Battle of Oberwald occurred on 13–14 August 1799 between French forces commanded by General of Division Jean Victor Tharreau and elements of Prince Rohan's corps in southern Switzerland.

[2] Within six months of signing the Treaty of Campo Formio (October 1797), the French Directory had established a new modus operandi to expand its area of influence.

In several of the Italian states that bordered on France, Switzerland, and Austria, they created the Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics, which included most of Genoa and much of the Savoyan territories.

These newly formed republics served multiple purposes: they were a nursery for soldiers to learn the craft of warfare; they functioned as a proving ground for military leadership, a continuation of what Ramsey Weston Phipps has called "The School for Marshals";[3] and, finally, they gave France a formidable strategic position with friendly buffer states that stretched from the Adriatic to the North Sea.

It received such a storm of musketry and canister fire at the foot of the entrenchments that it began to waver; at this point, a well-sustained fusilade from the crest of the mountains showered the insurgents' flanks.

While he was reforming his troops, he offered the insurgents an olive branch: if they would lay down their arms and return to their homes, he promised an amnesty for the past.

A number of the insurgents did submit, but many withdrew to Lax where, reinforced by a couple of Austrian battalions, they rejected all offers of amnesty and placed their reliance on nature's formidable position.

He established his headquarters at Brig, from which he could control the passes at Great St. Bernard and Simplon and access to northern Italy, and awaited his instructions from Massena.

[6] After the Swiss uprisings of 1798, the Austrians had stationed troops in the Grisons, at the request of the Canton, which had not joined the new Helvetic Republic under the protection of the French Directory.

However, in May, the French returned in greater numbers; Charles Xaintrailles, circling south of Massena's main force at the Reuss headwaters at Hospental, had been directed to attack and subdue the rebellions in the St. Valais.

Although Russian and Austrians occupied Zurich, the headquarters of the Allies, the French evacuated Schwyz and assumed positions on the frontiers of Zug by Arth.

[9] After routing the Austrians and Valaisians from the field in early June, Xaintrailles concluded that he did not have sufficient troops to pursue Strauch into the mountains.

[10] The Aulic Council, in its wisdom, ordered Archduke Charles to move most of his force into Swabia, to continue his operations on the north side of the Rhine and Massena attacked the Russians in Zurich who, weakened by the losses of the Austrian troops and poorly commanded, lost the city to him in September 1799.