attacks of this last general against Feldkirch, had hitherto been able to afford hin.

Some trifling skirmishes had taken place between small detachments of the two armies, when (25th of March) Jourdan attacked the advanced post of the imperialists, who had marched from Pfallendorf, and taken their position before Stockach. The engagement began with the left wing under the command of St. Cyr, which marched upon Tullingen, and attacked the right of the inperialists under general Meersfeld, with so much impetuosity, that he forced the post, and compelled the Austrian wing to fall back in disorder, to a wood situated between Lipptingen and Stockach, and a part of the same division was driven back to Schwandorf on the road to Moskirch.

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The French had pushed the right of the Austrians to the edge of the forest, and the main body of the archduke's army was about to be flanked, when he drew off forces from the left to attack the forest in possession of the division under St. Cyr. The engagement which took place is represented on both sides as one of the most obstinate and bloody that had ever been membered. The archduke alighted and charged at the head of the grenadiers. The princes of Anhalt and Furstemburg were killed as they were leading on their columns. It was not till after a most desperate struggle that the French were dislodged from the wood. Till that period, from five in the morning, the advantage had been on their side, and the failure of final victory is attributed by Jourdan to the in execution of a charge of cavalry, which he ordered to support the attack of St. Cyr. The corps of I rench carabineers, headed by Jour

dan, covered the retreat, but were borne down by the imperial grenadiers and infantry. St. Cyr finding it impossible to resist this last and terrible shock, fell back on Lipptingen. Night alone put an end to the carnage; ten thousand men killed and wounded remained on the field of battle. The French preserved their position at Engen during the night, but the next day, (26th March) Jourdan began his retreat upon Schaffhausen with his right, while the left crossed the Danube by the bridge of Tuttlin gen, and retreated through Rothweil. The artillery and baggage repassed the defiles of the Black Forest, and crossed the Rhine at Basil and Huninguen. General Vandamme covered the flank of the army with his rear-guard, and retreated to Obernorf. The archduke fixed his head-quarters at Lipptingen, sending strong detach ments upon the rear of the French army, which took post at Hornberg.

The defeat of the army of the Danube spread consternation at Paris, and increased the general discontent against the directory, who, in their turn, threw the blame on the incapacity of general Jourdan. The indignation of the publie was divided between the govern ment and the general; the one for having bestowed so important a command on an inexperienced chief, and the other for having accepted a post with which his abilities were not commensurate. This divided resentment was not however of long continuance, when the plan of the campaigu, and the means of execution which had been proposed by Jourdan, on his acceptance of the command of the army of the Rhine, were made known. It appears from Jourdan's papers, that the plan which

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he sketched, and which has since met with the approbation of experienced military men, ceived by the directory, and the means of execution which he pointed out, consisting of four armies of 40 000 men for the Tyrol, 80 000 men for the Danube, an army of observation of 40,000 men on the Rhine, and of 20,000 men in Switzerland, were promised him. The legislative body having voted a levy of 200 000 conscripts, and funds for an army of 400,000 men, Jourdan thought himself warranted in placing the army under his command at 180 000 men, leaving 140,000 for the army of Italy, and the remainder 80 000 for the dif ferent services of the interior.

When Jourdan took possession of the command of the army on the Rhine, in the month of November, he found but 47.300 men complete on the whole line from Dusseldorf to Huninguen, the places unprovisioned, and the army without magazines. Of 6000 cavalry, which he had been promised, he found only 800; every part of the service was in the same state, and the only thing assured was, the pay of the troops, which was levied on the conquered countries on the Rhine. He made his report to the directory on the distressed state of the army, and proposed an easy mode of remedying it, by permitting the inhabitants to pay the remainder of the contributions in kind, as the grain, of which the exportation had been forbidden, abounded in these provinces, and money was scarce, arising from this prohibition. This proposition was rejected, because, in every bargain made with the contractors, certain premiums were given to the minister, who would have lost that part of his benefits, had the mode proposed by Jourdan

been adopted. This nefarious practice had often increased the profits of the minister and his agents to the great detriment of the army: in the present case true to their system, the army remained without magazines, and the frontier towns unprovisioned.

Jourdan did not cease making strong representations both to the minister of war and to the directory, on the state of the army; nor did he fail to receive in return the most solemn assurances of effective sup. port from the former, who, nevertheless, at the end of December, when the march of the Russians was universally allowed, when three months before he had received from the minister of foreign affairs, who had procured the intelligence, the plan of the combined attack of the Austrians and Russians, observed to Jourdan in his letter, that it was not probable that the Austrians would make an attack. An interchange of remonstrances on the one part, and of promises on the other, continued to the end of January, when Jourdan received instructions from the minister of war, with the plan of the campaign, which appeared to be the counterpart of that given in by himself three months before, and which presented an army on paper of 150,000 men. The forces already under the command of Jourdan bore so little resemblance to the statement in the plan, that he sent, in the beginning of February, an adjutaut general to Paris, to make fresh remonstrances, and offer his dismission. These remonstrances produced no other effect than a complimentary letter from the directory, and an assurance from the minister of war, that further reinforcements should be sent from the interior as soon as the crisis

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of the approaching elections was past.

Jourdan at length (20th of February) received the arrêté of the directory, ordering him to cross the Rhine, and penetrate into Germany. In obeying this order, he wrote (2d of March) to the directory, stating that the army under his command, both on the Danube and in Switzerland, did not amount to more than 66,000 men. He in formed them at the same time that the coalesced army which he had to oppose amounted to nearly 150,000, and after stating the dangers which must necessarily arise from such a disproportion of numbers, ob served that it would be more easy to find a glorious death from such an unequal contest, than to reap any laurels. The coalesced forces did not however act on the Danube; the Russians, amounting to 25,000 men, marched towards Italy, and large detachments were sent into the Tyrol; so that the superiority of the archduke's army consisted only of about from 30 to 40,000 men. The last answer given by the minister to these repeated remonstrances was contained in a letter (12th of March) which, as Jourdan was circumstanced, could be considered as nothing more than banter or irony. The minister allowed at length that the disproportion between the forces under Jourdan and those of the archduke might occasion disquietude in some circumstances, but that superiority of numbers could never terrify an army commanded by Jourdan, and talked of national vengeance to be exercised against perfidious governments, the inflamed ardour of troops led on by the conqueror of Fleurus, inspiring a well-founded security, with other impertinent expressions of the same

common-place kind. In short, none of the engagements made in that, or preceding letters, were realised. Instead of the 150,000 men which had been promised, and of which the public were assured, Jourdan began the campaign with the number stated, and the event was such as has been already related.

The detachments from the division under Massena into the mountains of the Tyrol, towards the sources of the Inn and the Adige, had rendered themselves masters of this key both of Italy and Germany; the possession of which was of so much importance to the success of the first operations of the French army in Italy. Casa Bianca, who had entered the Upper Engadin (13th of March), wishing to secure his right flank before he penetrated further into the mountains, marched part of his division upon Bormio, and attacked (16th of March) the division under general Laudohn, which he forced to retreat into the Wintschgau, to which place general Bellegarde, in order to support him, marched a part of his corps-de-reserve. The division under general Lecourbe having also entered the Engadin, the French attacked the posts of Martinsburch, Finsterminz, and Nauders, but without success.

The frontier of the Tyrol was still uninvaded, general Laudohn occupied the Munsterthal with a body of about 5000 men, having taking post of Tauffers, guarding the defiles towards the Engadin and the Valteline, and covering the entrance of thevalley of the Adige,call. ed Venosta. He kept up communications also with the posts of Nauders and Martinsbruch, by the val ley called Malsheide, in which was the principal source of the Adige.

General

General Lecourbe having received reinforcements, combined a formal attack against all these posts. He marched with his division upon Martinsbruch and Nauders, and directed the columus commanded by the generals Desolles and Loison upon the Munsterthall. In order to reach this valley, the French, under general Desolles, surmounted difficulties and dangers which it is asserted would have arrested the most intrepid guides of the glaciers. Notwithstanding the ices and snows, they climbed one of the highest mountains of the Julian Alps, the Wormser-Joch, which separates the sources of the Adda and the Adige, and by this manœuvre turned the intrenched defiles which the Austrians kept in the most complete security, never dreaming of the passage of an army by a glacier hitherto deemed inaccessible. The French having reached the loftiest peaks, slid, or rather rolled down with their arms into the valley, from a prodigious height. Rallying such of his troops as had been able to free those abysses, Desolles surprised and attacked Glurentz, and the post of Tauffers, which general Laudhon had intrenched. The Austrians made considerable resistance, but were compelled at length to surrender. Ali means of retreat were cut off from general Laudhon, for, during this bold and daring at tack, general Loiseau had also penetrated on another side, and flanked Nauders, while Lecourbe forced the post and passage of Martinsbruch. Troops, baggage, cannon, were all taken. Laudhon, with a small number of infantry, and a few cavalry, broke through the chain of the French above Glurentz, and retreated into the valley of Venosta, where he met

general Bellegarde, who was marching to disengage him; but finding this assistance ineffectual, the two generals retreated still further to cover Botzen, and press the levy of the Tyrolian militia. The French advanced as far as the post of Schladerns, and were masters of the head of the two great valleys of the Tyrol. The part of the general plan of the campaign which had been allotted to these divisions had been executed with equal address and courage; and, in possession of these important posts, they might easily have believed they had obtained a victory, the most difficult as well as the most essential for the subsequent operations of their armies on both sides the Alps.

The campaign of Italy had not opened, when that on the Danube was closed by the retreat of Jourdan, whose army had been the victim of the incapacity and corruption of the directory, and of the minister of war. These men were becoming daily more and more the objects of general hatred, and their venality was so notorious, a thing so unconcealed, particularly that of the minister, that though powerfully protected by the director Rewbell (who was a sharer in the common spoil), the public indignation was such as compelled the directory to dismiss him from his post. His dismissal was hailed as a favourable omen by the French, who imagined that victory, under other auspices, would again revisit their standards; for though at that period no idea was entertained of the extent of the atrocity of his ministerial conduct, respecting the army of the Rhine, yet the conviction of his incapacity and corruption was such, that almost every individual felt interested in hearing

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