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




The levy of eighteen thousand men (the Helvetlers, Galloschwyzers or
eighteen batzmen) for the service of the Helvetian republic occasioned
fresh disturbances in the beginning of 1799. The opposition was so
great that the recruits were carried in chains to Berne. The Bernese
Oberland, the peasantry of Basel, Solothurn, Toggenburg, Appenzell,
and Glarus rose in open insurrection, but were again reduced to
submission by the military. The spirit of the mountaineers was,
however, less easily tamed. In April, 1799, the people of Schwyz took
four hundred French prisoners; those of Uri, under their leader,
Vincenz Schmid, stormed and burned Altorf, the seat of the French and
their adherents; those of Valais, under the youthful Count Courten,
drove the French from their valleys, and those of the Grisons
surprised and cut to pieces a French squadron at Dissentis. General
Soult took the field with a strong force against them in May and
reduced them one after the other, but with great loss on his side, to
submission. Twelve hundred French fell in Valais, which was completely
laid waste by fire and sword; in Uri, stones and rocks were hurled
upon them by the infuriated peasantry as they defiled through the
narrow gorges; Schmid was, however, taken and shot; Schwyz was also
reduced to obedience; in the Grisons, upward of a thousand French fell
in a bloody engagement at Coire, and the magnificent monastery of
Dissentis was, in revenge, burned to the ground. The beautiful
Bergland was reduced to an indescribable state of misery. The villages
lay in ashes; the people, who had escaped the general massacre, fell
victims to famine. In this extremity, Zschokke, at that time Helvetic
governor of the Waldstatte, proposed the complete expulsion of the
ancient inhabitants and the settlement of French colonists in the
fatherland of William Tell.[14]

The imperial free town of Muhlhausen in the Suntgau, the ancient ally
of Switzerland, fell, like her, into the hands of the French. Unable
to preserve her independence, she committed a singular political
suicide. The whole of the town property was divided among the
citizens. A girl, attired in the ancient Swiss costume, delivered the
town keys to the French commissioner; the city banner and arms were
buried with great solemnity.[15]

The French had also shown as little lenity in their treatment of
Italy. Rome was entered and garrisoned with French troops; the
handsome and now venerable puppet, Pope Pius VI., was seized, robbed,
and personally maltreated (his ring was even torn from his hand), and
dragged a prisoner to France, where he expired in the August of 1799.


[Footnote 1: "The peasant, when summoned into the presence of a
governor, lord of the council, head of a guild, or preacher, stood
there, not as a free Swiss, but as a criminal trembling before his
judge."--_Lehmann on the imaginary Freedom of the Swiss. 1799._]

[Footnote 2: "The important office of provincial secretary was, in
this manner, hereditary in the family of the Beroldingen of
Uri."--_Lehmann_.]

[Footnote 3: "In the Grisons, the constitution was extremely
complicated. The lordships of Meyenfeld and Aspermont were, for
instance, subject to the three confederated cantons and under the
control of the provincial governors nominated by them; they were at
the same time members of the whole free state, and, as such, had a
right of lordship over the subject provinces, over which, they, in
their turn, appointed a governor."--_Meyer von Knonau's Geography._]

[Footnote 4: The best information concerning the authority held by the
provincial governors, who enjoyed almost unlimited sway over their
districts, is to be met with in the excellent biography of Solomon
Landolt, the provincial governor of Zurich, by David Hesz. Landolt was
the model of an able but extremely tyrannical governor (he ruled over
Greisensee and Eglisau) and gained great note by his salomonic
judgments and by his quaint humor. He founded the Swiss rifle clubs
and introduced that national weapon into modern warfare. He was also a
painter and had the whim, notwithstanding the constant triumph of the
French, ever to represent them in his pictures as the vanquished
party.]

[Footnote 5: Hirzel wrote at that time, in his "Glimpses into the
History of the Confederation," that Captain Henzl had been deprived of
his head because he was the only man in the country who had one.
Zimmerman says in his "National Pride," "A foreign philosopher visited
Switzerland for the purpose of settling in a country where thought was
free; he remained ten days at Zurich and then went to--Portugal." In
1774, the clocks at Basel, which, since the siege of Rudolph of
Habsburg, had remained one hour behindhand, were, after immense
opposition, regulated like those in the rest of the world. Two
factions sprang up on this occasion, that of the Spieszburghers or
Lalleburghers (the ancient one), and that of the Francemen or
new-modellers (the modern one).]

[Footnote 6: Laharpe was at the same time a demagogue in the Vaud and
tutor to the emperor Alexander at Petersburg.]

[Footnote 7: Valtelline with Chiavenna and Bormio (Cleves and Worms)
were ill-treated by the people of the Grisons. Offices and justice
were regularly jobbed and sold to the highest bidder. The people of
Valtelline hastily entered into alliance with France, while the
oppressed peasantry in the Grisons rebelled against the ruling family
of Salis, which had long been in the pay of the French kings, and had,
since the revolution, sided with Austria. John Müller appeared at
Basel as Thugut's agent for the purpose of inciting the confederation
against France.--_Ochs's History of Basel._]

[Footnote 8: While here, he gave Fesch, the pastry-cook, whose
brother, a Swiss lieutenant, was the second husband of Bonaparte's
maternal grandmother, a very friendly reception. The offspring of this
second marriage was the future Cardinal Fesch, Letitia's half-brother
and Napoleon's uncle, whom Napoleon attempted to create primate of
Germany and to raise to the pontifical throne.]

[Footnote 9: Some of the cantons imagined that France merely aspired
to the possession of Valais, and, jealous of the prosperity and power
of Berne, willingly permitted her to suffer this humiliation.-_Meyer
von Knonau_].

[Footnote 10: Two Bernese, condemned to work in the trenches at
Yferten, on being liberated by the French, returned voluntarily to
Berne, in order to aid in the defense of the city. A rare trait, in
those times, of ancient Swiss fidelity.]

[Footnote 11: A good deal of it was spent by Bonaparte during his
expedition into Egypt, and, even at the present day, the Bernese bear
is to be seen on coins still in circulation on the banks of the
Nile.--_Meyer von Knonau._]

[Footnote 12: The venerable Pestalozzi assembled the orphans and
founded his celebrated model academy at Stanz. Seventy-nine women and
girls were found among the slain. A story is told of a girl who, being
attacked, in a lonely house, by two Frenchmen, knocked their heads
together with such force that they dropped down dead.]

[Footnote 13: Not far from Pruntrut is the hill of Terri, said to have
been formerly occupied by one of Cæsar's camps. The French named it
_Mont Terrible_ and created a _department du Mont Terrible_. Vide
Meyer von Knonau's Geography.]

[Footnote 14: In his "Political Remarks touching the Canton of
Waldstatten," dated the 23d of June, 1799, he says: "Let us imitate
the political maxims of the conquerors of old, who drove the
inhabitants most inimical to them into foreign countries and
established colonies, composed of families of their own kin, in the
heart of the conquered provinces." His proposal remaining unseconded,
he sought to obliterate the bad impression it had made, by publishing
a proclamation, calling upon the charitably inclined to raise a
subscription for the unfortunate inhabitants of the Waldstatte.]


[Footnote 15: Vide Graf's History of Muhlhausen.]



CCLII. The Second Coalition


Prussia looked calmly on, with a view of increasing her power by peace
while other states ruined themselves by war, and of offering her
arbitration at a moment when she could turn their mutual losses to
advantage. Austria, exposed to immediate danger by the occupation of
Switzerland by the French, remained less tranquil and hastily formed a
fresh coalition with England and Russia. Catherine II. had expired,
1796. Her son, Paul I., cherished the most ambitious views. His
election as grand-master of the Maltese order dispersed by Napoleon
had furnished him with a sort of right of interference in the affairs
of the Levant and of Italy. On the 1st of March, 1799, the Ionian
Islands, Corfu, etc., were occupied by Russian troops, and a Russian
army, under the terrible Suwarow, moved, in conjunction with the
troops of Austria, upon Italy. The project of the Russian czar was, by
securing his footing on the Mediterranean and at the same time
encircling Turkey, to attack Constantinople on both sides, on the
earliest opportunity. Austria was merely to serve as a blind tool for
the attainment of his schemes. Mack was despatched to Naples for the
purpose of bringing about a general rising in Southern Italy against
the French, and England lavished gold. The absence of Bonaparte
probably inspired several of the allied generals with greater courage,
not the French, but he, being the object of their dread. The conduct
of the French at Rastadt had revolted every German and had justly
raised their most implacable hatred, which burst forth during a
popular tumult at Vienna, when the tricolor, floating from the palace
of General Bernadotte, the French ambassador, was torn down and
burned. The infamous assassination of the French ambassadors at
Rastadt also took place during this agitated period. Bonnier,
Roberjot, and Jean de Bry quitted Rastadt on the breaking out of war,
and were attacked and cut to pieces by some Austrian hussars in a wood
close to the city gate. Jean de Bry alone escaped, although
dangerously wounded, with his life. This atrocious act was generally
believed to have been committed through private revenge, or, what is
far more probable, for the purpose of discovering by the papers of the
ambassadors the truth of the reports at that time in circulation
concerning the existence of a conspiracy and projects for the
establishment of republics throughout Germany. The real motive was,
however, not long ago,[1] unveiled. Austria had revived her ancient
projects against Bavaria, and, as early as 1798, had treated with the
French Directory for the possession of that electorate in return for
her toleration of the occupatign of Switzerland by the troops of the
republic. The venerable elector, Charles Theodore, who had been
already persuaded to cede Bavaria and to content himself with
Franconia, dying suddenly of apoplexy while at the card-table, was
succeeded by his cousin, Maximilian Joseph of Pfalz-Zweibrucken, from
whom, on account of his numerous family, no voluntary cession was to
be expected either for the present or future. Thugut and Lehr-bach,
the rulers of the Viennese cabinet, in the hope of compromising and
excluding him, as a traitor to the empire, from the Bavarian
succession, by the production of proofs of his being the secret ally
of France, hastily resolved upon the assassination of the French
ambassadors at Rastadt, on the bare supposition of their having in
their possession documents in the handwriting of the elector. None
were, however, discovered, the French envoys having either taken the
precaution of destroying them or of committing them to the
safe-keeping of the Prussian ambassador. This crime was, as Hormayr
observes, at the same time, a political blunder. This horrible act was
perpetrated on the 28th of April, 1799.

The campaign had, a month anterior to this event, been opened by the
French, who had attacked the Austrians in their still scattered
positions. Disunion prevailed as usual in the Austrian military
council. The Archduke Charles proposed the invasion of France from the
side of Swabia. The occupation of Switzerland by the troops of Austria
was, nevertheless, resolved upon, and General Auffenberg, accordingly,
entered the Grisons. The French instantly perceived and hastened to
anticipate the designs of the Austrian cabinet. Auffenberg was
defeated by Massena on the St. Luciensteig and expelled the Grisons,
while Hotze on the Vorarlberg and Bellegarde in the Tyrol looked
calmly on at the head of fifteen thousand men. The simultaneous
invasion of Swabia by Jourdan now induced the military council at
Vienna to accede to the proposal formerly made by the Archduke
Charles, who was despatched with the main body of the army to Swabia,
where, on the 25th of March, 1799, he gained a complete victory over
Jourdan at Ostrach and Stockach.[2] The Grisons were retaken in May by
Hotze, and, in June, the archduke joining him, Massena was defeated at
Zurich, and the steep passes of Mont St. Gothard were occupied by
Haddik. Massena was, however, notwithstanding the immense numerical
superiority of the archduke's forces, which could easily have driven
him far into France, allowed to remain undisturbed at Bremgarten. The
French, under Scherer, in Italy, had, meanwhile, been defeated, in
April, by Kray, at Magnano. This success was followed by the arrival
of Melas from Vienna, of Bellegarde from the Tyrol, and lastly, by
that of the Russian vanguard under Suwarow, who took the chief command
and beat the whole of the French forces in Italy; Moreau, at Cassano
and Marengo, in May; Macdonald, on his advance from Lower Italy, on
the Trebbia, in June; and finally, Joubert, in the great battle of
Novi, in which Joubert was killed, August the 15th, 1799. Dissensions
now broke out among the victors. A fourth of the forces in Italy
belonged to Austria, merely one-fifth to Russia; the Austrians,
consequently, imagined that the war was merely carried on on their
account. The Austrian forces were, against Suwarow's advice, divided,
for the purpose of reducing Mantua and Alessandria and of occupying
Tuscany. The king of Sardinia, whom Suwarow desired to restore to his
throne, was forbidden to enter his states by the Austrians, who
intended to retain possession of them for some time longer. The whole
of Italy, as far as Ancona and Genoa, was now freed from the French,
whom the Italians, embittered by their predatory habits, had aided to
expel, and Suwarow received orders to join his forces with those under
Korsakow, who was then on the Upper Rhine with thirty thousand men.
The archduke might, even without this fresh reinforcement, have
already annihilated Massena had he not remained during three months,
from June to August, in a state of complete inactivity; at the very
moment of Suwarow's expected arrival he allowed the important passes
of the St. Gothard to be again carried by a coup de main by the French
under General Lecourbe, who drove the Austrians from the Simplon, the
Furca, the Grimsel, and the Devil's bridge. The archduke, after an
unsuccessful attempt to push across the Aar at Dettingen, suddenly
quitted the scene of war and advanced down the Rhine for the purpose
of supporting the English expedition under the Duke of York against
Holland. This unexpected turn in affairs proceeded from Vienna. The
Viennese cabinet was jealous of Russia. Suwarow played the master in
Italy, favored Sardinia at the expense of the house of Habsburg, and
deprived the Austrians of the laurels and of the advantages they had
won. The archduke, accordingly, received orders to remain inactive, to
abandon the Russians, and finally to withdraw to the north; by this
movement Suwarow's triumphant progress was checked, he was compelled
to cross the Alps to the aid of Korsakow, and to involve himself in a
mountain warfare ill-suited to the habits of his soldiery.[3]
Korsakow, whom Bavaria had been bribed with Russian gold to furnish
with a corps one thousand strong, was solely supported by Kray and
Hotze with twenty thousand men. Massena, taking advantage of the
departure of the archduke and the non-arrival of Suwarow, crossed the
Limmat at Dietikon and shut Korsakow, who had imprudently stationed
himself with his whole army in Zurich, so closely in, that, after an
engagement that lasted two days, from the 15th to the 17th of
September, the Russian general was compelled to abandon his artillery
and to force his way through the enemy. Ten thousand men were all that
escaped.[4] Hotze, who had advanced from the Grisons to Schwyz to
Suwarow's rencounter, was, at the same time, defeated and killed at
Schannis. Suwarow, although aware that the road across the St. Gothard
was blocked by the lake of the four cantons, on which there were no
boats, had the folly to attempt the passage. In Airolo, he was
obstinately opposed by the French under Lecourbe, and, although
Schweikowski contrived to turn this strong position by scaling the
pathless rocks, numbers of the men were, owing to Suwarow's
impatience, sacrificed before it. On the 24th of September, 1799, he
at length climbed the St. Gothard, and a bloody engagement, in which
the French were worsted, took place on the Oberalpsee. Lecourbe blew
up the Devil's bridge, but, leaving the Urnerloch open, the Russians
pushed through that rocky gorge, and, dashing through the foaming
Reuss, scaled the opposite rocks and drove the French from their
position behind the Devil's bridge. Altorf on the lake was reached in
safety by the Russian general, who was compelled, owing to the want of
boats, to seek his way through the valleys of Shachen and Muotta,
across the almost impassable rocks, to Schwyz. The heavy rains
rendered the undertaking still more arduous; the Russians, owing to
the badness of the road, speedily became barefoot; the provisions were
also exhausted. In this wretched state they reached Muotta on the 29th
of September and learned the discouraging news of Korsakow's defeat.
Massena had already set off in the hope of cutting off Suwarow, but
had missed his way. He reached Altorf, where he joined Lecourbe on the
29th, when Suwarow was already at Muotta, whence Massena found on his
arrival he had again retired across the Bragelberg, through the
Klonthal. He was opposed on the lake of Klonthal by Molitor, who was,
however, forced to retire by Auffenberg, who had joined Suwarow at
Altorf and formed his advanced guard, Rosen, at the same time, beating
off Massena with the rear-guard, taking five cannons and one thousand
of his men prisoners. On the 1st of October, Suwarow entered Glarus,
where he rested until the 4th, when he crossed the Panixer mountains
through snow two feet deep to the valley of the Rhine, which he
reached on the 10th, after losing the whole of his beasts of burden
and two hundred of his men down the precipices; and here ended his
extraordinary march, which had cost him the whole of his artillery,
almost all his horses, and a third of his men.

The archduke had, meanwhile, tarried on the Rhine, where he had taken
Philippsburg and Mannheim, but had been unable to prevent the defeat
of the English expedition under the Duke of York by General Brune at
Bergen, on the 19th of September. The archduke now, for the first
time, made a retrograde movement, and approached Korsakow and Suwarow.
The different leaders, however, merely reproached each other, and the
czar, perceiving his project frustrated, suddenly recalled his troops
and the campaign came to a close. The archduke's rearguard was
defeated in a succession of petty skirmishes at Heidelberg and on the
Neckar by the French, who again pressed forward.[5] These disasters
were counterbalanced by the splendid victory gained by Melas in Italy,
at Savigliano, over Championnet, who attempted to save Genoa.

Austria was no sooner deprived in Suwarow of the most efficient of her
allies than she was attacked by her most dangerous foe. Bonaparte
returned from Egypt. The news of the great disasters of the French in
Italy no sooner arrived, than he abandoned his army and hastened,
completely unattended, to France, through the midst of the English
fleet, then stationed in the Mediterranean. His arrival in Paris was
instantly followed by his public nomination as generalissimo. He alone
had the power of restoring victory to the standard of the republic.
The ill success of his rivals had greatly increased his popularity; he
had become indispensable to his countrymen. His power was alone
obnoxious to the weak government, which, aided by the soldiery, he
dissolved on the 9th of November (the 18th Brumaire, by the modern
French calendar); he then bestowed a new constitution upon France and
placed himself, under the title of First Consul, at the head of the
republic.

In the following year, 1800, Bonaparte made preparations for a fresh
campaign against Austria, under circumstances similar to those of the
first. But this time he was more rapid in his movements and performed
more astonishing feats. Suddenly crossing the St. Bernard, he fell
upon the Austrian flank. Genoa, garrisoned by Massena, had just been
forced by famine to capitulate. Ten days afterward, on the 14th of
June, Bonaparte gained such a decisive victory over Melas, the
Austrian general, at Marengo,[6] that he and the remainder of his army
capitulated on the ensuing day. The whole of Italy fell once more into
the hands of the French. Moreau had, at the same time, invaded Germany
and defeated the Austrians under Kray in several engagements,
principally at Stockach and Moskirch,[7] and again at Biberach and
Hochstadt, laid Swabia and Bavaria under contribution, and taken
Ratisbon, the seat of the diet. An armistice, negotiated by Kray, was
not recognized by the emperor, and he was replaced in his command by
the Archduke John (not Charles), who was, on the 3d of December,
totally routed by Moreau's manoeuvres during a violent snowstorm, at
Hohenlinden. A second Austrian army, despatched into Italy, was also
defeated by Brune on the Mincio. These disasters once more inclined
Austria to peace, which was concluded at Luneville, on the 9th of
February, 1801. The Archduke Charles seized this opportunity to
propose the most beneficial reforms in the war administration, but was
again treated with contempt. In the ensuing year, 1802, England also
concluded peace at Amiens.

The whole of the left bank of the Rhine was, on this occasion, ceded
to the French republic. The petty republics, formerly established by
France in Italy, Switzerland, and Holland, were also renewed and were
recognized by the allied powers. The Cisalpine republic was enlarged
by the possessions of the grandduke of Tuscany and of the duke of
Modena, to whom compensation in Germany was guaranteed. Suwarow's
victories had, in the autumn of 1799, rendered a conclave, on the
death of the captive pope, Pius VI., in France, possible, for the
purpose of electing his successor, Pius VII., who was acknowledged as
such by Bonaparte, whose favor he purchased by expressing his
approbation of the seizure of the property of the church during the
French Revolution, and by declaring his readiness to agree to the
secularization of church property, already determined upon, in
Germany.

The Helvetian Directory fell, like that of France, and was replaced by
an administrative council, composed of seven members, in 1800. The
upholders of ancient cantonal liberty, now known under the
denomination of Federalists, gained the upper hand, and Aloys Reding,
who had, shortly before, been denounced as a rebel, became Landammann
of Switzerland. Bonaparte even invited him to Paris in order to settle
with him the future fate of Switzerland. Reding, however, showing an
unexpected degree of firmness, and, unmoved by either promises or
threats, obstinately refusing to permit the annexation of Valais to
France, Bonaparte withdrew his support and again favored the
Helvetlers. Dolder and Savari, who had long been the creatures of
France, failing in their election, were seated by Verninac, the French
ambassador, in the senate of the Helvetian republic, and Reding, who
was at that moment absent, was divested of his office as Landammann.
Reding protested against this arbitrary conduct and convoked a federal
diet to Schwyz.

Andermatt, general of the Helvetian republic, attempted to seize
Zurich, which had joined the federalists, but was compelled to
withdraw, covered with disgrace. An army of federalists under General
Bachmann repulsed the Helvetlers in every direction and drove them,
together with the French envoys, across the frontier. Bonaparte, upon
this, sent a body of thirty to forty thousand men, under Ney, into
Switzerland, which met with no opposition, the federalists being
desirous of avoiding useless bloodshed and being already acquainted
with Bonaparte's secret projects. He would not tolerate opposition on
their part, like that of Reding: he had resolved upon getting
possession of Valais at any price, on account of the road across the
Simplon, so important to him as affording the nearest communication
between Paris and Milan: in all other points, he perfectly coincided
with the federalists and was willing to grant its ancient independence
to every canton in Switzerland, where disunion and petty feuds placed
the country the more securely in his hands. With feigned commiseration
for the ineptitude of the Swiss to settle their own disputes, he
invited deputies belonging to the various factions and cantons to
Paris, lectured them like schoolboys, and compelled them by the Act of
Mediation, under his intervention, to give a new constitution to
Switzerland. Valais was annexed to France in exchange for the Austrian
Frickthal. Nineteen cantons were created.[8] Each canton again
administered its internal affairs. Bonaparte was never weary of
painting the happy lot of petty states and the delights of petty
citizenship. "But ye are too weak, too helpless, to defend yourselves;
cast yourselves therefore into the arms of France, ready to protect
you while, free from taxation, and from the burdensome maintenance of
an army, ye dwell free and independent in your native vales." The
Swiss, although no longer to have a national army, were, nevertheless,
compelled to furnish a contingent of eighteen thousand men to that of
France, and, while deluded by the idea of their freedom from taxation,
the fifteen millions of French _bons_ given in exchange for the
numerous Swiss loans were cashiered by Bonaparte, under pretext of the
Swiss having been already sufficiently paid by their deliverance from
their enemies by the French.[9] The real Swiss patriots implored the
German powers to protect their country, the bulwark of Germany against
France; but Austria was too much weakened by her own losses, and
Prussia handed the letters addressed to her from Switzerland over to
the First Consul.

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