Canton of Léman

Much of the region that would become the Canton of Léman was conquered in 1538 by Bern and had been jointly administered by Bern and Fribourg for the following two and a half centuries. As the doctrines of the French Revolution spread, they found a warm reception from the citizens of the French-speaking towns around Lake Geneva (French: Lac Léman) which was known as Pays de Vaud. Following the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789, Frédéric-César de La Harpe (at that time the tutor to the children of Tsar Paul I of the Russian Empire) began to plot a Vaudois uprising from St. Petersburg. La Harpe was a republican idealist, seeing the rule of the Bernese administration as oligarchical, and as an infringement of the natural rights of the people of Vaud and the other subject states, such as Fribourg. In 1794 he returned to Switzerland and thence to Paris, where he and other exiles sought French assistance to release Vaud and Fribourg from Bern's domination.[1]

Frédéric-César de La Harpe

La Harpe published his Essay on the Constitution of the Vaud, an anti-Bernese tract. On 10 December 1797 he addressed the French Directory, stating that commitments made by the Duke of Savoy in treaties signed with Bern at Lausanne in 1564 were now the responsibility of the French and thus gave them the right to assist the people of Vaud against the Bernese. The French Directory, which was interested in acquiring Swiss money and the Swiss passes over the Alps, agreed with La Harpe's interpretation of the treaty.[1] In late 1797, the Directory ordered Bern to restore the Pays de Vaud region to its former independence.[2] The citizens of Pays de Vaud reacted to the French announcement with excitement and declared the creation of the Lémanic Republic. Bern, on the other hand, looked with dismay at these events, and in January 1798, sent Colonel Weiss with troops into the province. France replied by immediately sending portions of André Masséna's army under an officer named Mesnard from Italy to occupy the southern shore of Lake Geneva.[3]

As Mesnard marched into Vaud, Weiss retired to Yverdon without striking a blow. On 24 January 1798 at Lausanne, Mesnard proclaimed the independence of the Pays de Vaud and the Vaudois people under French protection. Mesnard dispatched an aide-de-camp with a message to Weiss, demanding that he leave Pays de Vaud. However, the messenger did not have the password and two of the hussars of the aide-de-camp's escort were shot by a Bernese outpost stationed a few miles from Yverdon. The shooting gave the French general an excuse to begin military operations against Bern outside the Pays de Vaud. He threatened the Bernese with resumed hostilities. Weiss, alarmed by his threats, evacuated the Pays de Vaud, although he had 20,000 men while the French had only 15,000. The French army, which had recently conquered Italy, was in a state of destitution and clothed in rags. The Swiss were ordered to reequip and support the allied army and were charged 700,000 francs for the services of the French army.[4]

The Bernese government called for military support from the other cantons of the Confederation and replaced Weiss with Erlach von Hindelbank, but the aristocrats of Bern quickly fell to squabbling among themselves. A majority in the Council was for negotiating peace, as well as awaiting the confederate reinforcements. In the hope of conciliating the French, they began to make some reforms in the government. However, their reforms only weakened confidence in the government and did not slow Mesnard's march. While the Bernese government opened negotiations with the Directory, a second army under Schauenburg was advancing from the north with 17,000 men detached from the army of the Rhine.[4]

With two armies in Switzerland, General Brune assumed command of the French army. He was instructed to play the part of a peace maker and to tie up the Bernese with negotiations until he could strike a decisive blow. By 1 February 1798, the Bernese Tagsatzung was too divided and dissolved itself.[3] Brune entered into a truce with the Swiss which would last until 1 March. However, the French demands were so excessive that even the peace party in the Bernese Council chose to prepare to fight the French. They refused the French demands and ordered von Hindelbank to take the field against them. However, the divisions within the Senate paralyzed all of von Hindelbank's operations.

Signs of insubordination appeared in his army; and although 5,000 or 6,000 Confederate troops arrived, they remained separate from the Bernese army and only formed a reserve. Meanwhile, the French rapidly advanced from both sides. By 2 March 1798, they occupied both Solothurn, north of Bern, and Fribourg to the south-west. On 5 March 1798, a Bernese army under von Grafenried achieved a decisive victory against the French at Neuenegg between Fribourg and Bern. However, on the same day, an army under the Schultheiss of Bern, von Steiger, and von Hindelbank was defeated by Schauenburg at Fraubrunnen.[5]

Their army was driven back to Grauholz, a few miles from Bern. A life-and-death struggle followed, with even women and children grabbing weapons and joining the battle.[3] The battle lasted for three hours with Schultheiss von Steiger rallying the Bernese lines. The French attacked four times and drove back the defenders on each attack. While the battle still raged, news came to the army that Bern had surrendered. Von Erlach and von Steiger fled to the Bernese Oberland, intending to rally their troops, but the troops, mad with the suspicion that the capitulation was the result of treason, murdered the former and Steiger escaped to Vienna.[3]

On 5 March 1798, the French entered Bern in triumph, with Brune keeping up strict discipline in his troops. While he had declared on 22 February that the French came as friends and bearers of freedom and would respect the property of the Swiss citizens, in Bern he emptied the treasuries and magazines. On 10 and 11 March he sent off eleven four-horse wagons full of booty, nineteen banners, and three bears (which they nicknamed respectively Erlach, Steiger, and Weiss).[3] They collected about 42 million francs worth of bullion, food, weapons and supplies, of which nearly 11 million consisted of money and bullion. Of this sum, three million francs in coins were sent directly from Bern to Toulon to aid Napoleon's expedition to Egypt.[5]