Army of the Danube

Army of the Danube
Active	2 March–11 December 1799
Disbanded	24 November 1799 merged into Army of the Rhine
Country
Allegiance	First Republic
Type	Field Army
Role	Invasion of southwestern Germany
Size	approximately 25,000
Engagements	Battle of Ostrach Battle of Stockach (1799) First Battle of Zurich Second Battle of Zurich
Commanders
Notable commanders	Jean-Baptiste Jourdan André Masséna Louis Marie Turreau

The Army of the Danube, also known as the Armée du Danube, was a field army of the French Directory in the 1799 southwestern campaign in the Upper Danube valley. It was formed on 2 March 1799 by the simple expedient of renaming the Army of Observation, which had been formed to observe Austrian movements on the border between First French Republic and the Holy Roman Empire. It was commanded by General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, 1st Comte Jourdan (1762–1833).

The army was part of the French Directory's long term strategy to undermine Austrian, and Habsburg, influence in the Holy Roman Empire, and, conversely, to strengthen French hegemony in central Europe after the wars of the First Coalition and the Treaty of Campo-Formio in 1797. Despite the Treaty, Austria and France remained suspicious of each other's motives, and the purpose of the Army of the Observation was to watch for Austrian border transgressions. Understanding that the negotiations at the Congress of Rastatt were going no-where, the Army of Observation was instructed to cross the Rhine. Once across the Rhine, the Army, now the Army of the Danube, was to secure strategic positions in southwestern Germany (present day Baden-Württemberg) and engage the Archduke Charles' Austrian army. In the meantime, the Army of Helvetia, under command of Andre Massena, would secure such strategic locations as St. Gotthard pass, the Swiss plateau, and upper Rhine river basin.

The army participated in four battles. In battles of Ostrach and first Stockach, it was forced to withdraw after suffering heavy losses. After reorganization, in which elements of the army were combined with Massena's Army of Switzerland, it withdrew after an engagement with Charles' superior force at Zürich in early June 1799; only in theSecond Battle of Zürich did the Army of the Danube secure an uncontested victory. In December 1799, the Army of the Danube merged with the Army of the Rhine.

Background

Main article: French Revolutionary Wars

Initially, such rulers of Europe as Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor viewed the revolution in France as an event between the French king and his subjects, and not something in which they should interfere. As the rhetoric grew more strident, the monarchies started to view events with distrust. Leopold, who had succeeded Joseph as Emperor in 1791, saw the situation surrounding his sister, Marie Antoinette, and her children, with greater and greater alarm. As the revolution grew more and more radical, he still sought to avoid war, but in the late summer, he, in consultation with French émigré nobles and Frederick William II of Prussia, issued the Declaration of Pilnitz, in which they declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe as one with the interests of Louis and his family. They threatened vague, but serious, consequences if anything should happen to the royal family.

By 1792, the French republican position had become increasingly difficult. Compounding internal economic and social problems, French émigrés agitated abroad for support of a counter-revolution in France that would restore an absolute monarchy. Chief among them were the Prince Condé (cousin of Louis XVI), Condé's son, the Duke de Bourbon, and Condé's grandson, the Duke d'Enghien. From their base in Koblenz, immediately over the French border, they sought direct support for military intervention from the royal houses of Europe, and themselves raised a small army. The ascension of young and uncompromising Francis as Holy Roman Emperor-elect on the death of his father in July 1792 also contributed to their unease.

On 20 April 1792, the French National Convention declared war on Austria. In this War of the First Coalition (1792–1798), France ranged itself against most of the European states sharing land or water borders with her, plus Portugal and the Ottoman Empire. Although the Coalition forces achieved several victories at Verdun, Kaiserslautern, Neerwinden, Mainz, Amberg and Wurzburg, the efforts of Napoleon Bonaparte in northern Italy pushed Austrian forces back and resulted in the negotiation of the Peace of Leoben (17 April 1797) and the subsequent Treaty of Campo Formio (October 1797).

From October 1797 until the Army of the Danube crossed into Germany in March 1799, the signatories of the Treaty of Campo Formio had avoided armed conflict, but despite their agreement at Campo Formio, the two primary combatants, France and Austria, maintained high suspicion of each other's motives. Several diplomatic incidents undermined the agreement: the reluctance of the Austrians to cede the designated territories; the ineptitude of Second Congress of Rastatt in orchestrating the transfer of additional territories that would compensate the German princes for their losses; the refusal of Ferdinand of Naples to pay tribute to France, followed by the Neapolitan rebellion and the subsequent establishment of the Parthenopaean Republic; and the republican uprising in the Swiss cantons led to the establishment of the Helvetic Republic.

Other factors contributed to the rising tensions as well. On his way to Egypt, Napoleon had stopped on the Island of Malta and forcibly removed the Knights of Malta from their possessions, angering Paul, Tsar of Russia, who was the honorary head of the Order. The French Directory, furthermore, was convinced that the Austrians were conniving to start another war. Indeed, the weaker the French Republic seemed, the more seriously the Austrians, the Neopolitans, the Russians and the English actually discussed this possibility.

Purpose and formation

Evolution of the Army of the Danube

Military planners in Paris understood that the northern Rhine Valley, the south-western German territories, and Switzerland were strategically important for the defense of the Republic. The Swiss passes commanded access to northern Italy; consequently, the army that held those passes could move troops to and from northern and southern theaters quickly.

Toward this end, in the early November 1798, Jourdan arrived in Hüningen to take command of the French forces there, the so-called Army of Observation because its function was to observe the security of the French border on the Rhine. Once there, he assessed the quality and disposition of the forces and identified needed supplies and manpower. He found the army woefully inadequate for its assignment. The Army, and its flanking armies, the Army of Helvetia and the Army of Mayence, or Mainz, were equally short of manpower, supplies, ammunition, and training. Jourdan documented assiduously these shortages, pointing out in lengthy correspondence to the Directory the consequences of an under-manned and under-supplied army; his petitions seemed to have little effect on the Directory, which sent neither significant additional manpower nor supplies.

Jourdan's orders were to take the army into Germany and secure strategic positions, particularly on the south-west roads through Stockach and Schaffhausen, at the western-most border of Lake Constance. Similarly, as commander of the Army of Helvetia (Switzerland), Andre Massena would acquire strategic positions in Switzerland, in particular the St. Gotthard Pass, the passes above Feldkirch, particularly Maienfeld (St. Luciensteig), and hold the central plateau in and around Zürich and Winterthur. These positions would prevent the Allies of the Second Coalition from moving troops back and forth between the northern Italian and German theaters, but would allow French access to these strategic passes. Ultimately, this positioning would allow the French to control all western roads leading to and from Vienna. Finally, the army of Mayence would sweep through the north, blocking further access to and from Vienna from any of the northern Provinces, or from Britain.

Crossing the Rhine

On March 1, 1799, the Army of Observation, in an Order of Battle of approximately 30,000 men in four divisions, crossed the Rhine River at Kehl and Basel. The following day, the it was renamed the Army of the Danube.

The French (blue) and Austrian (red) armies converged on Ostrach in March 1799.

• Advance Guard, with approximately 9,000 men under General François Joseph Lefebvre, and temporary commanded by Dominique Vandamme. This also included the detached left flank of 3,000 Vandamme eventually took to Stuttgart.
• I. Division, with approximately 8,000 men under General Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino.
• II. Division, with approximately 7,000 men under General Joseph Souham.
• III. Division, approximately 7,000 men under Laurent Saint-Cyr constituted the left flank.
• Reserve, with approximately 3,000 men under Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul.

Outline map showing march of the Army of the Danube in 3 columns; one is doubled; to Ostrach.

The army advanced in four columns through the Black Forest. First Division, the right wing, assembled at Hüningen, crossed at Basel and advanced eastward along the north shore of the Rhine River toward Lake Constance. The Advanced Guard crossed at Kehl, and Vandamme led it north-east through the mountains via Freudenstadt. This column eventually became the left flank. It was followed across the Rhine,, also at Kehl, by the II. Division. The Third Division and the Reserve also crossed at Kehl, and then divided into two columns, III. Division traveling through the Black Forest via Oberkirch, and the Reserve, with most of the artillery and horse, by the valley at Freiburg im Breisgau, where they would find more forage, and then over the mountains past the Titisee to Loffingen and Hüfingen.

Although Jourdan could have established a position on the immediate eastern slope of the mountains—and indeed he might have been better advised to do so—he pushed eastward across the Danube plain, taking a temporary position between Rottweil and Tuttlingen. Eventually he directed the army to establish a line centered in Pfullendorf. He planned to engage the Austrian army under the Habsburg commander-in-chief Archduke Charles on the Ostrach plateau.

While may have seemed like a good plan, Jourdan's choice of ground created problems for him later. The Ostrach plain was riddled with such streams and brooks as the Ostrach, a Danube tributary, which drained out of the marshes and swamps of Pfrungenried; in the spring of most years, this was not the best choice of ground. Although from Pfullendorf and the more moderate heights to the north of the village of Ostrach, Jourdan could establish reasonably artillery positions, the softness of the marshland itself would diminish the impact of a cannonade on the Austrian line. The marsh was also prone to fogginess, which would hinder visual planning and tactics. Furthermore, the softness of the ground would make the use of cavalry difficult, and cavalry maneuvers would be made more difficult by the likelihood of fog. Finally, the major part of Charles' army had wintered immediately east of the Lech River, which Jourdan knew, because he had sent agents into Germany with instructions to identify the location and strength of his enemy. This was less than 64 kilometres (40 mi) distant; any passage over the Lech was facilitated by available bridges, both of permanent construction and temporary pontoons and a traverse through friendly territory.

Engagements

In March 1799, the Army of the Danube engaged in two major battles, both in the southwestern German theater. At the Battle of Ostrach, 20–22 March 1799, the first battle of the War of the Second Coalition, Austrian forces, under the command of Archduke Charles, defeated French forces. The French suffered significant losses and were forced to retreat from the region, taking up new positions at Messkirch (Mößkirch, Meßkirch), and then at Stockach and Engen. At the second battle, in Stockach, on 25 March 1799, the Austrian army achieved a decisive victory over the French forces, and again pushed the French army west. Jourdan instructed his generals to take up positions in the Black Forest, and he himself established a base at Hornberg. From there, General Jourdan relegated command of the army to his chief of staff, Jean Augustin Ernouf, and traveled to Paris to ask for more and better troops and, ultimately, to request a medical leave. The Army was reorganized, and a portion placed under the command of Andre Massena and merged with the Army of Helvetia. Following the reorganization and change in command, the Army participated in the First Battle of Zürich and, three months later, the Second Battle of Zürich.

Battle of Ostrach

Battle of Ostrach
Date 20–23 March 1799 Location Ostrach, Salem Abbey (Germany) Result French Retreat
Belligerents
French Directory	Habsburg Austria
Commanders and leaders
General Jean Baptiste Jourdan	Archduke Charles
Strength
18,000	52,000
Casualties and losses
2,257 (12.5%)	2,113 (4%)

The Battle of Ostrach, also called the Battle by Ostrach, occurred 20–23 March 1799. In early March, the Army of the Danube pressed forward toward Pfullendorf and Ostrach, the former an imperial city in Upper Swabia and the latter a nearby village of 300 belonging to the Imperial Abbey of Salem. Their goal was to cut the Austrian line at Switzerland, preventing the Coalition use of Switzerland as an overland route between central and southern Europe. This would ostensibly isolate the armies of the Coalition in northern Italy and Germany, and prevent them from assisting one another; furthermore, if the French held the interior passes in Switzerland, they could use the routes to move their own forces between the two theaters.

The battle occurred during Holy Week in 1799, amid rain and dense fog, on the marsh southeast of the village. Initially, on 20 March, the French were able to take, and hold, the village of Ostrach and the nearby hamlet of Hoßkirch. On the morning of 21 March, as General Jourdan later wrote, as the Austrian army attacked, his men seemed to disappear in a cloud of redcoats, which referred to the Austrian Hussar and Grenadier uniforms. In the evening of day two, after more than 15 hours in general engagement, the Austrians flanked his left wing, and Saint Cyr's force was pressed back to the Pfullendorf heights. On the third morning, as the fog lifted, Jourdan could see the Archduke's formidable force arrayed on the plains below him. The archduke's arrangements made it clear that Jourdan could not keep the heights of Pfullendorf. As he withdrew, a portion of his right flank was cut off from the main force.

Although casualties appeared even in numbers for both sides, the Austrians fielded a significantly larger fighting force of nearly 55,000 at Ostrach, with another 60,000 stretched along a line between Lake Constance and Ulm. French casualties amounted to more than 12 percent of their force, and Austrian, approximately 4 percent. The French were forced back to Stockach, where on 25 March the armies engaged again, this time with greater losses on both sides, and a decisive Austrian victory.

Battle of Stockach

Battle of Stockach (1799)
Date 25 March 1799 Location Stockach, present-day Germany Result Austrian victory and French withdrawal from region.
Belligerents
French Directory	Habsburg Austria
Commanders and leaders
Jean-Baptiste Jourdan	Archduke Charles
Strength
40,000 soldiers	80,000 soldiers
Casualties and losses
400 killed, 1600 wounded, 2,000 captured, 1 gun lost.	500 killed, 2400 wounded, 2,900 captured, 2 guns lost.

At the Battle of Stockach, Jean-Baptiste Jourdan and Archduke Charles again directed the French force of 40,000 and the Austrian force of 80,000, respectively. While attempting to rally his troops, Jourdan was dismounted, nearly trampled to death by his soldiers, and barely escaped capture by the Austrians. Charles' personal intervention was crucial for the Austrians, and he was in the thick of the fighting, buying time for reinforcements to arrive. The French were defeated and driven back upon the Rhine River.

The general engagement was brutal and bloody. Before daybreak on 25 March, the French left wing launched a headlong attack on the Austrian right wing, coordinated with assaults on the Austrian left. The ferocious attack forced the Austrians out of the woods in which they had been positioned overnight, and pushed them to the village of Schwanndorf. Fearing that his forces would shortly be flanked, Charles directed reinforcements to back up the right wing. The Archduke himself led eight battalions of Hungarian grenadiers into the fight, and during this part of the action, both the Prince of Anhalt and Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg were killed by French case shot. The main French assault on the Austrian center was stalled by the superior numbers.

On the French right flank, General Ferino attempted to push the Austrians back, first with a cannonade, followed by an attack through the woods on both sides of the road between the hamlet of Asch and Stockach. A third charge succeeded in taking the road, but the Austrian forces reformed the line and the artillery, now at the head of a wedge, bombarded the French troops. In a bayonet charge, the French took the hamlet of Wahlweiss, but Ferino's troops could not hold it and withdrew during the night. Jourdan then ordered a general withdrawal from the region, instructing his divisions to retreat along the lines of march they had followed in to the region, and himself establishing a command post at Hornberg. He sent the cavalry to the western side of the Black Forest, where the horses could expect to find better forage.

Battles at the Swiss Plateau

After pushing the Army of the Danube back to the Rhine, Archduke Charles; own sizable force—about 110,000 strong—crossed the Rhine west of Schaffhausen, and prepared to join with the armies of Hotze and Count Heinrich von Bellegarde on the Swiss Plateau by Zürich. By mid-May, 1799, the Austrians had wrested control of the eastern portions of the newly-formed Helvetic Republic from the French as the forces of Hotze and pushed them out of the Grisons. The French Army of Switzerland and the Army of the Danube, now both under the command of Andre Masséna, tried to prevent this merger of the Austrian forces; at the Battle of Winterthur, the Austrian line held, although it took enormous casualties. Once the union took place (in early June), Archduke Charles, supported by Hotze's command on the French right flank, attacked French positions at Zürich.

First Battle of Zürich

In First Battle of Zürich, on 4–7 June 1799, approximately 45,000 French and 53,000 Austrians clashed on the plains around the city. On the left wing, Hotze 20 battalions of infantry, plus support artillery, and 27 squadrons of cavalry, in total, 19,000 men. On the right wing, General Nauendorff commanded another 18,000. The battle cost both sides dearly; General of Brigade Cherin was killed, on the French side, and on the Austrian side, Feldzeug Marshall Count Wallis was killed. On the French side, 500 died, 800 were wounded and 300 captured; on the Austrian sidek, 730 killed, 1,470 wounded, and 2,200 captured. When the Austrians took the French positions in the city, they also captured over 150 guns. Ultimately, French general André Masséna yielded the city to the Austrians, under Archduke Charles. Massena retreated beyond the Limmat river, where he managed to fortify his positions. Hotze's force harassed their retreat, and secured the river shoreline. Despite Hotze's aggressive harassment of the French retreat, Charles did not follow up on the withdrawal; instead Massena established himself on the opposite bank of the Limmat without threat of pursuit from the main body of the Army, much to the annoyance of the Russian liaison officer, Count Alexander Ivanovich Tolstoy.

On 14 August 1799, Austria's Russian allies force of 6,000 cavalry, 20,000  infantry, and 1,600 Cossacks, under Alexander Korsakov, joined Archduke Charles' force in Schaffhausen. Archduke Charles wanted to surround the French army, positioned to the south and west of Zurich, and implement a vice-like operation; together with the Russians, they would surround André Masséna's smaller army on the banks of the Limmat, where it had taken refuge the previous spring. To divert this attack, General LeCourbe, on Massena's orders, attacked the pontoon bridges over which the Russians and Austrians were to cross the Rhine, destroying most of them, and making the rest unusable.

Before Charles could regroup, orders arrived from Vienna to countermand the plan; the Aulic Council, the imperial body charged with the conduct of the war, had decided that Charles' troops should leave Zurich in the supposedly capable hands of Korsokov, re-cross the Rhine and head north to Mainz. Consequently, the Russian troops under a novice general replaced the Austrian troops and their seasoned commander. Charles withdrew his force to the north of the Rhine. The Russian Generalissimo, Alexander Suvorov, in Italy, was horrified when he heard this: He depended upon a stable Austro-Russian presence in Switzerland to protect his flank and, furthermore, he expected to join this army by September or October. Although the order to Charles to recross the Rhine and march north was eventually countermanded, by the time such instructions reached him, they were too late to reverse.

Second Battle of Zürich

Second Battle of Zürich
Date 25 September–26 September 1799 Location Zürich, Switzerland Result decisive French victory
Belligerents
France	Austria Russia
Commanders and leaders
André Masséna	Alexander Korsakov  †Friedrich von Hotze
Strength
75,000	24,000 Russians 22,000 Austrians
Casualties and losses
Unknown	22,000

In the Second Battle of Zürich, the French regained control of the city, along with the rest of Switzerland. Notably, Massena outgeneraled Korsakov; surrounded him, tricked him, and then took more than half his army as a prisoner, plus captured the baggage train and most of his cannons, and inflicting over 8,000 casualties. Most of the fighting took place on both banks of the river Limmat up to the gates of Zürich, and in part within the city itself. Zürich had declared itself neutral, and was spared general destruction. General Oudinot commanded the French forces on the right bank and general Joseph Mortier those on the left.

At the same time, Soult led a small force, some 150 musket-men, across the river Linth—the men held their muskets over their heads and waded across, through water to their chests—and protected the crossing site for the remainder of the force. Baron von Hotze, commander of the Austrian force there, advanced on the position near Richterswil to direct its defense, and was killed by a French musket ball. His successor, Franz, Baron von Petrasch, could not throw the French back, and organized a retreat from the region, falling back to St. Gallen and losing 8,000 men and some guns. By the time Suvorov arrived in St. Gallen in early October, the Austrians and the Russians had been pushed out and he was forced to lead his men over the Alps to the Voralberg, resulting in additional losses.

Subsequent variations

The Army of Switzerland and portions of the Army of the Danube merged in a joint command under Andre Massena in April 1799; in June, portions of the Army of the Danube were used to form the Army of the Rhine. Both the Army of the Rhine and the Army of the Danube subsequently merged in 24 November 1799 to form a new, enlarged army designated the Army of the Rhine.

Commanders

Image	Name	Dates	Battles/Campaigns
	Jean-Baptiste Jourdan	7 March – 8 April 1799	Battle of Ostrach Battle of Stockach (1799)
	Jean Augustin Ernouf	8 April 1799 – 29 April 1799	temporary command
	Andre Massena	29 April – 29 November 1799	First Battle of Zurich Second Battle of Zurich
	Louis Marie Turreau	30 November-11 December 1799	Provisional Commander, appointed briefly after the November coup d'etat

Sources

Bibliography

• Alison, Sir Archibald. A History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in 1789 to the Restauration of the Bourbons, New York: A.S. Barnes, 1850.
• Blanning, Timothy. The French Revolutionary Wars, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0340569115
• Template:De icon Broda, Ruth. "Schlacht von Ostrach:“ jährt sich zum 210. Mal – Feier am Wochenende. Wie ein Dorf zum Kriegsschauplatz wurde. In: Südkurier vom 13. Mai 2009.
• "Engagements Between The Grand Armies Of The Archduke and General Jourdan." The Times (London), Friday, 5 April 1799; pg. 2; col A.
• Gallagher, John. Napoleon's enfant terrible: General Dominique Vandamme, Tulsa: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0806138756
• Hug, Lina and Richard Stead. Switzerland. New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1902.
• Jourdan, Jean-Baptiste. A Memoir of the operations of the army of the Danube under the command of General Jourdan, taken from the manuscripts of that officer, London: Debrett, 1799.
• Longworth, Philip. The art of victory: the life and achievements of Generalissimo Suvarov, London: np, 1965,
• Phipps, Ramsey Weston. The Armies of the First French Republic, volume 5: "The armies of the Rhine in Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Egypt and the coup d'etat of Brumaire, 1797–1799," Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939.
• Rothenberg, Gunther E. Napoleon’s Great Adversary: Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army 1792–1914, Stroud, (Gloucester): Spellmount, 2007. ISBN 9781862273832
• Thiers, Adolphe. The history of the French revolution, New York: Appleton, 1854, v. 4.
• Young, John, D.D. A History of the Commencement, Progress, and Termination of the Late War between Great Britain and France which continued from the first day of February 1793 to the first of October 1801, in two volumes. Edinburg: Turnbull, 1802, vol. 2.

External links

• Hürlimann, Katja. " (Johann Konrad) Friedrich von Hotze," Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, 15/01/2008 edition, accessed 18 October 2009.
• Kessinger, Roland. "Order of Battle, Army of the Danube". Accessed 15 November 2009.