Siege of Kehl (1796–1797)

The siege of Kehl lasted from 26 October 1796 to 9 January 1797. Habsburg and Württemberg regulars numbering 40,000, under the command of Maximilian Anton Karl, Count Baillet de Latour, besieged and captured the French-controlled fortifications at the village of Kehl in the German state of Baden-Durlach. The fortifications at Kehl represented an important bridgehead crossing the Rhine to Strasbourg, an Alsatian city and a French Revolutionary stronghold. This battle was part of the Rhine Campaign of 1796, in the French Revolutionary War of the First Coalition.

In the 1790s, the Rhine was wild, unpredictable, and difficult to cross, in some places more than four times wider than it is in the twenty-first century, even under non-flood conditions. Its channels and tributaries wound through marsh and meadow and created islands of trees and vegetation that were alternately submerged by floods or exposed during the dry seasons. At Kehl and the city of Strasbourg lay a complex of bridges, gates, fortifications and barrage dams. These had been constructed by the fortress architect Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban in the 17th century. The crossings had been contested before: in 1678 during the French-Dutch war, in 1703 during the War of the Spanish Succession, in 1733 during the War of the Polish Succession, and earlier in 1796, when the French crossed into the German states on 23–24 June. Critical to French success was the army's ability to cross the Rhine at will. The crossings at Hüningen, near the Swiss city of Basel, and the crossing at Kehl, gave them ready access to most of southwestern Germany; from there, French armies could sweep north, south, or east, depending on their military goal.

Throughout the summer of 1796, the French and the Austrians had chased each other back and forth across the south German states. By October, the Habsburg force, under the command of Archduke Charles, had pushed the French back to the Rhine. With the conclusion of the Battle of Schliengen on 24 October, the French army withdrew south and west toward the Rhine. The French commander, Jean Victor Marie Moreau, offered an armistice that the Archduke was inclined to accept. The Archduke wanted to secure the Rhine crossings so he could send troops to northern Italy to relieve Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser at besieged Mantua; an armistice with Moreau would allow him to do that. However, his brother, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, and the civilian military advisers of the Aulic Council categorically refused such an armistice, forcing Charles to order simultaneous sieges at Hüningen and Kehl. These tied his army to the Rhine for most of the winter.Phillip Cuccia, Napoleon in Italy: the Sieges of Mantua, 1796–1799, University of Oklahoma Press, 2014, pp. 87–93. Smith. Data Book. pp. 125, 131–133.

On 18 September 1796, the Austrians temporarily acquired control of the têtes-de-ponts (bridgeheads) joining Kehl and Strasbourg until a strong French counter-attack forced them to retreat. The situation remained in status quo until late October. Immediately after the Battle of Schliengen, while most of Moreau's army retreated south to cross the Rhine at Hüningen, Count Baillet Latour moved north to Kehl to begin the siege. On 22 November, the French defenders at Kehl, under Louis Desaix and the overall commander of the French Army of the Rhine and Moselle, Jean-Victor-Marie Moreau, almost ended the siege when they executed a sortie that nearly captured the Austrian artillery park. In early December, though, the Austrians expanded the siege, connecting a grand parallel with a series of batteries in a semi-circle around the village and the bridges. By late December, the completed Austrian batteries connected with the captured French fortification called Bonnet de Prêtre; from these positions, the Austrians bombarded the French defenses with enfilade fire. After the defenses were thoroughly riddled by heavy bombardment from the besiegers, the French defenders capitulated and withdrew on 9 January 1797.

Background

Initially, the rulers of Europe viewed the 1789 revolution in France as an event between the French king and his subjects, and not something in which they should interfere. In 1790, Leopold succeeded his brother Joseph as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and by 1791, the danger surrounding his sister, Marie Antoinette, and her children, alarmed him. In August 1791, in consultation with French émigré nobles and Frederick William II of Prussia, he issued the Declaration of Pillnitz declaring the interest of the monarchs of Europe as one with the interests of Louis and his family. He and his fellow monarchs threatened ambiguous, but serious, consequences if anything should happen to the royal family. The French émigrés continued to agitate for support of a counter-revolution abroad. On 20 April 1792, the French National Convention declared war on Austria. In this War of the First Coalition (1792–98), France ranged itself against most of the European states sharing land or water borders with her, plus Portugal and the Ottoman Empire. Although initially successful in campaigns in 1792 and 1793, the French army lost some effectiveness during the Reign of Terror, as its generals were intimidated and/or executed, and more and more of the officers left France for safer havens.Timothy Blanning. The French Revolutionary Wars. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, , pp. 41–59.

At the end of the Rhine Campaign of 1795, the two sides called a truce.Theodore Ayrault Dodge, Warfare in the Age of Napoleon: The Revolutionary Wars Against the First Coalition in Northern Europe and the Italian Campaign, 1789–1797. Leonaur Ltd, 2011. pp. 286–287.See also Timothy Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, , pp. 41–59. This agreement lasted until 20 May 1796, when the Austrians announced that it would end on 31 May.Ramsay Weston Phipps,The Armies of the First French Republic: Volume II The Armées du Moselle, du Rhin, de Sambre-et-Meuse, de Rhin-et-Moselle Pickle Partners Publishing, 2011 reprint (original publication 1923-1933), p. 278. The Coalition's Army of the Lower Rhine counted 90,000 troops. The 20,000-man right wing under Duke Ferdinand Frederick Augustus of Württemberg, who was replaced by Wilhelm von Wartensleben, stood on the east bank of the Rhine behind the Sieg River, observing the French bridgehead at Düsseldorf. The garrisons of Mainz and Ehrenbreitstein counted 10,000 more. The remainder of the Imperial and Coalition army was posted on the west bank behind the Nahe. Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser led the 80,000-strong Army of the Upper Rhine. Its right wing occupied Kaiserslautern on the west bank while the left wing under Anton Sztáray, Michael von Fröhlich guarded the Rhine from Mannheim to Switzerland; Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé and his corps of French royalists patrolled the area between Freiburg im Breisgau and Basel. The original Austrian strategy was to capture Trier and to use their position on the west bank to strike at each of the French armies in turn. However, after news arrived in Vienna of Napoleon Bonaparte's successes, Wurmser was sent to Italy with 25,000 reinforcements. Reconsidering the situation, the Aulic Council gave Archduke Charles command over both Habsburg armies and ordered him to hold his ground.

Geography and politics

The Rhine River flows west along the border between the German states and the Swiss Cantons. The stretch between Rheinfall, by Schaffhausen and Basel, the High Rhine (Hochrhein) cuts through steep hillsides over a gravel bed; in such paces as the former rapids at Laufenburg, it moves in torrents.Laufenburg now has dams and barrages to control the flow of water. Thomas P. Knepper, The Rhine, Handbook for Environmental Chemistry Series, Part L. New York, Springer, 2006, , pp. 5–19. A few miles north and east of Basel, the terrain flattens. The Rhine makes a wide, northerly turn, in what is called the Rhine knee, and enters the so-called Rhine ditch (Rheingraben), part of a rift valley bordered by the Black Forest on the east and Vosges Mountains on the west. In 1796, the plain on both sides of the river, some wide, was dotted with villages and farms. At both far edges of the flood plain, especially on the eastern side, the old mountains created dark shadows on the horizon. Tributaries cut through the hilly terrain of the Black Forest, creating deep defiles in the mountains. The tributaries then wind in rivulets through the flood plain to the river.Knepper, pp. 19–20.

The Rhine River itself looked different in the 1790s than it does in the twenty-first century; the passage from Basel to Iffezheim was "corrected" (straightened) between 1817 and 1875. Between 1927 and 1975, a canal was constructed to control the water level. In 1790, though, the river was wild and unpredictable, in some places more than four or more times wider than the twenty-first century, even under regular (non-flood) conditions. Its channels wound through marsh and meadow and created islands of trees and vegetation that were periodically submerged by floods. It was crossable at Kehl, by Strasbourg, and at Hüningen, by Basel, where systems of viaducts and causeways made access reliable. Helmut Volk, "Landschaftsgeschichte und Natürlichkeit der Baumarten in der Rheinaue." Waldschutzgebiete Baden-Württemberg, Band 10, S. 159–167.

Political terrain

The German-speaking states on the east bank of the Rhine were part of the vast complex of territories in central Europe called the Holy Roman Empire.Joachim Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume I: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia, 1493–1648 (2012), pp. 17–20. The considerable number of territories in the Empire included more than 1,000 entities. Their size and influence varied, from the Kleinstaaten ("little states") that covered no more than a few square miles to large and powerful states. Their governance varied: they included free imperial cities, also of different sizes, such as the powerful Augsburg and the minuscule Weil der Stadt; ecclesiastical territories, also of varying sizes and influence, such as the wealthy Abbey of Reichenau and the powerful Archbishopric of Cologne; and such durable dynastic states as Württemberg. When viewed on a map, the Empire resembled a Flickenteppich ("patchwork carpet"). Some states included non-contiguous pieces: both the Habsburg domains and Hohenzollern Prussia also governed territories outside the Empire structures, such as the Habsburg territories in eastern Europe and northern Italy. There were also territories completely surrounded by France that belonged to Württemberg, the Count of Solm, the archbishopric of Trier, and Hesse-Darmstadt. Among the German-speaking states, the Holy Roman Empire's administrative and legal mechanisms provided a venue to resolve disputes between peasants and landlords, between jurisdictions, and within jurisdictions. Through the organization of Imperial Circles (called Reichskreise), groups of states consolidated resources and promoted regional and organizational interests, including economic cooperation and military protection.See, for example, James Allen Vann, The Swabian Kreis: Institutional Growth in the Holy Roman Empire 1648–1715. Vol. LII, Studies Presented to International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions. Bruxelles, 1975. Mack Walker. German home towns: community, state, and general estate, 1648–1871, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1998.