Mayence was, during the first six months of this year, besieged by the main body of the Prussian army under the command of Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick. The Austrians, when on their way past Mayence to Valenciennes with a quantity of heavy artillery destined for the reduction of the latter place (which they afterward compelled to do homage to the emperor), refusing the request of the king of Prussia for its use _en passant_ for the reduction of Mayence, greatly displeased that monarch, who clearly perceived the common intention of England and Austria to conquer the north of France to the exclusion of Prussia, and consequently revenged himself by privately partitioning Poland with Russia, and refusing his assistance to General Wurmser in the Vosges country. The dissensions between the allies again rendered their successes null. The Prussians, after the conquest of Mayence, A.D. 1793, advanced and beat the fresh masses led against them by Moreau at Pirmasens, but Frederick William, disgusted with Austria and secretly far from disinclined to peace with France, quitted the army (which he maintained in the field, merely from motives of honor, but allowed to remain in a state of inactivity), in order to visit his newly acquired territory in Poland.
The gallant old Wurmser was a native of Alsace, where he had some property, and fought meritoriously for the German cause, while so many of his countrymen at that time ranged themselves on the side of the French.[5] His position on the celebrated Weissenburg line was, owing to the non-assistance of the Prussians, replete with danger, and he consequently endeavored to supply his want of strength by striking his opponents with terror. His Croats, the notorious _Rothmantler_, are charged with the commission of fearful deeds of cruelty. Owing to his system of paying a piece of gold for every Frenchman's head, they would rush, when no legitimate enemy could be encountered, into the first large village at hand, knock at the windows and strike off the heads of the inhabitants as they peeped out. The petty principalities on the German side of the Rhine also complained of the treatment they received from the Austrians. But how could it be otherwise? The empire slothfully cast the whole burden of the war upon Austria. Many of the princes were terror-stricken by the French, while others meditated an alliance with that power, like that formerly concluded between them and Louis XIV. against the empire. Bavaria alone was, but with great difficulty, induced to furnish a contingent. The weak imperial free towns met with most unceremonious treatment at the hands of Austria. They were deprived of their artillery and treated with the utmost contempt. It often happened that the aristocratic magistracy, as, for instance, at Ulm, sided with the soldiery against the citizens. The slothful bishops and abbots of the empire were, on the other hand, treated with the utmost respect by the Catholic soldiery. The infringement of the law of nations by the arrest of Semonville, the French ambassador to Constantinople, and of Maret, the French ambassador to Naples, and the seizure of their papers on neutral ground, in the Valtelline, by Austria, created a far greater sensation.