regardless of losses against the strong position of Cassano. The story
of 1796 repeated itself with the roles reversed. The passage was
carried, and the French rearguard under Serurier 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 Suvarov's onslaught, and
now returning with all speed to join Moreau by force or evasion, had
still to be dealt with.
Suvarov'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
Suvarov 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 Suvarov 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 manoeuvred them in the Napoleonic fashion.
The Trebbia.
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 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 Suvarov and
Macdonald spent the 17th in closing up and deploying for battle. The
respective forces were Allies 30,000, French 35,000. Suvarov 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 Suvarov,
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
Suvarov 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 Massena'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 Suvarov, 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.
Action of Zurich.
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. Massena, 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 Massena, finding Hotze close
on his right flank, retired without attempting to force a decision. On
the 27th, having joined forces, the Austrians dislodged Massena from his
new position on the Toss without difficulty, and this process was
repeated from time to time in the next few days, until at last Massena
halted in the position he had prepared for defence at Zurich. He had
still but 25,000 of his 45,000 men in hand, for he maintained numerous
small detachments on his right, behind the Zurcher 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 Massena, 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 Massena 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 Korsakov, before resuming the advance, meantime throwing
out covering detachments towards Basel, where Massena had a division.
Thus for two months operations, elsewhere than in Italy, were at a
standstill, while Massena 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 Massena 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 Suvarov, 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 Massena's momentary weakness
by forcing the Aar at Dottingen 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 Suvarov 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 Korsakov,
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 manoeuvres about Mannheim and Philippsburg. In the latter
stage of it Lecourbe commanded the French and obtained a slight
advantage.
Suvarov ordered to Switzerland.
Suvarov's last exploit in Italy coincided in time, but in no other
respect, with the skirmish at Dottingen. 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 Massena with Hotze and Korsakov.
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 Massena
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
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, Suvarov in Switzerland
and Melas in Piedmont--a plan destitute of every merit but that of
simplicity.
Battle of Zurich.
It is often said that it is the duty of a commander to resign rather
than undertake an operation which he believes to be faulty. So, however,
Suvarov did not understand it. In the simplicity of his loyalty to the
formal order of his sovereign he prepared to carry out his instructions
to the letter. Massena's command (77,000 men) was distributed, at the
beginning of September, along an enormous S, from the Simplon, through
the St Gothard and Glarus, and along the Linth, the Zuricher See and the
Limmat to Basel. Opposite the lower point of this S, Suvarov (28,000)
was about to advance. Hotze's corps (25,000 Austrians), extending from
Utznach by Chur to Disentis, formed a thin line roughly parallel to the
lower curve of the S, Korsakov's Russians (30,000) were opposite the
centre at Zurich, while Nauendorff with a small Austrian corps at
Waldshut faced the extreme upper point. Thus the only completely safe
way in which Suvarov could reach the Zurich region was by skirting the
lower curve of the S, under protection of Hotze. But this detour would
be long and painful, and the ardent old man preferred to cross the
mountains once for all at the St Gothard, and to follow the valley of
the Reuss to Altdorf and Schwyz--i.e. to strike vertically upward to
the centre of the S--and to force his way through the French cordon to
Zurich, and if events, so far as concerned his own corps, belied his
optimism, they at any rate justified his choice of the shortest route.
For, aware of the danger gathering in his rear, Massena gathered up all
his forces within reach towards his centre, leaving Lecourbe to defend
the St Gothard and the Reuss valley and Soult on the Linth. On the 24th
he forced the passage of the Limmat at Dietikon. On the 25th, in the
second battle of Zurich, he completely routed Korsakov, who lost 8000
killed and wounded, large numbers of prisoners and 100 guns. All along
the line the Allies fell back, one corps after another, at the moment
when Suvarov was approaching the foot of the St Gothard.
Suvarov in the Alps.
On the 21st the field marshal's headquarters were at Bellinzona, where
he made the final preparations. Expecting to be four days _en route_
before he could reach the nearest friendly magazine, he took his trains
with him, which inevitably augmented the difficulties of the expedition.
On the 24th Airolo was taken, but when the far greater task of storming
the pass itself presented itself before them, even the stolid Russians
were terrified, and only the passionate protests of the old man, who
reproached his "children" with deserting their father in his extremity,
induced them to face the danger. At last after twelve hours' fighting,
the summit was reached. The same evening Suvarov pushed on to
Hospenthal, while a flanking column from Disentis made its way towards
Amsteg over the Crispalt. Lecourbe was threatened in rear and pressed in
front, and his engineers, to hold off the Disentis column, had broken
the Devil's Bridge. Discovering this, he left the road, threw his guns
into the river and made his way by fords and water-meadows to Goschenen,
where by a furious attack he cleared the Disentis troops off his line of
retreat. His rearguard meantime held the ruined Devil's Bridge. This
point and the tunnel leading to it, called the Urner Loch, the Russians
attempted to force, with the most terrible losses, battalion after
battalion crowding into the tunnel and pushing the foremost ranks into
the chasm left by the broken bridge. But at last a ford was discovered
and the bridge, cleared by a turning movement, was repaired. More broken
bridges lay beyond, but at last Suvarov joined the Disentis column near
Goschenen. When Altdorf was reached, however, Suvarov found not only
Lecourbe in a threatening position, but an entire absence of boats on
the Lake of the Four Cantons. It was impossible (in those days the
Axenstrasse did not exist) to take an army along the precipitous eastern
shore, and thus passing through one trial after another, each more
severe than the last, the Russians, men and horses and pack animals in
an interminable single file, ventured on the path leading over the
Kinzig pass into the Muotta Thal. The passage lasted three days, the
leading troops losing men and horses over the precipices, the rearguard
from the fire of the enemy, now in pursuit. And at last, on arrival in
the Muotta Thal, the field marshal received definite information that
Korsakov's army was no longer in existence. Yet even so it was long
before he could make up his mind to retreat, and the pursuers gathered
on all sides. Fighting, sometimes severe, and never altogether ceasing,
went on day after day as the Allied column, now reduced to 15,000 men,
struggled on over one pass after another, but at last it reached Ilanz
on the Vorder Rhine (October 8). The Archduke Charles meanwhile had, on
hearing of the disaster of Zurich, brought over a corps from the Neckar,
and for some time negotiations were made for a fresh combined operation
against Massena. But these came to nothing, for the archduke and Suvarov
could not agree, either as to their own relations or as to the plan to
be pursued. Practically, Suvarov's retreat from Altdorf to Ilanz closed
the campaign. It was his last active service, and formed a gloomy but
grand climax to the career of the greatest soldier who ever wore the
Russian uniform.