Preliminary peace of Leoben

Preliminary Peace of Leoben, painted by Guillaume Guillon-Lethière .

The Vorfriede (Präliminarfriede) of Leoben was a provisional agreement between France and Austria to end the hostilities between the two great powers in the First Coalition War (1792-1797) and to prepare a final peace. The preliminary peace of Leoben was signed on April 18, 1797 by General Napoleon Bonaparte and the Austrian General Merveldt. The agreement itself was only approved by the governments of France and Austria on May 4 and May 14, 1797 and ratified on May 24, 1797. The final peace of Campo Formio was not concluded until October 17, 1797.

prehistory

The cause of the Preliminary Peace of Leoben was Napoleon Bonaparte's triumphal march in Northern Italy during the First Coalition War . In the battles at Castiglione (August 5, 1796), Bassano (September 8, 1796), Arcole (November 15–17, 1796) and Rivoli (January 14–15, 1797), the French Italian army under the command of Napoleon was brilliant Won victories against Austria. They formed the prerequisite for the capture of the important Austrian fortress of Mantua by the troops of Bonaparte on February 2, 1797. The fall of the Austrian key fortress made it possible for Napoleon to bring about the decision of the Italian campaign in the Austrian hereditary lands . On March 16, 1797, Bonaparte's troops defeated the Austrians on the Livenza and Tagliamento . On April 2, 1797, the French made their breakthrough into the Pustertal and just five days later an advance guard of the French Italian army under General André Masséna advanced to Leoben in Upper Styria . On April 18, Napoleon entered Leoben with his main army. The French advance to Leoben, only four days' march from Vienna , the lack of further English aid and the withdrawal of a Russian auxiliary corps revealed the disastrous military situation in Austria and led to negotiations between the Vienna Hofburg and Napoleon at Schloss Göß ( Göß Abbey , the residence of the time of the Bishop of Leoben) near Leoben. The negotiations were not inconvenient for Napoleon either, because his army was threatened in the rear by the outbreak of an uprising in the Venetian region - namely in Verona on April 17, 1797 - as well as by some military progress made by the Austrians in Tyrol .

Contract signing

Eggenwald's summer house in Leoben

After Emperor Franz II and the Austrian State Chancellor Thugut consented to the cession of the Duchy of Milan, which Napoleon had vehemently demanded, on April 15, the Austrian negotiators in Leoben urged a swift conclusion of the negotiations, mainly because Napoleon granted Austria a treaty that was favorable in many respects . The arrival of General Henri Clarke , the actual authorized representative of the Directory for the preliminary peace negotiations, from whom harsher conditions for Austria were expected, threatened every hour at the place of negotiation . Even before Clarke's arrival, Napoleon Bonaparte signed the peace preliminaries for France and Major General Count von Merveldt and Marchese di Gallo for Austria on April 18, 1797 in the garden house of Josef von Eggenwald near Leoben .

Content of the contract

The preliminaries approved by the governments of France and Austria on May 4 and May 14, 1797 and ratified on May 24, 1797 included the agreement of a six-month armistice between Austria and France and a provisional agreement between the two great powers on various territorial issues in Belgium , France, Germany and Italy . In particular, it was agreed that Austria would cede the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) to the French Republic in the still-to-be-concluded final peace and transfer the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) to Lombardy (with Milan ) in favor of a newly formed Free State in northern Italy (later Cisalpine Republic ) against planned compensation will renounce the land area of the Republic of Venice between Oglio , Po and Adria together with Dalmatia and Istria (Article 6 of the non-secret agreement and Articles 1 and 8 of the secret agreement). The rest of the territory of the Republic of Venice on the Italian mainland, i.e. the area enclosed between the Adda , the Po, the Oglio, the Valtellina and Tyrol, should be given to the French Republic in favor of the newly formed Northern Italian Republic (i.e. in favor of the later Cisalpine Republic, the was not created until June 29, 1797) (Articles 2 and 8 of the Secret Articles). Likewise, the Duchy of Modena ruled by a relative of the emperor (together with Reggio and the Duchy of Massa and Carrara ) should fall to the newly formed Northern Italian (Cisalpine) Republic, the Duke of Modena should be compensated for it in some other way (Article 9 of the secret article). As compensation for the loss of its entire mainland territory, the Republic of Venice was to receive the papal legations Romagna , Bologna and Ferrara , which the Papal States had only ceded to France in the Tolentino Peace Treaty in February 1797 (Article 4 of the Leoben Secret Articles; to the cession the Republic of Venice did not come later). The fortress of Mantua, which was only taken by the French on February 2, 1797 after hard fighting, was to be returned to Austria or handed over to Austria (Article 6 of the secret articles) , along with the Venetian fortresses Palma-Nuova , Peschiera del Garda and Porto Legnano. It was also agreed that the French should evacuate the Austrian hereditary lands and give up hostilities against the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation (Articles 5 and 8 of the non-secret agreement). Then the definitive peace between France and Austria should be at a congress in Bern (Article 4 of the non-secret agreement), between France and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation at another congress in a German city “sur la base de l'intégrité de l 'Empire Germanique' (on the basis of the integrity of the German Reich) (Article 5 of the non-secret agreement). Incidentally, Emperor Francis II should recognize the borders of France as established by the laws of the French Republic (Article 6 of the non-secret agreement: “Reconnait les limites de la France décrétées par les loix de la République Française”).

Different interpretations of the contract

It was obvious that there was a clear contradiction between Articles 5 and 6 of the non-secret preliminaries, because at the time of the conclusion of the contract the legal limits of the Republic of France included, in addition to Belgium, the Liège Monastery , the Stablo and Malmedy Abbeys , the County of Ligne , numerous German imperial estates , as well as imperial areas in Alsace , Lorraine , Franche-Comté as well as in the French and adjacent Swiss Jura (the Principality of Salm-Salm in the Vosges, the counties of Saar Werden in Lorraine and Mömpelgard / Montbéliard in the Free County of Burgundy and large parts of it of the Hochstift Basel with the Elsgau / Ajoie ), so that there could be no question of an integrity (inviolability) of the Reich territory. Nevertheless, the Austrian plenipotentiaries, Marchese di Gallo and Major General Merveldt , signed the treaty negotiated primarily by Napoleon. After all, according to its wording, it contained France's renunciation of the important Hochstift areas of Mainz , Worms and Speyer on the left bank of the Rhine . The Austrian government, like the Prussian government, which learned of the signing of the treaty shortly afterwards, assumed that the areas on the left bank of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation would largely remain in the hands of the empire (on May 15, 1797, the Prussian ministry was of the opinion that the Leoben Treaty to return the entire left bank of the Rhine to the Reich "with the exception of the areas that have already been transformed into departments and a border line necessary for defense"). In Paris , however, the directors Paul de Barras , Jean François Reubell and Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux , who advocated a policy of enlarging the “natural frontiers” of France, aimed with the help of the flexible expression “legal limits” (Article 6 of the non-secret Contract) on the acquisition of all territories on the left bank of the Rhine. They found the provisional peace agreements far too favorable for Emperor Franz II and the idea of returning Mantua to Austria unbearable. In this respect it was difficult to win them over to confirm the preliminary peace concluded by Napoleon. In contrast to Barras, Reubell and La Révellière-Lépeaux, a minority in the highest French government body, namely the directors Lazare Nicolas Carnot and Étienne-François Le Tourneur , took a more moderate line towards the Vienna Hofburg and agreed that Emperor Franz II. not irritate with uncompromising behavior and the public opinion in France, which wanted peace soon, should no longer oppose. Nonetheless, Carnot was at least aware of the illusionist and naive notions of the Austrian government regarding the Leoben agreements. As early as the end of May 1797, Director Carnot said to the Prussian ambassador in Paris: “The Viennese cabinet probably overlooked the fact that by recognizing the constitutional borders it also approved the left bank of the Rhine [France]. Even Mainz could, strictly speaking, be included in these limits! ”It soon became apparent that neither General Bonaparte nor the Directory were inclined to adhere to individual parts of the agreements (integrity of the Reich territory and compensation for Venice), but that the Austrian government under Thugut also aimed to rework the preliminaries for further advantages for Austria (especially the demand for compensation for the Duke of Modena, Ercole III d'Este , who was related to Emperor Franz II , with the Romagna and Ferrara).

The final peace accords between France and Austria were made on October 17, 1797 in the Peace of Campo Formio .

literature

Günter Jontes: The preliminary peace of Leoben and the events of the first French invasion in Styria. Obersteirischer Kulturbund, Leoben 1997 ISBN 978-3-9500191-6-2

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history . People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 , pp. 56, 93, 199-200, 1053.
^ Karl Theodor Heigel: German history of the death of Friedrichs the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, p. 225.
^ Karl Theodor Heigel: German history of the death of Friedrichs the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, p. 231.
^ Karl Theodor Heigel: German history of the death of Friedrichs the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, p. 233.
^ Karl Theodor Heigel: German history of the death of Friedrichs the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, p. 233.
^ Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history. People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 , p. 727; Heinrich von Sybel: History of the Revolutionary Period 1789–1800, 7th volume, Stuttgart 1899, pp. 422–438.
^ The imperial state of Austria under the government of Emperor Franz I and the state administration of Prince Metternich. With special consideration of the life stories of the two, Hallberger'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1836, p. 182.
^ Heinrich von Sybel: History of the Revolutionary Time 1789-1800, 7th volume, Stuttgart 1899, pp. 430-433, 438. - Ferdinand Krauss: Die eherne Mark. A hike through the Styrian Oberland, vol. 1, Graz 1892, p. 359.
^ M. de Clercq: Recueil des Traités de la France, publié sous les auspices de MC de Feycinet, Président de Conseil, Ministre des Affaires Étrangères, Tome I (1718–1802), Paris 1880, pp. 319–322. - Heinrich von Sybel: History of the Revolutionary Period 1789–1800, 7th volume, Stuttgart 1899, pp. 290, 325, 430–436. - Karl Theodor Heigel: German story of the death of Friedrich the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, pp. 238-239, 241-242. - Napoleon's life. My first victories. Six volumes, 2nd volume, 2nd edition, Verlag Robert Lutz, Stuttgart 1910, pp. 180–181; Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history. People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 , p. 727.
^ Karl Theodor Heigel: German history of the death of Friedrichs the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, pp. 235-242. - The imperial state of Austria under the government of Emperor Franz I and the state administration of Prince Metternich. With special consideration for the life story of the two, Hallberger'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1836, pp. 183-184. - Heinrich von Sybel: History of the Revolutionary Period 1789–1800, 8th volume, Stuttgart 1899, pp. 33–38, 48–50; Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history. People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 , p. 727.

[1] Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history . People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 , pp. 56, 93, 199-200, 1053.

[2] Karl Theodor Heigel: German history of the death of Friedrichs the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, p. 225.

[3] Karl Theodor Heigel: German history of the death of Friedrichs the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, p. 231.

[4] Karl Theodor Heigel: German history of the death of Friedrichs the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, p. 233.

[5] Karl Theodor Heigel: German history of the death of Friedrichs the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, p. 233.

[6] Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history. People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 , p. 727; Heinrich von Sybel: History of the Revolutionary Period 1789–1800, 7th volume, Stuttgart 1899, pp. 422–438.

[7] The imperial state of Austria under the government of Emperor Franz I and the state administration of Prince Metternich. With special consideration of the life stories of the two, Hallberger'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1836, p. 182.

[8] Heinrich von Sybel: History of the Revolutionary Time 1789-1800, 7th volume, Stuttgart 1899, pp. 430-433, 438. - Ferdinand Krauss: Die eherne Mark. A hike through the Styrian Oberland, vol. 1, Graz 1892, p. 359.

[9] M. de Clercq: Recueil des Traités de la France, publié sous les auspices de MC de Feycinet, Président de Conseil, Ministre des Affaires Étrangères, Tome I (1718–1802), Paris 1880, pp. 319–322. - Heinrich von Sybel: History of the Revolutionary Period 1789–1800, 7th volume, Stuttgart 1899, pp. 290, 325, 430–436. - Karl Theodor Heigel: German story of the death of Friedrich the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, pp. 238-239, 241-242. - Napoleon's life. My first victories. Six volumes, 2nd volume, 2nd edition, Verlag Robert Lutz, Stuttgart 1910, pp. 180–181; Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history. People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 , p. 727.

[10] Karl Theodor Heigel: German history of the death of Friedrichs the Elder. Size to the dissolution of the old empire, second volume: From the campaign in the Champagne to the dissolution of the old empire (1792–1806), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1911, pp. 235-242. - The imperial state of Austria under the government of Emperor Franz I and the state administration of Prince Metternich. With special consideration for the life story of the two, Hallberger'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1836, pp. 183-184. - Heinrich von Sybel: History of the Revolutionary Period 1789–1800, 8th volume, Stuttgart 1899, pp. 33–38, 48–50; Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history. People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 , p. 727.