Featured Article Summary #290

The Battle of Schliengen happened on 24 October 1796 during the War of the First Coalition, near the village of Schliengen. It was fought between the French Army of the Rhine and Moselle, led by Jean-Victor Moreau, and the Austrian army, commanded by Archduke Charles of Austria. Schliengen was strategically important because controlling it could help either side reach southwestern German states and key crossings of the Rhine. After Moreau withdrew from Freiburg, he placed his troops on a ridge, and the hard roads limited the Austrians’ ability to outflank him. Charles instead attacked the French flanks directly, causing heavy losses for both armies. Although both sides claimed victory, historians usually view the result as a strategic advantage for Austria, but French forces later withdrew in good order and crossed the Rhine, while Austrian opportunities were reduced by political and diplomatic delays. At first, European rulers treated the French Revolution as an internal dispute, but as the revolution became more extreme they began to threaten consequences for the safety of Louis XVI, especially after the Declaration of Pillnitz in August 1791. In April 1792 France declared war on Austria, leading to the War of the First Coalition, during which France faced many European states and soon fell into serious crisis by early 1793 due to military setbacks, internal revolts, and unrest. The French army was badly disrupted and then further overwhelmed by mass conscription, and the Rhine Campaign of 1795 was particularly disastrous. In 1796 the First Coalition fielded about 125,000 troops, led by Archduke Charles, but his forces were spread widely from Switzerland to the North Sea while too few troops could defend the long Rhine front from Basel to Frankfurt. The main Austrian strength was concentrated near Karlsruhe and Darmstadt, and French commanders Jourdan and Moreau faced an enemy that was generally stronger but stretched thin; the French army, drawn by mass conscription, was poorly supplied and repeatedly mutinied because of late pay and poor support. As the French began crossing the Rhine, Moreau struck at Kehl on 24 June, where a small Swabian militia force of about 7,000 was overwhelmed and could not be reinforced. After Moreau and Ferino gained crossings, the coalition withdrew in an organized way through the Black Forest toward Bavaria, but Charles ultimately abandoned the Swabian Circle to the French, forcing the militia to disband and using a dawn raid to disarm the remaining Swabian and Condé troops; by late summer, the neutral zone grew to cover much of southern Germany. During summer and early fall, fighting in southern German territories saw the Coalition and the French try to outflank and split each other’s forces. By mid-summer the Coalition was in trouble, but after defeats around Neresheim and their generals regrouping, the advantage shifted to the Coalition as Jourdan and Moreau pushed too far apart to support each other. The French then withdrew toward the Rhine, and after Moreau retreated through the Black Forest, an Austrian attack near Biberach cost Latour about 4,000 prisoners and equipment before he pulled back. The Rhine forms a natural border, flowing through steep, rugged terrain with fast-moving water between Schaffhausen and Basel, then widening into flatter ground near Basel. North and east of the area around Basel, the river turns and runs through a rift valley with mountains to the east (Black Forest) and west (Vosges), while tributaries carve deep ravines and then wind across the flood plain. In the 1790s the river was wild and changeable—often much wider than today, crossing marshes and meadows and creating tree-filled islands that floods regularly submerged.