Battle of Glarus (1799)
The Battle of Glarus was a meeting engagement fought on October 1, 1799. The battle ended the Austro-Russian invasion of the Helvetic Republic, which was the last campaign that involved the Russian "undefeated" commander Alexander Suvorov. The French were led by Jean-de-Dieu Soult.
Initially, Suvorov's rearguard, led by Andrei Rosenberg, was able to fend off a French attack led by André Masséna in the Battle of the Muota Valley. Suvorov's vanguard under Pyotr Bagration managed to overwhelm French forces in the Battle of the Klön Valley, and then at Glarus by capturing Netstal, but came to a stalemate near Näfels and Mollis, whereupon Suvorov ordered Bagration to disengage. The battle of Glarus includes the combat of Netstal, which was won by the Allies, and the combat of Näfels where they suffered a defeat. The last combat also includes the engagement at Mollis. Suvorov completed the main operational task by taking Glarus, which deprived the French of hope for decisive success. Suvorov, notwithstanding this, began a retreat from Switzerland instead of going to Sargans to seek for Alexander Korsakov and the Austrians as he had planned before. Suvorov was forced to abandon Switzerland both because of Masséna's domination in the TO and because of the lack of supplies and ammunition. The capture of Glarus ensured safe passage out the country, namely up the Sernftal via Engi, Elm and the Panix Pass to Ilanz and beyond. In his report to Emperor Paul I Suvorov did not mention the setback at Näfels. Instead, the report portrayed his Alpine campaign as a series of his brilliant victories. Turning to the generals, Suvorov did not even want to consider the possibility of retreating through Italy.
Background
The Helvetic Revolution of 1798 led to a radical change in the Swiss constitution and to the military occupation of the country by France. According to the Glarus pastor Markus Freuler, this was because the old constitution "was no longer arbitrary to a large part of Switzerland and was no longer appropriate to the spirit of the people," and because only an external power was able to "carry out this important work." At that time, the Canton of Glarus, where Anna Göldi was executed as a witch in 1782, renounced its rights to rule in numerous bailiwicks, but stuck to its old constitution. When its militia troops were defeated at Wollerau, it only escaped military occupation by accepting the new constitution. The city of Glarus became the capital of the Greater Canton of Linth, as per Freuler under the "wise direction" of Government Representative Joachim Heer. But despite the promises made, after the Austrians' advance to Graubünden, French troops were stationed there. In April 1799, the confiscation of Glarus artillery led to an uprising. When the Austrians replaced the French as an occupying power in May, the canton of Glarus returned to the Ancien Régime for a short time, with even the instigator of the judicial murder of Anna Göldi receiving government honors. In August the French then invaded again.During the Egyptian Expedition of Bonaparte, Great Britain expanded its struggle against the revolutionary France through alliances with Austria, Russia and others monarchical ruled states, leading to the War of the Second Coalition. In 1799, the 68-year-old Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov, as head of the Austro-Russian army in Italy, won a series of battles against troops from France and its subsidiary republics. As the "always willful and irritable old man" became a burden for the coalition, he was supposed to join with his compatriot Lieutenant General Alexander Korsakov and the Austrian Field Marshal Lieutenant Friedrich Hotze at Zurich and invade France with them. Previously, Feldzeugmeister Archduke Charles of Austria had led the Austrian troops in the Helvetic Republic against Divisional General André Masséna, and throw him back to the Linth-Limmat line, but was then replaced by Korsakov.
Contrary to popular thesis, the Austrians had no influence on Suvorov choosing the route over the Gotthard to cross the Alps, which could be blocked at Lake Uri; on the other hand, Suvorov ended up in Switzerland not of his own free will, since after the Battle of Novi he intended to go to Liguria to complete his victory. On the pass, the French offered him strong resistance, but in the Schöllenen – contrary to legend – only weak resistance. In total, 9,000 men under Divisional General Claude Lecourbe are said to have inflicted losses on the 21,000 Russians and Austrians at a ratio of 1 to 3. At the time of the Second Battle of Zurich and the Battle of Linth River, Suvorov had only reached Wassen. To break the deadlock near Altdorf, he attempted to reach Schwyz via the Kinzig Pass. But he learned in the Muotatal about Korsakov's defeat against Masséna in the Second Battle of Zurich and Hotze's against Divisional General Jean-de-Dieu Soult at Schänis on 25/26 September. Masséna's troops prevented him from marching north, and Lecourbe prevented him from retreating south. The route over the Pragelpass and the Klöntal into the Linth Valley offered a way out. The 29-year-old Gabriel Molitor, who had recently been appointed Brigade General, had driven two Austrian military leaders out of the latter since September 25: Major General Franjo Jelačić towards Sargans and Field Marshal Lieutenant Friedrich Linken in the direction of Surselva. After receiving reinforcements from Masséna and Soult, on 30 September, Molitor held the Austrian brigade of Major General Franz Xaver von Auffenberg in the Klöntal. Auffenberg's brigade was followed by the vanguard of Major General Bagration, who helped drive the French out of the Klöntal.
The existing reports describe the Battle of Näfels/Glarus/Netstal from different perspectives. Some Russian sources heroize the defeat of Suvorov and blame it on the Austrians. In Switzerland, supporters of the Ancien Régime viewed the field marshal as a liberator, while supporters of the Helvetic Republic viewed him as "Attila of our century," as Heinrich Zschokke called him. The latter was probably mainly because of the massacre of prisoners and civilians during the Russo-Turkish War or the Kościuszko Uprising.
Summary seven versions
According to locals
Under the eyes of the Austro-Russian troops, the journal Glarner-Zeitung wrote on 3 October:The newspaper described the field marshal as follows:
The Neue Helvetische Tagblatt summarized this report and added:
After freedom of the press was restored, Freuler published a chronicle of the guerilla war that old-minded locals had waged against the French. 90 named Glarus residents were killed and 56 wounded, most of them near Wollerau in 1798. The priest also mentioned a single incident involving women and children, in which a stray cannonball killed and wounded two people in Ennetbühls. Freuler only reported briefly on the much more important battle of Näfels:
An unknown person wrote to his nephew in Jura:
On September 30 we learned that Suvorov was with a strong column of the Russian Italian Army coming through the Klöntal mountain gorge. We believed that the French would defend these narrow and almost inaccessible gorges well, but we were wrong. On the morning of 1 October, we heard shooting and soon we saw them retreating behind Riedern towards Netstal. The French burned the bridge at Riedern, which protected the city of Glarus a little. The fight took place on the other side of the Löntsch. I went to Galgenbühl with my brother. All the other fights were just child's play compared to this one. The Russians ran into the fire without knowing the danger. This time the French had guns and the Russians had almost none. They pursued the French all the way to Näfels. This village was conquered and recaptured twice. To cover their retreat, the French also burned down the beautiful covered bridge at Netstal, but they were able to hold on in Näfels. The Russians, however, had over 2,500 wounded.
The Helvetic Directorate was informed about the Battle of Näfels/Glarus from the neighboring district capital Schänis. Johannes Theiler from Zurich, government commissioner for the canton of Linth, reported on 2 October that the previous day "after a stubborn encounter near Lake Klönthal, in which the enemy lost 2,000 men, the French were nevertheless repelled as far as Ober-Urnen, with losses of c. 800 men injured and dead". Late in the evening, however, after the French had received a demi-brigade of reinforcements, the enemy was repulsed again "beyond Netstall." The French are "not only in possession of the Kerenzerberg to Walenstadt," but have also "gained a firm foothold throughout the entire Sarganserland up on this side of the Rhine." Now the troops are "inactive because of the bad weather." Also from Schänis, cantonal judge Xaver Gmür reported on 4 October to Rapperswiler Christoph Fuchs, who had previously been the acting government representative of the canton of Linth, Without the brave stance of the 2nd Swiss Half Brigade, the French would have had to retreat and, probably, Weesen could have been lost too. According to Gmür, the ratio of Russian losses to French losses was eight to one.
Master cordwainer Levi Feldtmann from Schwanden wrote a poem in Knittelversen with the title. The manufacturer Johann Heinrich Blumer, who fled to Zurich, owned the Haus in der Wiese in Glarus, where Suvorov spent the last night before his retreat and Molitor also took up residence several times. Blumer learned from his manager Paulus Wichser that the Russian attack was a matter of winning or dying "because of great hunger," but that the French had advantageous positions. According to the family chronicle of master carpenter Balthasar Joseph Tschudi from Ennenda, who visited the Russian camp in Netstal, there were wounded people lying there "almost in all the cellars and lairs."
Overall, the reports gave the impression that the locals who remained in the valley watched the battle as powerless spectators. The weather was obviously wet enough that not many houses burned down, but not wet enough to prevent the French from firing.
According to Molitor
Immediately afterwards following the battle the most detailed report on it was written by Molitor, although he had not gone to bed from September 25 to 29; he, as the victor, did not need to embellish much, possibly. According to his information, he still controlled the eastern end of the Klöntalersee on the morning of 1 October. Although he had recalled most of the troops that were supposed to follow Jelačić and Linken, he only had 3 battalions and 6 companies. Because he noticed he was forced to retreat to the LinthMolitor had left a reserve battalion at the Näfels bridge and half a battalion each in Engi and Kerenzen to observe the retreat of the Linken and Jelačić. He used his remaining units the following way. Some were across the covered bridge of Netstal, built in 1767 by Hans Ulrich Grubenmann; so, this bridge, which had been prepared for immediate demolition, was defended by one and a half battalions with 4 guns moved over to the right bank. Two and a half other battalions with 3 guns lined up in echelon order on the left bank behind Netstal. According to Oberstdivisionär a. D. Fred Heer, Molitor had schanze raised at the bridges of Näfels, Netstal and Glarus before the battle.
Molitor further wrote:
Six times the Russians succeeded in throwing the French back to Näfels, and six times the French drove them back to Netstal with the bayonets, This cooperation between the units on both sides of the Linth enabled them to hold his ground in the narrow valley where the enemy could not use all of his forces at the same time, just like at the Battle of the Muottental.
The general highlighted five episodes of the battle:
- Leutnant Bélier of Molitor's 84th demi-brigade killed the leader of the attacking column on the railingless Näfels Bridge with his sword during the Russians' third advance.
- Only late, because the French had destroyed the brick bridge near Niederurnen in May, did first aid arrive from Gazan: at the head of 40 chasseur à cheval of the 10th Regiment, Molitor's adjutant Jean-Daniel Fridolsheim saved the French gunners from being overwhelmed.
- While none of the British-paid units from the Canton of Linth participated in the battle, Swiss distinguished themselves on the side of the French, as in the previous battles against the Austrians and Russians: When the bridge at Näfels had already been lost, 300 men of the 2nd Helvetic Half Brigade arrived from Weesen. They were commanded by Adjutant-Major Karl Zingg of Aarburg, who had fallen in 1812 as the commander of a Swiss regiment at the Berezina, and by battalion commander Beat Felber of Lucerne. Reminded by Molitor of the Battle of Näfels in 1388, they recaptured the bridge. According to Molitor, a Russian battalion that had crossed the Linth on a trestle bridge and occupied Mollis was subsequently thrown back.
- A grenadier battalion, headed by Gazan himself, was deployed by Molitor as a reserve in a final attack, which was carried forward by three columns with bayonets and supported by two four-pounders with grapeshot.
- The last Russian counterattack at Netstal was repelled by Colonel Pierre-Charles Lochet, who appeared on the battlefield at nine o'clock in the evening with 400 men of his 94th demi-brigade.
According to Suvorov
Surprisingly, we do not know what role Suvorov personally played in the battle. The eccentric old man used to have lunch at 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning and sleep during the day. He never left his quarters, except on the day of a battle, where he either stayed in the same place all the time or plunged into the hottest fight like a madman. Quite possible that the eccentric general slept through this blackest day of his career; however, that he spent the blackest day under a chestnut at Riedern can only be found in the semidocumentary work of Édouard Gachot.Probably on 2 October he wrote a pessimistic picture of his situation, in which it is said that the Austrians can no longer be counted on: Accordingly, the paper even talks about retreating from Chur or immediately to Italy.
On 7 October, Suvorov reported to Archduke Charles from Panix that he had learned of Korsakov's defeat in the Muota Valley. Molitor occupied the narrows on the Klöntalersee: Meanwhile, General of the Infantry Andrei Rosenberg pushed the French out of the Muotatal. Suvorov apparently had to advance towards Lake Zurich, contrary to what Brigadier General François Louis Dedon-Duclos believed was no longer even considered.
In identical letters on 9 October, Suvorov reported to the kings of Naples and Sardinia that the French attacked Rosenberg, The letter concludes with the words:
The letters show how Suvorov felt about the truth. To the Archduke he described Korsakov's defeat as a mere change of position. In his letter to the kings, he pushed back the date, on which news of the battle at Zurich arrived, by three days. But above all he made the failed advance to Näfels and the occupation of Glarus without a fight as victories, in which later authors followed him.
In the description of 1 October, which is a report from Suvorov to Paul I, the crucial hours of the battle are missing. It only says: The fact that Suvorov only described the beginning and the end of the day supports the assumption that he spent it in bed. However, he seems to have recognized the danger of the enemy.
The day of the battle coincided with Paul I's 45th birthday together. In another version of the report, Suvorov wrote that on This once again proved the devotion and loyalty of the subjects to their most gracious sovereigns.
According to Archduke Charles
Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen, wrote in his :According to Jomini
Under the title 'Beautiful Defense of Molitor in the Klöntal and in Näfels', the Vaudois military theorist Antoine-Henri Jomini, who served the Helvetic Republic, France and most recently as a full general in Russia, wrote: Jomini continued:According to Clausewitz
The reports of the Archduke, Jomini and Molitor were summarized by the military scientist, Major General Carl von Clausewitz, who served not only in his homeland Prussia but also in Russia, as follows:According to Milyutin
The best Russian representation of the battle can be found in a work that military historian Dmitry Milyutin wrote in 1852 on behalf of Emperor Nicholas I and which the author Dr. O. Hartmann later commented on with some praise and criticism. Hartmann observes that other informants are too brief in their presentations. Milyutin's work is an adaptation of Molitor's report, garnished with heroic deeds of the head of a musketeer regiment, Major General Nikolai Kamensky.The later Russian War Minister Milyutin describes the fighting at Lake Klöntal much more dramatically than the French general: The diary of Grenadier Captain Nikolai Gryazev :ru:Грязев, Николай Алексеевич|, published in 2013, the story of its origins "until today is unclear," only mentions piles of dead Russians. Conversely, only there is talk of a bayonet attack on a withdrawing column, in which the "worthless blood of the French" poured in streams over the valley.
The following episode described by Milyutin corresponds to the quoted report of a Swiss eyewitness: The Netstal bridge was blown up in both Milyutin and Molitor's authorities. The French then took up an advantageous position south of Näfels, "with the right flank leaning against the mountains and the left leaning against the Linth." A dense Tirailleur chain was spread out "behind fences, in canals and ditches". The cannons fired at the road. Gryazev's diary shows that the enemy used the remnants of the local Letzi as breastworkprobably in accordance with the facts. According to Milyutin, before the construction of the bridge mentioned by Molitor, the Cossacks crossed the Linth by swimming, as French combat swimmers had done when Soult crossed the bridge near Bilten on 25 September. In contrast, in the painting of the battle from Molitor's possession, a Cossack on horseback is trying to reach the other shore.
According to Milyutin, the arrival of Gazan's advance guard gave the enemy a numerical advantage. He further wrote: Milyutin had Molitor's six counterattacks end in Näfels and not in Netstal. In Gryazev's diary, he boasts that he saved the Russians along with Kamensky, "a hero who has hardly appeared in the war so far" – through a nighttime raid.
Russian retreat
In order not to be cut off from Rosenberg, Suvorov moved into a camp south of Netstal after the Battle of Glarus. His headquarters were in Glarus; from October 1 to 4 in the Suworowhäuschen ; last night in the aforementioned Haus in der Wiese. As a precaution, Soult made arrangements for a possible retreat back to Lake Zurich, but the Russians made no further attempt to break through.After Suvorov had called on Molitor to surrender on 29 September in order not to be encircled, this fate now threatened him: While Masséna was preparing to deal with the remnants of Korsakov's corps, the Bavarian contingent, and Condé's Armée des Émigrés on the Thur, Molitor's brigade and Gazan's division were to attack from the north under the command of Soult, whom he kept close to him, Molitor's brigade and Gazan's division were to attack Field Marshal in Glarus from the north, Brigadier General Louis Henri Loison from the south, and Brigadier General Édouard Mortier with two demi-brigades from the Klöntal. Loison reached Luchsingen from the Klausenpass on 1 October with a battalion from Lecourbe's division.
The day after the Battle of Glarus/Näfels, the Russians held a war council at which 8 out of 10 generals advocated retreat to the Surselva. Above all, according to his adjutant Colonel Komarovsky, this was done by the 20-year-old Grand Prince Konstantin, who took part in Suvorov's campaign as a volunteer. The Russian colonel Paul Tiesenhausen remembered:
According to Gryazev's diary, it was assumed that Suvorov had already decided in the Muota Valley to leave "this miserable Switzerland" by the shortest route. The momentum of the battle then led to the advance to Näfels "against his and our will". The unexpected attacks by the French on Rosenberg in the Muotatal would have resulted in a delay of two days in the withdrawal.
Clausewitz attributed it to Suvorov's "hatred of the Austrians" that "like a stubborn Tartar-Khan with his horde, he suddenly diverted and rode home."
The early onset of winter made crossing the 2407m high Panixer Pass hell. Auffenberg, who had to pass it first, had advised against retreating this way because the soldiers were not only "completely without ammunition, money, bread," but also "for the most part without shoes."
Masséna reported to the Directory in Paris:
"Battle of two worlds"
In the French revolutionary armies people addressed each other as "citizens". The soldiers were volunteers, no one could become an officer without war experience. The Imperial Russian Army faced extremely unequal castes; it was reorganized to be modeled on the outdated Prussian Army thanks to Emperor Paul I, which Suvorov opposed.In a report for the French, Tadeusz Kościuszko wrote about the Russians: "They are machines that only move on the orders of their officers." The principle is to always attack first. When the soldiers are allowed to advance on the enemy, they are given plenty of brandy to encourage them to fight; "then they attack with courage and a kind of fury, and would rather be killed than retreat. The only way to shake them is to kill many of their officers. Then the fear of being cut down one by one takes hold of them and causes them to seek salvation in flight." The officers are also mostly brave, but "very few have education or even minimal military knowledge; there are many lowlifes, fops and daredevils among them; in general they are all cruel and barbaric." Poland's national hero concluded: "In short, the superior knowledge of the French generals, the incomparable bravery of the Republican soldier are the best guarantors of the victory."
Wilhelm Meyer described the two armies in the Second Battle of Zurich. As per him, the majority of the French soldiers were very young, while the Russians were 25 to 40 years old. Most French generals were "at their strongest, some of them only in their early manhood" and had "quick orientation, correct sense of proportion, skill in the use of various types of weapons". According to Meyer, the French were always happy. They were trained "joking and playing, as it were". "The scattered style of fencing" – the tirailleuring – "had become second nature to the lively, active, skilful Frenchman." They would have climbed the steepest valley edges and mountains and fell into the flanks of their enemy operating along the roads "with uncommon ease". The Russians, on the other hand, according to Meyer, "were forcibly trained into stiff puppet creatures." Under Suvorov they primarily practiced the bayonet attack. Their line infantry were not trained in tirailleuring. An "immoderate cargo train" made Suvorov's army cumbersome.
There were cases when Russian soldiers did not know how to shoot a musket, but at the same time they were brave enough to carry out bayonet attacks. As Suvorov himself claimed, "the bullet is a mad thing; only the bayonet knows what it is about" or "the bullet is a fool, the bayonet is a fine chap." According to British Lt. Col. William Stewart, who took part in the Second Battle of Zurich, "I have never met such incorrigible fools in battle, from general to ensign", the Russians suffered losses "beyond any proportion I could have imagined had I not witnessed them myself," because they were "courageous soldiers, unconcerned with their lives, ready to be led to anything, but completely ignorant of the use of their musket as a firearm." Also the later Russian-service general Carlo Giuseppe Trinchieri di Venanzone :it:Giuseppe Antonio Trinchieri di Venanzone|, who was a lieutenant during Suvorov's Swiss campaign, reported "that the Russian infantry were brave beyond expression and excelled in bayonet charges on the plain, but at that time they did not know how to fire a rifle shot."
The smoothbore, flintlock muzzle-loading rifles fired cartridges that contained the gunpowder and the bullet in a paper case. The French Musket Model 1777 was more precise than the Russian one. According to Meyer, there were accidents with the Russians because they loaded extremely quickly, but their powder was "of extremely poor quality". They had bayonets almost twice as long as the French. In addition, their officers also wore the halberd-like spontoon, which had long since been abolished in France, and their NCOs a "short rifle" similar to spontoon. The Cossacks sometimes stabbed the wounded to death with their lances, "but they were not heroes in front of the enemy."
Suvorov only had 25 one-and-a-half-pounder cannon from Piedmont, as well as light Austrian cannons. These did not achieve the same effect as Molitor's field gun of the Gribeauval system, especially if these were loaded with grapeshot.
The French infantryman could be recognized by his dark blue coat, the Russian by his dark green coat. Neither of them were yet wearing shakos, which were supposed to protect against saber blows, but rather black felt hats that were opened up. The French grenadiers had red horsehair bushes on them. The headgear of the Russian grenadiers was high, pointed tin caps.
In contrast to the Red Swiss which the mediation government provided to Napoleon, the soldiers of the Demi-brigades auxiliaires helvétiques au solde de la République Française wore blue coats like the French infantrymen. They came from all parts of the country. However, according to the published lists, only three officers from the canton of Linth served in the 2nd Half Brigade: Battalion Commander Friedrich Spälti von Mollis, Captain Heinrich Spälti von Netstal, and Lieutenant Samuel Zybach von Niederurnen. In the other Helvetic half-brigades, there were 21, and in the standing troops of the Helvetic Republic, there were eight.
The caricaturist David Hess, a witness to the 2nd Battle of Zurich, claimed that the French behaved better in Switzerland than the Russians, whom he called "the most savage and stupid people in Europe" after being horrified by their treatment of prisoners, and claimed that "priests encouraged them in this." Hess is contradicted by a statement to the Helvetic Directory, issued by Government Commissioner :de:Regierungskommissär| J. Theiler after Suvorov's retreat, which stated that "Russian discipline and their treatment of the city of Glarus, in particular, were unexpectedly good and generous, so that essentially only the peasants suffered irreparable damage to their livestock in the Alps and forage in the valleys." Two caricatures by Hess show that the French also behaved differently when quartered in the city and in the countryside.
About the attack on the Gotthard Pass, where the Russians faced fewer than 1,000 French, reports Gryazev's diary: "As for the enemy prisoners, we had none in this battle: bayonet relieved us of the unnecessary trouble of carrying them with us, especially since there were no Austrians here with us, and apart from them none of us took on this menial duty."
Death toll
According to Suvorov's Austrian lieutenant colonel Franz Weyrother, around 7,000 men were "held inactive" by 2,000 Frenchmen at Näfels. Molitor wrote of the victory of 3,000 French over 15,000 Russians. Jean B. F. Koch reduced the number of Russians to 6,000. This figure was taken over by the presumptive editor of Gryazev's diary. Rudolf v. Reding-Biberegg's statement claims that Bagration, initially, only had 2,400 Austrians and 1,760 Russian grenadiers and Jäger, but then "probably" received reinforcements from Shveikovsky's division.According to Clausewitz, Suvorov had 10,000 men at his disposal on 1 October, but he only used some of them. According to Louis Hennequin, the total strength of his army from 1 September to the beginning of October was 706 officers and 20,579 soldiers; it was reduced to 575 officers and 15,479 soldiers. Before his withdrawal from Glarus, around 10 battalions or 6,0007,000 men from Gazan's division confronted him. These could have been supported by 3 other battalions of the same army unit stationed in Schänis. The other generals subordinate to Soult were too far away: Mortier in the Muotatal, Jean Baptiste Brunet and Jean-Baptiste Drouet d'Erlon in Einsiedeln, Anne de Laval in Lichtensteig.
The painting in Molitor's possession shows a murderous fight in which the opponents interlock with each other. The French general estimated his own losses at 140 killed and 400 wounded, including all battalion chiefs of his 84th Demi-brigade and many officers, and the Russian losses at 400 killed, 1,700 wounded and 200 prisoners. Gaston Bodart estimated that both parties together lost 3,300 men through even death or wounding. For comparison: for the battles near Zurich, the same author mentions "bloody losses" of 3,500 and 10,000 men, respectively, for Schänis and Muotatal of 2,000 and 1,500 men, respectively. According to Steven T. Ross, 36% of the soldiers engaged at Näfels suffered fatal or non-fatal injuries, compared to slightly less than 7% on average for all battles between 1792 and 1802. The battles in which the people of Glarus supported the Austrians from May to August 1799, as well as the battle at Wollerau the year before, were, against this background, insignificant skirmishes.
According to Molitor, the 2nd Helvetic Half Brigade lost 8 officers and 40 soldiers at the Näfels bridge, but according to their commander, Colonel Johannes Tobler from Ermatingen, a total of 75 out of 300 men, without the fallen captain Hans Pfander von Belp and 8 wounded officers. Albert Maag and Markus Feldmann estimated the Swiss' losses at 20 officers and 97 soldiers.
Even the two commanders were not spared: Bagration suffered a "grapeshot contusion" on his thigh in the Klöntal. And a wound opened in Molitor during the battle, which resulted from a bullet through the thigh in 1795.
According to Government Commissioner Theiler, the Russians brought around 1,200 French prisoners from the Muotatal to Glarus and left behind 2,600 wounded, prisoners and dead. Of the slightly wounded Russians, 800900 are said to have crossed the Panixer Pass and 400500 were taken prisoner.
According to Hennequin, when Suvorov arrived in Chur, he had barely 14,000 men left. During the 16 days in Switzerland he had lost around 6,000 men, over a third of them at Näfels.
Judgments
Masséna wrote to Molitor on 31 October: " it will not be forgotten that you with your only brigade resisted the Austro-Russians for several days, that you beat them, that you took prisoners from them, that you with tenacity and cold blood defended important positions for the army and that in this way you prepared the defeat of Suvorov. Therefore, today receive the expression of the lively satisfaction of the government for your actions, which it could not overlook and which it knew how to assess correctly."Clausewitz reasoned: "Thus Molitor with his 4 or 5 battalions fought on the 25th and 26th against Jelačić, on the 28th and 29th against Linken, on the 30th against Auffenberg and on October 1st against Bagration, and against all of them with admirable success, so that this multiplication of a single brigade, this stubborn resistance to an ever new enemy, must be considered one of the most beautiful deeds of the campaign."
Based on Jomini, Suvorov failed to link up with Linken's division before its retreat to Graubünden and to win over the remnants of Hotze's successor, Field Marshal Lieutenant Franz Petrasch. To achieve this, according to Jomini, he would have had to drive Molitor's brigade out of Glarus with a strong advance guard on 27 September and, on the 28th, break through Toggenburg and Sargans with the main body of the army at Mollis and Weesen.
Suvorov's British backers were devastating in their judgment of the field marshal: William Wickham, Under Secretary of State and Envoy in Switzerland, saw the Russians on 11 October in Feldkirch; "every soldier loaded with the plunder of the poor inhabitants of Uri and Glarus by whom they had been received as friends and saviors". Everyone calls the French way of imposing contributions :de:Kontribution| on the country a mercy compared to the plundering that Suvorov tolerated. On October 17, Wickham wrote to Foreign Minister Grenville that Suvorov's habit of eating an early lunch and then sleeping late was incompatible with the conduct of military operation, and in fact, the Russian had never visited a post or scouted a position as head of the Army of Italy. After the British envoy in Vienna, Lord Minto, made the acquaintance of Suvorov in Prague, he reported to Wickham on December: "Instead of a big one General and great man I find an ignorant, scheming charlatan who, by the way, is completely crazy " Minto even wrote to his wife on 3 January 1800 that Suvorov was the worst madman who ever walked around free. He owes all his success in Italy to the Austrian officers on his staff, as only a few Russian staff officers took part in the 1799 campaign. The Austrian military formed the majority of his army; in the Battle of the Trebbia, as the best victory of the campaign, however, the majority of Suvorov's troops were Russians, who played the main role in this victory.
According to a nephew of the Russian-service lieutenant general Charles de Vioménil, who was initially slated to head the Army of Italy, Suvorov played the madman because he wanted to be original in every way. To earn the love of his soldiers, he forgave them everything, so there has never been an army with less discipline and more excess.
Weyrother, responsible for the defeats at Rivoli, Hohenlinden and Austerlitz, judged that Suvorov did not have to wait for Andrei Rosenberg and the pack animals to arrive, since "Glarus provided unexpectedly good and better meat, potatoes and bread than they earned." Rather, "this unexpectedly good hospitality may have been the innocent cause of the delay, which was in every respect so disadvantageous and disgraceful." "General timidity, supported by Grand Princely cowardice," overruled the field marshal, "who until then alone recognized the reasons that called for the offensive march to Walenstadt." Suvorov should not have brought forward the "completely improper" argument about the lack of ammunition, "since he so extols the advantages of the naked rifle." Weyrother called the Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich and his entourage people "whose brains were as empty of military knowledge as their chins were of hair, even though the feathered hat made them a general."
Auffenberg wrote in connection with the battle: "FM ended here. Suvorov, his victorious career, could no longer be persuaded to make an attack, no matter how advantageous and, after leaving behind all the wounded, all his artillery and ammunition, he retreated over the Panix Mountain to Graubünden, during which a few 100 men froze to death, and almost all of his cavalry forces were destroyed."
The Suvorov literature does not even describe the defeat at Näfels as a battle. So Christopher Duffy, entitled "The Breakout from the Klöntal and the Check at Näfels" created the false impression that the final result was one to one, as it may seem to some .
Fred Heer wrote without ifs and buts: "The fact that the Russian campaign in Switzerland became a fiasco cannot be blamed on Suvorov." Alexander Statiev, on the other hand, judged: "Suvorov did not expect problems in the Alps because he was convinced that he could easily sweep away the small French garrisons stationed on its path. However, due to inexperience in mountain warfare, Suvorov's corps had to contend with enormous strategic, tactical and logistics challenges, lost half of its troop strength and was unable to achieve its objectives." Conclusion of the Russo-Canadian military scientist: "Although all previous battles in the Swiss campaign ended in Russian victories, the failure to break out of the Alps at Näfels was a strategic defeat that destroyed all of these victories because it was the final nail in the coffin of the strategic plan, which required the cooperation of the allied forces in Switzerland."
Emergency in Glarus
The 21-year-old Maurice-François Dupin :fr:Maurice_Dupin_de_Francueil|, grandson of Maurice de Saxe and father of the writer George Sand, provided Molitor with courier services as chasseur à cheval. He wrote to his mother about the Canton of Glarus: "You can hear the roar of the torrents that fall from the rocks, the whistle of the wind in the forests. But no more shepherds' songs, no more mooing of the flocks. The wooden houses had been hastily abandoned. Everything had fled from our sight. The residents had retreated into the interior of the mountains with their cattle. No living creature in the villages. This canton presented the picture of the saddest desert."After Suvorov's withdrawal, the interim Government Commissioner Johann Peter Zwicky ordered that every community in the Glarus and Schwanden districts "should immediately remove and have holed up the dead horses lying in their farms and other animals left in the open fields and on the roads." Since knacker was a "dishonest profession" :de:Unehrlicher_Beruf| he declared in a further decree that this did not apply to the "so necessary assistance in the removal of these animals that would otherwise contaminate everything."
The first Swiss census of 1798 recorded 22,809 inhabitants in the districts mentioned. The Neues Helvetische Tagblatt reported from Glarus: "For 14 days, 60,000 men have passed through the land where neither grain nor wine grows, all food has been used up, and the hay has also run out, so that almost all of them become dairy cattle have to sell or slaughter."
Netstal wrote to the Swiss Directorate: "When they moved in, the Russians plundered quite a bit; a house was also burned down and we had to maintain over 1,200 horses for 4 days. We lost most of the hay from both powers and because of bad weather the troops in the camp also needed a lot more than the hay, wood, potatoes, fences and stables that were damaged at best; many Frankish soldiers also indulged in excess." General Molitor ordered that Mollis and Näfels had to take over Netstal's share of the deliveries of hay, wood, etc. The Netstal municipality's behavior towards the French troops was "respectable and republican". It has already delivered a lot and suffered more than the others, although her "lucky circumstances" are not the best.
On the initiative of the new 24-year-old Government Commissioner Niklaus Heer, brother of the late Joachim Heer, the pastors in Glarus and Ennenda called for money, food, household goods, clothes and other necessities of life for "the small, poor community Riederen" to donatea "love tax" that brought in a fairly significant amount of money and goods.
In a "Call from the suffering humanity in the Canton of Linth to the compassionate Swiss" in the Wochenblatt für den Kanton Linth it says about the Glarus land: " these valleys, which used to be so rich in sources of prosperity due to industry and trade all over the world, now lie prostrate and the mountains of them are, as it were, raising their hands up to you for help "
At the beginning of 1800, on the initiative of the Interior Minister of the Helvetic Republic, Albrecht Rengger :de:Albrecht_Rengger|, thousands of children from the cantons Waldstätten, Linth and Säntis, whose families could no longer feed them due to the war were placed with foster parents in other parts of the country, with 1,250 of them came from Glarus. The following description shows the poverty in which the lower classes of the mountain regions must have lived: "The overwhelming majority of the resettled children grew up in poverty and idleness, were rude, ignorant, illiterate, unclean, hostile to industry, often thieves, even more often deceitful, malicious and afflicted with other vices."
The later Federal Councilor Joachim Heer, the grandson of the government commissioner of the same name, described the state of the country after the warlike events of the summer and autumn of 1799 as follows: "The stateboth the Helvetic Republic and the cantonwithout any financial resources, the communities exhausted by cruel requisitions; the wealthy sucked dry by an incredible billeting burden; the farmer stripped of livestock and fodder supplies; the poorer class without food and as a result of the complete stagnation of industry, without earnings "
Variety
- In a, H. Zschokke wrote: "When you arrived in Altdorf, you said very modestly: You wanted to become the Redeemer, Deliverer and Savior of Switzerland "You were a savior because you cured the madness of many thousands of Swiss who hoped that you and the imperialists would bring us freedom, order, happiness, and peace. You were a savior because your brave soldiers freed us from our hay, cattle, clothing, and money." He finally made them happy and blessed them "when you rode away again with your sack and knapsack."
- The Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland also failed. On 19 September 1799, Russian Lieutenant General Johann Hermann von Fersen was captured by the French near Bergen, and on 6 October the coalition suffered another defeat at Castricum. Like the Armée d'Helvétie in 1798, the Armée de Batavie was commanded by General Guillaume Brune.
- Paul I appointed Suvorov generalissimo on 28 October. But he canceled the anti-French coalition. On the return journey to Russia, Suvorov fell ill and fell into disgrace for violating regulations. Four weeks after his return he died on 18 May 1800"unnoticed by the official Petersburg".
- On 9 November 1799, Bonaparte, returning home from Egypt, seized power in France and declared the Revolution over. In 1803 he dissolved the Helvetic Republic as Médiateur de la Confédération de Suisse. This and the collapse of his Empire in 1814/15 made it easier for the losers of Näfels to suppress the memory of this decisive battle.
- For the murder of eight Russians in Näfels, 27-year-old Wachtmeister Barthélemy Barbal from Anthe, one of the few foreigners serving in the Helvetic half-brigades, was promoted to the rank of unterleutnant by the Directory of the Helvetic Republic on 3 January 1800.
- After Paul I had actually sided with France through a policy of armed neutrality, he was murdered on 23 March 1801. Switzerland and the new cantons that emerged from former subject territories owe the fact that they survived the fall of Napoleon to Paul's son and successor Alexander I.
- Molitor, who, like Zschokke, had shown understanding for the opponents of the Helvetic Republic, was involved in the suppression of the Spanish Revolution in 1823, for which he received the Marshal's baton.
- There is no monograph about the Battle of Näfels. Hartmann's 1892 criticism of the Russian Suvorov cult was not taken into account by R.-Biberegg, Duffy or Fred Heer, but only mentioned in a footnote or in the bibliography. The Hartmann didn't even know.