by Tom Anderson
The disgraced Mozart is recalled to Vienna and replaced with Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser.
To the south, the Genoese people overthrow their old oligarchic Republic and declare a Ligurian Republic, which is swiftly occupied by French forces under the mercurial Lazare Hoche.
In Russia, an attack by General Sergei Saltykov on St Petersburg is defeated by Mikhail Kamenski, who destroys the Potemkinite siege train and forces a retreat. This breaks a chain of Potemkinite victories and shows the Romanovians are still in the game.
September - Austrian forces finally break through the Col de Sauverne with heavy losses and spill into Lorraine. Ney is nonetheless recognised for his valiant actions and is promoted to General.
The Ottoman Empire begins its quiet intervention in the Russian Civil War, exerting influence over the formerly Russian-influenced lands of Bessarabia, the Crimean Khanate and Georgia. The Georgians reject the Ottoman demands and King George XII sends Prince Piotr Bagration to Russia, insisting that Russia honours its treaty agreements to defend Georgia.
October - The Netherlands is hit by a brief wave of Revolution, inspired by the French. Flemish troops, fresh from the campaign against the Bavarians, assist Stadtholder William V’s own Dutch army in putting down attempted revolts in the Hague and Amsterdam. The Dutch Republic remains.
November - The French under Hoche win some minor victories in Savoy against Piedmont-Sardinia.
Secret treaty of alliance between the Kingdom of Sweden and Potemkinite Russia. The Swedes begin building up their forces in Finland.
1797:
January - The Chinese heir Baoli returns to Beijing as a hero worshipper of Yu Wangshan and a supporter of the neo-Manchu movement. The Guangzhong Emperor dithers over whether to instead name his second son Baoyi, less dynamic but also less dangerous in his views, as heir.
Pablo Sanchez is born in Cervera, Spain.
February – The Georgian Prince Bagration is attacked by bandits in the Caucasus, but rescued by Heinrich Kautzman, the ‘Bald Impostor’. The Georgians and Cossacks form an agreement, with King George XII of Georgia agreeing to become an Ottoman vassal for the present, committing his army along with the Cossacks to help the Romanovians win the Civil War, so that a Romanov Russia can come in later and reverse the situation.
March - Death of Frederick William II of Prussia, after a long illness. His son succeeds him as Frederick William III. With initial risings in Warsaw and Lodz, Poland immediately rebels, taking advantage of the instability of the change of regime. The rebel armies are commanded by the experienced mercenary Kazimierz Pułaski. The Polish rebellion is discreetly assisted by Lithuanian arms, although the Lithuanians mostly remain loyal to Grand Duke Peter and have little enthusiasm for reforming the old Commonwealth.
Start of the Great Aynyu (Ainu) Rebellion in Edzo (Hokkaido) against the Japanese Matsumae Han, aided and abbetted by Benyovsky’s Russians trading guns to the Aynyu.
April - the French launch their Poséidon Offensive, a three-pronged strike consisting of the left under Ney hitting the Ausrians in Lorraine, the centre under Boulanger and Leroux invading Switzerland, and the right under Hoche attacking Piedmont.
In Toulon harbour, Surcouf demonstrates the first steamship, a paddlewheel tug known as the Vápeur-Remorqueur.
The Swedish-Potemkinite alliance is publicly revealed in Russia. Swedish armies based in Finland invade Russia, seeking to encircle St Petersburg. The King of Sweden officially recognises Alexander Potemkin as Emperor of All Russias.
The Continental Parliament creates the office of a Special Commissioner to Britain, essentially an ambassador in all but name, who will represent America’s interests in London. The first of these is Albert Gallatin.
May - French under Leroux occupy Geneva and Basel, driving deeper into Switzerland.
In response to the Swedish entry into the Russian Civil War, Denmark declares war on Sweden and the Potemkinites, and officially recognises Paul Romanov as Emperor of All Russias. The Russian Civil War has become the Great Baltic War.
The Prussians begin withdrawing their troops from Austria’s pan-German war effort in order to put down the Polish revolt, weakening the Germans on both a physical and moral level.
The Royal Danish Navy sorties and wins its first victory of the war, defeating an inferior Swedish naval force at the Battle of Anholt. The Kattegat falls under Danish control, although the Swedes still hold Malmö with a second fleet.
Death of Elector Frederick Christian II of Saxony. Childless, he is succeeded by his brother, who becomes John George V.
June - Wurmser’s army, consisting of combined Austrian, Saxon and Hessian troops, narrowly defeats Ney at the Battle of Saint-Dié.
Hoche begins his celebrated campaign against the Austrians and Sardinians in Piedmont. He divides his forces in order to meet two Austrian armies, the northern one at Omegna under József Alvinczi and the southern under Paul Davidovich.
The Royal Swedish Navy under Admiral Carl August Ehrensvärd blockades Klaipeda and attempts to burn the Lithuanian fleet in harbour. However, the Lithuanian commander, Admiral Vatsunyas Radziwiłł, sacrifices his galleys in order to punch a hole in the Swedish line and allow his sail fleet to escape.
The Polish rebels convene a Sejm and elect John George V of Saxony as King of Poland. John George accepts and declares war on Prussia, withdrawing Saxon troops from the pan-German Austrian war effort in order to accomplish this. Ironically, as the Prussian and Saxon troops do not know for which reason they have been recalled, they often bivouac with each other on the way back across Germany. This begins a domino effect of German states recalling their troops, fearful of their neighbours possessing functional armies, fatally weakening Germany in the face of French aggression.
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 Samogita, 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 in
flame 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 A
dmiral 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 Rosscommon 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.