264 MILITARY POWER OF FRANCE. CH. XL. could be purchased by the sacrifice of British connection, he was content; but he was not so rash as to make the sacrifice, until he had secured his object. Cobentzel, therefore, proposed a joint negotiation; and when this was refused, he was instructed to propose a secret negotiation, but that a British minister should be present at Luneville. But this mean and shallow subterfuge was rejected with contempt; and the Austrian minister, being prepared with no other offer, the conference lingered in suspense until the 20th of November, when the armistice expired. The military power of France was very different to what it had been in the preceding year under the incompetent administration of the Directory. Armies, estimated from four hundred thousand to nearly half a million of men, well found, and well commanded, were actually in the field. The grand army of the Rhine under the renowned Moreau, mustered one hundred and forty thousand. In Italy, Brune commanded ninety thousand. Other corps under Augereau, Macdonald, Suchet, and Murat, were detached in different parts. Austria had a disposable force of nearly equal amount; but none of her Generals were men of repute. The great army of one hundred and thirty thousand men opposed to Moreau was led by a youth, who had neither reputation nor experience, the Archduke John, whose only qualification for command was royal birth. Bellegarde, an old Marshal of the Empire, was at the head of one hundred and twenty thousand men in Italy. Among the minor corps was a well-appointed army of twenty thousand British troops under Sir Ralph Abercromby, which had left England in June, and had been kept mostly on board their transports in the Mediterranean, ready to act upon any point when their services might be needed. Notwithstanding the advanced season, the French armies were in motion a few days after the termina 1800. BATTLE OF HOHENLINDEN. 265 tion of the armistice. The army of Italy and the army of the Rhine were to march on Vienna by different routes. The one was to cross the Mincio and the Adige, proceeding by the Alps; the other was to cross the Inn, and proceed by the valley of the Danube. Moreau marched towards the Inn on the 28th of November, driving the advanced posts of the Austrians before him. It was, however, the intention of the Austrians to defend the line of the river, and to stop the progress of the French. On the 3rd of December, in a heavy fall of snow, the Austrian columns advanced with a heavy train of artillery, which, with the baggage, had to be conveyed along a single road through the dense forest of Hohenlinden. Before they could emerge from this perilous position, General Richepanse, with a body of infantry, dashed into the forest, and attacked the guard of the train, consisting of three battalions of Hungarian Grenadiers. After a short struggle the guard gave way, and a scene of irretrievable confusion immediately took place. A panic seized upon the artillerymen. The drivers cut the traces of the carriages, and fled. Eighty-seven pieces of cannon and three hundred waggons were abandoned. The artillery being some distance in advance of the march, the effect of their flight was, that they fell back upon the central columns which were defiling through the forest, throwing them into disorder, which soon ended in a tumultuous retreat. Meanwhile, the left wing of the Austrian army was held in check; and the right, after maintaining for some time an obstinate struggle with several French divisions, likewise retreated when they found that the disaster of the main body rendered their efforts useless. After a loss of twenty-five thousand men and a hundred guns, the Austrians effected their retreat across the Inn, and fell back to cover Vienna. The Archduke Charles, who had led the Austrian army on the Rhine in the former 266 ISOLATION OF ENGLAND. CH. XL. campaign with so much ability and success, was hastily recalled to the command. But it was too late. Though, in several minor affairs since the battle of Hohenlinden, the advantage had been on the side of the Archduke, it was hopeless to withstand the triumphant progress of the French armies. To save his capital, the Emperor was compelled to sue for peace; and on the 25th of December an armistice was concluded at Steyar, by which the fortified places in the Tyrol, in Franconia, and Bavaria, with all their military stores, were surrendered to the French. On the 16th of January, the army of Italy under Marshal Bellegarde also obtained a suspension of arms, by the cession of all the strongholds except Mantua, which was subsequently given up at the peremptory demand of Bonaparte. By the treaty of Luneville signed on the 9th of February, the boundary of the Rhine was again yielded to France; and the Adige was assigned as the limit of the Austrian dominions in Italy. The Emperor apologised, in a letter addressed to the King, for negotiating a separate peace; but it was readily admitted that, in this instance, no imputations of bad faith could fairly attach to the conduct of the Court of Vienna. Isolation of * England was thus, once more, left alone, for she was encumbered, rather than aided, by such helpless allies as Portugal, Naples, and Turkey. Her precarious alliance with Russia had been already changed into avowed hostility. Bonaparte had found little difficulty in gaining over the wayward barbarian who ruled at St. Petersburg. Paul had been much incensed at the result of the expedition to Holland, and was easily persuaded that his troops had been sacrificed by the jealousy or incapacity of the British Commanders. He would not nets of George the Third. vol. iii. P. 117. * T. Grenville to Marquis of Buckingham.-Courts and Cabi 1800. THE ARMED NEUTRALITY. 267 take any part in the ensuing campaign. Since the battle of Marengo, the autocrat had regarded the First Consul with feelings of admiration, not unmixed, perhaps, with fear. Bonaparte had agents at St. Petersburgh, well instructed, to foster these sentiments. He sent back the Russian prisoners taken in Holland. He flattered Paul with a promise of the island of Malta, to which the Czar preferred a claim as Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem-a claim, which he alleged, not without reason, to have been admitted by the English Government.* While the Russian autocrat was in this temper, events took place, which either inflamed his anger, or furnished him with a pretext for hostile demonstrations against England. Since the commencement of the war, the right of searching neutral ships, either for the pro perty of the enemy, or for contraband of war, had been rigorously enforced by the English cruisers. Some of the maritime nations, and especially the Baltic powers, contended for the qualification, that the neutral flag should cover the cargo, except contraband of war. This was the principle of the famous Armed Neutrality of 1780; a league intended to humble the naval superiority of Great Britain, but never carried into effect, and at length formally abandoned. The maxims of the Armed Neutrality were, nevertheless, just and reasonable, and have lately been adopted in their integrity by all the maritime powers of Europe, at the suggestion of England, France, and Russia. But, though the right of the belligerent to visit a neutral private ship on the high seas was the undoubted law of nations, the exercise of that right, with regard to a ship sailing *We said that a convention to that effect had been signed. This was not the fact; but it seems clear, that he was promised the island: and that the promise would have been fulfilled, if he had not quarrelled with this country.-Courts and Cabinets of George the Third, vol. iii. pp. 101-3. 268 MISUNDERSTANDING WITH CH. XL. under a convoy, without the consent of the convoy, had frequently been disputed. On the only occasion on which this claim had been practically asserted by Great Britain, it was immediately resisted by force, and eventually led to a rupture with the neutral flag.* At the close of the year 1799, the captain of an English frigate stopped several merchantmen sailing under convoy of a Danish man-of-war. The Danish captain fired on one of the boats sent to examine the ship's papers. The English officer then desisted from his attempt, upon the understanding that Captain Van Dockum, the Dane, would proceed to Gibraltar, and report what had happened to Lord Keith, the English Admiral on the station. Van Dockum, having declared that he acted by the orders of his Court in refusing to permit his convoy to be visited, and declining to submit the question to the English Admiralty Court, the matter was referred by Lord Keith to his Government. The British minister at Copenhagen was instructed to demand an apology for the violence offered to the English flag, and a disavowal of the officer who had committed it. Danish Government, however, justified the act of their officer, on the ground that the right of search did not extend to ships under convoy. While this affair was pending, another collision took place. The captain of the 'Freya,' another Danish frigate, having resisted an attempt to search some merchant ships under his convoy, an engagement took place, in which several men on both sides were killed. The Danish ships were captured and carried into the Downs. Lord Grenville having in vain demanded reparation for what he thought proper to term, 'a wanton and unprovoked attack on His Majesty's flag,' Lord Whitworth was despatched on a special mission to Copenhagen, and a fleet was at the same time *The detention and capture of the Dutch merchantmen under The the convoy of Admiral Byland. Ante, vol. ii. p. 381. |