United States or Cabo Verde ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In Airolo, he was obstinately opposed by the French under Lecourbe, and, although Schweikowski contrived to turn this strong position by scaling the pathless rocks, numbers of the men were, owing to Suwarow's impatience, sacrificed before it. On the 24th of September, 1799, he at length climbed the St.
Ten thousand men were all that escaped. Hotze, who had advanced from the Grisons to Schwyz to Suwarow's rencounter, was, at the same time, defeated and killed at Schannis. Suwarow, although aware that the road across the St. Gothard was blocked by the lake of the four cantons, on which there were no boats, had the folly to attempt the passage.
Dissensions now broke out among the victors. A fourth of the forces in Italy belonged to Austria, merely one-fifth to Russia; the Austrians, consequently, imagined that the war was merely carried on on their account. The Austrian forces were, against Suwarow's advice, divided, for the purpose of reducing Mantua and Alessandria and of occupying Tuscany.
Suwarow's victories had, in the autumn of 1799, rendered a conclave, on the death of the captive pope, Pius VI., in France, possible, for the purpose of electing his successor, Pius VII., who was acknowledged as such by Bonaparte, whose favor he purchased by expressing his approbation of the seizure of the property of the church during the French Revolution, and by declaring his readiness to agree to the secularization of church property, already determined upon, in Germany.
The archduke, accordingly, received orders to remain inactive, to abandon the Russians, and finally to withdraw to the north; by this movement Suwarow's triumphant progress was checked, he was compelled to cross the Alps to the aid of Korsakow, and to involve himself in a mountain warfare ill-suited to the habits of his soldiery.
The archduke might, even without this fresh reinforcement, have already annihilated Massena had he not remained during three months, from June to August, in a state of complete inactivity; at the very moment of Suwarow's expected arrival he allowed the important passes of the St.
Word Of The Day