Alfred Thayer Mahan - The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, Vol II

At the moment the Archduke assumed his new command, the French on the lower Rhine, crossing at Mannheim, invested and bombarded Philipsburg; and their operations seemed so far serious as to draw him and a large part of his force in the same direction. This greatly diminished one of the difficulties confronting Masséna in the offensive movement he then had in contemplation. Hearing at the same time that Suwarrow had started from Italy, he made his principal attack from his left upon the Russians before Zurich on the 25th of September, the right wing of his long line advancing in concert against the Austrian position east of Lake Zurich upon its inlet, the Linth. Each effort was completely successful, and decisive; the enemy being in both directions driven back, and forced to recross the streams above and below the lake. Suwarrow, after a very painful march and hard fighting, reached his first appointed rendezvous at Mutten two days after the battle of Zurich had been lost; and the corps that were to have met him there, fearing their retreat would be cut off, had not awaited his arrival. The old marshal with great difficulty fought his way through the mountains to Ilanz, where at length he assembled his exhausted and shattered forces on the 9th of October, the day on which Bonaparte landed at Fréjus on his return from Egypt. By that time Switzerland was entirely cleared of Russians and Austrians. The river Rhine, both above and below Lake Constance, marked the dividing line between the belligerents.

The Anglo-Russian attack upon Holland had no better fate. Landing upon the peninsula between the Zuyder Zee and the North Sea, the allies were for awhile successful; but their movements were cautious and slow, giving time for the local resistance to grow and for re-enforcements to come up. The remnants of the Dutch navy were surrendered and taken back to England; but the Duke of York, who had chief command of the allied troops, was compelled on the 18th of October to sign a convention, by which the invading force was permitted to retire unmolested by the first of December.

During the three remaining months of 1799 some further encounters took place in Germany and Italy. In the latter the result was a succession of disasters to the French, ending with the capitulation, on the 4th of December, of Coni, their last remaining stronghold in Piedmont, and the retreat of the army into the Riviera of Genoa. Corfu and the Ionian Islands having been reduced by the combined Russian and Turkish fleets in the previous March, and Ancona surrendered on the 10th of November, all Bonaparte's conquests in Italy and the Adriatic had been lost to France when the Directory fell. The brave soldiers of the army of Italy, destitute and starving, without food, without pay, without clothing or shoes, without even wood for camp-fires in the bitter winter nights on the slopes of the Apennines, deserted in crowds and made their way to the interior. In some regiments none but officers and non-commissioned officers were left. An epidemic born of want and exposure carried off men by hundreds. Championnet, overwhelmed by his misfortunes and by the sight of the misery surrounding him, fell ill and died. Bonaparte, now First Consul, sent Masséna to replace him.

In Germany nothing decisive occurred in the field; but in consequence of some disagreements of opinion between himself and the Archduke, Suwarrow declined further co-operation, and, alleging the absolute need of rest for his soldiers after their frightful exposure in Switzerland, marched them at the end of October into winter quarters in Bavaria. This closed the share of the Russians in the second coalition. The Czar, who had embarked in the war with the idea of restoring the rights of monarchs and the thrones that had been overturned, was dissatisfied both with the policy of Austria, which looked to her own predominance in Italy, and with Great Britain. A twelvemonth more was to see him at the head of a league of the northern states against the maritime claims of the great Sea Power, and completely won over to the friendship of Bonaparte by the military genius and wily flattery of the renowned captain.

During this disastrous year, in which France lost all Italy except the narrow strip of sea-coast about Genoa, and after months of desperate struggle had barely held her own in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, the internal state of the country was deplorable. The Revolutionary government by the Committee of Public Safety had contrived, by the use of the extraordinary powers granted to it, to meet with greater or less success the demands of the passing hour; although in so doing it was continually accumulating embarrassments against a future day of reckoning. The Directory, deprived of the extraordinary powers of its predecessor, had succeeded to these embarrassments, and the day of reckoning had arrived. It has been seen how the reactionary spirit, which followed the rule of blood, had prevailed more and more until, in 1797, the political composition of the two Councils was so affected by it as to produce a strong conflict between them and the executive. This dead-lock had been overcome and harmony restored by the violent measures of September, 1797, by which two Directors and a number of members of the legislature had been forcibly expelled from their office. The parties, of two very different shades of opinion, to which the ejected members belonged, had not, however, ceased to exist. In 1798, in the yearly elections to replace one-third of the legislature, they again returned a body of representatives sufficient to put the Councils in opposition to the Directory; but this year the choice of the electors was baffled by a system of double returns. The sitting Councils, of the same political party as the Directory, pronounced upon these, taking care in so doing to insure that the majority in the new bodies should be the same as in the old. In May, 1799, however, the same circumstance again recurred. The fact is particularly interesting, as showing the opposition which was felt toward the government throughout the country.

This opposition was due to a cause which rarely fails to make governments unpopular. The Directory had been unsuccessful. It was called upon to pay the bills due to the public expectation of better things when once the war was over. This it was not able to do. Though peace had been made with the continent, there remained so many matters of doubt and contention that large armies had to be maintained. The expenses of the state went on, but the impoverished nation cried out against the heavy taxation laid to meet them; the revenues continually fell short of the expenditures, and the measures proposed by the ministers to remedy this evil excited vehement criticisms. The unpopularity of the government, arising from inefficient action, reacted upon and increased the weakness which was inherent in its cumbrous, many-headed form. Hence there resulted, from the debility of the head, an impotence which permeated all the links of the executive administration down to the lowest members.

In France itself the disorder and anarchy prevailing in the interior touched the verge of social dissolution. 7 7 The phrase is that of Thiers. Hist. de la Rév., vol. x. p. 353. Throughout the country, but especially in the south and west, prevailed brigandage on a large scale—partly political, partly of the ordinary highway type. There were constant reports of diligences and mail-wagons stopped, 8 8 A curious evidence of the insecurity of the highways is afforded by an ordinance issued by Bonaparte a year after he became First Consul (Jan. 7, 1801), that no regular diligence should travel without carrying a corporal and four privates, with muskets and twenty rounds, and in addition, at night, two mounted gendarmes. If specie to the value of over 50,000 francs were carried, there must be four gendarmes by day and night. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 697.) of public treasure plundered, of republican magistrates assassinated. Disorganization and robbery spread throughout the army, a natural result of small pay, irregularly received, and of the system of contributions, administered with little responsibility by the commanders of armies in the field. The attempt of the government to check and control this abuse was violently resented by generals, both of the better and the worse class; by the one as reflecting upon their character and injuring their position, by the other as depriving them of accustomed though unlawful gains. Two men of unblemished repute, Joubert and Championnet, came to a direct issue with the Directory upon this point. Joubert resigned the command of the army of Italy, in which Bernadotte from the same motive refused to replace him; while Championnet, in Naples, compelled the commissioner of the Directory to leave the kingdom. For this act, however, he was deprived and brought to a court-martial.