A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4

W >> Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks >> Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4




[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.

A peace, based on the terms proposed at Leoben, was formally concluded
at Campo Formio, October 17, 1797. The triumph of the French republic
was confirmed, and ancient Europe received a new form. The object for
which the sovereigns of France had for centuries vainly striven was
won by the monarchless nation; France gained the preponderance in
Europe. Italy and the whole of the left bank of the Rhine were
abandoned to her arbitrary rule, and this fearful loss, far from
acting as a warning to Germany and promoting her unity, merely
increased her internal dissensions and offered to the French republic
an opportunity for intervention, of which it took advantage for
purposes of gain and pillage.

The principal object of the policy of Bonaparte and of the French
Directory, at that period, was, by rousing the ancient feelings of
enmity between Austria and Prussia, to eternalize the disunion between
those two monarchies. Bonaparte, after effectuating the peace by means
of terror, loaded Austria with flattery. He flattered her religious
feelings by the moderation of his conduct in Italy toward the pope,
notwithstanding the disapprobation manifested by the genuine French
republicans, and her interests by the offer of Venice in compensation
for the loss of the Netherlands, and, making a slight side-movement
against that once powerful and still wealthy republic, reduced it at
the first blow, nay, by mere threats, to submission; so deeply was the
ancient aristocracy here also fallen. The cession of Venice to the
emperor was displeasing to the French republicans. They were, however,
pacified by the delivery of Lafayette, who had been still detained a
prisoner in Austria after the treaty of Basel. Napoleon said in
vindication of his policy, "I have merely lent Venice to the emperor,
he will not keep her long." He, moreover, gratified Austria by the
extension of her western frontier, so long the object of her ambition,
by the possession of the archbishopric of Salzburg and of a part of
Bavaria with the town of Wasserburg.[5] The sole object of these
concessions was provisionally to dispose Austria in favor of
France,[6] and to render Prussia's ancient jealousy of Austria
implacable.[7] Hence the secret articles of peace by which France and
Austria bound themselves not to grant any compensation to Prussia.
Prussia was on her part, however, resolved not to be the loser, and,
in the summer of 1797, took forcible possession of the imperial free
town of Nuremberg, notwithstanding her declaration made just three
years previously through Count Soden to the Franconian circle, "that
the king had never harbored the design of seeking a compensation at
the expense of the empire, whose constitution had ever been sacred in
his eyes!" and to the empire, "He deemed it beneath his dignity to
refute the reports concerning Prussia's schemes of aggrandizement,
oppression, and secularization." Prussia also extended her possessions
in Franconia[8] and Westphalia, and Hesse-Cassel imitated her example
by the seizure of a part of Schaumburg-Lippe. The diet energetically
remonstrated, but in vain. Pamphlets spoke of the Prussian reunion-
chambers opened by Hardenberg in Franconia. An attempt was, however,
made to console the circle of Franconia by depicturing the far worse
sufferings of that of Swabia under the imperial contributions. The
petty Estates of the empire stumbled, under these circumstances, upon
the unfortunate idea "that the intercession of the Russian court
should be requested for the maintenance of the integrity of the German
empire and for that of her constitution"; the intercession of the
Russian court, which had so lately annihilated Poland!

Shortly after this, A.D. 1797, Frederick William II., who had, on his
accession to the throne, found seventy-two millions of dollars in the
treasury, expired, leaving twenty-eight millions of debts. His son,
Frederick William III., placed the Countess Lichtenau under arrest,
banished Wollner, and abolished the unpopular monopoly in tobacco, but
retained his father's ministers and continued the alliance, so
pregnant with mischief, with France.--This monarch, well-meaning and
destined to the severest trials, educated by a peevish valetudinarian
and ignorant of affairs, was first taught by bitter experience the
utter incapacity of the men at that time at the head of the
government, and after, as will be seen, completely reforming the
court, the government, and the army, surrounded himself with men, who
gloriously delivered Prussia and Germany from all the miseries and
avenged all the disgrace, which it is the historian's sad office to
record.

Austria, as Prussia had already done by the treaty of Basel, also
sacrificed, by the peace of Campo Formio, the whole of the left bank
of the Rhine and abandoned it to France, the loss thereby suffered by
the Estates of the empire being indemnified by the secularization of
the ecclesiastical property in the interior of Germany and by the
prospect of the seizure of the imperial free towns. Mayence was ceded
without a blow to France. Holland was forgotten. The English, under
pretext of opposing France, destroyed, A.D. 1797, the last Dutch
fleet, in the Texel, though not without a heroic and determined
resistance on the part of the admirals de Winter and Reintjes, both of
whom were severely wounded, and the latter died in captivity in
England. Holland was formed into a Batavian, Genoa into a Ligurian,
Milan with the Valtelline (from which the Grisons was severed) into a
Cisalpine, republic. Intrigues were, moreover, set on foot for the
formation of a Roman and Neapolitan republic in Italy and of a Rhenish
and Swabian one in Germany, all of which were to be subordinate to the
mother republic in France. The proclamation of a still-born Cisrhenish
republic (it not having as yet been constituted when it was swallowed
up in the great French republic), in the masterless Lower Rhenish
provinces in the territory of Treves, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Cologne,
under the influence of the French Jacobins and soldiery, was, however,
all that could at first be done openly.

The hauteur with which Bonaparte, backed by his devoted soldiery, had
treated the republicans, and the contempt manifested by him toward the
citizens, had not failed to rouse the jealous suspicions of the
Directory, the envy of the less successful generals, and the hatred of
the old friends of liberty, by whom he was already designated as a
tyrant. The republican party was still possessed of considerable
power, and the majority of the French troops under Moreau, Jourdan,
Bernadotte, etc., were still ready to shed their blood in the cause of
liberty. Bonaparte, compelled to veil his ambitious projects, judged
it more politic, after sowing the seed of discord at Campo Formio, to
withdraw a while, in order to await the ripening of the plot and to
return to reap the result. He, accordingly, went meantime, A.D. 1798,
with a small but well-picked army to Egypt, for the ostensible purpose
of opening a route overland to India, the sea-passage having been
closed against France by the British, but, in reality, for the purpose
of awaiting there a turn in continental affairs, and, moreover, by his
victories over the Turks in the ancient land of fable to add to the
wonder it was ever his object to inspire. On his way thither he seized
the island of Malta and compelled Baron Hompesch, the grand-master of
the order of the Knights of Malta, to resign his dignity, the fortress
being betrayed into his hands by the French knights.

At Rastadt, near Baden, where the compensation mentioned in the treaty
of Campo Formio was to be taken into consideration, the terrified
Estates of the empire assembled for the purpose of suing the French
ambassadors for the lenity they had not met with at the hands of
Austria and Prussia.--The events that took place at Rastadt are of a
description little calculated to flatter the patriotic feelings of the
German historian. The soul of the congress was Charles Maurice
Talleyrand-Perigord, at one time a bishop, at the present period
minister of the French republic. His colloquy with the German
ambassadors resembled that of the fox with the geese, and he attuned
their discords with truly diabolical art. While holding Austria and
Prussia apart, instigating them one against the other, flattering both
with the friendship of the republic and with the prospect of a rich
booty by the secularization of the ecclesiastical lands, he encouraged
some of the petty states with the hope of aggrandizement by an
alliance with France,[9] and, with cruel contempt, allowed others a
while to gasp for life before consigning them to destruction. The
petty princes, moreover, who had been deprived of their territory on
the other side of the Rhine, demanded lands on this side in
compensation; all the petty princes on this side consequently trembled
lest they should be called upon to make compensation, and each
endeavored, by bribing the members of the congress, Talleyrand in
particular, to render himself an exception. The French minister was
bribed not by gold alone; a considerable number of ladies gained great
notoriety by their liaison with the insolent republican, from whom
they received nothing, the object for which they sued being sold by
him sometimes even two or three times. Momus, a satirical production
of this period, relates numerous instances of crime and folly that are
perfectly incredible. The avarice manifested by the French throughout
the whole of the negotiations was only surpassed by the brutality of
their language and behavior. Roberjot, Bonnier, and Jean de Bry, the
dregs of the French nation, treated the whole of the German empire on
this occasion _en canaille_, and, while picking the pockets of the
Germans, were studiously coarse and brutal; still the trifling
opposition they encountered, and the total want of spirit in the
representatives of the great German empire, whom it must, in fact,
have struck them as ridiculous to see thus humbled at their feet,
forms an ample excuse for their demeanor.

Gustavus Adolphus IV., who mounted the throne of Sweden in 1796,
distinguished himself at that time among the Estates of the empire,
when Duke of Pomerania and Prince of Rugen, by his solemn protest
against the depredations committed by France, and by his summons to
every member of the German empire to take the field against their
common foe. Hesse-Cassel was also remarkable for the warlike demeanor
and decidedly anti-Gallic feeling of her population; and Wurtemberg,
for being the first of the German states that gave the example of
making concessions more in accordance with the spirit of the times. By
the abolition of ancient abuses alone could the princes meet the
threats used on every occasion by the French at Rastadt to
revolutionize the people unless their demands were fully complied
with. In Wurtemberg, the duke, Charles, had been succeeded, A.D. 1793,
by his brother, Louis Eugène, who banished license from his court,
but, a foe to enlightenment, closed the Charles college, placed monks
around his person, was extremely bigoted, and a zealous but impotent
friend to France. He expired, A.D. 1795, and was succeeded by the
third brother, Frederick Eugène, who had been during his youth a canon
at Salzburg, but afterward became a general in the Prussian service,
married a princess of Brandenburg, and educated his children in the
Protestant faith in order to assimilate the religion of the reigning
family with that of the people. His mild government terminated in
1797. Frederick, his talented son and successor, mainly frustrated the
projected establishment of a Swabian republic, which was strongly
supported by the French, by his treatment of the provincial Estates,
the modification of the rights of chase, etc., on which occasion he
took the following oath: "I repeat the solemn vow, ever to hold the
constitution of this country sacred and to make the weal of my
subjects the aim of my life." He nevertheless appears, by the
magnificent fetes, masquerades, and pastoral festivals given by him,
as if in a time of the deepest peace, at Hohenheim, to have trusted
more to his connection with England, by his marriage with the princess
royal, Matilda,[10] with Russia, and with Austria (the emperor Paul,
Catherine's successor, having married the princess Maria of
Wurtemberg, and the emperor Francis II., her sister Elisabeth), than
to the constitution, which he afterward annihilated.

The weakness displayed by the empire and the increasing disunion
between Austria and Prussia encouraged the French to further
insolence. Not satisfied with garrisoning every fortification on the
left bank of the Rhine, they boldly attacked, starved to submission,
and razed to the ground, during peace time, the once impregnable
fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, on the right bank of the Rhine, opposite
Coblentz.[11] Not content with laying the Netherlands and Holland
completely waste, they compelled the Hanse towns to grant them a loan
of eighteen million livres. Lubeck refused, but Hamburg and Bremen,
more nearly threatened and hopeless of aid from Prussia, were
constrained to satisfy the demands of the French brigands. In the
Netherlands, the German faction once more rose in open insurrection;
in 1798, the young men, infuriated by the conscription and by their
enrolment into French regiments, flew to arms, and torrents of blood
were shed in the struggle, in which they were unaided by their German
brethren, before they were again reduced to submission. The English
also landed at Ostend, but for the sole purpose of destroying the
sluices of the canal at Bruges.

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