This rare early nineteenth-century military chronicle, titled Tage-Buch der Feldzüge des Kriegs gegen Frankreich in den Jahren 1792 bis mit 1796 (Diary of the Campaigns of the War Against France in the Years 1792 to 1806), was published in 1818 by J. H. Decker in Colmar. The book was authored by Count Franz Josef Graf Desfours zu Mont (1765–1823), a prominent general in the Austrian imperial military who commanded a Moravian-Silesian sharpshooter (Jäger) battalion during the conflict.
The book documents the author's direct observations and strategic experiences during the War of the First Coalition, which was the inaugural phase of the sprawling French Revolutionary Wars. Following the 1789 revolution, a coalition of European monarchies—most notably including the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, and Prussia—sought to contain and dismantle the newly declared French Republic. Desfours' account covers the intensive five-year span from the initial outbreaks of violence in 1792 up through the exhaustive campaigns of 1796. Written from the perspective of a high-ranking Austrian officer on the front lines, the text offers an invaluable day-to-day log of troop movements, logistical crises, battlefield maneuvers, and the evolving nature of combat as old-regiment tactics collided with the mass-conscription armies of revolutionary France.
Beyond its immense value to military history, this specific work occupies an incredibly famous niche in the history of printing and art preservation. Published in 1818, the book is illustrated with over two dozen fold-out maps, tactical plans, and scenic vistas drawn by J. A. Boillot. These plates were printed by the pioneering master printmaker Godefroy Engelmann at his workshop in Mulhouse. Because Engelmann was one of the earliest figures to introduce Alois Senefelder’s newly invented lithography technique to France and the Alsace region, this book is recognized as an "incunabula of lithography"—a term reserved for the rarest, earliest examples of early lithographic printing. Complete institutional copies containing all 26 original plates are extraordinarily rare, with even the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) possessing an incomplete copy.
Desfours’ chronicle remains a premier source for researchers analyzing the ground-level realities of late eighteenth-century European warfare. It merges raw, personal campaign data with highly sophisticated topographical illustrations. For modern scholars, it bridges two distinct worlds by serving simultaneously as an authoritative primary text on the defense of the Holy Roman Empire against revolutionary ideals, and as a prized artifact celebrating the infancy of modern printmaking technology.
