thousand, of whom sixteen thousand, with Wurmser, were shut up in Mantua, where they were of no real service, as the garrison was sufficient without them and was beginning to suffer for want of provisions. The French army had, however, lost during the same time, fifteen thousand men in killed, wounded and prisoners.

Still, the Austrian government did not relax their efforts, and by the first of November had raised their Italian armies to fifty thousand men. Their first movement was against Massena at Bassano, where, under General Alvinzi, they were partially defeated; but the French under Vaubois, having on the same day attacked the Austrian position on the Lavis, were totally defeated by Davidowich and driven to Calliano with a loss of four thousand men. Napoleon hastened in person to repair this disaster, and attacked the Austrians on the heights of Caldiero; but he was bravely repulsed by the Imperialists, and retreated in the night with a loss of more than three thousand men, yielding the victory in a pitched battle to the Austrians for the first time in the campaign.

Having thus found that the Austrian position at Caldiero was impregnable in front, Napoleon resolved to assail it in flank, and accordingly made a rapid night march by the village of Arcola with his whole force. A desperate action ensued at this place which continued through two whole days, and in the end both parties withdrew from the field, leaving the victory undecided. But on the third day, November 17th, the battle was renewed with a more decisive result, and the Austrians were forced to give way. They retreated, however, in good order, and sustained no further loss than what occurred in the action.

The result of the battle of Arcola was by no means so decisive as the previous victories of the French: the loss on both sides had been nearly equal, no important position was gained, nor were the spirits of the defeated soldiers broken. Nearly two months of inaction followed, which the commanders of both armies occupied in reorganizing their forces: and in the mean time, Mantua was reduced to the last extremity from famine; it therefore became indispensable for the Austrians to adopt some energetic measure for its relief. Accordingly, on the 12th of January, 1797, Alvinzi advanced at the head of thirty-five thousand men, attacked the French posts on the Montebaldo, and forced them back to the plateau of Rivoli: here, they were reënforced by the whole French centre under Napoleon, and again attacked on the 14th. The action was contested with great bravery on both sides, but at length the Austrians prevailed on all points, and were preparing for a final charge that must have ended in the total overthrow of the Republican troops, when Napoleon, with great presence of mind, sent a flag of truce to Alvinzi, proposing a suspension of arms for half an hour, as he had some proposal to make in consequence of the arrival of a courier from Paris. Alvinzi was simple enough to fall into the snare, granted the suspension, and Napoleon gained time to rally his troops. This changed the fate of the day. The French recovered from their confusion, repelled every subsequent attack, and finally repulsed the Austrians with immense loss in prisoners and artillery. This victory was followed up by an attack on Provera's division near fort St. George, on the 16th of January, where the Austrians were again defeated and lost six thousand prisoners.

Mantua, being now deprived of its last hope of relief, was forced to capitulate. Wurmser, with all his staff, and five hundred men, was

allowed to return to Austria; the remainder of the garrison, eighteen thousand strong, surrendered their arms, with fifty standards and more than five hundred pieces of artillery.

Napoleon now directed his arms against Rome; for, during the strife on the Adige, the pope had not only refused to ratify the treaty of Bologna, but had openly engaged in hostile measures against the French. The soldiers who had vanquished the strength of Austria were not long in crushing the feeble forces of the Church. The pope again submitted, and peace was concluded at Tolentino on the 19th of February, on terms far more humiliating to the Holy See than the conditions of the previous treaty.

Such was the Italian campaign of 1796. On no former occasion in the history of the world, had so great success been achieved in so short a time, or so mighty a power been vanquished by forces so inconsiderable. An army not exceeding fifty thousand men at any one time, though constant reënforcements kept it at nearly that strength, had not only broken through the barriers of the Alps, subdued Piedmont and Lombardy and humbled the whole of the Italian States, but defeated and almost destroyed four powerful armies of Austrians, and concluded by a capture of the most important fortress in Italy.

The civil war in La Vendée and Brittany, which had so long disturbed the domestic government of France, was brought to a conclusion in the early part of the same year. General Hoche, at the head of one hundred thousand men, enveloped the disaffected provinces, and by a course marked both with vigor and humanity, succeeded in suppressing all the revolts, taking possession of the towns, and finally reconciling the people to the Republican sway. Charette and Stofflet, the brave and indomitable leaders of the Chouan bands, were by great exertions made prisoners, and both perished under the sentence of military commissions an ignominious and cruel fate for men of such distinguished qualities.

The condition of England, at the close of the year 1795 and in the beginning of 1796, was, in respect of public opinion, nearly as much divided as France had been during the Revolution. The continued disasters of the war, the pressure of new and increasing taxation, the apparent hopelessness of prolonging the struggle with a military power which all the armies of Europe had been unable to subdue, not only gave new strength and vigor to the Whig party who had opposed hostilities from the first, but induced many original opponents of the revolutionary mania to hesitate about a further continuance of the contest. So violent, indeed, had party spirit become, and so completely had it usurped the place of patriotism and reason, that many of the popular leaders really began to wish for the triumph of their enemies: for they saw no hope of carrying through a Parliamentary reform, nor of acquiring any addition to the democratic power, unless, by the success of the French, the present ministry were forced to retire from the government.

These ill-humors at length broke out into open violence. On one occasion, as the king was going to Parliament, the royal carriage was surrounded by an immense crowd of turbulent people, who loudly demanded peace and the dismissal of Mr. Pitt. One of the windows was broken by a stone, or a bullet from an air-gun; and on his majesty's return, he was again assailed and narrowly escaped the fury of the popu lace. These outrages, however, tended only to strengthen the govern

ment, by clearly convincing all reasonable men, into what excesses the populace would speedily run, if they were not restrained by a firm hand, and also how narrow a line divided England from the horrors of the French Revolution.

The question on the continuance of the war was warmly debated in Parliament, but was at length carried, and the measure provided for by liberal supplies. Another measure excited a violent controversy, namely, a bill to provide for the additional security of the king's person and the prevention of seditious meetings throughout the country. This bill passed the House of Commons by the decisive vote of two hundred and fourteen to forty-two, and the House of Lords by sixty-six to seven. The opposition were so exasperated by the success of the ministers on this occasion, that Mr. Fox and a large part of the minority withdrew, for a considerable time, from the house.

Previous to the opening of the campaign, the British government, in order to bring the French Directory to the test, authorized their minister, Mr. Wickham, to make some advances on the subject of a general peace; but the Directory replied, that they would treat only on condition of retaining the Low Countries; a condition to which neither England nor Austria could submit. As all hope of peace was thus at an end, the allied powers made great preparations for prosecuting the war: and the Archduke Charles was appointed to the command of the armies on the Rhine.

The forces of the contending parties here were not greatly dissimilar in infantry, but in cavalry, the Imperialists were greatly superior to their antagonists. On the Upper Rhine, Moreau commanded seventy-one thousand infantry and six thousand five hundred cavalry; while Wurmser, who was opposed to him, had sixty-two thousand foot and twenty-two thousand horse: but, before the campaign was far advanced, thirty thousand men, as has already been related, were directed under Wurmser to reënforce the army of Italy. On the Lower Rhine, the Archduke com. manded seventy-one thousand infantry and twenty-one thousand cavalry; while the French, under Jourdan, amounted to sixty-three thousand infantry and eleven thousand cavalry. Thus, the Austrians were, previous to the detachment of Wurmser for Italy, superior in numbers to the French; but the latter had the important advantage of holding much the greater number of fortresses on the line. The campaign was opened by Kleber. He crossed the river at Dusseldorf, and, being joined by Ney and Soult, defeated the advanced posts of the Austrians, who retreated with the loss of fifteen hundred prisoners and twelve pieces of cannon. The Archduke moved immediately to the assistance of the discomfited corps, with forty-five thousand infantry and eighteen thousand cavalry on which Jourdan, in turn, marched to support Kleber, and the two main armies were nearly brought into contact, when the French, finding themselves outnumbered and outmanœuvred, were forced to retreat. Moreau, who commanded the army on the Upper Rhine, including the divisions of Desaix and St. Cyr, taking advantage of the absence of the Archduke, formed a project for crossing the Rhine at Strasburg, and seizing the fortress of Kehl, which was negligently guarded on the opposite shore. The expedition was planned with great dispatch and secrecy, and on the night of the 24th of June, the French army moved silently across the river, advanced to the intrenchments of

Kehl, and carried them at the point of the bayonet. From the magnitude of this undertaking and the skill with which it was carried out, it ranks as one of the most distinguished exploits of that remarkable period.

Having thus gained a permanent footing on the right bank of the Rhine, Moreau, toward the end of June, advanced to the foot of the mountains of the Black Forest at the head of seventy-one thousand men. This celebrated chain of mountains is a mass of rocky hills separating the valley of the Rhine from that of the Neckar. The French general immediately attacked a body of ten thousand Swabian troops at Renchen, occupying the entrance of the defiles leading through the mountains: the Swabians gave way with considerable loss and retreated before Moreau, who now had broken through the centre of the Austrian line, and threatened their whole communications. On receiving this alarming intelligence, the Archduke hastened by forced marches to arrest the progress of the invaders, and overtook them on the banks of the Murg, when a partial action ensued which, though indecisive, was unfavorable to the Austrians. After this slight repulse, the Archduke advanced the Saxons on his left toward the French right in the mountains and pushed his centre to Malsch, where Moreau attacked him on the 9th of July: a general action took place, but still without important results, the Austrians merely retaining possession of the centre of the field, while their left was driven back. The Archduke now had an opportunity to strike a decisive blow by pressing forward to the base of Moreau's position, crushing Desaix and surrounding St. Cyr in the mountains; but by so doing he would, at the same time, have exposed the Austrian dominions to Moreau's advance. He chose the more prudent course, and withdrew in the evening to Pforzheim, preparatory to marching by the Neckar into the Bavarian plains.

On the 14th of July, the Imperialists broke up from Pforzheim and retired slowly and in good order toward Stutgard and the right bank of the Neckar. By this means, they drew nearer the army of Wartensleben, and gained a central and interior line of communication. On the 25th, the Austrian forces were concentrated on the right bank of the Neckar, between Cronstadt and Esslingen, where Moreau attacked them on the following morning with his whole centre and left wing, but no result followed the action, as both parties remained on the field. The Archduke continued his retrograde movement until he reached Neresheim, where, having joined his left wing, which had retired through the Black Forest, he attacked the position of Moreau, defeated his right wing, and would have gained an important victory, had all his troops come up in time to follow the retreating masses of the French.

Jourdan, after having remained a few days at Frankfort, and levied a heavy contribution on that flourishing city, marched on the great_road to Wurtzburg, to cooperate with Moreau in an advance into the Empire. Wartensleben retired at his approach, and Wurtzburg fell into the hands of the French. Wartensleben slowly continued his retreat until the 18th of August, when he crossed the Naab, where he awaited a junction with the Archduke. That commander arrived on the 20th, and being now superior in force to the pursuing army of Jourdan, he resumed the offensive, attacking the French advanced guard under Bernadotte, on the 22nd, whom he drove back with loss into the mountains. He then dispatched Hotze with a sufficient force to continue the pursuit of Bernadotte, and himself turned upon Jourdan, at Amberg, on the 22nd. The French made

a feeble resistance, and, but for the firmness of Ney, who checked the pursuit of the Austrians, would have experienced a terrible defeat. Jourdan's position was now extremely critical; but after a painful retreat of six days, during which Ney continued to protect his rear, he extricated himself from the mountains and reached Schweinfurt on the Maine. Hotze passed that river on the 1st of September and retook Wurtzburg, where he was joined by the Archduke on the 2nd. Jourdan, deeming it necessary to gain a respite from the Austrian pursuit by a general attack, and being ignorant of the Archduke's arrival, assaulted the Austrian lines on the 3rd; but he was so severely handled, that he was glad to escape into the forest of Gramchatz without being entirely broken by the imperial cavalry. The French continued their retreat toward Lahn, which they reached on the 9th in a disorganized state, after suffering immense loss in prisoners and artillery. At Lahn they were joined by the blockading force from Mayence, fifteen thousand strong, and by ten thousand men from the army of the north; so that their numbers were again equal to their pursuers. But the Archduke attacked them at Lalin and afterward at Altenkirchen, defeating them in both instances. The French army was in such a disordered condition, that they retreated to Bonn and Neuweid, and remained in total inactivity for the remainder of the campaign.

Moreau was now in a dangerous situation, having advanced into the heart of Bavaria, while the Archduke was thus driving Jourdan to extremity: the defiles of the Black Forest were in his rear, he was distant two hundred miles from the Rhine, threatened by Latour with forty thousand men on one flank, and by the Archduke and Nawendorf with twentyfive thousand on the other. He was, nevertheless, at the head of a superb army of seventy thousand men, and no detached columns could prevent his retreat. He immediately commenced a retrograde movement, but in perfect order; and when he approached the defiles of the Black Forest, he encountered Latour at Biberach, and totally defeated him. He then entered the Black Forest, and by a well-concerted and deliberate march, safely accomplished a retreat which has ever since been regarded as equivalent to a victory.

The Archduke pursued the retreating army by a different line of march, and came up with Moreau at Emmendingen, where a general action took place, in which the French were routed with a loss of two thousand men. The Imperialists followed up this success, intending to renew the combat on the following day; but Moreau retreated during the night to Schliengen, a strong position, where he was determined to make a stand and await the attack of the Austrians. Here, again, the Archduke was successful; he drove the Republicans from their intrenchments with great loss, and was prevented from totally overthrowing them only by the broken character of the ground over which they retreated, where his cavalry could not act efficiently,

Moreau, having during the night reached the borders of the Rhine, crossed that river on the day following without molestation, and proposed an armistice, which the Austrians declined. He then marched into Kehl, to which place the Archduke promptly laid siege on the 9th of October. The defence was long and obstinate; but the perseverance and bravery of the victorious Austrians, proved at last an overmatch for the garrison: after a series of attacks and bombardments, the fortress was, on the 9th