This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2022) |
Italian and Swiss expedition | |||||||
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Part of the War of the Second Coalition | |||||||
![]() Map of Suvorov's campaign in Italy and Switzerland | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Strength | |||||||
? French ? Helvetes ? Polish | 65,000 Russians [3] ? Austrians ? Swiss rebels | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
in Italy: Unknown killed and wounded 80,000 captured, 3,000 cannons, 200,000 guns [4] | Unknown |
The Italian and Swiss expedition of 1799 [5] was a military campaign undertaken by a combined Austro-Russian army under overall command of the Russian Marshal Alexander Suvorov against French forces in Piedmont and Lombardy (modern Italy) and the Helvetic Republic (present-day Switzerland). The expedition was part of the Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars in general, and the War of the Second Coalition in particular. It was one of 'two unprecedented Russian interventions in 1799', the other being the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland (August–November 1799). [5]
The expedition was primarily planned by British and Russian politicians and diplomats. Russia would provide troops that Britain would subsidise, and together they sought to encourage Austria to do most of the fighting (as it had about three-fourths of the would-be Second Coalition's land forces [6] ), pay for its own troops as well as supply the entire allied army, while maintaining Anglo-Russian strategic control over the campaign including Austria's war effort. [7] Russia and especially Britain distrusted Austria because they were suspicious of the Habsburgs' territorial greed; they hoped to coax Austria into entering war with France out of self-defence and to help restore the pre-Revolutionary order in Europe without Austrian territorial expansion. [8] Moreover, London was still in a bitter dispute with Vienna over a loan convention to pay off Austria's debts to Britain, and so it refused to subsidise the Austrian troops as well, [8] even though the Habsburgs had barely recovered from the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797). [9] According to Paul W. Schroeder (1987), Britain and Russia also 'deliberately fostered and exploited' the rivalry between Prussia and Austria to entice both to join the Second Coalition; Berlin would end up retaining its neutrality. [10]
Although by 1799 he was nearly seventy years old, Suvorov was one of the most competent and experienced commanders of the age.[ citation needed ] He had won no fewer than sixty-three battles in the course of his long military career and had been appointed field marshal during the reign of Catherine the Great, though he was dismissed by Tsar Paul,
her son and successor, after the old soldier had the audacity to criticise the new imperial Infantry Code.[ citation needed ] He was only recalled after the Austrians specifically requested that he be appointed to command the combined Austro-Russian army to fight the French in Italy.[ citation needed ]
65,000 Russian troops participated in the expedition. [3] The Russian expeditionary force consisted of three corps. [3]
Strength: 148,663 (178,253 when garrisons are included) in August 1799 [13]
Taking command on 19 April, Suvorov moved his army westwards in a rapid march towards the Adda River; covering over 480 kilometres (300 mi) in just eighteen days. On 27 April, he defeated Jean Victor Moreau at the Battle of Cassano. Soon afterward, Suvorov wrote to a Russian diplomat: "The Adda is a Rubicon, and we crossed it over the bodies of our enemies." [15] On 29 April he entered Milan. Two weeks later, he moved on to Turin, having defeated Moreau yet again at Marengo. The king of Sardinia greeted him as a hero and conferred on him the rank of "Prince of the House of Savoy", among other honors.[ citation needed ]
From Naples, General MacDonald moved north to assist Moreau in June. Trapped between two armies, Suvorov decided to concentrate his whole force against MacDonald, beating the French at the Trebbia River (19 June). Marching back to the north, Suvorov chased the French Army of Italy as it retreated towards the Riviera, taking the fortified city of Mantua on 28 July.[ citation needed ]
Moreau was relieved of command, to be replaced by Joubert. Pushing through the Bocchetta Pass, Joubert was defeated and killed in battle with Suvorov at Novi (15 August) to the north of Genoa. Years later when Moreau, who was also present at Novi, was asked about Suvorov, he replied: "What can you say of a general so resolute to a superhuman degree, and who would perish himself and let his army perish to the last man rather than retreat a single pace." [16]
In 1798, Paul I gave General Korsakov command of an expeditionary force of 30,000 men sent to Germany to join Austria in the fight against the French Republic. At the beginning of 1799, the force was diverted to drive the French out of Switzerland. Leaving Russia in May, Korsakov reached Stockach in 90 days. With 29,463 men, his command then marched to Zürich to join up with the 25,000-man corps of Austrian general Friedrich von Hotze, who had defeated the French army at the Battle of Winterthur on 27 May 1799. It was expected that Suvorov's army would join them from Italy after marching through the Alps, but terrain and enemy action held up Suvorov's advance. In the meantime, Korsakov waited near Zürich in a relaxed state of over-confidence. [17] Taking full advantage of this, the French under André Masséna attacked on 25 September 1799, winning a decisive victory in the Second Battle of Zürich and forcing Korsakov to withdraw rapidly [2] to Schaffhausen, despite almost no pursuit by the French and orders from Suvorov for him to hold his ground.[ citation needed ] Suvorov was making his way across the Devil's Bridge that day. Korsakov then took up a position on the east of the Rhine in the Dörflingen Camp between Schaffhausen and Constance, remaining there while Masséna was left free to deal with Suvorov, but suffered a heavy defeat in the Muottental. His left under Condé was driven from Constance on 7 October, on the same day he advanced from Büsingen against Schlatt, but was eventually driven back by Masséna, abandoning his hold on the left bank of the Rhine. He joined Suvorov's survivors at Lindau on 18 October, and was shortly after relieved of command.[ citation needed ]
Suvorov succeeded in rescuing his army 'by a brilliant but costly fighting march across the Alps into eastern Switzerland'. [2] He did not lose a single battle.[ citation needed ] However, the defeat Korsakov's army at the Second Battle of Zürich proved to be decisive: it destroyed any hopes of invading France and restoring the Bourbon monarchy, and along with the failed Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland, and rising tensions with Austria (which escalated during the Austro–Russian occupation of Piedmont), Tsar Paul I became so enraged that he pulled Russia out of the Second Coalition, and the Russian troops were withdrawn. [2] The tsar's decision to abandon the Coalition dismayed most Russian leaders. [18]
According to the conventional view amongst historians by the 1980s, Russia's withdrawal in late 1799 was crucial to the eventual collapse of the Second Coalition and the French final victory in March 1802. [2] However, Schroeder (1987) argued that '[t]he chances for an Austro–British victory were little worse without Russia than with it,' considering that Austria provided three-fourths of the land forces deployed to defeat France. [19] The main effect of Russia's defection on the Coalition was that Britain could no longer control Austria's actions as it pleased, and had to deal with Vienna as an equal partner. [18] Paul I attempted to forge a Russo–Prussian alliance in late 1799 and 1800 to punish Austria, [18] and by January 1801 his relations with Britain had also worsened so much that he was on the brink of invading British India with 22,000 Don Cossacks. [3] This plan did not materialise because tsar Paul I of Russia was assassinated in March 1801. [3]
Although the French military managed to overcome the Austro–Russian expedition, it made little immediate gain from it. By the end of 1799, the Army of Italy held almost the same position as Napoleon Bonaparte had found it in 1796, except that it now also controlled Genoa. [13] : 341 The army was in a desolate and impoverished state, with famine, lack of ammunition and horses, with bouts of desertion and mutiny as hungry soldiers sought to take food from civilians to survive. [13] : 342–343 The news that Napoleon had returned to France briefly prompted morale amongst the troops to rise, as he was still popular for his victories during the 1796–97 Italian campaigns. [13] : 343–344 But when the soldiers heard that Napoleon had committed the Coup of 18 Brumaire and made himself First Consul of the French Republic, French officers generally reported discontent and protests from the troops, especially from the Army of Italy which used to be under Napoleon's command, as many regarded the coup as a betrayal of the republican ideals they had been fighting for. [13] : 344–346 Nevertheless, when Napoleon reassumed command, he managed to retake control of northern Italy during the Marengo campaign (April–June 1800). [20]
Suvorov was recalled to Saint Petersburg, where he was promoted to the rank of Generalissimo, the fourth in all of Russian history.[ citation needed ] It was as a consequence of this campaign that Suvorov wrote Rules for the Conduct of Military Actions in the Mountains. He died in May 1800, having never fulfilled his greatest ambition – to meet Napoleon on the battlefield.[ citation needed ] A detailed account of the campaign was published in five volumes by Dmitry Milyutin in 1852–53.[ citation needed ] Suvorov remains vividly remembered in the parts of the Swiss Alps his army passed through. Even though his famished troops plundered the countryside bare and his campaign was ultimately fruitless, the general is venerated as a liberator from the occupying French. Plaques adorn nearly every spot where he ate or slept in the Alps; chairs and beds he used are preserved as exhibits. [21] A life-size equestrian statue was unveiled in 1999 on the St. Gotthard Pass.[ citation needed ]
The Battle of Novi saw a combined army of the Habsburg monarchy and Imperial Russians under Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov attack a Republican French army under General Barthélemy Catherine Joubert. As soon as Joubert fell during the battle, Jean Victor Marie Moreau immediately took overall command of the French forces. After a prolonged and bloody struggle, the Austro-Russians broke through the French defenses and drove their enemies into a disorderly retreat, while French division commanders Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon and Emmanuel Grouchy were captured. Novi Ligure is in the province of Piedmont in Northern Italy a distance of 58 kilometres (36 mi) north of Genoa. The battle occurred during the War of the Second Coalition which was part of the French Revolutionary Wars.
André Masséna, Prince of Essling, Duke of Rivoli, was a French military commander during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was one of the original 18 Marshals of the Empire created by Napoleon I. He was nicknamed l'Enfant chéri de la Victoire. He is considered to be one of the greatest generals of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts resulting from the French Revolution that lasted from 1792 until 1802. They pitted France against Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and several other countries. The wars are divided into two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802). Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension. After a decade of constant warfare and aggressive diplomacy, France had conquered territories in the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries, and the Rhineland due to its very large and powerful military, which had been totally mobilized for war against most of Europe with mass conscription of the vast French population. French success in these conflicts ensured military occupation and the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe.
Jean Victor Marie Moreau was a French general who helped Napoleon Bonaparte rise to power, but later became his chief military and political rival and was banished to the United States. He is among the foremost French generals in military history.
The War of the Second Coalition was the second war targeting revolutionary France by many European monarchies, led by Britain, Austria, and Russia and including the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Naples and various German monarchies. Prussia did not join the coalition, while Spain supported France.
The Second Battle of Zurich was a key victory by the Republican French army in Switzerland led by André Masséna over a Russian force commanded by Alexander Korsakov near Zürich. It broke the stalemate that had resulted from the First Battle of Zurich three months earlier and led to the withdrawal of Russia from the Second Coalition. Most of the fighting took place on both banks of the river Limmat up to the gates of Zürich, and within the city itself. The same days saw a battle between Hotze's Austrians and Soult's French at the River Linth. It was arguably the most significant French victory of 1799–1800.
By 1799, the French Revolutionary Wars had resumed after a period of relative peace in 1798. The Second Coalition had organized against France, with Great Britain allying with Russia, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, and several of the German and Italian states. While Napoleon's army was still embroiled in Egypt, the allies prepared campaigns in Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
The Napoleonic Wars continued from 1799 with the French fighting the forces of the Second Coalition. Napoleon Bonaparte had returned from Egypt and taken control of the French government, marking the end of the French Revolution. He prepared a new campaign, sending Moreau to the Rhine frontier and personally going to take command in the Alps, where French forces had been driven almost out of Italy in 1799.
The Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1801) were a series of conflicts fought principally in Northern Italy between the French Revolutionary Army and a Coalition of Austria, Russia, Piedmont-Sardinia, and a number of other Italian states.
The Battle of Cassano was fought in 1799 from 27 to 28 April near Cassano d'Adda, which about 28 km (17 mi) ENE of Milan. The clash is part of the battle of the Adda River or the so-called forcing of the Adda, which on the first day of 26 April resulted in a minor victory for the Russians under the Count Suvorov over Barthélemy Schérer's French forces at Lecco. Then, on the second day, Suvorov's Austrians and Cossacks prevailed over Jean Moreau's army, who replaced Schérer as supreme commander, and trapped his isolated division on the third. The action took place during the War of the Second Coalition, as part of the larger conflict known as the French Revolutionary Wars.
Alexander Mikhailovich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian general remembered as an unlucky assistant to Alexander Suvorov during his Swiss expedition of 1799–1800.
Claude Jacques Lecourbe was a French general during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.
In the Battle of Magnano on 5 April 1799, an Austrian army commanded by Pál Kray defeated a French army led by Barthélemy Schérer. In subsequent battles, the Austrians and their Russian allies drove the French out of nearly all of Italy. This action was fought during the War of the Second Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars.
Friedrich Freiherr (Baron) von Hotze, was a Swiss-born general in the Austrian army during the French Revolutionary Wars. He campaigned in the Rhineland during the War of the First Coalition and in Switzerland in the War of the Second Coalition, notably at Battle of Winterthur in late May 1799, and the First Battle of Zurich in early June 1799. He was killed at the Battle of Linth River.
Diederich Arend von Rosenberg or Andrei Grigoryevich Rosenberg was an Imperial Russian general who led troops against Ottoman Turkey, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Republican France. During the War of the Second Coalition he capably led an army corps under the famous Alexander Suvorov at Cassano, Bassignana and the Trebbia. In addition, his advance guard fought at Gavi when pursuing retreating French troops after the Battle of Novi. During Suvorov's Swiss campaign, Rosenberg's column took the Oberalp Pass around Lake Oberalpsee; while in independent command, he and his rearguard badly defeated a French force under André Masséna in the Battle of the Muotatal (Muottental/Muttental) on 30 September – 1 October 1799.
The Battle of Mannheim was fought between an Austrian army commanded by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen and a French army under Jacques Léonard Muller. Most of the French Army of the Rhine had retreated to the west bank of the Rhine River, leaving the division of Antoine Laroche Dubouscat to hold Mannheim on the east bank. Despite assistance by Michel Ney, Laroche's division was beaten and driven out of the city when attacked by Charles and a much superior force. The War of the Second Coalition action occurred in the city of Mannheim, today located in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany about 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of Frankfurt.
The Piedmontese Republic was a revolutionary, provisional and internationally unrecognized government established in Turin between 1798 and 1799 on the territory of Piedmont during its military rule by the French First Republic.
The First Battle of Marengo or Battle of San Giuliano saw Republican French soldiers under General of Division Jean Victor Marie Moreau launch a reconnaissance in force against a larger force of Habsburg Austrian and Imperial Russian troops led by Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov. The French enjoyed initial success, pressing back their opponents. However, large Austrian and Russian reinforcements soon arrived, causing the French to withdraw into Alessandria. This War of the Second Coalition meeting engagement occurred near the town of Spinetta Marengo, located just east of Alessandria in northwest Italy.
The Second Battle of Marengo or Battle of Cascina Grossa saw French troops under General of Division Jean Victor Marie Moreau clash with a force of Austrian soldiers led by Feldmarschall-Leutnant Heinrich von Bellegarde. The early fighting between Emmanuel Grouchy's division and Bellegarde was inconclusive. However, late in the day Moreau committed Paul Grenier's French division to the struggle and the Austrians were driven from the field. This War of the Second Coalition battle occurred near Spinetta Marengo which is just east of Alessandria, Italy.
Suvorov's Swiss campaign took place on Swiss territory between September and October 1799 during the War of the Second Coalition. Russo-Austrian troops, who had already repeatedly defeated the French in Italy between April and August, crossed St. Gotthard under the command of Field Marshal Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov-Rymniksky, with orders to march against General André Masséna to drive him out of the Helvetic Republic.