The Battle of Stockach occurred on 25 March 1799, when French and Austrian armies fought for control of the geographically strategic Hegau region in present-day Baden-Württemberg.There was a second battle the following year—see Second Battle of Stockach. Some older English sources refer to this as the Battle of Stochach and some French chronicles as Battle of Liptingen (or Leibtengen). In the broader military context, this battle constitutes a keystone in the first campaign in southwestern Germany during the Wars of the Second Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars.
It was the second battle between the French Army of the Danube, commanded by Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, and the Habsburg Army under Archduke Charles; the armies had met a few days earlier, 20–22 March, on the marshy fields southeast of Ostrach and the Pfullendorf heights. The Austrian Army's superior strength, almost three-to-one, forced the French to withdraw.
At Stockach, the French concentrated their forces into shorter lines, creating intense fighting conditions; initially, Charles's line was more extended, but he quickly pulled additional troops from his reserves to strengthen his front. When a small French force commanded by Dominique Vandamme nearly flanked the Austrian Army, Charles's personal intervention was crucial for the Austrians, buying time for reinforcements to arrive. General Jourdan, while trying to rally his men, was nearly trampled to death. Ultimately, the French were driven back upon the Rhine River.
Background
Although the First Coalition forces achieved several initial victories at Verdun, Kaiserslautern, Neerwinden, Mainz, Amberg and Würzburg, the efforts of Napoleon Bonaparte in northern Italy pushed Austrian forces back and resulted in the negotiation of the Peace of Leoben (17 April 1797) and the subsequent Treaty of Campo Formio (October 1797).Timothy Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars, New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 41–59. This treaty proved difficult to administer. Austria was slow to give up some of the Venetian territories. A Congress convened at Rastatt for the purposes of deciding which southwestern German states would be mediatised to compensate the dynastic houses for territorial losses, but was unable to make any progress. Supported by French republican forces, Swiss insurgents staged several uprisings, ultimately causing the overthrow of the Swiss Confederation after 18 months of civil war.Blanning, pp. 200–280.
By early 1799, the French Directory had become impatient with stalling tactics employed by Austria. The uprising in Naples raised further alarms, and recent gains in Switzerland suggested the timing was fortuitous to venture on another campaign in northern Italy and southwestern Germany.Blanning, p. 200.
Prelude to battle
As winter broke in 1799, on 1 March, General Jean Baptiste Jourdan and his army of 25,000,John Young, D.D. A History of the Commencement, Progress, and Termination of the Late War between Great Britain and France which continued from the first day of February 1793 to the first of October 1801. Two volumes. Edinburg: Turnbull, 1802, vol. 2, p. 220. the so-called Army of Observation, crossed the Rhine between Basel and Kehl. This crossing officially violated the Treaty of Campo Formio.Blanning, p. 232. On 2 March, the Army was renamed Army of the Danube, upon orders of the French Directory.Jean-Baptiste Jourdan. A Memoir of the operations of the army of the Danube under the command of General Jourdan, taken from the manuscripts of that officer. London: Debrett, 1799, pp. 140–144; Smith, Data Book, p. 148.
The Army met little resistance as it advanced through the Black Forest in four columns, through the Höllental (Hölle valley), via Oberkirch, and Freudenstadt, and at the southern end of the forest, along the Rhine bank. Although prudent counsel might have advised Jourdan to establish a position on the eastern slope of the mountains, he did not;; Ramsey Weston Phipps. The Armies of the First French Republic. Volume 5: The armies of the Rhine in Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Egypt and the coup d'etat of Brumaire, 1797–1799. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939, pp. 49–50. instead he pushed across the Danube plain, taking position between Rottweil and Tuttlingen.Blanning, p. 232.
The Austrian Army and Archduke Charles, its commander-in-chief, had wintered with his army in the Bavarian, Austrian, and Salzburg territories on the eastern side of the Lech; his force alone numbered close to 80,000 troops, and outnumbered the French force by three to one. An additional 26,000, commanded by Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze, guarded the Vorarlberg, and further south, another 46,000, under command of Count Heinrich von Bellegarde, formed the defense of the Tyrol. The Austrians had already reached an agreement with Tsar Paul of Russia by which the legendary Alexander Suvorov would leave retirement to assist Austria in Italy with another 60,000 troops.Albert Seaton, The Austro-Hungarian army of the Napoleonic wars. London: Osprey, 1973, 9780850451474, p. 15.
Engagement at Ostrach
The Army of the Danube advanced on Pfullendorf and Ostrach, the former an imperial city in Upper (southern) Swabia, and the latter a nearby village of 300 belonging to the Imperial Abbey of Salem, an influential and wealthy ecclesiastical territory on Lake Constance. Jourdan's objective was simple and direct: cut the Austrian line at the border of the southwestern German states and Switzerland, preventing the Coalition's use of Switzerland as an overland route between central and southern Europe.Phipps, pp. 49–50. Isolation of the two theaters would prevent the Austrians from assisting one another; furthermore, if the French held the interior passes in Switzerland, they could use these routes to move their own forces between the two theaters.Rothenberg, p. 74.
Stretching between the Pfullendorf heights and the village lies a flat, wide plain, marshy in places, ringed with low-lying hills, and creased with a small tributary stream from which the village takes its name.Jourdan, p. 164. Ostrach itself lies almost at the northern end of this plain, but slightly south of the Danube itself. By 7 March, the first French forces arrived there, and the Austrians arrived a day or so later. Over the following week, additional forces for both sides arrived, and the two armies faced each other across this valley.Young, p. 228.
The French army extended in a long line from the Danube to Lake Constance. The Third Division, commanded by Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, positioned itself at the far left flank, and Dominique Vandamme's detached force, returning from reconnaissance near Stuttgart, roamed on the north shore of the river.Vandamme had been sent to Stuttgart, to determine if the enemy had troops there; this assignment not only depleted Lefebvre's force of its protective flank, but annoyed Vandamme, when he determined there were no imperial forces at Stuttgart. John Gallagher. Napoleon's enfant terrible: General Dominique Vandamme. Tulsa: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008, pp. 76–77. François Joseph Lefebvre commanded the Advance Guard, positioned on the slope below Pfullendorf, and Joseph Souham, with the Second Division, took position behind him. Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino's First Division held the southernmost flank, to defend against any encirclement by Charles' force. Jourdan set up command at Pfullendorf, and the Cavalry Reserve, commanded by Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul, stood slightly to the north and west of Souham.Smith, Data Book, p. 148.
By late on the 19th, Austrian and French soldiers had been skirmishing at outposts for more than 30 hours, with the action growing increasingly intense. In the early hours of the 21st, General Lefebvre informed Jourdan that the Austrians were attacking all his positions, and that the general engagement would begin shortly. After 24 hours of fighting, Austrian forces pushed Lefebvre and Saint Cyr's troops back to the Pfullendorf heights. Although sappers blew up the primary bridge over the Ostrach river, the Austrians managed to ford the stream anyway. They nearly outflanked General Saint Cyr's forces on the right flank, did outflank Lefebvre's forces in the center, and cut off a portion of the southern flank from the main body. Saint Cyr's troops barely managed to pull back before being fully cut off. Finally, General Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze, marching north with 10,000 men, from Feldkirch, threatened Ferino's First Division from the south.Phipps, pp. 49–50; Young, pp. 229–231.
Retreat from Ostrach
On 21 March, at 2200, Jourdan ordered the wounded to be transported to Schaffhausen in Switzerland, via Stockach. The main army then began its own retreat in the early morning of the 22nd. The reserve division of d'Hautpoul left first, and pulled back via Stockach to Emmengen ob Eck. The first division pulled back to Bodman, on the northern tip of the Überlingen-finger of Lake Constance; in the retreat, a portion of the force was encircled and cut off by the 2nd Lancers of Karl Philipp, Prince Schwarzenberg's brigade, and more than 500 were taken prisoner.Roland Kessinger, '"Die Schlacht von Stockach am 25. März 1799". Zeitschrift für Militärgeschichte. Salzburg: Öst. Milizverlag, 1997–. .
Battle at Stockach and Engen
Fought at the junction of the east–west and north–south roads on the eastern side of the Black Forest, the day-long battle at Stockach and Engen pitted the two armies against each other for the second time in seven days. The Austrians still had the numerical superiority, but this time it was closer to two-to-one, instead of almost three-to-one. Jourdan had consolidated his force over a shorter line, and had the full Army of the Danube under his direct command. Charles, likewise, had shortened his line; although Hotze had not yet caught up with the archduke, he and his 10,000 men were approaching from the Austrians' left rear.Gallagher, p. 76; Phipps, pp. 49–50.
Dispositions
By 23 March, Jourdan had his headquarters in the vicinity of Stockach. He had recalled Barthélemy Ferino from the far right flank; Ferino had retreated along the coast of the Überlingen Lake, the northwestern finger of Lake Constance, to be in position at the close right flank, adjacent to Souham's division. Lefebvre, wounded at Ostrach, was unable to take the field himself, and Laurent Saint Cyr commanded the left flank. When Jourdan considered his position, he felt it too extended, so he drew back further behind Stockach, toward Engen, where he could concentrate his force. The first division camped near the Hohentwiel, the 11th-century fortress overlooking the marshes at the westernmost point of the Lake Constance. The second division, the advanced guard, and a cavalry division were camped on the heights above Engen. The third division was camped by Leibtengen (Liptingen, the French called it), and Neuhausen. Vandamme and his small corps worked themselves discreetly into a position behind the Austrian right flank. Jourdan established his headquarters at Engen.Jourdan, p. 173.
The plan was straightforward: Vandamme and Saint Cyr would make a simultaneous attack on the Austrian right, and Soult's and Jourdan's main force would attack the Austrian center and left. Jourdan's plan, to attack four points of the opposition simultaneously, seemed to him to be the only reasonable action against a force with such numerical superiority.Gallagher, pp. 78–79.