THE GREAT WARS WITH FRANCE
CCXLVI. The French Revolution
In no other European state had despotism arrived at such a pitch as in
France; the people groaned beneath the heavy burdens imposed by the
court, the nobility, and the clergy, and against these two estates
there was no appeal, their tyranny being protected by the court, to
which they had servilely submitted. The court had rendered itself not
only unpopular, but contemptible, by its excessive license, which had
also spread downward among the higher classes; the government was,
moreover, impoverished by extravagance and weakened by an incapable
administration, the helm of state, instead of being guided by a
master-hand, having fallen under Louis XV. into that of a woman.
In France, where the ideas of modern philosophy emanated from the
court, they spread more rapidly than in any other country among the
tiers-etat, and the spirit of research, of improvement, of ridicule of
all that was old, naturally led the people to inquire into the
administration, to discover and to ridicule its errors. The natural
wit of the people, sharpened by daily oppression and emboldened by
Voltaire's unsparing ridicule of objects hitherto held sacred, found
ample food in the policy pursued by the government, and ridicule
became the weapon with which the tiers-etat revenged the tyranny of
the higher classes. As learning spread, the deeds of other nations,
who had happily and gloriously cast off the yoke of their oppressors,
became known to the people. The names of the patriots of Greece and
Rome passed from mouth to mouth, and their actions became the theme of
the rising generation; but more powerful than all in effect, was the
example of the North Americans, who, A.D. 1783, separated themselves
from their mother-country, England, and founded a republic. France,
intent upon weakening her ancient foe, lent her countenance to the new
republic, and numbers of her sons fought beneath her standard and bore
the novel ideas of liberty back to their native land, where they
speedily produced a fermentation among their mercurial countrymen.
Louis XV., a voluptuous and extravagant monarch, was succeeded by
Louis XVI., a man of refined habits, pious and benevolent in
disposition, but unpossessed of the moral power requisite for the
extermination of the evils deeply rooted in the government. His queen,
Marie Antoinette, sister to Joseph II., little resembled her brother
or her husband in her tastes, was devoted to gaiety, and, by her
example, countenanced the most lavish extravagance. The evil increased
to a fearful degree. The taxes no longer sufficed; the exchequer was
robbed by privileged thieves; an enormous debt continued to increase;
and the king, almost reduced to the necessity of declaring the state
bankrupt, demanded aid from the nobility and clergy, who, hitherto
free from taxation, had amassed the whole wealth of the empire.
The aristocracy, ever blind to their true interest, refused to comply,
and, by so doing, compelled the king to have recourse to the
tiers-etat. Accordingly, A.D. 1789, he convoked a general assembly, in
which the deputies sent by the citizens and peasant classes were not
only numerically equal to those of the aristocracy, but were greatly
superior to them in talent and energy, and, on the refusal of the
nobility and clergy to comply with the just demands of the tiers-etat,
or even to hold a common sitting with their despised inferiors, these
deputies declared the national assembly to consist of themselves
alone, and proceeded, on their own responsibility, to scrutinize the
evils of the administration and to discuss remedial measures. The
whole nation applauded the manly and courageous conduct of its
representatives. The Parisians, ever in extremes, revolted, and
murdered the unpopular public officers; the soldiers, instead of
quelling the rebellion, fraternized with the people. The national
assembly, emboldened by these first successes, undertook a thorough
transformation of the state, and, in order to attain the object for
which they had been assembled, that of procuring supplies, declared
the aristocracy subject to taxation, and sold the enormous property
belonging to the church. They went still further. The people was
declared the only true sovereign, and the king the first servant of
the state. All distinctions and privileges were abolished, and all
Frenchmen were declared equal.
The nobility and clergy, infuriated by this dreadful humiliation,
embittered the people still more against them by their futile
opposition, and, at length convinced of the hopelessness of their
cause, emigrated in crowds and attempted to form another France on the
borders of their country in the German Rhenish provinces. Worms and
Coblentz were their chief places of resort. In the latter city, they
continued their Parisian mode of life at the expense of the avaricious
elector of Treves, Clement Wenzel, a Saxon prince, by whose powerful
minister, Dominique, they were supported, and acted with unparalleled
impudence. They were headed by the two brothers of the French king,
who entered into negotiation with all the foreign powers, and they
vowed to defend the cause of the sovereigns against the people. Louis,
who for some time wavered between the national assembly and the
emigrants, was at length persuaded by the queen to throw himself into
the arms of the latter, and secretly fled, but was retaken and
subjected to still more rigorous treatment. The emigrants, instead of
saving, hurried him to destruction.
The other European powers at first gave signs of indecision. Blinded
by a policy no longer suited to the times, they merely beheld in the
French Revolution the ruin of a state hitherto inimical to them, and
rejoiced at the event. The prospect of an easy conquest of the
distracted country, however, ere long led to the resolution on their
part of actively interfering with its affairs. Austria was insulted in
the person of the French queen, and, as head of the empire, was bound
to protect the rights of the petty Rhenish princes and nobility, who
possessed property and ecclesiastical or feudal rights[1] on French
territory, and had been injured by the new constitution. Prussia,
habituated to despotism, came forward as its champion in the hope of
gaining new laurels for her unemployed army. A conference took place
at Pilnitz in Saxony, A.D. 1791, between Emperor Leopold and King
Frederick William, at which the Count D'Artois, the youngest brother
of Louis XVI., was present, and a league was formed against the
Revolution. The old ministers strongly opposed it. In Prussia,
Herzberg drew upon himself the displeasure of his sovereign by
zealously advising a union with France against Austria. In Austria,
Kaunitz recommended peace, and said that were he allowed to act he
would defeat the impetuous French by his "patience;" that, instead of
attacking France, he would calmly watch the event and allow her, like
a volcano, to bring destruction upon herself. Ferdinand of Brunswick,
field-marshal of Prussia, was equally opposed to war. His fame as the
greatest general of his time had been too easily gained, more by his
manoeuvres than by his victories, not to induce a fear on his side of
being as easily deprived of it in a fresh war; but the proposal of the
revolutionary party in France--within whose minds the memory of
Rossbach was still fresh--mistrustful of French skill, to nominate him
generalissimo of the troops of the republic, conspired with the
incessant entreaties of the emigrants to reanimate his courage; and he
finally declared that, followed by the famous troops of the great
Frederick, he would put a speedy termination to the French Revolution.
Leopold II. was, as brother to Marie Antoinette, greatly embittered
against the French. The disinclination of the Austrians to the reforms
of Joseph II. appears to have chiefly confirmed him in the conviction
of finding a sure support in the old system. He consequently strictly
prohibited the slightest innovation and placed a power hitherto
unknown in the hands of the police, more particularly in those of its
secret functionaries, who listened to every word and consigned the
suspected to the oblivion of a dungeon. This mute terrorism found many
a victim. This system was, on the death of Leopold II., A.D. 1792,[2]
publicly abolished by his son and successor, Francis II., but was ere
long again carried on in secret.
Catherine II., with the view of seizing the rest of Poland, employed
every art in order to instigate Austria and Prussia to a war with
France, and by these means fully to occupy them in the West. The
Prussian king, although aware of her projects, deemed the French an
easy conquest, and that in case of necessity his armies could without
difficulty be thrown into Poland. He meanwhile secured the popular
feeling in Poland in his favor by concluding, A.D. 1790, an alliance
with Stanislaus and giving his consent to the improved constitution
established in Poland, A.D. 1791. Herzberg had even counselled an
alliance with France and Poland, the latter was to be bribed with a
promise of the annexation of Galicia, against Austria and Russia; this
plan was, however, merely whispered about for the purpose of blinding
the Poles and of alarming Russia.
The bursting storm was anticipated on the part of the French by a
declaration of war, A.D. 1792, and while Austria still remained behind
for the purpose of watching Russia, Poland, and Turkey, and the
unwieldy empire was engaged in raising troops, Ferdinand of Brunswick
had already led the Prussians across the Rhine. He was joined by the
emigrants under Conde, whose army almost entirely consisted of
officers. The well-known manifesto, published by the duke of Brunswick
on his entrance into France, and in which he declared his intention to
level Paris with the ground should the French refuse to submit to the
authority of their sovereign, was composed by Renfner, the counsellor
of the embassy at Berlin. The emperor and Frederick William, persuaded
that fear would reduce the French to obedience, had approved of this
manifesto, which was, on the contrary, disapproved of by the duke of
Brunswick, on account of its barbarity and its ill-accordance with the
rules of war.[3] He did not, however, withdraw his signature on its
publication. The effect of this manifesto was that the French, instead
of being struck with terror, were maddened with rage, deposed their
king, proclaimed a republic, and flew to arms in order to defend their
cities against the barbarians threatening them with destruction. The
Orleans party and the Jacobins, who were in close alliance with the
German Illuminati, were at that time first able to gain the mastery
and to supplant the noble-spirited constitutionalists. A Prussian
baron, Anachasis Cloots,[4] was even elected in the national
convention of the French republic, where he appeared as the advocate
of the whole human race. These atheistical babblers, however, talked
to little purpose, but the national pride of the troops, hastily
levied and sent against the invaders, effected wonders.
The delusion of the Prussians was so complete that Bischofswerder said
to the officers, "Do not purchase too many horses, the affair will
soon be over"; and the duke of Brunswick remarked, "Gentlemen, not too
much baggage, this is merely a military trip."
The Prussians, it is true, wondered that the inhabitants did not, as
the emigrants had alleged they would, crowd to meet and greet them as
their saviors and liberators, but at first they met with no
opposition. The noble-spirited Lafayette, who commanded the main body
of the French army, had at first attempted to march upon Paris for the
purpose of saving the king, but the troops were already too much
republicanized and he was compelled to seek refuge in the Netherlands,
where he was, together with his companions, seized by command of the
emperor of Austria, and thrown into prison at Olmütz, where he
remained during five years under the most rigorous treatment merely on
account of the liberality of his opinions, because he wanted a
constitutional king, and notwithstanding his having endangered his
life and his honor in order to save his sovereign. Such was the hatred
with which high-minded men of strict principle were at that period
viewed, while at the same time a negotiation was carried on with
Dumouriez,[5] a characterless Jacobin intriguant, who had succeeded
Lafayette in the command of the French armies.
Ferdinand of Brunswick now became the dupe of Dumouriez, as he had
formerly been that of the emigrants. In the hope of a counter-
revolution in Paris, he procrastinated his advance and lost his most
valuable time in the siege of fortresses. Verdun fell: three beautiful
citizens' daughters, who had presented bouquets to the king of
Prussia, were afterward sent to the guillotine by the republicans as
traitoresses to their country. Ferdinand, notwithstanding this
success, still delayed his advance in the hope of gaining over the
wily French commander and of thus securing beforehand his triumph in a
contest in which his ancient fame might otherwise be at stake. The
impatient king, who had accompanied the army, spurred him on, but was,
owing to his ignorance of military matters, again pacified by the
reasons alleged by the cautious duke. Dumouriez, consequently, gained
time to collect considerable reinforcements and to unite his forces
with those under Kellermann of Alsace. The two armies came within
sight of each other at Valmy; the king gave orders for battle, and the
Prussians were in the act of advancing against the heights occupied by
Kellermann, when the duke suddenly gave orders to halt and drew off
the troops under a loud _vivat_ from the French, who beheld this
movement with astonishment. The king was at first greatly enraged, but
was afterward persuaded by the duke of the prudence of this
extraordinary step. Negotiations were now carried on with increased
spirit. Dumouriez, who, like Kaunitz, said that the French, if left to
themselves, would inevitably fall a prey to intestine convulsions,
also contrived to accustom the king to the idea of a future alliance
with France. The result of these intrigues was an armistice and the
retreat of the Prussian army, which dysentery, bad weather, and bad
roads rendered extremely destructive.
Austria was now, owing to the intrigues of the duke of Brunswick and
the credulity of Frederick William, left unprotected. As early as
June, old Marshal Lukner invaded Flanders, but, being arrested on
suspicion, was replaced by Dumouriez, who continued the war in the
Netherlands and defeated the stadtholder, Albert, duke of Saxon-
Tescheu (son-in-law to Maria Theresa, in consideration of which he had
been endowed with the principality of Teschen and the stadtholdership
at Brussels), at Jemappes, and the whole of the Netherlands fell into
the hands of the Jacobins, who, on the 14th of November, entered
Brussels, where they proclaimed liberty and equality. A few days later
(19th of November) the national convention at Paris proclaimed liberty
and equality to all nations, promised their aid to all those who
asserted their liberty, and threatened to compel those who chose to
remain in slavery to accept of liberty. As a preliminary, however, the
Netherlands, after being declared free, were ransacked of every
description of movable property, of which Pache, a native of Freiburg
in Switzerland, at that time the French minister of war, received a
large share. The fluctuations of the war, however, speedily recalled
the Jacobins. Another French army under Custines, which had marched to
the Upper Rhine, gained time to take a firm footing in Mayence.
[Footnote 1: To the archbishopric of Cologne belonged the bishopric of
Strasburg, to the archbishopric of Treves, the bishoprics of Metz,
Toul, Verdun, Nancy, St. Diez. Würtemberg, Baden, Darmstadt, Nassau,
Pfalz-Zweibrücken, Leiningen, Salm-Salm, Hohenlohe-Bartenstein,
Löwenstein, Wertheim, the Teutonic order, the knights of St. John, the
immediate nobility of the empire, the bishop of Basel, etc., had,
moreover, feudal rights within the French territory. The arch-
chancellor, elector of Mayence, made the patriotic proposal to the
imperial diet that the empire should, now that France had, by the
violation of the conditions of peace, infringed the old and shameful
treaties by which Germany had been deprived of her provinces, seize
the opportunity also on her part to refuse to recognize those
treaties, and to regain what she had lost. This sensible proposal,
however, found no one capable of carrying it into effect.]
[Footnote 2: His sons were the emperor Francis II., Ferdinand,
grandduke of Tuscany, the archduke Charles, celebrated for his
military talents, Joseph, palatine of Hungary, Antony, grand-master of
the Teutonic order, who died at Vienna, A.D. 1835, John, a general (he
lived for many years in Styria), the present imperial vicar-general of
Germany, and Rayner, viceroy of Milan.--_Trans_.]
[Footnote 3: Gentz, who afterward wrote so many manifestoes for
Austria, practically remarks that this celebrated manifesto was in
perfect conformity with the intent and that the only fault committed
was the non-fulfillment of the threats therein contained.]
[Footnote 4: From Cleve. He compared himself with Anacharsis the
Scythian, a barbarian, who visited Greece for the sake of learning. He
sacrificed the whole of his property to the Revolution. Followed by a
troop of men dressed in the costumes of different nations, of whom
they were the pretended representatives, he appeared before the
convention, from which he demanded the liberation of the whole world
from the yoke of kings and priests. He became president of the great
Jacobin club, and it was principally owing to his instigations that
the French, at first merely intent upon defence, were roused to the
attack and inspired with the desire for conquest.]
[Footnote 5: Dumouriez proposed as negotiator John Müller, who was at
that time teaching at Mayence, and who was in secret correspondence
with him. Vide Memoirs of a Celebrated Statesman, edited by Rüder.
Rüder remarks that John Müller is silent in his autobiography
concerning his correspondence with the Jacobins, for which he might,
under a change of circumstances, have had good reason.]
CCXLVII. German Jacobins
In Lorraine and Alsace, the Revolution had been hailed with delight by
the long-oppressed people. On the 10th of July, 1789, the peasants
destroyed the park of the bishop, Rohan, at Zabern, and killed immense
quantities of game. The chateaux and monasteries throughout the
country were afterward reduced to heaps of ruins, and, in Suntgau, the
peasants took especial vengeance on the Jews, who had, in that place,
long lived on the fat of the land. Mulhausen received a democratic
constitution and a Jacobin club. In Strasburg, the town-house was
assailed by the populace,[1] notwithstanding which, order was
maintained by the mayor, Dietrich. The unpopular bishop, Rohan, was
replaced by Brendel, against whom the people of Colmar revolted, and
even assaulted him in the church for having taken the oath imposed by
the French republic, and which was rejected by all good Catholics.
Dietrich, aided by the great majority of the citizens of Strasburg,
long succeeded in keeping the _sans culottes_ at bay, but was at
length overcome, deprived of his office, and guillotined at Paris,
while Eulogius Schneider, who had formerly been a professor at Bonn,
then court preacher to the Catholic duke, Charles of Wurtemberg,[2]
became the tyrant of Strasburg, and, in the character of public
accuser before the revolutionary tribunal, conducted the executions.
The national convention at Paris nominated as his colleague Monet, a
man twenty-four years of age, totally ignorant of the German language,
and who merely made himself remarkable for his open rapacity.[3] This
was, however, a mere prelude to far greater horrors. Two members of
the convention, St. Just and Lebas, unexpectedly appeared at
Strasburg, declared that nothing had as yet been done, ordered the
executions to take place on a larger scale, and, A.D. 1793, imposed a
fine of nine million livres on the already plundered city. The German
costume and mode of writing were also prohibited; every sign, written
in German, affixed to the houses, was taken down, and, finally, the
whole of the city council and all the officers of the national guard
were arrested and either exiled or guillotined, notwithstanding their
zealous advocacy of revolutionary principles, on the charge of an
understanding with Austria, without proof, on a mere groundless
suspicion, without being permitted to defend themselves, for the sole
purpose of removing them out of the way in order to replace them with
trueborn Frenchmen, a Parisian mob, who established themselves in the
desolate houses. Schneider and Brendel continued to retain their
places by means of the basest adulation. On the 21st of November, a
great festival was solemnized in the Minster, which had been converted
into a temple of Reason. The bust of Marat, the most loathsome of all
the monsters engendered by the Revolution, was borne in solemn
procession to the cathedral, before whose portals an immense fire was
fed with pictures and images of the saints, crucifixes, priests'
garments, and sacred vessels, among which Brendel hurled his mitre.
Within the cathedral walls, Schneider delivered a discourse in
controversion of the Christian religion, which he concluded by
solemnly renouncing; a number of Catholic ecclesiastics followed his
example. All the statues and ecclesiastical symbols were piled in a
rude heap at the foot of the great tower, which it was also attempted
to pull down for the promotion of universal equality, an attempt which
the extraordinary strength of the building and the short reign of
revolutionary madness fortunately frustrated. All the more wealthy
citizens had, meanwhile, been consigned either to the guillotine or to
prison, and their houses filled with French bandits, who revelled in
their wealth and dishonored their wives and daughters. Eulogius
Schneider was compelled to seek at midnight for a wife, suspicion
having already attached to him on account of his former profession. It
was, however, too late. On the following morning, he was seized and
sent to Paris, where he was guillotined. All ecclesiastics, all
schoolmasters, even the historian, Friese, were, without exception,
declared suspected and dragged to the prisons of Besançon, where they
suffered the harshest treatment at the hands of the commandant, Prince
Charles of Hesse. In Strasburg, Neumann, who had succeeded Schneider
as public accuser, raged with redoubled fury. The guillotine was ever
at work, was illuminated during the night time, and was the scene of
the orgies of the drunken bandits. On the advance of the French armies
to the frontiers, the whole country was pillaged.[4]
In other places, where the plundering habits of the French had not
cooled the popular enthusiasm, it still rose high, more particularly
at Mayence. This city, which had been rendered a seat of the Muses by
the elector, Frederick Charles, was in a state of complete
demoralization. On the loss of Strasburg, Mayence, although the only
remaining bulwark of Germany, was entirely overlooked. The war had
already burst forth; no imperial army had as yet been levied, and the
fortifications of Mayence were in the most shameful state of neglect.
Magazines had been established by the imperial troops on the left bank
of the Rhine, seemingly for the mere purpose of letting them fall into
the hands of Custine: but eight hundred Austrians garrisoned Mayence;
the Hessians, although numerically weak, were alone sincere in their
efforts for the defence of Germany. Custine's advanced guard no sooner
came in sight than the elector and all the higher functionaries fled
to Aschaffenburg. Von Gymnich, the commandant of Mayence, called a
council of war and surrendered the city, which was unanimously
declared untenable by all present with the exception of Eikenmaier,
who, notwithstanding, went forthwith over to the French, and of
Andujar, the commander of the eight hundred Austrians, with whom he
instantly evacuated the place. The Illuminati, who were here in great
number, triumphantly opened the gates to the French, A.D. 1792. The
most extraordinary scenes were enacted. A society, the members of
which preached the doctrines of liberty and equality, and at whose
head stood the professors Blau, Wedekind, Metternich, Hoffmann,
Forster, the eminent navigator, the doctors Böhmer and Stamm, Dorsch
of Strasburg, etc., chiefly men who had formerly been Illuminati, was
formed in imitation of the revolutionary Jacobin club at Paris.[5]
These people committed unheard-of follies. At first, notwithstanding
their doctrine of equality, they were distinguished by a particular
ribbon; the women, insensible to shame, wore girdles with long ends,
on which the word "liberty" was worked in front, and the word
"equality" behind. Women, girt with sabres, danced franticly around
tall trees of liberty, in imitation of those of France, and fired off
pistols. The men wore monstrous mustaches in imitation of those of
Custine, whom, notwithstanding their republican notions, they loaded
with servile flattery. As a means of gaining over the lower orders
among the citizens, who with plain good sense opposed their apish
tricks, the clubbists demolished a large stone, by which the
Archbishop Adolphus had formerly sworn, "You, citizens of Mayence,
shall not regain your privileges until this stone shall melt." This,
however, proved as little effective as did the production of a large
book, in which every citizen, desirous of transforming the electorate
of Mayence into a republic, was requested to inscribe his name.
Notwithstanding the threat of being treated, in case of refusal, as
slaves, the citizens and peasantry, plainly foreseeing that, instead
of receiving the promised boon of liberty, they would but expose
themselves to Custine's brutal tyranny, withheld their signatures, and
the clubbists finally established a republic under the protection of
France without the consent of the people, removed all the old
authorities, and, at the close of 1792, elected Dorsch, a remarkably
diminutive, ill-favored man, who had formerly been a priest,
president.
The manner in which Custine levied contributions in Frankfort on the
Maine,[6] was still less calculated to render the French popular in
Germany. Cowardly as this general was, he, nevertheless, told the
citizens of Frankfort a truth that time has, up to the present period,
confirmed. "You have beheld the coronation of the emperor of Germany?
Well! you will not see another."
Two Germans, natives of Colmar in Alsace, Rewbel and Hausmann, and a
Frenchman, Merlin, all three members of the national convention, came
to Mayence for the purpose of conducting the defence of that city.
They burned symbolically all the crowns, mitres, and escutcheons of
the German empire, but were unable to induce the citizens of Mayence
to declare in favor of the republic. Rewbel, infuriated at their
opposition, exclaimed that he would level the city to the ground, that
he should deem himself dishonored were he to waste another word on
such slaves. A number of refractory persons were expelled from the
city,[7] and, on the 17th of March, 1793, although three hundred and
seventy of the citizens alone voted in its favor, a Teuto-Rhenish
national convention, under the presidency of Hoffmann, was opened at
Mayence and instantly declared in favor of the union of the new
republic with France. Forster, in other respects a man of great
elevation of mind, forgetful, in his enthusiasm, of all national
pride, personally carried to Paris the scandalous documents in which
the French were humbly entreated to accept of a province of the German
empire. The Prussians, who had remained in Luxemburg (without aiding
the Austrians), meanwhile advanced to the Rhine, took Coblentz, which
Custine had neglected to garrison (a neglect for which he afterward
lost his head), repulsed a French force under Bournonville, when on
the point of forming a junction with Custine, at Treves, expelled
Custine from Frankfort,[8] and closely besieged Mayence, which, after
making a valiant defence, was compelled to capitulate in July.
Numbers of the clubbists fled, or were saved by the French, when
evacuating the city, in the disguise of soldiers. Others were arrested
and treated with extreme cruelty. Every clubbist, or any person
suspected of being one, received five and twenty lashes in the
presence of Kalkreuth, the Prussian general. Metternich was, together
with numerous others, carried off, chained fast between the horses of
the hussars, and, whenever he sank from weariness, spurred on at the
sabre point. Blau had his ears boxed by the Prussian minister,
Stein.[9] A similar reaction took place at Worms,[10] Spires, etc.
The German Jacobins suffered the punishment amply deserved by all
those who look for salvation from the foreigner. Those who had barely
escaped the vengeance of the Prussian on the Rhine were beheaded by
their pretended good friends in France. Robespierre, an advocate, who,
at that period, governed the convention, sent every foreigner who had
enrolled himself as a member of the Jacobin club to the guillotine, as
a suspicious person, a bloody but instructive lesson to all
unpatriotic German Gallomanists.[11]
The victims who fell on this occasion were, a prince of Salm-Kyrburg,
who had voluntarily republicanized his petty territory, Anacharsis
Cloots,[12] and the venerable Trenk, who had so long pined in
Frederick's prisons. Adam Lux, a friend of George Forster, was also
beheaded for expressing his admiration of Charlotte Corday, the
murderess of Marat. Marat was a Prussian subject, being a native of
Neufchâtel. Göbel von Bruntrut, uncle to Rengger,[13] a celebrated
character in the subsequent Swiss revolution, vicar-general of Basel,
a furious revolutionist, who had on that account been appointed bishop
of Paris, presented himself on the 6th of November, 1793, at the bar
of the convention as an associate of Cloots, Hebert, Chaumette, etc.,
cast his mitre and other insignia of office to the ground, and placing
the bonnet rouge on his head, solemnly renounced the Christian faith
and proclaimed that of "liberty and equality." The rest of the
ecclesiastics were compelled to imitate his example; the Christian
religion was formally abolished and the worship of Reason was
established in its stead. Half-naked women were placed upon the altars
of the desecrated churches and worshipped as "goddesses of Reason."
Göbel's friend, Pache, a native of Freiburg, a creature abject as
himself, was particularly zealous, as was also Proli, a natural son of
the Austrian minister, Kaunitz. Prince Charles of Hesse, known among
the Jacobins as Charles Hesse, fortunately escaped. Schlaberndorf,[14]
a Silesian count, who appears to have been a mere spectator, and
Oelsner, a distinguished author, were equally fortunate. These two
latter remained in Paris. Reinhard, a native of Wurtemberg, secretary
to the celebrated Girondin, Vergniaud, whom he is said to have aided
in the composition of his eloquent speeches, remained in the service
of France, was afterward ennobled and raised to the ministry. Felix
von Wimpfen, whom the faction of the Gironde (the moderates who
opposed the savage Jacobins) elected their general, and who,
attempting to lead a small force from Normandy against Paris, was
defeated and compelled to seek safety by flight. The venerable Lukner,
the associate of Lafayette, who had termed the great Revolution merely
"a little occurrence in Paris," was beheaded. The unfortunate George
Forster perceived his error and died of sorrow.[15] Among the other
Rhenish Germans of distinction, who had at that time formed a
connection with France, Joseph Görres brought himself, notwithstanding
his extreme youth, into great note at Coblentz by his superior
talents. He went to Paris as deputy of Treves and speedily became
known by his works (Rubezahl and the Red Leaf). He also speedily
discovered the immense mistake made by the Germans in resting their
hopes upon France. It was indeed a strange delusion to suppose the
vain and greedy Frenchman capable of being inspired with disinterested
love for all mankind, and it was indeed a severe irony, that, after
such repeated and cruel experience, after having for centuries seen
the French ever in the guise of robbers and pillagers, and after
breathing such loud complaints against the princes who had sold
Germany to France, that the warmest friends of the people should on
this occasion be guilty of similar treachery, and, like selecting the
goat for a gardener, entrust the weal of their country to the French.
The people in Germany too little understood the real motives and
object of the French Revolution, and were too soon provoked by the
predatory incursions of the French troops, to be infected with
revolutionary principles. These merely fermented among the literati;
the Utopian idea of universal fraternization was spread by
Freemasonry; numbers at first cherished a hope that the Revolution
would preserve a pure moral character, and were not a little
astonished on beholding the monstrous crimes to which it gave birth.
Others merely rejoiced at the fall of the old and insupportable
system, and numerous anonymous pamphlets in this spirit appeared in
the Rhenish provinces. Fichte, the philosopher, also published an
anonymous work in favor of the Revolution. Others again, as, for
instance, Reichard, Girtanner, Schirach, and Hoffmann, set themselves
up as informers, and denounced every liberal-minded man to the princes
as a dangerous Jacobin. A search was made for Crypto-Jacobins, and
every honest man was exposed to the calumny of the servile newspaper
editors. French republicanism was denounced as criminal,
notwithstanding the favor in which the French language and French
ideas were held at all the courts of Germany. Liberal opinions were
denounced as criminal, notwithstanding the example first set by the
courts in ridiculing religion, in mocking all that was venerable and
sacred. Nor was this reaction by any means occasioned by a burst of
German patriotism against the tyranny of France, for the treaty of
Basel speedily reconciled the self-same newspaper editors with France.
It was mere servility; and the hatred which, it may easily be
conceived, was naturally excited against the French as a nation, was
vented in this mode upon the patient Germans,[16] who were,
unfortunately, ever doomed, whenever their neighbors were visited with
some political chronic convulsion, to taste the bitter remedy. But few
of the writers of the day took a historical view of the Revolution and
weighed its irremediable results in regard to Germany, besides Gentz,
Rehberg, and the Baron von Gagern, who published an "Address to his
Countrymen," in which he started the painful question, "Why are we
Germans disunited?" The whole of these contending opinions of the
learned were, however, equally erroneous. It was as little possible to
preserve the Revolution from blood and immorality, and to extend the
boon of liberty to the whole world, as it was to suppress it by force,
and, as far as Germany was concerned, her affairs were too complicated
and her interests too scattered for any attempt of the kind to
succeed. A Doctor Faust, at Buckeburg, sent a learned treatise upon
the origin of trousers to the national convention at Paris, by which
Sansculottism had been introduced; an incident alone sufficient to
show the state of feeling in Germany at that time.
The revolutionary principles of France merely infected the people in
those parts of Germany where their sufferings had ever been the
greatest, as, for instance, in Saxony, where the peasantry, oppressed
by the game laws and the rights of the nobility, rose, after a dry
summer by which their misery had been greatly increased, to the number
of eighteen thousand, and sent one of their class to lay their
complaints before the elector, A.D. 1790. The unfortunate messenger
was instantly consigned to a madhouse, where he remained until 1809,
and the peasantry were dispersed by the military. A similar revolt of
the peasantry against the tyrannical nuns of Wormelen, in Westphalia,
merely deserves mention as being characteristic of the times. A revolt
of the peasantry, of equal unimportance, also took place in Buckeburg,
on account of the expulsion of three revolutionary priests, Froriep,
Meyer, and Rauschenbusch. In Breslau, a great émeute, which was put
down by means of artillery, was occasioned by the expulsion of a
tailor's apprentice, A.D. 1793.
In Austria, one Hebenstreit formed a conspiracy, which brought him to
the gallows, A.D. 1793. That formed by Martinowits, for the
establishment of the sovereignty of the people in Hungary and for the
expulsion of the magnates, was of a more dangerous character.
Martinowits was beheaded, A.D. 1793, with four of his associates.[17]
These attempts so greatly excited the apprehensions of the government
that the reaction, already begun on the death of Joseph II., was
brought at once to a climax; Thugut, the minister, established an
extremely active secret police and a system of surveillance, which
spread terror throughout Austria and was utterly uncalled for, no one,
with the exception of a few crack-brained individuals, being in the
slightest degree infected with the revolutionary mania.[18]
It may be recorded as a matter of curiosity that, during the
bloodstained year of 1793, the petty prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt
held, as though in the most undisturbed time of peace, a magnificent
tournament, and the fetes customary on such an occasion.
[Footnote 1: Oberlin, the celebrated philologist, an ornament to
German learning, a professor at Strasburg, rescued, at the risk of his
life, a great portion of the ancient city archives, which had been
thrown out of the windows, by re-collecting the documents with the aid
of the students. On account of this sample of old German pedantry he
pined, until 1793, in durance vile at Metz, and narrowly escaped being
guillotined.]
[Footnote 2: At Bonn he had the impudence to say to the elector, "I
cannot pay you a higher compliment than by asserting you to be no
Catholic."--_Van Alpen_, _History of Rhenish Franconia_.]
[Footnote 3: He mulcted the brewers to the amount of 255,000 livres,
"on account of their well-known avarice," the bakers and millers to
that of 314,000, a publican to that of 40,000, a baker to that of
30,000, "because he was an enemy of mankind," etc.--_Vide Friese's
History of Strasburg_.]
[Footnote 4: It was asserted that the Jacobins had formed a plan to
depopulate the whole of Alsace, and to partition the country among the
bravest soldiers belonging to the republican armies.]
[Footnote 5: John Müller played a remarkable part. This thoroughly
deceptive person had, by his commendation of the ancient Swiss in his
affectedly written History of Switzerland, gained the favor of the
friends of liberty, and, at the same time, that of the nobility by his
encomium on the degenerate Swiss aristocracy. While with sentimental
phrases and fine words he pretended to be one of the noblest of
mankind, he was addicted to the lowest and most monstrous vices. His
immorality brought him into trouble in Switzerland, and the man, who
had been, apparently, solely inspired with the love of republican
liberty, now paid court, for the sake of gain, to foreign princes; the
adulation that had succeeded so well with all the lordlings of
Switzerland was poured into the ears of all the potentates of Europe.
He even rose to great favor at Rome by his flattery of the pope in a
work entitled "The Travels of the Popes." He published the most
virulent sophisms against the beneficial reforms of the emperor
Joseph, and cried up the League, for which he was well paid. He
contrived, at the same time, to creep into favor with the Illuminati.
He was employed by the elector of Mayence to carry on negotiations
with Dumouriez, got into office under the French republic, and
afterward revisited Mayence for the express purpose of calling upon
the citizens, at that time highly dissatisfied with the conduct of the
French, to unite themselves with France. Vide Forster's
Correspondence. Dumouriez shortly afterward went over to the
Austrians, and Müller suddenly appeared at Vienna, adorned with a
title and in the character of an Aulic councillor.]
[Footnote 6: While in his proclamations he swore by all that was
sacred (what was so to a Frenchman?) to respect the property of the
citizens and that France coveted no extension of territory.]
[Footnote 7: Forster was so blinded at that time by his enthusiasm
that he wrote, "all of those among us who refuse the citizenship of
France are to be expelled the city, even if complete depopulation
should be the result." He relates: "I summoned, at Grunstadt, the
Counts von Leiningen to acknowledge themselves citizens of France.
They protested against it, caballed, instigated the citizens peasantry
to revolt; one of my soldiers was attacked and wounded. I demanded a
reinforcement, took possession of both the castles, and placed the
counts under guard. To-day I sent them with an escort to Landau. This
has been a disagreeable duty, but we must reduce every opponent of the
good cause to obedience."]
[Footnote 8: Where the weak garrison left by the French was disarmed
by the workmen.]
[Footnote 9: Either the Prussian minister who afterward gained such
celebrity or one of his relations.]
[Footnote 10: Here Skekuly forced the German clubbists, with the lash,
to cut down the tree of liberty.]
[Footnote 11: Forster wrote from Paris, "Suspicion hangs over every
foreigner, and the essential distinctions which ought to be made in
this respect are of no avail." Thus did nature, by whom nations are
eternally separated, avenge herself on the fools who had dreamed of
universal equality.]
[Footnote 12: Cloots had incessantly preached war, threatened all the
kings of the earth with destruction, and, in his vanity, had even set
a price upon the head of the Prussian monarch. His object was the
union of the whole of mankind, the abolition of nationality. The
French were to receive a new name, that of "Universel." He preached in
the convention: "I have struggled during the whole of my existence
against the powers of heaven and earth. There is but one God, Nature,
and but one sovereign, mankind, the people, united by reason in one
universal republic. Religion is the last obstacle, but the time has
arrived for its destruction. J'occupe la tribune de l'univers. Je le
repète, le genre humain est Dieu, le _Peuple Dieu_. Quiconque a la
débilité de croire en Dieu ne sauroit avoir la sagacité de connaitre
le genre humain, le souverain unique," etc.--_Moniteur of_ 1793, No.
120. He also subscribed himself the "personal enemy of Je«us of
Nazareth."]
[Footnote 13: Whose nephew, the celebrated traveller, Rengger, was,
with Bonpland, so long imprisoned in Paraguay.]
[Footnote 14: He had been already imprisoned and was ordered to the
guillotine, but not being able to find his boots quickly enough, his
execution was put off until the morrow. During the night, Robespierre
fell, and his life was saved. He continued to reside at Paris, where
he never quitted his apartment, cherished his beard, and associated
solely with ecclesiastics.]
[Footnote 15: After an interview with his wife, Theresa (daughter to
the great philologist, Heyne of Grottingen), on the French frontier,
he returned to Paris and killed himself by drinking aquafortis. Vide
Crome's Autobiography. Theresa entered into association with Huber,
the journalist, whom she shortly afterward married. She gained great
celebrity by her numerous romances.]
[Footnote 16: The popular work "Huergelmer" relates, among other
things, the conduct of the Margrave of Baden toward Lauchsenring, his
private physician, whom he, on account of the liberality of his
opinions, delivered over to the Austrian general, who sentenced him to
the bastinado.]
[Footnote 17: Schnelter says: "The first great conspiracy was formed
in the vicinity of the throne, A.D. 1793. The chief conspirator was
Hebenstreit, the commandant, who held, by his office, the keys to the
arsenal, and had every place of importance in his power. His fellow
conspirators were Prandstätter, the magistrate and poet, who, by his
superior talents, led the whole of the magistracy, and possessed great
influence in the metropolis, Professor Riedl, who possessed the
confidence of the court, which he frequented for the purpose of
instructing some of the principal personages, and Häckel, the
merchant, who had the management of its pecuniary affairs. The rest of
the conspirators belonged to every class of society and were spread
throughout every province of the empire. The plan consisted in the
establishment of a democratic constitution, the first step to which
appears to have been an attempt against the life of the imperial
family. The signal for insurrection was to be given by firing the
immense wood-yards. The hearts of the people were to be gained by the
destruction of the government accounts. The discovery was made through
a conspiracy formed in Denmark. The chief conspirator was seized and
sent to the gallows. The rest were exiled to Munkatch, where several
of them had succumbed to the severity of their treatment and of the
climate when their release was effected by Bonaparte by the peace of
Campo Formio, which gave rise to the supposition that the Hebenstreit
conspiracy was connected with the French republicans and Jacobins. The
second conspiracy was laid in Hungary, by the bishop and abbot,
Josephus Ignatius Martinowits, a man whom the emperors Joseph,
Leopold, and Francis had, on account of his talent and energy, loaded
with favors. The plan was an _actionalis conspiratio_, for the purpose
of contriving an attempt against the sacred person of his Majesty the
king, the destruction of the power of the privileged classes in
Hungary, the subversion of the administration, and the establishment
of a democracy. The means for the execution of this project were
furnished by two secret societies." Huergelmer relates: "A certain Dr.
Plank somewhat thoughtlessly ridiculed the institution of the jubilee;
in order to convince him of its utility, he was sent as a recruit to
the Italian army, an act that was highly praised by the newspapers."
On the 22d of July, 1795, a Baron von Riedel was placed in the pillory
at Vienna for some political crime, and was afterward consigned to the
oblivion of a dungeon; the same fate, some days later, befell
Brand-Btetter, Fellesneck, Billeck, Ruschitiski (Ephemeridae of 1796).
A Baron Taufner was hanged at Vienna as a traitor to his country (E.
of 1796).]
[Footnote 18: "The increase of crime occasioned by the artifices of
the police, who thereby gained their livelihood, rendered an especial
statute, prohibitory of such measures, necessary in the new
legislature. Even the passing stranger perceived the disastrous effect
of their intrigues upon the open, honest character and the social
habits of the Viennese. The police began gradually to be considered as
a necessary part of the machine of government, a counterbalance to or
a remedy for the faults committed by other branches of the
administration. Large sums, the want of which was heavily felt in the
national education and in the army, were expended on this arsenal of
poisoned weapons."--_Hormayr's Pocket-Book_, 1832. Thugut is described
as a diminutive, hunchbacked old man, with a face resembling the mask
of a fawn and with an almost satanic expression.]
CCXLVIII. Loss of the Left Bank of the Rhine
The object of the Prussian king was either to extend his conquests
westward or, at all events, to prevent the advance of Austria. The war
with France claimed his utmost attention, and, in order to guard his
rear, he again attempted to convert Poland into a bulwark against
Russia.
His ambassador, Lucchesini, drove Stackelberg, the Russian envoy, out
of Warsaw, and promised mountains of gold to the Poles, who dissolved
the perpetual council associated by Russia with the sovereign, freed
themselves from the Russian guarantee; aided by Prussia, compelled the
Russian troops to evacuate the country; devised a constitution, which
they laid before the cabinets of London and Berlin; concluded an
offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia on the 29th of March,
1790, and, on the 3d of May, 1791, carried into effect the new
constitution ratified by England and Prussia, and approved of by the
emperor Leopold. During the conference, held at Pilnitz, the
indivisibility of Poland was expressly mentioned. The constitution was
monarchical. Poland was, for the future, to be a hereditary instead of
an elective monarchy, and, on the death of Poniatowsky, the crown was
to fall to Saxony. The modification of the peasants' dues and the
power conceded to the serf of making a private agreement with his lord
also gave the monarchy a support against the aristocracy.
Catherine of Russia, however, no sooner beheld Prussia and Austria
engaged in a war with France, than she commenced her operations
against Poland, declared the new Polish constitution French and
Jacobinical, notwithstanding its abolition of the _liberum veto_ and
its extension of the prerogatives of the crown, and, taking advantage
of the king's absence from Prussia, speedily regained possession of
the country. What was Frederick William's policy in this dilemma? He
was strongly advised to make peace with France, to throw himself at
the head of the whole of his forces into Poland, and to set a limit to
the insolence of the autocrat; but--he feared, should he abandon the
Rhine, the extension of the power of Austria in that quarter, and--
calculating that Catherine, in order to retain his friendship, would
cede to him a portion of her booty,[1] unhesitatingly broke the faith
he had just plighted with the Poles, suddenly took up Catherine's
tone, declared the constitution he had so lately ratified Jacobinical,
and despatched a force under Mollendorf into Poland in order to secure
possession of his stipulated prey. By the second partition of Poland,
which took place as rapidly, as violently, and, on account of the
assurances of the Prussian monarch, far more unexpectedly than the
first, Russia received the whole of Lithuania, Podolia, and the
Ukraine, and Prussia, Thorn and Dantzig, besides Southern Prussia
(Posen and Calisch). Austria, at that time fully occupied with France,
had no participation in this robbery, which was, as it were, committed
behind her back.
Affairs had worn a remarkably worse aspect since the campaign of 1792.
The French had armed themselves with all the terrors of offended
nationalism and of unbounded, intoxicating liberty. All the enemies of
the Revolution within the French territory were mercilessly
exterminated, and hundreds of thousands were sacrificed by the
guillotine, a machine invented for the purpose of accelerating the
mode of execution. The king was beheaded in this manner in the January
of 1793, and the queen shared a similar fate in the ensuing
October.[2] While Robespierre directed the executions, Carnot
undertook to make preparations for war, and, in the very midst of this
immense fermentation, calmly converted France into an enormous camp,
and more than a million Frenchmen, as if summoned by magic from the
clod, were placed under arms.
The sovereigns of Europe also prepared for war, and, A.D. 1793, formed
the first great coalition, at whose head stood England, intent upon
the destruction of the French navy. The English, aided by a large
portion of the French population devoted to the ancient monarchy,
attacked France by sea, and made a simultaneous descent on the
northern and southern coasts. The Spanish and Portuguese troops
crossed the Pyrenees; the Italian princes invaded the Alpine boundary;
Austria, Prussia, Holland, and the German empire threatened the
Rhenish frontier, while Sweden and Russia stood frowning in the
background. The whole of Christian Europe took up arms against France,
and enormous armies hovered, like vultures, around their prey.
The duke of Coburg commanded the main body of the Austrians in the
Netherlands, where he was at first merely opposed by the old French
army, whose general, Dumouriez, after unsuccessfully grasping at the
supreme power, entered into a secret agreement with the coalition,
allowed himself to be defeated at Aldenhovenl[3] and Neerwinden, and
finally deserted to the Austrians. At this moment, when the French
army was dispirited by defeat and without a leader, Coburg, who had
been reinforced by the English and Dutch under the duke of York,
might, by a hasty advance, have taken Paris by surprise, but both the
English and Austrian generals solely owed the command, for which they
were totally unfit, to their high birth, and Colonel Mack, the most
prominent character among the officers of the staff, was a mere
theoretician, who could cleverly enough conduct a campaign--upon
paper. Clairfait, the Austrian general, beat the disbanded French army
under Dampiere at Famars, but temporized instead of following up his
victory. Coburg, in the hope of the triumph of the moderate party, the
Girondins, published an extremely mild and peaceable proclamation,
which, on the fall of the Gironde, was instantly succeeded by one of a
more threatening character, which his want of energy and decision in
action merely rendered ridiculous. No vigorous attack was made, nor
was even a vigorous defence calculated upon, not one of the frontier
forts in the Netherlands, demolished by Joseph II., having been
rebuilt. The coalition foolishly trusted that the French would be
annihilated by their inward convulsions, while they were in reality
seizing the opportunity granted by the tardiness of their foes to levy
raw recruits and exercise them in arms. The principal error, however,
lay in the system of conquest pursued by both Austria and England.
Conde, Valenciennes, and all towns within the French territory taken
by Coburg, were compelled to take a formal oath of allegiance to
Austria, and England made, as the condition of her aid, that of the
Austrians for the conquest of Dunkirk. The siege of this place, which
was merely of importance to England in a mercantile point of view,
retained the armies of Coburg and York, and the French were
consequently enabled, in the meantime, to concentrate their scattered
forces and to act on the offensive. Ere long, Houchard and Jourdan
pushed forward with their wild masses, which, at first undisciplined
and unsteady, were merely able to screen themselves from the rapid and
sustained fire of the British by acting as tirailleurs (a mode of
warfare successfully practiced by the North Americans against the
serried ranks of the English), became gradually bolder, and finally,
by their numerical strength and republican fury, gained a complete
triumph. Houchard, in this manner, defeated the English at Hondscoten
(September 8th), and Jourdan drove the Austrians off the field at
Wattignies on the 16th of October, the day on which the French queen
was beheaded. Coburg, although the Austrians had maintained their
ground on every other point, resolved to retreat, notwithstanding the
urgent remonstrances of the youthful archduke, Charles, who had
greatly distinguished himself. During the retreat, an unimportant
victory was gained at Menin by Beaulieu, the imperial general.[4] His
colleague, Wurmser, nevertheless maintained with extreme difficulty
the line extending from Basel to Luxemburg, which formed the Prussian
outposts. A French troop under Delange advanced as far as
Aix-la-Chapelle, where they crowned the statue of Charlemagne with a
bonnet rouge.
Mayence was, during the first six months of this year, besieged by the
main body of the Prussian army under the command of Ferdinand, duke of
Brunswick. The Austrians, when on their way past Mayence to
Valenciennes with a quantity of heavy artillery destined for the
reduction of the latter place (which they afterward compelled to do
homage to the emperor), refusing the request of the king of Prussia
for its use _en passant_ for the reduction of Mayence, greatly
displeased that monarch, who clearly perceived the common intention of
England and Austria to conquer the north of France to the exclusion of
Prussia, and consequently revenged himself by privately partitioning
Poland with Russia, and refusing his assistance to General Wurmser in
the Vosges country. The dissensions between the allies again rendered
their successes null. The Prussians, after the conquest of Mayence,
A.D. 1793, advanced and beat the fresh masses led against them by
Moreau at Pirmasens, but Frederick William, disgusted with Austria and
secretly far from disinclined to peace with France, quitted the army
(which he maintained in the field, merely from motives of honor, but
allowed to remain in a state of inactivity), in order to visit his
newly acquired territory in Poland.
The gallant old Wurmser was a native of Alsace, where he had some
property, and fought meritoriously for the German cause, while so many
of his countrymen at that time ranged themselves on the side of the
French.[5] His position on the celebrated Weissenburg line was, owing
to the non-assistance of the Prussians, replete with danger, and he
consequently endeavored to supply his want of strength by striking his
opponents with terror. His Croats, the notorious _Rothmantler_, are
charged with the commission of fearful deeds of cruelty. Owing to his
system of paying a piece of gold for every Frenchman's head, they
would rush, when no legitimate enemy could be encountered, into the
first large village at hand, knock at the windows and strike off the
heads of the inhabitants as they peeped out. The petty principalities
on the German side of the Rhine also complained of the treatment they
received from the Austrians. But how could it be otherwise? The empire
slothfully cast the whole burden of the war upon Austria. Many of the
princes were terror-stricken by the French, while others meditated an
alliance with that power, like that formerly concluded between them
and Louis XIV. against the empire. Bavaria alone was, but with great
difficulty, induced to furnish a contingent. The weak imperial free
towns met with most unceremonious treatment at the hands of Austria.
They were deprived of their artillery and treated with the utmost
contempt. It often happened that the aristocratic magistracy, as, for
instance, at Ulm, sided with the soldiery against the citizens. The
slothful bishops and abbots of the empire were, on the other hand,
treated with the utmost respect by the Catholic soldiery. The
infringement of the law of nations by the arrest of Semonville, the
French ambassador to Constantinople, and of Maret, the French
ambassador to Naples, and the seizure of their papers on neutral
ground, in the Valtelline, by Austria, created a far greater
sensation.
The duke of Brunswick, who had received no orders to retreat, was
compelled, _bongre-malgre_, to hazard another engagement with the
French, who rushed to the attack. He was once more victorious, at
Kaiserslautern, over Hoche, whose untrained masses were unable to
withstand the superior discipline of the Prussian troops. Wurmser took
advantage of the moment when success seemed to restore the good humor
of the allies to coalesce with the Prussians, dragging the unwilling
Bavarians in his train. This junction, however, merely had the effect
of disclosing the jealousy rankling on every side. The greatest
military blunders were committed and each blamed the other. Landau
ought to and might have been rescued from the French, but this step
was procrastinated until the convention had charged Generals Hoche and
Pichegru, "Landau or death." These two generals brought a fresh and
numerous army into the field, and, in the very first engagements, at
Worth and Froschweiler, the Bavarians ran away and the Austrians and
Prussians were signally defeated. The retreat of Wurmser, in high
displeasure, across the Rhine afforded a welcome pretext to the duke
of Brunswick to follow his example and even to resign the command of
the army to Mollendorf. In this shameful manner was the left bank of
the Rhine lost to Germany.
In the spring of the ensuing year, 1794, the emperor Francis II.
visited the Netherlands in person, with the intent of pushing straight
upon Paris. This project, practicable enough during the preceding
campaign, was, however, now utterly out of the question, the more so
on account of the retreat of the Prussians. The French observed on
this occasion with well-merited scorn: "The allies are ever an idea, a
year and an army behindhand." The Austrians, nevertheless, attacked
the whole French line in March and were at first victorious on every
side, at Catillon, where Kray and Wernek distinguished themselves, and
at Landrecis, where the Archduke Charles made a brilliant charge at
the head of the cavalry. Landrecis was taken. But this was all.
Clairfait, whose example might have animated the inactive duke of
York, being left unsupported by the British, was attacked singly at
Courtray by Pichegru and forced to yield to superior numbers. Coburg
fought an extremely bloody but indecisive battle at Doornik (Tournay),
where Pichegru ever opposed fresh masses to the Austrian artillery.
Twenty thousand dead strewed the field. The youthful emperor,
discouraged by the coldness displayed by the Dutch, whom he had
expected to rise _en masse_ in his cause, returned to Vienna. His
departure and the inactivity of the British commander completely
dispirited the Austrian troops, and on the 26th of June, 1794,[6] the
duke of Coburg was defeated at Fleurus by Jourdan, the general of the
republic. This success was immediately followed by that of Pichegru,
not far from Breda, over the inefficient English general,[7] who
consequently evacuated the Netherlands, which were instantly overrun
by the pillaging French. And thus had the German powers,
notwithstanding their well-disciplined armies and their great plans,
not only forfeited their military honor, but also drawn the enemy,
and, in his train, anarchy with its concomitant horrors, into the
empire. The Austrians had rendered themselves universally unpopular by
their arbitrary measures, and each province remained stupidly
indifferent to the threatened pillage of its neighbor by the
victorious French. Jourdan but slowly tracked the retreating forces of
Coburg, whom he again beat at Sprimont, where he drove him from the
Maese, and at Aldenhoven, where he drove him from the Roer. Frederick,
Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, capitulated at Maestricht, with ten
thousand men, to Kleber; and the Austrians, with the exception of a
small corps under the Count von Erbach, stationed at Düsseldorf,
completely abandoned the Lower Rhine.
The disasters suffered by the Austrians seem at that time to have
flattered the ambition of the Prussians, for Mollendorf suddenly
recrossed the Rhine and gained an advantage at Kaiserslautern, but
was, in July, 1794, again repulsed at Trippstadt, notwithstanding
which he once more crossed the Rhine in September, and a battle was
won by the Prince von Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen at Fischbach, but, on the
junction of Jourdan with Hoche, who had until then singly opposed him,
Mollendorf again, and for the last time, retreated across the Rhine.
The whole of the left bank of the Rhine, Luxemburg and Mayence alone
excepted, were now in the hands of the French. Resius, the Hessian
general, abandoned the Rheinfels with the whole garrison, without
striking a blow in its defence. He was, in reward, condemned to
perpetual imprisonment.[8] Jourdan converted the fortress into a
ruined heap. The whole of the fortifications on the Rhine were yielded
for the sake of saving Mannheim from bombardment.
In the Austrian Netherlands, the old government had already been
abolished, and the whole country been transformed into a Belgian
republic by Dumouriez. The reform of all the ancient evils, so vainly
attempted but a few years before by the noble-spirited emperor, Joseph
II., was successfully executed by this insolent Frenchman, who also
abolished with them all that was good in the ancient system. The city
deputies, it is true, made an energetic but futile resistance.[9]
After the flight of Dumouriez, fresh depredations were, with every
fresh success, committed by the French. Liege was reduced to the most
deplorable state of desolation, the cathedral and thirty splendid
churches were levelled with the ground by the ancient enemies of the
bishop. Treves was also mercilessly sacked and converted into a French
fortress.
[Footnote 1: Prussia chiefly coveted the possession of Dantzig, which
the Poles refused to give or the English to grant to him, and which he
could only seize by the aid of Russia.]
[Footnote 2: After having been long retained in prison, ill fed and
ill clothed, after supporting, with unbending dignity, the unmanly
insults of the republican mob before whose tribunal she was dragged.
The young dauphin expired under the ill-treatment he received from his
guardian, a shoemaker. His sister, the present Duchess d'Angouleme,
was spared.]
[Footnote 3: Where the peasantry, infuriated at the depredations of
the French, cast the wounded and the dead indiscriminately into a
trench.--_Benzenberg's Letters._ ]
[Footnote 4: The Hanoverian general, Hammerstein, and his adjutant
Scharnhorst, who afterward became so noted, made a gallant defence.
When the city became no longer tenable, they boldly sallied forth at
the head of the garrison and escaped.]
[Footnote 5: Rewbel, one of the five directors of the great French
republic, and several of the most celebrated French generals,
Germany's unwearied foes, were natives of Alsace, as, for instance,
the gallant Westermann, one of the first leaders of the republican
armies; the intrepid Kellermann, the soldiers' father; the immortal
Kleber, generalissimo of the French forces in Egypt, who fell by the
dagger of a fanatical Mussulman; and the undaunted Rapp, the hero of
Dantzig. The lion-hearted Ney, justly designated by the French as the
bravest of the brave, was a native of Lorraine. These were, one and
all, men of tried metal, but whose German names induce the demand,
"Why did they fight for France?" Wurmser belonged to the same old
Strasburg family which had given birth to Wurmser, the celebrated
court-painter of the emperor, Charles IV. ]
[Footnote 6: The Austrian generals Beaulieu, Quosdanowich, and the
Archduke Charles, who, at that period, laid the foundation to his
future fame, had pushed victoriously forward and taken Fleurus, when
the ill-tuned orders, as they are deemed, of the generalissimo Coburg
compelled them to retreat. Quosdanowich dashed his sabre furiously on
the ground and exclaimed, "The army is betrayed, the victory is ours,
and yet we must resign it. Adieu, thou glorious land, thou garden of
Europe, the house of Austria bids thee eternally adieu!" The French
had, before and during the action, made use of a balloon for the
purpose of watching the movements of the enemy.]
[Footnote 7: The worst spirit prevailed among the British troops; the
officers were wealthy young men, who had purchased their posts and
were, in the highest degree, licentious. Vide Dietfurth's Hessian
Campaigns.]
[Footnote 8: Peter Hammer, in his "Description of the Imperial Army,"
published, A.D. 1796, at Cologne, graphically depictures the sad state
of the empire. The imperial troops consisted of the dregs of the
populace, so variously arranged as to justify the remark of Colonel
Sandberg of Baden that the only thing wanting was their regular
equipment as jack-puddings. A monastery furnished two men; a petty
barony, the ensign; a city, the captain. The arms of each man differed
in calibre. No patriotic spirit animated these defenders of the
empire. An anonymous author remarks: "For love of one's country to be
felt, there must, first of all, be a country; but Germany is split
into petty useless monarchies, chiefly characterized by their
oppression of their subjects, by pride, slavery, and unutterable
weakness. Formerly, when Germany was attacked, each of her sons made
ready for battle, her princes were patriotic and brave. Now, may
Heaven have pity on the land; the princes, the counts, and nobles
march hence and leave their country to its fate. The Margrave of
Baden--I do not speak of the prince bishop of Spires and of other
spiritual lords whose profession forbids their laying hand to
sword--the Landgrave of Darmstadt and other nobles fled on the mere
report of an intended visit from the French, by which they plainly
intimated that they merely held sovereign rule for the purpose of
being fattened by their subjects in time of peace. Danger no sooner
appears than the miserable subject is left to his own resources.
_Germany is divided into too many petty states._ How can an elector of
the Pfalz, or indeed any of the still lesser nobility, protect the
country? Unity, moreover, is utterly wanting. The Bavarian regards the
Hessian as a stranger, not as his countryman. Each petty territory has
a different tariff, administration, and laws. The subject of one petty
state cannot travel half a mile into a neighboring one without leaving
behind him great part of his property. The bishop of Spires strictly
forbids his subjects to intermarry with those of any other state. And
patriotism is expected to result from these measures! The subject of a
despot, whose revenues exceed those of his neighbors by a few thousand
florins, looks down with contempt on the slave of a poorer prince.
Hence the boundless hatred between the German courts and their petty
brethren, hence the malicious joy caused by the mishaps of a
neighboring dynasty." Hence the wretchedness of the troops. "With the
exception of the troops belonging to the circle there were none to
defend the frontiers of the empire. Grandes battues, balls, operas,
and mistresses, swallowed up the revenue, not a farthing remained for
the erection of fortresses, the want of which was so deeply felt for
the defence of the frontiers."]
[Footnote 9: "How can France, with her solemn assurances of liberty,
arbitrarily interfere with the government of a country already
possessing a representative elected by the people? How can she
proclaim us as a free nation, and, at the same moment, deprive us of
our liberty? Will she establish a new mythology of nations, and divide
the different peoples on the face of the earth, according to their
strength, into nations and demi-nations?"--_Protest of the Provisional
Council of the City of Brussels. The President, Theodore Dotrenge._
"Every free nation gives to itself laws, does not receive them from
another."--_Protest of the City of Antwerp, President of the Council,
Van Dun._ "You confiscate alike public and private property. That have
even our former tyrants never ventured to do when declaring us rebels,
and you say that you bring to us liberty."--_Protest of the Hennegau._
The most copious account of the revolutionizing of the Netherlands is
contained in Rau's History of the Germans in France, and of the French
in Germany. Frankfort on the Maine, 1794 and 1795.]
CCXLIX. The Defection of Prussia--The Archduke Charles
Frederick William's advisers, who imagined the violation of every
principle of justice and truth an indubitable proof of instinctive and
consummate prudence, unwittingly played a high and hazardous game.
Their diplomatic absurdity, which weighed the fate of nations against
a dinner, found a confusion of all the solid principles on which
states rest as stimulating as the piquant ragouts of the great Ude.
Lucchesini, under his almost intolerable airs of sapience, as artfully
veiled his incapacity in the cabinet as Ferdinand of Brunswick did his
in the field, and to this may be ascribed the measures which but
momentarily and seemingly aggrandized Prussia and prepared her deeper
fall. Each petty advantage gained by Prussia but served to raise
against her some powerful foe, and finally, when placed by her policy
at enmity with every sovereign of Europe, she was induced to trust to
the shallow friendship of the French republic.
The Poles, taken unawares by the second partition of their country,
speedily recovered from their surprise and collected all their
strength for an energetic opposition. Kosciuszko, who had, together
with Lafayette, fought in North America in the cause of liberty, armed
his countrymen with scythes, put every Russian who fell into his hands
to death, and attempted the restoration of ancient Poland. How easily
might not Prussia, backed by the enthusiasm of the patriotic Poles,
have repelled the Russian colossus, already threatening Europe! But
the Berlin diplomatists had yet to learn the homely truth, that
"honesty is the best policy." They aided in the aggrandizement of
Russia, drew down a nation's curse upon their heads for the sake of an
addition to the territory of Prussia, the maintenance of which cost
more than its revenue, and violated the Divine commands during a
period of storm and convulsion, when the aid of Heaven was indeed
required. The ministers of Frederick William II. were externally
religious, but those of Frederick William I., by whom the Polish
question had been so justly decided, were so in reality.
The king led his troops in person into Poland. In June, 1794, he
defeated Kosciuszko's scythemen at Szczekociny, but met with such
strenuous opposition in his attack upon Warsaw as to be compelled to
retire in September.[1] On the retreat of the Prussian troops, the
Russians, who had purposely awaited their departure in order to secure
the triumph for themselves, invaded the country in great force under
their bold general, Suwarow, who defeated Kosciuszko, took him
prisoner, and besieged Warsaw, which he carried by storm. On this
occasion, termed by Reichardt "a peaceful and merciful entry of the
clement victor," eighteen thousand of the inhabitants of every age and
sex were cruelly put to the sword. The result of this success was the
third partition or utter annihilation of Poland. Russia took
possession of the whole of Lithuania and Volhynia, as far as the
Riemen and the Bug; Prussia, of the whole country west of the Riemen,
including Warsaw; Austria, of the whole country south of the Bug, A.D.
1795. An army of German officials, who earned for themselves not the
best of reputations, settled in the Prussian division: they were
ignorant of the language of the country, and enriched themselves by
tyranny and oppression. Von Treibenfeld, the counsellor to the
forest-board, one of Bischofswerder's friends, bestowed a number of
confiscated lands upon his adherents.
The ancient Polish feof of Courland was, in consequence of the
annihilation of Poland, incorporated with the Russian empire, Peter,
the last duke, the son of Biron, being compelled to abdicate, A.D.
1795.
Pichegru invaded Holland late in the autumn of 1794. The duke of York
had already returned to England. A line of defence was, nevertheless,
taken up by the British under Wallmoden, by the Dutch under their
hereditary stadtholder, William V. of Orange, and by an Austrian corps
under Alvinzi; the Dutch were, however, panic-struck, and negotiated a
separate treaty with Pichegru,[2] who, at that moment, solely aimed at
separating the Dutch from their allies; but when, in December, all the
rivers and canals were suddenly frozen, and nature no longer threw
insurmountable obstacles in his path, regardless of the negotiations
then pending in Paris, he unexpectedly took up arms, marched across
the icebound waters, and carried Holland by storm. With him marched
the anti-Orangemen, the exiled Dutch patriots, under General Daendels
and Admiral de Winter, with the pretended view of restoring ancient
republican liberty to Holland and of expelling the tyrannical Orange
dynasty.
The British (and some Hessian troops) were defeated at Thiel on the
Waal; Alvinzi met with a similar fate at Pondern, and was compelled to
retreat into Westphalia. Some English ships, which lay frozen up in
the harbor, were captured by the French hussars. A most manly
resistance was made; but no aid was sent from any quarter. Prussia,
who so shortly before had ranged herself on the side of the
stadtholder against the people, was now an indifferent spectator.
William V. was compelled to flee to England. Holland was transformed
into a Batavian republic. Hahn, Hoof, etc., were the first furious
Jacobins by whom everything was there formed upon the French model.
The Dutch were compelled to cede Maestricht, Venloo, and Vliessingen;
to pay a hundred millions to France, and, moreover, to allow their
country to be plundered, to be stripped of all the splendid works of
art, pictures, etc. (as was also the case in the Netherlands and on
the Rhine), and even of the valuable museum of natural curiosities
collected by them with such assiduity in every quarter of the globe.
These depredations were succeeded by a more systematic mode of
plunder. Holland was mercilessly drained of her enormous wealth. All
the gold and silver bullion was first of all collected; this was
followed by the imposition of an income-tax of six per cent, which was
afterward repeated, and was succeeded by an income-tax on a sliding
scale from three to thirty per cent. The British, at the same time,
destroyed the Dutch fleet in the Texel commanded by de Winter, in
order to prevent its capture by the French, and seized all the Dutch
colonies, Java alone excepted. The flag of Holland had vanished from
the seas.
In August, 1794, the reign of terror in France reached its close. The
moderate party which came into power gave hopes of a general peace,
and Frederick William II without loss of time negotiated a separate
treaty, suddenly abandoned the monarchical cause which he had formerly
so zealously upheld, and offered his friendship to the revolutionary
nation, against which he had so lately hurled a violent manifesto. The
French, with equal inconsistency on their part, abandoned the popular
cause, and, after having murdered their own sovereign and threatened
every European throne with destruction, accepted the alliance of a
foreign king. Both parties, notwithstanding the contrariety of their
principles and their mutual animosity, were conciliated by their
political interest. The French, solely bent upon conquest, cared not
for the liberty of other nations; Prussia, intent upon self-
aggrandizement, was indifferent to the fate of her brother sovereigns.
Peace was concluded between France and Prussia at Basel, April 5,
1795. By a secret article of this treaty, Prussia confirmed the French
republic in the possession of the whole of the left bank of the Rhine,
while France in return richly indemnified Prussia at the expense of
the petty German states. This peace, notwithstanding its manifest
disadvantages, was also acceded to by Austria, which, on this
occasion, received the unfortunate daughter of Louis XVI. in exchange
for Semonville and Maret, the captive ambassadors of the republic, and
the members of the Convention seized by Dumouriez. Hanover[3] and
Hesse-Cassel participated in the treaty and were included within the
line of demarcation, which France, on her side, bound herself not to
transgress.
The countries lying beyond this line of demarcation, the Netherlands,
Holland, and Pfalz-Juliers, were now abandoned to France, and Austria,
kept in check on the Upper Rhine, was powerless in their defence. In
this manner fell Luxemburg and Düsseldorf. All the Lower Rhenish
provinces were systematically plundered by the French under pretext of
establishing liberty and equality.[4] The Batavian republic was
permitted to subsist, but dependent upon France; Belgium was annexed
to France, A.D. 1795.
On the retreat of the Prussians, Mannheim was surrendered without a
blow by the electoral minister, Oberndorf, to the French. Wurmser
arrived too late to the relief of the city. Quosdanowich, his
lieutenant-general, nevertheless, succeeded in saving Heidelberg by
sheltering himself behind a great abatis at Handschuchsheion, whence
he repulsed the enemy, who were afterward almost entirely cut to
pieces by General Klenau, whom he sent in pursuit with the light
cavalry. General Boros led another Austrian corps across Nassau to
Ehrenbreitstein, at that time besieged by the French under their
youthful general, Marceau, who instantly retired. Wurmser no sooner
arrived in person than, attacking the French before Mannheim, he
completely put them to the rout and took General Oudinot prisoner.
Clairfait, at the same time, advanced unperceived upon Mayence, and
unexpectedly attacking the besieging French force, carried off one
hundred and thirty-eight pieces of heavy artillery. Pichegru, who had
been called from Holland to take the command on the Upper Rhine, was
driven back to the Vosges. Jourdan advanced to his aid from the Lower
Rhine, but his vanguard under Marceau was defeated at Kreuznach and
again at Meissenheim. Mannheim also capitulated to the Austrians. The
winter was now far advanced; both sides were weary of the campaign,
and an armistice was concluded. Austria, notwithstanding her late
success, was, owing to the desertion of Prussia, in a critical
position. The imperial troops also refused to act. The princes of
Southern Germany longed for peace. Even Spain followed the example of
Prussia and concluded a treaty with the French republic.
The consequent dissolution of the coalition between the German powers
had at least the effect of preventing the formation of a coalition of
nations against them by the French. Had the alliance between the
sovereigns continued, the French would, from political motives, have
used their utmost endeavors to revolutionize Germany; this project was
rendered needless by the treaty of Basel, which broke up the coalition
and confirmed France in the undisturbed possession of her liberties;
and thus it happened that Prussia unwittingly aided the monarchical
cause by involuntarily preventing the promulgation of the
revolutionary principles of France.
Austria remained unshaken, and refused either to betray the
monarchical cause by the recognition of a revolutionary democratical
government, or to cede the frontiers of the empire to the youthful and
insolent generals of the republic. Conscious of the righteousness of
the cause she upheld, she intrepidly stood her ground and ventured her
single strength in the mighty contest, which the campaign of 1796 was
to decide. The Austrian forces in Germany were commanded by the
emperor's brother, the Archduke Charles; those in Italy, by Beaulieu.
The French, on the other hand, sent Jourdan to the Lower Rhine, Moreau
to the Upper Rhine, Bonaparte to Italy, and commenced the attack on
every point with their wonted impetuosity.
The Austrians had again extended their lines as far as the Lower
Rhine. A corps under Prince Ferdinand of Würtemberg was stationed in
the Bergland, in the narrow corner still left between the Rhine and
the Prussian line of demarcation. Marceau forced him to retire as far
as Altenkirchen, but the Archduke Charles hastening to his assistance
encountered Jourdan's entire force on the Lahn near Kloster Altenberg,
and, after a short contest, compelled it to give way. A great part of
the Austrian army of the Rhine under Wurmser having been, meanwhile,
drawn off and sent into Italy, the archduke was compelled to turn
hastily from Jourdan against Moreau, who had just despatched General
Ferino across the Lake of Constance, while he advanced upon Strasburg.
A small Swabian corps under Colonel Raglowich made an extraordinary
defence in Kehl (the first instance of extreme bravery given by the
imperial troops at that time), but was forced to yield to numbers. The
Austrian general, Sztarray, was, notwithstanding the gallantry
displayed on the occasion, also repulsed at Sasbach; the Wurtemberg
battalion was also driven from the steep pass of the Kniebes,[5]
across which Moreau penetrated through the Black Forest into the heart
of Swabia, and had already reached Freudenstadt, when the Austrian
general, Latour, marched up the Murg. He was, however, also repulsed.
The Archduke Charles now arrived in person in the country around
Pforzheim (on the skirts of the Black Forest), and sent forward his
columns to attack the French in the mountains, but in vain; the French
were victorious at Rothensol and at Wildbad. The archduke retired
behind the Neckar to Cannstadt; his rearguard was pursued through the
city of Stuttgard by the vanguard of the French. After a short
cannonade, the archduke also abandoned his position at Cannstadt. The
whole of the Swabian circle submitted to the French. Wurtemberg was
now compelled to make a formal cession of Mumpelgard, which had been
for some time garrisoned by the French,[6] and, moreover, to pay a
contribution of four million livres; Baden was also mulcted two
millions, the other states of the Swabian circle twelve millions, the
clergy seven millions, altogether twenty-five million livres, without
reckoning the enormous requisition of provisions, horses, clothes,
etc. The archduke, in the meantime, deprived the troops belonging to
the Swabian circle of their arms at Biberach, on account of the peace
concluded by their princes with the French, and retired behind the
Danube by Donauwoerth. Ferino had, meanwhile, also advanced from
Huningen into the Breisgau and to the Lake of Constance, had beaten
the small corps under General Frõhlick at Herbolsheim and the remnant
of the French emigrants under Oonde at Mindelheim,[7] and joined
Moreau in pursuit of the archduke. His troops committed great havoc
wherever they appeared.[8]
Jourdan had also again pushed forward. The archduke had merely been
able to oppose to him on the Lower Rhine thirty thousand men under the
Count von Wartensleben, who, owing to Jourdan's numerical superiority,
had been repulsed across both the Lahn and Maine. Jourdan took
Frankfort by bombardment and imposed upon that city a contribution of
six millions. The Franconian circle also submitted and paid sixteen
millions, without reckoning the requisition of natural productions and
the merciless pillage.[9]
The Archduke Charles, too weak singly to encounter the armies of
Moreau and Jourdan, had, meanwhile, boldly resolved to keep his
opponents as long as possible separate, and, on the first favorable
opportunity, to attack one with the whole of his forces, while he kept
the other at bay with a small division of his army. In pursuance of
this plan, he sent Wartensleben against Jourdan, and, meanwhile, drew
Moreau after him into Bavaria, where, leaving General Latour with a
small corps to keep him in check at Rain on the Lech, he recrossed the
Danube at Ingolstadt with the flower of his army and hastily advanced
against Jourdan, who was thus taken unawares. At Teiningen, he
surprised the French avant-garde under Bernadotte, which he compelled
to retire. At Amberg, he encountered Jourdan, whom he completely
routed, A.D. 1796. The French retreated through the city, on the other
side of which they formed an immense square against the imperial
cavalry under Wernek; it was broken on the third charge, and a
terrible slaughter took place, three thousand of the French being
killed and one thousand taken prisoner. The peasantry had already
flown to arms, and assisted in cutting down the fugitives. Jourdan
again made a stand at Wurzburg, where Wernek stormed his batteries at
the head of his grenadiers and a complete rout ensued, September 3.
The French lost six thousand dead and two thousand prisoners. The
peasantry rose _en masse_, and hunted down the fugitives.[10] On the
Upper Rhone, Dr. Röder placed himself at the head of the peasantry,
but, encountering a superior French corps at Mellrichstadt, was
defeated and killed. The French suffered most in the Spessart, called
by them, on that account, La petite Vendee. The peasantry were here
headed by an aged forester named Philip Witt, and, protected by their
forests, exterminated numbers of the flying foe. The imperial troops
were also unremitting in their pursuit, again defeated Bernadotte at
Aschaffenburg and chased Jourdan through Nassau across the Rhine.
Marceau, who had vainly besieged Mayence, again made stand at
Allerheim, where he was defeated and killed.[11]
Moreau, completely deceived by the archduke, had, meanwhile, remained
in Bavaria. After defeating General Latour at Lechhausen, instead of
setting off in pursuit of the archduke and to Jourdan's aid, he was,
as the archduke had foreseen, attracted by the prospect of gaining a
rich booty, in an opposite direction, toward Munich. Bavaria submitted
to the French, paid ten millions, and ceded twenty of the most
valuable pictures belonging to the Dusseldorf and Munich galleries.
The news of Jourdan's defeat now compelled Moreau to beat a rapid
retreat in order to avoid being cut off by the victorious archduke.
Latour set off vigorously in pursuit, came up with him at Ulm and
again at Ravensberg, but was both times repulsed, owing to his
numerical inferiority. A similar fate awaited the still smaller
imperial corps led against the French by Nauendorf at Rothweil and by
Petrosch at Villingen, and Moreau led the main body of his army in
safety through the deep narrow gorges of the Hollenthal in the Black
Forest to Freiburg in the Breisgau, where he came upon the archduke,
who, amid the acclamations of the armed peasantry (by whom the
retreating French[12] were, as in the Spessart, continually harassed
in their passage through the Black Forest), had hurried, but too late,
to his encounter. Moreau had already sent two divisions of his army,
under Ferino and Desaix, across the Rhine at Huningen and Breisach,
and covered their retreat with the third by taking up a strong
position at Schliesgen, not far from Freiburg, whence, after braving a
first attack, he escaped during the night to Huningen. This retreat,
in which he had saved his army with comparatively little loss, excited
general admiration, but in Italy there was a young man who scornfully
exclaimed, "It was, after all, merely a retreat!"
[Footnote 1: The following trait proves the complete stagnation of
chivalric feeling in the army. Szekuli, colonel of the Prussian
hussars, condemned several patriotic ladies, belonging to the highest
Polish families at Znawrazlaw, to be placed beneath the gallows, in
momentary expectation of death, until it, at length, pleased him to
grant a reprieve, couched in the most offensive and indecent terms.]
[Footnote 2: A most disgraceful treaty. William's enemies, the
fugitive patriots, had promised the French, in return for their aid,
sixty million florins of the spoil of their country. William, upon
this, promised to pay to France a subsidy of eighty millions, in order
to guarantee the security of his frontier, but was instantly outbid by
the base and self-denominated patriots, who offered to France a
hundred million florins in order to induce her to invade their
country.]
[Footnote 3: Von Berlepsch, the councillor of administration, proposed
to the Calemberg diet to declare their neutrality in defiance of
England, and, in case of necessity, to place "the Calemberg Nation"
under the protection of France.--Havemomn.]
[Footnote 4: "Wherever these locusts appear, everything, men, cattle,
food, property, etc., is carried off. These thieves seize everything
convertible into money. Nothing is safe from them. At Cologne, they
filled a church with coffee and sugar. At Aix-la-Chapelle, they
carried off the finest pictures of Rubens and Van Dyck, the pillars
from the altar, and the marble-slab from the tomb of Charlemagne, all
of which they sold to some Dutch Jews."--_Posselt's Annals of 1796_.
At Cologne, the nuns were instantly emancipated from their vows, and
one of the youngest and most beautiful afterward gained great
notoriety as a barmaid at an inn. This scandalous story is related by
Klebe in his Travels on the Rhine. In Bonn, Gleich, a man who had
formerly been a priest, placed himself at the head of the French
rabble and planted trees of liberty. He also gave to the world a
decade, as he termed his publication.--_Müller_, _History of Bonn_.
"The French proclaimed war against the palaces and peace to the huts,
but no hut was too mean to escape the rapacity of these birds of prey.
The first-fruits of liberty was the pillage of every corner."--
_Schwaben's History of Siegburg_. The brothers Boisserée'e afterward
collected a good many of the church pictures, at that period carried
away from Cologne and more particularly from the Lower Rhine. They now
adorn Munich and form the best collection of old German paintings now
existing.]
[Footnote 5: "Had Würtemberg possessed but six thousand well-organized
troops, the position on the Roszbuhl might have been maintained, and
the country have been saved. The millions since paid by Würtemberg,
and which she may still have to pay, would have been spared."--
_Appendix to the History of the Campaign of 1796._]
[Footnote 6: The duke, Charles, had, in 1791, visited Paris, donned
the national cockade, and bribed Mirabeau with a large sum of money to
induce the French government to purchase Mümpelgard from him. The
French, however, were quite as well aware as the duke that they would
ere long possess it gratis.]
[Footnote 7: Moreau generously allowed all his prisoners, who, as
ex-nobles, were destined to the guillotine, to escape.]
[Footnote 8: Armbruster's "Register of French Crime" contains as
follows: "Here and there, in the neighboring towns, there were
certainly symptoms of an extremely favorable disposition toward the
French, which would ill deserve a place in the annals of German
patriotism and of German good sense. This disposition was fortunately
far from general. The appearance of the French in their real
character, and the barbarous excesses and heavy contributions by which
they rendered the people sensible of their presence, speedily effected
their conversion." The French, it is true, neither murdered the
inhabitants nor burned the villages as they had during the previous
century in the Pfalz, but they pillaged the country to a greater
extent, shamefully abused the women, and desecrated the churches.
Their license and the art with which they extorted the last penny from
the wretched people surpassed all belief. "Not satisfied with robbing
the churches, they especially gloried in giving utterance to the most
fearful blasphemies, in destroying and profaning the altars, in
overthrowing the statues of saints, in treading the host beneath their
feet or casting it to dogs.--At the village of Berg in Weingarten,
they set up in the holy of holies the image of the devil, which they
had taken from the representation of the temptation of the Saviour in
the wilderness. In the village of Boos, they roasted a crucifix before
a fire."--_Vide Hurter's Memorabilia, concerning the French allies in
Swabia, who attempted to found an Alemannic Republic. Schaffhausen,
1840_. Moreau reduced them to silence by declaring, "I have no need of
a revolution to the rear of my army."]
[Footnote 9: Notwithstanding Jourdan's proclamation, promising
protection to all private property, Würzburg, Schweinfurt, Bamberg,
etc., were completely pillaged. The young girls fled in hundreds to
the woods. The churches were shamelessly desecrated. When mercy in
God's name was demanded, the plunderers replied, "God! we are God!"
They would dance at night-time around a bowl of burning brandy, whose
blue flames they called their être suprème.--_The French in Franconia,
by Count Soden._]
[Footnote 10: "They deemed the assassination of a foreigner a
meritorious work."--_Ephemeridae of 1797._ "The peasantry, roused to
fury by the disorderly and cruel French, whose excesses exceeded all
belief, did not even extend mercy to the wounded; and the French, with
equal barbarity, set whole villages on fire."--_Appendix to the
Campaign of 1796_].
[Footnote 11: When scarcely in his twenty-seventh year. He was one of
the most distinguished heroes of the Revolution, and as remarkable for
his generosity to his weaker foes as for his moral and chivalric
principles. The Archduke Charles sent his private physicians to attend
upon him, and, on the occasion of his burial, fired a salvo
simultaneously with that of the French stationed on the opposite bank
of the Rhine.--_Mussinan_.]
[Footnote 12: The peasants of the Artenau and the Kinzigthal were
commanded by a wealthy farmer, named John Baader. Besides several
French generals, Hausmann, the commissary of the government, who
accompanied Moreau's army, was taken prisoner.--_Mussinan, History of
the French War of 1796_ etc. A decree, published on the 18th of
September by Frederick Eugene, Duke of Würtemberg, in which he
prohibited his subjects from taking part in the pursuit of the French,
is worthy of remark.]
CCL. Bonaparte
This youth was Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of a lawyer in the island
of Corsica, a man of military genius, who, when a mere lieutenant, had
raised the siege of Toulon, had afterward served the Directory by
dispersing the old Jacobins with his artillery in the streets of
Paris, and had been intrusted with the command of the army in Italy.
Talents, that under a monarchy would have been doomed to obscurity,
were, under the French republic, called into notice, and men of
decided genius could, amid the general competition, alone attain to
power or retain the reins of government.
Bonaparte was the first to take the field. In the April of 1796, he
pushed across the Alps and attacked the Austrians. Beaulieu, a good
general, but too old for service (he was then seventy-two, Napoleon
but twenty-seven), had incautiously extended his lines too far, in
order to preserve a communication with the English fleet in the
Mediterranean. Bonaparte defeated his scattered forces at Montenotte
and Millesimo, between the 10th and 15th of April, and, turning
sharply upon the equally scattered Sardinian force, beat it in several
engagements, the principal of which took place at Mondovi, between the
19th and 22d of April. An armistice was concluded with Sardinia, and
Beaulieu, who vainly attempted to defend the Po, was defeated on the
7th and 8th of May, at Fombio. The bridge over the Adda at Lodi, three
hundred paces in length, extremely narrow and to all appearance
impregnable, defended by his lieutenant Sebottendorf, was carried by
storm, and, on the 15th of May, Bonaparte entered Milan. Beaulieu took
up a position behind the Mincio, notwithstanding which, Bonaparte
carried the again ill-defended bridge at Borghetto by storm. While in
this part of the country, he narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by
a party of skirmishers, and was compelled to fly half-naked, with but
one foot booted, from his night quarters at St. Georgio.
Beaulieu now withdrew into the Tyrol. Sardinia made peace, and terms
were offered by the pope and by Naples. Leghorn was garrisoned with
French troops; all the English goods lying in this harbor, to the
value of twelve million pounds, were confiscated. The strongly
fortified city of Mantua, defended by the Austrians under their
gallant leader, Canto d'Irles, was besieged by Bonaparte. A fresh body
of Austrian troops under Wurmser crossed the mountains to their
relief; but Wurmser, instead of advancing with his whole force,
incautiously pressed forward with thirty-two thousand men through the
valley of the Adige, while Quosdanowich led eighteen thousand along
the western shore of the Lake of Garda. Bonaparte instantly perceived
his advantage, and, attacking the latter, defeated him on the 3d of
August, at Lonato. Wurmser had entered Mantua unopposed on the 1st,
but, setting out in search of the enemy, was unexpectedly attacked, on
the 5th of August, by the whole of Bonaparte's forces at Castiglione,
and compelled, like Quosdanowich, to seek shelter in the Tyrol. This
senseless mode of attack had been planned by Weirotter, a colonel
belonging to the general staff. Wurmser now received reinforcements,
and Laner, the general of the engineers, was intrusted with the
projection of a better plan. He again weakened the army by dividing
his forces. In the beginning of September, Davidowich penetrated with
twenty thousand men through the valley of the Adige and was defeated
at Roveredo, and Wurmser, who had, meanwhile, advanced with an army of
twenty-six thousand men through the valley of the Brenta, met with a
similar fate at Bassano. He, nevertheless, escaped the pursuit of the
victorious French by making a circuit, and threw himself by a forced
march into Mantua, where he was, however, unable to make a lengthy
resistance, the city being over-populated and provisions scarce. A
fresh army of twenty-eight thousand men, under Alvinzi, sent to his
relief[1] through the valley of the Brenta, was attacked in a strong
position at Arcole, on the river Alpon. Two dams protected the bank
and a narrow bridge, which was, on the 15th of November, vainly
stormed by the French, although General Augereau and Bonaparte, with
the colors in his hand, led the attack. On the following day, Alvinzi
foolishly crossed the bridge and took up an exposed position, in which
he was beaten, and, on the third day, he retreated. Davidowich,
meanwhile, again advanced from the Tyrol and gained an advantage at
Rivoli, but was also forced to retreat before Bonaparte. Wurmser, when
too late, made a sally, which was, consequently, useless. The campaign
was, nevertheless, for the fifth time, renewed. Alvinzi collected
reinforcements and again pushed forward into the valley of the Adige,
but speedily lost courage and suffered a fearful defeat, in which
twenty thousand of his men were taken prisoners, on the 14th and 15th
of January, A.D. 1797, at Rivoli. Provera, on whom he had relied for
assistance from Padua, was cut off and taken prisoner with his entire
corps. Wurmser capitulated at Mantua with twenty-one thousand men.
The spring of 1797 had scarcely commenced when Bonaparte was already
pushing across the Alps toward Vienna. Hoche, at the same time, again
attacked the Lower and Moreau the Upper Rhine. Bonaparte, the nearest
and most dangerous foe, was opposed by the archduke, whose army,
composed of the remains of Alvinzi's disbanded and discouraged troops,
called forth the observation from Bonaparte, "Hitherto I have defeated
armies without generals, now I am about to attack a general without an
army!" A battle took place at Tarvis, amid the highest mountains,
whence it was afterward known as "the battle above the clouds." The
archduke, with a handful of Hungarian hussars, valiantly defended the
pass against sixteen thousand French under Massena, nor turned to fly
until eight only of his men remained. Generals Bayalich and Ocskay,
instead of supporting him, had yielded. The archduke again collected
five thousand men around him at Glogau and opposed the advance of the
immensely superior French force until two hundred and fifty of his men
alone remained. The conqueror of Italy rapidly advanced through Styria
upon Vienna. Another French corps under Joubert had penetrated into
the Tyrol, but had been so vigorously assailed at Spinges by the brave
peasantry[2] as to be forced to retire upon Bonaparte's main body,
with which he came up at Villach, after losing between six and eight
thousand men during his retreat through the Pusterthal. The rashness
with which Bonaparte, leaving the Alps to his rear and regardless of
his distance from France, penetrated into the enemy's country, had
placed him in a position affording every facility for the Austrians,
by a bold and vigorous stroke, to cut him off and take him prisoner.
They had garrisoned Trieste and Fiume on the Adriatic and formed an
alliance with the republic of Venice, at that time well supplied with
men, arms, and gold. A great insurrection of the peasantry, infuriated
by the pillage of the French troops, had broken out at Bergamo. The
gallant Tyrolese, headed by Count Lehrbach, and the Hungarians, had
risen en masse. The victorious troops of the Archduke Charles were en
route from the Rhine, and Mack had armed the Viennese and the
inhabitants of the thickly-populated neighborhood of the metropolis.
Bonaparte was lost should the archduke's plan of operations meet with
the approbation of the Viennese cabinet, and, perfectly aware of the
fact, he made proposals of peace under pretence of sparing unnecessary
bloodshed. The imperial court, stupefied by the late discomfiture in
Italy, instead of regarding the proposals of the wily Frenchman as a
confession of embarrassment, and of assailing him with redoubled
vigor, acceded to them, and, on the 18th of April, Count Cobenzl,
Thugut's successor, concluded the preliminaries of peace at Leoben, by
which the French, besides being liberated from their dangerous
position, were recognized as victors. The negotiations of peace were
continued at the chateau of Campo Formio, where the Austrians somewhat
regained courage, and Count Cobenzl[3] even ventured to refuse some of
the articles proposed. Bonaparte, irritated by opposition, dashed a
valuable cup, the gift of the Russian empress, violently to the
ground, exclaiming, "You wish for war? Well! you shall have it, and
your monarchy shall be shattered like that cup." The armistice was not
interrupted. Hostilities were even suspended on the Rhine. The
archduke had, before quitting that river, gained the _tétes de pont_
of Strasburg (Kehl) and of Huningen, besides completely clearing the
right bank of the Rhine of the enemy. The whole of these advantages
were again lost on his recall to take the field against Napoleon. The
Saxon troops, which had, up to this period, steadily sided with
Austria, were recalled by the elector. Swabia, Franconia, and Bavaria
were intent upon making peace with France. Baron von Fahnenberg, the
imperial envoy at Ratisbon, bitterly reproached the Protestant estates
for their evident inclination to follow the example of Prussia by
siding with the French and betraying their fatherland to their common
foe, but, on applying more particularly for aid to the spiritual
princes, who were exposed to the greatest danger, he found them
equally lukewarm. Each and all refused to furnish troops or to pay a
war tax. The imperial troops were, consequently, compelled to enforce
their maintenance, and naturally became the objects of popular hatred.
In this wretched manner was the empire defended! The petty imperial
corps on the Rhine were, meanwhile, compelled to retreat before an
enemy vastly their superior in number. Wernek, attempting with merely
twenty-two thousand men to obstruct the advance of an army of
sixty-five thousand French under Hoche, was defeated at Neuwied and
deprived of his command.[4] Sztarray, who charged seven times at the
head of his men, was also beaten by Moreau at Kehl and Diersheim. At
this conjuncture, the armistice of Leoben was published.