XVI. 1795. CHAP. already at the gates; terror seized the bravest hearts; the magistrates resigned their authority; the democratic leaders were installed in their stead: the tricolor flag was hoisted on the Hotel de Ville; and the Republican Th. vii. 191. troops, amidst the shouts of the multitude, entered the city.1 1 Jom. vi. 199, 200. Toul. v. 175. 192. 99. Fall of The conquest of this rich and powerful capital, which had defied the whole power of Louis XIV., and imposed Leyden, and such severe conditions on France at the treaties of Haarlem. Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle, was of immense importance Utrecht, * Jom. vi. 208, 212. Th. vii. 194. 100. Dutch fleet the French cavalry. to the French government. Utrecht, Leyden, Haarlem, and all the other towns of the Republic, underwent a similar revolution. Every where the lower classes of the people received the French soldiers as deliverers: the power of the Convention soon extended from the Pyrenees to the northern extremity of Friesland. The immense naval resources, the vast wealth which ages of independence had accumulated in the United Provinces, lay at the mercy of the Convention. This great revolution, to the honour of the democratic party be it recorded, was accomplished without bloodshed, or any of the savage cruelty which had stained the first efforts of a free spirit in France a signal example of the influence of free institutions in softening the asperity of civil dissension, calculated to alleviate many of the gloomy anticipations which the annals of the French Revolution might otherwise produce.2 These successes were soon followed by others, if possible still more marvellous. On the same day on which captured by General Daendels had entered Amsterdam, the left wing of the army, after passing the lake of Biesbosch on the ice, made themselves masters of the great arsenal of Dordrecht, containing six hundred pieces of cannon, ten thousand muskets, and immense stores of ammunition. The same division immediately after passed through Rotterdam, and took possession of the Hague, where the StatesGeneral were assembled. To complete the wonders of XVI. 1795. the campaign, a body of cavalry and flying artillery CHAP. crossed the Zuyder Zee on the ice, and summoned the fleet, lying frozen up at the Texel. The commanders, confounded at the hardihood of the enterprise, surrendered their ships to this novel species of assailants. At the same time the province of Zealand capitulated to the French troops; and the right wing of the army, continuing its successes, compelled the British to abandon the line of the Issel; Friesland and Groningen were successively evacuated, and the whole United Provinces overrun by the Republican arms. The British government, finding the services of the Hanoverians useless on the Continent, dismissed them to their native country, and the British, embarked on board their ships, speedily carried the terror of their arms to the remotest colonies of 195. the Indian seas.1 1 Jom. vi. 208, 212. Th. vii. 194, 101. dinary dis their com The discipline of the French soldiers, during this campaign, contributed as much as their valour to these Extraor astonishing successes. Peaceable citizens, converted into cipline of soldiers by the decree of September 1793, were rapidly the French inured to the restraints and the subordination of disci- spoliation of pline after eight months of marches and combats, they manders. undertook, without murmuring, a winter campaign; destitute of almost every thing, from the extreme depression of the paper money,* in which they received their pay, they crossed numerous streams amid the severest weather, and penetrated, after a month's bivouacking, to Amsterdam, without having committed the slightest disorder. The inhabitants of that wealthy capital, justly apprehensive of pillage from the entrance of so necessitous a body, were astonished to see ten regiments of soldiers, half naked, defile through the streets to the sound of military music, pile their arms in the midst of ice and * The soldiers being still paid in assignats, the pay of an officer, from their depreciation, was only equal in real value to three francs, or half-a-crown, a-month. In 1795, one-third was paid in specie, which raised the income of a captain to seventy francs, or three pounds sterling, a-month.—JOMINI, vi. 214. CHAP. 1794. snow, and calmly wait, as in their own metropolis, the quarters and barracks assigned for their lodging. It was such conduct as this which spread so widely the general illusion in favour of republican institutions. But the Dutch were not long in being awakened to sad realities from their deceitful dream. Forty of their ships of war had been withdrawn with the Prince of Orange, and were lodged in the British ports; the remaining fifty were immediately taken possession of by the Republicans for the service of the French. The credit of the famous Bank of Amsterdam was violently shaken, and owed its withstanding the shock to the intervention of government; commerce was entirely destroyed by the British blockade; forced requisitions, to an immense amount, of clothing, stores, and provisions, gave the people a foretaste of the sweets of military dominion; while a compulsory regulation, which compelled the shopkeepers to accept of the depreciated French assignats at the rate of nine sous for a franc, restored the army to abundance, 193, 199. by throwing the loss arising from the depreciation, to their infinite horror, upon the inhabitants of the enfranchised capital.1 1 Th. vii. Jom, vi. 212, 216. 102. operations on the Rhine. To complete the picture of this memorable campaign, it is only necessary to recount the concluding operations on the Upper Rhine and the Alps. The check at Kayserslautern having induced the French Concluding government to reinforce their troops on the German frontier, ten thousand men were withdrawn from Savoy, and fifteen thousand from la Vendée, to augment the armies on the Rhine. By the middle of June the armies on that river amounted to 114,000 men, of whom fifty thousand were on the lower part of the stream, forty thousand on the upper, and twenty-four thousand in the Vosges mountains. The Committee of Public Salvation incessantly impressed upon General Michaud, who commanded them, the necessity of taking the initiative, by renewing his attacks without intermission, and of acting CHAP. XVI. 1794. in large masses; but that general, not sufficiently aware of the new species of warfare which the Republicans had commenced, adhered to the old system of a parallel attack along the whole line. This action took place on the 2d July 2. July, and led to no decisive result. The enemy were touched at all points, but vigorously pushed at none; and one thousand men were lost to the Republicans without any advantage. Upon receiving intelligence of this check, Carnot renewed his orders to Michaud to concentrate his forces, and act by columns on particular points. A fortnight after, the attack was renewed, and, by a concentrated effort against the centre of the Allied position, their whole army was compelled to retire. The Republicans advanced in pursuit as far as Frankenthal, and resumed the line of the Rehbach, abandoned at the commencement of the campaign. campaign. In this affair the Jom. vi. 59. Allies lost three thousand men, and the spirit of victory vii. 88, 89. was transferred to the other side.1 75,77. Th. occupies Treves, and across the Aug. 9. Both parties remained in a state of inactivity after this 103. contest, until the beginning of August, when the army of The army of the Moselle, being reinforced by fifteen thousand choice the Moselle troops from la Vendée, and raised to forty thousand men, the made a forward movement, and occupied Treves. But are driven while this was going forward, the Prussian army, in- Rhine. structed by their recent disaster, and observing the dispersed position of the French army in the valley of the Rhine, made a sudden attack with twenty-five thousand men upon the division of General Meynier, at Kayserslautern, totally defeated them, and drove them back with the loss of four thousand men. Had this success been vigorously supported, it might have led to the most important results, and totally changed the fate of the campaign; but not being followed up by the Aug. 19. bulk of the Allied force, which still preserved its extended position, it produced only a temporary consternation in the French armies. In effect, such was the inactivity of the Allied generals, and their obstinate adherence to the XVI. 1794. Oct. 17. CHAP. system of positions, that they allowed the army of the Moselle, not forty thousand strong, to remain undisturbed in Treves for two months, though flanked on one side by sixty-five thousand Prussians and Austrians, who occupied the Palatinate; and, on the other, by eighty thousand Imperialists, who were encamped in the neighbourhood of Luxembourg. At length, in the beginning of October, the Committee of Public Salvation directed the armies of the Moselle and the Rhine to unite and expel the Allies from the Palatinate. This junction having been effected, and the retreat of Clairfait beyond the Rhine having exposed their right flank to be turned, the Prussians fell back to Mayence, and crossed to the right bank by its bridge of boats. That important fortress was soon after invested; Rheinfels, contrary to the most express orders, was evacuated; and the old Marshal Bender shut up in the great fortress of Luxembourg, with ten thousand men.. The rigours of the season, and the contagious diseases incident to the great accumulation of young soldiers, soon filled the hospitals; and the Republican armies were more severely weakened by the mortality of their winter rest, than they would have been by the losses of the most harassing summer campaign.1 1 Jom. vi. Th. vii. 89. 78, 86, 91. 104. of the cam paign in Savoy. In Savoy, the great detachments made in June to Conclusion reinforce the army of the Rhine, reduced the French armies to the defensive; and they confined their efforts to maintaining their position till the falling of the snows on the summits of the Alps, from the neighbourhood of Gex to the valley of the Stura. The plan of Buonaparte for the invasion of Piedmont by the valley of the Stura, was not adopted by the Committee of Public Salvation, and the breathing-time, thus afforded them, enabled the court of Turin to recover from their consternation. Not disconcerted by this, Buonaparte presented a second plan to the government, the object of which was to move forward the army of Italy to Demonte, and, after reducing that place, |