Limmat crossing of the French in 1799
On September 25, 1799 Dietikon was at the center of the second coalition war for a moment . With the Limmat crossing, General André Masséna created the conditions for the victory of the French over the Austrians and Russians in the second battle of Zurich . This article describes the preparatory work and the Limmat crossing near Dietikon on September 25, 1799.
The French preparations
The French preparatory work for the Limmat crossing took about three weeks. The French intended to use a pontoon bridge consisting of 16 boats , which previously led over the Reuss in Rottenschwil . In order to bring the own advance troops across the Limmat right at the beginning of the fight , 37 boats of various sizes were also organized. The boats had the following origins:
- 12 smaller boats from Lake Zurich
- 10 small wooden pontoons from the Zurich pontooners
- 15 ships from other Swiss lakes
With the 37 boats it was possible to transport a total of 900 men at once. In order to keep the preparatory work secret as long as possible, the main preparations were carried out in Brugg (collecting vehicles and pioneers, as well as building rafts). One of the main difficulties was to get the material overland to Dietikon. Since the 37 boats could not be carried from Brugg up the Reuss to Bremgarten , they had to be transported by land. The pontoon bridge in Rottenschwil remained in place and was only brought down the river to Bremgarten the day before the crossing. On the same day, the 24 vehicles assembled in Brugg were brought to Dietikon. The transport of the 53 pontoons and boats from Bremgarten to Dietikon was a difficult task because of the Mutschellen in between and the poor road. In addition, the French lacked the necessary cars. The French therefore transported the material in several transports out of sight of the enemy. Transport was carried out at night within sight. In Dietikon, most of the boats first had to be restored as they were damaged on the way. On the evening of September 23, the Rottenschwil bridge, which - in order not to arouse suspicion - wanted to leave standing as long as possible, was demolished and brought to Dietikon via Bremgarten within 24 hours. By the evening of September 24th, all preparations for the transition were completed. The French hid the boats in Dietikon im Guggenbühl about 700 m from the point where the embarkation and the later bridge building were to take place. The place was chosen so that the Russian guards' view of the boats was blocked by fences and cops. Since the landing site on the opposite bank was occupied by enemy infantry, horses could not bring the boats to the bank. The enemy fire would have caused too much confusion among the animals. Brigadier Dedon therefore suggested that the boats and equipment should be carried to the crossing point by infantrymen and that the pontoons should remain at Dietikon until the vanguard on the right bank of the Limmat had a firm footing.
The boats were divided into three sections according to their size:
- on the right flank the lightest boats with the first division of the advance guard
- the second division on the left flank, which should occupy the small islet opposite Dietikon
- in the middle the heaviest boats
Each boat had a specific number and a precisely calculated number of assigned pontooners. They were on alert, oar in hand, waiting for orders to lower the boats into the water. All the preparatory work was carried out so carefully under Brigadier Dedon that the Russian posts were unaware of the French intentions, which was the major part of the subsequent French success. At nightfall, the troops, under the command of division general Lorge, gathered at the crossing point ( Schäflibach estuary ). The French artillery positioned itself to the left and right of Dietikon in order to be able to fire a crossfire on the right bank of the river. Another battery of larger-caliber guns was posted on a hill below Oetwil an der Limmat . Their task was to fire on the road on the right bank of the river from Würenlos to Fahr Monastery , which was occupied by Russian detachments. At the same time, a French mock attack was staged near Turgi / Vogelsang .
Choice of the transition point at Dietikon
At Dietikon, the course of the Limmat forms a semicircle (tendon about 1500 m), so that the French gun batteries, which were set up on the raised left bank, could completely cover the lower opposite bank through a crossfire. The width of the Limmat at that time was about 72 m. The course of the water was less rapid at this point than at other places. On the right bank there was dense wood ( Schanzen and Glanzenberg ). Behind the Niederholz there was a flat, open meadow (Hard) and then a rising spruce forest (Fahrweid, Niderholz and Chlosterwald).
Line up of the Russians
The transition point near Dietikon was described in the instructions of the Russian General Sacken as one of the most convenient for the enemy, which is why one from a Treublut grenadier battalion (in Holzzelg) with 608 men and an Ural Cossack regiment Misinow (in Rüti) with 286 Man and two guns.
These troops, however, were standing on the heights behind the forest at a distance of a good quarter of an hour from the crossing point. The bank itself was only manned by an ordinary infantry outpost chain. The next neighboring post was on the right in the village of Oetwil, almost an hour away, where two companies of musketeers (362 men) from the Markow Regiment were under the command of Major Baumgartner. Further east near Würenlos, General Markow himself stood with one and a half battalions (1,085 men) and two guns. He was standing a few thousand paces from the farthest point of the river. In Wipkingen , about two hours from the monastery driving away was a dragoon regiment . In this way the French advance troops did not have to fear strong resistance at the beginning of their Limmat crossing; the whole area in front of the forest could be completely cleared by the crossfire of two batteries. The Russians had an advantageous position only in the forest (Hard) itself and on the slopes (Werd) of the banks of the heights at Fahr Monastery.
Line up of the French
General André Masséna ordered the 5th division of Lorges and half of the Ménard division, a total of 15,000 men, to cross the Limmat in the Dietikon area of Zurich. Their task was to defeat all Russian troops that opposed on the right bank of the Limmat and to advance as far as Zurich. The artillery of Lorges division was positioned on the banks so that they could fire the area enclosed by the river. The other half of the Ménard division was supposed to build a bridge in the Brugg area. The Klein and Mortier divisions, 18,000 strong, were supposed to oppose the main force of Korsakoff standing in front of Zurich, either to repel an attack or to attack themselves. From these orders it can be concluded that the French expected an attack of 1,500 men (three battalions) about half an hour after embarking their vanguard.
The translation of the French on September 25, 1799
A dark, foggy night favored the French company on September 25th. Before daybreak, the pontooners began to move the boats to the bank with the help of 3,000 infantrymen. At 4:45 a.m., the smaller boats were lowered into the water at a signal, whereupon the head of the French vanguard under the command of Brigadier General Gazan began to cross the river. The Russian chain of outposts guarding the right bank opened small-gun fire; However, 26 French guns responded from the batteries on the opposite bank, forcing the Russian outposts to retreat from the river towards the forest. From the first embarkation a third went to the island occupied by the Russians below the bridge point, the other two thirds, 600 men strong, sailed over to the other bank, which they reached after three minutes. The 600 French jumped ashore, did not let the rest of the Russian guards rest and pushed them back to the edge of the forest. It was only here that the French were received by fire from the two Russian guns. At the first noise the Russian battery directed its fire towards the crossing area. Not a single one of the boats was damaged, however, and not a soldier drowned. The first disembarkation of the French found no resistance on the bank itself and advanced with the beat of drums, whereupon the French fire from the left bank fell silent and the disembarkation of the following troops was only accelerated. When the first boats had crossed the Limmat, the success was certain enough to start building the bridge. The pontoon train that was near Dietikon trotted up quickly and began building the bridge at 5 a.m. The whole Treublut Grenadier Battalion now hurried to his outpost to help, whereupon an infantry battle began.
Meanwhile the French continued their crossing on boats; their numbers grew rapidly on the right bank of the river. During this initially unsuccessful battle, the French always transferred new troops. Since each transport with embarkation and disembarkation needed about 10 minutes, they had 6,000 men across the Limmat after an hour. The weak sentry that defended the forest was soon no longer able to hold out when General Markow himself came to the battlefield from Würenlos. After him some companies from Oetwil and Würenlos also arrived. The Russians fought like desperate people. The French, however, were superior in strength. The republican troops penetrated the forest, surrounded the weak Russian detachment on both flanks, and took down most of them. General Markoff, badly wounded at the beginning of the fight, fell into the hands of the enemy; Major Baumgarten struck the same lot as some officers; only a few managed to evade annihilation. At 8 a.m. the bridge was completed. At that time, 8,000 men were already on the right bank due to the overshooting. The other 7,000 men followed and around 9 a.m. the whole corps was in battle order at the Fahr Monastery on the right bank.
General Masséna, who was himself present at the transition, entrusted the leadership of this corps to his chief of the General Staff, General Charles Nicolas Oudinot, and hurried to Altstetten and the Sihlfeld . While 15,000 men passed over at Dietikon between 5 and 9 a.m. and destroyed the von Markow corps, General Ménard and the other brigade of his division carried out diversionary maneuvers above and below the influence of the Limmat in the Aare (Stilli and Vogelsang) . General Durassow was so confused that he marched with his main force to Freudenau. General Ménard succeeded in putting a small part of his troops across the Limmat and securing the right bank. This not only prevented Lieutenant General Durasov from coming to the aid of Major General Markov, from whom he was two to three hours away, but also neutralized him and his 6000 men for the whole of September 25th. The company's success exceeded even Masséna's expectations. The line of Russian posts was broken, and the entire right wing of the Russian Federation was cut off from the main power of Korsakov. The way into the rear of the Russians was completely open to the French. In order to take advantage of his position and to cut off Durasov's troops completely, Masséna had Bontemps's brigade advance against Dällikon and Regensdorf; to cover their left flank, he detached two battalions of the Quetard brigade to Würenlos, while the other part of this brigade remained to cover the bridge; all of Lorges' other troops advanced along the right bank of the Limmat towards Zurich. Masséna left the further measures on the right bank of the Limmat to the chief of his staff, Oudinot, and went to the 4th Division of Édouard Mortier , which at that time was already involved in a heated battle forward Zurich.
literature
- Colonel Miliutin: History of the war between Russia and France under the government of Paul I in 1799, Volume IV, Munich 1857
- The campaigns of 1799 in Italy and Switzerland, left behind by General Carl von Clausewitz, Vol. 5–6, by Ferdinand Dümmler, Berlin 1833–1834, (Ed. By Marie von Clausewitz).