The Battle of Stockach occurred on 25 March 1799, when French and Austrian armies fought for control of the geographically strategic Hegau region in present-day Baden-Württemberg. In the broader military context, this battle constitutes a keystone in the first campaign in southwestern Germany during the Wars of the Second Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars.
It was the second battle between the French Army of the Danube, commanded by Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, and the Habsburg Army under Archduke Charles; the armies had met a few days earlier, 20–22 March, on the marshy fields southeast of Ostrach and the Pfullendorf heights. The Austrian Army's superior strength, almost three-to-one, forced the French to withdraw.
At Stockach, the French concentrated their forces into shorter lines, creating intense fighting conditions; initially, Charles's line was more extended, but he quickly pulled additional troops from his reserves to strengthen his front. When a small French force commanded by Dominique Vandamme nearly flanked the Austrian Army, Charles's personal intervention was crucial for the Austrians, buying time for reinforcements to arrive. General Jourdan, while trying to rally his men, was nearly trampled to death. Ultimately, the French were driven back upon the Rhine River.
Background
Although the First Coalition forces achieved several initial victories at Verdun, Kaiserslautern, Neerwinden, Mainz, Amberg and Würzburg, the efforts of Napoleon Bonaparte in northern Italy pushed Austrian forces back and resulted in the negotiation of the Peace of Leoben (17 April 1797) and the subsequent Treaty of Campo Formio (October 1797). This treaty proved difficult to administer. Austria was slow to give up some of the Venetian territories. A Congress convened at Rastatt for the purposes of deciding which southwestern German states would be mediatised to compensate the dynastic houses for territorial losses, but was unable to make any progress. Supported by French republican forces, Swiss insurgents staged several uprisings, ultimately causing the overthrow of the Swiss Confederation after 18 months of civil war.
By early 1799, the French Directory had become impatient with stalling tactics employed by Austria. The uprising in Naples raised further alarms, and recent gains in Switzerland suggested the timing was fortuitous to venture on another campaign in northern Italy and southwestern Germany.
Prelude to battle
As winter broke in 1799, on 1 March, General Jean Baptiste Jourdan and his army of 25,000, the so-called Army of Observation, crossed the Rhine between Basel and Kehl. This crossing officially violated the Treaty of Campo Formio. On 2 March, the Army was renamed Army of the Danube, upon orders of the French Directory.
The Army met little resistance as it advanced through the Black Forest in four columns, through the Höllental (Hölle valley), via Oberkirch, and Freudenstadt, and at the southern end of the forest, along the Rhine bank. Although prudent counsel might have advised Jourdan to establish a position on the eastern slope of the mountains, he did not; instead he pushed across the Danube plain, taking position between Rottweil and Tuttlingen.
The Austrian Army and Archduke Charles, its commander-in-chief, had wintered with his army in the Bavarian, Austrian, and Salzburg territories on the eastern side of the Lech; his force alone numbered close to 80,000 troops, and outnumbered the French force by three to one. An additional 26,000, commanded by Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze, guarded the Vorarlberg, and further south, another 46,000, under command of Count Heinrich von Bellegarde, formed the defense of the Tyrol. The Austrians had already reached an agreement with Tsar Paul of Russia by which the legendary Alexander Suvorov would leave retirement to assist Austria in Italy with another 60,000 troops.
Engagement at Ostrach
The Army of the Danube advanced on Pfullendorf and Ostrach, the former an imperial city in Upper (southern) Swabia, and the latter a nearby village of 300 belonging to the Imperial Abbey of Salem, an influential and wealthy ecclesiastical territory on Lake Constance. Jourdan's objective was simple and direct: cut the Austrian line at the border of the southwestern German states and Switzerland, preventing the Coalition's use of Switzerland as an overland route between central and southern Europe. Isolation of the two theaters would prevent the Austrians from assisting one another; furthermore, if the French held the interior passes in Switzerland, they could use these routes to move their own forces between the two theaters.