rant: to-day I am at the head of fifteen | paper salaries. Those who were stathousand men; to-morrow I shall not tioned in foreign countries contrived, have fifteen hundred. Nothing remains indeed, by contributions upon the vanfor me but to fly, or seek a glorious quished, to supply the deficiency of death. My choice is made; I shall their nominal pay; and the luxury in perish with my arms in my hands." which they lived offered a strange and His indignation exhaled in a letter to painful contrast to the destitute situathe Count d'Artois, in which he openly tion of their brethren on the soil of accused him of cowardice. But his po- the Republic. Jourdan had neither a sition was no longer tenable; he was bridge equipage to enable him to cross obliged to fly into the interior. From the Rhine, nor a sufficiency of horses that moment the affairs of the Royal- to move his artillery and baggage; ists rapidly declined in all the western Kleber, in front of Mayence, had not a provinces; the efforts of the Chouans quarter of the artillery or stores necesand Vendeans were confined to an in- sary for the siege of the place. Disciconsiderable guerilla warfare; and this pline had relaxed with the long-con-was finally extinguished in the succeed- tinued sufferings of the soldiers, and ing year by the great army and able the inactivity consequent on such a dispositions of Hoche, whom the Direc- state of destitution had considerably tory invested, at the end of the cam- diminished their military spirit. Mulpaign, with the supreme command. It titudes had taken advantage of the reis painful to reflect how different might laxation of authority following the fall have been the issue of the campaign, of Robespierre, to desert and return to had Great Britain really put forth its their homes; and the government, so strength in the contest; and, instead far from being able to bring them back of landing a few thousand men on a to their colours, was not even able to coast bristling with bayonets, sent levy conscripts in the interior, to supthirty thousand to make head against ply their place. Many resorted to Paris, the Republicans, till the Royalists were where the Convention was happy to so organised as to be able to take the form them into battalions, for their field with regular troops. own protection against the fury of the Jacobins. Soon the intelligence spread that the deserters were undisturbed in the interior; and this extended the contagion to such a degree, that in a short time a fourth of the effective force had returned to their homes. The soldiers thought they had done enough for their country when they had repelled the enemy from its frontiers, and advanced its standards to the Rhine; the generals, doubtful of their authority, did not venture to take severe measures with the refractory; and those who remained, discouraged by the loss of so great a number of their comrades, felt that depression which is the surest forerunner of defeat. 36. The situation of the armies on the northern and eastern frontier remained the same as at the conclusion of the last campaign; but their strength and efficiency had singularly diminished during the severe winter and spring which followed. Moreau had received the command of the army of the north, encamped in Holland; Jourdan, that of the Sambre and Meuse, stationed on the Rhine near Cologne; Pichegru, that of the army of the Rhine, cantoned from Mayence to Strasburg. But all these forces were in a state of extreme penury, from the fall of the paper money in which their pay was received, and totally destitute of the equipments necessary for carrying on a campaign. They had neither caissons, horses, nor magazines; the soldiers were almost naked, and even the generals frequently in want of the necessaries of life, from the failure of the eight francs a-month, in silver, which formed the inconsiderable but necessary supplement to their 37. The Austrians, on the other hand, having made the greatest efforts during the winter to reinforce their armies, and not having as yet experienced any part of the exhaustion which extraordinary exertion had brought on the Republican forces, were in a much better state, both in point of numbers, discipline, and equipment. Including was engaged in a negotiation, by which the contingents of Suabia and Bavaria, he hoped to procure the frontier fortheir forces on the Rhine had been tresses of Alsace for the Bourbon princes. raised to 150,000 men; while the This prince, whose little corps formed French forces on the same frontier, part of the left wing of the Austrian though nominally amounting to 370,000 army, was engaged in a correspondence men, could only muster 145,000 in the with the malcontents in Alsace, and field.* And such was the state of des- from them he learned that Pichegru titution of these forces, that the cavalry was not altogether inaccessible to negowas almost completely dismounted; tiation. In fact, that illustrious man and Jourdan could not move a few was, on many accounts, discontented marches from his supplies, until he got both with his own situation and that 25,000 horses for the service of his of his country. Like Dumourier and artillery. The Rhine, that majestic Lafayette, he had been horror-struck stream, so long the boundary of the by the atrocities of the Convention, and Roman empire, separated the contend- saw no hope of permanent amendment ing armies from the Alps to the ocean. in the weak and disunited government The Imperialists had the advantage which had succeeded it; while, at the arising from the possession of Mayence. same time, the state of destitution to That bulwark of the Germanic Empire which, in common with all the army, had been put into the best possible he was reduced by the fall of the asstate of defence, and gave the Allies the signats, in which their pay was received, means of making an irruption with se- rendered him discontented with a govcurity upon the left bank. Notwith-ernment which made such returns for standing this great advantage, such was the consternation produced by their former reverses, that they remained inactive on the right bank of the river till the end of June, when Marshal Bender, having exhausted all his means of subsistence, and seeing no hope of relief, was compelled to surrender the important fortress of Luxembourg to the Republican generals. Ten thousand men, and an immense train of artillery, on this occasion fell into the hands of the victors. 38. While the Imperialists were thus allowing the bulwark of the Lower Rhine to fall into the hands of the enemy, the Prince of Condé, on the Upper Rhine, great patriotic services. During all the extremities of the Reign of Terror, Pichegru and his army, instead of obeying the sanguinary orders of the Dictators, had done everything in their power to furnish the means of escape to their victims. He had nobly refused to execute the inhuman decree, which forbade the Republican soldiers to make prisoners of the British troops. His soldiers, after the conquest of Holland, had set a rare example of discipline; and the sway he had acquired over them was such, as to prevent all the license and insubordination which had followed the conquest of Flanders by the forces of Dumourier. In these circumstances than that the same general who had nothing was more natural or laudable, secured the independence of his country by his arms, should strive to establish its internal prosperity by the restoration of a constitutional throne; and it is certain that he engaged in a correspondence with the Prince of Condé for the attainment of this object. The Republican historians allege that his 75,180 fidelity was shaken by different mo70,200 tives; that his passion for pleasure was 78,400 restrained by the elusory nature of his 37,700 pay, which, although nominally four thousand francs a-month, was in reality * The distribution of the Republican forces at the commencement of the campaign was as follows, in effective troops, deducting the detachments and sick : Nominal, Active. Garrisons. including 67,910 29,000 136,250 87, 630 66,000 170,300 Italy, Eastern Pyrenees, Western ditto, 33,780 5,000 West, 42,000 Shores of Brittany, 51,000 449,930 229,000 958,990 only one hundred francs, from the depreciation of the assignats, and that he yielded to the offer of a marshal's baton, the government of Alsace, a pension of 200,000 francs, the chateau and park of Chambord, and a million in silver. No decisive evidence has yet been produced on the subject; but it is certain that, after six months consumed in mysterious communication, Pichegru broke off the negotiation, and prepared to obey the orders of the Convention, by commencing the campaign. 39. Wurmser, to whom the cabinet of Vienna had intrusted the command of its forces on the Upper Rhine, remained till the beginning of September without making any movement. Mutually afraid, the hostile armies occupied the opposite banks of the Rhine, without attempting to disquiet each other. Wurmser's forces, including garrisons, amounted to eighty thousand men; while those of Clairfait, including the same species of force, were ninetysix thousand. The formidable state of defence in which Mayence had been placed, left no hope of reducing it without a regular siege; while a squadron of gun-boats on the Rhine gave the Allies the command both of that stream and of the numerous islands which lie on its bosom. Jourdan, having at length procured the necessary bridge-equipage, prepared to cross the river in the beginning of September. On the 6th of that month he effected the passage without any serious opposition, at Eichelcamp, Neuwied, and Dusseldorf, and compelled the garrison of the latter town to capitulate. After repulsing the Austrian corps in that vicinity, he advanced slowly towards Lahn, and established himself on that stream a fortnight afterwards. Meanwhile Pichegru, in obedience to the orders of government, crossed the Upper Rhine at Mannheim, and, by the terrors of a bombardment, compelled that important city-one of the principal bulwarks of Germany-to capitulate. This unexpected event threatened to change the fortune of the war; for Pichegru, now securely based on the Rhine, seemed equally in a situation to combine with Jourdan for a general attack on the | allied forces, or to direct his arms to the reduction of Mayence. 40. Alarmed by these successes, the Austrian generals made the most prudent dispositions which could have been adopted to arrest the enemy. Clairfait, unable, after the loss of Mannheim, to defend the line of the Lahn, abandoned his position on that river, and fell back behind the Maine; while Jourdan, following his opponent, and leaving a division before Ehrenbreitstein, descended into the rich valley of the Maine, and invested Mayence on the left bank of the Rhine, at the same time that Pichegru was debouching from Mannheim. In these critical circumstances, Clairfait displayed a degree of vigour and ability which led to the most important results. Reinforced by fifteen thousand Hungarian recruits, that able general deemed himself in a situation to resume the offensive. Accumulating his forces on his own right, he succeeded, by a skilful march, in turning the French left, and forcing them to fall back into a situation where they had him in their front, and the Rhine in their rear. Jourdan was now in the most perilous position. His communications being threatened, his flank turned, and his rear resting on a great river, exposed his army to destruction in the event of defeat. To avert the catastrophe of the French army a century before at Turin, when Marshal Marsin was totally defeated by Prince Eugene, no other course remained but to raise the siege of Mayence, and fall with his whole forces on Clairfait, who was now in communication with Wurmser, or to abandon all his positions, and recross the Rhine. The disorganised state of his army rendered the former project, afterwards so ably practised by Napoleon before Mantua, impracticable; and therefore he commenced his retreat. It was conducted in the utmost confusion; cannon, men, and horses arrived pell-mell at the bridges over the Rhine, and hardly fifty men of any corps were to be found together when they regained the left bank. The loss in men was inconsiderable, but the moral consequences of the retrograde movement were equivalent to a severe defeat. Had Clairfait been aware of the circumstance, a great and decisive blow might have been struck; for General Marceau, to whom the blockade of Ehrenbreitstein had been intrusted, having burned his flotilla when he raised the siege, some of the burning vessels were carried down by the stream to Neuwied, where they set fire to the bridge established at that place, which was speedily consumed. Kleber, with twenty-five thousand men, who had not as yet repassed, was now in a desperate situation; but, fortunately for him, the Allies were ignorant of the accident, and Clairfait about the same time relinquished the pursuit and drew his forces towards Mayence, where he meditated operations which soon produced the most important results. measures of the Austrians were so well taken, that the French found themselves assailed in all quarters at once: they made for some time an obstinate defence in the second line; but at length, perceiving that they were turned by other forces, which had crossed below Mayence, they fell into confusion, and fled in all directions. Their loss in this brilliant affair was three thousand men; and they were deprived, in addition, of the whole artillery, magazines, and stores, which they had collected with so much care for the siege of the bulwark of Germany. 42. This attack on the part of Clairfait was combined with other operations along the whole line, from Coblentz to Mannheim. On the same day on which it took place, an island, which 41. Suddenly abandoning the pursuit the Republicans had fortified a league of the French left wing, this intrepid above Coblentz, was captured, with two general turned by forced marches to battalions which composed its garrison; Mayence, at the head of a chosen corps, and by this success, which rendered the and at daybreak on the following morn- evacuation of the tête-de-pont of Neuing issued out by several columns to at- wied unavoidable below Mayence, they tack the lines of circumvallation which were entirely driven to the left bank of were still in the hands of the Republicans the river. At the same time, Wurmser on the left bank of the river. These lines, attacked and carried the tête-de-pont the remains of which still excite the ad- erected by Pichegru on the Neckar; miration of the traveller, were of im- and this success, coupled with the great mense extent, and required an army for blow struck by Clairfait, compelled their defence. The French army had Pichegru to retire behind the Pfrim, been engaged for a year in their con- which was not accomplished without struction, and they were garrisoned by the utmost confusion. The small numthirty thousand men. The secret of the ber of troops which Clairfait had brought march of the Imperial army had been to the left bank of the Rhine, alone so well preserved, that the besiegers saved the Republicans on this occasion were first apprised of their arrival by from the greatest disasters. Pichegru the sight of the formidable columns had left a garrison ten thousand strong which advanced to storm their intrench- in Mannheim, and the position which ments. The Imperialists advanced in he had occupied enabled him to comthree columns, and in admirable order, municate with the place by his right to the assault; and such was the con- flank. Despairing of being able to efsternation of the Republicans, that they fect its reduction as long as this comabandoned the first line almost without munication was preserved open, the Ausopposition. An event of that descrip- trians resolved to dislodge the French tion is generally decisive of the result from their position. For this purpose in the defence of intrenchments, because Clairfait was reinforced with twelve the defenders are thunderstruck by see-thousand men from the army of the ing their redoubts forced in any quarter, Upper Rhine, and he immediately made and, instead of thinking of driving back preparations for an attack. It took the enemy as in the open field, in gen-place on the following day; and, after eral give over all for lost, and betake an obstinate resistance, the Republicans themselves to a precipitate flight. So were compelled to abandon the line of it proved on the present occasion. The the Pfrim, and retire behind the Els bach, leaving Mannheim to its own re- | Mediterranean, and at L'Orient, that sources. nothing more of consequence took place at sea during the remainder of the year. The British availed themselves of their maritime supremacy to make themselves masters of the important station of the Cape of Good Hope, which surrendered to Sir James Craig on the 16th of September. Unable to act in large selves to mere predatory expeditions; and the vast extent of the British commerce afforded them an ample field for this species of warfare, from which, towards the close of the year, they de rived great gains. 43. While these important events were going forward on the Upper Rhine, Jourdan, with his defeated and discouraged force, was suffering the most cruel perplexity on the Lower. His army was with difficulty reorganised, and put in a condition for active service; and the Directory having mean-squadrons, the French confined themwhile succeeded to the helm of affairs, Carnot transmitted to him the most pressing orders to advance to the succour of Mannheim, which was now severely pressed by the Austrians. At length, towards the end of November, he put himself in motion at the head of forty thousand men, and advanced to the Nahe, in the midst of the most dreadful weather. But all his efforts were in vain. The central position of Clairfait and Wurmser both covered the siege of Mannheim and prevented the junction of the Republican armies; the defiles by which a communication could have been maintained were all in the hands of the Imperialists; and after several unsuccessful attacks, Jourdan was obliged to fall back, leaving Mannheim to its fate. That strong fortress, with a garrison of nine thousand men, capitulated at the same time to Wurmser. This important event was decisive of the fate of the campaign. Wurmser, now relieved from all apprehensions as to his communications, brought his whole forces to the left bank of the Rhine, and drove back Pichegru to the lines of the Queich, and the neighbourhood of Landau; while Clairfait pressed Jourdan so severely, that he began to construct an intrenched camp at Traerbach, with a view to secure his passage over the Moselle. In this disastrous state it was with the utmost joy that he received a proposition from the Austrians, who, as well as their opponents, were exhausted with the fatigues of the campaign, for a suspension of arms during the winter, in virtue of which a line of demarcation was drawn between the contending parties; and both armies were put into winter-quarters on the left bank of the Rhine. 44. The French marine was so completely broken by the disasters in the 45. By the result of this campaign the Allies gained considerable advantages. The career of French conquest was checked, the Republican soldiers driven with disgrace behind the Rhine; and while the Imperial forces, so lately disheartened and desponding, were pressing forward with the energy of conquest, their opponents, distracted and disorderly, had lost all the spirit by which they were formerly animated. The movements of Clairfait and Wurmser proved that they had profited by the example of their adversaries. Their tactics were no longer confined to a war of posts, or the establishment of a cordon over an extensive line of country, but showed that they were aware of the value of an interior line of operations, and of the importance of bringing an overwhelming force to the decisive point. By adopting these principles, they checked the career of conquest, restored the spirits of their troops, and not only counterbalanced the disadvantage of inferior numbers, but inflicted severe losses upon their adversaries. This result was the natural effect of the continuance of the contest. The energy of a democracy is often formidable during a period of popular excitement, and is capable of producing unparalleled exertions for a limited period; but it seldom succeeds in maintaining a lasting contest with a regular and organised government. The efforts of the populace resemble the spring of a wild beast; if the first burst fails, they rarely attempt a second. During the invasions of 1793 and 1794, the |