The Diplomat Murder Of Rastatt...


In 1799, four diplomats from the French Republic were in Rastatt, Baden, to negotiate with Austrian, Prussian and English diplomats about the elaboration of details resulting from the Peace of Campo Formio, which General Bonaparte gave to the Austrians after his victorious campaign in Italy in 1797 had dictated.

It is Antoine Bonnier d'Alco from Montpellier, President of the local court before the Revolution...



... the lawyer Jean Antoine Debry...



... the former priest Claude Roberjot...



... and the Secretary General of the delegation, Heinrich Karl Rosenstiel...:



It is a highly inopportune time to negotiate a two-year-old peace treaty, with renewed war brewing between France and Austria.

On March 10, the commander-in-chief of the Austrian army, Archduke Karl...



...all French diplomats to leave Germany. The fact that he has nothing to say in Germany, especially in Baden, doesn't bother him!

The Austrian envoy Franz Georg Karl Graf von Metternich-Winneburg...



...demonstratively leaves the conference on April 13th.

Via the Karlsruher Zeitung he spread: "Since the neutrality of the congress venue is now ending, the French ministers will probably not stay here much longer either."

In view of the escalating situation immediately before the so-called "Second Coalition War", the French would certainly have gladly left, but an urgent secret message from French Foreign Minister Talleyrand...



...order them to stay!

Instead of negotiating, they should now - as Talleyrand orders - "keep eyes and ears open", vulgo: spy - there are also Prussian, Baden and English diplomats in Ratstatt!

Four days later, the situation came to a head:

The Austrian Colonel von Barbaczy...



... moves into Rastatt with his 11th Szekler Border Hussar Regiment and occupies the city...:



He has orders from Archduke Karl to seal off the city, to search all the French present and to confiscate all their secret papers, but he is waiting to do so for the time being.

Instead - you can hardly believe it! - continued negotiations between the French, Prussians and English as if nothing had happened!

The 97th and final round of negotiations will take place on April 22nd.

The next day the diplomats who attended left, except for the French, as Colonel von Barbaczy informed them that Rastatt was no longer a neutral conference site and that he could not guarantee their safety outside their quarters.

So the four diplomats of the republic stay in their apartments and try to make themselves as invisible as possible...

On April 28, the colonel let himself be heard again:

The French receive an ultimatum to leave within 24 hours.
They hurry to follow that during the night - with a certain relief, as one may assume.

On April 28, around 10 p.m., they leave Rastatt in several cars.

What happens next has never been clarified.

In the early morning of April 29, 1799, the four diplomats were attacked by members of the hussar regiment near Rastatt and Bonnier was murdered together with Roberjot - whether the hussars acted of their own accord or had an order and - if so - by whom is unclear.









On the evening of the same day, the two murdered Frenchmen are buried in Rastatt - suspiciously quickly, one might think!

Debry is slightly wounded in the attack, but is able to escape "as if by a miracle" and initially hides in a forest until the next morning, farmers take him to the accommodation of the Prussian envoy, Count Johann Eustach von Görtz...:



Count Görtz...



... takes Debry in, has his wounds treated and protests sharply against the actions of the hussars.

Rosenstiel is able to escape unharmed and finds refuge in the quarters of the Baden MP Emanuel Meier...



... a member of the delegation of Karl Friedrich von Baden.

Probably just for the sake of appearances, the Austrian army commander Archduke Karl had the matter investigated, of course nothing came of it!

Hussar Colonel von Barbaczy is arrested, together with several soldiers who had boasted about the crime, but released shortly afterwards - and promoted to major general...

Since I've known this story, I can't shake the suspicion that the kidnapping of the Duc d'Enghien by French dragoons...







... on behalf of Consul Bonaparte in 1804 from a place in Baden (Ettenheim) of all places, breaking Baden's neutrality, was also a revenge for the murder of a diplomat by Rastatt has been...