Talk:Second Battle of Zurich

Zurich or Zürich
The standard spelling of Zürich in English is Zurich. It is not a translation of Zürich, if it was then the spelling would be Zuerich. I do not think that the Battle should be under the name Zürich any more than the name of Cologne should be in the English Wikipedis is Köln. PBS 14:00, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * While I agree with you, this is the third battle of Zurich, fought on Wikipedia. (Well, "battle" is a bit exaggerated... but see Talk:Zürich.) A lot of people believe that the article on Zurich should reside at Zürich, and are now trying to make sure that Wikipedia uses a consistent spelling thoughout. It may be annoying to you (or to me), but is not really worth fighting about as long as redirects are in place. Lupo 14:02, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The major reason for keeping the name is that it breaks searches and as most English keyboards do not have an umlaut keys it is a pain. PBS 14:19, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Searches will find the redirects. It's easy to type umlauts on Windows and Macintosh. What operating system are you using? Gdr 16:54, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)

Not the point, because you can not spend you time teaching everyone who uses a compuer how to do it when the English standard is Zurich. Why did you change it? PBS


 * For consistency with Zürich. Get consensus for a change to "Zurich" and I'll be happy to move these battles. Gdr 19:54, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)

6 years later the article Zürich has now been moved back to Zurich and because most reliable English language sources call this the second battle "Zurich" I am moving it back to its original name. -- PBS (talk) 18:18, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Hannibal comparison
Without getting into the question of whether Suvorov was "betrayed by the Austrians" (the statement is fairly accurate, although I would use "abandoned" rather than "betrayed"), I'll point out that the comparison to Hannibal isn't really accurate. A fair number of armies crossed the Alps between Hannibal and Suvorov&mdash;notably the French before the Battle of Marignano (and at several other points during the Italian Wars). —Kirill Lok s hin 16:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The statement that Suvorov was betrayed (or abandoned, which is means basically the same without supplying any new factual information) by the Austrians is plainly wrong. It is sufficient to say that no Austrians could abandon Suvorov because there were no Austrian troops moving alongside his forces.--Pecher 16:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I might be mistaken, but I vaguely recall that the Austrian command was responsible for supplying Suvorov's army while it was in the Alps; and that this support was discontinued after the battle (for fairly obvious reasons), prompting (at least in part) Suvorov's withdrawal. —Kirill Lok s hin 17:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Suvorov's article makes the same claim he was "betrayed" by the Austrians too. Which is reasonable, since they were notoriously unreliable allies. Of course his article also claims he was "one of a few great generals in history who never lost a battle.", which is clearly not the case. Masséna, perhaps with some help from the Austrians, DID defeat him here. I concur with Kirill, simply crossing the Alps does not warrant comparasions to Hannibal...it is what a commander does AFTER he make makes the crossing which proves him worthy or not :>--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 02:21, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It is a fact that Suvorov never lost a battle, even in spite of the Battle of Zurich and the overall Russian reversal in the Swiss campaign. It is most accurate to say that Suvorov, after forcing his way through southern Switzerland by defeating the French at the St. Gotthard Pass (Sept. 23-27), suddenly and unexpectedly found his position untenable due to developments beyond his control on other fronts. These developments were Korsakov's defeat at Zurich (Sept. 25-26), the defeat of Hotze's Austro-Russian force at the Linth River (Sept. 25-26), and the failure of the Austrian high command to supply him with promised reinforcements and supplies. At this point, isolated in central Switzerland without supplies and confronted with encirclement by Massena's overwhelmingly superior French army, Suvorov executed possibly his most brilliant career exploit by fighting his way to the safety of southern Germany. Suvorov's victories in this campaign -- all over different segments of Massena's army -- were at Muottental and Klontel (Sept. 30 - Oct.1); Netstall and Nafels (Oct. 2); and at Schwanden (Oct. 5). All of these victories were won by Suvorov in spite of being heavily outnumbered by the opposing French forces, and they were accompanied by skillful manuevering which confused Massena. Three quarters of Suvorov's original force of 20,000 was thus led to safety, accompanied by 2,000 French prisoners. (See Digby Smith's "The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book" for my source of information.)—User:Kenmore Sept. 17, 2006


 * The Hannibal comparison, I think, shouldn't be there. Neither should "heroically". Preferably change "betrayed" to "abandoned". -- Миборовский U 08:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

numbers
The "Background" section says, "The coalition forces greatly outnumbered the French", but the infobox puts the French at 75,000, versus 60,000 for the coalition. --Delirium (talk) 00:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Grammar
Much of the article from the "Background" section on is incomprehensible. It looks like sentences have been scrambled and a lot of important words have gotten knocked out (particularly names). I would fix it but I'm not in a position to fill in the factual problems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.233.123.254 (talk • contribs) 16:56, 16 October 2012‎

Attribution for an edit on 12 September 2012

 * history of de:Zweite Schlacht von Zürich

This section is an attribution for an edit on 12 September 2012. The expansion that took place that day was a translation of the text in from the German Wikipedia article as of 3 September 2013, which was done without any attribution. This section meets the requirements of the plagiarism guideline and Copying within Wikipedia -- PBS (talk) 16:27, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

This edit by an IP address (187.15.36.228) on 12 September 2012 added about 8,000 bytes of information to this article. It was a reversal of a previous revet by me of text originally inserted on 3 September 2013. The text is a copy of the German version of this article from de:Zweite Schlacht von Zürich and run through Google translate. This shows up from a seletion of the text taken on 3 September and run through Google Translate:

Google Translate:

Wording in this English language article as of 12 September 2012

-- PBS (talk) 16:09, 26 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The second part of the article is still in a very bad shape. I think the tags shouldn't have been deleted. Moagim (talk) 21:18, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:First Battle of Zurich which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 15:45, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Numbers of Russian and Austrian troops involved in this battle
Where does the author get the figures of 44,000 Russians and 32,000 Austrians involved in this battle? I'm pretty certain those figures are vast exaggerations of the truth. Digby Smith cites far smaller totals in his works. According to Smith, Korsakov had roughly 20,000 Russian soldiers at his disposal when attacked by Massena. The Austrian contingent under Hotze, which was not at Zurich for the battle, numbered something between 10,000 and 20,000 according to Smith.

Truth be told, I doubt that a sizeable force of 44,000 men would even be entrusted to an untested general such as Rimsky-Korsakov. Perhaps the authors (and some generous assistants) should research this issue? As matters stand, the article greatly exaggerates the size and scope of this encounter.

Kenmore (talk) 01:01, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

The probable true numbers of forces in and around the Second Battle of Zurich
Here's some interesting data from The Free Dictionary by Farlex. The article is drawn directly from the old Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Swiss+Campaign+of+Suvorov+1799

According to this source - which corresponds with Digby Smith's figures - the following troop strengths existed at various points in Switzerland during the Second Battle of Zurich in 1799.

At Zurich: 24,000 Russians commanded by Rimsky-Korsakov opposed by 38,000 French commanded by Massena

At the Linth River: 10,500 Austrians commanded by Holtze opposed by 15,000 French commanded by Soult and Molitor

In the southern Alpine Passes: 21,000 Russians commanded by Suvorov opposed by 11,800 French commanded by LeCourbe

At other points in Switzerland: 5,000 Austrians near Sargans, commanded by Jelacic; 4,000 Austrians near Ilanz, commanded by Linken; 2,500 Austrians near Disentis, commanded by Aufenberg

In southern Switzerland: 11,500 Austrians commanded by Stauch, Rogan and Hadik opposed by 9,600 French commanded by Turreau

These figures, representing the opposing segments of the armies spread out all across Switzerland, amount to 73,600 French opposed to 78,500 Russians and Austrians. Thus, it seems that the authors of this article (and possible they sources they used) are mistaking the total number of French and Allied soldiers in Switzerland as the total troops present on the battlefield at Zurich. Obviously, that is a mistake.

In truth, the Second Battle of Zurich pitted 38,000 French under Massena against 24,000 Russians under Rimsky-Korsakov. Of course, the French routed the Russians in a two day battle, costing Rimsky-Korsakov as much as one third of his force. Immediately afterwards, without wasting a day, Massena linked his force with that of Soult and Molitor. Consequently, Holtze's 10,500 Austrians were overwhelmed and shattered at the Battle of Linth River. These two defeats meant that Suvorov's ultimate goal of unifying with Rimsky-Korsakov and Holtze near Zurich was destroyed. As a result, Suvorov had no option but to abandon the Swiss campaign and fight his way through the masses of victorious French, ultimately leading his Russian force to safety in southern Germany.

In light of this information, I have three suggestions:

1) Research and confirm the true number of French and Russian forces present for the Second Battle of Zurich. Consult Digby Smith's works in particular.

2) Change the total troop figures for the Second Battle of Zurich to correspond with the true numbers present.

3) Possibly remove the segment of the Zurich article which treats the Battle of Linthe River as a portion of the Second Battle of Zurich. Perhaps it is more appropriate to treat each action is a separate battle.

Kenmore (talk) 02:05, 13 June 2021 (UTC)