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After penetrating into Germany with troops as numerous as well-disciplined, he was defeated at the end of them by Archduke Charles, and retreated always with such precipitation, and in such confusion, that it looked more like the flight of a disorderly rabble than the retreat of regular troops; and had not Moreau, in 1796, kept the enemy in awe, few of Jourdan's officers or men would again have seen France; for the inhabitants of Franconia rose on these marauders, and cut them to pieces, wherever they could surprise or waylay them.
When the retreat is made down the bank of a river, wooden houses may be thrown into the stream, also fire-ships and mills, a means the Austrians used in 1796 against Jourdan's army, near Neuwied on the Rhine, where they nearly compromised the army of the Sambre and the Meuse. The Archduke Charles did the same thing at Essling in 1809.
The victor of Fleurus was now fifty-one years of age, and his failing health quite unfitted him for the Herculean tasks of guiding refractory generals, and of propping up a tottering monarchy. For Jourdan's talents Napoleon had expressed but scanty esteem, whereas on many occasions he extolled the abilities of Suchet, who was now holding down Valencia and Catalonia.
Jourdan's Marshal's baton was taken, and was sent by Wellington to the Prince Regent, who acknowledged it by conferring on the victor the title of Field-Marshal. Richly was the title deserved. After four years of battling with superior numbers, the British leader at last revealed the full majesty of his powers now that the omens were favourable.
In the autumn of 1796 he had a temporary, command of the dispersed remnants of Jourdan's army, and in 1797 he was sent as a French commander to Holland. In 1799, Bonaparte appointed him an Ambassador to the Court of Berlin; and in 1803 removed him in the same character to the Court of Madrid. In Prussia, his talents did not cause him to be dreaded, nor his personal qualities make him esteemed.
We cannot be better convinced of these truths than by the consideration of the position of Massena in Switzerland in 1799. After Jourdan's defeat at Stockach, he occupied the line from Basel by Schaffhausen and Rheineck to Saint-Gothard, and thence by La Furca to Mont-Blanc.
If Massena's report to Bonaparte be true, the army of Italy was very far from being as orderly and numerous as Jourdan's assertions would have induced us to believe.
The archduke had merely been able to oppose to him on the Lower Rhine thirty thousand men under the Count von Wartensleben, who, owing to Jourdan's numerical superiority, had been repulsed across both the Lahn and Maine. Jourdan took Frankfort by bombardment and imposed upon that city a contribution of six millions.
In the autumn of 1796 he had a temporary, command of the dispersed remnants of Jourdan's army, and in 1797 he was sent as a French commander to Holland. In 1799, Bonaparte appointed him an Ambassador to the Court of Berlin; and in 1803 removed him in the same character to the Court of Madrid. In Prussia, his talents did not cause him to be dreaded, nor his personal qualities make him esteemed.
If Massena's report to Bonaparte be true, the army of Italy was very far from being as orderly and numerous as Jourdan's assertions would have induced us to believe.
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