Army of Sambre and Meuse

French revolutionary army (1794–1797)

The Army of Sambre and Meuse was one of the armies of the French Revolution. It was formed on 29 June 1794 by combining the Army of the Ardennes, the left wing of the Army of the Moselle and the right wing of the Army of the North. Its maximum paper strength (in 1794) was approximately 120,000. After an inconclusive campaign in 1795, the French planned a co ordinated offensive in 1796 using Jean Baptiste Jourdan's Army of the Sambre et Meuse and the Army of the Rhine and Moselle commanded by his superior, Jean Victor Marie Moreau. The first part of the operation called for Jourdan to cross the Rhine north of Mannheim and divert the Austrians while the Army of the Moselle crossed the southern Rhine at Kehl and Huningen. This was successful and, by July 1796, a series of victories forced the Austrians, commanded by Archduke Charles, to retreat into the German states. By late July, most of the southern German states had been coerced into an armistice. The Army of Sambre and Meuse maneuvered around northern Bavaria and Franconia, and the Army of the Rhine and Moselle operated in Bavaria. Internal disputes between Moreau and Jourdan and with Jourdan's subordinate commanders within the Army of the Sambre and Meuse prevented the two armies from uniting. This gave the Austrian commander time to reform his own forces, driving Jourdan to the northwest. By the end of September 1796, Charles had permanently separated the two French armies, forcing Jourdan's command further northwest and eventually across the Rhine. On 29 September 1797, the Army of Sambre and Meuse was merged with the Army of the Rhine and Moselle to become the Army of Germany.

Initially, the rulers of Europe viewed the 1789 revolution in France as an internal matter between the French king and his subjects. In 1790, Leopold succeeded his brother Joseph as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; by 1791, the danger to his sister, Marie Antoinette and her children, alarmed him. In August 1791, in consultation with French émigré nobles and Frederick William II of Prussia, Leopold's Declaration of Pillnitz articulated that the interests of the monarchs of Europe were as one with the interests of Louis and his family. He and his fellow monarchs threatened unspecified consequences if anything should happen to the royal family. French émigrés continued to agitate for support of a counter revolution, and on 20 April 1792 the French National Convention declared war on Austria. In this War of the First Coalition (1792–1798), France ranged itself against most of the European states sharing its land or water borders, plus Portugal and the Ottoman Empire. Although initially successful in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793, the French army lost some effectiveness during the Reign of Terror, during which its generals were intimidated or executed and many of the army's experienced officers left France for safer havens. Elements of the armies that were later formed into the Army of Sambre and Meuse participated in the conquest of the Dutch Republic and the siege of Luxembourg. The various elements of the army won a victory at the Battle of Fleurus on 16 June 1794. The merging of the forces into the Army of Sambre and Meuse was made official soon afterwards. Shortly after Fleurus, the position of the First Coalition in Flanders collapsed and the French armies overran the Austrian Netherlands and the Dutch Republic in the winter of 1794–1795. French and Coalition military strategy subsequently focused on the Rhine river as the principal line of defense: for each side, control of the opposite bank or at least, the river's principal crossings, was the basis of defensive strategy. A few miles north and east of Basel, the terrain flattens. The Rhine makes a wide, northerly turn, in what is called the Rhine knee, and enters the so called Rhine ditch (Rheingraben), part of a rift valley bordered by the Black Forest on the east and Vosges mountains on the west. The Rhine looked different in the 1790s than it does in the twenty first century; the passage from Basel to Iffezheim was "corrected" (straightened) between 1817 and 1875. Construction of a canal to control the water level occurred from 1927 to 1974. In 1796, the plain on both sides of the river, some 19 mile (31 km) wide, was dotted with villages and farms. At the furthest edges of the flood plain, especially on the eastern side, the old mountains created dark shadows on the horizon. Tributaries cut through the hilly terrain of the Black Forest, creating deep defiles in the mountains, and became rivulets through the flood plain to the river. The number of territories in the Empire included more than 1,000 entities. Their size and influence varied, from the Kleinstaaten (little states) that covered no more than a few square miles to large and powerful states. The states and territories involved in late 1796 included the Breisgau (Habsburg), Offenburg and Rottweil (imperial cities), the princely states of Fürstenberg, Neuenburg and Hohenzollern, the Margraviate of Baden, the Duchy of Württemberg, and several dozen ecclesiastic polities. Rule varied: they included free imperial cities of different sizes, such as the powerful Augsburg and the minuscule Weil der Stadt; ecclesiastical territories, also of varying sizes and influence, such as the wealthy Abbey of Reichenau and the powerful Archbishopric of Cologne; and such dynastic states as Württemberg. When viewed on a map, the Empire resembled a Flickenteppich (patchwork carpet). Some states included non contiguous pieces, the Habsburg domains and Hohenzollern Prussia also governed territories outside the Empire, such as the Habsburg territories in eastern Europe and northern Italy; for others, a village could belong predominantly to one polity but have a farmstead, a house or even one or two strips of land that belonged to another polity. There were also territories surrounded by France that belonged to Württemberg, such as the county of Solm, the archbishopric of Trier and Hesse Darmstadt. Among the German speaking states, the Holy Roman Empire's administrative and legal mechanisms provided a venue to resolve disputes between peasants and landlords, between and within jurisdictions. Through the organization of Imperial Circles (Reichskreise), groups of states consolidated resources and promoted regional and organizational interests, including economic cooperation and military protection.

By 1792 the armies of the French Republic were in a state of disruption; experienced soldiers of the Ancien Régime fought side by side with volunteers. Recruits, urged on by revolutionary fervor from the special representatives—agents of the legislature, sent to ensure cooperation among the military—lacked the discipline and training to function efficiently; frequently insubordinate, they often refused orders and undermined unit cohesion. After a defeat, they were capable of mutiny, as Théobald Dillon learned when his troops lynched him in 1792. The problems of command became more acute following the 1793 introduction of mass conscription (levée en masse). French commanders walked a fine line between the security of the frontier and the Parisian clamor for victory. Add to this the desperate condition of the Army—in training, supplies and leadership—and the military leadership faced a crisis. They were constantly under suspicion from the representatives of the new regime and sometimes from their own soldiers. Failure to achieve unrealistic expectations implied disloyalty and the price of disloyalty was an appointment with Madame guillotine: several of the highest ranking generals, including the aged Nicolas Luckner, Jean Nicolas Houchard, Adam Philippe Custine, Arthur Dillon and Antoine Nicolas Collier, were killed. Francisco de Miranda's failure to take Maastricht landed him in La Force Prison for several years. Many of the old officer class had emigrated, forming émigré armies; the cavalry in particular suffered from their departure and the Hussards du Saxe and the 15éme Cavalerie (Royal Allemande) regiments defected en masse to the Austrians. The artillery arm, considered by the old nobility to be an inferior assignment, was less affected by emigration and survived intact. Military planners in Paris understood that the upper Rhine Valley, the south western German territories and Danube river basin held strategic importance for the defense of the Republic. The Rhine offered a formidable barrier to what the French perceived as Austrian aggression and the state that controlled its crossings controlled the river and access into the territories on either side. Ready access across the Rhine and along the Rhine bank between the German states and Switzerland or through the Black Forest, gave access to the upper Danube river valley. For the French, control of the Upper Danube or any point in between, was of immense strategic value and would give the French a reliable approach to Vienna.

The basic unit of the army, the demi brigade, mixed the men of the old army with the recruits from the levee en masse. Ideally, it was designed to include the regular infantry inherited from the old Royal regiments of the King, who were relatively well trained and equipped, dressed in white uniforms and wearing tarleton helmets, with the national guard units, who were less well trained or equipped, with blue uniforms, and the fédéré volunteer battalions, who were poorly trained and equipped, with no uniform other than a red phrygian cap and a cockade of France. In 1794, the right flank of the Armies of the Center, later called the Army of the Moselle, the entirety of the Armies of the North and the Ardennes formed the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, on 29 June 1794. The remaining units of the former Army of the Center and the Army of the Rhine united initially on 29 November 1794 and formally on 20 April 1795, under command of General Jean Charles Pichegru as the Army of the Rhine and Moselle. These were the French armies involved in the successes at Fleurus and the Lowlands, but the strength of the units had been enhanced by untrained conscripts. Pressures exerted by the Coalition forces on the French front at the Rhine required the movement of the Army of Sambre and Meuse troops from the Fortress of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands into a unit on the middle Rhine. These units were reorganized into task forces that would engage the Austrian and Coalition forces directly in the Rhineland. Its paper strength equaled close to 83,000 men, although its actual strength was considerably less. By 1 October 1795, some of the troops had been assembled in five locations to form an advanced guard of 63,615, men commanded by the veteran General of Division François Joseph Lefebvre. General Louis Friant's division of 3,296 men remained at the Luxembourg fortress and General Antoine Morlot's division of 3,471 remained in Aachen.

The campaign of 1796 was part of the French Revolutionary Wars in which republican France pitted itself against a fluid coalition of Prussians and Austrians and several other states of the Holy Roman Empire, the British, Sardinians, Dutch and royalist French emigres. The French had won several victories but the campaigns of 1793 through 1795 had been less successful. The Coalition partners had difficulty coordinating their war aims and their efforts faltered. In 1794 and 1795, French victories in northern Italy salvaged French enthusiasm for the war and forced the Coalition to withdraw further into Central Europe. At the end of the Rhine Campaign of 1795, the Habsburg Coalition and the French Republicans called a truce between their forces that had been fighting in Germany. The agreement lasted until 20 May 1796, when the Austrians announced that the truce would end on 31 May. The Austrian Army of the Lower Rhine included 90,000 Habsburg and Imperial troops. The 20,000 man right wing, first under Duke Ferdinand Frederick Augustus of Württemberg, then later under Wilhelm von Wartensleben, stood on the east bank of the Rhine behind the Sieg River, observing the French bridgehead at Düsseldorf. The garrisons of Mainz Fortress and Ehrenbreitstein Fortress included 10,000 more. The remainder of the Imperial and Coalition army, the 80,000 strong Army of the Upper Rhine, secured the west bank behind the Nahe River. Commanded by Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, this force anchored its right wing in Kaiserslautern on the west bank, while the left wing under Anton Sztáray, Michael von Fröhlich and Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé guarded the Rhine from Mannheim to Switzerland. The original Austrian strategy was to capture Trier and to use their position on the west bank to strike at each of the French armies in turn. After news arrived in Vienna of Napoleon Bonaparte's successes in northern Italy, Wurmser was sent to there with 25,000 reinforcements and the Aulic Council gave Archduke Charles command over both Austrian armies in the Rhineland and ordered him to hold his ground. Two French armies opposed the Imperial and Coalition troops. Jean Victor Moreau's commanded both armies, but the northern army, Sambre and Moselle, was large enough for a sub command: Jourdan. The 80,000 man Army of Sambre and Meuse held the west bank of the Rhine down to the Nahe and then southwest to Sankt Wendel. On the army's left flank, Jean Baptiste Kléber had 22,000 troops in an entrenched camp at Düsseldorf. The Army of the Rhine and Moselle, directly commanded by Moreau, was positioned behind (west of) the Rhine from Hüningen, where Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino commanded the furthest right wing, northward, along the Queich River near Landau, and with its left wing extended west toward Saarbrücken. The far right wing under. The French plan called for a spring (April–May–June) offensive, during which two French armies would press against the flanks of the Coalition's northern armies in the German states and a third army approached Vienna through Italy. Jean Baptiste Jourdan's army would push south from Düsseldorf, hopefully drawing troops toward themselves, while Moreau's army massed on the east side of the Rhine by Mannheim; a deft feint toward Mannheim caused Charles to reposition his troops. Once this occurred, Moreau's army executed a forced march south and, on 23 June, overwhelmed the bridgehead at Kehl. The Imperial troops there included only 7,000 troops recruited that spring from the Swabian Circle polities; despite their lack of experience and training, they held the bridgehead for several hours before retreating toward Rastatt. Moreau reinforced the bridgehead with his forward guard and his troops poured into Baden unhindered. In the south, by the Swiss city of Basel, Ferino's column moved quickly across the river and advanced (eastward) up the Rhine along the Swiss and German shoreline toward Lake Constance, spreading into the southern end of the Black Forest. Worried that his supply lines would be overextended or his army would be flanked, Charles retreated to the east. By the end of July, the entirety of the Swabian Circle, most of Bavaria, Franconia, Baden and Wuerttemberg had reached a separate peace with the French. which disarmed the Imperial army, and gave French free rein to demand supplies from the southern polities. With Charles absent from the north, Jourdan recrossed the Rhine and drove Wartensleben behind the Lahn river. The Army of Sambre and Meuse defeated its opponents at Friedberg, Hesse on 10 July, while Charles was busy at Ettlingen. Jourdan captured Frankfurt am Main on 16 July. Leaving behind François Séverin Marceau Desgraviers with 28,000 troops to blockade Mainz and Ehrenbreitstein, Jourdan pressed up the Main River. Following Carnot's strategy, the French commander continually operated against Wartensleben's north flank, causing the Austrian general to fall back. Buoyed up by their forward movement and by the capture of Austrian supplies, the French captured Würzburg on 4 August. Three days later, the Army of Sambre and Meuse, under the temporary direction of Kléber, won another clash with Wartensleben at Forchheim on 7 August. Despite this success, though, the two French armies remained separated. The outnumbered French were driven north west through Altdorf bei Nürnberg to the Pegnitz River. Leaving Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze with a division to pursue Bernadotte, the Archduke thrust north at Jourdan's right flank. The French fell back to Amberg as Charles and Wartensleben's forces converged on the Army of Sambre and Meuse. On 20 August, Moreau sent Jourdan a message vowing to closely follow Charles, which he did not do. In the Battle of Amberg on 24 August, Charles defeated the French and destroyed two battalions of their rear guard. The Austrians lost 400 killed and wounded out of 40,000 troops. Of a total of 34,000 soldiers, the French suffered greater losses of 1,200 killed and wounded plus 800 men and two colors captured. Jourdan retreated first to Sulzbach and then behind the Regnitz river where Bernadotte joined him on 28 August. Hotze and his Habsburg troops reoccupied Nürnberg and Jourdan, who had expected Moreau to keep Charles occupied in the south, found himself outnumbered. At this point, the petty jealousies and rivalries that had fostered in the Army over the summer came to a head. Jourdan had a spat with his wing commander Kléber and that officer suddenly resigned his command. Two generals from Kléber's clique, Bernadotte and Colaud, also made excuses to leave the army immediately. Faced with this mutiny, Jourdan replaced Bernadotte with General Henri Simon and divided Colaud's rebellious units among the other divisions. Jourdan marched south with 30,000 men of the infantry divisions of Simon, Jean Étienne Championnet, Paul Grenier and with Jacques Philippe Bonnaud's reserve cavalry. Lefebvre's division, 10,000 strong, remained at Schweinfurt to cover a possible retreat. The losses at Würzburg compelled the French to lift the siege of Mainz on 7 September and to move those troops to reinforce their lines further east. On 10 September, Marceau reinforced the Army of Sambre and Meuse with 12,000 troops that had been blockading the east side of Mainz. Jean Hardy's division from the west side of Mainz retreated to the Nahe river and dug in. The French government belatedly recognized the difficulties in which the Army of the Sambre and Meuse struggled and transferred two divisions commanded by Jacques MacDonald and Jean Castelbert de Castelverd from the idle Army of the North. MacDonald's division stopped at Düsseldorf while Castelverd's was placed in the French line on the lower Lahn. These reinforcements brought Jourdan's strength back to 50,000 but the French abandonment of the sieges at Mainz and later Mannheim and Philippsburg, released about 27,000 Habsburg troops to reinforce Charles' now overwhelming numbers. Moreau continued in the south to press toward Vienna, seemingly oblivious to Jourdan's situation. Over the next few days, most of the Army of Sambre and Meuse returned to the west bank of the Rhine, except for a small rear guard. After his disastrous panic at Diez in which he prematurely abandoned a critical bridge position, Jean Castelbert de Castelverd held east bank entrenchments at Neuwied, Poncet crossed at Bonn while the other divisions retired behind the Sieg river. Jourdan handed over command to Pierre de Ruel, marquis de Beurnonville, on 22 September. Charles left 32,000 to 36,000 troops commanded by Franz von Werneck in the north, 9,000 more in Mainz and Mannheim to insure the Army did not recross the Rhine, and moved south with 16,000 men to intercept Moreau. + August–September 1796 Date Location French Coalition Victor Operation3 SeptemberWürzburg30,00030,000Habsburg Unfortunately for Moreau, Jourdan's drubbing at Amberg, followed by a second defeat at Würzburg, ruined the French offensive; the French lost any chance of reuniting their front; both Moreau and Jourdan had to withdraw to the west.7 September End of Mainz blockade36,00050,000HabsburgOnce Archduke Charles defeated Jourdan's army at Würzburg, Moreau had to withdraw his force from Mainz.9 SeptemberWiesbaden15,00012,000HabsburgSeveral of the Archduke's forces attacked Jourdan's rearguard. This action forced Jourdan's army to consolidate its front further away from Moreau's line of retreat.16–18 September Limburg and Altenkirchen45,00020,000HabsburgOn 16–18 September Charles defeated the Army of Sambre & Meuse in the Battle of Limburg. Kray assaulted Grenier's troops on the French left wing at Giessen but was repulsed. In the struggle, Bonnaud was badly wounded and died six months later. Meanwhile, Charles made his main effort against André Poncet's division of Marceau's right wing at Limburg an der Lahn. After an all day combat, Poncet's lines still held except for a small bridgehead at nearby Diez. Though not threatened, that night Jean Castelbert de Castelverd, who was holding the bridgehead, panicked and withdrew his division without orders from Marceau. With a gaping hole on their right, Marceau and Bernadotte (now returned to his division) made a fighting withdrawal to Altenkirchen, allowing the left wing to escape. Marceau was fatally wounded on the 19th and died the next morning. This permanently severed the only possible link between Jourdan's and Moreau's armies, leaving Charles free to focus on the Army of the Rhine and Moselle.17 SeptemberBlockade of Ehrenbreitsteinunknown2,600HabsburgThe Habsburg's contingent had been stranded in the fortress since 9 June by portions of Jourdan's rearguard.18 September Second Kehl7,0005,000StalemateInitially the Austrians were able to take the river crossings at Kehl, but French reinforcements pushed them off the bridges. By the end of the day, the French could not break the Austrian hold on all east shore approaches to the bridges, and the Austrians established a strong cordon that forced Moreau to move south to the remaining bridgehead at Huningen.2 OctoberBiberach35,000 15,000FrenchAt Biberach an der Riss, southwest of Ulm, the French army, now in retreat, paused to savage the pursuing Coalition force, who were following too closely. As the outnumbered Latour doggedly followed the French retreat, Moreau lashed out at him at Biberach. For a loss of 500 soldiers killed and wounded, Moreau's troops inflicted 300 killed and wounded and captured 4,000 prisoners, 18 artillery pieces, and two colors. After the engagement, Latour followed the French at a more respectful distance. All troop counts and operational objectives, unless otherwise noted, from Smith, pp. 111–132.

Archduke Charles ruined the French strategy in the north; the Army of Sambre and Meuse withdrew across the river and remained inactive for the rest of the year. On 18 April 1797, with Napoleon's army threatening Vienna, Austria and France agreed to terms of an armistice, which was followed by five months of negotiation, leading to the Peace of Campo Formio which concluded the War of the First Coalition on 18 October 1797. The peace treaty was to be followed up by the Congress of Rastatt. Campo Formio's terms held until 1798, when both groups recovered their military strength and began the War of the Second Coalition. Despite the renewal of military action, the Congress continued its meetings in Rastatt until the assassination of the French delegation in April 1799. The Army of Sambre and Meuse remained in cantonment until 29 September 1797, when it was united with other units, to form the Army of Germany.

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