The Directory, made over-confident by the long series of victories won by Bonaparte in Italy, had, regardless of numbers, instructed its principal Commanders—the Republican veteran Jourdan on the borders of Austria, and Massena in Switzerland —to assume the offensive at once.
Apparently the strategy of the French had been based on the idea that, if they could secure the bastion of the Alps, they would at any time be able to emerge from it and dictate the situation in the neighbouring plains; so they had given little attention to the upper reaches of the Danube or the Rhine. On March 1st Jourdan crossed the latter and on the 6th Massena moved into the Grissons to expel the bands of anti-French Swiss there, who were eagerly awaiting Austrian support.
Jourdan, meanwhile, advanced into the Black Forest between the source of the Danube and Lake Constance; so the war seemed to have opened well for the French. But, during the uneasy peace, the Austrian Emperor had been extremely active in reorganizing his Army, calling up and training reserves and making every sort of preparation against another outbreak of war. In consequence, he had been able to put into the field two hundred and twenty-five thousand well-equipped troops, which far outnumbered those with which the French could oppose him.
The first fruits of this numerical superiority were seen on
March 21st, in the first collision of the Armies. Jourdan's thirty-six thousand French clashed head-on with some seventy-eight thousand Austrians under the Emperor's most capable General, the Archduke Charles. The French fought courageously, but were forced to give way and retire on the village of Stockach.
The village was of considerable strategic importance, because the roads from Switzerland and Swabia met there. Rallying his forces there on the 25th, Jourdan decided to advance and give battle. The Archduke also advanced troops in that direction, intending only to make a reconnaissance in force. Confused fighting resulted, which later developed into a most desperate conflict involving both armies fully. Although Jourdan had Lefebvre and St. Cyr among his Divisional Commanders, the French were heavily defeated and a large part of their Army fled in terrible confusion across the plain of Liptingen.
Jourdan retired with the remnants of his force into the Black Forest, while Mass^na's offensive had been checked and he was being hard pressed in Switzerland by another Austrian Army. At the same time the Allies launched a third powerful Army, consisting of thirty-six thousand Austrians and Suvoroff's eighteen thousand Russians, into northern Italy. They were opposed there by General Scherer, who had one hundred and two thousand men under him. But the French were widely scattered and Scherer, one of the old-type Republican Generals, was incapable of co-ordinating his forces effectively. The French were driven back over river after river until they were behind the Adda, and there Scherer was relieved of his Command by Moreau.
Yet even that hero of many victories could not hold the enemy. Suvoroff's Russians, fighting like tigers, forced the bridge at Cassano and on April 27th captured General Serurier with three thousand men. The French had already had to leave the great fortress of Mantua to be besieged and now the Allies entered Milan.
In southern Italy also the French had suffered a severe blow. Called on for help, General Macdonald left strong garrisons in the three great castles at Naples then marched north with thirty-six thousand men. The withdrawal of his Army at once resulted in a peasant rising, led by a militant Cardinal named Ruffo, and in April there ensued the massacre of the Neapolitans who had collaborated with the French. To complete this tale of woe for the Republic, although their garrison on Malta continued to hold out, Corfu was captured from them by a combined Russo-Turkish Fleet towards the end of April.
Another matter about which Sarodopulous told Roger was the ending of the Conference of Rastatt, and how the manner of it had excited indignation in every Court in Europe. Ever since the late autumn of '97 the French plenipotentiaries had remained at Rastatt, negotiating with Austria and a horde of German and Italian petty Sovereigns, on the final clauses to be inserted in the Treaty of Campo Formio* By that treaty, the Austrians conceded to the French the Germanic territories up to the left bank of the Rhine and recognized the Cisapline Republic, which embraced the greater part of northern Italy. The object of the Conference had been to compensate such Princes as had been dispossessed of their territories by giving them others.
The plenipotentiaries chosen by the Directory had been the most vulgar, brutal type of die-hard revolutionaries. Making capital out of Bonaparte's recently concluded Italian campaign, they had behaved with the utmost arrogance and had acted throughout like bullies rather than diplomats. On several occasions the Austrian plenipotentiaries had withdrawn in disgust, but the French had kept the Conference going with the Princes and Grand Dukes on the excuse that their future status could not be left unsettled. After sitting for a year the Conference became a complete farce, for by then a French Army was besieging the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein on the Rhine and, when it surrendered, the Emperor decided that no possible good come of continuing the negotiations.
But the French plenipotentiaries refused to depart. Even when Austria and France became openly at war, and after the Archduke Charles's victory at Stockach, they still remained there, chaffering with the Princes and seeking to undermine the Empire by tempting them with offers of territories which were to be taken from the Church lands ruled by the German Prince-Bishops.
At last, on April 8th, the Emperor formally decreed the Conference at an end and annulled all its acts. The Germans withdrew but the French protested violently and stayed on until a military force was sent to turn them out. On the evening of April 28th they left with their families, in three coaches. Just outside the town they were set upon by a regiment of Szekler Hussars and dragged from their coaches. Two of the plenipotentiaries were murdered in the presence of their horrified wives and the third escaped only because he was left for dead after a terrible beating. That the men themselves had been brutal ex-terrorists was beside the point, and on all sides Austria was condemned for this shocking breach of the immunity always accorded to diplomatic representatives.
By the end of June, Roger was still very much, an invalid physically, but sufficiently alert mentally to give some thought to his future and that of Zanthe's. Since their brief conversation on the morning after they had escaped from Acre, neither of them had mentioned marriage; but he had introduced her to the Sarodopulouses as his fiancee and he felt sure that she expected him to make her his wife as soon as he was fully recovered.
His recollections of her as a mistress were such that, although his health debarred him, for the time being, from resuming his role of her lover, he had begun to long for the time when they could again share a divan. Even so, being no callow youth and having been the lover of a number of beautiful women, he could not help wondering for how long the passionate attraction between them would last. Through the years Georgina had never failed to rouse him, but hers was a case apart. Moreover he knew there to be a great deal in her contention that their continued physical desire for one another was largely due to the fact that they had never lived together for more than a few months at a time, and even then at long intervals.