Global InformationEarly clashes in the Rhine campaign of 1796 information
In the Rhine Campaign of 1796 (June 1796 to February 1797), two First Coalition armies under the overall command of Archduke Charles outmaneuvered and defeated two Republican French armies. This was the last campaign of the War of the First Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars.
The French military strategy against Austria rested on a three-pronged invasion to surround Vienna, ideally capturing the city and forcing the Holy Roman Emperor into a surrender and acceptance of French Revolutionary ideals. Toward this end, the French assembled three armies: Army of Sambre-et-Meuse commanded by Jean-Baptiste Jourdan faced the Austrian Army of the Lower Rhine in the north; the Army of Rhin-et-Moselle, led by Jean Victor Marie Moreau, confronted the Austrian Army of the Upper Rhine in the south; the Army of Italy approached Vienna through northern Italy.
Initially successes of the Army of Italy forced the Coalition commander, Archduke Charles, to transfer 25,000 men commanded by Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser to northern Italy. This weakened the Coalition force along the 340 kilometers (211 mi) of the Rhine from Basel to the North Sea. A feint by Jourdan's Army of Sambre-et-Meuse convinced Charles to shift troops to the north, allowing Moreau to cross of the Rhine at Kehl on 24 June and beat the Archduke's Imperial contingents. Both French armies penetrated deeply into eastern and southern Germany by late July, forcing the southern states of the Holy Roman Empire into punitive armistices. By August, though, the French armies had extended their fronts too thinly and the competition and jealousies between and among the French generals complicated cooperation between the two armies. Because the two French armies operated independently, Archduke Charles was able to leave Maximilian Anton Karl, Count Baillet de Latour with a weaker army in front of Moreau on the southernmost flank, and move heavy reinforcements to help Wilhelm von Wartensleben's army in the north.
In battles at Amberg on 24 August and Würzburg on 3 September Charles defeated Jourdan and compelled the French army to retreat, eventually to the west bank of the Rhine. With Jourdan neutralized and retreating into France, Charles left Franz von Werneck to watch the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse, making sure it did not try to recover a foothold on the east bank of the Rhine, and turned on Moreau, who belatedly began to withdraw from southern Germany. Although Moreau briskly repulsed Latour at Biberach, he did not make it through the Black Forest before Charles was able to cut French access to the Bruchsal and Kehl crossings. In the battles of Emmendingen and Schliengen in October, Charles forced Moreau to retreat to the west bank of the Rhine. During the winter the Austrians reduced the French bridgeheads at Kehl and Huningue (Hüningen). Despite Charles' success in Germany, Austria was losing the war in Italy to a new French army commander, Napoleon Bonaparte.