Battle of Winterthur

The Battle of Winterthur was an important action between elements of the Army of the Danube and elements of the Habsburg army, commanded by Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze, during the War of the Second Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars. The small town of Winterthur lies northeast of Zürich, in Switzerland. Because of its position at the junction of seven roads, the army that held the town controlled access to most of Switzerland and points crossing the Rhine into southern Germany. Although the forces involved were small, the ability of the Austrians to sustain their 11-hour assault on the French line resulted in the consolidation of three Austrian forces on the plateau north of Zürich, leading to the French defeat a few days later.
By mid-May 1799, the Austrians had wrested control of parts of Switzerland from the French as forces under the command of Hotze and Count Heinrich von Bellegarde pushed them out of the Grisons. After defeating Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's 25,000-man Army of the Danube at the battles of Ostrach and Stockach, the main Austrian army, under command of Archduke Charles, crossed the Rhine at the Swiss town of Schaffhausen and prepared to unite with the armies of Hotze and Friedrich Joseph, Count of Nauendorf, on the plains surrounding Zürich.
The French Army of Helvetia and the Army of the Danube, now both under the command of André Masséna, sought to prevent this merger. Masséna sent Michel Ney and a small mixed cavalry and infantry force from Zürich to stop Hotze's force at Winterthur. Despite a sharp contest, the Austrians succeeded in pushing the French out of the Winterthur highlands, although both sides took high casualties. Once the union of the Habsburg armies took place in early June, Archduke Charles attacked French positions at Zürich and forced the French to withdraw beyond the Limmat.

Background

Political and diplomatic situation

Initially, the rulers of Europe viewed the revolution in France as a conflict between the French king and his subjects, and not something in which they should interfere. As revolutionary rhetoric grew more strident, they declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe as one with the interests of Louis and his family; this Declaration of Pillnitz threatened ambiguous, but quite serious, consequences if anything should happen to the royal family. The French position became increasingly difficult. Compounding problems in international relations, French émigrés continued to agitate for a counter-revolution. On 20 April 1792, the French National Convention declared war on Austria. In this War of the First Coalition, France ranged itself against most of the European states sharing land or water borders with her, plus Portugal and the Ottoman Empire. Although the Coalition forces achieved several 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 and the subsequent Treaty of Campo Formio.
The treaty called for meetings between the involved parties to work out the exact territorial and remunerative details. Convened at a small town in the mid-Rhineland, Rastatt, the Congress quickly derailed in a mire of intrigue and diplomatic posturing. The French demanded more territory. The Austrians were reluctant to cede the designated territories. Compounding the Congress's problems, tensions grew between France and most of the First Coalition allies. Ferdinand of Naples refused to pay agreed-upon tribute to France, and his subjects followed this refusal with a rebellion. The French invaded Naples and established the Parthenopean Republic. Encouraged by the French Republic, a republican uprising in the Swiss cantons led to the overthrow of the Swiss Confederation and the establishment of the Helvetic Republic. The French Directory was convinced that the Austrians were planning to start another war. Indeed, the weaker France seemed, the more seriously the Austrians, the Neapolitans, the Russians, and the British discussed this possibility. In mid-spring, the Austrians reached an agreement with Tsar Paul of Russia by which Alexander Suvorov would come out of retirement to assist Austria in Italy with another 60,000 troops.

Outbreak of war in 1799

The French Directory's military strategy in 1799 called for offensive campaigns on all fronts: central Italy, northern Italy, the Swiss cantons, the upper Rhineland, and the Netherlands. Theoretically, the French had a combined force of 250,000 troops, but this was on paper, not in the field. As winter broke in 1799, General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan and the Army of the Danube, at a paper strength of 50,000 and an actual strength of 25,000, crossed the Rhine between Basel and Kehl on 1 March. This crossing officially violated the Treaty of Campo Formio. The Army of the Danube advanced through the Black Forest and, by mid-March, established an offensive position at the western and northern edge of the Swiss Plateau by the village of Ostrach. André Masséna had already pushed into Switzerland with his force of 30,000, and successfully passed into the Grison Alps, Chur, and Finstermünz on the Inn. Theoretically, his left flank was to link with Jourdan's right flank, commanded by Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino, at the far eastern shore of Lake Constance.
The Austrians had arrayed their own army in a line from the Tyrol to the Danube. A force of 46,000 under command of Count Heinrich von Bellegarde formed the defence of the Tyrol. Another small Austrian force of 26,000 commanded by Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze guarded the Vorarlberg. The main Austrian army—close to 80,000 troops under the command of Archduke Charles—had wintered in the Bavarian, Austrian, and Salzburg territories on the eastern side of the Lech. At the battles of Ostrach and Stockach, the main Austrian force pushed the Army of the Danube back into the Black Forest. Charles made plans to cross the upper Rhine at the Swiss town of Schaffhausen. Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze brought a portion of his force west, leaving the rest to defend the Vorarlberg. At the same time, Friedrich Joseph, Count of Nauendorf, brought the left wing of the main Austrian force across the Rhine by Eglisau. They planned to unite with the main Austrian army, control the northern access points of Zürich and force an engagement with Masséna.
By mid-May, French morale was low. They had suffered terrible losses at Ostrach and Stockach, although these had been made up by reinforcements. Two senior officers of the Army of the Danube, Charles Mathieu Isidore Decaen and Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul, were facing courts-martial on charges of misconduct, professed by their senior officer, Jourdan. Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte and Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr were sick or claimed they were and had left the army's encampments to recover their health. Masséna's force had been repelled by Hotze's army at Feldkirch, and forced to fall back, and LeCourbe's failure to push through against Bellegarde's Austrian force in the Tyrol meant Masséna had to pull his southern wing back as well as his center and northern wings, to maintain communication with the retreating armies on his flanks. At this point, also, the Swiss revolted again, this time against the French, and Zürich became the last defensible position Masséna could take.

Locale

Winterthur lies in a basin south and east of the Töss approximately northeast of Zürich. To the north and east of the town lies a ring of hills approximately high. To the west, the Töss runs on its course north toward the Rhine. The locale of a Roman settlement from 200 to 400, and the site of a medieval battle in 919, its location at seven crossroads gave it strategic importance in the effort to control north–south and east–west communication in the early days of the War of the Second Coalition.

Leadership

After the defeats at the battles at Ostrach and Stockach, and the Army of the Danube's retreat into the Black Forest, the French Directory had sacked Jean-Baptiste Jourdan in April 1799 and given command of both the Army of Helvetia and the Army of the Danube to André Masséna. Protecting the northern access to Zürich, Masséna gathered some of the best commanders he had available; eventually, three of them would become Marshals of France, and Tharreau, a dependable General of Division.
The situation for the French was dire. Not only had they been trounced in southwestern Germany, the legendary Alexander Suvorov was on his way to northern Italy with 60,000 Russians to take command of Coalition forces there. Count Heinrich Bellegarde, positioned with 20,000 men in the Grisons, effectively isolated Masséna's force from any assistance from Italy. Most threatening, Archduke Charles' main army lay less than a day away; in size alone, it could overwhelm him, or, if he withdrew to the west, its position cut off his avenue of withdrawal toward France. If Charles' left wing, commanded by Nauendorf, united with Hotze's force, approaching from the east, Masséna knew Charles would attack and very likely push him out of Zürich.
To prevent this merger of the Austrian forces, Masséna established a forward line centred at Winterthur, and under overall command of the experienced Jean Victor Tharreau. The French forces were arrayed in an uneven semicircle, in which Winterthur formed the central part. The command of the Winterthur brigades was the most important. If the center could not hold its position, the flanks would be isolated and crushed. Masséna sent newly promoted General of Division Michel Ney to Winterthur on 27 May 1799 to take command of the center. Masséna recalled him from his assignment commanding an outpost of Claude Lecourbe's force in central Switzerland, and gave him a command more fitting with his new rank. Ney arrived with the reputation for boldness considered typical of cavalry officers, but with minimal experience in commanding mixed forces. Anxious to prove himself but aware of protocols, he had hurried to Tharreau's headquarters, but had to wait for his letters of service before he could take command. These arrived on 25 May. The troops at Winterthur included a brigade of four battalions commanded by Dominique Mansuy Roget, a weak brigade commanded by Théodore Maxime Gazan, and a cavalry brigade commanded by Frédéric Henri Walther.
Like Ney, Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze, the Austrian commander, was also a cavalry officer. Unlike Ney, he had broad field experience. The Swiss-born Hotze had entered the military service of the Duke of Württemberg in 1758 and had been promoted to Rittmeister, or captain of cavalry; he had campaigned briefly in the Seven Years' War, but saw no combat. Later, he served in the Russian army in the Russo-Turkish War. With an Austrian commission, he joined the Habsburg imperial army, and served in the brief War of the Bavarian Succession. His campaigning in the War of the First Coalition, particularly at the Battle of Würzburg, had earned him the confidence of Archduke Charles and elevation to the ranks of nobility by Charles' brother, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor.