In the siege of Hüningen (27 November 1796 – 1 February 1797), the Austrians captured the city from the French. Hüningen is in the present-day Department of Haut-Rhin, France. Its fortress lay approximately 2.5 miles (4.0 km) north of the Swiss city of Basel and .5 miles (0.80 km) north of the spot where the present-day borders of Germany, France and Switzerland meet. During the time of this siege, the village was part of the Canton of Basel City and the fortress lay in area contested between the German states and the French First Republic.
The siege occurred within the French Revolutionary Wars during which Revolutionary France ranged itself against a Coalition that included most of the states with which it shared land or water borders. In particular, France was at odds with the European monarchies, who initially feared for the safety of Louis XVI and his wife, who was the sister of the Holy Roman Emperor. Fighting, which began in 1792, had been inconclusive. Fighting in 1795 had largely favored the Coalition; the Campaign in the Rhineland in 1796, though, had pushed the Coalition forces far into the German states; the Coalition forces had pushed back and, at the end of the summer's fighting in 1796, the Austrian force under command of Archduke Charles had succeeded in pushing 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. Forces commanded by Jean Charles Abbatucci and Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino provided the rear guard support and the main force retreated across the Rhine into France. The French retained control of the fortifications at Kehl and Hüningen and, more importantly, the tête-du-ponts (bridgeheads) of the star-shaped fortresses where the bridges crossed the Rhine. The French chief commander, Jean Victor Moreau, offered an armistice to the Austrian commander, which the archduke was inclined to accept. He wanted to secure the Rhine crossings and then 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 Kehl and Hüningen. These tied his army to the Rhine for most of the winter. He himself moved north with the bulk of his force to invest the larger crossing at Kehl, and instructed Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg to conduct the siege in the south by Basel. While the Austrians besieged these Rhine crossings, Moreau had sufficient surplus troops to send 14 demi-brigades (approximately 12,000 troops) into Italy to assist in the siege at Mantua.
Fürstenberg's force initiated the siege within days of the Austrian victory at the Battle of Schliengen. Most of the siege ran concurrently with the siege at Kehl, which concluded on 9 January 1797. By the time troops engaged at Kehl marched to Hüningen in preparation for a major assault, Fürstenberg had established extensive earthworks, built three large batteries that rained continuous cannonades into the fortress. The Habsburgs repelled a French sortie in early December in which Abbatucci, the French commander, was killed. His replacement, Georges Joseph Dufour, capitulated on 1 February 1797, preventing a costly assault, and the French evacuated, taking everything of value that remained with them. Like the conclusion of the siege at Hüningen, the Austrians took possession of a pile of rubble.
Background
Initially, the rulers of Europe, such as Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, viewed the revolution in France as an event between the French king and his subjects, and not something in which they should interfere. The French Republican position became increasingly difficult. Compounding problems in international relations, French émigrés continued to agitate for support of a counter-revolution abroad. Chief among them were the Prince Condé, his son, the Duke de Bourbon, and his grandson, the Duke d'Enghien. From their base in Koblenz, immediately over the French border, they sought direct support for military intervention from the royal houses of Europe, and raised an army.
As the rhetoric grew more strident, however, the other monarchies started to view events with alarm. In 1790, Leopold succeeded his brother Joseph as emperor and by 1791, he considered the situation surrounding his sister, the French Queen Marie Antoinette, and her children, with greater and greater alarm. In August 1791, in consultation with French émigré nobles and Frederick William II of Prussia, he issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, in which they declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe as one with the interests of Louis and his family. They threatened ambiguous, but quite serious, consequences if anything should happen to the royal family.
On 20 April 1792, the French National Convention declared war on Austria. In this War of the First Coalition (1792–1798), France ranged itself against most of the European states sharing land or water borders with her, plus Portugal and the Ottoman Empire. Coalition forces achieved several victories at Verdun, Kaiserslautern, Neerwinden, but these were countered by French victories at Tourcouring (1794), Dunkirk, and Haguenau. For the French, the Rhine Campaign of 1795 proved especially disastrous, although they had achieved some success in other theaters of war (see for example, War of the Pyrenees (1793–1795).
Complications
Geography
The Rhine River flows west along most of the border between the former German states and the northern territories and cities of the former Swiss Cantons. Along the 80-mile (130 km) stretch between the Rhine Falls (near Schaffhausen) and Basel, the High Rhine (Hochrhein) cuts through steep hillsides over a gravel bed; in some places, such as the former rapids at Laufenburg, it moves in torrents. The terrain flattens a few miles north and east of Basel. The Rhine makes a wide, northerly turn, in what is called the Rhine knee, and enters the Rheingraben (Rhine ditch), part of a rift valley bordered by the Black Forest on the east and Vosges Mountains on the west. Here the river runs between present-day France and the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg.
In 1796, the plain on both sides of the river, some 19 miles (31 km) wide, was dotted with villages and farms. At both far edges of the flood plain, especially on the eastern side, the old mountains created dark shadows on the horizon. Tributaries cut through the hilly terrain of the Black Forest, creating deep defiles in the mountains. The tributaries meandered in rivulets through the flood plain to the river. The river itself looked different in the 1790s than it does in the 21st century; engineers "corrected" (straightened) the passage from Basel to Iffezheim between 1817 and 1875. Between 1927 and 1975, engineers constructed a canal to control the water level. In 1790, though, the river was wild and unpredictable, in some places four or more times wider than in the twenty-first century, even under regular (non-flood stage) conditions. Its channels wound through marsh and meadow, and created islands of trees and vegetation that were periodically submerged during floods. It was crossable at Kehl, by Strasbourg, and Hüningen, by Basel, where systems of viaducts and causeways made access reliable.
Political terrain
Complications of political boundaries
The German-speaking states on the east bank of the Rhine were part of the vast complex of territories in central Europe called the Holy Roman Empire. The considerable number of territories in the Empire included more than 1,000 entities. Their size and influence varied, from the Kleinstaaten ("little states") that covered no more than a few square miles, or included several non-contiguous pieces, to the small and complex territories of the princely Hohenlohe family branches, to sizable, well-defined territories such as the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Prussia. Their governance varied: they included free imperial cities, also of different sizes, such as the powerful Augsburg and the minuscule Weil der Stadt; ecclesiastical territories, also of varying sizes and influence, such as the wealthy Abbey of Reichenau and the powerful Archbishopric of Cologne; and dynastic states such as Württemberg. When viewed on a map, the Empire resembled a Flickenteppich ("patchwork carpet"). Both the Habsburg domains and Hohenzollern Prussia also included territories outside the Empire structures, such as the Habsburg territories in eastern Europe and northern Italy. There were also territories completely surrounded by France that belonged to Württemberg, the Count of Solm, the archbishopric of Trier, and Hesse-Darmstadt. Among the German-speaking states, the Holy Roman Empire's administrative and legal mechanisms provided a venue to resolve disputes between peasants and landlords, between jurisdictions, and within jurisdictions. Through the organization of imperial circles (Reichskreise), groups of states consolidated resources and promoted regional and organizational interests, including economic cooperation and military protection.
Diplomacy and politics
The Vauban fortresses at Hüningen and Kehl were both important bridgeheads across the river; maintaining control of them had been critical in Moreau's relatively easy access to the German side of the Rhine in June 1796. At both towns, the principal fortresses lay on the west side (French side) of the Rhine; the bridgeheads and the smaller fortifications surrounding those lay on the both sides. Taking them would require a costly and time-consuming siege.
Charles had formulated a plan to circumvent that problem, and to free enough of his troops to send a sizable relief fortress into northern Italy, where Wurmser held Mantua against the French. If the French would agree to an armistice, he would take command of the fortresses; the French would withdraw, and he could send a sizable force to northern Italy to help relieve Mantua. The siege of Mantua was long and costly, and had tied up a significant portion of both the French and Austrian force. The French Directory was willing to give up the Mantua in exchange for the Rhine bridgeheads, which they deemed important for the defense of France.
After the retreat from Schliengen, Moreau offered an armistice to Charles in keeping with his own goals. Charles wanted to accept terms of armistice on the Rhine so he could send a large part of his army to attack the French in northern Italy. Instead, his brother and the civilian military advisers of the Council instructed him to lay siege to the fortresses, to take them, and secure any possible access to southern Germany via the Rhine. By tying Charles down at the Rhine, besieging the two strongly-fortified and well-staffed Vauban fortresses across the river, the Aulic Council effectively sealed the fate of Wurmser's troops in Mantua. With the failure of Paul Davidovich's relief column to reach their beleaguered comrades, Wurmser hoped still that Joseph Alvintzy would cross the Adige river to support him. In negotiations with Napoleon, Clarke, from the French Directory, proposed an armistice that would last until June 1797. Bonaparte refused any armistice until Mantua surrendered; the Directory had hopes of retaining Hüningen and Kehl, and would allow Austria to keep Mantua, which Napoleon flatly refused, believing Mantua the keystone to Habsburg Italy. When it became clear that Charles was locked into place at Kehl, and Fürstenburg at Hüningen, Moreau moved 14 demi-brigades (approximately 12,000 troops) to Italy to support Napoleon's assault on Mantua, leaving only a modest force to defend Hüningen.
Military situation in early 1796
In January 1796, Coalition and Revolutionary leaders called a truce. This agreement lasted until 20 May 1796, when the Austrians announced that it would end on 31 May. The Coalition's Army of the Lower Rhine included 90,000 troops. The 20,000-man right wing under Duke Ferdinand Frederick Augustus of Württemberg stood on the east bank of the Rhine behind the Sieg River, observing the French bridgehead at Düsseldorf. The garrisons of Mainz Fortress and Ehrenbreitstein Fortress counted 10,000 more. Charles posted the remainder of the Habsburg and Coalition force on the west bank behind the Nahe. Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser led the 80,000-strong Army of the Upper Rhine. Its right wing occupied Kaiserslautern on the west bank while the left wing under Anton Sztáray, Michael von Fröhlich and Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé guarded the Rhine from Mannheim to Switzerland. The original Austrian strategy was to capture Trier and to use their position on the west bank to strike at each of the French armies in turn. However, after news arrived in Vienna of Napoleon Bonaparte's successes, Wurmser was sent to Italy with 25,000 reinforcements. Reconsidering the situation, the Aulic Council gave Archduke Charles command over both Austrian armies and ordered him to hold his ground.
On the French side, the 80,000-man Army of Sambre-et-Meuse held the west bank of the Rhine down to the Nahe and then southwest to Sankt Wendel. On the army's left flank, Jean Baptiste Kléber had 22,000 troops in an entrenched camp at Düsseldorf. The right wing of the Army of Rhin-et-Moselle was positioned behind the Rhine from Hüningen northward, with its center along the Queich River near Landau and its left wing extended west toward Saarbrücken. Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino led Moreau's right wing, consisting of three infantry and cavalry divisions under Bourcier and Delaborde. Louis Desaix commanded the center with three divisions led by Beaupuy, Delmas and Xaintrailles. Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr directed the left wing with two divisions commanded by Duhesme and Taponier.
The French grand plan called for two French armies to press against the flanks of the northern armies in the German states while a third army simultaneously approached Vienna through Italy. Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's army would push southeast from Düsseldorf, hopefully drawing troops and attention toward themselves, which would allow Moreau's army an easier crossing of the Rhine between Kehl and Hüningen. According to plan, Jourdan's army feinted toward Mannheim, and Charles quickly reapportioned his troops. Moreau's army attacked the bridgehead at Kehl, which was guarded by 7,000 imperial troops—troops recruited that spring from the Swabian Circle polities, inexperienced and untrained—which amazingly held the bridgehead for several hours, but then retreated toward Rastatt. On 23–24 June Moreau reinforced the bridgehead with his forward guard. After pushing the imperial militia from their post on the bridgehead, his troops poured into Baden unhindered. Similarly, in the south, by Basel, Ferino's column moved speedily across the river and proceeded up the Rhine along the Swiss and German shoreline, toward Lake Constance and into the southern end of the Black Forest. Anxious that his supply lines would be overextended, Charles began a retreat to the east.