XIII. 1793. the lines, by the defiles in the Vosges mountains, while the CHAP. Austrians, under Prince Waldeck, crossed the Rhine, and turned the right, and Wurmser himself, with the main body, endeavoured to force the centre. The attack on the right by Lauterburg obtained only a momentary success. But Wurmser carried several redoubts in the centre, and soon got possession of Weissenburg; and the left having been turned and forced back, the whole army retired in confusion, and some of the fugitives fled as far as Strassburg. Such was the tardiness of the Allies, that the French lost only one thousand men in this general rout, which, if duly improved, might have occasioned the 104. loss of their whole army.1 Hard. ii. Toul. iv. 424, 425. 140, 141, 142. Jom. iv. 96, 97, no results. Fort Van venge of the Alsace. But this important success, which once more opened 77. the territory of the Republic to a victorious enemy, and Leads to spread the utmost consternation through the towns of Capture of Alsace, led to no results, and, by developing the designs ban, and of Austria upon this province, contributed to widen the cruel rebreach between that power and her wavering ally. French in Although, therefore, a powerful reaction commenced among the nobles in Alsace, and a formidable party was formed in Strassburg, to favour the Imperial projects, nothing material was undertaken by their armies.— Wurmser wasted in festivity and rejoicings the precious moments of incipient terror; the Convention got time to recover from its alarm, and the Committee of Public Salvation took the most energetic measures to restore the democratic fervour in the shaken districts. A Revolutionary force, under the command of a ferocious leader named Bandet, traversed the province, confiscating without mercy the property of the suspected individuals, and spreading, by the multitude of their arrests, the fear of death among all. "Marat," said Bandet, "has demanded only two hundred thousand heads; were they a million we would furnish them." To take advantage of the excitement occasioned by these menaces, Wurmser advanced to the neighbourhood of Strassburg, where the XIII. 1793. CHAP. whole constituted authorities offered to surrender it to the Imperialists, in the name of Louis XVII. The Austrian commander, however, fettered by orders from Vienna, which prohibited him from doing any thing that might prejudice their system of methodical conquest, declined to take possession of the city on these terms, and moved the Prussians to Saverne, in order to force back the Republicans who were accumulating on that point. This project proved entirely unsuccessful; the Prussians were driven back; and Wurmser, unable to undertake the siege of Strassburg, was obliged to withdraw, and confine his operations to the blockade of Landau and the siege of Fort Vauban, which capitulated with its garrison of three thousand men on the 14th November. The inhabitants of Strassburg, thus abandoned to their fate, experienced the whole weight of Republican vengeance. Seventy persons of the most distinguished families were put to death, while terror and confiscation reinstated the sway of the Convention over the unhappy province. No sooner was the extent of the conspiracy ascertained, than St Just and Lebas were despatched by the Convention, and speedily put in force the terrific energy of the Revolution. The blood of the Royalists immediately flowed Hard, in torrents; it was a sufficient ground for condemnation, that any inhabitant had remained in the villages occupied 186. Th. by the Allies; and a fourth of the families of the province, decimated by the guillotine, fled into the neighbour111, 150 ing districts of Switzerland, and were speedily enrolled in the lists of proscription.1* 425, 426. Toul. iv. 143, 144, vi. 48, 49. Jom. iv. 104, 105, The secession of Prussia from the confederacy now became daily more and more evident. Wurmser in vain endeavoured to engage its army in any combined move "Il était temps que St Just vînt auprès de cette malheureuse armée, et qu'il portât de vigoureux coups de hache au fanatisme des Alsaciens, à leur indolence, à leur stupidité Allemande, à la cupidité, à la perfidie des riches. Il a tout vivifié, ranimé, régénéré et pour achever cet ouvrage, il nous arrive de tous les coins une colonne d'apôtres révolutionnaires de solides sans-culottes. Sainte Guillotine est dans la plus brillante activité, et la bienfaisante terreur produit ici d'une manière miraculeuse ce qu'on devait espérer d'un siècle au moins XIII. 1793. 78. Secession from the ments; orders from the cabinet constrained the Duke of CHAP. Brunswick to a line of conduct as prejudicial to his fame as a commander, as it was injurious to the character of his country. On his return to Berlin, Frederick William was assailed by so many representations from his minis- of Prussia ters as to the deplorable state of the finances, and the alliance. exhaustion of the national strength, in a contest foreign to the real interests of the nation, at the very time when the affairs of Poland required their undivided attention, and the greatest possible display of force in that quarter, that he at first adopted the resolution to recall all his troops from the Rhine, except the small contingent which he was bound to furnish as a prince of the Empire. Orders to that effect were actually transmitted to the Prussian general. The cabinet of Vienna, informed of the danger, made the most pressing remonstrances against such an untimely and ruinous defection, in which they were so well seconded by those of London and St Petersburg, that this resolution was rescinded, and, in consideration of a large Austrian subsidy, Prussia engaged, in appearance with sincerity, to continue the contest. But orders were at the same time secretly given by the cabinet of Berlin to the Duke of Brunswick to temporise as much as possible, and engage the Prussian troops in no serious enterprise, or any conquest which might turn to the advantage of the Austrians. The effect of this soon appeared in the removal of the Prussian mortars and cannon from the lines before Landau, at the moment when the bombardment was going on with the greatest prospect of success. Shortly after they withdrew so large a part of the blockading force, that the garrison was enabled to 425, 431. communicate freely with the adjacent country.1 par la raison et la philosophie. Quel maître bougre que ce garçon-lâ! La collection de ses arrêtés sera sans contredit un des plus beaux monumens historiques de la Révolution. Le moment de la justice terrible est arrivé, et toutes les têtes coupables doivent passer sous le niveau national.”- - GATTEAU au Citoyen DAUBIGNY; Strasbourg, 27 Brumaire, An. 2.--Papiers trouvés chez ROBESPIERRE, ii. 247. VOL. III. F 1 Hard. ii. CHAP. XIII. 1793. 79. Disunion of who are the Rhine, and the siege of Lan Nov. 17. Dec. 26. Meanwhile the Committee of Public Salvation, very different from their tardy and divided opponents, did not confine their views to the subjugation of the Royalists in Alsace. They aspired to the complete deliverance of the the Allies, Republican territory from the enemy's forces. To raise driven over the blockade of Landau, thirty thousand men from the armies of the Moselle and the Rhine were placed under dau is raised. the orders of Pichegru, who were designed to penetrate the Allied lines between the cantonments of the Austrian and Prussian forces; and these were supported by thirtyfive thousand under General Hoche, who advanced from the side of la Saare. After some preparatory movements, various success, and many partial actions, the Republicans attacked the covering army of the Duke of Brunswick, in great force, on the morning of the 26th December, who were in position near the castle of Geisberg, a little in front of Weissenburg. Such was the dissension between the two commanders, in consequence of the evident reluctance of the Prussians to engage, that a warm altercation took place between them, in presence of their respective officers, on the field of battle. The result, as might have been expected, was, that the Allies, vigorously attacked in their centre, were driven from their position. After some ineffectual attempts to make a stand on the left bank of the Rhine, their whole army, in great confusion, crossed to the right bank, at Philippsburg, raising the blockade of Landau, leaving their recent conquest of Fort Vauban to its fate, and completely evacuating in that quarter the French territory. Spires and Worms were speedily reconquered, and Fort Vauban soon after evacuated. The Republican armies, rapidly advancing, appeared before the gates of Mannheim; and Germany, so recently victorious, began to tremble for its own frontier. These important results demonstrated the superior military combination which was now exerted on the part of the French to that of the Allies. Forty thousand Prussians and Saxons were in a state of inacti Dec. 30. Jan. 19, 1794. XIII. 1793. 1 Hard. ii. vity on the other side of the Vosges mountains, while the CHAP. Austrians, overmatched by superior and concentrated forces, were driven across the Rhine. The French accumulated forces from different armies, to break through one weakly defended point; while the Allies were in such 13. a state of discord, that they could not, even in the utmost Jom.iv.154, peril, render any effectual assistance to each other.* was not difficult to foresee what would be the result of 221, 227. such a contest.t 439, 441. 177. Th. It vi. 48, 49. Toul. iv. 80. on the frontier. Spaniards dassoa. The campaign on the Pyrenean frontier, during this year, was not characterised by any event of importance. Campaign At the first breaking out of the war, in February, the Spanish Spanish government made vigorous exertions to increase Successes its forces; the zeal and patriotism of the inhabitants of the soon supplied the deficiencies of the military establish- on the Biment, and they were enabled to put two considerable armies on foot. One was of thirty thousand men, destined to invade Rousillon; the other, of twenty-five thousand, to penetrate by the Bidassoa, on the side of Bayonne. The Republicans on the western entrance of the Pyrenees occupied a line from St Jean Pied-de-Port to the mouth of the Bidassoa, strengthened by three intrenched camps, while the Spaniards were stationed on the heights of San Marcial, the destined theatre of honourable achievement to their arms in a more glorious war. On the 14th April 14. April, the Spaniards from their position opened a Such was the dissension between the Austrians and Prussians, that their officers published mutual recriminations against each other, and fought duels in support of their respective sides of the question.-HARD. ii. 442. + So manifestly were the divisions of the Allies and the defection of the Prussians, the cause of all the disasters of the campaign on the German frontier, that the Duke of Brunswick himself did not hesitate to ascribe them to that cause. On 24th January 1794, he wrote to Prince Louis of Prussia in these terms: "I have been enveloped in circumstances as distressing as they were extraordinary, which have imposed upon me the painful necessity of acting as I have done. What a misfortune that external and internal dissensions should so frequently have paralysed the movements of the armies, at the very time when the greatest activity was necessary! If, after the fall of Mayence, they had fallen on Houchard, whom they would have beaten, they would have prevented the march of troops to the north; and, by consequence, the checks of Dunkirk and Maubeuge: Saarlouis, ill provisioned, and destitute at that |