at 5000 men taken. The Auftrians computed that of the French, in killed, wounded, and feveral hundred prifoners taken by Hotze, at 4000. The Auftrians had flattered themfelves that they thould receive from the Grifons powerful affiftance, which had certainly been promised by their chiefs. But it was a very fmall number of individuals only that took up arms in favour of the Auftrians.

There is not a principle better eftablished in the fcience of politics, if it may be called a fcience, or in that of war, than that it is extremely dangerous to hazard any plan of operations in any country, or a reliance on the co-operation and fupport of the inhabitants. Yet there certainly is a strong and inveterate propensity in human nature to place fuch a reliance, though its flipperinefs has been fo often experienced, and, in the present war, on one fide almoft uniformly. It is the paffion for liberty alone, rightly or otherwife underfood, or rather the spirit of innovation, and a fond expectation of fome unknown good, that can animate a whole people to any general system of conftant exertion.. The Grifons had invited the Auftrians to fave them from the tyranny of the French, but it is faid that the manners of thofe Germans were by no means fuch as to conçiliate the affections of the inhabitants, who probably began to think that they had only exchanged one mafter for another. Maffena tranf ferred the government of the capital, and what he had fubdued of the country of the Grifons, into the hands of fome expelled patriots, whom he had brought back with him, and whofe individual wishes were declared, as on former occa>

fions, to be the joint and colle&tive: wishes of the whole Grison people. However advantageous the pof feflion of the valley of the Rhine might be to the French, that fuccefs could neither lead to others, nor even be fecure as long as the Austrians were masters of the Voral berg, and of the upper country of the Grifons. It was necellary to drive them from thofe pofitions, in order to attack the Tyrol with advantage, and to complete the exe cution of the great defign. It was not permitted, by the fituation and force of the army of Italy, that it fhould act at the fame time against the Voralberg, the country of Plu dentz, and in the fouthern parts of the country. of the Grifons. It was determined, therefore, that the latter part of this task fhould be undertaken by a body of troops-detached from thofe which occupied the Valtelline and the Italian Bailiwicks; that Maffena himself should attack the Voralberg, and that his right wing, under Lecourbe, acting between the two, should attack the weft fide of the Tyrol: in a word, it was by the three vallies of the Rhine, the Inn, and the Adige, that the French hoped to pene> trate into. that Auftrian province..

Maflena, being nearest to the enemy, began his attack on the eleventh, but he found the pofition of Field-kirk fo well fortified, that all his reiterated efforts againft it were fruitlefs. The divifion, under Lecourbe, in twelve days made themfelves mafters of almost all the valley of the upper and lower Engadine, on the courfe of the Inn, Encouraged by these first successes, he advanced in the valley of the Inn to the frontier of the Tyrol, and on the fourteenth in the morning,

at

attacked the Auftrians at St. Mar tinfbruck, and at Finfter-Munfter; but was obliged to retreat with the lofs of feveral hundred men. General Loudon, who had been beaten by Lecourbe three days before, with a lofs of about 2000 men, taken prifoners, refolved to take advantage of the French general's line being weak, and fo much extended, to beat the enemy, and on the fame fpot. Having procured reinforcements, partly of regular troops, and partly of Tyrolefe volunteers, having fent a detachment to Zernetz, and concerted meafares with the officer who commanded the poft of St. Martin bruck, on the fifteenth in the morn ing, he unexpectedly marched down the mountains, and fell upon fome companies of grenadiers and light infantry who occupied the village of Schulz. Thus furprized, they were driven from the village and put to fight. General Mainoni and a great part of them were taken prifoners. This corps would probably have been destroyed, and the French expelled from the Engadine, if Le courbe had not, at that moment, been accidentally on his way to Schulz, and very near it. He rál

lied the fugatives, and having fupported them with a fresh battalion, again made himself master of the village. But he could not retake Mainoni and the horfes which had fallen into the hands of the Auftrians, who had time to carry them off into the mountains. We come now to the detachment form the Italian army which occupied the Valtelline and the Italian Bailiwicks. Defolles, who commanded this defachment, who had begun, on the thirteenth, his march in the Valtel line, vigorously attacked the Auf

trians in the morning of the fixteenth near Bormio, without being able, however, even after repeated ef forts, to diflodge them from theit pofition. Next day, the French having returned to the charge, îǹ greater force, drove the Auftrians from the important valley of Bormio, the poffeffion of which opened the road to the conquerors to that of the Adige. On the fame day Lecourbe renewed an attack, which had failed on the fifteenth, on the Auftrian poft at St. Martinsbruck, while another column, by defcending the mountains, between FinfterMunfter and Neuders, endeavoured to turn it. None of thefe attacks fucceeded. General Alciani, who commanded in thofe parts, made fo good a ufe of his pofition, of the fmall number of regular troops that he had, and of the Tyrolefe pealants who had joined him, that he made a fuccefsful refiftance on every fide. After a defperate engagement of leveral hours the French were obliged to abandon the attack, leaving a great number of dead in the fiel, and 400 prifoners in the hands of the enemy. This check, though balanced by the fuccefs of Defolles, retarded the operations of Lecourbe, forced him to take new meatures, and delayed for fome days the invasion of the Tyrol.

The archduke, whofe head-quar ters were at Friedberg, was informed of the paffage of the Rhine by the French, on the night between the fecond and third of March. He immediately, 'ordered the whole of his army, cantoned on the Lech, to prepare to pass that river. On the very next day, 6000 men, part of the vanguard pushed forward, by forced marches, and on the morn ing of the fifth reached Ulm, whi[R 2]

ther

ther alfo the whole of the imperial army arrived on the fixth. This was a strong point of fupport which the archduke wifhed to fecure on the Danube, and from which, as from an extenfive fortrefs, he meant to cover all the approaches to the hereditary states. A military proclamation, by prince Charles, in an1wer to that of Jourdan, already noticed, infpired one fentiment of indignation against the French, and one defire of fighting them. The head-quarters of the archduke were, on the ninth, fixed at Mammingen. His vanguard, 15,000 ftrong, commanded by general Nawendorf, pushed very far on, and, on the eleventh, took poít near Ravenf berg, while the corps, which had occupied Ulm, was fending detachments along the two banks of the Danube. The line poffeffed by the Auftrians, between Bregentz, and Ulm, had already fruftrated the first part of Jourdan's plan, which was, to gain the flank of the Tyrol by mere marches. The French general, with a view of concentrating the force of the armies of Switzerland and the Danube, and to give more concert to their operations, of which the common object was to drive the Auftrians from the Tyrol, placed the right wing of his army on the lake of Conftance, near Marchdorf, his centre and headquarters at Pfullendorf, and his left at Mengen. In the mean time the archduke, with all poffible celerity, brought up the main body of his army, that had remained confiderably behind the vanguard, which had advanced with great rapidity to cover the Tyrol, and to fupport general Hotze. It had already, on the fixteenth, pufhed fome parties as far as Stock-ach. The main body

of the army, at this period, was not far diftant from the vanguard. It occupied the fpace between the Federlea and the lake of Conftance, and like the French, had placed the greateft part of its force on this latter point. This part of fouthern Suabia was the ground which the French were the most interested in feizing, and the Auftrians in defending. Jourdan's aim was to get between the archduke and general Hotze: the prince's to feparate Jourdan from Maffena. Neither could attain his end without beating his adverfary. The fpace occupied by the two armies, between the Danube and the lake being too confined for great manœuvres, and the advanced posts almoft touching each other, both fides prepared for a battle, which had become unavoidable.

Not a fhot had yet been fired in Suabia, and the French, acting in conformity to Jourdan's proclamation, but in direct oppofition to the attacks in the country of the Grifons, continued to aver, that they had no other view than to take pofitions of fafety. The directory, however, feeing that there no longer remained any hopes of reaping fresh advantages from its grofs artifices, had thrown off the mafk, and, on the thirteenth of the fame month, had caufed war to be declared by the legislative body against the em peror and grand duke of Tulcany. General Jourdan, informed of this on the nineteenth, difpofed his army in order of battle, the very day af ter, and pofted it on the two finall rivers of Afck and Oftrach: thus occupying all that space which lies between the lake and the Danube, from Buckhorn to Mengen. Having taken these measures, he fent

an

an officer to general prince Schwart zenberg, who commanded a part of the Auftrian vanguard, to afk whether the answer expected from the court of Vienna, relative to the fending back of the Ruffians had been yet received. That officer, being told that no answer had been fent, announced that the armiftice was at an end, and declared war, on the part of the directory, against the king of Bohemia and Hungary. No fooner was he returned than an attack, by orders of Jourdan, was made on the Auftrian vanguard, which was obliged to fall back; but, which meeting with reinforcements, repulfed the French in its turn, and regained the ground it had loft. On the fame day, the main body of the archduke's army had arrived near to Salgau and Altzhaufen, being then diftant only one day's march from the French army. This confideration induced the archduke to concentrate his force, in an encampment on the heights adjacent to thefe two places.

General Jourdan, encouraged by the flight fuccefs of his van-guard, and by the nature of the ground, determined to come to action on the twenty-first. The archduke, wifhing to take the advantage of the enthufiafm of his troops, and not to give his adverfary time to reinforce himself with the corps on the other fide of the Danube, was before hand with Jourdan. He divided his army into three columns: that of the right, commanded by the prince of Furftemberg, was 10 march along the Danube towards Mengen, and to diflodge the left wing of the French army from that place, or at leaft to keep it in check. General Wallis, with the left wing or divifion followed the

road to Altzhoufen, and directed his march upon Oftrach, while the archduke, with the centre, advan ced on the fame point, along the caufeway of Sulgau. The united columns of the Auftrians overthrew the advanced pofts of the enemy in their march, though in this they fuffered very confiderable lofs from the batteries erected on the heights and commanding the roads by which they were obliged to advance, attacked the bridge of Oftrach infront, which was at length forced, after a brave defence. The centre of the French army, having thus loft its principal fupport, was obliged to fall back, fuffering greatly in its retreat, from the Auftrian cavalry, to Pfullendorf, where it took up a pofition on the heights in front of that place. The right wing, which had not been attacked, followed the motion of the centre, and fell back to Salmens weiler. The leftwing, which, from the very beginning of the day, had been hotly engaged with the Auftrians, and had defended itself well, alfo in the end retreated along the Danube, placing itfelf in a line with the reft of the army. The Auftrians calculated the lofs of the French as amounting to 5000 killed, wounded, or pri foners. The latter eftimated the lofs of the victors at 4000 men.-This day was very honourable to the archduke, who again difplayed the bravery and military talents of which he had given fuch repeated proofs three years before. The first fuccefs in all campaigns is of great importance. But it was of more than ufual importance in a war depending fo greatly on public opinion; and by which, in its turn, public opinion must be powerfully influenced. The engagement of the [R 3]

twenty.

twenty-first, to which no name has as yet been appropriated, and which we fhall therefore call the battle of Oftrach, flopped, in the very outfel, the execution of the plan adopted by the French; repaired the bad effects which the misfortunes in the country of the Grifons had produced in the minds of the people; increafed the confidence of the Auftrian army in its chief, and formed to Europe a prefage of events yet more fortunate. The French commander affured, from the pofition which the Auftrians had taken on his right, that it was their intention to attack him on the morrow, in the night, between the twenty-first and twentyfecond, retired from a poft which he did not confider as fufficiently frong for fuftaining an attack, to wards Stock-ach, where he fixed his head-quarters: the right of his army being on the lake of Conftance, near Fridingen. Retiring again from this pofition, the day after he established his right at HohenTweil, his centre in front of Engen, where he had his head-quarters, and his left on the heights of Tut tlingen, near the Danube.

The archduke, in purfuit of Jourdan, drove the republicans every where before him. On the twentyfourth he pushed his vanguard to the very line of the enemy, who were forced, with lofs, from feveral pofts on their right and centre. On the fame day, the whole of the Auftrian army had taken up a pofition in the rear of Stock-ach. However well chofen this pofition might be, in the prefent circumftances, and course of action, it was not without its difadvantages, and was far from being fecure, as the Danube, being nearer to the lake of Conftance, towards its fource, than in the reft

of its courfe, Jourdan could more cafily occupy the space, lying be tween that river and the lake, than the archduke, who, although obli ged to have a more extended front, was yet unable to turn his adversary, while the latter could eafily tura the pofition of the Auftrians.

Whilft the archduke, by the dif pofition of his cavalry, and direc ing attacks to be made on certain pofts of the enemy, was employed in correcting the unavoidable des fects of his pofition, Jourdan was confidering how he might take advantage of them. All the efforts which that general and Maffena had fucceffively made to effect a junction of their forces, beyond the lake of Conftance, had mifcarried. There remained, therefore, no other means of realizing the plan adopted for the campaign by the French than to gain a decifive victory over the archduke: and Jourdan accordingly determined to hazard a battle. The plan, which he formed, was to bring his left against the right flank of the Auftrians, in hopes that they, feeing themselves in danger of being turned, might weaken their centre, and thus enable him to break through this, and feparate the archduke from the lake of Conftance. Having formed his army into three principal columns, he directed these, at break of day, on the morning of the twenty-fifth, to three points of attack. The archduke, who had proceeded to reconnoitre the pofition of the enemy, and was then in the village of Aach, feeing that the attack on his army became general, inftantly made the beft difpofitions that the circumstances would admit. Having placed fome battalions and artillery on the heights of Nellemberg, a central point, which he in

tended