In the Rhine Campaign of 1796 (June 1796 to February 1797), two First Coalition armies under the overall command of Archduke Charles outmaneuver and defeat two French Republican armies.

This is the last campaign of the War of the First Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars.

The French military strategy against Austria calls for a three-pronged invasion to surround Vienna, ideally capturing the city and forcing the Holy Roman Emperor into a surrender and acceptance of French Revolutionary ideals.

The French assemble the Army of Sambre and Meuse commanded by Jean Baptiste Jourdan against the Austrian Army of the Lower Rhine in the north.

The Army of the Rhine and Moselle, led by Jean Victor Marie Moreau, opposes the Austrian Army of the Upper Rhine in the south, and the Army of Italy, commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, approaches Vienna through northern Italy.

The early success of the Army of Italy initially forces the Coalition commander, Archduke Charles, to transfer twenty-five thousand men commanded by Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser to northern Italy.

This weakens the Coalition force along the three hundred and forty-kilometer (two hundred and eleven mile) front stretching along the Rhine from Basel to the North Sea.

Later, a feint by Jourdan's Army of Sambre and Meuse persuades Charles to shift troops to the north, allowing Moreau to cross the Rhine at the Battle of Kehl on June 24 and beat the Archduke's Imperial contingents.

Both French armies penetrate deep into eastern and southern Germany by late July, forcing the southern states of the Holy Roman Empire into punitive armistices.

By August, the French armies have extended their fronts too thinly and rivalry among the French generals complicates cooperation between the two armies.

Because the two French armies operate independently, Archduke Charles is able to leave Maximilian Anton Karl, Count Baillet de Latour with a weaker army in front of Moreau on the southernmost flank and move many reinforcements to the army of Wilhelm von Wartensleben in the north.

At the Battle of Amberg on August 24 and the Battle of Würzburg on September 3, Charles defeat3 Jourdan's northern army and compels the French army to retreat, eventually to the west bank of the Rhine.

With Jourdan neutralized and retreating into France, Charles leaves Franz von Werneck to watch the Army of Sambre and Meuse, making sure it does not try to recover a foothold on the east bank of the Rhine.

He now turns on Moreau, who belatedly begins to withdraw from southern Germany.

Although Moreau repulses Latour at the Battle of Biberach, the French army does not make it through the Black Forest before Charles is able to cut French access to the Bruchsal and Kehl crossings.

At the battles of Emmendingen and Schliengen in October, Charles forces Moreau to retreat south.

During the winter the Austrians reduce  the French bridgeheads in the sieges of Kehl and the Hüningen, and force Moreau's army back to France.

Despite Charles' success in Germany, Austria loses the war in Italy to a new French army commander, Napoleon Bonaparte, which results in the Peace of Campo Formio.