1795–1797
Results of the Treaties of Basle on the Foreign Policy of
France—Constitution of the Year III—The Directory—The
Legislature: Councils of Ancients and of Five Hundred—Local
Administration of France—The Insurrection of Vendémiaire—The
Rising of 13th Vendémiaire in Paris—The First French
Directors, Councils, and Ministers—Dissolution of
the Convention—England and the _Emigrés_—Treason of
Pichegru—Exchange of Madame Royale—Desire for Peace in
France—France and Prussia—Suggestion of Secularisations in
Germany—France and the Smaller States of Europe—Attitude of
Russia—Campaign of 1795 in Germany—Bonaparte’s Campaigns
of 1796 in Italy—Battle of Montenotte—Armistice of
Cherasco—Battle of Lodi—Armistice of Foligno—Conquest of
Upper Italy—Battles of Castiglione, Arcola, and Rivoli—Peace
of Tolentino with the Pope—Campaign of 1796 in Germany—Battle
of Altenkirchen—Retreat of Moreau—Effects of the Campaign
in Germany—Treaty between Prussia and France—Internal
Policy of the Directory—Pacification of La Vendée—The
State of France—The Directory, Councils, and Ministers in
1796—Creation of the Ministry of Police—Alliance between
France and Spain—Treaty of San Ildefonso—Battle of Cape
Saint-Vincent—The Batavian Republic—Negotiations between
England and the Directory—Death of the Empress Catherine of
Russia—Bonaparte’s Campaign of 1797 in the Tyrol—The Campaign
of 1797 in Germany—Preliminaries of Leoben between France and
Austria.
[Sidenote: Result of the Treaties of Basle.]
The conclusion of the Treaties of Basle in the spring and summer of
1795 brought France once more into a recognised position among the
nations of Europe. The idea of a revolutionary propaganda had been
entirely abandoned by the leading Thermidorians, who looked upon it as
the first duty of the French Government to secure peace for France.
All the great statesmen of the revolutionary period, from Mirabeau to
Danton and Robespierre, had protested against the absurd notion that
it was the mission of France to secure the pre-eminence of democratic
ideas throughout the whole of Europe. Events had shown that it was a
task of quite sufficient difficulty to secure the prevalence of such
ideas in France. The abandonment of the revolutionary propaganda broke
up the league of old Europe against new France. When the Prussian
state, and still more the ancient monarchy of Spain, had consented to
make peace with France, the rest of the powers of the Continent felt
that they could no longer affect to treat the French republicans as
beyond the pale of humanity, or the French Republic as having destroyed
the title of France to be reckoned as a nation.
[Sidenote: Constitution of the Year III.]
The Thermidorians, not satisfied with their diplomatic success,
constructed a new government for France. The authors of the policy,
which resulted in the Treaties of Basle, were also the sponsors of
the ‘Constitution of the Year III.’ The task of drawing up the bases
of a new Constitution was referred upon 14th Germinal, Year III. (3d
April 1795) to a committee of seven deputies, but the details were
worked out by a subsequent commission of eleven. Among the seven the
most important were Sieyès, Cambacérès, and Merlin of Douai, who were
also at this period the three principal members of the Committee of
Public Safety. Just as in making the Treaties of Basle, they and
their colleagues had recurred to the fundamental ideas and policy of
the old French Monarchy, so in the new Constitution they exhibited
the influence of bygone ideas. The experience of the Constituent and
Legislative Assemblies, and of the Convention until the formation
of the Committee of Public Safety, had shown the utter inadequacy
of intrusting supreme executive and administrative authority to an
unwieldy deliberative assembly. The power of the monarchy in all
modern states has rested upon the conviction of the importance of
consolidating, as far as possible, the executive authority; the
founders of the United States of America understood this truth, and
invested their President with power resembling that exercised by
kings; and the Convention, when it yielded to the voice of Danton, and
conferred supreme authority upon the Committee of Public Safety, had
reaped the advantage in its victories upon all the frontiers. Even the
most obtuse of the deputies who sat in the Convention had learnt this
lesson. And the founders of the Constitution of the Year III. had no
difficulty in carrying the most important point in their programme.
This was the entire separation of the executive and legislative
powers. The Constitution of 1791, in its jealousy of the monarchy, had
practically deprived the king and his ministers of all real authority,
while leaving him the entire responsibility. The Constitution of 1793
had placed all executive authority in the hands of the Legislature. The
Constitution of the Year III. endeavoured to separate the executive and
legislative authorities.
[Sidenote: The Directory.]
Under the new arrangement the executive was placed in the hands of
five Directors. One was to retire every year and was not eligible
for re-election; his successor was to be chosen by the Legislature.
In order to secure an entire separation between the members of the
Directory and of the Legislature, no member of the latter could
be elected a Director until twelve months had elapsed after the
resignation of his seat. The Directors were to appoint the Ministers,
who were to have no connection whatever with the Legislature, and who
were to act as the agents of the Directors. The individual Directors
were to exercise no authority in their own names. They were to live
under the same roof in the Palace of the Luxembourg at Paris. They were
to meet daily, and the will of the majority was to be taken as the will
of the whole. They were to elect a President every month, who was to
act as their mouthpiece at the reception of foreign ambassadors and on
all occasions of ceremony. The control of the internal administration,
the management of the armies and fleets, and all questions of foreign
policy were entirely left to the Directors. But treaties, declarations
of war and similar acts had to be ratified by the Legislature. The
Directors had nothing whatever to do with the work of legislation, and
their assent was not needed to new laws. With regard to the revenue,
the administration of the finances and of the treasury rested with the
Directors, but they could not impose fresh taxes without the assent of
the Legislature.
[Sidenote: The Legislature.]
The Legislature, under the Constitution of the Year III. consisted of
two chambers—the Council of Ancients and the Council of Five Hundred.
It is a curious commentary upon the debates which took place in the
Constituent Assembly in August 1789, when the establishment of two
chambers was rejected with scorn as being an obvious imitation of
the English Parliament, that in 1795 this very principle was almost
unanimously adopted. The experience of the three great revolutionary
assemblies had convinced Sieyès and his colleagues of the inexpediency
of leaving important measures to be decided in a single chamber. The
delay necessitated by a law being obliged to pass before two distinct
deliberative bodies now appeared most advantageous, when compared with
the headlong precipitation which had marked all the earlier stages
of the Revolution. The Council of Ancients was to consist of men
forty-five years old and upwards, and, therefore, presumably not liable
to be carried away by sudden bursts of enthusiasm. For the Council
of Five Hundred there was no limitation of age, and elderly men were
not precluded from being returned to it. The Council of Five Hundred
consisted, as its name implies, of five hundred deputies; the Council
of Ancients of two hundred and fifty. Dictated by experience, also,
were the measures taken for the election of deputies. In order to avoid
the inconvenience which had resulted from the election of an entirely
new body of representatives at one and the same moment, as had happened
in 1791, it was resolved that one-third of the two Councils should
retire yearly. Deputies were to be chosen by an elaborate system of
primary and secondary assemblies held in each department of France,
and a property qualification was demanded both for the electors and the
deputies. With these safeguards Sieyès and his colleagues believed they
had secured a practical means of obviating all the errors of the past.
The Council of Five Hundred had allotted to it as its special function
the initiation of all fresh taxation and the revision of all money
bills. The Council of Ancients was the court of appeal in diplomatic
questions, such as the declaration of war. In actual legislation the
consent of the majority of both chambers was needed for a new law. For
their most important function—the yearly election of a new Director—the
two chambers were to form one united assembly.
[Sidenote: Local Administration of France.]
By this Constitution, the conspicuous drawbacks of the two former
Constitutions, namely, the enforced weakness of the executive and
the undefined powers of the Legislature were avoided. But the local
administration established by the Constitution of 1791 had proved so
excellent that it was only slightly modified and not radically altered.
The great achievement of the Constituent Assembly—the abolition of old
provincial jealousies by the division of France into departments—was
maintained. The wise step which had been taken by the Great Committee
of Public Safety in abolishing the directories of the departments
and of the districts was sanctioned, and the council-generals were
left to act alone. The main distinction between the administrative
systems of 1791 and 1795 was that the elected _procureurs-syndics_
and _procureurs-généraux-syndics_, established by the former, were
replaced by officials nominated by the supreme executive at Paris.
These officials went under the name of agents during the Directory,
but possessed the same authority and carried out the same functions as
the _sous-préfets_ and _préfets_ afterwards appointed by Napoleon. The
courts of justice, whether local, appellant, or supreme, established by
the Constitution of 1791, were left untouched by the Constitution of
the Year III.
[Sidenote: The Insurrection of Vendémiaire.]
In spite of the glories of the conquest of Holland, the passage of
the Rhine, the victory of Quiberon, and the invasion of Spain,—in
spite of the even greater credit justly earned by the Treaties of
Basle,—in spite of the new Constitution, which, if faulty in places,
was superior to those which had preceded it—the Thermidorians were
intensely unpopular in France. The recollection of the Reign of
Terror weighed upon the imaginations of the people even after the
death of Robespierre, the deportation of Billaud-Varenne, and the
closing of the Jacobin Club. The Convention was still in the minds of
men shrouded by the remembrance of the innocent blood that had been
shed. The inauguration of the new constitutional system was looked
upon as an opportunity for driving the members of the Convention from
power, and threats of vengeance were everywhere heard against them.
Intriguers, some of them possibly royalists, who desired the return
of the Bourbons, but most of them bourgeois or aristocrats who had
personal reasons for desiring revenge, hoped to take advantage of this
general feeling to overthrow the Republic. But the mass of Frenchmen
were sincerely republican, and were clear-sighted enough to perceive
that the return of the Bourbons would be followed by the loss of the
material advantages that had been gained by the sale of the lands of
the Church and the nobility. The members of the Convention understood
the intentions of the intriguers, and understood also that the French
people sincerely loved the Republic. They proceeded to frustrate the
designs of their enemies by decreeing that two-thirds of the new
Legislature must be elected from among the deputies of the Convention.
The intriguers in Paris, thus foiled in their expectations of a certain
majority in the new Legislature, tried to rouse the people of Paris
into active insurrection. There can be no doubt that not only in Paris,
but throughout France, the action of the Convention in ordering the
election of so large a proportion of the old deputies was profoundly
unpopular, but it was one thing to dislike a measure and another thing
to involve France in a fresh revolution. In the provincial towns there
was universal grumbling but no active opposition. In Paris, however,
where the intriguers abounded, it was hoped that the _jeunesse dorée_,
who had played so great a part in the previous winter, assisted by the
bourgeois Sections, would be able by making an imposing display of
force to compel the Convention to revoke the obnoxious decree.
[Sidenote: Fighting in Paris, 13th Vendémiaire (5th October 1795).]
This project of the agitators in Paris was soon known in the
Convention, and had the result of causing the divided forces of the
Thermidorians to close up their ranks. The three chief groups in this
party were the returned Girondins, the leaders of the Plain, and
the former adherents of the Terror. The leaders of all these groups
united in the presence of a common danger, for they felt that the
dissolution of the Convention without some such measure of security
as the re-election of the two-thirds to the forthcoming Legislature
would lead to their own proscription. They therefore appointed Barras,
who had commanded in the attack upon the Hôtel-de-Ville upon the
9th Thermidor of the previous year, and overthrown the supporters
of Robespierre assembled there, to watch over their safety. Barras
summoned to his assistance Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then in Paris
engaged in protesting against his recall from the Army of Italy. The
antecedents of this young general, his well-known Jacobin principles
and his former friendship for Augustin Robespierre, had led to his
recall and to his being placed upon the unemployed list. Barras had
under his command the garrison of regular troops quartered in Paris and
the armed guards of the Convention. The Royalist agitators counted on
the _jeunesse dorée_ and the bourgeois Sections. Bonaparte perceived
that in numbers each party was evenly matched, and he at once sent for
the artillery quartered at Meudon. The Convention declared itself _en
permanence_, the troops were stationed round the Tuileries, Bonaparte’s
guns were mounted in the gardens and the Place du Carrousel. The attack
on the Convention was made on the 13th Vendémiaire (5th October) in a
very slovenly manner. No effort had been made to concentrate the force
of the assailants at a given moment, and as the first column marched
carelessly down without recognised leaders, it was fired upon and
almost entirely cut to pieces by Bonaparte’s artillery. Nevertheless
column after column of devoted national guards approached the Tuileries
with the utmost gallantry to meet the same fate. The insurrection of
13th Vendémiaire cannot be compared with the other famous insurrections
of the 14th July 1789 and 10th August 1792, for not one of the
defenders of the Convention was wounded. It was a butchery, not a
battle.
[Sidenote: The First Directors.]
The Convention, conscious of its unpopularity, and not desiring to
increase it, made but slight efforts to discover and punish the
leaders of the insurrection of 13th Vendémiaire. Only a few military
executions, after trial by court-martial, of a few prisoners taken with
arms in their hands were permitted, and no vigour was shown in hunting
down even the most conspicuous agitators. It was resolved at once to
proceed to the election of the first Directors under the new system.
Sieyès refused to be one of them. It was generally agreed, though not
formally declared, that the first Directors should all be deputies of
the Convention who had voted for the death of Louis XVI., and who might
therefore be presumed to be faithful to republican institutions, if not
from inclination at least from fear. The five deputies actually elected
were—Barras, whose conduct on the 9th Thermidor, and on the 13th
Vendémiaire, had obtained for him the gratitude of the majority of the
deputies; Reubell, an ex-Constituant and an Alsatian, who was believed
to have a special knowledge of foreign affairs; Revellière-Lépeaux,
another ex-Constituant, a member of the Committee of Public Safety, a
good lawyer, and the future inventor of a new religion; Carnot, the
famous military member of the Great Committee of Public Safety, who
was selected for his strategic ability; and Letourneur, an ex-officer
of Engineers, like Carnot, who was expected to act as Carnot’s
assistant. To the Council of Ancients and the Council of Five Hundred
were elected among the two-thirds chosen from the Convention the more
conspicuous Thermidorians, including Sieyès, Cambacérès, Tallien, and
Treilhard. The six first ministers were appointed by the Directors on
14th Brumaire (5th November). They were Merlin of Douai and Charles
Delacroix, two ex-deputies of the Convention who had not been elected
to the new Legislature, appointed to the Ministries of Justice and
of Foreign Affairs, Aubert-Dubayet, a distinguished general, to the
Ministry of War, and Faypoult, Benezech and Admiral Truguet to the
Ministries of Finance, the Interior, and the Marine.
[Sidenote: Dissolution of the Convention.]
The first Directors elected and the new Legislature constituted, the
Convention had to decree its own dissolution. The three years during
which it had sat are perhaps the most important and most critical in
the whole history of France. The Convention had not merely witnessed
the rise and fall of many cliques and many parties; it had allowed the
Reign of Terror to be established, and had punished its inventors with
death or deportation. It had passed through nearly every variety of
government, and had seen France in her greatest degradation and at the
height of her success. Its last act, passed on the very day on which it
dissolved itself, 4th Brumaire (26th October), was worthy of its best
and greatest days, for it was an act declaring a complete amnesty for
all political offences, or supposed offences, since the declaration of
the Republic.
[Sidenote: England and the Emigrés.]
[Sidenote: Treason of Pichegru.]
The successful establishment of the Directory and the victory won
over the royalist agitators on 13th Vendémiaire had a profound effect
upon the policy of England. Hitherto Pitt and Grenville, inspired
by their agent in Switzerland, William Wickham, had believed in the
vain promises of the royalist _émigrés_, and had hoped by their means
to restore the Bourbon monarchy in France. The headquarters of the
royalist agitators were, as they had always been, in Switzerland.
Neither the Comte de Provence, who, since his nephew’s death, called
himself Louis _XVIII._, nor the Comte d’Artois were really deceived
by the hopes held out by their royalist friends. But the English
ministers, deluded by the extravagant promises of the _émigrés_ and by
the reports of Wickham, considered the prospects of an overthrow of
the Republic to be excellent. They had shown their confidence in the
_émigrés_ by the active assistance they had given to the expedition to
Quiberon Bay, and still more by the large sums of secret-service money
which had been expended in Switzerland. The efforts of the royalist
_émigrés_ took two directions; on the one hand, they had fomented the
feeling of discontent in Paris which had culminated in the insurrection
of 13th Vendémiaire, and, on the other, they had attempted to affect
the loyalty of the generals of the Republic. The general on whom they
counted most was Pichegru, the conqueror of Holland. This general, like
Dumouriez in 1793, was more ambitious to attain wealth and power for
himself than success for the Republic. During his sojourn in Paris in
the spring of 1795 he had formed a close alliance with the royalist
agitators in the capital, and on proceeding to take up the command of
the Army of the Rhine-and-Moselle he entered into direct communications
with the Prince de Condé, the general commanding the _émigré_ army
in Germany. Condé promised Pichegru the government of Alsace, the
Château of Chambord, a million livres in cash, an income of two hundred
thousand livres a year, and the rank of Marshal of France, if he would
undertake to restore the Bourbons. Great hopes were built upon these
negotiations, and the Comte de Provence left Verona to take part in
them. But the success of these intrigues was nullified by the victory
of 13th Vendémiaire; the Margrave of Baden-Baden refused to allow the
Pretender to enter his territory; Wickham was unwillingly convinced
that the purchase of the general did not include the purchase of his
army; and the Directory, as soon as it had firmly seized the reins of
power, recalled Pichegru, whose transactions with Condé had been more
than suspected, and replaced him by a thorough republican, Moreau.
These failures convinced Pitt and Grenville that there was no advantage
to be gained in trusting to the promises of the _émigrés_.
[Sidenote: Exchange of Madame Royale.]
The Directory, on assuming power, resolved to continue the policy
of the Thermidorians, and not to recur to the notions of the
revolutionary propaganda. It desired to show Europe that France was
ready to enter into the comity of nations, and did not presume for
the future to interfere with the internal arrangements of other
countries. It, therefore, on grounds of humanity, took up again the
negotiations which had been commenced in July 1793 for the release
of the children of Louis XVI., and, using Spain as an intermediary,
entered into communications on this subject with the bitterest enemy of
France—Austria. The death of the Dauphin, commonly called Louis XVII.,
had left only one of the children of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette in
the hands of the Republic. The Thermidorians had, at the instigation
of one of their leaders, Boissy-d’Anglas, seen the expediency of
proving to Europe that the French republicans were not barbarians,
by offering to surrender the person of Madame Royale to her Austrian
relatives. This project was carried out by the Directory. On 20th
December 1795 Madame Royale was exchanged in Switzerland for the four
deputies and the Minister of War whom Dumouriez had handed over to the
Austrians, and for another deputy, Drouet, the former postmaster at
Sainte-Menehould, who had been taken prisoner by the Austrians in 1793.
[Sidenote: Desire for Peace in France.]
The exchange of Madame Royale was a manifest evidence of the desire
of the Directors to conclude peace. The Prussian ambassador at Paris
reported to his government on 28th December 1795, ‘The general cry in
Paris is, “Make peace and you will have money and bread.”’[10] Peace,
indeed, was the desire not only of the people of Paris, but of the
people of all France, of the majority in the new Legislature, and
of the Directory. It was hoped that the Treaties of Basle were but
the preliminaries of a general peace throughout Europe. But the two
remaining enemies of the French Republic, England and Austria, did not
see their way to meeting the Directory halfway. Pitt and Grenville
argued that a peace made with the Directory would be only of the nature
of a truce. They were ready enough to make peace, but considered it
inadvisable to negotiate with a government which seemed to them in
its essence unstable. Owing either to the intrigues of the _émigrés_,
or to their own knowledge of politics, they grasped the fact that the
new government of France was constructed on a faulty basis, and that a
peace concluded with it would not be lasting. The attitude of Austria
was somewhat different. Thugut, the Austrian minister, believed that
France was exhausted, and that by a continuance of war substantial
concessions could be wrung from her. Reubell, the Director who took
charge of the conduct of Foreign Affairs, expressed himself as follows
to the Prussian ambassador at Paris: ‘The war with Austria troubles us
less than the war with England. Our means for supporting the former
are ready, but not without having exhausted all the resources of the
Republic. It will be probably the last effort of the two belligerent
powers.... Our plan of campaign is almost settled; the war will be
defensive in Germany and offensive in Italy. It is important to us to
detach Austria from England and Sardinia from Austria.’[11] Contrary
to their wish, therefore, the Directors found themselves obliged to
continue the war with England and Austria.
[Sidenote: France and Prussia.]
While continuing the war with these two powers, the French Directory,
like the Thermidorians, hoped to obtain not only the neutrality of
Prussia and Spain, which had been secured by the Treaties of Basle,
but their active co-operation. One of its first diplomatic endeavours
was to enter into close relations with Prussia. Some of the ministers
of Frederick William II., notably Alvensleben, were in favour of an
alliance with France; but the King himself, though he had been forced
by the emptiness of his treasury, and his projects on Poland to make
peace with the French republicans, looked on the idea of making an
alliance with them with horror. In this attitude he was supported by
his two ablest ministers, Haugwitz and Hardenberg. By the terms of the
Treaty of Basle Hardenberg had secured the preponderance of Prussia in
northern Germany. A line of demarcation or neutrality was drawn across
Germany, and the northern states, which were thus freed from the fear
of a French invasion, looked to Prussia as their leader and saviour.
An excuse for not forming an offensive and defensive alliance with
France was found in the occupation by the French troops of the Prussian
territories on the left bank of the Rhine. Prussia would only negotiate
on the basis of the restoration of the _status quo ante bellum_, and
the French Directory, like its predecessors, the Thermidorian Committee
of Public Safety and the Great Committee of Public Safety, insisted on
the cession to France of all territory up to the Rhine. The Directors,
had they wished, could not have opposed the universal feeling in France
in favour of making the Rhine the frontier, and proposed that Prussia
should take compensation for its cessions on the left bank of the
Rhine, by secularising the bishoprics and abbeys of northern Germany
and annexing their territories. This proposal, which would bring in
its train the overthrow of the Constitution of the Holy Roman Empire,
could not be sponsored by Prussia. The policy of Frederick the Great
had been to assume that Prussia, not Austria, was the true defender of
the rights of the Empire, and his nephew, in spite of Alvensleben’s
representations, feared to break with the hereditary policy. The
arrangement with regard to the line of demarcation had placed Prussia
in the position of the guardian of the Empire; the acceptance of
the French propositions would have made her seem its destroyer. The
attempts of the Directory, and afterwards of the Consulate, to secure
an alliance with Prussia, were therefore foredoomed to failure.
[Sidenote: France and the Smaller States.]
The victories of the French Republic were received with more than
toleration in the smaller states of Europe, which feared the
aggressions of Austria, Prussia, and Russia far more than any invasion
by the French. Switzerland had profited greatly by the strict
neutrality it had maintained. The wealth of France had poured freely
into the cantons for the purchase of provisions and other necessaries;
the residence of the diplomatists of Europe at Berne, the headquarters
of Wickham, and at Basle, the headquarters of the French minister
Barthélemy, had also been profitable to the country, while the Swiss,
ready as ever to accept money from all sides, were enabled to make very
considerable gains. Of the Princes of Italy, Ferdinand, Grand Duke of
Tuscany, and brother of the Emperor, had, to the disgust of the Court
of Vienna, made a separate peace with the French Republic in February
1795; Ferdinand of Naples had followed his example, and the King of
Sardinia alone remained in armed opposition to France. With Portugal
the Directory and the Committee of Public Safety, refused to treat,
for, like the French statesmen throughout the eighteenth century,
the Directors regarded Portugal as merely a province of England.
With the smaller northern powers the Directory established the most
friendly relations. Christian VII. of Denmark had always maintained his
neutrality, and through the French minister, resident at his Court,
many important secret negotiations had passed with Prussia. In Sweden,
Charles, Duke of Sudermania, the guardian of the young King Gustavus
IV., abandoned the policy of Gustavus III., and now made a treaty of
friendship and a commercial treaty with the French Republic. The only
other state to be mentioned is Turkey. The Turks looked upon the events
which were passing in the West of Europe with unconcern; still they
were inclined to be friendly with the French Republic, because it was
engaged in fighting with Austria, and thus distracted the attention of
one of the hereditary enemies of the Sublime Porte.
[Sidenote: Russia.]
Catherine of Russia, now at the close of her long reign, still regarded
the French Revolution as affording a happy opportunity for her to
pursue her schemes on Poland without active interference from Prussia
or Austria. Her one desire was that France should continue the war,
and for this reason she cordially received at her court the Comte
d’Artois, and encouraged the presence of French _émigrés_. The Treaties
of Basle had greatly offended her, for Prussia was thus left free to
interfere in Poland, but Catherine was too wise to attempt to do more
than intrigue with the affairs of Western Europe. She had no idea of
intervening actively.
[Sidenote: Campaign of 1795.]
The campaign of 1795 on the Rhine frontier is chiefly important in
regard to the treason of Pichegru. The Elector of Bavaria, who was at
the same time the Elector Palatine, had, as has already been said,
been uniformly friendly to the French. It was by his connivance that
two of the most important fortresses upon the Rhine, Mannheim and
Düsseldorf, were surrendered to Pichegru and Jourdan respectively.
Meanwhile Marceau besieged the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, and Kléber
the city of Mayence. There can be little doubt, though it is not
absolutely proved by documents, that it was because of the negotiations
he had commenced with the Prince de Condé that Pichegru did not
advance into Germany. Jourdan, who did advance with the Army of the
Sambre-and-Meuse, therefore found himself unprotected on his right,
and was forced to retire with considerable loss. Marceau succeeded in
taking Ehrenbreitstein, but the same treacherous inaction of Pichegru
allowed the Austrian General Clerfayt to force Kléber to raise the
siege of Mayence. It was on 20th October 1795 that Jourdan recrossed
the Rhine; on the 29th Kléber was driven from before Mayence; and on
the 30th Pichegru was defeated and driven behind the Queich. The first
operations of the French armies under the Directory were, thus, owing
to Pichegru’s treachery, unsuccessful, and on the 21st December an
armistice was made between the French and the Austrians on the Rhine.
In the north, owing to the Treaties of Basle, there were no military
operations of importance during the autumn of 1795, and the French
army maintained its position on the frontier of Holland. In the south
considerable alterations were made. The treaty of peace with Spain
enabled the experienced and warlike soldiers of the two armies of
the Pyrenees to be despatched to reinforce the Army of Italy, which
was also joined by the bulk of the troops of the Army of the Alps.
General Schérer, who commanded the Army of Italy, pushed forward, and
by a victory at Loano on the 24th November 1795, opened up a direct
communication with Genoa and cut off the Sardinians from the sea. In
the four armies of the Directory which had thus taken the place of the
thirteen armies of the Republic, there were under arms at the close of
1795 about 300,000 men under experienced generals, excluding what was
known as the Army of the Interior, which guarded Paris and garrisoned
the chief cities of France.
[Sidenote: Campaign in Italy, 1796. First Stage.]
[Sidenote: Armistice of Cherasco. April 28, 1796.]
Reubell, in his conversation with the Prussian ambassador at Paris,
openly declared that the chief military effort of France in 1796 was
to be made in Italy. Hitherto the Army of Italy had been overshadowed
by the operations of the armies engaged upon the Rhine; but the
Directory now desired to attack Austria in a vital place. Upon the
Rhine they were in reality waging war with the Empire and not with
Austria. Mayence, for instance, was the capital of an Elector, not an
Austrian city, and blows struck in that quarter affected the Empire
and the petty princes of the Empire far more than they did Austria.
But in Italy the House of Austria owned an important possession in
the Milanese. Between the Milanese and the French Army of Italy was
Piedmont, the principal state of the King of Sardinia. Victor Amadeus
III. of Sardinia was the only petty monarch in Europe who had not
attempted to make peace with the French Republic. In his resentment
at the loss of Savoy and Nice he had thrown himself into the arms of
Austria, and had borrowed an Austrian general, Colli, to command his
small but well equipped army. This was the situation when Napoleon
Bonaparte, who had been nominated to the command of the Army of
Italy by the Directory, on the proposition of Barras, to whom he had
rendered such signal service on 13th Vendémiaire, arrived to take up
his new command on the 27th of March 1796. He understood the policy
of the Directory, and determined to crush the King of Sardinia first,
in order to be free to attack the Austrians in the Milanese. He
therefore turned the Maritime Alps and separated the Austrian from the
Sardinian army. The rapidity of his success was such as to surprise the
Directors. After turning the Alps Bonaparte struck north and defeated
the Sardinians at Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego on the 12th, 13th,
and 15th April, stormed their camp at Ceva on 16th April, and finally
defeated them at Mondovi on 22d April. He then threatened Turin, and
the King of Sardinia signed an armistice with him at Cherasco on 28th
April, abandoning to the French army his most important frontier
fortresses. As the first result of these military operations the King
of Sardinia sued for peace, which he was only granted on recognising
the cession to France of Savoy and Nice, and as a second result General
Bonaparte was enabled to attack the Austrians in Lombardy without
leaving a hostile power behind him.
[Sidenote: The Campaign in Italy. Second Stage.]
The operations of the second stage of the famous campaign of 1796
were as rapid and as completely successful. On the 8th May Bonaparte
crossed the river Po by skilfully misleading the Austrians as to his
intentions, and on 10th May he forced the passage of the Adda at Lodi,
where he won one of his most famous victories. The Austrian General
Beaulieu felt himself incapable of holding the lines of the other
rivers, and fled into the Tyrol. Bonaparte first occupied Milan, and
then forced the Dukes of Parma and of Modena to submit to his demands,
and to send ambassadors to treat for peace at Paris. To these petty
princelets Bonaparte behaved with the utmost arrogance; not satisfied
with making large requisitions of money and provisions, he selected
their finest pictures and works of art, and directed them to be sent
to Paris. Far more important, from his spiritual position, though not
of greater military strength, was the Pope. The French armies occupied
the Legations of Ferrara and Bologna, and Bonaparte then threatened
to march on Rome. In terror Pope Pius VI. concluded, on the 24th June
1796, an armistice at Foligno, by which he abandoned Ancona, and
promised to send to Paris the large sum of 20,000,000 livres, with
many manuscripts and works of art. The conquest of Italy revealed to
Europe the French Republic in a new light. It showed the monarchs,
and especially the rulers of little states, that the revolutionary
propaganda which they had hated and dreaded so much had given way to
an even more dangerous military policy, directed by a victorious and
ambitious general.
[Sidenote: The Campaign in Italy. Third Stage.]
But Austria was not going to be driven out of Italy by a single
campaign. The beaten army of Beaulieu was reorganised by General
Melas, and reinforced by 30,000 picked men from the Rhine. This army,
amounting in all to 70,000 men, was placed under the command of Marshal
Würmser, who, at the end of July, debouched from the Tyrol and invaded
Italy by the two sides of Lake Garda. Bonaparte, whose army did not
exceed 40,000 men, broke up the siege of Mantua which he had formed,
and utterly defeated the Austrians in the great battle of Castiglione
on 5th August 1796. Würmser fell back, but in September, the following
month, he invaded Italy by the valley of the Brenta, and threw himself
into Mantua. Bonaparte, now considering himself for a time freed from
the danger of another Austrian attack, made an effort to reconstitute
Northern Italy. Several of the cities, notably Modena, Bologna, and
Ferrara, had declared themselves republics, but Bonaparte could see
no advantage in little republics, and summoned a general assembly of
deputies from the whole of Lombardy to meet at Milan. This assembly was
disposed to form a Lombard Republic, but before it could complete its
deliberations Bonaparte had to fight another Austrian army.
[Sidenote: The Campaign in Italy. Fourth Stage.]
The Austrians, disgusted and surprised by these successive defeats,
prepared to make a great effort. For the first time, the Emperor
appealed directly to the patriotism of the people, and more especially
of the nobility. A new army was equipped, which, if not so numerous,
was more enthusiastic than the former armies, and was placed under
the command of General Alvinzi. Bonaparte had received few or no
reinforcements, and felt himself unable to face an army of 60,000 men.
He waited, therefore, patiently in his headquarters at Verona while
Alvinzi advanced slowly down the Brenta. Having learnt experience
from their former defeats, the Austrians were in no hurry to come
to blows, even with the small French army in front of them. Alvinzi
entrenched himself in a formidable position on the heights of Caldiero,
and repulsed a French attack upon the 12th of November. Another such
check meant the ruin of the French army. Bonaparte decided to turn
the position. Advancing along the causeway through the marshes upon
Alvinzi’s left, he fought the celebrated battle of Arcola on the 16th
of November, and Alvinzi, finding his position untenable, retreated
into the Tyrol.
[Sidenote: The Campaign in Italy. Fifth Stage.]
[Sidenote: Treaty of Tolentino. Feb. 19, 1797.]
Even yet the Austrians were not finally discouraged. Würmser held out
in Mantua; the Pope, incited by the Court of Vienna, did not observe
the Armistice of Foligno, and determined to raise the Italian populace
against the French; and it was resolved to make a final effort. In
the depth of winter Alvinzi advanced down the eastern shore of Lake
Garda, but was stopped and utterly defeated at Rivoli on the 14th
January 1797. Provera, who had endeavoured to relieve Würmser by the
Brenta, while Alvinzi occupied the main French army at Rivoli, was also
defeated, and on 2d February 1797 Mantua surrendered. These successive
blows destroyed the military power of Austria in Italy, and Bonaparte
began to make plans for invading Austria itself. But before he started
it was necessary to establish peace behind him. The behaviour of the
Pope showed the general that His Holiness could not be trusted, and it
was only under the pressure of a French advance upon Rome that Pius VI.
signed a treaty of peace with the French at Tolentino on 19th February
1797. By this treaty Bonaparte’s lines of communication were secured;
the people of Lombardy were his enthusiastic admirers, and everything
promised a speedy and successful advance upon Vienna.
[Sidenote: Campaign in Germany, 1796.]
As Reubell had stated to the Prussian ambassador, the chief effort of
the French armies was directed in the year 1796 against the Austrians
in Italy. But the operations in Germany were nevertheless of extreme
importance; not on account of what was achieved, but because of
their effect on the policy of the Princes of the Empire. Carnot,
who was left in entire charge of military affairs by the Directory,
combined a skilful plan of campaign. He directed the Army of the
Rhine-and-Moselle, now under the command of Moreau, and the Army of
the Sambre-and-Meuse, still under the command of Jourdan, to make a
simultaneous advance into the heart of Germany, and to unite their
forces upon the Danube. The generals were sufficiently able, and the
troops sufficiently experienced in war, to carry out this movement; but
at the head of the Austrians, for the first time since the outbreak of
the war, there appeared a general of real military genius. The Archduke
Charles, the third son of the Emperor Leopold, and the brother of the
reigning Emperor, Francis II., was only a young man, but he proved
himself to be a profound strategist. On the 1st June 1796 he announced
to the French generals that the armistice, which had lasted six months,
was at an end. Jourdan at once advanced from Düsseldorf, and after
taking Frankfort and Würtzburg invaded Franconia. The Archduke Charles
immediately opposed him with his whole army, and Jourdan had to fall
back after a three weeks’ campaign. Moreau was not able to cross
the Rhine until 24–25 June 1796. The operation was one of extreme
difficulty, which was chiefly overcome by the skill and gallantry of
Desaix. Moreau then proceeded to carry out Carnot’s orders; he advanced
with great rapidity; he defeated the Prince de Condé and his army of
_émigrés_ at Ettlingen; he occupied Stuttgart, and forced his way into
Bavaria, reaching the Danube in the month of August. To oppose him
the Archduke Charles marched rapidly to the south, and Jourdan once
more left Düsseldorf and invaded Franconia. The Archduke Charles soon
understood the intentions of Carnot, and took up a central position
between the two French armies at Ingolstadt. He waited until the French
generals had penetrated far from their base of operations, and then,
leaving but a weak division in front of Moreau, he attacked Jourdan
in force. The French Army of the Sambre-and-Meuse was overcome by the
weight of numbers; on the 3d of September it was driven from Würtzburg,
and on the 20th of September defeated at Altenkirchen, where Marceau,
one of the most renowned of the young generals of the republican
period, was killed. Having driven back Jourdan, the Archduke Charles
turned upon Moreau. That general had imprudently continued to advance
into Bavaria, and did not perceive until late in September the critical
position in which he had been left by the retreat of Jourdan. When
he did perceive it, he extricated himself by one of the most famous
retreats known in military history. For forty days he fell back through
a hostile country, with bad roads, and offering almost innumerable
difficulties from its lofty mountains and dense forests, and harassed
by the presence of a victorious Austrian army attempting to cut off his
retreat, and eventually he recrossed the Rhine on the 24th of October.
[Sidenote: Effects of the Campaign in Germany.]
From a military point of view, apart from the intrinsic interest
presented by the operations of the armies, the chief importance of
the campaign of 1796 in Germany lay in the fact that it occupied a
considerable force of Austrian troops, which were thus prevented from
being sent as reinforcements to the Austrian army in Italy. From the
diplomatic point of view, the campaign had results almost rivalling
those achieved by Bonaparte in Italy. The advance of the French threw
the states of Southern Germany into the hands of Prussia. They felt
a natural sentiment of jealousy at perceiving the states of Northern
Germany escaping the horrors of war, owing to the line of demarcation
established by the Treaty of Basle. Many of the smaller states, and
at least one of the larger states, Saxony, implored the intervention
of Prussia. Frederick William II., only too glad to pose as the
guardian of the Empire, made use of all his influence to induce the
French Directory to consent to the further extension of the line of
demarcation. Reubell, the Director who took charge of foreign policy,
was possessed by the idea that Prussia and France were natural allies,
and induced the Directory to meet the views of Frederick William
II.; but in return he demanded that Prussia should enter into an
offensive and defensive alliance with the French Republic. The King of
Prussia, in his hatred of Jacobin principles, was inclined to reject
this proposal, but his ministers, notably Haugwitz and Alvensleben,
persuaded him that it was impossible to refuse entirely. A compromise
was arranged, and on 5th August 1796 a secret supplement to the
Treaty of Basle was signed between France and Prussia. By this secret
convention Prussia definitely promised to recognise the limits of
the Rhine for the French Republic, and in return France guaranteed
that at a general peace not only the King of Prussia should receive
compensation for the territories he surrendered, by the cession of some
ecclesiastical states, but also that his brother-in-law, the Prince of
Orange, should receive a sovereignty in Germany, to make up for the
loss of the Stadtholderate in Holland. It proved impossible to extend
the line of demarcation to the southern states of Germany as long as
the Austrian army of the Archduke Charles remained there. And therefore
the petty rulers endeavoured to make peace with France on their own
account. The Duke of Würtemburg and the Margrave of Baden both opened
negotiations, and since the Elector of Bavaria had fled into Saxony on
the advance of Moreau, the Estates of Bavaria signed a treaty of peace
with the French general at Pfaffenhofen on the 7th September 1796. But
the successes of the Archduke Charles and the retreat of Moreau put
an end to these peaceful dispositions. The Elector of Bavaria refused
to ratify the treaty his Estates had made; the Duke of Würtemburg
dismissed the minister who had conducted his negotiations; and in spite
of all the efforts of Prussia, the predominance of Austria continued in
Southern Germany.
[Sidenote: Internal Policy of the Directory, 1796.]
The successes of Bonaparte in Italy, and the operations of the French
armies in Germany which, though they had ended in retreat, had not been
discreditable to the generals or soldiers, reacted very favourably upon
the position of the Directory. The French, as a nation, have always
been dazzled by military glory, and since the armies of the Directory
were victorious, they were inclined to look upon the government of
the Directory as excellent. But military successes did not merely add
to the reputation of the Directors; by means of them their financial
difficulties were relieved. The doctrine that invading armies should
live upon the resources of the invaded countries was a most convenient
one. Not only did the armies in Italy and Germany maintain themselves
free of cost to the Directory, but the generals sent large sums of
money to Paris. It was therefore unnecessary to impose fresh taxes
or issue more paper money. But the relief of financial distress was
not the only result of the government of the Directory in 1796; it
restored internal peace. Hoche, after his defeat of the _émigrés_ at
Quiberon Bay in 1795, devoted himself to the pacification of Brittany
and La Vendée. The chief credit due to the Directors is that they gave
the young general a free hand. While putting down armed insurrection,
and defeating the Vendéan chiefs whenever they appeared, Hoche used
the most conciliatory measures towards individuals. His policy, as he
himself declared in one of his proclamations, was to make the Republic
loved. While punishing brigandage severely, he conveniently forgot all
past offences as long as the offenders occupied themselves peacefully;
and on the 15th of July 1796 the Directory was able to announce to
the Legislature that the whole of France was at peace. In truth, all
political disturbances were at an end. The majority of the French
people frankly accepted the Republic, and seemed to care very little
what was the actual form of the republican government. But though
political disturbances were over, the troubled times through which
France had passed had left only too much scope for private animosity.
In the south armed bands, resembling the Companies of Jehu of 1795,
pretended to be acting for the defence of religion, when they were
really moved by desire of plunder and booty. In the centre the pretext
of religion was not alleged, but armed bands of brigands collected
in the forests and the mountains, and, like the banditti in Italy,
pillaged travellers on the high roads, and held whole villages to
ransom. These evils steadily diminished with the consistent enforcement
of the law, but it was some years before France became absolutely safe
for travellers. Of less importance were the insurrections fomented
by the extreme democratic party. Democracy was discredited by the
recollection of the Reign of Terror, and the plot of Babeuf in May,
and an attack on the camp at Grenelle in November 1796, were easily
suppressed.
[Sidenote: First changes in the Directory and the Legislature, 1797.]
[Sidenote: Changes in the Ministry.]
By the terms of the Constitution of the Year III. no change in the
Directory or the Legislature was to be made until February 1797. By
this arrangement a period of consistent government was secured. The
Directors, on the whole, acted harmoniously together. The pre-eminence
of Reubell and Carnot was generally recognised; Barras occupied
himself chiefly with his pleasures; Revellière-Lépeaux was engaged in
establishing his new religion of Theo-philanthropy, which made some
converts in the towns, but found no followers in the villages; and
Letourneur simply acted as Carnot’s lieutenant. In the Legislature
the chief leaders, such as Sieyès, Cambacérès, and Boissy-d’Anglas,
showed occasionally their jealousy of their former colleagues in the
Convention; but, on the whole, they did not try to interfere with their
measures. The only heated debates which took place in the Council of
Five Hundred were on the nature of the disturbances in the south of
France. These were roundly asserted by the opposing parties to be
caused by intrigues of priests, or by intrigues of Jacobins. Fréron,
who had been sent by the Directory to settle these troubles, was very
violently attacked, and with difficulty exculpated himself from the
charge of political partisanship. But, on the whole, the debates in
both branches of the Legislature were very tame. Nevertheless there
appeared, during 1796, the germ of what in 1797 was known as the
Clichian party, so called from its meeting at the Club de Clichy. This
party was not openly royalist, but the chiefs of the French _émigrés_,
supported by the funds supplied by Wickham, believed they could use
it to serve their own purposes, as they had made use of the agitators
in the Paris Sections in 1795. In the ministry no changes of great
importance were made in 1796; Ramel, the former colleague of Cambon
in the Financial Committee of the Convention, replaced Faypoult as
Minister of the Finances; and Pétiet, a former commissary-general, was
appointed Minister of War in succession to Aubert-Dubayet. Of more
importance was the creation of a seventh ministry, of General Police,
in January 1796, for it was an evidence of a new spirit, and the first
symptom of the elaborate scheme for muzzling public opinion, which was
developed to its height by Fouché at a later date. Merlin of Douai
left the Ministry of the Interior for three months to organise the new
department, and was succeeded in April 1796 by Cochon de Lapparent, a
former member of the Convention.
[Sidenote: France and Spain.]
[Sidenote: Treaty of San Ildefonso. 19th Aug. 1796.]
[Sidenote: Battle of St. Vincent.]
It has been said that the Directors endeavoured in vain to form
an offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia. They were more
successful with regard to Spain. The power of Godoy, who for the
negotiations at Basle had been created Prince of the Peace, rose to its
height. General Pérignon, who had been sent as ambassador to Madrid by
the Directory, skilfully flattered the vanity of the new prince, and,
to the astonishment of all Europe, an offensive and defensive alliance
was signed between the French Republic and the ancient Bourbon monarchy
of Spain at San Ildefonso, on the 19th of August 1796, by which Spain
agreed to declare war against England, and the French promised to
assist in the conquest of Portugal, which was to be divided between
the two allies. From a military point of view the alliance with Spain
did not yield any advantage to France, but from a naval standpoint
it proved of incalculable value. The English were obliged to abandon
Corsica, their only foothold in the Mediterranean, and to concentrate
their fleet at Gibraltar. The Spanish navy, to which much attention had
been paid throughout the eighteenth century, had certainly improved,
and, united with a few French men-of-war, far outnumbered the English
Mediterranean Fleet. This was the year of the great English naval
mutiny at the Nore, and the profound discontent which possessed the
English sailors was equally perceptible at Gibraltar. But fortunately
the English admiral, Sir John Jervis, was a man of singular ability,
who understood the English sailor perfectly. He showed no mercy to
ringleaders, but maintained discipline, and even made it popular
by looking after the men’s food, and appealing to their patriotic
feelings. He understood that, on the eve of a battle, the sailors would
cease their disaffection. Accordingly he kept at sea for several months
after the junction of the French and Spanish fleets, announcing his
intention to offer battle; and when discipline was restored he utterly
defeated the French and Spaniards off Cape St. Vincent, on the 14th of
February 1797. By this victory, in which Nelson greatly distinguished
himself, the Spanish fleet was practically destroyed for offensive
purposes, and the high hopes that the Directory had built on the naval
assistance of Spain were frustrated. England had promptly, as in former
days, come to the help of Portugal, and sent an army under the Hon.
Sir Charles Stuart to defend the country, and a general, the Prince of
Waldeck, to reorganise the Portuguese army.
[Sidenote: The Directory and England.]
While the Directory made an alliance with Spain, and hoped to make one
with Prussia, its sentiments of hostility towards England remained
undiminished. It had been expected in France that the conquest of
Holland and the formation of the Batavian Republic, in close alliance
with the French Republic, would have struck a more serious blow at
the prosperity of England than it had really done. As a matter of
fact, the loss of Holland proved but a slight commercial disaster; the
commerce of the North of Europe, which passed through English hands,
merely moved from Amsterdam to Hamburg, and the English merchants
suffered little. From a naval point of view, the French possession
of Holland made it necessary for England to set on foot a powerful
fleet to watch the Dutch navy in the Texel, while she also had to
maintain a fleet blockading the French port of Brest in addition to
her Mediterranean fleet. The English government was more profoundly
affected by Bonaparte’s victories in Italy than by the loss of Holland.
In November 1796 Lord Malmesbury was sent to Paris to discuss the bases
of a peace. He began to negotiate for the restoration of the _status
quo ante bellum_, and demanded the surrender of Belgium to the Emperor.
Such terms were ridiculous; the French Directors, even had they wished,
would not have dared to withdraw from their policy of making the Rhine
the frontier of France. The diplomatic habitudes of Lord Malmesbury
were regarded by the Directors as proofs of his double-dealing, and
he was abruptly ordered to leave Paris on the 20th December 1796.
There was little real expectation of peace on either side. At the
very time Lord Malmesbury was in Paris the Directory was preparing
a naval expedition in Brest harbour. It was announced that the
expedition was intended for the West Indies, and it was placed under
the command of Hoche. On the 16th of December it set sail for Bantry
Bay, for the Directory had really recurred to the old French idea of
attacking England through Ireland. But a terrible storm scattered the
French Fleet, and only two or three ships reached Bantry Bay, and they
returned to France without effecting a landing.
[Sidenote: Death of Catherine of Russia. Nov. 17, 1796.]
Though the history of Europe during the year 1796 is chiefly bound up
in the policy and military achievements of France, the close of the
year witnessed the disappearance of the greatest monarch of Eastern
Europe. On the 17th November 1796, Catherine of Russia died. The
importance of her reign belongs to the period prior to the French
Revolution, and her attitude towards the series of events grouped under
that title, was chiefly dictated by the course of events in Poland. She
was succeeded on the throne of Russia by her son, the Emperor Paul. The
new monarch soon gave evidence of the aberration of intellect which led
him into the strange excesses that brought about his assassination.
His first step in foreign politics was to decline to assist Austria
with his armies, and he even withdrew a Russian fleet which his mother
had recently sent to the assistance of England. In conversation he
expressed his detestation of the French as Jacobins, but none the less
he opened negotiations with the Directory by means of his ambassador at
Berlin, Kolichev, who communicated freely with the French ambassador
Caillard.
[Sidenote: Bonaparte’s Campaign of 1797.]
In the commencement of the year 1797 the interest of Europe was
concentrated upon Bonaparte and his army. Being master of Italy he
now determined to invade the home domains of the House of Austria.
He begged the Directory to act with energy in Germany in order to
prevent reinforcements being sent against him. The Emperor recalled
his brother, the Archduke Charles, from the Rhine, and placed in him
command of the Austrian army in the Tyrol. On the 16th of March 1797
Bonaparte forced the passage of Tagliamento. Joubert, who was acting
independently in the district of Friuli, made his way by that route
into the Tyrol, and joined his general-in-chief at Klagenfurt on the
13th of March. With the combined army Bonaparte pursued the Austrians.
He defeated the Archduke Charles at Neumarkt and Unzmarkt, and on 7th
April he entered Leoben. The Archduke Charles felt it impossible to
oppose the French longer, and on the 17th of April 1797 preliminaries
of peace were signed at Leoben.
[Sidenote: Campaign of 1797 in Germany.]
Simultaneously with Bonaparte’s advance the Armies of the
Rhine-and-Moselle under Moreau, and of the Sambre-and-Meuse under
Hoche, were set in motion. The latter advanced from Düsseldorf,
defeated the Austrians in five engagements, took Wetzlar, and was
already marching on Giessen in Hanover when his progress was stopped by
the news of the signature of the Preliminaries of Leoben. Moreau, on
his side, had not been able to cross the Rhine until 20th April, and
had made no further offensive movement, when he was ordered to cease
operations.
[Sidenote: Preliminaries of Leoben. April 17, 1797.]
By the Preliminaries of Leoben the war between France and Austria,
which had lasted without intermission for five years, came to a
termination. By the Convention signed at that place, Austria agreed
that the Rhine should be recognised as the frontier of France, which
involved the cession of Belgium. In Italy the Emperor promised to give
up the Milanese, and to receive Venice in compensation. These were the
territorial bases agreed to, and General Bonaparte was intrusted by the
Directory with the task of concluding a definitive peace with Austria.
But this Convention only bound Francis II. as head of the House of
Hapsburg, not as Emperor. It was therefore agreed that a congress
should be held at Rastadt, at which terms of peace should be arranged
between the French Republic and the Empire. The Preliminaries of Leoben
crowned Bonaparte’s great victories, and the monarchs of Europe quickly
recognised that they had no longer to deal with the French Republic,
but with the young Corsican general.