  |
|
|
|
The people of Liechtenstein were to once again suffer the cruelties of war when the Directory - Napoleon was not yet Emperor - ordered its army to take the offensive early in 1799. In the first week of March 1799, the French under Messena crossed the Rhine near Bendern heading north to the Eschnerberg just south of Feldkirch. Oudinot stormed the Luziensteig scattering the Austrians in three days of hard fighting. Other French forces crossed the frontier at Strassburg and Basel. By nightfall of March 6th 1799 the French have reached and occupied the Schellenberg. They stationed their cannons on the Gantenstein to fire at the fortifications outside Feldkirch. The Rhine Valley south in Liechtenstein was in the hands of the French. On March 7, outnumbered Austrian troops tried to drive the French from their newly won positions, but the attack from four sides failed putting the Austrians on the defensive. The hard-pressed Austrians were only saved by a heavy snowfall that forced the French to seemingly hold up and seek warm dry shelter. Then around noon, as the Austrians were pulling falling back on Feldkirch, the French attacked their flank taking 675 Croatian troops prisoner. The French attacked again this time at the Mauser Wiese, a meadow in the flat Rhine Valley south of Feldkirch, driving the Austrians back and advancing as far as the Letzebühel, a hill just east of the road south to Liechtenstein. In order to attack Feldkirch from the rear, the French moved towards Frastanz. Three companies of marksmen from the village of Montafon stopped them. A concentrated artillery barrage by the Austrians also stopped a French attack along the main road from Liechtenstein to Tisis. The French had reached the last entrenchment when their field commander, General Mueller, was fatally wounded. They fell and in disarray to the Principality's border and regrouped at their headquarters at Nendeln. The Austrians took advantage of the lull in battle to strengthen their defenses especially the Letzebühel front, a hill above the Tisis Road to Liechtenstein. They thought that the French would try a two-prong attack, one to the east towards Frastanz by way of the Letzebühel and the other along the Schellenberg to the Ill River. The Letzebühel was the site of an important battle with the Swiss in 1499 during the Appenzeller War. On March 9, The Austrian moved troops to cover both their eastern and western fortifications. The French meanwhile drank, caroused and plundered the land under their control including Liechtenstein. They smash furniture, kill livestock or chopped their feet off and abused the local people. They demanded money and wine from the inhabitants threatening death if they did not get it. Four farmers were shot at Murren while many were wounded. Women were raped. It was reported that they nailed an old man to a barn door in Eschen. Whether the atrocities were true or not, the Austrian defenders, when they heard of them, vowed revenge and declared that no Frenchman would set foot in the Vorarlberg.
The copyright of the article The French Invasion of Liechtenstein Part Two in Liechtenstein is owned by James Foster Robinson. Permission to republish The French Invasion of Liechtenstein Part Two in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
|
|
|
|
