In the Rhine campaign of 1796, Jourdan's Army of Sambre-et-Meuse formed the left wing of the advance into Bavaria. The whole of the French forces were ordered to advance on Vienna, Jourdan on the extreme left, General Jean Victor Marie Moreau in the centre by the Danube valley, and Napoleon on the right in Italy. The campaign began brilliantly, with the Austrians under Archduke Charles being driven back by Moreau and Jourdan almost to the Austrian frontier. But Charles, slipping away from Moreau, threw his whole weight on Jourdan, who was defeated at the Battle of Amberg in August. Jourdan failed to salvage the situation at the Battle of Würzburg and was forced over the Rhine after the Battle of Limburg, which cost the life of General François Séverin Marceau. Moreau had to fall back in turn, and the operations of the year in Germany were a failure. The chief cause of defeat was the plan of campaign imposed upon the generals by their government. Jourdan was nevertheless made the scapegoat and was not employed for two years. In those years he became prominent as a politician and above all as the framer of the famous conscription law of 1798, which came to be known as the Jourdan law.