The Afternoon on the Kahlenberg

All reports agree that, on this day of blistering sunshine, there was a pause in the fighting at noon. It was a pause to recover breath, but the allied commanders were also determined not to weaken their position by pressing too far forward on their left before the right wing had begun to put pressure on the Ottoman defence. Concealed by the folding of the ground, and the thickness of woods, the pace of the Polish advance was difficult to estimate; it certainly appeared somewhat slow. But no one underestimated the importance of these troops, who were expected to come down the Alsbach, a tributary stream descending to the houses at Dornbach and ultimately to Hernals: a line of march which would bring the attack much closer to the main Turkish camp and to the Grand Vezir’s headquarters.

Some historians have blamed the Poles for their sluggishness, but it would be more helpful if evidence were found which explained why they were sluggish. Many Polish detachments were well behind the regiments of the left and centre already on the previous day, and can only have reached the upper ridges late in the evening, hungry and tired; there are no records which show how complete their preparations were during the night of 11th September. Even in the case of the German regiments put at John Sobieski’s disposal, it is known that they were in position on the Galitzinberg—well forward, and on the extreme right—by the time serious fighting began in this area, after midday; but it is not known whether they were already in position in the early hours of morning. Another possibility is that, when the council of war ended on the 11th Sobieski was by no means clear that the attack would begin at dawn, and therefore did not give positive instructions to his officers to make ready for action. The Turkish raids above Nussdorf, in conjunction with Lorraine’s purposeful itch to try and relieve Vienna without delay, altered the whole situation. But it took the King of Poland most of the morning, while fierce fighting continued on his left, to advance his right wing. He was already past his prime as an instinctive war-leader, a slow and very corpulent man who now lacked the energy to dominate a crisis on the battlefield; nor were the discipline and promptness of his aristocratic cavalry generals very marked, in spite of their many other military virtues.

Moreover, although it was a relatively simple matter to occupy the higher ground on both sides of the Alsbach, the descent of large numbers of men into the valley proved more arduous. Even then the greatest difficulty of all remained, to get them out of this narrow avenue of approach and reorganise them as a battle-formation, strong enough to meet a massive Turkish attack; the Turks were bound to try and interrupt and to crush the whole unwieldly manoeuvre. By one o’clock the Polish vanguard had reached Dornbach, where the woods and the slopes die away. They became visible to the forces anxiously waiting far away on their left. Shouts of joy and relief from the Germans saluted them, and dismayed the enemy. The heights on both sides of the Alsbach were in firm and friendly hands. From those on the left, the King himself directed operations, and he was in touch with the Franconian units and their leaders to his left. On the right Hetman Jablonowski commanded the Poles, some German infantry held the Galitzinberg, and a certain amount of support from artillery was assured. Fortunately the scattered Tartar forces still farther south were never a serious nuisance in this quarter. The future depended on the heroism and energy of the Polish centre under General Katski as it emerged from the narrower part of the Alsbach valley.

First of all select troops of volunteer hussars advanced. After a momentary success the Turks pushed them back, and then the conflict swayed uncertainly to and fro. It cannot be stated with any certainty whether the final result was determined by the steady refusal of these Poles on the lower ground to give up the costly struggle, or by the efforts of German foot soldiers coming down from the Galitzinberg, or by the extra forces which Sobieski threw in (aided by reinforcements of Austrian and Bavarian cavalry) from the heights on the left. After a fearful tussle the Turks gave way; their horsemen fled, and took shelter with the Turkish infantry and guns on a defensive position farther back. Sobieski now began to deploy his whole force on more level ground, having swung them slightly round so that they faced south-east. They were arranged in two lines, the intervals in the first being covered by contingents in the second. As before, Habsburg and Bavarian cavalry stood behind them on their immediate left. There were more Polish horsemen and dragoons on the right.

This achievement altered the whole face of the battle. The Polish wing of the army had caught up with the left and centre. It was a strong position, won after a hard-fought day. The great question, now, was whether to stop or to launch a further attack. Undoubtedly Lorraine himself wanted to press forward; and there is probably something in the famous story that when one experienced general, the Saxon commander Goltz, was asked for his opinion, he replied: ‘I am an old man, and I want comfortable quarters in Vienna tonight.’ Waldeck agreed. Sobieski agreed. They must have all based their hopes on signs of disorder and exhaustion in the enemy troops facing them. On one wing, the relieving army was two miles away from the walls of Vienna at their nearest point. On the other, it was a little more than two miles to Kara Mustafa’s headquarters in St Ulrich.

Preparations to mount an overwhelming attack were made along the whole front. At 3.20, in the fiercest heat of the afternoon the action began again on the left. The Turkish position here ran along the Vienna side of the Krottenbach (a stream reaching the Canal near Heiligenstadt) but soon turned to the south-west, where it faced first the centre of the Christian army, and then the Poles. The Turk’s resistance was ineffectual, and they soon began to withdraw rapidly to the left wing of Kara Mustafa’s defence. Some of the Habsburg troops at once made straight towards the nearest siegeworks of the city, others swung to the right. The same thing happened on the central part of the front: the Saxons, and then the troops of the Empire, pushed forward again—and swung to the right. The Poles had meanwhile thrown everything they had into their attack on the main armament of the Turks. For a short while the battle was doubtful; but the thrust of the Bavarian troops (under Degenfeld and Max Emmanuel himself), and then of other troops coming up from the more northerly sectors, weakened the flank of the Turkish position; the Poles finally plunged forward with their cavalry to sweep southwards. Here, other Turkish units made an obstinate stand; they had their backs to the River Wien, and when they finally gave way Kara Mustafa ran a real risk of being cut off by swift cavalry movements in his rear from any possible line of retreat. Meanwhile the bodyguards of the Grand Vezir resisted desperately when the Poles began to enter his great encampment from the west. On its northern side, Janissaries and other household troops were still fighting hard; the Franconians under Waldeck, and on his initiative, seem to have given Sobieski useful support in this final phase of the struggle. The total collapse of the Turks began, and when their soldiers still in the galleries and trenches in front of the Hofburg were instructed to come to the rescue of those in the camp, they fled. Kara Mustafa himself then retreated in perilous and disorderly haste, though he succeeded in taking with him the great Moslem standard, the Flag of the Prophet so vainly displayed on this bitter occasion, and the major part of his stock of money. Many other Turkish leaders and contingents had already left the battlefield several hours before; and so ended one of the most resounding of all Christian victories, and Ottoman defeats. By five-thirty the battle was over. Vienna was saved. The plundering began.

An Irish officer summarised the events of the day in his own terse way: ‘If the victory be not so complete as we promised ourselves it should, it proceeded only from the cowardice of our enemies, whom from morning till night we drove before us, beating them from post to post, without their having the courage to look us in the face, and that through several defiles, which had they any reasonable courage we could never have forced. The combat held longest where the King of Poland was, but that only added to his glory, he having beaten them with the loss of their cannon and their men; they have left us their whole camp in general, with their tents, bag and baggage, and time will tell us more particulars.’

Battle of Rivoli, (14-15 January 1797)

Napoleon at the Battle of Rivoli, by Philippoteaux (Galerie des Batailles, Palace of Versailles)

Fought on the hilly ground between Lake Garda and the Adige River, a dozen miles northwest of Verona, the Battle of Rivoli was Bonaparte’s most decisive victory in his first Italian campaign. The defeat at Rivoli led to the failure of the last Austrian attempt at relieving Mantua. After the capitulation of the fortress at the beginning of February 1797, Bonaparte could move his army to the Austrian borders, thus speeding up the chain of events leading to the end of the war in Italy and the Peace of Campo Formio.

After the Battle of Arcola in November 1796, both armies, tired, depleted, and worn to rags, would have welcomed a period of rest in winter quarters. Their hopes were to remain unfulfilled. After recent French defeat in Germany, the Directory looked toward peace and sent Minister Henri Clarke to Italy for armistice talks. Expecting Mantua to surrender very soon, Bonaparte opposed a cease-fire. It was the Aulic Council in Vienna, however, that entertained stronger reasons for reopening hostilities in Italy as soon as possible. The first was to make a new attempt at rescuing Mantua before lack of supplies and malarial disease forced Feldmarschall Dagobert Graf Würmser to capitulate. Political reasons were also at work. To the lower social classes supporting the ancien régime, the fall of Mantua would mean the final victory of the French Revolutionary cause in Italy. Moreover, the pope might be forced to consent to wage war against Revolutionary France by a new show of Austrian military enterprise. Such pressing needs led Vienna to send orders to the Austrian commander in Italy, Feldzeugmeister Joseph Alvinczy Freiherr von Berberek, for a new campaign that- rather unusually-was to begin in winter.

Beginning in December, a constant inflow of replacements started filling the gaps in the Austrian army. Admittedly, the quality of the new troops-recruits, Vienna volunteers, depot units-was on the average poor. By the new year, however, Alvinczy could field about 47,000 men for campaign service, the Mantua garrison (about 20,000) and some thousands for rear duties not included.

Once again, the Austrian plan to relieve Mantua, devised by the same Colonel Franz Weyrother later responsible for the plan at Austerlitz, provided for two separate lines of advance. A diversionary force, in two columns under Feldmarschalleutnant Adam Freiherr von Bajalich (6,000 men) and Feldmarschalleutnant Giovanni Marquis di Provera (9,000), would, respectively, push westward over the plain toward Verona and Legnago. By feinting operations on the Adige, they intended to draw Bonaparte’s attention. Despite the approaching winter, however, the main thrust was to be delivered from the Alps. Under the direct command of Alvinczy, about 28,000 men in six columns would move from Trento down the Adige valley and through the chain of mountains (collectively called Monte Baldo) between the Adige and Lake Garda. After breaking through the bottleneck at Rivoli, they would make for Mantua.

This plan apparently rested on some uncertain assumptions: (1) that a substantial part of Bonaparte’s army was south of the Po preparing to invade the Papal States; (2) that Bonaparte would mistake the diversionary force for the main army and would concentrate most French troops behind the Adige from Verona to Legnago; (3) that consequently only minor forces would be left at the strong defensive position of Rivoli in the upper Adige valley and, once attacked, they would not be able to receive immediate support; (4) that the Austrian columns could advance over mountain roads and tracks covered with snow in a coordinated way and with relatively small manpower consumption; and (5) that Würmser could actively cooperate by launching sorties from Mantua. None of these assumptions turned out to be valid.

The (French) Armée d’Italie had also received some replacements. Its general situation, however, did not look good. Besides the chronic lack of equipment and supplies, after nine months of campaigning Bonaparte had run short of capable generals and knew that the fighting quality of his troops was declining. The French deployment in January 1797 was as follows: General Pierre Augereau’s division (9,000 men) behind the Adige between Verona and Legnago; André Masséna’s (9,000) around Verona; Barthélemy Catherine Joubert’s (10,250) at Rivoli and on Monte Baldo; General Antoine Rey’s (4,100) at Brescia and along the western shore of the Garda; a reserve under General Claude Victor (2,400) at Castelnuovo and Villafranca; and General Thomas Alexandre Dumas’s and Claude Dallemagne’s blockading corps (10,200) around Mantua. To the south of the Po, there was only a small column under General Jean Lannes, with 2,000 French and several thousand Italian troops.

On 7 January Bonaparte left for Bologna, where three days later he received the news that Provera’s column had appeared before Legnago. He immediately ordered Lannes back to the Adige, and rushed to his headquarters at Roverbella, just north of Mantua, where he arrived probably early on the twelfth. As Alvinczy had hoped, by that time Bonaparte still believed that the main threat was on the lower Adige and thus made his dispositions accordingly. Later that day, however, he started receiving reports announcing that Joubert was under attack at La Corona, a steep defile on Monte Baldo, five miles north of Rivoli. To ascertain the real magnitude of this new threat, Bonaparte asked Joubert for more information. Early on the thirteenth, Joubert realized that he was facing a strong and determined army (actually, 28,000 men). While three of Alvinczy’s columns were marching down the valley roads along the Adige (Prince Reuss’s and Ocksay’s on the western, Vukassovich on the eastern bank), three other columns (Köblös’s, Lipthay’s, and Lusignan’s) trudged along the tracks of Monte Baldo covered with snow. Later in the afternoon, fearing being outflanked, Joubert withdrew to Rivoli.

By 3:00 P. M., thanks to Joubert’s reports, Bonaparte knew that the main attack was coming from the north. He reacted swiftly, rushing Masséna with three demi-brigades and some cavalry to Rivoli. Rey’s division was also ordered to move to Rivoli, a brigade under General Joachim Murat being ferried across Lake Garda.

At Rivoli, where now both Bonaparte and Alvinczy were expecting to fight a decisive battle, less than four miles separated the Adige from Lake Garda. Over this ground, a two-layer amphitheater facing the southern slopes of Monte Baldo formed one of the strongest defensive positions anywhere in the Italian Alps. The village of Rivoli lay (and still lies) in the center of this hilly semicircle that stretches to the north, the west, and the south, with the steep bank of the Adige to the east. The outward and higher layer of the amphitheater has a diameter of about three miles, starting from the Chapel of San Marco to the north, and ending at Monte Pipolo to the south. A milewide plateau runs throughout its extension. Three villages, San Giovanni, Caprino, and Pesina (from east to west), are located on the plateau along the banks of a small stream called the Tasso. The inner layer has a diameter of a mile and a half.

A peculiar feature made Rivoli an excellent defensive position. While the defender could easily undertake operations with all three arms (infantry, cavalry, and artillery), a network of relatively good roads being available to approach the battlefield from the south, the attacker had no such facility, as the northern accesses from Monte Baldo, even in more favorable weather, were only practicable to infantry. This suggested that Alvinczy’s field artillery and cavalry should file along the roads on either side of the Adige. From the river valley bottom, the only exit to the Rivoli amphitheater was by the road on the western bank. It led to the Dogana Inn and the main village, after winding up to an inner plateau through a steep, narrow, and easily defensible defile.

By the evening of 13 January, Joubert had deployed his troops over a restricted area along the edges of the inner plateau, where they could take advantage of some entrenchments. Three Austrian columns (from east to west, under Ocksay, Köblös, and Lipthay, respectively) had encamped for the night on the heights north of the Tasso. Lusignan was farther to the west, with orders to make a long outflanking detour and reach the southern side of the amphitheater at Monte Pipolo, thus cutting off Joubert’s line of retreat and preventing Bonaparte from sending him support. Lusignan’s column was, however, considerably behind schedule because of the snow and the bad dirt tracks.

Bonaparte joined Joubert during the night, rushing ahead of Masséna’s troops. From Bonaparte’s recollections and most French sources, we learn that once on the spot he immediately recognized the enemy plan and took adequate countermeasures. As a matter of fact, later that night Joubert’s division advanced to regain control of the outward plateau south of the Tasso. In this sector, about 9,000 French were now facing 12,000 Austrians, the latter being short of artillery and rations.

Following the French advance, skirmishes broke out at daybreak on the fourteenth. The combat rapidly escalated along the line, ebbing and flowing, but with no decisive outcome. After a couple of hours, around 9:00 A. M., Lipthay managed to outflank the French left and routed two demi-brigades (the 29th and 85th). By that time, however, the awaited reinforcements appeared on the southern edge of the battlefield. Masséna brought the 32nd forward, and by 10:30 A. M. the French left was restored. Farther east, the 14th demi-brigade, under General Louis-Alexandre Berthier, were gallantly resisting Ocksay’s attack. Meanwhile, Prince Reuss’s column had started climbing up the road leading from the valley bottom to the inner plateau, receiving substantial support from the guns Vukassovich had deployed on the eastern bank of the Adige. On higher ground, the 39th demi-brigade put up fierce resistance against an enemy that was numerically superior, but was forced to advance uphill in long road columns. With great perseverance, Reuss’s troops eventually succeeded in pushing the French out of their entrenchments and started streaming over the inner plateau.

The prospect of a junction between the column from the Adige and those coming down the ridge posed a serious threat to the French right flank and rear. Joubert and Berthier set to work, however, to rally their men for a counterattack against Reuss. Meanwhile, about 250 cavalry under generals Charles-Victor Leclerc and Antoine Lasalle charged the troops under Köblös and Ocksay, which after hours of fighting lay scattered on the plateau. Some Austrian units apparently panicked and started retreating, partly uphill, partly down the road to the Adige valley bottom, the latter causing some disorder in Reuss’s tightly packed column. It is believed that at this crucial point two Austrian ammunition wagons exploded, thus spreading further chaos among the infantry ranks. Certainly it is a fact that most of Reuss’s units broke and fled down the road to the Adige. With effective cavalry and artillery support, Joubert and Masséna moved forward again and took definitive control of the outward plateau and the villages, repulsing the Austrians toward Monte Baldo.

As the main action was being fought, around 11:00 A. M. Lusignan’s column appeared on Monte Pipolo, at the southern edge of the amphitheater. It was, however, too late for Lusignan’s force to influence the battle’s outcome. Even worse, he found himself trapped between the French army at Rivoli and the reinforcements approaching from the south. Attacked from many sides, Lusignan’s men retreated in great disorder, leaving hundreds of prisoners behind. By late afternoon, the Battle of Rivoli was over and Alvinczy’s army in full retreat.

Bonaparte did not sleep on the battlefield. Being informed that Provera was now in sight of Mantua, he entrusted Joubert with the pursuit of the Austrian army (which Bonaparte’s subordinate duly embarked on, clashing again with Alvinczy on the fifteenth) and then himself rushed with Masséna’s and Victor’s divisions to face the new threat. Austrian losses at the Battle of Rivoli and in the following pursuit are estimated at 14,000 dead, wounded, stragglers, and prisoners. The French had 5,000 losses. On this figure, however, sources are obscure, as usual.

At Rivoli Bonaparte showed most of his superior military skills at their best. The concentration of his army at Rivoli was executed at an exceptional speed, the night march of Masséna’s division being one of the keys to victory. During the battle, Bonaparte succeeded in always keeping his numerically inferior army concentrated in a central position. He was, moreover, also favored by the excellent defensive ground, some faulty assumptions made by his opponents, the poor general quality of the Austrian army, and the lack of coordination between Alvinczy and his subordinates.

Had Provera succeeded in arriving at Mantua on 13 January, he would have forced Bonaparte to choose between two alternatives: to rush in support of Joubert, thus risking Mantua being rescued; or to reinforce the French forces around the fortress, thus abandoning Joubert to his fate. In either case, the outcome of the campaign would have not been the same.

References and further reading Boycott-Brown, Martin. 2001. The Road to Rivoli: Napoleon’s First Campaign. London: Cassell. Esposito, Vincent J., and John R. Elting. 1999. A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars. London: Greenhill.

PINKIE

10 September 1547

In 1543 Henry VIII arranged a marriage between the infant Mary Queen of Scots and his six year son Edward, the Prince of Wales. He was enraged when the Scots repudiated the betrothal.

The resultant series of punitive expeditions intended to restore the hand of Mary to the young English Prince were known as the 'rough wooing'. On Henry VIII's death in January 1547 his son became Edward VI. As the new King was still only nine years old the 'rough wooing' was resumed on his behalf by the new Protector of the Realm, the Duke of Somerset. On 1 September 1547 Somerset crossed the border into Scotland with 80 cannons, 8,000 foot and 4,000 cavalry (including a contingent of Spanish horse). He was supported off the coast by the English fleet, commanded by Lord Clinton. 

In response to the English threat, the Earl of Arran, Mary's Regent, summoned every Scottish man between the ages of sixteen and sixty to assemble at Edinburgh with one month's food. Though woefully short of artillery and cavalry, the resultant army of about 25,000 men was deployed on high ground behind the River Esk. To their right was a marsh and to their left the sea. On the seaward side they had also erected an earth bank to protect themselves from the cannons of English ships. The Duke of Somerset arrived to find himself outnumbered almost 2: 1. Reluctant to mount a frontal assault on the formidable Scottish defences, he stalled for time. 

On 9 September the Earl of Arran rashly advanced his 1,500 cavalry in order to lure the English to attack. Tragically for the Scots, this bait worked only too well. In a relatively short space of time the English horse, under Lord Grey, effectively destroyed the Scottish cavalry as a fighting force.

On the morning of 10 September 1547 the English army began a slow advance, dragging their heavy cannons over the rough ground towards the river. The Scots responded by abandoning their impregnable position in order to launch an attack of their own. Somerset could hardly believe his luck. On open ground his strength in artillery and cavalry could be deployed to the best advantage.

Three Scottish pike divisions led by the Earls of Arran, Huntly and Angus crossed the river and crowded in upon each other until they formed one vast pike block. It was an imposing sight, but the flanks of this formation were very vulnerable. The Earl of Argyll's Highland division, which should have comprised the left wing, had been driven off by the guns of Clinton's fleet offshore. On the other side the battered remnants of the Scottish cavalry formed a thin right wing. 

As the English horse charged towards them, the Scots adopted the defensive schiltron formation in which the mass of pike points bristled like' ... the skin of an angry hedgehog'. Grey's cavalry floundered into a ditch, struggled free and came gamely on to hurl themselves against the Scottish pikes. Not surprisingly the schiltron proved impervious. Providing the Scots kept close together, their pikemen were more than able to hold the English cavalry at bay. In the pandemonium that followed, men and horses were disembowelled and Grey himself was struck through the mouth by a pike point.

Then, at last, the English cannon began to pound, wreaking bloody havoc among the dense mass of the Scottish formations. Packed together like sardines, whole lanes of pikemen were gored and dismembered by flying round shot. While the Scots were still reeling beneath this onslaught, Pedro de Gamboa's contingent of Spanish cavalry sallied forth to demonstrate state-of-the-art European tactics; firing their arquebuses from the saddle. English arquebusers and archers rushed forward on foot to add a few volleys of their own. Finally, as sheets of rain began to sweep in from the sea, the persistent English cavalry rallied for another charge. 

The Scots attempted an orderly withdrawal. However, with visibility reduced by smoke and rain, and shouted commands drowned out by the din of battle, panic swept the ranks and the army disintegrated and fled, with the English horse in triumphant pursuit. 

Surprisingly, for all the blood spilled in the 'rough wooing', Somerset failed to consolidate his victory by taking possession of Mary Queen of Scots. The planned matrimonial union of England and Scotland never took place. It was not Mary, but her son James Stuart, who was one day destined to wear the English crown.

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BARREN HILL, PENNSYLVANIA.

Lafayette fighting for American Indepedence

For a foreign volunteer, Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, enjoyed extraordinarily rapid advancement in the American military establishment after arriving in America in June 1777. In mid-August the commander in chief, George Washington, could neither spell nor correctly pronounce his aristocratic name. Barely more than a month later, after Lafayette had performed bravely and resourcefully at Brandywine, an admiring Washington began drawing him into his inner circle of aides. The wounded Lafayette rehabilitated his leg in a hospital at Bethlehem and rejoined the Continental army in December. During the early part of the winter at Valley Forge in 1777–1778, Lafayette remained staunchly loyal to Washington through the weeks of institutional intrigue and personal recrimination within the Continental establishment that some historians have mislabeled the Conway Cabal.

What Lafayette did not receive from his commander and now his mentor—and which he wanted very badly both for reasons of personal honor and to gratify the yearnings of youth—was a field command leading troops in circumstances of combat or at least the potential for combat. The limited types of operational assignments available in the late fall and early winter, after Lafayette returned to camp and later at Valley Forge, involved small unit patrolling and skirmishing of a nature poorly suited to whatever military skills the marquis may have possessed. Washington preferred Lafayette’s presence at headquarters, and for the sake of his diplomatic value, he could not have afforded to have him killed or captured performing minor patrol duties.

In January 1778 the new Board of War, an administrative agency headed by Washington’s rival, General Horatio Gates, pushed through the Congress a plan for a Continental invasion of Canada. Perhaps seeking to buffer the plan politically with a nomination from Washington’s own suite, it recommended Lafayette to lead the expedition. Despite Lafayette’s hearty distrust of Washington’s adversaries, he could not resist this opportunity for action and glory, nor could Washington refuse his prote´ge´ the opportunity. To Lafayette’s great credit, when he reached Albany—the expedition’s departure point—in mid- February, he recognized the folly of the very idea of a midwinter invasion, and he was gratified when the project was abandoned. Then he returned to Valley Forge, where he continued to champion Washington’s interests and agenda.

DEFENDING THE PHILADELPHIA COUNTRYSIDE

Washington, meanwhile, found his tactical and strategic intentions for the winter increasingly pressured by events. Despite a preference of his generals to place the army in inland urban quarters for the winter, he had personally brokered the compromise decision for the army to remain in the field, in deference to the political sensibilities of the Revolutionary political bodies, especially the beleaguered state government of Pennsylvania. He arranged a division of responsibility for securing the Philadelphia countryside by which the Continental army assumed control of the territory west of the Schuylkill River to the Delaware River near Wilmington. The state government, meanwhile, promised to keep enough militia in the field to patrol the area east of the Schuylkill to the Delaware at Trenton, New Jersey. Even when the state’s ability to meet this manpower commitment faltered, Washington resisted pressures to fill the territorial gap by expanding the sphere of army responsibility. Only when bold British and partisan guerilla raiding east of the Schuylkill in February threatened the army’s supply line to the northern states during a severe provisions crisis did Washington reluctantly agree to make even modest increases in the small Continental security patrols already working east of the Schuylkill.

By the late spring, the complete collapse of American militia resistance and modest improvements in Continental strength and proficiency levels caused Washington to rethink this approach and to gradually increase the army’s involvement in Philadelphia and Bucks Counties. General Howe, meanwhile, took advantage of American tactical disabilities in the field to send increasingly aggressive patrols of British and partisan raiders into the area to attack both military and civilian targets. In mid-May 1778, after the announcement and celebration of the new American alliance with France and during the transition in command in Philadelphia from the retiring William Howe to his successor, Henry Clinton, the British sent a party up the Delaware to attack rebel nautical facilities at Bordentown, New Jersey, and Bristol, Pennsylvania. Extensive damage was done to civilian property and morale in that area, and predictable demands emerged from the Pennsylvania government for the army to respond to the crisis.

LAFAYETTE’S COMMAND

Washington ordered Continental troops patrolling near the Schuylkill under the command of Brigadier General William Maxwell to move north toward Trenton to respond to the incursion. This mission expansion tore the Continental grip loose from the Schuylkill River, leaving a gap in the army’s immediate security system near Valley Forge that could not be tolerated. On 18 May, Washington was finally able to gratify the thirst of the loyal and generally uncomplaining Lafayette for a field command. He ordered his protégé to lead an expedition of about twenty-two hundred troops across the Schuylkill to cover Maxwell’s previous positions. He reminded Lafayette of the large size and importance of his detachment and warned him to move warily and to avoid being engaged by a major enemy force or being cut off from a retreat to the west side of the river.

The British quickly discovered the inexperienced Lafayette’s presence in the area. They increased their routine patrols and intelligence activity to protect the meschianza, an elaborate festival that the officers planned to bid farewell to their departing commander, Howe. Late on the evening of 19 May, Clinton learned that Lafayette had taken a stationary post at Barren Hill, an elevated plateau just beyond Chestnut Hill, northwest of Germantown. Clinton sent a party of between five thousand and six thousand British regulars and Hessians under General James Grant to try to get beyond Lafayette’s position and between it and Valley Forge. Early the next morning, the superseded Howe was given the honor of leading the main body of the army up the Germantown Road with the intention of trapping Lafayette between Howe’s and Grant’s forces. General Charles Gray was sent with a party of troops to intercept any retreat to alternate Schuylkill fords.

Lafayette, who had with him a group of Indian scouts, was alerted to the maneuver. He notified Washington and quickly made arrangements to withdraw across the Schuylkill by the one still-unobstructed road to Matson’s Ford. Washington, mortified that his young aide had put him into this compromised position, prepared to lead most of the army to his rescue, risking the general action that he had carefully avoided for most of the previous year. Lafayette was accused by British sources of having ‘‘sacrific[ ed] his rear guard’’ in his haste to retreat, and several soldiers were indeed drowned, otherwise killed, or captured in or near the river. Most British and Hessian memoirists blamed Grant for moving too slowly and for hesitating to spring the trap that they believed he had it in his hands to close. For Howe, the event—supplemented with whispered criticisms for the excesses of the meschianza—punctuated the overall failure of his strategy to that point. From a strictly military point of view, Barren Hill was not an important or even a very memorable event. One would not be able to say that, however, if Lafayette, with nearly one-fifth of the Continental army, had been cut off and captured or if Washington had fought and lost an inadvisable general battle that day to rescue his spirited but headstrong aide.

Official American casualties were six men killed and about twelve captured. British losses in this action are not reliably known.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Gottschalk, Louis. Lafayette Joins the American Army. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937. Lengel, Edward G. General George Washington, A Military Life. New York: Random House, 2005. Taafe, Stephen. The Philadelphia Campaign, 1777–1778. Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 2003.