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The Battle of Kaiserslautern (23 May 1794) saw an army from the Kingdom of Prussia and Electoral Saxony led by Wichard Joachim Heinrich von Möllendorf fall upon a single French Republican division under Jean-Jacques Ambert from the ''Army of the Moselle''. The Prussians tried to surround their outnumbered adversaries but most of the French evaded capture. Nevertheless, Möllendorf's troops inflicted casualties on the French in the ratio of nine-to-one and occupied Kaiserslautern. While the Prussians won this triumph on an unimportant front, the French armies soon began winning decisive victories in Belgium and the Netherlands. The battle occurred during the War of the First Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars. In 1794 Kaiserslautern was part of the Electoral Palatinate but today the city is located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany about west of Mannheim. In December 1793, the French drove the soldiers of Habsburg Austria and Prussia from French soil in the Second Battle of Wissembourg and took positions beyond the eastern frontier. That spring the ''Army of the Moselle'' sent heavy reinforcements to northeast France, leaving the Rhine front lightly defended by troops under Jean René Moreaux. Taking advantage of French weakness, the main Prussian assault was aimed at Ambert who could only try to save as many of his troops as possible. Also on 23 May an Austro-Prussian army attacked the ''Army of the Rhine'' under Claude Ignace François Michaud but was repulsed at the Battle of Schifferstadt. After losing Kaiserslautern, the two French armies withdrew to positions closer to the frontier. Having expended almost the only initiative they displayed in 1794, the Prussians allowed their offensive to sputter to a halt. ==Background== On 26 December 1793, Lazare Hoche, in overall command of his own ''Army of the Moselle'' and Jean-Charles Pichegru's ''Army of the Rhine'' defeated the Coalition army of Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser in the Second Battle of Wissembourg. Though part of the Prussian army of Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel intervened late in the day, it could only keep the French from launching a close pursuit. Three days later, Wurmser's army crossed to the east bank of the Rhine River at Philippsburg. The two French armies pressed north along the west bank of the Rhine and relieved the siege of Landau. Brunswick's Prussians withdrew all the way to Worms and Oppenheim.〔Phipps (2011), pp. 110–111〕 While the right wing of the ''Army of the Moselle'' advanced to Speyer, the left wing under Jean René Moreaux occupied Kaiserslautern on 1 January 1794. The French pursued as far north as Bad Kreuznach before encountering Prussian resistance and falling back to Kaiserslautern. On 18 January the Coalition garrison withdrew from Fort-Louis and blew up the fortifications.〔Phipps (2011), pp. 112–114〕 On 14 January Pichegru was relieved in command of the ''Army of the Rhine'' by Claude Ignace François Michaud. This ended the constant bickering that had sprung up between him and Hoche.〔Phipps (2011), p. 119〕 The Prussians were not fully committed to the war because their leaders were divided over whether it was more important to crush the French Revolution or participate in the Third Partition of Poland. As it was, Prussia wished to leave the Coalition at the end of 1793, but kept fighting in 1794 when the United Kingdom paid to keep 60,000 of its troops in the field. Fed up with interference from King Frederick William II, who was more interested in Poland, Brunswick resigned command of the army. On 19 February 1794, the ''Army of the Moselle'' under Hoche counted the divisions of Jean Étienne Championnet, Claude François Desbureaux, Jacques Maurice Hatry, François Joseph Lefebvre, Moreaux, Antoine Morlot and Nicolas Augustin Paillard. The army numbered 76,489 but there were only 47,665 effectives.〔Phipps (2011), p. 116〕 Orders from the government arrived to advance on Trier which Hoche objected to because the army lacked boots and many other supplies. The advance started anyway but it was quickly called off and the army took up winter quarters along the Blies and Saar Rivers. By this time Committee of Public Safety had come to mistrust Hoche as too successful and therefore a threat. Hoche was put under arrest and remained in prison until the Thermidorian Reaction when Maximilien Robespierre and his associates were sent to the guillotine. On 10 March 1794 Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was ordered to assume command of the ''Army of the Moselle''.〔Phipps (2011), pp. 120–125〕 On 15 March, Jourdan ordered the army's left wing to advance to Arlon while giving Moreaux command of the army's right wing. Setting up his headquarters at Blieskastel, Moreaux moved his divisions forward with his right flank in Kaiserslautern. Meanwhile, the army's left wing occupied Arlon on 15 April.〔Phipps (2011), p. 127〕 At first the 21,788-man left wing was under the command of Hatry. On 2 May, Jourdan personally took command of the army's left wing and reinforced it so that it numbered 56,014 troops, although there were only 31,548 effectives. The left wing included the divisions of Championnet, Hatry, Lefebvre and Morlot. These headed north with Jourdan and left the eastern theater altogether. Though Jourdan nominally led the army until 25 June, for all practical purposes the ''Army of the Moselle'' (that is, the right wing) was under the command of Moreaux from 2 May.〔Phipps (2011), pp. 147–148〕 Moreaux received some reinforcements taken from the ''Army of the Rhine'' so that he had 25,000 soldiers in three divisions thinly deployed between Longwy on the west and Kaiserslautern on the east. Meanwhile, the ''Army of the Rhine'' under Claude Ignace François Michaud counted 38,500 men, but only 30,000 were able to take the field. These were spread out along the Speyerbach River between Speyer and Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, with Louis Desaix's division on the right by the Rhine. Moreaux's positions were vulnerable to attack from Wichard Joachim Heinrich von Möllendorf's Prussian army to his front and the Austrians in Trier and Luxembourg City on his left. Michaud's army faced the Prussian left wing under Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen and the Habsburg Austrians led by Friedrich Wilhelm, Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Kirchberg.〔Phipps (2011), pp. 128–129〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Kaiserslautern (1794)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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