Battle of Oberwald

Battle of Oberwald
Part of the War of the Second Coalition
Date 13 – 14 August 1799 Standort Oberwald, Switzerland Result French victory
Belligerents
Frankreich	Österreich
Commanders and leaders
Jean Victor Tharreau	Regimental Commander, Gottfried von Strauch (Oberst)
Strength
12,000	6,000
Casualties and losses
500	3,000 and two cannons

Battle of Oberwald occurred on 13–14 August 1799 between French forces commanded by General of Division Jean Victor Tharreau and elements of Prince Rohan's corps in southern Switzerlandan. The Austrian regiment was commanded by Colonel Strauch. Both sides engaged approximately 6,000 men. The French lost 500 killed, wounded or missing, and the Austrians lost 3,000 men and two guns. Oberwald is a village in Canton Valais, at the source of the Rhône River, between Grimsel and Furka passes.

Background

By 1798, with the previous year's treaty of Campo Formio, the French Directory had established a new modus operandi. Within six months of signing the treaty, the Directory had expanded the French zone of influence to achieve a continuity of territory between France and the Holy Roman Empire, using chunks of the former; the French created a new sphere of influence uniting Holland, Switzerland, and the newly-formed Cisalpine and Ligurian Repubics to form a nursery for soldiers and a formidable strategic position; in December 1798, the King of Sardinia, was forced to abdicate and the Piedmont was occupied. By lending French military muscle, local collaborators seized power and established a satellite Republic. Switzerland was restructured into the Helvetic republic, modeled on revolutionary France.

Valais insurgency

The steep hillsides and high mountains of Valais complicated fighting; the Valais insurgents knew how to use the countryside to their best advantage.

On 24 May 1799, several thousand insurgents, reinforced with French deserters, recruits from some of the minor cantons, some Austrian battalions, and emboldened with the news of approaching Russian forces, emerged from the wood at Finge and attacked a French encampment encampment. The French, under command of Charles Antoine Xaintrailles, beat them off and they withdrew to their own entrenchments. Before daybreak on the following morning (25 May), Xaintrailles attacked in two columns. The first, Column Barbier (three battalions and one squadron), drove the insurgents out of the woods and chased them to the Leuk. The second, the left column, including two battalions of the 89th and 110th as well as some of the grenadiers of those two demi-brigades, were under the personal command of Xaintrailles, and attacked the insurgent position at Leuk, defended by seven guns so carefully placed as to deliver enfilade fire on the passage of the valley; furthermore, the insurgents had placed sharpshooters on the approaches to the gorge. Xaintrailles sent two flanking detachments to the crest of the mountains, well out of artillery range, while the main body in the valley attacked the position in front of them. It received such a storm of musketry and canister fire at the foot of the entrenchments that it began to waver; at this point, a well-sustained fusilade from the crest of the mountains showered the insurgents' flanks. The men in the gorge redoubled their efforts and entered the Valais entrenchments, slaying some of the gunners at their positions. The survivors fled to Raron, abandoning their guns and magazines.

Once the insurgents retreated to the mountains above Raron, the terrain made dislodging them difficult. Xaintrailles sent his men to higher mountains to fire down on the insurgents, rousting them from their hiding places. By the end of the day, the insurgents had withdrawn deeper into the mountains, leaving only the Austrian battalions to hold the position.

On 26 May, Xaintrailles' right column crossed the Saltina river via a ford and marched to Brig, where some of the insurgents had rallied. These abandoned the town and fled into the mountains behind it. The left column, column Xaintrailles, reached Naters on the right bank of the Rhone and proceeded to Mörel and Lax, seeking to capture the bridge between Lax and Ernen, where the largest group of the insurgents had congregated. While he was reforming his troops, he offered the insurgents an olive branch: if they would lay down their arms and return to their homes, he promised an amnesty for the past. Those who persisted in revolt would face summary execution. A number of the insurgents did submit, but many withdrew to Lax where, reinforced by a couple of Austrian battalions, they rejected all offers of amnesty and placed their reliance on nature's formidable position. There followed a day-long battle with alternating results; eventually, the insurgents were routed, but the contest was maintained by those two Austrian battalions, who eventually abandoned the field as night fell, and light failed. Xaintrailles pushed on with the grenadiers of the 100th and sent several companies of the 100th to St. Bernard. His Swiss allies guarded the gorges and defiles behind him. He established his headquarters at Brig, from which he could control the passes at Great St. Bernard and Simplon and access to northern Italy, and awaited his instructions from Massena.

Coalition resurgence

After the Swiss uprisings of 1798, the Austrians had stationed troops in the Grisons, at the request of the Canton, which had not joined the new Helvetic Republic under the protection of the French Directory. In March 1799, war had again broken out between the Austrians and its coalition allies against the French. Massena, who commanded the French army in Switzerland, surprised the Austrian division stationed in the Grisons, though, and overran the countryside. To the north, after victories at Ostrach and Stockach, and later at Feldkirch, the Archduke Charles pushed the French out. The Swiss general Hotze, in Austrian service, approached through the Grisons, and following a successful engagement at Winterthur. The Austrians, following up on their success, over ran most of eastern Switzerland. After several engagements, Messena left Zurich and fell back to the River Reuss.

The smaller cantons took this opportunity to extract themselves from the French alliances: Uri took possession of the pass at St. Gothard, and the people of Upper Valias occupied the Simplon pass. Schwyz also rebelled. However in May, the French returned in greater numbers; Charles Xaintrailles, circling south of Massena's main force at Reuss, had been directed to attack and subdue the rebellions in the St. Valais canton. Although Russian and Austrians occupied Zurich, the headquarters of the allies, the French evacuated Schwyz and assumed positions on the frontiers of Zug by Arth. The Austrians entered Schwyz, where the inhabitants welcomed them joyously. On 3 July, the French attacked the whole Austrian line there, but the Schwyz people repulsed them again, and drove them off.

Battle

Aftermath

The Aulic Council, in its wisdom, ordered Archduke Charles to move most of his force into Swabia, to continue his operations on the north side of the Rhine and Massena attacked the Russians in Zurich who, weakened by the losses of the Austrian troops and poorly commanded, lost the city to him in September 1799. By that time, also, the French had wrested control of the mountain passes at Simplon and St. Bernard back from the Austrians, and controlled access and egress between Switzerland and northern Italy.

The losses of local people were catastrophic. By the end of the French campaign in Schwyz and Valais, one fourth of the population of the Canton Schwyz depended on public charity for support. In the Muotta valley, between 600–700 people were reduced to utter destitution. In Uri, a relatively poor canton, comparable distress reigned; a fire broke out at Altdorf which destroyed the greater part of that town, the main city of the canton. In Unterwalden, which had been devastated in 1798, similar situations prevailed. In the Grisons, where the uprising had been quelled in 1798, 3,000 inhabitants had been killed and the abbey of Disentis burned. In a remote valley of Tavetsch, all the inhabitants were killed; four women, hunted by the soldiers threw themselves into the lake of Toma, with infants in arms, and were shot and killed in the half-frozen water.