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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
On 6 December 1800, a courier galloped through the gates of Vienna, rushed to the Hofburg, the winter palace of the Habsburgs, and presented to Emperor Francis II a bitter message from Archduke John, the emperor's brother and commander of the Austrian armed forces in Germany. The message read that three days earlier the archduke's troops had engaged the French army under Jean Moreau at Hohenlinden, had suffered serious losses, and were falling back to Salzburg with the officers struggling to maintain order in the ranks while they did so. The news was a crushing blow to Francis. In 1799 the Austrians had begun the War of the Second Coalition with high hopes of reversing the years of defeat at the hands of Revolutionary France. Russia and Britain had agreed to cooperate closely with Austria; France seemed weaker than ever domestically; and Napoleon Bonaparte, who had caused Vienna such grief in 1797, was far away in Egypt trying to inflict damage upon the British Empire. But these hopes turned to ashes. Russia abandoned the Coalition after its army suffered serious losses in Switzerland—indeed, in their wake the Russian ruler, Tsar Paul, had thundered so vehemently against what he saw as Austrian treachery that he had broken relations with Vienna—; Britain had been able to provide much needed funds but not more-needed soldiers; and Bonaparte had returned to work his magic on both the French army and the French people. The result was Hohenlinden, Austrian defeat, and in February 1800 the Treaty of Lunéville that ceded to France primary influence in Germany and Italy.
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6. Francis II to Colloredo, 18 Sept. 1801, Vienna, Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Staatskanzlei, Vorträge, Karton 162 (henceforth referred to as Vienna, HHSA, SK).
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31. Paget to Hawkesbury, 21 Jan. 1803, London, Public Record Office, FO7, 67.
32. Cobenzl to Colloredo, 22 May 1803, Vienna, HHSA, Grosse Korrespondenz, 461.
33. Ibid.
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36. Cobenzl to Colloredo, 27 June 1802, Ibid., 458.
37. Cobenzl to Colloredo, 13 July 1805, Ibid., 467.
38. The French ambassador noted that Francis preferred to live in “domestic obscurity” rather than face the major issues of his own reign. Jean-Baptiste Champagny to Talleyrand, 11 Nov. 1803, Paris, Archives du ministère des affairs étrangères, correspondances politiques, Autriche, 374.
39. Cobenzl to Colloredo, 25 July 1805, Vienna, HHSA, Grosse Korrespondenz, 467.
40. Cobenzl to Colloredo, 17 Aug. 1802, Ibid., 459.
41. Cobenzl to Colloredo, 22 May 1803, Ibid., 461.
42. Cobenzl to Colloredo, 1 Sept. 1803, in Fournier, Gentz und Cobenzl, 81–82.
43. Cobenzl to Colloredo, 21 Jan. 1804, Ibid., 86.
44. Colloredo to Cobenzl, 20 Nov. 1803, Vienna, HHSA, Grosse Korrespondenz, 453.
45. Cobenzl to Colloredo, 30 July 1805, Ibid., 455.
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