AUST R I A. 



139 



Austria, had no other frontier to defend. This force did no- 

 Yj t hing ; for it was commanded by men who durst not 

 take possession of a village, or pull down a mill or a 

 tree without an estafette from the Aulic Council at 

 Vienna. The same council manifested equal niggard- 

 liness in furnishing supplies to the army, as it did 

 jealousy against its superior officers. In short, no 

 war was ever carried on with less energy than this, 

 upon which every prudent man in the empire per- 

 ceived that the fate of Flanders and Germany, and 

 perhaps that of the Austrian empire itself, would^ul- 

 tirr.ately depend. A British army was sent in 1793 

 to co-operate with the Austrians in Flanders. _The 

 combined armies took the strong fortress of Valen- 

 ciennes, and in an evil hour, in the name of the Em- 

 peror of Germany, not of Louis of France, or the 

 legitimate head of the French nation. The Austrian 

 army when joined by the British, relaxed, as usual, in 

 its operations ! the British army was of course un- 

 successful. Every thing went wrong. The English, 

 as is always the case when they land near France, were 

 compelled to abandon the continent and return home, 

 after losing two-thirds of their army. Holland was 

 conquered ; the Austrians driven over the Rhine ; all 

 Flanders, and the German principalities on the left bank 

 of that river, annexed to France; and two French ar- 

 mies advanced into the heart of Germany, and even to 

 the borders of Austria. Nor was this all: Italy was 

 lost. Bonaparte took Mantua, after having destroyed 

 three or four armies, which had been sent by the Aulic 

 Council in numbers exactly suited to their enemy's con- 

 veniency, one after tfie other at regular intervals, so as 

 to allow that general to devour them piece-meal with- 

 out righting any great battles, or putting the French 

 Directory to any serious expense in recruiting an 

 army at the distance of 600 miles from the French 

 frontier. The same method was followed even after 

 the Archduke Charles was- sent to command the re- 

 mains of the Austrian army in Italy early in 1797; 

 and, indeed, has been the curse of that country's po- 

 litics until the present day. 



The treaty of Leoben, or peace of Campo Formio, 

 as it is called by most writers, was the result of Bo- 

 naparte's successes against the Archduke, and put a 

 period, for two years, to the most sanguinary war car- 

 ried on in modern times. By this treaty, concluded 

 with an enemy who was within eighty miles of Vienna, 

 but had only 35,000 fighting men lit for action in his 

 army at the time, Austria lost the Netherlands and 

 Lombardy, and in Germany alLher provinces on the 

 left bank of the Rhine. For these, However, she re- 

 ceived Venice and her dependencies from France. 

 She therefore lost, upon the whole, only a popula- 

 tion of about 1,200,000 souls, and very little of her 

 real resources and strength. That such were the 

 ideas of the Austrians themselves, appears from a mo- 

 nument erected on the occasion of concluding this 

 treaty, by an Austrian nobleman in the place where 

 the conferences were held : In a small garden, half a 

 mile to the north-east of Leoben in Stiria, belonging 

 to Baron Von Eckenwald, stands to this day, (at 

 least it stood in the summer of 1808), a quadrangu- 

 lar obelisk, with four marble slabs on its faces and 

 sides, containing the following words, viz. 



Treaty of 



jLeolwn, 

 April 18. 



1737. 



First Face. Austria. 



Paci 



quce hoc in horto 



sub auspiciis 



Francisci II. llomanorum Imperatoris 



Aitstriacos inter et Gallos 



Floruit 



Die xviii. Aprilis. Anno mdccxcvh. 



Opposite Face. 



Cum 



Supremo Gallorum Duce 



Bonaparte 



qui a Pado ad Muram usque 



progressus 



hie Lou Castra Sedemque 



locavit. 



First Side. 



Caroli 



Archi et Belli ducis Austria: 



inducias pasciscentis 



Cura. 



Opposite Side. 



Comitum de Gallo et Mecrveldl 



a Majestate 



Delegatorumjecialium 



Opera. 



This inscription, ordered by Austrian officers of rank 

 and influence, would not have been permitted to stand 

 for eleven or twelve years, most of them past in rancor- 

 ous wars between the two countries, if Austria had 

 considered herself at that time so much humbled by 

 the peace of Leoben ; and yet she certainly was both 

 injured and degraded by it in reality. The territory of 

 Venice, which she took in exchange, or as an indem- 

 nification for the Netherlands and for Lombardy, was 

 not an equivalent for what she renounced; and even 

 if it were, it was not honourable to take what the 

 other contracting party had no right to bestow. 

 The consequences were what might have been ex- 

 pected. Venice was discontented, turbulent, and un- 

 productive. She yielded very little towards recruit- 

 ing the armies, or replenishing the exhausted treasury 

 of her new mistress. Austria had, for the first time, 

 since the Turkish war of 1683, seen an enemy in the 

 heart of her hereditary estates, and permitted him 

 not only to escape with impunity, but also to levy 

 heavy contributions, and to dictate peace within three 

 days march of Vienna. 



Such a peace as that of Leoben could not there- 

 fore prove permanent, unless Austria had been re- 

 duced to a state of absolute nullity or insensibility, or 

 France had granted further concessions than the 

 plundered, insulted, and degraded Venetian states. 

 Russia was soon called upon, both by the Emperor 

 of Germany and by England, to join in a new war. 

 Turky was now also an ally against France, on ac- 

 count of the invasion of Egypt. An English ar- 

 my was sent, as before, to the Low Countries, un- 

 der the command of the duke of York, and there 



