|
The Siege of Kehl lasted from 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 important bridgehead crossing the Rhine to Strasbourg, an Alsatian city, 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 or more 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 alternate 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 seventeenth 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 Austrian 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 Moreau, offered an armistice that the archduke was inclined to accept. He 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, the 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, 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 Pilnitz 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, ISBN 0-340-56911-5, pp. 41–59.〕 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「Siege of Kehl (1796–97)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|