The battle of (the) Gotthard Pass, also known as the battle of the St. Gotthard Pass or the battle of the St. Gotthard (Russian: Сражение за Сен-Готард; 24 September 1799), saw an Imperial Russian army commanded by Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov supported by two Austrian brigades attack a French division under General of Division Claude Lecourbe. The same day brought clashes at the Oberalp Pass (Oberalpsee) and Hospental (archaic Hospital).
The Austro-Russian army successfully captured the Gotthard Pass after stiff fighting on the first day. Suvorov's main body was assisted by a Russian flanking column led by Lieutenant General Andrei Rosenberg and a smaller Austrian flanking column under General-major Franz Xaver von Auffenberg. The next day, Suvorov's army fought its way north along the upper Reuss River valley past the Teufelsbrücke (Devil's Bridge) in Schöllenen Gorge. By 26 September the army reached Altdorf near Lake Lucerne. The term summarises a total of five battles or engagements between Airolo and Altdorf fought against the retreating French troops over the course of three days. The main engagement of 25 September is known as the battle of the Devil's Bridge. Simultaneously, the combat of the Urnerloch took place. As per military historian Gaston Bodart, the entire confrontation between 23 and 27 September is called the battles at the Saint-Gotthard.
Suvorov's offensive was part of a misbegotten Allied strategy that planned to unite the Russian armies of Suvorov and Lieutenant General Alexander Korsakov near Zürich. Together with Austrian and Swiss forces led by Feldmarschall-Leutnant Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze, they would sweep General of Division André Masséna's French Army of Helvetia from Switzerland. However, on 25–26 September, Masséna drubbed Korsakov in the Second Battle of Zurich and General of Division Jean-de-Dieu Soult defeated Hotze in the Battle of Linth River. Two smaller Austrian columns were also turned back by French forces. Instead of advancing to help Allied forces, Suvorov's army was marching into a mountainous country controlled by French troops.
Background
New strategy
On 15 August 1799 at the Battle of Novi, the Austro-Russian army commanded by Field Marshal Suvorov defeated a French army led by General of Division Barthélemy Catherine Joubert, who was killed. Aside from capturing the fortress of Tortona from the French on 11 September, Suvorov did not exploit his victory. He blamed the Austrians for not providing enough wagons and food, but in fact the Allied army had suffered serious losses at Novi. The Austrians alone sustained 6,050 casualties, while the Russians lost at least 1,880 and possibly as many as 2,700. Soon there were reports that Lecourbe had captured the Gotthard Pass to the north. Suvorov sent some troops in that direction, but they returned after it was determined that the French did not intend to follow up their success.
In mid-1799, Allied strategists made a monumental strategic miscalculation. William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville was the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs serving with Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. Grenville authored a scheme in which Korsakov with 45,000 Russians would be joined in Switzerland by Suvorov and 20,000 Russians advancing north from Italy. Suvorov would take command of the combined army and drive Masséna's French army from western Switzerland. In a second impulse, Suvorov would invade Franche-Comté, an area of France sparsely defended by frontier fortresses. Once Korsakov was securely in position in central Switzerland, Feldzeugmeister Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen would march his 60,000 troops north into Germany, leaving 18,000 Austrians under Hotze to cooperate with the Russians. Charles would thrust across the lower Rhine from southern Germany into France while a second Austrian army under General der Kavallerie Michael von Melas would invade Savoy from Italy. On the North Sea coast, an Anglo-Russian army would land in the Batavian Republic, a French satellite. Meanwhile, British agent William Wickham would raise an army of 20,000 pro-Allied Swiss troops.
On 8 June 1799, the plan was sent to Emperor Paul I of Russia, who approved it. Emperor Francis and his foreign minister Johann Amadeus von Thugut accepted the plan because it came to them from Emperor Paul and it was a convenient reason to get Suvorov out of Italy. Cracks were appearing in the alliance as Russia and Austria became mistrustful of each other's war aims. Grenville's plan was revealed to Archduke Charles on 7 August. Anxious about Korsakov's Russians, Charles stated, "I don't know how they will manage, especially if we take ourselves off any distance". Korsakov was alarmed when the plan was disclosed to him on 12 August. The Russian general remarked that he had 28,000 fit troops rather than the 45,000 presumed by the strategists. On 25 August Suvorov received his orders from Emperor Francis to take his army into Switzerland. The Russian commander requested a two-month delay, but Francis demanded that Suvorov move immediately. Thugut also insisted that Charles take his army out of Switzerland at once.
Hotze underestimated Massena's numbers at 60,000 French and Swiss troops; in fact, there were 76,000. The Army of Condé with 6,000 French Royalists was on the march from Russia but would not be available until 1 October. Wickham was only able to recruit 2,000 Swiss soldiers. Historian Christopher Duffy judged that the "strategy foundered on crucial issues of numbers, geography, direction and timing". Bad timing proved fatal to the enterprise. Charles left Switzerland too early and Suvorov arrived in Switzerland too late. This left Korsakov and Hotze in a vulnerable position to face Masséna's French army.
Plans
In early September, the Allied generals began planning to implement their governments' strategy. At that time, Korsakov's 28,000 Russians held Zürich and the east bank of the Limmat and Aare Rivers as far as the Rhine River. Hotze's command was split into two divisions. He personally accompanied 8,000 troops along the lower Linth between Lake Zurich and the Walensee. The second 10,000-man division under Feldmarschall-Leutnant Friedrich von Linkin was farther south and east. Linkin's command was split into three brigades under General-majors Franz Jellacic, Joseph Anton von Simbschen, and Franz Xaver von Auffenberg. According to Duffy, Jellacic with 4,500 soldiers held Sargans, Simbschen with 3,500 troops was along the Vorderrhein valley, and Auffenburg with 2,000 was at Disentis. Linkin accompanied Simbschen's brigade and Auffenburg was detailed to help Suvorov. Colonel Gottfried von Strauch led a 4,570-man Austrian brigade that was at the foot of the Gotthard Pass. This brigade belonged to Karl Joseph Hadik von Futak's corps from the Allied Army of Italy. Historian Ramsay Weston Phipps credited Strauch with 6,000 soldiers and Auffenberg with 3,180 men.
There were several routes that Suvorov's army could take to intervene in Switzerland. Farthest east was the route past Lake Como and over the Maloja Pass, though it involved a large detour. The next route farther west was over the Splügen Pass at 2,113 metres (6,932 ft) elevation. Both of these routes could accommodate wagons and cannons. The route farthest to the west was across the Simplon Pass. The good road over it was not built until 1805. Suvorov decided to take the Gotthard Pass because it offered a well-known and direct route to a rendezvous with Korsakov and Hotze. The pass had a pack road which could be used by a mule train, but wagons and medium cannons were out of the question. The Gotthard Pass was known to be occupied by the French and it appealed to "Suvorov's instinct for direct action". The Allies hoped to assault the Gotthard Pass as early as 19 September.
The Allied plan included the accumulation of ten days of food and 1,429 mules at Bellinzona by the Austrians. But even these would only provide Suvorov's army a few days of supplies. Suvorov counted on Korsakov and Hotze amassing supplies for his troops in Switzerland. For the expedition, Suvorov took Lieutenant Colonel Franz von Weyrother as his chief of staff as well as eight additional Austrian staff officers. On 7 September, the Russians prepared for their march to the Gotthard Pass. A French sortie delayed the Russians for a few days, but they soon began a force march that took them as far as Taverne on 15 September. The Austrians managed to gather the required number of mules, but someone failed to send sufficient funds to pay the muleteers and another officer mistakenly held up a mule train at Pavia. Without pay, the muleteers deserted with their animals so that there were only 340 mules collected at Bellinzona.
After days of enforced idleness, Suvorov accepted Grand Duke Constantine's idea to dismount 1,500 of his Cossacks and use their horses as pack animals. This was a difficult choice because the Cossacks' mounts were their own property, not army issue. Suvorov organized his army into two corps under Generals Wilhelm Derfelden and Andrei Rosenberg. Derfelden's 8,591-man corps consisted of General-major Pyotr Bagration's Advance Guard (2,394), Lieutenant General Yakov Ivanovich Povalo-Schveikovsky's infantry division (4,360), and 1,837 Cossacks. Rosenberg's 10,901-man corps included General-major Mikhail Miloradovich's infantry division (5,339), Lieutenant General Ivan Ivanovich Förster's infantry division (2,982), the Kashkin Jäger Regiment (697), and 1,883 Cossacks. For the assault on the Gotthard Pass, Förster's division would temporarily act with Derfelden's corps. The artillery was armed with 25 Piedmontese light 2-pounder cannons. Unable to traverse the Gotthard Pass, the Russian artillery convoy took the Maloja Pass route according to Duffy or the Splügen Pass according to Phipps.
On 19 September, Rosenberg's corps left Taverne for Bellinzona. On 21 September, these troops turned right into the Blenio Valley at Biasca. Rosenberg's troops crossed the Lukmanier Pass on 23 September and reached Disentis in the Vorderrhein valley. The troops marched in heavy rain and a number of both men and horses were killed in falls when crossing the pass. Rosenberg's column numbered 6,000 troops and 10 light cannons. Derfelden's corps left Bellinzona on 22 September amid heavy rains, after having started from Taverne the previous day. At Biasca, the column continued up the Ticino valley and by the evening of 23 September reached the town of Faido. Strauch's Austrians joined Derfelden's column along the way.
Campaign of September 24–26
24 September (Battles of the Gotthard/Oberalp passes and Hospental)
Lecourbe's division consisted of three brigades under Generals of Brigade Charles-Étienne Gudin de La Sablonnière, Louis Henri Loison, and Gabriel Jean Joseph Molitor. By Duffy's reckoning, Gudin's brigade numbered 3,801 men and consisted of the 67th and 109th Line Infantry Demi-brigades and three grenadier companies. Loison's brigade was 2,980-strong and was made up of the 38th and 76th Line Infantry Demi-brigades. Lecourbe was in Altdorf at the northern end of the upper Reuss valley with the 720-man divisional reserve of nine grenadier companies. Molitor's brigade was far to the east near Glarus on the upper Linth River. The 67th Line defended the Gotthard Pass, the 109th Line held the Oberalp Pass and the village of Andermatt, and Loison's brigade was posted near Amsteg in the center of the upper Reuss valley. Phipps credited Gudin with 4,294 soldiers and Loison with 4,366 men.
Massena ordered Lecourbe to advance east on 25 September as part of a general offensive against the Allies. Suvorov was about to assault Lecourbe from the south, catching his opponent off-balance. As early as 5 September, rumors reached the French that Suvorov was coming north with 25,000 troops, but Lecourbe discounted the stories. His patrols detected Strauch's Austrians in the Ticino valley and from 20 September there were even reports of Russian soldiers nearby. Lecourbe put Gudin's brigade on alert, but did not budge from his headquarters in Altdorf. In previous campaigns, Lecourbe proved himself a capable general in mountain fighting, but this time he found himself poorly prepared for Suvorov's impending attack.
Suvorov's plan of attack for 24 September called for the main effort by Derfelden's Russians and Strauch's Austrians against the Gotthard Pass. This thrust would be assisted by a right-hook by Rosenberg's Russians across the Oberalp Pass that would seize Andermatt north of the Gotthard. Auffenberg's Austrians would make a deeper right hook and block the upper Reuss valley at Amsteg. The 67th Line with 1,861 soldiers was divided into three groupings, at Airolo, at the hamlet of Cima del Bosco near the entrance to the Val Tremola, and at the pass itself. The attackers must climb 916 metres (3,005 ft) from Airolo to the pass. This hike might take an unencumbered person two and a half hours, but the Russians and Austrians would have to carry a musket, ammunition, battle gear, and full haversack with French firearms blazing in their faces.