Battle of Glarus (1799)

According to locals

Under the eyes of the Austro-Russian troops, the journal Glarner-Zeitung wrote on 3 October:^[36]

1 October was a terrible day, the Imperial Austrians received help from the Russian peoples, under the command of the famous hero of Italy, Suvorov, across the Gotthard. United, they attacked the Franks (French) at the beginning of Lake Klöntal, and defeated them not only there, but also in all places, behind and near Riederen, Durschen,^[37] Nettstall, etc. The whole day from morning to evening one heard nothing other than cannoning and shooting, the French retreated as far as Näfels and Mollis, as well as over the Ennetberg and Frohnalp of the high mountains of Schilt.

The newspaper described the field marshal as follows:

Suvorov, a Russian senior general, small in stature, old, with ice-gray hair, common ordinary in conversation and dress like a soldier, but big in spirit, big in heroic deeds. This year he is showing the greatness of his military spirit in Italy, and it will soon develop in Switzerland [!]. The K. K. and Russian troops have their positions near Riederen, Nettstall and Glarus; the French, on the other hand, at Näfels and Mollis.^[38]

The Neue Helvetische Tagblatt^[39] summarized this report and added:

On this morning of October 1 the French finally had to give way, the Russians and the Imperials moved in here [in Glarus] at 9 o'clock in the morning; but the French gave them every foothold, and since the Russians had no more ammunition, but only had to operate with the bayonet and did not carry any cannon with them, at the same time the French had 8 of them, so they lost a lot of people.^[40]

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:

The Russians and 1,800 Austrian troops attacked the French on the lake, and chased them to Riederen, where the French resisted and wanted to stop the enemy's further advance, but the Russians attacked them one after the other with their bayonets fixed, and the French had to retreat from there as well. When they gave way, the Russians stormed across the Durschen to Netstal, across the lower bridge, which the French set on fire to cover their retreat; but regardless of this, the Russians crossed the Linth River and pursued the enemy all day long on both sides of the river to Näfels and Mollis with alternating success. Four times they had to give way to Netstal due to the fierce resistance of the French, but each time they stormed them, forcing them to retreat to Näfels, Oberurnen and Mollis, so that the Russians maintained the battlefield. Their advance also threatened to cut off about 1,000 French people in the Sernftal and upper Linth Valley, who then fled over Glarus, the Ennetbühlser Brücke and the Ennetberge, throwing their ammunition wagons into the water.^[41]

An unknown person wrote to his nephew in Jura:^[42]

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 [Sun Hill] 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.^[43]

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,^[44] 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,^[45] 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.^[46] According to Gmür, the ratio of Russian losses to French losses was eight to one.^[47]

Master cordwainer Levi Feldtmann from Schwanden wrote a poem in Knittelversen with the title Der Einzug der russischen Armee in unser Land, 'The Entry of the Russian Army into our Country'.^[48] The manufacturer Johann Heinrich Blumer, who fled to Zurich, owned the Haus in der Wiese (Wiesli 5) 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.^[49] 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".^[50]

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.^[51] Because he noticed

that the Russians were sending a strong column over the mountains to encircle my right flank and cut off our retreat into the Glarus valley,

he was forced to retreat to the Linth

in order to cover the passage of Näfels and thereby prevent the union of Suvorov with Jelačić, across the banks of Walensee, or with Korsakov, who still has to be located on the Thur.

Molitor 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^[de] a. D.^[de] Fred Heer, Molitor had schanze raised at the bridges of Näfels, Netstal and Glarus before the battle.^[52]

Molitor further wrote:

When we arrived at the Linth, the Netstal bridge presented itself as bait to the enemy; he fell there en masse, and immediately the bridge exploded with everything that tried to cross it:^[53] this order, carried out in a timely manner, plunged the Russians into great disorder, which was soon increased by the fire of the one and a half battalions and the artillery, which [ ...] from the right bank suppressed the enemy's flank and delayed his deployment. Finally, however, his masses formed up and attacked our troops on the left bank with fury: but these [...] held their ground with fearless cold-bloodedness. The enemy's attacks multiplied; one of his columns was overthrown, but it was followed by several others which, excited by the presence of their General Suvorov, rushed into our bayonets with blind boldness.

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,

always supported by our well-fed fire from the right bank, which the enemy found difficult to respond to.

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,^[54] 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.^[55]
• While none of the British-paid units from the Canton of Linth^[56] participated in the battle, Swiss distinguished themselves on the side of the French, as in the previous battles against the Austrians and Russians:^[57] When the bridge at Näfels had already been lost, 300 men of the 2nd Helvetic Half Brigade^[58] arrived from Weesen. They were commanded by Adjutant-Major Karl Zingg of Aarburg,^[59] who had fallen in 1812 as the commander of a Swiss regiment at the Berezina, and (after his severe wounding) by battalion commander Beat Felber of Lucerne.^[60] 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.^[61]
• 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.

While the fighting was resting on October 2 and 3, Molitor received information from Glarus, occupied by the enemy, to which he noted:^[62]

The inhabitants remained loyal to us, and we reaped the fruits of the good discipline of our troops.

For this good discipline Molitor had received the thanks of the Helvetic Directory, while complaining about excesses of some soldiers of Soult's division.^[63] As per the Le Moniteur Universel, the locals remained calm this time, one had not seen any of them under arms, several had even served the French as guides in the mountains. Netstal had atoned for his Helvetic attitude by being completely plundered by the Russians.^[64]

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.^[65] 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.^[1]

Probably on 2 October^[66] he wrote a pessimistic picture of his situation, in which it is said that the Austrians can no longer be counted on:

We now only have the duty to unite with Korsakov and, if possible, to save him. He is [...] in Schaffhausen and may have fallen even further back. His equipment and ammunition were lost. Our ammunition supply is exhausted—we have almost no artillery at all. We have neither food nor wagons. The resistance, or rather the pursuit of the enemy, continues.

Accordingly, the paper even talks about retreating from Chur or immediately to Italy.^[67] On 7 October, Suvorov reported to Archduke Charles from Panix that he had learned of Korsakov's defeat in the Muota Valley (Muotatal). Molitor occupied the narrows on the Klöntalersee:

[...] however, we drove the enemy out of the indicated defiles and pushed him to Mollis and Näffels, where we were on 1 October.

Meanwhile, General of the Infantry Andrei Rosenberg^[68] pushed the French out of the Muotatal.

In these stubborn battles, however, we used up all our ammunition and were therefore forced to avoid new battles. This even caused me to give up the union with General Jelačić via Mollis and Wallenstadt, since this could only be carried out through new battles [...]

Suvorov apparently had to advance towards Lake Zurich, contrary to what Brigadier General François Louis Dedon-Duclos believed^[69] was no longer even considered. In identical letters on 9 October, Suvorov reported to the kings of Naples and Sardinia^[70] that the French attacked Rosenberg,

at the same time he [meaning: Suvorov himself] under General Derfelden's^[71] command, defeated General Molitor near Glaris. [...] In this way I opened the direct route to Zurich, where I suspected Korsakov's corps; but since I learned that it had been forced to change its position by superior enemy forces, I directed myself to Graubünden [...].

The letter concludes with the words:

In this way I have now come very close to my main goal and have gained the opportunity: to operate with united forces against the enemy, so I hope to soon inform Your Majesty about the full implementation of the plan prescribed to me.^[72]

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^[73] as victories, in which later authors followed him.

In the description of 1 October, which is a report from Suvorov to Paul I (14 October), the crucial hours of the battle are missing. It only says:

[...] early in the morning the enemy was disturbed by rifle fire from the patrols sent forward, and immediately retaliated with a powerful rifle volley. Thereupon the vanguard, after uniting with the first detachment of General Yakov Povalo-Shveikovsky's troops, advanced again to the battle. Despite his resistance and although he made good use of the impassable terrain and the reinforcements, the enemy was pushed back [...] The battle lasted until 10 o'clock in the evening when Major General Prince Bagration dropped outposts as night fell and set up the camp.^[74]

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

the solemn day of the most joyful birth of Your Imperial Majesty [...] Massena was defeated, and on the other side, the enemy suffered a continuous defeat for almost 24 hours at Lake Seruta (Seerüti) [!]

This once again proved the devotion and loyalty of the subjects to their most gracious sovereigns.^[75]

According to Archduke Charles

Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen, wrote in his Geschichte des Feldzugs von 1799 in Deutschland und in der Schweiz, 'History of the 1799 Campaign in Germany and Switzerland':

Side columns climbed the mountains during the night and appeared in the rear of the French on 1 October. Molitor had to give way: but, attacked with disorder by the Austrians and Russians, he did not lose his composure; stood up again and turned away the boldest of those pursuing him. Then he crossed the Linth at Nets-Thal;^[76] set the bridge on fire; defended it until it collapsed, and finally took positions near Näffels and Mollis. The allies wanted to take possession of the latter place and with it the Wesen road. They laboriously built a footbridge over the Linth; put 1 battalion over it, and drove the French out of Mollis: but could not hold on there, as Division General Honoré Gazan brought the rest of his troops from the lower Linth to support Molitor.^[77]

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:

Suvorov's first division, which had joined Auffenberg's brigade, finished the clearing of the Klöntal and threw the French back on the Linth. Calm in the midst of the danger that beset him, and conscious of the importance and danger of his position, Molitor put up the most skillful resistance, giving up only foot by foot of ground, burning down the bridge at Netstal and retreating behind that at Näfels.

Jomini continued:

Suvorov's advance guard followed the French to Näfels, where Prince Bagration attacked them on 1 October. Perhaps never before had they shown more fortitude and bravery: assured of Gazan's support, Molitor forgot ten days of fatigue, privation and dogged fighting [...] The position was conquered and retaken. The outnumbered Republicans fought bitterly to buy time for Gazan's division to arrive from Schänis; In this battle, the 2nd Helvetic Half Brigade, electrified by the memories that the name Näfels awakened in it, covered itself in glory alongside the French.^[78] After Gazan finally left Weesen, he forced the Russians to retreat to Glarus.^[79]

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:

On 1 October the allies attacked General Molitor again and forced him to retreat first behind the Netsthal bridge and then on both sides of the Linth to Näfels and Mollis. But this retreat took place under the most stubborn resistance, and although the Russians continually attacked the French with bayonets and, as Molitor himself says in his report, were often among his people, he still did not lose any of his guns and managed to hold out against Bagration, who pursued him, until the evening, at Nefels and Mollis. Whereupon Gazan rushed in with a pair of battalions to support Molitor and forced Bagration to give up the already conquered villages of Näfels and Mollis.^[80]

According to Milyutin

The best Russian representation of the battle can be found in a work that military historian Dmitry Milyutin wrote in 1852 – История войны России с Францией в царствование Императора Павла I в 1799 году, 'The history of Russia's war with France during the reign of Emperor Paul I in 1799' – on behalf of Emperor Nicholas I and which the author Dr. O. Hartmann (1892) later commented on with some praise and criticism. Hartmann observes that other informants (except Milyutin) are too brief in their presentations.^[81] Milyutin's work is an adaptation of Molitor's report, garnished with (alleged) heroic deeds of the head of a musketeer regiment, Major General Nikolai Kamensky.^[82]

The later Russian War Minister Milyutin describes the fighting at Lake Klöntal much more dramatically than the French general:

In the heat of the battle, many slipped on the rocks and fell backwards into the depths. The narrow road between the foot of the heights and the shore of the lake was covered with Russian and French corpses.^[83]

The diary of Grenadier Captain Nikolai Gryazev [ru], 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.^[84]

The following episode described by Milyutin corresponds to the quoted report of a Swiss eyewitness:

A small French detachment had taken up a position between Glarus and Schwanden to observe Lincken's Austrian column. To secure the retreat of this detachment, Molitor burned the bridge near Riedern and took a position behind the village of Netstall. He stayed here with the greatest persistence until the troops from Glarus united with him.

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.^[85] Gryazev's diary shows that the enemy used the remnants of the local Letzi^[86] as breastwork—probably in accordance with the facts.^[87] According to Milyutin, before the construction of the bridge mentioned by Molitor, the Cossacks crossed the Linth by swimming,^[88] as French combat swimmers had done when Soult crossed the bridge near Bilten on 25 September.^[89] In contrast, in the painting of the battle from Molitor's possession, a Cossack on horseback is trying to reach the other shore.^[90] According to Milyutin, the arrival of Gazan's advance guard gave the enemy a numerical advantage. He further wrote:

The French troops, which were on the Linth's right bank, were also reinforced by a Helvetic half-brigade, pushed Kamensky's battalion out of the village of Mollis again, crossed the river on the bridge and attacked the Russian troops, which had occupied Näfels, on the flank.

Milyutin had Molitor's six counterattacks end in Näfels and not in Netstal.^[91] 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" (Is the entry in a different handwriting?) – through a nighttime raid.^[92]

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^[146] for your actions, which it could not overlook and which it knew how to assess correctly."^[147]

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."^[148]

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.^[149]

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] 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 [...]"^[150] 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 (a worthy example of whom is Johann Chasteler), as only a few Russian staff officers took part in the 1799 campaign.^[151] 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.^[152][153]

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.^[154]

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 (who was educated by a member of the Swiss Directorate, Frédéric-César de La Harpe) 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".^[155]

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."^[156]

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"^[157] 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."^[158] 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."^[159]