Thus the upper plateau of the Alps, fo often difputed in the courfe of this campaign, was, for the first time, reduced by force of arms. By the poffeffion of this pre-eminent military poft, and of the valley of Urieren, the Auftrians completed the communication between their two grand armies, and formed the central link of their vaft military chain, extending from the banks of the Maine, to thofe of the Bormida, - across the mountains of Suabia, the Rhine, Switzerland, the Alps, Lombardy, and the Appennines. It was from this time that their fyftem of operations became more fimple and better combined: it was at this time, too, that they fhewed greater force, a more active fpirit, and decided fuperiority, than at any other period in the whole campaign. They kept the French in check on the Mayne, the Necker, and the Kintzing, drove them from the half of Switzerland, feized or fhut up the paffages from that country into Italy, occupied the town of Turin, befieged its citadel, and blockaded, at the fame time, the fortreffes of Alexandria, Tortona, and Mantua. Malena having reafon to fear that the Auftrians would very foon invade Switzerland on all fides, and that it might, in confequence, be impoffible for him to preferve the femicircle, formed by the Rhine, from the fource of the Linth to the mouth of the Glatt, wished, at leati, to defend its diameter. He therefore fortified that chain of mountains, which lies in the front of Zurich, between the Litnmat and the Glatt. Thrown back behind the Glatt, by the affair of Winterthur, he went to occupy that pofition, and completed its entrenchments. His right, entirely compofed of infantry, was posted on the Zurichberg, the moft elevated part of all that chain of mountains. Accefs to it was rendered almoft impoffible by a thick wood, by feveral ranks of abbatis and redoubts, and by a formidable artillery. Between his right and the lake of Zurich there was no point through which it was poflible to penetrate. His left was placed on the fame chain of mountains, and the approaches to it. Between these two wings, on ground gradually floping, open, and cut by the roads from Schaffhaufen and Conftance, to Zurich, Mallena placed his cavalry. This pofition was fo well chofen, that the archduke could not make any effential progrefs until he had diflodged the French: which could be done only by either attacking them in front, or by turning their flank on the left bank of the Limmat, which would have been arduous, long, and even dangerous. On the fourth of June, the Auftrians advanced in fe veral columns against the Zurichberg, and attacked it on several points, at the fame time. The approaches to the Zurichberg were fo formidably entrenched, and the fire of the batteries fo commanding, that the generals Hotze and Rofenburg, who conducted the two principal attacks, were unable, for fome time, to make any progrefs, although two columns, acting on their flank, had already penetrated to the foot of the abbatis. Prince Charles ordered four battalions to affault the Zurich * A French term, fignifying a groun ! at once high and flat. berg berg with fixed bayonets. The Auftrian grenadiers made their way through the abbatis, and carried the first line of the entrenchments, but could not advance a step farther. Nevertheless, the Auftrians did not give ground, but kept the French within their works, and gave time to the other attacking columns to reach the foot of the entrenchments. Night overtook them here and put an end to a conteft which had raged with deadly obftinacy during the whole day. Each party loft two thousand five hundred men at least, On the fifth, the archduke took an exact view of the pofition of the enemy, and refolved to affault it: bat, as the fatigue of the preceeding day rendered it neceflary that the foldiers fhould take fome reft, he put off the execution of his defign till the fixth. But, on the night between the fifth and fixth, Massena abandoned his pofition, and retired to the other fide of the Limmat, where he took poft on the chain of mountains called Abis, which lies between the lake of Zurich, the Limmat, and the Reufs. The archduke, after taking poffeffion of Zurich, diftributed his troops along the right banks of the lake of Zurich, of the Limmat, and of the Aar. The archduke, defirous of extending his right on the western fhores of the lake, and to remove a little the centre of the enemy, on the eighth of June, attacked the French advanced pofts only half a league from Zurich, and drove them from the village of Albifrieden, and of fome heights, on which two points the Auftrians pofted themfelves, On these points the archduke confined himself on the first days after the capture of Zurich, from whence he f88h after removed his head His army, quarters to Klotem which from the twenty-first, and part of it from the fourteenth of the preceeding month, had been continually under march and fighting, required fome repofe. Besides, the new pofition, taken by Maffena, was too ftrong to admit of a chance of fuccefs in any attempt to force it. It was neceflary to conquer almost the whole of Switzerland before Malena could be compelled to abandon his pofition, and retire upon the Aar. On the whole, the archduke was determined not to attempt any thing important in Switzerland, in the prefent circumftances, for the following reafons: the ftrength of the pofition occupied by the French; the fmallnes of the affiftance which he either received, or could expect, from the inhabitants of Switzerland; the weak ftate in which his army had been left by the departure of general Bellegarde for Italy, whither, it was already refolved, that general Haddick thould follow him; the expected arrival of thirty-five thoufand Ruffian auxiliaries who were on their march to join him; and above all, the fecret orders of the cabinet of Vienna. He had then no longer any other object than to prevent Maffena from profiting by his inaction. And this object he could not better effect than by giving the French general employment in the Brifgaw, the Margraviate of Baden, and the Palatinate, where nothing worthy of notice had paffed during the month of May, except the capture of Heidelberg, by the Auftrians, on the nineteenth. A course of movements and actions foliowed in thefe countries, which in any other war, and even in any other campaign of the prefent war, would [S4] have 7 have fixed the attention of the public and the hiftorian. But the intereft, which thefe might have inspired, is in a manner abforbed by that which Daly and Switzerland, the two great theatres of the war, have conftantly commanded. It is loft in the unprecedented multiplicity of the operations, movements, and actions of this aftonishing campaign. The war carried on, on the left bank of the Rhine, from the month of May to that of September, however fit a fubject for military defcription and obfervation, in the political hiftory of Europe, on the fcale of this Annual Regifter, is to be regarded as merely epifodical. On the third of July, Maflena attacked the left wing of the archduke in the cantons of Schwitz and Zug. He gained fome pofts, but on the fame and fuccceding day loft them. There was not, at the beginning of July, any great difparity between the effective forces of the two contending generals. Malena, it is true, had a greater number of troops in Switzerland than the arch-, duke; but then he could not make ufe of them all in the field, as he was under a neceflity of leaving ftrong garrilous in the principal towns, for enfuring the obedience of the country, and of reinforcing the divifion which had been fent for fuppreffing the infurrection in the the Valais. That infurrrection, which had employed for near two months many thoufands of repubLeans, intended for the army in Italy, would have been of fill greater utility to the allies, if their plan had been to make the conqueft of Italy go hand in hand with that of Swiizerland. Though determined to effect that of the former, before they fhould in good earnest attempt that of the latter, they nevertheless judged it neceffary to make fome fhew of military designs in the Valais, which might keep up the infurrection, and detain in that country the body of the French, by which it was occupied General Haddick, who, fince the taking of St. Gothard, had fucceflively received orders, fometimes to enter into the Valais, fometimes to remain in Switzerland, and fometimes to repair to Italy, which he finally did, on the fixteenth of July, fent an advanced guard into the va ley of the Rhone, where it was joined by fome companies of infurgents. Some fkirmishing eofued, in which fome prifoners were made on both fides: after which, each party refumed its pofition. Although the month of July and the half of Auguft were not marked by any great enterprize, it was during this lapfe of time, that moft preparations were made, and moft political and military measures taken for future operations. The French prefled the levy of their con fcripts, of which they formed two new armies. One of thefe was deftined to act on the Rhine, and invade Franconia and Suabia. The other, under the name of the army of the Alps, was to cover France on the fide of Dauphiny and Provence, to act offentively in Piedmont, and and alfo to co-operate with the army, which occupied the Genock. They likewife marked out a camp, near Geneva, to defend the entrance of France, by the way of the Valais and Savoy. The Auftrian forces, which till then had been futficient to corquer, but part of whom had fallen a facrifice to victory, were now no longer adequate to that which re mained mained to be done; whether to keep felf the partifan of France, and dependent on Pruffia, changed all on a fudden his apparent fyftem, and engaged not only to march his contingent of troops, but even to furnish befides ten thousand men, whom England proposed to take into her pay. The duke of Wurtemberg engaged to furnish 6000 men, including his contingent, amounting to one half, on the condition, which was accepted, of his being fubfidized by England.Of the 45,000 men agreed for, by a treaty of fubfidies above noticed by the Ruffian emperor and Great Britain, more than 10,000 had already been fent to reinforce, in Italy, the 23,000 who had been there ever fince the fpring, with marthal Suwarrow. The remaining 35,000 had been on their march many months, and were expected to join the archduke in Switzland, towards the middle of Auguft. what had been already acquired, or to pursue the career of beginning conqueft. The court of Vienna inclined to the former of thefe alternatives, but thofe of London and Peterburgh to the latter. To accomplish this laft end London prefented money, and Petersburgh troops. But it was necellary, and it was naturally expected, that the German empire, in a caufe, which was more immediately its own, hould alfo make facrifices and efforts The emperor, in an imperial aulic decree, dated the twelfth of July, called on the states and princes of the empire, to pay the Roman months, and furnish the quintuple contingents, agreeably to the lafl conclufums of the diet of Ratibon; in conformity to which the king of Sweden had, about two months before, in his quality of duke of Pomerania, declared himself ready to act. But the charac terittic flownefs of all the refolutions of the diet of Ratifbon in duced the allies to feek for auxiliarjes among the princes who had yoops to difpofe of. The king of Pruffia perfifting in his neutrality, and having won over to his own fide all the northern princes of Germany, except the king of Sweden, who contented himself, however, with making the above declaration, the allied courts addreffed themfelves, and with more fuccefs, to the elector of Bavaria and the duke of Wurtemberg. The former, who, before his fucceffion to the electoral dignity, had conftantly fhewn him In the beginning of that month the archduke and Maffena found themfelves in the fame pofitions, which they refpectively occupied in the month of June. If the inactivity of the archduke could be accounted for, by his expectation of the Ruffian' army, it was not fo ealy to conceive why Maffena, who had received g eat reinforcements during the month of July, and who, at the beginning of Auguft, had at leaft 20,000 men more than that prince, did not make hafte to attack him before he fould receive any fupport from The inaction of the Ruffians. Maffena was matter of aftonishment to all Europe. The imperial decree, of the twelfth of July, was not taken into confideration till the twenty fecond of Auguft, and was not adopted as a conclufum till the fixteen h of October. Nor is it probable that, had the French reached the very walls of Vienna, matters would have been carried on with more dispatch. In the midst of all the embarraff ments of the French government, political, military, and financial, at a moment when it did not seem capable of even defending itfelf, it determined to refume the offenfive, and combined a plan of general attack on the whole line of the theatre of war across the Alps, through Switzerland, Piedmont, and the ftates of Genoa, from the Maine to the Mediterranean. General Jou bert, with 30 or 40,000 men, affembled in the ftate of Genoa, was, if poffible, to force the fiege of Tortona, and to drive the allies beyond the Po. About 15,000 men, collected by Championet, on the frontiers of Dauphiny and Piedmont, were to annoy the allies by penetrating through the vallies which connect these two countries, to fupport Joubert's left on the maritime Alps, and to form a central army between the armies of Switzerland and Italy. This laft, the moft numerous and moft advantageoufly pofted, was deftined to drive the archduke from the whole of Switzerland, if poffible; at any rate to confine him within narrow limits, and by all means to interrupt or impede his communications with mar hal Suwarrow. Maffena, guided by thefe views, refolved to make an attack on the whole Auftrian line. On the fourteenth of Auguft, the whole French army marched on all fides against the enemy. While general Chabran, with that divifion of the right of the corps which was immediately under Malena's orders, extended himself in front of the mountains of the Albis, and got poffeffion of almost all the country between these mountains and the western bank of the lake of Zurich: general Lecourbe, who had nearly 20,000 under his command, divided into fix columns, attacked all the politions of the Auftrians from mount St. Gothard to the northern extremity of the canton of Schweitz. The operations, intrufted to this general, embracing a great extent of country were to be carried on, fome upon mountains almoft inacceffible, others in deep vallies: the different columns could neither act in concert, nor communicate with each other, nor could they effect a junction till after each of them had penetrated by the point of attack alligned to it, and that the object of the expedition was accomplished in all its parts. This was no less than to drive the Auftrians from the fummits of the most elevated country in Europe. On the fixteenth, Lecourbe found himself mafter of the canton of Schweitz, of almoft the whole of that of Uri, and of the most elevated points of the great chain of the Alps, which bounds Switzerland to the fouthward. Generals Jellacheik and Simbfchen, who com nanded in the cantons of Schweitz and Uri, had retreated, the former as far as the canton of Glarus and behind the Linth; the latter into the Grey League, on the mountains of Crifpalt, which cover the paffage of the Grifon country. But from this commanding position they were driven by Lecourbe, and forced to fall back as far as Tawetsch. If the French had met with this great fuccefs, which difpoffefled the Auftrians of the fmall cantons, fome days fooner, the archduke, being inferior in numbers, and on the point of having other affairs on his hand, would probably have been forced to evacuate almost the whole of Switzerland, or could not have maintained |