by Tom Anderson
July – Wurmser occupies Nancy, putting the Austrians in a position to threaten Paris. But there they halt, waiting for reinforcements that will not come.
Hoche’s offensive move makes Alvinczi hesitate long enough to smash Davidovich with the full force of his recombined army.
Russo-Lithuanian Romanovian armies under General Barclay de Tolly defeat Swedish invaders at the Battle of Seinai.
August – Leroux defeats most of the Swiss militias and occupies Bern.
Romanovian forces win a victory over the Swedes at the Battle of Alytus.
Hoche’s army meets Alvinczi’s now-outnumbered forces at Milan, defeats the Austrians and forces them to retreat through the chaos of Switzerland. The Piedmontese royal family, stripped of Austrian support, flees Piedmont for Sardinia.
October – With the withdrawal of the Hapsburgs from much of northern Italy, Hoche attacks and occupies Spanish Parma. In response to news of French atrocities, Spain steps up the war against France.
Concerned about the French victory on the other two fronts, Emperor Ferdinand IV orders Wurmser to retreat from Nancy, conceding the Austrian victory there in order to reassemble his armies to contest French control of Switzerland and Piedmont in the 1797 campaigning season.
The Swedes are defeated by the Romanovians at Trakai. This expels them from the Vojvodship of Trakai, but leaves them in control of the Eldership of Samogitia, along with Courland and Swedish Prussia.
November – Jean Marat forced to resign his consulship and is installed as sole consul of the new Swiss Republic, secured by Leroux. Marat is replaced as consul of France by Boulanger, an unconstitutional move which is not contested thanks to Robespierre’s Terror.
December – France begins quietly withdrawing troops from Switzerland and transferring them primarily to the German front.
1798:
January – In a calculated act of spite, the French burn down the Habichtsburg, the ancestral Hapsburg castle in Switzerland.
March – Thanks to Robespierre’s paranoia about a British invasion of the unprotected French coast, French raw recruits are marched up and down western France in training to create a visible presence. This plan, however, somewhat backfires as the boorish conscripts’ activities inflame the local Vendean and Breton disenchantment with the Revolution…
The Austrians begin their spring offensives, primarily on the Swiss and Italian fronts. They are initially highly successful. In Italy, Archduke Ferdinand proves his generalship when, together with Wurmser, he surrounds Hoche and forces him to retreat.
But, contrary to Austrian expectations, the French’s own “Rubicon” offensive focuses on the Lorraine front. Two armies under Leroux and Ney sweep around from north and south, for the first time utilising the ‘War of Lightning’ doctrine that reduces the need for a supply train by making the troops live off the land. This means they often outrun the news of their coming.
Kiev falls to the new Cossack/Georgian Romanovian army.
The Battle of the Erbe Strait between the Russian and Lithuanian fleets on one side and the Swedes on the other. The Russo-Lithuanians win a pyrrhic tactical victory that is strategically a far greater gain – both navies are devastated as fighting forces, but this leaves the Swedes unable to oppose the Danes.
April – Ney’s army takes Karlsruhe, capital of Baden, and the Badenese Margrave’s family are publicly executed on Robespierre’s orders. The French win several key battles against Austrian and local Swabian forces, the flatter terrain now lending deadly effect to their Cugnot weapons.
Supported by amphibious descents by the Spanish Navy, General Cuesta’s Spanish army in Gascony besieges Bordeaux.
Charles Messier is executed by phlogistication, one of many French scientists to meet this fate under Robespierre’s terror.
May – Ney’s army occupies Stuttgart, capital of Württemberg, but the Duke and his family have already fled.
Now ruling the waves of the Baltic, the Danes perform a descent on Swedish Pomerania and swiftly seize the province.
Voronezh surrenders to Kautzman’s army.
L’Épurateur, a French second-rate ship of the line, arrives in Madras and Republican envoy René Leclerc orders Governor-General Rochambeau to cleave to Paris’ line. Rochambeau rejects him, and a fuming Leclerc goes to Mysore in order to gain the help of Tippoo Sultan, an admirer of revolutionary ideals.
June – With the French advance having reached Franconia, Boulanger orders Ney’s army to disperse in order to occupy the territory gained, while Leroux’s continues on towards Regensburg.
Having defeated the Danish army in Norway, the Swedes besiege Christiania.
Death by drowning of Myeongjo, first son of King Hyojang of Corea and champion of conservatives. Foul play is probable.
July – A French army under Custine breaks the Siege of Bordeaux; Cuesta’s Spaniards retreat southwards.
Fall of Ulm to the French. Emperor Ferdinand IV desperately reinstates General Mozart.
Fall of Kazan to Kautzman’s army.
United Society of Equals (USE) rises to prominence in Ireland; they are contacted and supplied with weapons and pamphlets by Lisieux. These are transported using co-opted Breton fishermen to beat the British blockade; however, some of the pamphlets end up staying in Brittany, and inflame Breton opinion against the Republic (which there was largely only a rumour).
August – Battle of Burgau between Davidovich’s Austrians and Leroux’s French. The result is a punishing French victory, Davidovich’s infantry almost totally destroyed by the rapidly shifting enfilading and plunging fire afforded by the French Cugnot artillery. Ferdinand IV finally acquiesces to Mozart’s demand that everything be pulled back for a last-ditch defence of Vienna, abandoning Regensburg. The Emperor leaves for the latter city.
Surrounded by Austrians thanks to Archduke Ferdinand’s gambit, Hoche retreats into the Terrafirma of Venice.
The Bohemian inventor Wenzel Linck miniaturises and improves the Girandoni’s ‘wind rifle’, making a short-range repeater that can be more easily pumped up by one person for more rapid fire. The ‘Linck gun’ is particularly popular with Austria’s elite skirmishers, the Grenzers.
Full-scale seaborne Danish invasion of Scania. The Swedish government hastily begins recalling armies in order to try and prevent the Danes from breaking out further.
A small Spanish force under Major Joaquín Blake y Joyes defeats part of Custine’s French army at the Battle of Bayonne.
Guarded only by a token Potemkinite force, Vitebsk is retaken by the Romanovians.
September – Hoche’s troops fall upon Venice the city and pillage it. End of the Venetian Republic, its territories annexed to Hoche’s purported Italian Republic. The Venetian territories in Dalmatia immediately become a sore point between Vienna and Constantinople. In response to the ‘Rape of Venice’, the Venetian fleet under Admiral Grimani flees to the port of Bari in Naples, and after negotiating with King Charles VI and VIII, takes up service with the Neapolitan navy.
Kautzman’s army moves into the Moscow region. Rumour exaggerates this into the idea that he has actually sacked the city.
October – On the 9th, the Vendée and Brittany explode into royalist revolt – the Chouannerie – against the French Republic. Britain prepares to intervene on their side.
General Alvinczi attempts to fight a delaying action against Leroux west of Regensburg, but is defeated – though he saves most of his army, which retreats southward. Emperor Ferdinand IV gives a passionate but insane speech in the Reichstag about the coming destruction, in which he declares the end of the Empire, before falling over dead from a heart attack. As he does so, the French advance on Regensburg and take the city…
Archduke Ferdinand prepares to besiege Hoche in Venice, but is recalled thanks to the success of the French Rubicon offensive in Germany. Hoche pursues the Austrians but is held back at the well-defended Brenner Pass. He is now nonetheless the undisputed master of northern Italy.
> The second Battle of Smolensk between the Romanovians and Potemkinites. After three hard, gruelling days of combat, the Potemkinites are on the brink of victory, when news of Kautzman’s supposed sacking of Moscow spreads and Potemkin’s mostly Muscovite left wing collapses. Though the bulk of the Potemkinite army withdraws in good order, Alexander Potemkin is captured by the Romanovians.
Great Ulster Scare. Ireland explodes into rebellion as the USE seize key points all over Ulster and Leinster. The British garrison in Belfast, a strongly USE-supporting town, goes down fighting.
November – After being rebuffed by Surcouf, Robespierre nominates the fey Admiral Villeneuve to lead an outnumbered Republican naval force against the Anglo-Royal French fleets massing in British ports.
The USE take Dublin, burning the assembled Irish parliament to death inside their own building. The British garrison in Dublin, which had been cut back considerably due to the troops assembling for an invasion of France, is defeated and massacred by the vengeful USE. First reports of the Great Ulster Scare reach London, but it is already too far-gone to contain easily.
Death of the cautious Sultan Abdulhamid II of the Ottoman Empire. He is succeeded by his more maverick nephew, who becomes Sultan Murad V. He appoints Mehmed Ali Pasha as Grand Vizier and the two of them begin eyeing the debated former Venetian territories in Dalmatia…
1799:
January – Richard Wesley, Earl of Mornington, survived the Dublin attack because he was at home in Galway. He now assembles a Royalist army against the USE and is widely praised for managing to call Irish Catholics to his banner – indeed his army is majority Catholic.
Birth of future Great American War General Alf Stotts in Congaryton, South Province, Carolina.
February – Britain launches the Seigneur Offensive. Four fleets, one Royal French, all protecting troopships, leave the southern ports for Brittany and the Vendée. Villeneuve manages to intercept one of the British fleets under Admiral Duncan at the Battle of Wight, before it forms up with the others, and sinks or disables most of its troopships.
Villeneuve then throws everything that remains at the Royal French fleet within the formed-up British forces, with the intention of killing Louis XVII, but though he does manage to board the latter’s flagship and kill Admiral d’Estaing, his attack is successfully deflected by Leo Bone, who draws one of Villeneuve’s ships away. Bone’s ship defeats the enemy days later off the coast of France, but is holed and has to be beached.
The victorious British and Royal French, having defeated Villeneuve, attack Quiberon. Louis XVII lands and declares himself King.
Having reached the end of their supply lines, Leroux’s army’s offensive towards Vienna slows, but inexorably continues.
March – Leroux’s army besieges Vienna. The French succeed in destroying several Austrian forts and other defences, but lose some of their artillery to a Hungarian attack at night.
Last Potemkinite armies disintegrate.
Wesley holds back the USE armies at Roscommon and Kilkenny. This encourages the British government not to slow their planned Seigneur Offensive against France, but instead to send Wesley only three regular regiments to support him. These arrive in Limerick towards the end of the month.
April – The Battle of Vienna. As the French begin breaking down the capital’s walls, General Mozart leads an army out in a desperate gamble to attack them on the field of battle. The French engage him and are on the brink of victor, but the Austrians are saved by the ‘Miracle on the Danube’, when Archduke Ferdinand returns from Italy in the nick of time with Croat cavalry, who break up the undisciplined French conscript infantry. Leroux is killed and Mozart mortally wounded.
The French army retreats under Cougnon, but the latter is killed by the maniacal Lascelles, who takes most of the army and retreats into Bavaria, setting up a tyrannical ‘Bavarian Germanic Republic’. The rest, the ‘Cougnonistes’, under St-Julien, go north into Bohemia and effectively set up their own fiefdom around Budweis.
Panic in Matsumae-town in Edzo thanks to the Aynyu successes. The Daimyo decides to beg help from Edo in order to put down the rebellion, but is assassinated by one of his lieutenants who fears a purge by the Shogun. Matsumae dissolves into civil war.
Grand Duke Carlo of Tuscany, in support of his fellow Hapsburgs, attacks Lazare Hoche in the rear while the latter is engaged along the Alps, and manages to liberate Lucca, Modena and Mantua.
May – Thanks to Lisieux’s and Boulanger’s plotting, two deliberately inexperienced French armies under Paul Vignon and Jacques Pallière are sent to drive back the British in the Vendée.
Ottoman Empire declares war on Austria, invading Austrian-held Bosnia and sending troops under Dalmat Melek Pasha to seize the former Venetian territories in Dalmatia.
Battle of Carlow between Wesley’s Royalists and the USE. Wesley now has artillery to match the USE’s, and wins a limited victory. The USE, under the French General O’Neill, retreats. This is the end of the USE’s victory streak and raises enthusiasm for Wesley elsewhere.
With the Swedish armies besieging St Petersburg being stripped of forces for the home front, Romanovian generals Kamenski and Kurakin begin to drive back the reduced enemy forces.
Emperor Paul re-enters Moscow, held by Kautzman. Paul agrees to some of Kautzman’s demands for serf emancipation in order to secure his support. He exiles Ivan Potemkin and Sergei Saltykov to Yakutsk, and installs Alexander Potemkin as Duke of a restored independent Courland. End of the Russian Civil War.
June – The two French armies in the Vendée are decisively defeated by the British, although part of Pallière’s army escapes to the south. It is later defeated by a local militia organised by the shipwrecked Leo Bone and his crew, pressed into service using his ship’s guns as artillery. This launches Bone as a hero and celebrity in the Vendean imagination.
Richard Wesley’s army takes Kildare.
On North America’s Pacific coast, the fur-trading operation of the British adventurer John Goodman on the island of Noochaland [Vancouver Island] is stopped by a Spanish expedition out of New Spain, who place him under arrest. Goodman is eventually released, but the incident highlights the importance of claiming the Pacific seaboard to the Americans and Russians. Goodman eventually goes to Gavaji [Hawaii].
An attack by the Austrians on Lascelles’ troops, encamped on the Enns near Admont, is bloodily repulsed, demonstrating that Lascelles can fight.
July – The Apricot Revolution in France. Robespierre has no-one else left to blame for the failure in the Vendée. Lisieux smoothly manoeuvres him out of power – he either commits suicide or is murdered – and Lisieux becomes sole Administrator of France. Having purged everything he can of Robespierre loyalists, Lisieux orders Boulanger to now send the full force of the Republican army against the British.
An Irish Royalist army under George Wesley (Richard’s younger brother) takes Wicklow. A USE army to the south panics, congregates on Wexford and then disintegrates or flees to France.
The Swedes have held the Scanian front against the Danes, but the Russo-Lithuanians have begun to roll up their armies in the Baltic lands.
General election in America returns a majority for the Constitutionalist Party. The Lord Deputy, the Duke of Grafton, asks Constitutionalist leader James Monroe to form a government as Lord President.
August – In Japan, Benyovsky’s Russo-Lithuanian ships attack Matsumae-town, defeat the defenders and install their own puppet Daimyo.
Leo Bone’s irregulars near Saint-Hilaire fight regular Republican troops for the first time, and win.
September – British forces take Caen in Normandy. Alain Carpentier, largely due to being in the right place at the right time, manages to become a hero by leading a successful cavalry charge against the Republican French, achieving grudging acceptance for himself and his drunkard son Joseph at the Royal French court. He is made Comte de Toulouse (a largely meaningless title for the moment) in recognition of this.
&nbs
p; Last Swedish army in Livonia surrenders, leaving the Russians and Lithuanians in control of the Swedes’ former Baltic possessions. The Swedish army in Finland repulses an attempted attack by Kurakin.
After getting into numerous fights at King’s College over political and philosophical disagreements, Philip Hamilton is sent by his father to work for the Royal Africa Company.
Around this time, due to his strong Confucian beliefs, the Guangzhong Emperor of China starts leaning on the ‘Hongmen’ of Canton in an effort to discourage the foreign trade which he perceives as a weakness.
October – Battle of Caen. Boulanger, assisted by new Cugnot weapons, decisively defeats the British and Royal French. The Prince of Wales is killed in the battle, meaning Prince Henry William is now the heir apparent. The British are swept out of Normandy.
The Austrians draw up a new army under General Giuseppe Bolognesi to drive Lascelles’ rogue French troops farther away from Vienna. Lascelles, outnumbered, retreats through the Waldviertel. His troops perform a particularly vicious maraude as a scorched-earth policy against Bolognesi’s army, and in the process murder many civilians, including the family of Michael Hiedler. He was hunting at the time and escapes, but is driven catatonic by the experience.
Dublin besieged and retaken by Wesley’s forces. New York rifleman James Roosevelt shoots down General O’Neill; he later decides to stay and settle in Ireland.
Swedish King Charles XIII assassinated by a madman. His death, leaving no heirs, plunges Sweden into a constitutional crisis that only exacerbates the war defeats.
Death of Dharma Raja, King of Travancore. He is succeeded by his son Balarama Varma, but the Tippoo of Mysore declares he is too young to rule and uses this as a casus belli to invade. This belligerent move is part of a plan by Leclerc to force Rochambeau to back down or lose the FEIC’s trade interests in Kerala.
November – On hearing of his favourite son’s death, King George III of Great Britain descends into madness and is dead by December. At the same time, the ageing Prime Minister Rockingham works himself to death. The country is plunged into a constitutional crisis.
