the Inn, is yet a river of confiderable magnitude. Saltzburgh is fituated on its right bank, about 140 miles weft by fouth-weft of Vienna. The French paffed both these rivers in different places. Obftacles which, to military fkill, would have appeared to be almost infurmountable, were overcome, without any obftinate refiftance, on the part of the panicftruck Auftrians, by troops as confident of fuccefs as they were accuf tomed to conquer. The Inn was crofled, December 9, at Nieupeurein, between Rofenheim and Kuff ftein, at Wafferburg, and at Muhldorf: the Salza between Saltzburgh and Lauffen. On the intermediate ground between Lauffen and Saltz burgh, the greatest part of the Auftrian army, on the 12th of December, was concentrated. A divifion under general Lecourbe was ordered to advance on the right bank of the Saal, and another under general Decaen by Lauffen, while a corps of referve, under the generals Richepanfe and Grouchy, was ready to fupport either Lecourbe or Decaen, as fhould be neceflary. On the 13th of December, general Le courbe paffed the Saal, without much refiftance, and made himfelf mafter of the village of Waal. General Decaen, having arrived in the neighbourhood of Lauffen, found the bridge there broken down, and the enemy defending the heights which command it. Three chaf feurs threw themfelves into the Salza, in fpite of the extreme cold, and fwam over for fome boats on the oppofite fide, while fome more advanced, keeping up a fire of muf quetry, along the ruins of the bridge. About 80 men, having paffed the river in the boats that had been collected, were fufficient to repulfe

3

a party of Auftrians on the right bank, and to make 200 prifoners; fuch is the aftonishing influence of a feries of fucceffes, over a series of defeats! The commander-in-chief ordered general Grenier to advance with his two divifions to Lauffen, and the fame orders were given to generals Grouchy and Richepanfe. He ordered the pontoons to be carried to the fame point, and a new bridge to be thrown over, while that which had been broken down by the enemy fhould be repaired. Thefe operations took place in the night. Five hundred men paffed over to the right bank of the river; and general Lecourbe who commanded them was continuing his route, when, in the morning of the 14th, the Auftrians appeared in great force, with an intention to op→ pofe it. General Lecourbe, sensible of his great inferiority in numbers, fell back, and contented himfelf with defending the road, and maintaining poffeflion of the village of Waal. A harp action took place: but Lecourbe maintained his pofition till two o'clock; when general Decaen, who had paffed the river with his whole divifion, began to advance, keeping up a terrible fire of artillery on all that oppofed him.. This movement, which operated as a diverfion in favour of general Lecourbe, likewife favoured the paffage of the divifion under Richepanie, which now began to form on the right bank. In the night between the 14th and 15th, the Auftrians effected their retreat with precipitation, and the French entered Saltzbergh at eight o'clock in the morning. On the fame day general Richepanfe, with the left divition of the French army purfued the imperalifts along the road to Lintz, and

entered

entered Newmark, the laft poft in Bavaria, on the frontier of the hereditary ftates of the emperor. The archduke John, whose headquarters were by this time removed to Braunau, on the lower Inn, was, by this manœuvre, cut off from all communication with the Auftrian commander, general Mollitor, in the Tyrol, who had a force about 25,000 ftrong, but who had no communication except with general Bellegarde. The Tyrol was now threatened on the north fide by a divifion of the French army under Lecourbe, on the weft by another under Mollitor, and on the fouth-weft by Macdonald.

General Macdonald, commanderin-chief of -the French army of the Grifons, at the head of a column, had pafled the Rhetian Alps, by the defiles of the Splugen, and through Chiavenna, in the firft weeks of December, in order to fupport the left wing of the Italian army, which was under the command of general Brane. The difficulties and dangers of croffing the mountains would have interrupted the paffage at different times, had it not been for the intrepid perfeverance of the general. He led in perfon the pioneers to tracts of the road, near the fummit of the Splugen, which were filled up and totally defaced by the drifted fnow. He himself fet the example of working to open a path, on the 5th of December, about two leagues from the village of Splugen, which was effected. This foremoft party had not advanced far when the path was again covered, and his grenadiers finking in the fnow, began to

believe that it was impoffible to proceed farther; for even all the poles that had been fet up for marks were covered with fnow, and fnow was fill falling. But the general, at the head of the pioneers, founded himfelf the road, and, animating all who were near him by his voice and example, conducted the troops through all the dangers of the Splugen, and, at laft, on the 11th of December, gained the valley of the Adda, in the Valtelline, which opened a communication with general Brune, He was, at the fame time, master of both banks of the upper Inn, and of the upper Engadine; and thus communications were established among all thefe divifions.

In the mean time, the Gallo-Batavian army, under Augereau, whose right wing was to protect and cooperate with the left of Moreau's, gained fome important advantages over the Auftrians in Franconia. On the rupture of the armiftice, the baron d'Albini, who commanded the troops of Mayence, ftationed at Afchaffenburg, attacked, November 23, the Batavian infantry, which guarded the head of the bridge of Afchaffenburg; but, after three vigorous affaults, were driven back into the town. The Gallo-Batavian army, quitting its cantonments on the Nidda, the lower Main, and the Tobre, marched on to Wartzburg and Swinfurth, where the imperialifts had a corps of three or four thousand men. The town of Wurtzburg was invefted by the Batavian divifion, under lieutenantgeneral Dumonceau, on the 28th. General Dumonceau, with a part

of

of the divifion, was left to carry on the fiege of the citadel. Augereau, having received intelligence from general Moreau, that the Auftrians had affembled, to the number of 12 or 13,000, before Bamberg, at Burg-Eberach, came to a determination, with two divifions of his army, to give them battle, and drive them beyond the Rednitz. They occupied, befides the village, the two first heights that command BurgEberach. They were driven from the village and the firft height, but made a refolute stand on the fecond. After the moft obftinate refiftance, they were forced alfo to yield this; but they retreated in good order. General Duhefme, on the, 3d of December, took poffeffion of Bamberg. The main army took a poit behind the Rednitz, to cover the fiege of the citadel of Wurtzburg. General Barbou was ordered to march different parties towards Nuremberg. Augereau, informed of the fuccefs of the army of the Rhine, withdraw ing his right wing from the Rednitz, took poffeffion of Furchem and Nuremberg, with an intention to wait there for farther advices from Moreau. The Gallo-Batavian army, ftationed partly before Wurtzburg, and partly at Nuremberg and Furchem, had, on its left, d'Albini with 2000 men, in front the corps of Simbfchen, 12,000 firong, and, in the fame direction, a body of 15,000, under Klenau, pofted towards Newmarck, and in Ratisbon. It was the object of the Auftrians to cut off the communication between Augereau and Moreau, and, if poffible, to turn the left of Moreau's army. From the 3d to the 17th, nothing pafled but fkirmishing between outpofis; but, on the 18th, a bloody battle was fought between Nurem

berg and Lauff. It lafted from nine o'clock in the morning till the clufe of the day. General Klenau headed an attack on the left of the Gallo-Batavians, commanded by general Barbou, and general Simbfchen an attack on the left, under the orders of general Duhelme. The engagement was as fierce on both fides, as it was long continued. The affailants were forced to fall back; but the lofs on both fides was fuppofed to be nearly equal. A hundred waggons were loaded with dead and wounded Auftrians.

Its

In this fituation of affairs, the Auftrian army of the Danube moved from Braunau, and, on the 16th of December took an advantageous polition behind the Traun. head quarters were established at Strafwalden, from whence they were transferred, on the 17th, to Skwanftadt, where the chief command of the army was taken by the archduke Charles, with full powers, which he had been long refuled. That prince immediately ordered defenfive difpofitions; but, before he could finish them, the centre of the French army of the Rhine arrived at the Traun infive divifions, commanded feverally by Legrand, Grandjeau, Richepanfe, and Grouchy. A bloody engagement took place on the 18th, between the two armies, and foon became general. Richepanfe, with the advanced guard, attacked the rear of the imperialifts, in a ftrong pofition near Valbruk, and defeated them. The lofs of the Auftrians, in killed and wounded, was computed to be from 3 to 500; and 1000 were taken prifoners, 600 of which number was cavalry, with general Lopez their commander. The Auftrians, on the 19th, interrupted their retreat, and endea

voured to make a fland on the heights of Lambach; but Richepanfe again defeated their rear guard, drove them into the defiles of Lambach with great lofs, and the imperial army retreated to Lintz, within ninety-two miles of Vienna. The French continued to advance, and, on the 20th, fixed their head-quarters at Wells. Moreau now formed his army into three columns, of which the right, under Lecourbe, made for the mountains fouth of Steyer on the Ens; the centre, commaded by Moreau himfelf, fet out for Steyer; and the left, under Grenier, which had marched along the fouth banks of the Danube, and forced the Auftrians to retreat from Lintz across the river, proceeded on the high road from Lintz towards Vienna. On the 24th, Richepanfe, with the advanced guard of the centre column, entered Steyer, in which he found 17 pieces of cannon, and made 4000 prisoners. On the 25th, the French began to proceed onward to the next river, the Erlaph, and the Auftrians to retire behind the Trafen, the laft river of any note within fifty miles of Vienna. This great city was ftruck with confternation and terror; the greater in loyal minds, that it was eafily perceived by no means to be general. As the French advanced, the countenances of the difaffected to government, who were neither few in number, nor yet altogether of the lower claffes, brightened up with joy. They held frequent converfations with one another. They were at little pains to conceal their fentiments; and, in fhort, it was

fuppofed, that had the French come to Vienna, they would have been joined by numbers of the inhabitants: fuch was the general avertion to the war, and fach the progress of French intrigues and principles. The imperial family prepared to let out for Offen, elcorted by a party of the lifeguards. The gallery of paintings, with the imperial treafury, other valuable articles, and the city treafury, were placed in waggons, and ready to be removed from the capital, when the archduke Charles arrived at Vienna, at ten in the morning of the 27th of December, with the confolatory intelligence of his having concluded at Steyer an armistice of thirty days with general Moreau.*

For the conclufion of this armiftice, there were not wanting very. cogent inducements on both fides, as is very fairly ftated, in a letter from the general of divifion, Defolles, to the French minifter at war, dated head-quarters, Steyer, the 26th of December, 1800. “The archduke Charles has propofed an armiftice to the general in chief, at the fame time announcing to him, that the emperor had fent a courier to Mr. Cobentzel, at Luneville, where a negotiation had been opened, in the end of September, with orders to fign a peace.

The general in chief, confidering that the line of the Traun and Ens was forced, that we had advanced a hundred leagues before the other armies, that the Auftrian army in Italy was behind us, that, of course, Mr. de Bellegarde had two grand means from Saltzburgh and Infpruck

to

to fend a detachment, which, joining itfelf to the troops left in Tyrol, might fall upon our rear, and cut off our communication with France, has thought it his duty to-confent to a convention, which, procuring us great advantages, left us the means, at the fame time, of waiting for the operations of the army of Italy, of which we have yet had no intelligence.

"The character of the archduke Charles, his well-known probity and honour, are fufficient pledges to us of the defire the emperor now feels 10 put an end to the war. To this he has, befides, been compelled by the deplorable ftate of his army, which having loft, in twenty days, fixty-fix leagues of country, 25,000 prifoners, 12 or 15,000 in killed or wounded, 140 pieces of cannon, and immenfe magazines, is not, at prefent, and would not be for these three months, in a state to prevent our army from conquering all Auftria, and dictating laws to its capital; but, to do this without danger, it was neceffary that the army fhould have been mafter of the head of the defiles of Carinthia.

"The general in chief believed, befides, that to ftop, in the midft of the moft brilliant victories, was conformable to that character of moderation, in which the chief conful wifhes to make himfelf known to the whole of Europe. I have the honour to addrefs to you a copy of the armiftice. The emperor has determined to treat of peace, whatever may be the determination of his allies; and our line, as it approaches to the Danube and to the mountains of the Tyrol, and puts into our hands the ftations of Ruff fteinfhoer, Nitz, Braunau, and other stations, will afford us the means of

renewing the war with the greatest advantages, but, above all, with the greateft fecurity."

This armiftice affigned to the French army of the Rhine a triangular portion of territory, whole bafe refted on Chiavenna and Wurtzburg, and whofe point was between Leoben and Pachlarn, on the Danube, within fifty-two English miles from Vienna. It comprehended the Gallo-Batavian army, as well as that of the Rhine. It was not to be for a lefs duration than thirty days; at the expiration of which time, hoftilities were not to be refumed until a farther notice of fifteen days, to be dated from the hour in which the notification of the rupture fhould be made known; and the armiftice was to be indefinitely prolonged until the notice of rupture. No corps or detachment, either of the French army of the Rhine, or of that of his imperial majefty in Germany, were to be fent to the refpective armies in Italy, fo long as there fhould be no armistice between the French and the imperial armies in that coun try. The general in chief of the army of the Rhine engaged to tranfmit, with the utmost dispatch, the prefent convention to the generals in chief of the Gallo Batavian army, that of the Grifons, and that of Italy; with the most preffing invitation, particularly to the army of Italy, to conclude, on his part, a fufpenfion of hoftilities.

As foon as general Augerau was informed by Moreau of the new armiftice, he fent to the Autrian generals Klenau and Simbschen, to confer on the fettlement of the line of demarkation between the GalloBatavian army, and the Auftrian corps in the upper Palatinate and Franconia. It was agreed that the