The opening of the Rhine Campaign of 1796 began with
Jean-Baptiste Kléber's attack south of his bridgehead at Düsseldorf. After Kléber won sufficient maneuver room on the east bank of the Rhine River, Jean Baptiste Jourdan was supposed to join him with the remainder of the Army of the Sambre and Meuse. At the first battles of
Altenkirchen (4 June 1796) and
Wetzlar, two Republican French divisions commanded by Kléber attacked a wing of the Habsburg army led by
Duke Ferdinand Frederick Augustus of Württemberg. A frontal attack combined with a flanking maneuver forced the Austrians to retreat. Three future
Marshals of France played significant roles in the engagement at Altenkirchen:
François Joseph Lefebvre as a division commander,
Jean-de-Dieu Soult, as a brigadier and
Michel Ney, as leader of a flanking column.
Altenkirchen is located in the state of
Rhineland-Palatinate about east of
Bonn.
Wetzlar was located in the
Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, north of
Frankfurt. Altenkirchen was only a distraction to entice the Austrian commander to move troops from the south to strengthen his force in the middle Rhine; Moreau lent credence to this distraction by seeming to move part of the Army of the Rhine and Moselle north from Strasburg. When Archduke Charles moved troops north to oppose what looked to be a crossing in force, Moreau reversed to Kehl and crossed the river. Kléber carried out his part of the scheme to perfection. The opposition armies of the
First Coalition included
imperial (
Reichsarmee) contingents and the infantry and cavalry of the various states, amounting to about 125,000 (including the three autonomous corps), a sizeable force by eighteenth century standards but a moderate force by the standards of the later Revolutionary wars. In total, though, Imperial and Habsburg troops stretched in a line from Switzerland to the
North Sea and Wurmser's troops stretched from the Swiss-Italian border to the
Adriatic; furthermore, a portion of the troops in Fürstenberg's corps were pulled in July to support Wurmser's activities in Italy.
Habsburg troops comprised the bulk of the army, but the thin white line of Habsburg infantry could not cover the territory from Basel to Frankfurt with sufficient depth to resist the pressure of the opposition. In spring 1796, drafts from the
free imperial cities, and other
imperial estates, augmented the Habsburg force with perhaps 20,000 men at the most. It was largely guesswork where they would be placed, and
Archduke Charles, commander of the
Reichsarmee and the Habsburg forces, did not like to use the militias, which were poorly trained and unseasoned. Compared to French coverage, Charles had only half the number of troops extended over a 211-mile front, stretching from Basel to
Bingen. Furthermore, Charles had concentrated the bulk of his force, commanded by
Count Baillet Latour, between Karlsruhe and Darmstadt, where the confluence of the Rhine and the Main river made an attack most likely, as it offered a gateway into eastern German states and ultimately to Vienna, with sturdy bridges crossing the relatively well-defined river bank. To the north,
Wilhelm von Wartensleben’s autonomous corps stretched in a thin line between Mainz and Giessen. On 22 June, the Army of the Rhine and Moselle executed simultaneous crossings at
Kehl and
Hüningen. At Kehl, Moreau's advance guard, 10,000 men, preceded the main force of 27,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry directed at a mere several hundred Swabian pickets on the bridge. The Swabians were hopelessly outnumbered and could not be reinforced. Most of the Imperial Army of the Rhine was stationed further north, by Mannheim, where the river was easier to cross. Neither
Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé's
Army of Condé in
Freiburg nor
Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg's force in
Rastatt could reach Kehl in time to relieve the Swabian troops. Consequently, within a day, Moreau had four divisions across the river. Unceremoniously thrust out of Kehl, the Swabian contingent reformed at Rastatt by 5 July, which they held until reinforcements arrived. Furthermore, at Hüningen, near
Basel, Ferino executed a full crossing, and advanced east along the German shore of the Rhine with the 16th and 50th Demi-brigades, the 68th, 50th and 68th line infantry, and six squadrons of cavalry that included the 3rd and 7th Hussars and the 10th Dragoons. The Habsburg and Imperial armies were in danger of encirclement. With Ferino's quick movements to encircle him, Charles executed an orderly withdrawal in four columns through the Black Forest, across the Upper Danube valley, and toward Bavaria. By mid-July, the French forces maintained persistent pressure on Charles' force. Two imperial columns encamped near
Stuttgart were surrounded and surrendered, leading to a general armistice with the Swabian Circle. The third column, which included the Condé's Corps, retreated through
Waldsee to
Stockach, and eventually
Ravensburg. The fourth Austrian column, the smallest (three battalions and four squadrons), under General Wolff, marched the length of the Bodensee's northern shore, via
Überlingen,
Meersburg,
Buchhorn, and the Austrian city of
Bregenz. In the course of this withdrawal, most of the
Swabian Circle was abandoned to the Army of the Rhine and Moselle, which enforced an armistice and extracted sizeable reparations; in addition, the French occupied several principal towns in southwestern Germany, including Stockach, Meersburg,
Constance, Überlingen am Bodensee,
Ulm, and
Augsburg. As Charles withdrew further east, the neutral zone expanded, eventually encompassing most of southern German states and the
Ernestine duchies.
Summer of 1796 By mid-summer, the strategic goals of the Army of the Rhine and Moselle appeared to have succeeded; Jourdan or Moreau seemed on the brink of flanking Charles and Wartensleben, forcing a wedge between the two; inexplicably, Wartensleben continued to withdraw to the east-north-east, despite Charles' orders to unite with him. At the
Battle of Neresheim on 11 August, Moreau crushed Charles' force and at last, however, Wartensleben recognized the danger; he changed direction, moving his corps to join at Charles' northern flank. At the
Battle of Amberg on 24 August, Charles inflicted another defeat on the French, but that same day, his commanders lost a battle to the French at
Friedberg, when the French army, which was advancing eastward on the south side of the
Danube, isolated an Austrian infantry unit,
Schröder Infantry Regiment Nr. 7, and the French Army of Condé. In the ensuing clash, the Austrians and Royalists were cut to pieces. The tide now turned in the Coalition's favor. Both French Armies had overstretched their lines, moving far into the German states, and were separated too far from each other for one to offer the other aid or security. The Coalition's concentration of troops forced a wider wedge between the two armies of Jourdan and Moreau, what the French had tried to do to Charles and Wartensleben. Despite Charles' instructions to withdraw northward toward
Ingolstadt,
Maximilian Anton Karl, Count Baillet de Latour retreated eastward to protect the borders of Austria. Moreau did not seize the opportunity to place his army between the two Austrian forces (Wartensleben's and Charles'). Once Moreau received word of Jourdan's defeat, he initiated his withdrawal from southern Germany. Retreating through the Black Forest, with Ferino supervising the rear guard, he claimed one more victory: an Austrian corps commanded by Latour drew too close to Moreau at Biberach and lost 4,000 prisoners, some standards and artillery; Latour followed at a more sensible distance. Both sides were hampered by heavy rains; the ground was soft and slippery, and the Rhine and
Elz rivers had flooded. This increased the hazards of mounted attack, because the horses could not get a good footing. Archduke's force pursued the French, although carefully. The French attempted to slow their pursuers by destroying bridges, but the Austrians repaired them and crossed the swollen rivers despite the high waters. Upon reaching a few miles east of
Emmendingen, the Archduke split his force into four columns.
Friedrich Joseph, Count of Nauendorf's column, in the upper Elz, had eight battalions and 14 squadrons, advancing southwest to Waldkirch; Wartensleben had 12 battalions and 23 squadrons advancing south to capture the Elz bridge at Emmendingen. Latour, with 6,000 men, was to cross the foothills via Heimbach and Malterdingen, and capture the bridge of Köndringen, between Riegel and Emmendingen, and Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg's column held Kinzingen, about north of Riegel. Frölich and Condé (part of Nauendorf's column) were to pin down Ferino and the French right wing in the Stieg valley. Nauendorf's men were able to ambush St.-Cyr's advance; Latour's columns attacked Beaupuy at Matterdingen, killing the general and throwing his column into confusion. Wartensleben, in the center, was held up by French riflemen until his third (reserve) detachment arrived to outflank them; the French retreated across the rivers, destroying all the bridges. After the shambles at Emmendingen, the French withdrew to the south and west, and formed for battle by Schliengen. There, Moreau established his army along a ridge of hills, in a semi-circle on heights that commanded the terrain below. Given the severe condition of the roads at the end of October, Archduke Charles could not flank the right French wing. The French left wing lay too close to the Rhine, and the French center was unassailable. Instead, he attacked the French flanks directly, and in force, which increased casualties for both sides. The
Duc d'Enghien led a spirited (but unauthorized) attack on the French left, cutting their access to a withdrawal through Kehl. Nauendorf's column marched all night and half of the day, and attacked the French right, pushing them further back. In the night, while Charles planned his next day's attack, Moreau began the withdrawal of his troops toward Hüningen. Although the French and the Austrians both claimed victory at the time, military historians generally agree that the Austrians achieved a strategic advantage. However, the French withdrew from the battlefield in good order and several days later crossed the Rhine River at Hüningen. After Schliengen, both the French and the Coalition sought to control the Rhine river crossings at Kehl and Hüningen. At
Kehl, 20,000 French defenders under Louis Desaix and the overall commander of the French force, Jean Victor Marie Moreau, almost upset the siege when they executed a
sortie that nearly captured the Austrian artillery park; the French managed to capture 1,000 Austrian troops in the melee. On 9 January the French general Desaix proposed the evacuation to General Latour and they agreed that the Austrians would enter Kehl the next day, on 10 January at 16:00. The French immediately repaired the bridge, rendered passable by 14:00, which gave them 24 hours to evacuate everything of value and to raze everything else. By the time Latour took possession of the fortress, nothing remained of any use: all palisades, ammunition, even the carriages of the bombs and howitzers, had been evacuated. The French insured that nothing remained behind that could be used by the Austrian/Imperial army; even the fortress itself was but earth and ruins. The siege concluded 115 days after its investment, following 50 days of open trenches, the point at which active fighting began. At
Hüningen Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg's force initiated the siege within days of the Austrian victory at the Battle of Schliengen. Most of the siege ran concurrently with the siege at Kehl, which concluded on 9 January 1797. Troops engaged at Kehl marched to Hüningen in preparation for a major assault, but the French defenders capitulated on 1 February 1797. The French commander,
Jean Charles Abbatucci, was killed in the early days of the fighting, and replaced by
Georges Joseph Dufour. The trenches, opened originally in November, had refilled with winter rain and snow in the intervening weeks. Fürstenberg ordered them opened again, and the water drained out on 25 January. The Coalition force secured the earthworks surrounding the trenches. On 31 January the French failed to push the Austrians out. Archduke Charles arrived that day and met with Fürstenberg at nearby
Lörrach. The night of 31 January to 1 February was relatively tranquil, marred only by ordinary artillery fire and shelling. At mid-day 1 February 1797, as the Austrians prepared to storm the bridgehead, General of Division Dufour pre-empted what would have been a costly attack for both sides, offering to surrender the position. On 5 February, Fürstenberg finally took possession of the bridgehead. Following the losses in 1796 and early 1797, the French regrouped their forces on the west side of the Rhine. An abbreviated campaign in late spring of 1797 led to Austrians and the French to agree to the
Treaty of Campo Formio, ending the
War of the First Coalition. The subsequent
armistice at Leoben led to long term negotiations for peace between Revolutionary France and Austria. On 29 September 1797, the Army of the Rhine and Moselle merged with the Army of the Sambre and Meuse to form the
Army of Germany. ==Organizational and command problems==